#all based on estimates
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kepesktribe · 2 years ago
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Imposter!
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dog-beast · 6 months ago
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Imelda Goldfinch 573 - 624
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serpentface · 2 days ago
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Omg, is there any more about Odonii battlefield performance?
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Faiza giving a full battlefield performance, which includes grimacing, sinister looks, letting out terrifying war cries, and banging on her shield with her dagger's pommel. She's wearing a full set of armor, which is functional but highly decorative. A squire will be present somewhere nearby to carry the rest of her weaponry.
As mentioned in the other post, Odonii generally do not actually Participate in fighting. Their perpetual armament and training to correctly Use this armament has predominantly symbolic functions, with their bodies as vessels for state and military empowerment and integrity.
Their normal role on the battlefield is:
a) Spiritual protection for their associated warriors and intimidation of enemies.
Their role is partially to be the ‘guardian lion’ figure in human form, their presence and performance in of itself is considered metaphysically protective. This guardian lion nature is played up and reinforced with their dress and behavior- they wear lion skins over their armor, paint their faces red to obscure human features, perform war cries tailored to sound inhuman (not like lions, just a very shrill and frightening sound). They perform ‘frenzied’ movements that intend to evoke an enraged animal- pacing, banging on their shields, biting their weapons/shields, baring teeth, exaggerated glances that emphasize the whites of their eyes, etc. This can be a disturbing sight- reassuring to their allies who know a frightening spiritual guardian figure is on their side, and demoralizing to an enemy (the latter especially in conjunction with common beliefs that Odonii are witches/shapeshifters)
b) A motivating factor to get the men to fight more bravely.
This is partly out of religious belief (you will probably be a little bolder if you feel reassurance that God is very much present and on your side, via Its priestesses), partly out of esteem for the order (you are highly motivated to perform for their recognition and protect them from harm). In a way, their role on the battlefield is the Least masculinized aspect of their performance- they are in part there to remind men of their mothers, wives, and daughters, who they are supposed to be the protectors of and whose benefit they are ultimately (at least deemed to be) fighting for.
In some cases, this is taken to a (cultural relative) extreme wherein they will expose their breasts towards their own men as a part of battlefield performance, in the form of a supplicatory gesture (bearing the breasts and thumping on the chest with a fist). (The Odomache’s nude body should never be publicly seen under any circumstances, limited and controlled exposure by Odonii Can be appropriate). Breasts are not sexualized in this cultural sphere, but are not treated as neutral body parts either, instead having values of motherly nurturing and feminine vulnerability projected onto them. Odonii showing tits will be a DISTINCT reminder of the ‘vulnerable female’ elements that the men should be protecting, and can be highly motivating (especially in the context of a figure who is otherwise behaviorally ‘masculinized’, it’s jarring and can have useful emotional impact).
c) General spiritual leadership (in connection to a & b).
Weapons dances are an aspect of military training and the kagnoma odo dance is always performed prior to conventional battles, Odonii lead these dances. This has multifacted functions- it is believed to spiritually bless the troops, it is a means of practicing with weaponry/limbering up, it is a psychological rallying point and good for morale, and it may intimidate your enemy who can see it happening from a distance (by displaying readiness/eagerness to battle, good discipline, unity, and physical might). Odonii also perform personalized blessings of soldiers, weapons, and armor.
c) Filling gaps in the command structure or acting as commanders
Odonii are involved in strategic meetings, and ones who receive battlefield roles are very well studied in military tactics. As a matter of technicality, their commands to the body of Imperial Wardi troops do not override those of generals or other ranking soldiers (though they will often be deferred to regardless), but they can fill in gaps in the command structure in case of death of high ranking soldiers or if lines become scattered and communication breaks down.
Additionally, there are two elite warrior orders presided over by the Odonii priesthood (the rest answer directly to the Usoma's court appointed general), with senior Odonii as their commanders and the Odomache as their general. (This is one of many political tension points between the priesthood and monarchy, given that the Odonii have managed to get themselves about 200 high skill, firearm'ed warriors that are separate from the normal military structure, only as loyal to the Usoma as their current general is, and Very beloved among the public so you can't just like, outright kill or disarm this very obvious threat.)
d) A strategic flexing of eastern seaway honorable combat norms
Conventions of honorable warfare have broad commonalities across the eastern seaway peoples, one of which is that noncombatants (by default- women, girls, prepubsecent boys, unarmed elderly men) are not legitimate targets in the normal process of open war (but are fair game in contexts like sieges when a foe has refused to surrender on behalf of their population). Odonii being armed throws a wrinkle into this - they are still effectively ‘noncombatants’ by virtue of being women, but if they actually Engage in fighting they do present a threat that could be justifiably neutralized.
If they do not actually Use their arms they are not legitimate targets, and an enemy concerned with honorable combat will have to work around their presence (or risk social/retaliatory consequences if he does not). They are thus effectively human shields- at the very least introducing an additional layer of difficulties for an opponent to navigate, and sometimes actively putting their bodies between their men and their opponents.
e) as a factor of D, potential mediator figures.
When in conventional battles, Odonii on losing sides are usually expected to allow themselves to be captured without resistance. They stand a very high chance of being taken alive and remaining unharmed due to a combination of factors- baseline honorable warfare practices (which are ABSOLUTELY not always followed, but at least Influence behavior), fears of material consequences in retribution for harming the priestess, fears of spiritual consequences for harming a potentially powerful witch, knowledge that releasing an Odonii unscathed may give the captors a better negotiating position down the line, or knowledge that an Odonii is a very valuable hostage and can make for a good bargaining chip.
Because of this element, captured Odonii are expected to perform mediation roles, negotiate the release of hostages, carry messages from their captors, or bravely tolerate hostage conditions (ideally while gaining intelligence on their captors)
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Odonii very, very rarely actually participate in combat (and are in fact not Supposed To in the vast majority of circumstances).
They are, however, fairly well equipped for it. Their perpetual armament is symbolic in nature, but its intended function of empowering their bodies and the state by proxy additionally requires them to know how to Use It. They are trained and regularly drill and engage in mock battles in each of their key weapons/defensive combinations (sword, sword and shield, spear, spear and shield, longgun, handgun) and are expected to be adept at their use. Odonii who attend battlefields, while not being directly engaged, are still in very high-stress and dangerous environments and will have to learn to stay calm and collected under duress. All this doesn't mean every Odonii would be a skilled warrior in an actual combat situation (given that most will have no experience fighting someone who is actually trying to Kill Them), but it does mean they have enough technical skill and mental fortitude to stand a decent chance.
The only times where they are SUPPOSED to actively engage is when a battle is deemed as an existential struggle and is being lost (in practice, the main context for this is a siege), or losing against a foe deemed so thoroughly depraved that they won’t even slightly follow wartime conventions. The idea in these situations is that they are most likely already doomed, and that they should die protecting their people in battle.
Wardi history is filled with stories of Odonii fighting and dying in desperate conflicts (particularly against Imperial Bur), but this is at least Partly historical revisionism (there WERE some women in proto-Odonii roles involved in these conflicts, but these retellings project the modern Odonii order onto its multiple progenitor practices).
Odonii are frequently present on battlefields, but there are only two major instances of modern era Odonii participating in battle as full combatants, both involving conflict with Finnerich
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The fully modern incarnation of the order can be defined as starting in the late period of Burri occupation, in which multiple Wardi city-states and kingdoms allied against a common foe, and the separate progenitors of the Odonii tradition began to coelesce into a single practice. These alliances were mostly dropped after Burri withdrawal, and the immediate post-withdrawal period was a chaotic scrambling to politically stabilize and assert old territorial claims- thus most Wardi states resumed hostile or indifferent relations with one another. (The one exception is that Wardin and Ephennos remained allied, which shortly would become a Big Deal). Forms of early Odonii now existed throughout most of these states, just not united under a single banner.
The city of Godsmouth was blockaded and besieged by Finnerich during this period (taking advantage of its historical rival’s weakness in the political chaos of de-occupation and hoping to capture or at least maim the city), and some of these early Odonii were involved in this conflict and are known to have engaged.
Godsmouth was a rival to its neighboring states more than anything else- there was little reason for others to send aid in the conflict, and it was left to fend for itself. It was and is a heavily fortified city, and thus the siege lasted for months, with the strategy turning to starving the population out rather than the risky maneuver of throwing troops at well-defended gates to force entry. The Finn forces never managed to breach the inner walls, but were very successful at starving the city's population, raiding its farmlands and villages, and destroying its ports and capturing or burning its ships, all with minimal casualties on their side.
The strategy of the siege finally turned to a risky push to breach and capture the city (due to Finnerich’s own dwindling resources and logistical difficulties in restocking due to storms at sea, and news that an allied Wardin and Ephennos had, in an unprecedented move, been persuaded to send reinforcements (in return for Godsmouth's sworn fealty and absorption into their alliance)), and Finn forces succeeded in breaking through the outer walls. This developed into a very dramatic standoff in which the remaining warriors and/or civilians of Godsmouth attempted to fend off the attack long enough for reinforcements to arrive (which would take days by sea).
Odonii are very famously known to have fully engaged in this stretch of the conflict on the front lines, as it represented an existential threat to the city-state (it’s a fortified settlement, if it was captured, reinforcements would not matter). Some of the recountings are distinctly fanciful (describing Odonii and noblemen leading Siege Of Helms Deep style khaitback charges into masses of enemies, or SWEARING that one of them actually did turn into a lion and ripped apart a hundred Finns before she succumbed to her wounds). An At Least Partially True Story With Exaggerated Elements of the final days of the siege describes the Odonii priestess Hibrides Odiboe rallying a group of elderly men into battle by baring her breasts and scratching deep, bleeding wounds into her chest, declaring herself as 'your mothers, your wives, your daughters, and look how I bleed while you hide behind your walls and wait to die.' While accounts have fantastical elements, it is factual that Odonii priestesses fought and died defending the city's inner walls, notably filling command positions left vacant by slain or starved leaders and rallying citizens to the front lines.
The end of the siege was ultimately a pyrrhic victory for Godsmouth- the city was never actually taken but its population was starved and riddled with disease, its farmlands were burned, and its ports were destroyed. Finnerich forces retreated before reinforcements arrived after failing to break through the inner walls in time, but had succeeded in most objectives of severely wounding their historical enemy. It has been a source of collective trauma in Godsmouth since that point (it is now out of living memory, but vivid stories remain of seeing the dead eaten by dogs and the starving eating the dogs that ate the dead, watching family members succumb to disease and starvation, all while hearing the sounds of fighting draw closer and closer with no reason to believe that any help would ever come), but ultimately recontextualized as a victory, a turning point in the arc of modern history. (The Wardin-Ephennos-Godsmouth alliance, which formed in full as a result of this conflict, would become the triple state that conquered the rest of the region and formed Imperial Wardin).
The direct participation of Odonii in this conflict is heavily played up in the narrative as the order in its purest form as sovereignty incarnate, the priestesses bravely fighting for (what would turn out to be) the beginnings of the Imperial Wardi state. The 11 Odonii who died fighting in the siege have been bestowed sainthood and are memorialized in a series of guardian lion statue-shrines overlooking Godsmouth’s ports (in which their ashes and bones are stored).
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The other instance of modern era Odonii engaging in conflict is significantly less romantic, occurring in the context of the Extremely failed second invasion of Finnerich.
During and after the rout that resulted in the Odomache's capture and killing, it became exceptionally clear to the Imperial Wardi forces that They Were Fucked. The conflict veered with REMARKABLE speed from being an attempt end the state's civil war between the Imperial Wardi-loyalist provincial puppet government and its rebelling northwest population, to a desperate struggle for Wardi forces to get out of Finnerich Alive. At this point it was assumed (fairly accurately) that any defeated party would be summarily executed, so most Odonii present ended up directly engaging in battle. Two are known to have died leading soldiers in a bid to retrieve the Odomache's body, others fought and/or died while defending the retreat.
A few Finn Odonii (women appointed as a local sect of the priesthood after the initial takeover) remained in the capital after the Wardi forces fucked off overseas, and were executed along with the rest of the installed loyalist government and priests (though it's unlikely that they were involved in any fighting, as the provincial government surrendered after the withdrawal).
Odonii veterans of the invading force have not fared well in the aftermath. Most of those who survived the ambush in which the Odomache was captured have ended up committing honorable suicide due to breaking vows in abandoning their leader in retreat, failing to retrieve her body, and/or being assaulted in capture. More have committed (ostensibly ritual, probably emotionally driven) suicide in the years that followed, with the knowledge that their leader's death and defilement and this severing of God's spirit has brought doom upon their land in the form of an unbroken drought and famine, and that they failed to prevent this. The priestess who was captured alive to witness the Odomache's death and released unharmed to report it was the first.
All this has opened some vacancies in the order's leadership, and given things a very somber tone. It is currently in debate as to whether the ones who died on Finn soil (particularly those who died attempting to retrieve their leader's body) should be canonized as saints or if it's a little too soon for all that.
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starbuck · 1 month ago
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just created a budget for the rest of my life and i legitimately feel SO much better…
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arthrobug · 11 months ago
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so…about the height math…do you remember where it is? I just need to know if bullfrog would be able look me in the eyes or not.
OH SHITE I ACTUALLY FORGOT ABOUT THAT SO QUICK ASDFGHJKL-
New Years Took me by the throat lmao
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Anyways no I don't think Bullfrog will be able to look you in the eyes,,,, unless you're 3 feet tall pff
The Rayman/Ramon one is subjective by the way (due to the limblessness) so he's more like 3-4ft whenever he wants to be
I saw that Rayman canon (?) height is around 5 ft and I immediately knew CLH didn't follow that because if that was true everyone is absolutely gargantuan
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carnivalcarriondiscarded · 1 year ago
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in tonight's endeavor to be distracted from Everything, i have painstakingly jotted down the base, beginning ideas for a modern human au. it includes a gap-year group road trip in Wally's RV, Home
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daz4i · 1 year ago
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every time i get an ad for one of those like. questionnaires for what job fits you i take it. bc why not. not like i have anything better to do, i don't have a job after all. anyway i took one by an actual government ministry now and one of the options it said fits me the most is circus performer. i cannot believe. assigned clown at government job questionnaire
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john-laurens · 8 months ago
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You left some cards here which I shall carry with me on Monday_ it would be a pity that these memorials of our earlier years should be lost, & that Posterity should not be able to form an opinion of you from your own confessions in the year 76.
Francis Kinloch to Johannes von Müller, in an undated letter (likely written around June 23, 1804)
It's always interesting to read a line like this and realize that we are part of a long line of history lovers who have preserved those memorials and are allowing posterity to form an opinion on Johannes von Müller almost 250 years later
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unproduciblesmackdown · 6 months ago
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@tinybigfoot no i love information! which is unfortunately often in conflict with "i'm not looking up shit," like might be found on wikis easily lmao, except for when i'm having an "i'm extremely looking up shit" moment. love the drama of the scene having a known time via Newspaper b/c of the accurate contemporaneous headlines rather than being able to simply read the date; didn't know about that event! and this is me just yesterday looking at bits of paper in the backdrop of one of the Introduction comic pages like ooh can i read this (no) imagine it if had Clues (don't think it would & doesn't seem to anyways)
another zany fact to remember that yeah according to those character profiles mitzi Would Have It Be Believed she's at all younger than mordecai, ft. the implication that since yeah he was born in '99 & mitzi Was born in the nineteenth century too, she's either the same age or slightly older. let's go Circa Thirty Characters....which is mostly just mitzi who'd deny as much & mordecai having a couple years to go, fingers crossed. then we leap over to people born in the '80s lol
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kaz-oooo · 10 months ago
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So glad I’ve reached a point in my life where the only maths I know how to do is the most basic multiplication and figuring out the time dilation in DSMP limbo.
Anyway Ghostbur’s been in limbo for 83 years, 4 months and 13 days.
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miketownsends · 8 months ago
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the sooner i accept that this iteration of the Mariners simply cannot play baseball before like, July, the less surprised i will be when they come out the gate every year looking like *waves hand vaguely* this
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cypric-rat-hyperfixation · 2 years ago
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As my following grows and as I meet more and more people who have rats, had rats, know someone who has/had rats, and love rats...
increasingly I wonder if/when a day will come... a day that I'll express rat enjoyment to someone and they'll enthusiastically ask me if I've heard of This Funnie Little Rodent Blog they like, figuring I may already know it or will enjoy it if not...
and it's.. my blog... and then I have to come out as popular Rat Tumblr blogger that they follow and now know IRL.......
#/lh#I'm saying this like it's some big deal but I'm just exaggerating for comedic effect adjfgsbkdfj#no idea what the likelihood on that looks like. based on statistics of people estimating statistics? probably likelier than we all think#anyway that time I posted a survey for a university research project here and you all wound up comprising 2/3 of our sample was so funny#I had to actually say in an academic research paper that one possible flaw in our study#was bias that may result from 2/3 the sample having come from a niche and extremely specific demographic of people#due to the fact that they flocked in from One Of The Researchers' Substantial Online Following Centered Around A Particular Theme#And Selected Specifically To Have Only A Certain Kind Of Person On It Via Boundaries And Blocking#literally you all made up 98/150 respondents (but that's assuming all digital responses were from y'all-- we had 52 paper responses)#ah but the research symposium was the best. in the paper I was able to remain that generic about it#but at the research symposium. well it's a glorified science fair. so participants have their own stations set up and observers tour them#as the participants speak to their audience; directly providing a summary and then answering any questions#some of the audience/observers are faculty and most are fellow students#so real scholarly scientific types yeah? so they had questions. thoughtful questions#long story short I confessed to numerous listeners throughout the day that the sample's bizarre gender ratio is probably my fault#around 57% women; 21% nonbinary adults; 17% men-- an unusual proportion#so I had to academically tell my professors... underclassmen..... my classmates....... acquaintances.... foes..........#... that I'm big famous in Rat#and it was so. djkjSBCJXHQKRIGAJFSHF
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strixhaven · 10 months ago
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everything possible ever happened in my dream last night
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oizilla · 3 months ago
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If you make over $500k a year on average you have no right to complain to me
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liesmyth · 1 year ago
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I bench pressed 32.5 kg x 9 reps in my last set today 💪 but the downside is that my reps were a bit wobbly and I feel like my left arm may be stronger than the right.
Luckily there's a simple solution to that! Dumbell chest press. Unfortunately I haaate dumbells but I guess I'll have to
Also I'm testing squat maxes tomorrow! I'm aiming for 66kg 1RM but who knows
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raifuujin · 6 months ago
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*vibrates as I wait for cards*
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