#Textual Variants

[mindfulldsliving]

Latter-day Saint Views on the Bible: A Comparative Analysis

Latter-day Saints (LDS) hold the Bible in high regard, recognizing it as the word of God. However, they believe its teachings must be interpreted correctly. This unique perspective is foundational to their faith

Photo by Rachel Strong on Unsplash Words carry immense significance in any discourse, especially when discussing religious beliefs and doctrines. In their latest post, the writer at Life After Ministries blog attempts to utilize 1 Timothy 4:16 to critique what they term the “lies of Mormonism.” The writer emphasizes that Christians should heed not just God’s words, but also be aware of the…

[bigboobshaunt]

Idunno! Alex and Sandra are soooo clearly both alter-egos to Alexandra* that I can't help but feel any read that would treat them as different people is very disingenuous, like... their genderfluidity is a reference to the color-changing nature of their alexandrite core, it could not be any clearer...

[nkjemisin]

I’m always on the lookout for creative, world-specific swears in media, and I wanted to say that I think the ones from the Broken Earth series are genuinely fantastic. “Rust” in particular feels very intuitively like a swear, to the point where I sometimes use it in real life!

Were there any other words you considered for that category that didn’t make the cut?

Not really, though I did consider dropping most of the "our world" swears in the text at one point. I was worried that the occasional "shit" or "fuck" might be too jarring -- but in our own world, most cultures have a derogatory word for excrement, and a lot of them exclaim about sex (though not always negatively), so I reasoned that they could fit into a not-our-world too. "Hell" was the real problem, though, because that's a distinctly Christian word. But it occurred to me that the idea of hell as a fiery place underground actually made more sense in the Stillness than it does in our world. There's not much textual support for a fiery hell in the Bible, but the Stillness has a) way more visual evidence of fiery stuff happening underground, given that it's much more seismically active, and b) a cultural awareness that there's Somebody Down There and that They Ain't Nice. So I went ahead and included that one too, though I interspersed it with some "fire-under-earth"s and other local variants just to make it work better.

I've found myself saying "rusting" too, now and again. Tho I also use "frak," "frell," and other SFF neologisms too!

[ilookattextile]

Cutwork lace from the Magnes Collection at UC Berkeley:

"A textile most likely used as a wall hanging, including Hebrew verses recited in conjunction with the reading of the prayer, "shema' yisrael" before sleep. The verse on the right of the textile includes a textual variant of the incipit of "hashkivenu," ("hashkiveni") the second blessing before the recitation of the "shema'" during the Evening Service. The verse on the left is a biblical quotation: "When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid; yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet." (Proverbs 3:24)."

[transgenderer]

The Epic of Manas is a traditional epic poem dating to the 18th century but claimed by Kyrgyz tradition to be much older. Manas is said to be based on Bars Bek who was the first khagan of the Kyrgyz Khaganate. The plot of Manas revolves around a series of events that coincide with the history of the region in the 9th century, primarily the interaction of the Kyrgyz people with other Turkic and Chinese people.

The government of Kyrgyzstan celebrated the 1,000th anniversary of Manas in 1995. The eponymous hero of Manas and his Oirat enemy Joloy were first found written in a Persian manuscript dated to 1792–93.[1] In one of its dozens of iterations, the epic poem consists of approximately 500,000 lines.

The epic poem's age is unknowable, as it was transmitted orally without being recorded. However, historians have doubted the age claimed for it since the turn of the 20th century. The primary reason is that the events portrayed occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries. Central Asian historian Vasily Bartold claimed that Manas was an "absurd gallimaufry of pseudo-history,"[1] and Hatto remarks that Manas was

"compiled to glorify the Sufi sheikhs of Shirkent and Kasan ... [and] circumstances make it highly probable that... [Manas] is a late eighteenth-century interpolation."[2]

Changes were made in the delivery and textual representation[3] particularly the replacement of the tribal background of Manas. In the 19th century versions, Manas is the leader of the Nogay people, while in versions dating after 1920, Manas is a Kyrgyz and a leader of the Kyrgyz.[4] Use of the Manas for nation-building purposes, and the availability of printed historical variants, has similarly had an impact on the performance, content, and appreciation on the epic.[5]

Attempts have been made to connect modern Kyrgyz with the Yenisei Kirghiz, today claimed by Kyrgyzstan to be the ancestors of modern Kyrgyz. Kazakh ethnographer and historian Shokan Shinghisuly Walikhanuli was unable to find evidence of folk-memory during his extended research in 19th-century Kyrgyzstan (then part of the expanding Russian empire) nor has any been found since.[6]

While Kyrgyz historians consider it to be the longest epic poem in history,[7] the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata and the Tibetan Epic of King Gesar are both longer.[8] The distinction is in number of verses. Manas has more verses, though they are much shorter.

Manas is said to have been buried in the Ala-Too mountains in Talas Province, in northwestern Kyrgyzstan. A mausoleum some 40 km east of the town of Talas is believed to house his remains and is a popular destination for Kyrgyz travellers. Traditional Kyrgyz horsemanship games are held there every summer since 1995. An inscription on the mausoleum states, however, that it is dedicated to "...the most famous of women, Kenizek-Khatun, the daughter of the emir Abuka". Legend has it that Kanikey, Manas' widow, ordered this inscription in an effort to confuse her husband's enemies and prevent a defiling of his grave. The name of the building is "Manastin Khumbuzu" or "The Dome of Manas", and the date of its erection is unknown.

heroic levels of cope from the kyrgyz

[walkswithmyfather]

This is fascinating! By Stefan Hager (FB)

“We currently have 5,800 plus Greek New Testaments manuscripts, 10,000 plus Latin manuscripts, and 9,300 plus manuscripts in various languages). if we were to stack the manuscripts we have found today it would reach more than a mile high). Beating all other historical records of the ancient world. for example, no one doubts the historical person “Homer” as we have 1.800 plus manuscripts of his life, yet we have 25,000 plus manuscripts of the life of Jesus, and that doesn’t include secular sources). And considering that the earliest copies of the New Testament are written within 25 years after the death of Jesus, but the earliest copies of Homers works are written 400 years after the death of Homer. Jesus is the gold standard for historians. If we’re going to doubt Jesus. We might as well doubt all ancient history.

Comparing these manuscripts we find that the teaching, stories, doctrines of the bible are all surprisingly the same. reading a bible in English vs reading a bible in Russian. It may be worded differently but you get the same story/biblical doctrine).

Tho no one manuscript is perfect. Through the centuries, minor differences arose in the various copies of the Scriptures. The vast majority of these differences are simple spelling variants, inverted words (one manuscript says “Christ Jesus” while another says “Jesus Christ” or different ways people have spelled names). or an easily identified missing word. In short, over 99 percent of the biblical text is not questioned. Of the less than 1 percent of the text that is in question, no doctrinal teaching or command is jeopardized. In other words, the copies of the Bible we have today are pure. The Bible has not been corrupted, altered, edited, revised, or tampered with.

“The early books of the bible” were so vastly copied and wide spread that if one group in Africa wanted to change any part, believers in Israel, Rome, Alexandria would have easily identified the change to the wide spread text/message.

This is also evidenced by the Dead Sea scrolls (large portions of Old Testament) which were found in 1947. These scrolls are dated 200BC. So Jesus would have those as scripture during his earthly time, and the content of those scrolls match. If we look at any bible in any chapter and we look at the Hebrew and the same chapter it’s going to read the same way we have today, now it is true there are variations in reading/wording or translation. Every book prior to the printing press has variations. The Quran has variations, The point is, variations don’t give you a different text, a different theology, a different meaning.

Here’s a scaled down example. using textual criticism and cross checking manuscripts. We can pretty much reconstruct what the original said. How does this work?.

Consider the following example. Suppose we have four different manuscripts that have different errors in the same verse, such as Philippians 4:13:

1.I can do all t#ings through Christ

2.I can do all th#ngs through Christ

3.I can do all thi#gs through Christ

4.I can do all thin#s through Christ

Is there any mystery of what the original said?. None whatsoever. By comparing and cross checking manuscripts. the original can be reconstructed with great accuracy and the reconstruction of the New Testament is easier than this, because there are far fewer errors in the actual New Testament manuscripts than there are represented by this example. Plus a vast amount of material to work with.

Any unbiased document scholar will agree that the Bible has been remarkably well-preserved over the centuries. Even many hardened skeptics and critics of the Bible admit that the Bible has been transmitted over the centuries far more accurately than any other ancient document.

There is absolutely no evidence that the Bible has been revised, edited, or tampered with in any systematic manner. No one group has ever had control over the biblical text. The sheer volume of biblical manuscripts makes it simple to recognize any attempt to distort God’s Word. There is no major doctrine of the Bible that is put in doubt as a result of the inconsequential differences among the manuscripts.

Ancient scribes often copied books letter by letter (one by one). not sentence by sentence. It was a long process but they assured Accuracy. And they would count the letters of the copies and count the letters of the original. if the original had 500 letters and the copy had 497 letters, they would destroy the copy and restart.”

[scribefindegil]

mmmmm . . . textual variants in early modern print my beloved . . .

[maniculum]

So, this one is from Cambridge's MS Kk.4.25, which Cambridge's digital library describes as a "didactic miscellany". There's actually quite a lot of information on this manuscript accompanying their digitization... I'm putting a cut here before I start throwing in the links and images and stuff.

All right, link:

The manuscript is from England circa 1230, and is apparently from the same tradition as another of their bestiaries (Fitzwilliam MS 254). One of the major differences between the two is that this contains a couple extra chapters, including one enigmatically titled "The Four Ways it is Sinful". (The four ways what is sinful? You know. It.)

The description also tells us this is "a masterpiece of bestiary imagery, often overlooked in discussions of the most beautiful examples," which is not the vibe I was getting from the Flat Crocodile at the top of this post, so hold on a bit while I flip through the digitization.

Okay, so Flat Crocodile is not representative, this is really good. The section on sea creatures is quite charming also. I recommend everyone go follow that link above and flip through it a bit -- there's a table of contents you can use to skip straight to the bestiary.

Anyway, to the point of this whole thing. This critter is supposedly a scorpion, and in fact appears in the "worms / vermin" section of the bestiary. If I'm reading the Latin correctly, it comes between the leech:

and the caterpillar:

Despite that context -- i.e., it being in the correct section and surrounded by other things that fall into the medieval category of "worm" (remember, that's a broad category for them, it includes insects and arachnids like scorpions just fine), our artist has drawn what is clearly the only reptile in the chapter:

It even says "Scorpio vermis" right under the image, jfc.

Also, the lumps around the base of the tail can't be credited to Pliny's "knots" as mentioned before; I counted at least three other lizards with those same lumps when I was looking through the digitization, so it's just part of the artist's style.

Speaking of the artist's style, this one should be exempt from the "identifiably a different animal" penalty because it has little ears and a generally mammalian head... except that's, again, how this artist draws all their lizards. In fact, this "scorpion" is basically identical to the Botrax/Botruca a few pages earlier:

I'm making the executive decision than this penalty applies when the artist is just re-using the design of another critter in the same bestiary, even if technically that's not a real animal.

All right, points:

Small Scuttling Beaſtie? ✓, sure, in context we can assume such

Pincers? ✘

Exoskeleton or Shell? ✘

Visible Stinger? ✘

Limbs? 4

Vibes... I dunno. It's fine. It's a lizard, which is nice enough, but we've had much better lizards. And it's kind of losing out in comparison to the other illustrations in this manuscript. I went back and forth between a 2 and a 3, and eventually decided to just settle at 2.5 / 10.

As previously mentioned, -1 for copying. Which... oh dear. Makes this officially the Third Worst Scorpion, sorry Flat Croc fans.

Final points:

2.9 / 10

Eyes on your own work.

[aprofessionalwithoutstandards]

Idk how to feel about there being very few on-screen examples in canon of women being friends, or just getting along. I’ve always viewed Zhanna and Pauling’s relationship as mostly platonic, where Zhanna grows to respect Pauling for being smart, despite her being ‘weak little baby’, and Pauling respecting her strength and kind of thinking she’s hot, but being too busy to really hang out. I understand why people ship them, but them being friends or otherwise respecting each other’s company scratches an itch for me

Oh tf2 SUCKSSSS when it comes to canonical friendships between women. There are like, four women with actual speaking roles (Pauling, Admin, Zhanna, and Maggie), and out of them there are only two actual textual interactions/relationships - Pauling and Admin, and Pauling and Zhanna. Admin is an ambiguously evil Villain with ambiguously evil Schemes who Pauling is subservient to but not exactly friendly with, and Zhanna directly antagonizes Pauling multiple times, threatens her, and attempts to instigate the WORST kind of woman-on-woman interaction in fiction by insinuating that Pauling must "stay away from her man." Idk I think people get so caught up in a bunch of. not exactly "superficial nonsense" but also not Groundbreaking Representation when they praise tf2 for having very variant body types among its men characters (already a staple of videogame designs, tbh, "the tall, wide tank" is breaking no new ground) and like, women with different nose shapes, and then take that praise to pretend like tf2 is some Beacon Of Feminism when like. it still has problems lol! BUUUT regardless, I do really wish Pauling had more textual women friends, idk just smth abt the way her and Zhanna are written makes me not Super love shipping them lol. Like I understand the appeal and I've definitely reblogged art of them before, but it does remind me of how absolutely slim the pickings are with textual women in tf2. Oh well! Let's hope they put estrogen in the Teufort water instead of lead next comic

[caraecethrae]

" . . . The problem is that they’ve come to take the concept origin as an exclusive category of the 'real,' thus unconsciously replicating the error of some of the less-intelligent nineteenth-century mythologists (including at times even Frazer, Bachofen and the Grimms), who believed they had discovered literal and exclusive origins (everything is 'solar,' or 'vegetative,' or 'matriarchal'). In other words, modern empiricists agree with the nineteenth-century amateurs that origin is an exclusive category—only they claim that it cannot be known.

Ancient mythologists would never be guilty of such naivete. They would probably list all the origin myths or variants, without worrying about logical exclusions. The variants describe precisely the field of potential meaning—the multivalency of the myth, its layered and folded structure, its complexity: Some say . . . but others maintain... I have heard....' The Rg Veda already abounds in such variants, which, to linear thinking, appear as so many contradictions or textual corruptions. As Henry Corbin pointed out in the Shiite context, the Ta’wil or hermeneutic exegesis or 'taking or tracing a thing back to its source' or origin, cannot be reduced to the operation and deployment of rational or exclusive or absolute categories. Ultimately, all origins are 'divine' and hence ambiguous. Inner sense may violate outward expression, at least on the level of ordinary consciousness. The sacred contradicts itself; indeed, this is very nearly a definition of the sacred.

I have found it fruitful to “believe” in any origin (or complex of contradictory origins) precisely in the manner of the ancient mythographists—as meaning. To 'believe' (to participate existentially) in this way is a non-exclusionary process—each origin is to be taken both literally and as a code that can be (partially) cracked, but also as a drifting point, an area of divine ambiguity. The palimpsest of all origins defines the structure of my explorations. Even science is welcome at this feast, so long as it can renounce its monopoly of interpretation (or refusal to interpret), its flaccid totalitarianism, its absurd paradigmatic hierarchies, its pathetic triumphalism, and its lack of playfulness. 'Who really knows?' says the Rg Veda ( 10. 129.6). The origin is a subject (or object) not for false reverence but for true reverie."

Ploughing the Clouds: The Search for Irish Soma by Peter Lamborn Wilson

[bestworstcase]

How exactly does intertextuality work?

I'm trying to improve my media literacy, but I'm not that great at understanding certain terms.

intertextuality is a REALLY broad term. in the most basic sense it refers to the relation between one text and another and how that relationship informs the meaning of the text being examined. think about parodies: the humor is referential, either to a specific work being parodied or to conventions of a genre, and relies on the audience having familiarity with the parodied text. a great parody should be able to stand on its own merits as a story, but knowing the parodied text(s) enriches the parody because you’re in on the jokes. that’s intertextuality in a nutshell.

as a writer, there are myriad ways to do this: direct parody or pastiche, quotation, allusion, translation, so forth. and as a reader, intertextuality needn’t necessarily be an argument for authorial intention—you can (and indeed should, if you’re interested in textual analysis, because it’s a good exercise) apply intertextual analysis to a text by comparison or contrast against another text in which you find resonant ideas or themes or patterns, and build an argument about the text you’re reading using reference to that other text, regardless of whether the author intended it that way. the author is dead: the point of textual analysis is not to divine the One True Meaning intended by god.

(that said, steer clear of joseph campbell and monomythic analysis; it’s notionally similar to an intertextual approach, but the underlying thesis that all stories, or at least all stories of mythic scope, are variants of a sort of pancultural ur-story, is ethnocentric garbage that incentivizes deliberate misinterpretation in a when-all-you-have-is-a-hammer way. intertextual analysis encompasses both similarity and difference because both are meaningful.)

rwby, for example, makes very deliberate use of intertextuality—in the character allusions and also in its weaving together of a few key texts (marvelous land of oz, petrosinella/persinette/rapunzel, the little prince, and cinderella) into the backbone of its original narrative. a lot of the fandom tries to rely on the character allusions to guess what will happen in the plot, with generally poor accuracy, because that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what rwby uses intertextuality for. 

its purpose in rwby—in rwby, this is a common use of intertextuality but not a universal one!—is to develop a symbolic and thematic vocabulary that enhances and clarifies what the story is trying to say. what does it mean, for example, that ruby is red riding hood? well, little red disobeys her mother and endangers herself and her grandmother. she’s also gobbled up by a wolf and survives unscathed with the aid of a huntsman. her grandmother, too, is eaten and at least metaphorically revived. the wolf is undone by his own hunger. it’s a story about childish rebellion and dire consequence, but also a mistake ultimately bringing about the end of the danger little red was warned against. and it is, symbolically, a story about death and resurrection. the wolf eats the girl and the girl is reborn from the wolf’s stomach: thus children become adults. and then in v9 we have ruby straying from her path, drinking the tea, facing the wolf, returning to life whole and unchanged. see how it rhymes?

that holds true for the narrative allusions as well. the marvelous land of oz, boiled down to essentials, is about restoring  balance to a world upset by the hand of unworthy ‘gods’ (the wizard, whose machinations are maintained by his co-conspirator mombi alone after his departure from oz); the conflict is principally between deceptive illusions and ruthless honesty. 

likewise the maiden-in-the-tower tales all twine around the central conceit of an imprisoned young woman who is both rescued and rescuer: petrosinella outwits and slays her captor to win herself and her lover free, and both persinette and rapunzel suffer in exile until their voices guide their lovers home and they heal their lovers’ blindness with their tears. 

the little prince is about growing up and what it means to be alive not just in body but in soul—and like red riding hood, it uses the symbolic motif of death and resurrection to explore these ideas—and one of its core themes is that uncertainty and fear and acceptance of reality, of death, of danger as unavoidable, are necessary to truly live. 

and cinderella is a story about cruelty and injustice and having the courage to do what it takes to survive, and also—inherent to the course of the fairytale narrative—a story about the obligation for those on the outside to help in the ways that they can. cinderella saves herself by asking for help. rwby doesn’t turn this story upside-down, exactly: both cinder and salem ask for help, and suffer brutal retaliation for it. how does cinderella save herself alone?

and so on. rwby handles intertextuality very well, so there’s a lot to tease out and a lot of threads to pull. it is that deep. but this is how intertextual analysis works, in the essentials. you connect one text to another and use the second to examine the first: why is ruby little red riding hood? what’s the common thread weaving the marvelous land of oz, the maiden-in-the-tower tales, the little prince, and cinderella together into the story rwby tells? the wolf eats red riding hood and red riding hood is reborn from the wolf and petrosinella’s ogre is eaten by petrosinella’s wolf: what does the wolf mean in rwby, and how does that color the parallelism between ruby and salem? it’s like if subtext had a megaphone. 

[synthient]

Been thinking a lot about tjlc lately, as I wade back into superwholock from a different point in the trifecta. "The showrunners will actively lie and misdirect to avoid spoilers, so any extra-textual commentary should be taken with a big grain of salt" seems relevant to the rtd comments, for one.

And if tjlc was right about sherlock s4 (which I still think is honestly plausible). Then the needle the creators were trying to thread was a finale that was both fake enough to effectively set up an incoming reveal, while still being competent enough in its own right that it would scan plausibly as a "real" finale. Casual viewers would be satisfied, and the superfans would be disappointed but not devastated. (Which failed because they made the finale Too Bad to actually get another season made)

And whether that was true about sherlock or not. If we assume doccy who is going for something similar, as part of any one of the truman show theory-variants. Then empire of death would actually be a pretty effective execution of the concept. Outside of a small but vocal group, I don't think most viewers Hated the finale. The general consensus seems to be that eh, the ending was a little silly, but the performances were great and the adventure-thrills were still fun and engaging enough.

It helps that the Storytelling motif has been front and center from minute 1 (which is why the various truman show theories have gotten so popular in the first place). And it helps that they spent the whole season cranking up doctor who's already-extant camp and artificiality, so a Fake Finale wouldn't feel tonally out of place. So while it's still entirely possible that everything in empire of death can be taken at face value, and it was just kind of a mid finale, I don't think we can count our chickens yet. And I think they've left themselves in a strong position for a rug pull

[littlesparklight]

(different anon, responding to that last anon)

ah, yes, i know if someone cursed me, i'd absolutely love it if someone got "retributive justice" for me by...murdering my little sibling! (heavy, heavy sarcasm if it wasn't obvious)

Right, of course, of course, that's what we would all want! /s

I have seen many strange statements around Greek myth in general and the Trojan war participants in particular (especially the Trojans), but this is... definitely among the most out there weirdest ones.

There's absolutely no connection between Kassandra being cursed and Troilos being murdered - neither in whatever scraps that have survived textually, nor among scholiasts. You can't just up and decide a couple thousand years later that "this unconnected event is not just connected to another event, but is retributive justice for this other unconnected event!"*. Like, on what grounds??? (*You know what event is sometimes connected to Troilos' murder in the visual representations? The murder of Priam! (Also sacrilegious!) Priam is in a few paintings shown sitting on an altar when receiving news of Troilos being attacked/killed, and sometimes Troilos' death is juxtaposed with that of Priam's. Guy Hedreen in his Capturing Troy talks about this, pointing out that the later prophecy/Troilos' death being made one of the conditions of Troy's fall does in a way connect it directly to the death of Priam.)

And if there would be any "retributive justice" it should come through, or because Kassandra wants it, shouldn't it? By someone connected to her, if not she herself. And Achilles is not at all connected to her. He wouldn't even know anything's happened to her!

Never mind that, exactly, Troilos is her little brother. We don't even have sources until late that says he was the son of Apollo! It doesn't mean he wasn't always Apollo's son, or that it wasn't a variant that was early, but Troilos definitely have more sources stating him as Priam's son than Apollo's. Apollo being the biological father (sharing the role with Priam) adds more pathos, certainly, to the murder of Troilos. But Apollo can be exactly as rightfully vindictive if Achilles has murdered a Trojan prince unrelated to him on his altar. Because regardless of if Troilos is his son, Troilos is a suppliant, and even just pulling the suppliant away from the altar (like sometimes is the only thing Ajax the lesser does to Kassandra) is still a crime against the god! Never mind murdering the suppliant on the altar/within the temple/sacred precinct.

Kassandra would know Troilos as her little brother, her full little brother even if Apollo is the biological father. And compared to the probable negative feelings Kassandra might always have had about Paris, even when he hasn't done anything wrong yet, Troilos has nothing such attached to him. Why the hell, indeed, would she ever want him to suffer for some so-supposed "retributive justice" for her sake?

Where is the justice in that, anyway?

It's not just Apollo losing something or being injured, after all. The Trojan royal family are losing a child, in a very cruel manner (Achilles is shown on several paintings using Troilos' head as a distraction to the rescue team for fuck's sake), and, what, this is in any way "justice" for Kassandra?

The only thing even vaguely "defensible" in Achilles killing Troilos is the potential of his death being a condition/necessity for the fall of Troy, that he otherwise would've become the next Hektor if he got old enough and forever blocked any chance to Troy falling. But sorry, I don't exactly consider that any defense, and even if it was, the way Achilles goes out of his way to kill Troilos in Apollo's temple/on the altar, and then beheading/dismembering him... Yeah no.

And Troilos is, again, not armed and armoured. Even if he'd be midteens (which he could be, that is probably as old as he would be at most, since his murder happens somewhere earlier in the war and if we use the "end point" of his age, twenty, he'd have to be killed sometime before that), he's still not a warrior, or on the battlefield.

Achilles ambushes him, and then runs him down. And if Troilos takes refuge in the temple, Achilles certainly doesn't attempt to remove him from there (of course, as noted earlier, even that would be a crime against a suppliant, but even so).

And again, this hasn't even taken into account Achilles' potential desire for Troilos, where his brutal murder (if not the murder itself), is in response to being rejected*. Again, where is the ~retributive justice~ in that? Would Kassandra want that? Be real now. (*Another bit from Capturing Troy; there's a fragment survival from a tragedy about Troilos, mentioning being violently mounted like an animal... I mean we don't know it's necessarily about what Achilles wants or attempted to do, but that it's there at all...)

But no, of course it's so wrong to defend Apollo aiding Paris in killing an enemy combatant, on the goddamn battlefield, in defense of the city he's guarding and in response to a sacrilegious murder of a child of his.

[queer-starwars-bracket]

Queer Star Wars Characters (Round 3): Well Known Characters Match 3

Lando Calrissian | Identity: Pansexual | Media: Solo WoG

Sigh, I’m sure you all remember this clusterfuck. During the promotional tour for Solo, the screenwriter Jon Kasdan established Lando as pansexual, seemingly because of his attraction to L3-37 and did some pretty textbook queerbait about Lando x Han. Unlike other instances of authors clarifying what specific identity they intended or that the subtext audiences were seeing is entirely intentional, this is more the maligned “Making a character queer just in marketing”. 

Despite the good track record for queer representation in Star Wars publishing, there has been almost no follow-up to this. Lando has appeared a bit since then, and all his flings have been with women. The only exception was that he featured in the 2021 Pride Variant covers. 

Update: As of August 29th, 2023 Lando has finally been established as textually queer in a narrative format. In the short story “The Buy-in” by Suzanne Walker and "When Fire Marks the Sky" by Emma Mieko Candon, he flirts with a non-binary member of Gold Squadron and Wes Janson.

Ahsoka Tano | Identity: bisexual | Media: Established in Ahsoka

While there is strong romantic subtext between Ahsoka and Barris Offee, that isn’t the reason for her inclusion in this list. Rather, it is because that in the novel Ahsoka, E K Johnson got as close as she was allowed to- both by the constraints of the Story Group (since movie characters couldn’t yet be quietly established as queer in a book) and what made sense for the story- to establish that Ahsoka reciprocated the feelings that Kaeden Larte had for her. Unfortunately, the Ahsoka novel has practically been erased by the Tales of the Jedi episode “Resolve”, where the basic outline that the novel was based on is told again, except without Kaeden. However, a recent reference book has established that these are two separate events that are coincidentally very similar. Ahsoka’s queerness barely crossed the line we set for counting as canon rather than subtext.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

by Elijah Hixson | Spurgeon loved the King James Version of the Bible — it was the version he used the most. But Charles Spurgeon was not King James only. On occasion, Spurgeon mentioned textual variants from the pulpit. Sometimes he even rejected the reading of the KJV in favor of the reading in the critical Greek text, represented in…

[thejackmeister-mongolhistory]

Despite the Mongols having a modern reputation for furry hats, we see very little textual or visual references to them in 1200s/1300s. Instead, this style and its variants here is what tends to appear in medieval artwork and texts as the main Mongolian menswear. It may be the style of hat called a saraquj in some sources, but it's unclear if this is a term actually used by the Mongols themselves (since it mostly appears in Mamluk accounts). Rather than fur, feathers were the popular adornment for this hats.

Perhaps some of the Mongolians here can share if they have a specific name for this style of cap?

A few images from Chinese and Persian artwork of late 13th/early 14th century