#also correct me if i got anything historical wrong

[furorsopher]

im not kidding when i say that ive watched this like 35 times now and my heart gets more itchy every time (in a good way)

i’m reading too much into this but ima post it anyways:

it’s so painful that historical hamilton loved his shit ass father to some extent, he tried to keep contact and sent him letters and money years after he left them. he had a lot of mixed feelings about the guy. but probably more negative ones when he had his own children and couldn’t dream of just leaving them without shame or remorse (which he kinda did then anyways. +30 points emotional damage).

he always loved his kids but he was probably scared he would end up making the decisions his father made which had hurt their whole little family. And phillip wanted to be just like his father. just as accomplished and clever, as “honorable” and he was prepared to sacrifice his life for their name, that’s how proud he was (and also duels were so illegal at the time he wasn’t even buried properly, just somewhere in an unmarked grave outside the cemetery, we don’t even know where now).

in this context both of them are asking this question. alexander is looking back at his father, into the depths of his past he tried to run away from, not only by physically leaving, but also by marrying into high society, wondering if he’ll ever escape his origins, pleading not to be like his father.

and phillip is looking up at his father in awe and admiration for the man who always cared for him, made sure he was fed and educated, but most importantly loved. he loved that man so much that he wished to be him.

when phillip dies he asks to look like his father even in his last moments. to be seen as brave and dying a glorious death, putting his life on the line for the thing that was most important to him like alex did fighting for their country and fighting for their family.

and then, when alexander dies, he knew he was close to where his dear first born had sacrificed himself for him. he probably felt a little at peace knowing he would die the same way his son did, maybe thinking he’d atone for the sin of letting his child die before and because of him by suffering the same fate.

This animatic was quite difficult for me, considering that I feel the song to some extent. The idea with Philip and Hamilton was born almost immediately when this song spread and at the first opportunity I decided to sketch it all, even if a little differently than I originally wanted

[bretwalda-lamnguin]

Ptolemaic Gondor?

Tolkien named Ancient Egypt as one of the inspirations for Gondor-particularly aesthetically and in their capacity for grand architecture. The crown of Gondor also resembles the crown of Upper Egypt, tall and conical, with similar symbolism between the combining of the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt and the combination of the Gondorian crown with the Arnorian diadem-the Elendilmir. I think there is also a deeper link between Gondor and Ancient Egypt, particularly Egypt under the Ptolemaic dynasty, the last to rule Egypt before the Romans annexed it.

Under the cut for a brief history of Ptolemaic Egypt and what that has to do with Gondor!

The Ptolemies were descended from one of Alexander the Great’s generals, called, unsurprisingly, Ptolemy. Alexander and his army were from Macedon, a northern Greek kingdom. In the chaos after Alexander’s death his generals carved up his empire, with Ptolemy rushing to Egypt and having himself proclaimed Pharaoh. The Ptolemaic dynasty ruled from Alexandria, a city founded by Alexander in the Nile delta, on the shores of the Mediterranean. Ptolemy was a Macedonian, and many other Macedonians, both soldiers of Alexander and others, followed them to Egypt. Alexandria became a great centre of Greek Hellenic culture dominated by Macedonians, who became basically a ruling class of this new Ptolemaic state. The highest offices of government were reserved for Macedonians, Macedonian Greek was the court language, the military was made up (at first at least) of Macedonians and mercenaries, with no recruitment from the Egyptian population. The traditional Egyptian religion and the role of the Pharaoh within it remained (with some Greek introductions), but in most other things Macedonians and their customs dominated. No Ptolemaic Pharaoh even knew how to speak Egyptian until Cleopatra VII (yes, that’s THE Cleopatra), the last ruler of the dynasty! Even she seems to have done little to better integrate Egyptians and Macedonians, with the Macedonians remaining firmly in charge until the Romans annexed Egypt.

Now the Ptolemies were not the only successors of Alexander, and one of their main rivals were the Seleucid empire, founded by fellow Macedonian general Seleucus. The Ptolemies often fought for control of the Levant in the Syrian wars. During the reign of Ptolemy IV the Ptolemies and Seleucids were embroiled in the fourth Syrian war. Faced with manpower shortages within the Macedonian ruling class, Ptolemy IV’s army included Egyptians trained to fight in the Macedonian style as part of the phalanx. At Raphia, Ptolemy IV won a decisive victory, with the Egyptian troops playing a key role in the battle. While this did improve the lot of Egyptians within Ptolemaic Egypt, Macedonians continued to dominate both the state and the military, and the failure to further integrate Egyptians into the army contributed to the weakening of the Ptolemaic state, which enjoyed arguably its finest hour at Raphia. A succession of poor rulers and civil war would see the state decline, eventually being annexed into the Roman empire after the death of Cleopatra VII.

Now, how does that fit with Gondor?

Gondor was founded by Númenorian exiles, with a Númenorian ruling class. Its main languages are Westron (descended from Númenorian Andunaic) and Sindarin, a common language among certain Númenorian communities. Comparisons may be made between Alexandria and cities like Pelargir and Osgiliath as centres of Númenorian dominance and culture (Pelargir especially, there is a reason Castamir liked it so much). And, like Ptolemaic Egypt, it seems like Númenorians dominated the military, with other peoples excluded. To quote Faramir:

“But the stewards were wiser and more fortunate. Wiser, for they recruited the strength of our people from the sturdy folk of the sea-coast, and from the hardy mountaineers of Ered Nimrais.”

This would seem to imply that prior to this, these peoples were excluded, and Númenorians dominated the military. But the Gondorians learned their lesson, at least to a greater degree than the Ptolemies did, and were able to slow their decline by better integrating non-Númenorians into the state. Númenorians still hold the highest positions of power (Denethor and Imrahil are the two most powerful men in the country in the late third age, both are Númenorians), but military discrimination is at least heavily reduced.

The appendices and unfinished tales do say that Northmen were recruited into the Gondorian military after the Kin-Strife, and mentions them in Eärnur’s army sent to fight Angmar. These may have been analogous to the mercenary forces used by the Ptolemies, rather than representing a widening of recruitment (though many Northmen did settle in Gondor after the Kin-Strife).

Obviously the comparisons are not 1:1, but I think early Gondor may well have resembled Ptolemaic Egypt in the structure and stratification of society. I suspect that this began heavily breaking down after the Kin-Strife. For a start, a lot of Númenorians are dead, or have been forced to renounce their ancestry by Eldacar. The Gondorians will need to look elsewhere for a supply of manpower. Númenorian supremacy may well start being seen as treasonous due to Castamir’s actions, and an active threat to the continued existence of the Gondorian state. By Denethor II’s time the Gondorian army seems far more diverse, and even many of the aristocrats may well be non-Númenorian (though again, Denethor and Imrahil occupy the most powerful positions).

[stargazostli]

i know we all love the idea of Joel in a corset

however... consider... Joel in stays

(found the images from google and wikipedia respectively, the first came up if you search 'brown stays', the second is on the wiki article for the history of corsets)

these are (iirc) kinda pre-corsets corests? they were used for the same things; supporting breasts, heloing posture, back support etc and may be laced either at the front or the back but often connect over the shoulders... like a vest... like Joel skin... yeah thats all my reasoning basically... also im a nerd

i especially like the ones laced in the front as they especially look like Joel's skin's vest

also im no expert on historical clothing, i just happen to watch alot of videos by people who are and have random knowledge on it - if i got anything wrong or youd like to add anything, feel free to add or correct me on this!

[jaehaeryshater]

England’s Pearl and Their Beloved Queen

Mary I and Katherine of Aragon by @francy-sketches

Guys. I have not been so excited for a commission in my life. I know it’s not ASOIAF so definitely not as anticipated among my friends, but it’s just so well done. I adore Katherine and Mary and this turned out so beautifully. I cannot sing Francy’s praises high enough; after the initial reference pictures I sent her, I did not need to correct anything at all, she completely got the vision.

As anyone who has ever encountered me before will have known, I am incredibly particular about commissions and therefore very involved. I usually like to give pieces I pay for extra thought and historical authenticity. For this piece, I went and looked for available quotes and contemporary accounts of Katherine’s fashion choices. I wanted to make sure from the base of the dress (the farthingale underneath) to the jewelry were all as accurate as was reasonably possible. I did even learn a thing or two, despite my initial intention of just checking to make sure everything I had previously believed was true. For example, I learned that Katherine sometimes wore a flemish hood, which I wouldn’t have thought that would align with her fashion sense; I was proven wrong. I have seen practically all the artworks available to the public that have been confirmed to be Katherine, so I had already guessed black was her favorite color to wear. But I did learn that her other favorites were purple and red. I decided to keep it simple with the black. It’s elegant and regal, black was an expensive color but still is not obnoxiously ostentatious. The jewels around her neckline as taken directly from portraits of her. The pearls seem a mainstay for her, but I did learn that her dresses had many other colored jewels tied into them. I just thought black looked the best. Her dresses were fur-lined, although I would definitely say we took some liberties on what the fur looked. The fur she wore was pretty much exclusively ermine. The sleeves also have true gold, which Spanish royalty traditionally loved (for hundreds of years, by this point, at least). Katherine’s Spanish outfits, of which she had many, definitely collected dust in favor of more traditional English outfits. There’s no indication that she was forced into this, as she did sometimes dress in the Spanish style when it struck her fancy, but it was important for her to present herself as English with English loyalties and priorities in mind. That being said, something as innocuous as gold embroidery, which was not completely foreign to the English court, was definitely something she could implement from back home without seeming like a foreigner. I have pomegranate embroidery on her sleeves, which is more of symbolism rather than something accurate. There’s no proof she ever wore pomegranate embroidery on her sleeve, but her official symbol was of a pomegranate, so I figure that was something important to her.

Katherine’s necklace is obviously a direct copy of the necklace she wears in several of the contemporary artworks depicting. This is pure speculation, but I personally believe that this necklace could have come from old English jewels that had been melted down and repurposed for her. Generally, people weren’t as sentimental in the same way we are today, nor worried about these aspects of preservation, so jewels were melted down and used for other purposes all the time. She also usually wore many strings of pearls, but it just would have looked like too much and would take away from the piece overall, so we decided just to do the necklace. Her gabled hood is also directly taken from her contemporary portraits, the gold and black with the red jewels was what she usually wore. She has a girdle belt with a long string of pearls. Sometimes she would wear a cross at the end or some black jewels that matched her necklace. What’s depicted in this is actually a pomander that turns into a rudimentary clock when it is opened. Katherine is recorded as having one of these; I thought that was very cool. I also asked for her to have some rings. She did have a wedding ring, but I found no description of it, so the artist just did basic gold. She’s wearing two which I think is pretty funny considering she was married twice, of course she wouldn’t have worn two wedding rings, but imagine if she did have the audacity to. Katherine had so much jewelry, more than any of Henry VIII’s wives. She had the royal collection available to her, pieces from Spain, and gifts from Henry specifically made for her. She usually decked herself out as expensively as possible.

Unfortunately, there is basically no information on how Mary dressed as a child. We know her mother dressed her and was having the clothes ordered herself, but beyond that, there’s really nothing available that I could find. I felt that Mary would be dressed similarly to her mother, but I wanted to give her a purple dress because purple fabric was generally the most expensive thing you could buy. I wanted to illustrate how loved and well taken care of she was. She has matching rings with her mother, but no girdle belt or necklace because I’m envisioning her as being 6-9 in this, so I wanted to give her something she could play in. She’s wearing a French hood. Katherine ordered her one in 1520, when she was four. My references on how hers should look is from portraits of her aunts Mary and Juana. I felt that Katherine would probably want to buy a style she was familiar with. Mary’s embroidery is of the Tudor rose. It turned out so beautifully. Similarly to Katherine, there’s no evidence that she actually wore that embroidery, but I wanted some symbolism in there.

My intention with this piece was to show the closeness between Katherine and Mary. Katherine loved Mary with all her heart and showed no outward indication of disappointment that Mary was a girl. She spent more time with Mary than any other highborn individual in this time period that I know of. I wanted to show that Katherine is someone that Mary deeply and completely trusted, even when court could be over the top and crowded, frightening for a child. I feel as if people other themselves from people in the past. People often feel as if people 500 years ago did not care as deeply about their children or weren’t attached to them. I believe this is true in some instances, but generally we are more like the people of the past than we like the believe. As far as any research I’ve done has shown, Katherine loved Mary as much as any mother of our time loves her children.

I believe Francy did a beautiful job, so all compliments go to her, I hope everyone checks out her page to see her amazing work. The caliber of this is unlike the commissions I’ve done in the past. I cannot thank her enough.

I hope this ended up being relatively historically accurate, I’m sure someone will let me know if it’s not haha.

[shnoob]

Kurapika Kurta HC’s:

A/N: FINALLY ONTO HXH!! I have been wanting to do this for a LONG time but life got in the way, which it will again this week but I'm very excited to get this out there!  

C/W: Has both fluff and angst!

Leave any suggestions if you want to see something specific!  

Fluff:

Is one of THE best people to ask about making bracelets or anything crafty related. Due to his exterior, he seems like somebody who wouldn't care about it (in for his goals he doesn’t do them often) but back at the village, he would teach all the little kids how.  

Speaking of the village he also is probably really good about braiding hair or doing other people's hair. I can see him back then being an older figure to all the kids in the village so being that figure comes with responsibilities!! 

If you need to know any definition or any historical facts, he is your man. You’ve seen him read those books, he’s educated!! Not only does he do it for fun (and probably used those skills for the Spiders-), but for the exam to go out into the real world he found some research on the history of the outside world to get him at least some sort of idea what he was stepping into. 

Would 100% correct you if you spelled/or pronounced something wrong. If that ends up being verbal or just in his head? Depends on his mood. 9/10 it's in his head but catch him in a bad mood and he won't hesitate to mummer it under his breath.  

Yes, he is very stand-offish due to his life/profession BUT I like to believe that deep down he is a really good listener and will pay attention. I mean we can see it first season!! Sure he may not say anything once it gets to the point where he’s in York New but he does retain the information said to him and just leaves it on the back burner. 

Back on the crafty gig, he knows how to crochet and knit. Instead of buying bookmarkers to not lose his place in his book, he makes his own (when he has the time anyway). 

One of the neatest people known to mankind. Although he doesn't get the time to do it, having a clean environment makes him happy and makes him focus better. If not in a clean environment such as his room, I feel like it stresses him out to where he needs to get up and put some stuff away before he can lay down and then stress about the Spiders. 

Tea drinker!! Drinks coffee but doesn't like the taste of it. LOVESS a tea that tastes more fruity <3.  

LOVES nicknames. Giving or receiving them deep down means something to him. Especially after you give one to him, if you don't use it he’ll wonder why and get a bit disheartened :(.   

The biggest gentlemen around! Holds doors for people, always says thank you and excuse me when moving around, biggest tipper etc. An “angel from above” is the words you’d hear people using for him from strangers. It has come to the point where if he enters a coffee shop he often goes to they already know and get in such a good mood. 

Loves birds!! As a side hobby he has a collection of pictures of birds he’s taken over the years. With that, he has definitely learned some bird calls and will not hesitate to show somebody the difference between them.

(is in love with Leorio I swear!!)  

Angst: 

When he was younger, the color red was something that was noted as a good thing, and due to his clan he was so confident in his eyes. Now he cant bare to look into the mirror somedays just because of his eyes. 

With the color red, he cant stand the thought of it being his favorite color. He probably doesn't even have one after everything due to how attached he was to red and now that attachment is unhealthy. 

Seriously doesn't take care of himself. Like at all. As much as I love the fluff he wouldn't know what a healthy life looks like anymore.  

Has so much survivor's guilt (which this one is obvious but to the point where it hurts). 

A lot of people say that he doesnt care about his friends bu he definitely does. In fact I say that he lives in a detachment type style. Due to his deep rage and focus it makes him feel that being away from everybody he cares about is the right thing to do because he cant let anybody else get hurt and theres no time to be doing things he enjoys most. By this though, he feels those surges of guilt by not keeping in touch; but now its been so long without talking to them the guilt of going back is so deep he cant bare to face them. 

When he cries most of the time he doesnt even realize. His brain just shuts down to where it doesnt register that he is upset and needs to take a minute. It doesnt help that half of the time tears dont even fall, so its just a emotional block. 

Will never be able to commit to a romantic situation but still dreams of it :(.

[lissa612]

Can someone point me to where in 9-1-1 canon it is shown that Buck thinks of “Evan” as a separate identity or a version of himself he escaped?

Because we’ve got Buck 1.0 that’s been clearly mentioned in the past as a persona he’s outgrown, but I can’t remember him ever saying anything like “That was Evan…This is Buck.” He started going by Buck because it was convenient. He liked it and perhaps considered it a fresh start along with the career he found to finally be his calling, so he kept the nickname…But even the reasoning there is speculation because I can’t recall him ever saying anything more than “Everyone calls me Buck now. I kinda like it.” But there were still people who would call him Evan. His girlfriend, his sister, his best friend when he wanted to make sure he was hearing him, and his therapist (who honestly should be the most mindful of his comfort with mode of address) just off the top of my head. The only time he seems upset when called Evan was when his parents did it after he apparently asked him to call him Buck…That seems to be more about them ignoring his wishes than any sort of visceral rejection of the name itself.

I keep seeing chatter about how it’s disrespectful of Tommy to be calling him Evan. But I can’t find anything in actual canon to back that up. You can head canon that Tommy ignored Buck when he introduced himself like “I’m Evan Buckley - Call me Buck” but that never happened. You can just as easily head canon that Buck blushed and told Tommy that he likes how he says “Evan” when Tommy catches that everyone else calls him Buck and tries to correct himself. I’d argue that one of those head canons fits better with actual canon, but there are arguments for both…Neither is absolutely wrong.

So you can totally head canon that Tommy is someone who ignored Buck’s wishes to be called Buck. But then you also have to head canon that Buck, despite all the progress he has made through the years, is someone who would actively pursue someone who has shown they ignore his wishes - Something we have seen in canon to be a boundary for him. Which is fine if you want to do that…Head canons allow for all kinds of freedom in interpretation. But it’s not canonical fact.

Buck has historically disassociated with parts of his past self with his software upgrades from Buck 1.0, but when was the last time he did that? Buck 3.0 was back in season 4. He’s grown and changed a lot since then without needing to proclaim himself to be Buck 4.0. But beyond that, he’s never proclaimed there to have been an early beta version of the software called “Evan”. Really the only thing we know was upgraded between Buck 1.0 and Buck 2.0 was how Buck handled sex and relationships. Was “Evan” the base code in Buck 1.0? If so, has the code changed so much to have erased that? (Again, there’s nothing explicit in canon, so we can head canon that all day).

Bobby noted at the end of the season how much growth he has seen in Buck. I don’t think anyone who has watched the show could argue against the truth of that statement.

That is canon.

But you can ponder on it and come up with head canon…Perhaps what we are seeing is a more self-actualized version of Buck who doesn’t need to think of any progress he’s made in terms of upgrades because the therapy has finally made him realize he is all of those versions of himself and they are all him - He is the result of everything he has experienced and everything he has done and every decision he has made, and who he is will keep constantly evolving with every new experience and decision.

Regardless, Evan Buckley is Buck. And he is Mr Buckley. And he’s Firefighter Buckley. And he’s Buckley. And he’s Evan.

Unless he’s told someone to NOT refer to him as one of those names and they do anyway, they aren’t showing any disrespect by referring to him in any of those ways. We have examples in canon of that happening. We also have examples of viewers seemingly deciding it happened without canonical basis.

That’s a head canon. Have fun with it but remember to not force it onto others.

[beatrice-otter]

I recently reblogged a post about Jewish survival and resilience and pride, and immediately got an ask by someone saying that there was a dogwhistle in that post calling for the destruction of Palestine, and did I support genocide or had I just not noticed? The ask was not anonymous, so I was able to respond privately, that I didn't see any dogwhistles so could they please point specifically to what they meant? They didn't respond, so I can't say with absolute certainty what they thought was a dog whistle, but I'm pretty darn sure it's the last line, which I have seen accused of being a dog whistle before, and is absolutely NOT: "Am Yisrael Chai"

Now! I am a gentile, so I could certainly get things wrong here, and please correct me if I do. But for those who may not know what Am Yisrael Chai means, here's my understanding of it.

First, let's take "Yisrael." For a lot of modern people, "Israel" means first and foremost the modern nation of Israel. But that is only one thing that "Israel" means, and collapsing all of those meanings into one is a major problem. For one thing, it's why American Evangelicals are so hot to support Israel and are vocally clamoring for Israel to wipe out all Palestinians: they have confused the passages in the Bible that turn the ancient kingdom of Israel into a metaphor with the modern nation, and assert that the ancient kingdom, the Christian metaphor later made of it, and the modern nation are all one and the same. (Then they take that and sprinkle crazy sauce all over it.)

So what are the meanings of Israel? First and most importantly, "Israel/Yisrael" is a name for the mythical ancestor of Jews. According to the mythology recorded in the Bible*, the family line (so we are told) goes back to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob wrestled with a divine being and was renamed Yisrael/Israel; he was also the father of the 12 men who became the ancestors of the 12 tribes--each one got a tribe named after him.

*All of the stories that take place before the time of King David are ... at best, many generations removed from the actual events, and were quite obviously reshaped multiple times over those centuries before being written down. There are many things that just flat out could not have happened as recorded--at best they're exaggerated. I tend to believe that there are core truths in each story, and it's fascinating to speculate on what really happened, but as with any culture, the stories we tell about our history often do more to shape our identity than the literal factual truth.

So, Israel, the great ancestor, got a lot of things named after him. His descendants called themselves Israelites, the children of Israel, the people of Israel, and often, just "Israel." So that's the second meaning of "Israel." It means the people who count Israel as their ancestor. And quite often, especially in religious contexts, they don't specify. It's not "The Israelites" did something or "the people of Israel" did something. Israel did it. And they were the people of Israel (so their stories go) before they came to the land that came to be called Israel because it was where the people of Israel lived.

So, for example, one of the most important parts of the Bible for Jews is what they call the Shema, which originates in Deuteronomy 6:4: "Sh'ma Yisrael: Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad." ("Hear, O [people of] Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is one")

Historical note: according to the mythology as recorded in the Bible, the people of Israel came from what is now Iraq, wandered around the Levant for a while, then went to Egypt and became enslaved, then were freed by God and led back to the Levant, where they conquered it and slaughtered the people living there. Whatever happened, it was absolutely not that. If there was a group that came from Egypt, they were small, they didn't conquer anything, and they adapted immediately to the culture around them. The Levant is one of the best-studied regions in the world, archaeologically, in no small part because of Christians trying to prove the historicity of the Bible and failing. If lots of people were killed and a whole new group of people moved in, there would be some sign of it in the archaeological record. Cities being destroyed or falling to ruin, new styles of pottery and building, etc. No such evidence exists. From what we can tell, there were a lot of different tribes living in the area, and over time some of them became allied and shared religious rites and practices, and eventually coalesced into two nations sometime around 1,000BCE (Israel and Judah), telling stories of mythic ancestors that they all shared to bind them together. There was fighting, sure, but just the regular tribal warfare endemic to the period.

One of those two nations came to be called "Israel" because it was the nation where the people of Israel lived. And this is where language comes into play. In English, we have different word forms for the land vs. the people who live there. England is inhabited by the English, Norway by Norwegians, China by Chinese, etc. Ancient Hebrew did not make this distinction; I don't know if modern Hebrew does. In the Hebrew that the Bible is written in, and which many Jews still use today for ritual purposes and have used for at least 3,000 years, the same word is used for a place and the people of that place. This is heightened by a literary tradition that often personifies both locations and nations.

("Jew" by the way, comes from the word "Judah," the name for the second and smaller of the two kingdoms inhabited by people who claimed descent from Jacob/Israel. Judah was one of Jacob/Israel's son's according to the Bible, and Judah can also be a reference to the person, the people descended from him, and the land they lived in, and you have to tell from context which is meant in any given situation.)

So for the last three thousand years at least, "Israel" has meant at least four things: it can be the name of the mythical ancestor Jacob who became Israel; it can be the name of the people descended from him; it can be the kingdom that existed from around 1000BCE-720BCE; it can be the personification of the people of Israel. All of these meanings are regularly present in Jewish culture and religious ritual, and an important part of it.

And for at least 2/3 of that time, for at least two of those three thousand years, the Jews have been a persecuted minority living in hostile lands. They have been enslaved, harassed, pressured by the dominant culture, kicked out, and killed. A lot of them have died. But their people and culture have survived, which is kind of miraculous. And the traditional response to the repeated genocide over those 2,000 years? "The People of Israel Live." In Hebrew, "Am Yisrael Chai."

When Biblical Hebrew wants to ensure that you know "Israel" means "the people of Israel" in a particular context, you can specify: you add "am" which means "people". So "Am Yisrael" means "the people of Israel." And for 2,300 years, the nation of Israel did not exist for there to be citizens of it. "Am Yisrael" meant, therefore, the people of Israel in the sense of all the people who were part of the community that claimed descent from Jacob/Israel and were part of the culture that the empires of the world wanted to destroy. "Chai" means life. The people of Israel live--everyone from the Romans to the Russians to the French to the Spanish to the English to the Germans to the Ukrainians to the [insert nationality here] has tried to kill them, has tried to destroy their culture, has tried to erase them from the world, and they still live, and their culture and religion lives with them.

Am Yisrael Chai--they have been saying that for two thousand years at least, to celebrate their continued survival, and all the ways they survive despite the oppression of others. The People of Israel Live--not just their bodies but their language and culture and religion and everything that makes them who they are. Am Yisrael Chai.

Which brings us to the modern nation of Israel. Many members of the people of Israel are part of the modern nation of Israel, but "Israeli" and "Am Yisrael" are not the same. Israeli means "citizen of the modern nation of Israel." There are Jewish Israelis, of course, who are both citizens of the nation of Israel and part of the People of Israel (Am Yisrael) but there are also Muslim and Christian Israelis, Samaritan Israelis, Druze Israelis, and others, who are not part of Am Yisrael. You do not have to be part of "Am Yisrael" to be an Israeli, and you definitely do not have to be an Israeli to be part of "Am Yisrael." The name of the modern nation is Yisrael in Hebrew, so when you see "Yisrael" or "Israel" that is a fifth thing that could be meant by the word. But the earlier meanings are still in common usage in Jewish circles (and in Christian ones, too, or anywhere else you want to talk about anything related to the Bible or Jewish or Christian religion and history).

It is a talking point, in pro-Palestine circles, that "Am Yisrael Chai" is secretly calling for the destruction of Palestine. But that is an antisemitic lie made up by the same people who say they're not antisemitic--while assuming that all Jews are genocidal monsters unless the Jew in question immediately grovels about how awful Jews are to "prove" they're "not one of the bad ones."

I believe Palestine and the Palestinian people should be free and able to live in peace. I believe there should be justice and accountability for the violence that has been done against them--and also for the violence that they have done. I also believe that antisemitism is absolutely wrong, and that includes when pro-Palestinian advocates do it.

Am Yisrael Chai is not an anti-Palestinian dog whistle, and if you think it is, you are either ignorant or actively malicious.

[shinyrhinestones]

Youthful Hearts

Part one

Series summary: Readers new around town, and therefore doesnt know the place or people. However, she ends up befriending the most chaotic people she could find.

Warnings: Idk let me know if u spot any. (Also this isn’t historically correct bc i want it my way ig).

Pairing: Billie Joe X Fem!Reader

A/N: Alright so I’m bored and I’m gonna apparently explore different fandoms, cause heres a Billie Joe fic. However I lowkey dont know where to go with this fic so I’ll only post this part for now, and to my surprise there isn’t a lot of fics within this fandom..

——

On a regular day at the week you found yourself in a whole new place. You were actually here for studying, but it was gonna be a long year if you didn’t make any friends or connections at all. Now, making new friends isn’t all that easy, which is why at first you settled with s cat. A male cat who would keep you company. He was cuddly, but also took care of himself, like all cats pretty much do.

But at one point you had to face the fact that you didn’t do well without social contact. Yes, you still called back home, not only to your family but also friends. But who would be there for you when you hung up? Exept for your cat of course.

You really didn’t know how to meet new people. What kind of communities were there in your area? And how did you join?

For being a 21 year old, on your own in a new place, you really hoped that there was communities for your age. And interests. One to mention could be music. Music means a lot to many people, including you.

You pondered and wondered but you just physically couldn’t come up with anything. So you gave up.

A week later, walking down a street you weren’t familiar with. You were on your way home, and unfortunately couldn’t go the way you always did, when coming home from a long day at your school. You weren’t all to familiar with your surroundings yet, and therefore mostly only felt safe walking the known path, you had to walk pretty much every day.

But this time you were stressed out because the path you always walk, was unfortunately closed down. In a sense that an accident had happened, down that specific street. Ambulances and police cars parked down that street, with flashing lights everywhere. You knew you couldn’t just find your way around, but you tried walking down other Streets to see if anything was looking familiar.

But you only got more stressed as you felt completely lost. Your mind was racing with a thousands thoughts at once. What was gonna happen now? You were starting to get sweaty under your jacket, which was even more frustrating cause it was already hot outside. You wore a dark coloured summer jacket, cause every now and then the summer breeze would hit, in such a relieving way. But instead of standing and not knowing what to do you kept walking around. Walking down a street where you a bunch young people hanging around. It was little funny, so hang on here.

By a pair of stairs, leading down into what normally would look like a shop. But you could tell this wasn’t a shop. A few youths sitting or standing by the stairs, chilling. Most of them with a cigarette in between their fingers.

You hesitated walking down the street, because not only did this look like a closed off space, but you weren’t that well around people your age. Why? Not sure, but maybe its the way its so easy to get wronged by people you thought would understand you.

At first you thought you’d just walk past them, but what if you had to go past them again, cause you walked in the wrong direction, like you’ve been doing for some time now. Your stomach churned.

You then decided to go up and ask them for directions, since it was probably what you should’ve done for so long now.

You probably looked extremely nervous walking up to them by the way your lips curved into an awkward smile, and your slightly shaky voice.

“Uhm..Hello. I’m new around here and I seem to be a little lost..” You were trying to explain your situation as you were facing completely new humans. From what you could tell they were all men. It only made you more nervous to talk to them, as you also took in completely new appearences.

Most of them had unnatural hair colours. Blue and green. Tattoos and piercings. By a first impression, you’d think they were open-minded. And you tried to calm yourself with that. Maybe they wouldn’t judge you, like you always worried would happen anyways.

You felt like they had such an intense gaze but when a stranger approaches you, that will probably be an outcome.

“Yeah so, this is the street I’m headed.” You pulled out a piece of paper from your pocket. A piece of paper you had kept on you ever since you moved in, because of the fear of exactly this scenario.

One of the guys with with a tatto on his arm, and an earring hanging from his earlobe tried to reach out for it before one the others snatched it out of your grip. You took a look at the guy who tried, but failed. His hair was dark but not black. Quite lighter actually. And he was probably the tallest one, but you couldn’t exactly tell when most of them were sitting down. His face had a few sharp features. Like the shape of his face was sharp and somewhat bony. He had a long nose and a long face in general. His hair was messy.

He gave the other nameless guy a look, which you couldn’t read. You figured it was just normal teasing among friends.

The man holding and reading the piece of paper, was the one sitting on the top step of the stairs. His hair was blue, a quite bright one.

He read it, as the other ones let their eyes get a glimpse of the writing. He stood up and you could tell that he was definitely shorter than the other one. Now you got a better look at his face. His eyebrows were a bit long and black. His face oval and his eyes were green. But you noticed how he had small dark circles under his eyes, and you yourself knew what that was like. He probably didn’t get that much sleep, and if he did it wasn’t enjoyable.

He started explaining the directions for you but you could barely keep up. You had never been good at directions, or finding your way around. You really tried to understand, and you didn’t wanna make a fool of yourself.

You felt like giving up and just letting yourself wander around for hours again. But what good would that do? When he was done explaining he was looking at you. His eyes squinted from the suns rays. Which made a Line appear between his eyebrows, and a subtle scrunched nose. You gave him an awkward smile and shrugged. “Thank you for the help.” You said, but he could sense the insecurity beaming out of you.

“Alright, come here.” He walked down to the end of the street as you followed behind. When he reached the corner, he started pointing to a bunch of directions while explaining. You were finally understanding, and he gave you back the piece of paper. “No problem.” He replied after you thanked him a second time. He kept standing for a moment by the end of the street, watching you for a few seconds as you made your way home. He turned away, and walked back to where he came from.

His friends had been joking around, and sounds of laughter escaped the young men. He sat down by stairs again, as one of his friends shoved him. “Should’ve asked for her nummer while you were at it.” A goofy tone echoed in his friends voice.

“Yeah, you snapped that piece of paper so quickly, I didn’t stand a chance.” His other friend joked along.

The blue haired guy shook his head, and reached for his friends cigarette box. “Hey!” He exclaimed in protest, but didn’t snatch it back. “You owe me now.” He gave a faint smile, and lit the cigarette with a black lighter.

For you, you couldn’t shake off the fact that this was the longest and most helpful conversation you had had in your everyday life outside of school yet. Not only that, but they were interesting guys. They looked different and probably on purpose. And to be honest they were interesting to you. What a bummer this is how it went.

—-

if anyone is actually interested and wants a part more let me know (: also there’s probably spelling mistakes sorry! English is not my first language guys. I’ll probably right one anyway but at the same time i would need something to be motivated for like be fr.

You can find the other parts here

[thestarryshepherd]

Hello, I am Starry you might know me from my TikTok StarryEyedShepherd. The reason I started my TikTok is because I have always had an interest in religion and when I dwelled in HelPol I got really invested in the history of it. Ancestor worship is one of the center points of Hellenic Polytheism and although they aren’t my blood ancestry, they are my religious ancestors, so for me it was basic respect to try and reconstruct to the best of my ability ancient Greek religious principles and just generally religion to the best of my personal abilities. I have been wanting to be a professor of classics for a bit and since I read academic texts and try to do my research to the best of my abilities I thought I could share some of my knowledge based on that. I had an incredibly optimistic outlook on TikTok in the beginning and was overly sweet with people who I really shouldn’t have been with. However I started to understand sadly that TikTok was no place of education and barely anybody was interested in hearing about the religion and instead preferred to see people make up fun stories of how their supposed spouse god had been planning a romantic time together. The only evidence we have of godspousal or anything similar was purely ritualistic and not to be taken as literal marriage. Note that it was also done (as far as all historical sources we have available to us) in Athens by the queen of Athens at the festival of Anthesteria. This was a very special woman as well as most of the rituals done in association with the cult of Dionysos were not usually to do with “the usual way of doing things”. From my perspective it’s disrespectful to claim to have slept with a god and to have romanced them. “But what about the myths?” Well Hesiod tells us that the gods have pulled away from humanity and we are living in the age after the age of heroes called the “Iron Age”. He describes this as an age where the gods will have forsaken humanity. This makes sense when put into the context that this happens right after the brutal events of The Iliad where the gods realize that their involvement with humanity is doing more wrong than good. “So does this mean that they aren’t with us anymore?” They are with us just not to the same extent. People claiming to be able to speak clearly the word of gods are charlatans. We know this again through Hesiod’s description and through the fact that even the Oracle at Delphi who was our main connection to the gods was only able to speak in jumbled words and not in correct coherent sentences. There had to be a man next to her to translate her sayings to put them into semi-coherent sentences. This is also why Tarot is so general and not hyper specific, at least IF you believe in divination through such means as some HelPols don’t and I can understand why. I made my opinions regarding these very clear on my TikTok. In the defence of the people who went on to attack me for such opinions I will say that I was not too kind with people who thought in such ways. I was going through an incredibly horrible time irl and well this can make people much more prone to saying things in all the wrong ways. I called someone who had godspoused Hera “delusional”. In my defence I did not name names and whenever I made videos I have continued not to. It is not my purpose to humiliate someone on the internet however to question to what extent they have basic understandings of this religion especially when to me such things seem incredibly disrespectful. However, I see now that even trying to have a conversation with such people or bringing attention to them only feeds their victim complex and the fact that ultimately they do not wish to learn about the religion. A group of people who are TikTok godspouses especially didn’t take kindly to my statements and have kept making videos, and sly remarks about me in their comments sections. Helpol tiktok is so incredibly toxic and ahistorical I’m honestly not sure if Tumblr is better in this regard I have heard it is but honestly my hopes aren’t very high. Please prove me wrong.

[alpaca-clouds]

The Lies We Are Taught In School

Talking about science this week, let me talk about the thing that irks me more than anything: The fact that we get taught so many lies in school. Both in regards to science, and in regards to stuff like history. Like, holy fuck. Why do we get taught that much garbage?

If you google "Lies we got taught in school", you will find an endless amount of listicles going over a variety of lies.

A lot of people in America will of course know that the version of American history they get taught in school is very "clean". Be it their version of how Thanksgiving came to be ("And then the indigenous people and settlers got along just fine"), how the entire story of Matoaka/Pocahontas happened ("And then everyone just got along and no 12yo girls got raped"), or how the Civil War went ("And then slavery was ended and everyone had equal rights, yay").

Another thing that school keeps telling us is the thing I mentioned yesterday: IQ. IQ is not real. At least not as any measure of intelligence. All IQ tests will test is, how good you are at taking IQ tests.

Or one that I found in so many listicles: The food pyramid. The food pyramid is a great example of a thing that a lot of people believe, that is not based on science, but fully on propaganda by an industry. And yet... It is very common in the US - and almost as common in Europe. At least I learned about it in primary school, and never learned a correction of it until I entered university.

Or getting back to history: A lot of history classes teach so much bullshit when it comes to medieval history and how people in medieval times lived. They will act as if the medieval world was just one thing, rather than many things. Oh, and a lot of schools place the witch burnings into the middle ages - even though they all happened AFTER the middle ages.

Or something quite relevant to trans folks: Schools very much teach that there are only two genders and sexes, and that those usually are based on the chromosomes. Even though intersex people exist and might be a lot more common than we actually realize, given that most people are never tested for intersex conditions. And since we know that other than what was long assumed (the supposed fact that almost all intersex people were infertile) is wrong... Yeah, some scientist argue that intersex is a lot more common than assumed. So even from the very biological aspect - without going into gender - it is quite wrong.

The list really could go on and on.

And mind you, some of those myths (especially in regards to history) are so prevailant, that folks who even go to universities and study ajacent stuff will still be believed. I still remember: Two years ago I talked in a historical podcast about the witch hunts, how they happened after the medieval period, how they looked different in different countries, how they did not happen everywhere in Europe, and how they not always were going for women. Mind you, we linked the historical sources under the podcast... And yet, someone I know, who studied history (though with their main focus on Victorian England) went on a long rant how that was all wrong. Was she able to come up with counter sources for her claims? No, obviously not. But she kept insisting even months later.

In general the entirety of all those lies taught in school usually go back to one of three reasons for those lies.

Propaganda. There are quite a few lies in school - especially in regards to history - that are propaganda. Especially when it comes to the sanitizing colonial history. Stuff like how settlers and indigenous people got along fine. How Lincoln ended slavery. Or for us in Germany, how we totally never really were ever involved in any colonialism whatsoever. That is all propaganda. Even stuff like the medieval prejudices are based on the propaganda that history only ever moves forward. The food pyramid also belongs to this.

Ancient material. This is probably the most common reason. See, a lot of material in school is just outdated by decades. At times because the curriculi have not been updated in decades - at times because the people updating them are actually not professionals in those fields, hence basing their ideas mostly on what they learned in school 40 years ago.

Simplification because kids "won't understand it otherwise". A lot of stuff in school gets dumbed down in comparison what you learn in university, because a) not everyone needs to know it (they say), and b) kids cannot understand it (they say). This is true for a lot of stuff in the science classes. Stuff like "only two sexes", "only five senses", "only three states of matter" is mostly based on this.

But honestly... While the first two reasons are bad either way (propaganda does not belong in schools, and schools should work with modern material), some people might think the last reason is somewhat understandable. But honestly... It is not. Because kids are actually not stupid.

It is one thing to not teach everything and leave out stuff. Otherwise we would not need universities. But... Lying to kids? Yeah, that is not good. It is not a good thing to begin with. And really, why do we keep doing that?

[seriousbrat]

why I don't think the Blacks were actually that wealthy is this:

"A reasonable amount of gold."

So, Harry inherits ALL of Sirius's money, house, his house-elf. Since Grimmauld Place goes to Sirius after the death of his parents, it's fair to assume that he also got all their money. He also, as we know, inherited a good chunk of gold from his Uncle Alphard. Being in Azkaban for 12 years and later living in hiding/at Grimmauld place, he probably did not spend much of that money. His one big expense is the Firebolt, which, yeah, is expensive but if the Blacks had been uber loaded like they're portrayed in fic, I don't think Dumbledore would have used the word "reasonable" to describe what was left to Harry.

Reasonable suggests to me that yeah, it's a decent amount. But it's not MORE than what Harry already had. It's not an EXTREME amount.

Another thing for me is the matter of Bellatrix's marriage. Narcissa and Lucius seem to genuinely be in love, but I don't think Bellatrix mentions Rodolphus, her literal husband, ONCE (correct me if I'm wrong but I'm fairly certain) in the ENTIRE series. She was in love with Voldemort. She probably didn't want to marry Rodolphus and clearly didn't care much about him. This suggests to me that the motivations behind this marriage were financial rather than romantic. Even Narcissa's marriage to Lucius was probably financially motivated, even though they were lucky enough to actually be a good match. Walburga married her own cousin- again, this was likely financially motivated.

The other clue is Grimmauld Place itself. Historically, wealthy/aristocratic families would have a london townhouse for the season, but reside most of the time in country estates or manor houses. There's no mention of any Black family estate at all, and if there was one Sirius being the eldest male heir would have inherited it, as would Harry later. The fact that the Blacks live only in their London house (which is not even that ostentatious, it's terraced and between Muggle houses. why would they choose this.) suggests to me that any country estate they might have had was sold. I guess you could argue that Cygnus and his daughters lived there, but he was the younger male so i find this unlikely. If anything, it would have gone to Alphard. It might have passed to Cygnus upon his death, but that still leaves Walburga without.

What I think happened was that the Blacks were a typical old money family with dwindling resources. Likely Orion and Walburga did not work, and yet still clung to a lavish, aristocratic lifestyle while burning the galleons they had. Grimmauld Place is in a state of disrepair, and yeah it's been abandoned for 12+ years but imo it probably started before that. Kreacher is OBSESSED with Black family heirlooms, which suggests that Walburga probably was too- likely she clung onto them as signs of her family's wealth and status, which was fading away before her eyes.

Personally I think Alphard probably inherited the bulk of what was left of the Black fortune, possibly an estate which he then either sold or gave to someone else- but presumably not Walburga, as she blasted him off the tapestry.

And the blasting of Alphard itself. Yeah Walburga hated Sirius and anyone who looked kindly on him, but imo if had she been rolling in it and money was of no concern, Alphard leaving Sirius some gold might not have been especially noteworthy to her. I believe that she was hoping that either she or Regulus would inherit the gold, and when he left it to Sirius she reacted VERY angrily. Because tbh, it might have just gone to him by default as the eldest male heir if Cygnus was dead by that time, which if this is the case seems likely because Alphard DID leave Sirius money. If it was just about him being fond of Sirius she likely would have blasted him off earlier. It seems to me like it was about the money, and to me explains why Walburga was so bitter and so possessive over her legacy.

edit: it is actually canon that inheritance in the Black family goes through the male line:

[nishnormp]

thinking way too hard about things that probably do not need this much thought

In lieu of tfc merc brainrot, I have decided to do some historical research and character workshopping to shape out the details of everything needed in ficwriting. I have nothing else to post (my art is not going well) so I might as well scream about this

P1: TF2 alternate history bullshit

Abraham Lincoln inventing rocket jumping before the existence of stairs, the entire thing with Australium, so on. Despite TFC having modern kevlar (as opposed to looney toons weapons, but a bit about that later) and a more serious/gritty tone, the setting is still within the TF2 universe; which means having a weird fusion of irl history and vaguely reasonable fantasy absurdities.

To clarify, I am not a bona fide history nut who knows absolutely everything (ffs my own country's history doesn't even play much in western incidents). I've just been doing research thru online articles, videos, and talking to other ppl who know more than me, so my brain can lack a bit for certain things; do correct me if I get anything wrong.

By the 1850s (estimation) Australia became a tech giant due to discovering Australium, making insane progress in basically every field (and also making their population very jacked). Newfound inventions also require raw resources, and this page confirms that australians pick their leader mostly based on pure strength, which begs the question; are they still connected to Britain? Would there still be a benefit for them to be linked to Britian the way they are?

There are many cases where nations plunder other nations just for natural resources; Britian is one particularly infamous force with many colonies, which makes me wonder if Australia ever resorted to snatching them just to afford all the material components that their tech requires. Australia was part of the British Empire up until 1901 irl (not too far from 1890), but the question about resources and sovereignty(even if symbolic) still remain (Britain likely wouldn't like a territory growing at terrifying and eventually unmanageable rates, and at that rate I doubt Australia would settle for middling trade margins)

(Well, apparently Saxton owns England. But that was when he discovered the internet)

There's also the ensemble of first gen mercs. RED and BLU recruit progressively less important mercs as time goes on, starting from important historical/media figures, to modern militant professional-lookin dudes, and finally to the current crop of crackheaded TF2 mercs we know and love. The Original mercs I mostly want to focus on are Abraham Lincoln and John Henry.

I'm not exactly sure if John Henry is even a real person, but he was a symbol for labor movements and the civil rights movement; the fact that he IS a real person in TF2 lore is p vital methinks, especially since him and Lincoln seem to be on the same team. Mercs are paid a lot, even the "bottom of the barrel" tf2 ones: scout has his merch collection to show for it, medic has his exotic animal parts, heavy has his gun ammo (and also casually gave a child 7k dollars), etc; could John Henry have spearheaded civil rights movements not just in America but also other territories (like africa) with the bread and merits he got for the job? Does he have a legacy with rouge merc groups (armed unions?) that fight against imperialism? Maybe even effect/radicalize Lincoln about some things??? Unethical business practices still persist even in Saxton's era (hell, he's an example) but maybe the (hypothetical) challenges to Britain's grasp on its colonies and evolution of munitions would give the people an edge.

I have no idea how a drastically colony-less Britain would affect the timeline of WW1 (esp in less popular side-wars like in South Africa where Britain was very much involved, which may be problematic since my interp of cmedic is FROM there but anyways) (btw they only won that bc they out-attritioned Germany, but by that point maybe the dutch or the americans would take over), but surprisingly enough WW2 ends at around the same time it does irl, despite my initial thought that a roided-out Allied Australia would be more than capable of turning the Axis Powers into a skidmark. The likely explanation for that is that the finer details were just not important for the tf2 comics that took place AFTER (fair enough), but as someone planning to write the 1930s mercs . Pain . My working explanation is that seemingly unaligned private contractors can get ahold of weapons easier than Certain governments, which makes mercs more popular than national soldiers for carrying out certain missions (plausible employer deniability baybeeee).

P2: Conflicting class meta - CHeavy edition

Onto something less heavy, another part of ficwriting is figuring out how characters are...characterized. The TFC mercs dont have much canonical info (I've already turned two of them into straight up ocs because I am NOT going to write p3dos from start to finish of a longfic) so I settle for looking at other things, like gameplay and ingame roles.

The first I focused on was cheavy, the leader of the group. Grouchy, but a surprisingly tolerant team player.

This IS reused from a previous post (im lazy) but the first bullet basically says "otherwise, offensive heavies are frequently looked down on and the power of the other team's defense will have you dead in no time". Gameplay-wise, CHeavy is considered the simplest class and the easiest one to master; most tfc gamers think its a common noob pick. His total health is pretty good, he occupies a big space so he can block narrow paths, and the way he attacks is simple; but he's slow even when b-hopping (grenades cant boost him either) so he can be outrun/picked apart by other classes, which really shows in tfc's most popular game format: capture the flag.

I've seen about a handful video of tfc gameplay that WASN'T ctf (or the slightly diff gamemode with a defense system), and even if the 4th bullet point is right, those two classes are usually doing more important things during ctf. My main point is that despite being the leader, he isn't the type of class to lead the charge.

The most reasonable thing I can think of is that he's just . Really good at strategy and can keep track of his team while reliably holding down a position. That, and his superior bulk makes him shine more outside of the gravel pits. Whatever it is, it does make more sense to me now that I revisit the comic panels where he is VERY spiteful that his teammates got killed (rather than calling them weak, they fr matter to him bc otherwise, he isn't getting shit done)

(Ik the reason hes the boss is bc big scary dude and karmic ass-handing via other heavy who actually respects his doctor but shh the fic demands reasons)

P3: Conflicting class meta - Cmedic edition

The contradiction I can immediately clock is the fact that cmedic never gets mentioned despite his omnipresence in his original game. Most hc's I've seen interpret him as the exact opposite of the current medic, which is a dedicated doctor who also happens to be a sweetheart (with very rare exceptions), but may I propose the theory that all mannco medic mercs are bastards? I'm 99% sure that the original medic was sigmund freud. TF2 medic is just a menace. Post WW1 most moral and noble medics would bust their asses at hospitals rather than sign up to a contract tying them down to just healing 8 other people and killing other people over and over, but that's just my hc (we're all making shit up, might as well have fun with it).

The most common citing for cmed's hidden menace energy is his virus weaponry, but I think his ingame role also shows it pretty well. Practically taking the scout's niche and making it less punishing by having straight upgrades of his two weapons, giving healing utility AND also being able to sniff out spies like a cscout (he can't diffuse bombs or trail caltrops, but he's already powerful as is). Imagine being cscout, having to compete for flag capture points with this guy who practically has everything you have but better (instead of leaving behind super visible spikes he has a college degree). This isn't even like the modern sniper vs spy debate where it can still be debated that spy has a unique niche with his mindgames, cmedic just straight up took copied his homework, 98% percent matching on the plagiarism bot.

Cscout and cmedic beef is very likely, but if cscout is a literal god at what he does then there won't be much issue, since the best cscout is ultimately better at flagrunning than cmedic. Its likely that cscout is simply human tho, so that's some drama that can happen.

Funnily enough the tfc class that gets the most weight and hate on its shoulders is sniper. This is because servers have a limit on how many snipers can join, and if a shitty sniper took up the slots, the rest of the team would be pretty pissed. Meanwhile, a competent sniper is the bane of every player's existence; a missed shot can still slow someone down until a medic cures them.

P4: cmedic backstory building hell - barely organized nonsense

Last one I swear. My drawings of cmedic explicitly portray him as a person of color- more specifically a cape malay, from the cape territory in South Africa; he even curses in malay in one of the posts. Ig I wanted the cast to be more diverse, but it did make his backstory somewhat harder to write.

Mann co is situated in New Mexico, far from SA. How and why did he get all the way there? With the fanon worldbuilding I set, what is stopping him from simply joining a nearer merc group? Probably heard of it through the grapevine, and travelled for fat stacks; wouldn't be uncommon for doctors (or mercs) to be highly motivated due to money. I wondered of what would set him apart from all the other hypothetical medic applicants that probably graduated from upstanding colleges like harvard, then I recall all those common hcs.

1)Most applicants assumed that the job would consist of primarily healing, without considering how bloodthirsty their company would be, and/or 2)the BLU team has been getting genuine medics and chewing them up like gum (and spitting them out utterly mangled, I suppose). There's also the possibility that some margin of these medics actually had some weapon training, but at that point a lot of time has been spent (also some conflicting motives there, I can't imagine the perks that a deadly merc job has over a hospital job unless the guy got a kick out of it).

My next idea was to make him a ww1 vet on the side of the British (australian? american?) colonies of SA, having joined midway after finishing his education. However this would clock his age during the current 1970s timeline to be around 81, pretty old; most of the tfc mercs would be 70s max around that time. Cmedic is visually the youngest of the mercs too, you can compare his smooth eyes to the more sunken cspy's eyes and there is a notable difference. This is really just an issue of me being on the fence about fully oc-fying him (a friend of him suggested making him a vampire, I am almost tempted to make it so).

In the case that particular hurdle is overcome, there are more details I have to iron out. I figured that his motives either come from wanting to financially help out his family after the war's sheer devastation, or just . a general resentment for the way things unfolded, and he swapped to merc work in the states to get properly paid for his work and (attempt to) fill the void in his soul. Maybe a mix of the two. An outlier in his community for being a godless man and having very material and tangible masters (science and money), he abandons the lofty ideals of nationalism and sides himself with the highest bidder in the private market. Also developed an insane immune system (trenches and exposure are no joke).

(Certain classes have shared characteristics across gens, like the demos' deranged smiles and engies' wholesome vibes. With sigmund freud, tf2 medic as the archetypal mad doctor, and tfc medic as the archetypal capitalist doctor, there are now three gens of doctors with dubious machinations.)

He'd probably be a great medic, respecting merc code and all (funfact tf2 medic mentions tfc demo by name, implying that he knows his real name and putting a dent in my theory that being on a first-name basis is a big deal actually , my countertheory to that is that grey mann gave him the team's files and tf2 medic wants to spite them). Cmedic also reverse-engineered the medkit and made a new version for non-gravel war missions, since the usual has several hard drugs (heals to full instantly and gives adrenaline boost, sounds sus especially if you read jarate's side effects) since he ended up somewhat caring about his pack of rabid animals

[sampoenjoyer]

It's really fascinating to me who the Aeons choose and choose not to gaze at. Like a great example of this to me is Gepard: He feels like the embodiment of preservation itself, yet isn't an emanator.

Gepard is someone who preserves a lot, he literally works a job dedicated to PRESERVING his home and people (I mean he's the Captain of the Silvermane gaurds who spend their time fighting off the Fragmentum to keep Belobog safe.) He PRESERVES his family. He continues to be close with his sister's, tries to care for them and make sure their not hurt of course, BUT ALSO he seems to be the only of the three siblings who still talks to their parents a lot, and attempts to keep the whole family together (such as when he encourages Serval to visit them in her quest, OR I BELIEVE HE DOES its been a bit since I did it.) He even preserves his family's legacy as the Landau's historically worked as/with the Guards (from the artifact set Guard of Wuthering Snow. He lives in a place that worships Qlipoth, one that has persevered for a long time despite harsh circumstances.

LIKE HE SEEMS LIKE A PRIME CHARACTER TO BE A EMMANATOR OF PRESERVATION, BUT HE ISN'T, AND THAT'S SO FASCINATING. (though I wouldn't be surprised if he became one ngl)

THERE'S PROBABLY OTHER CHARACTERS YOU COULD DO SOMETHING SIMILAR WITH BUT YEAH IT INTRIGUES ME.

ALSO DID HIS ICE POWERS EVER GET EXPLAINED?? Because he does have them out of combat, I remember it either being mentioned in dialogue or a story, unlike Lynx and Serval's, which seem to be purely gameplay in Lynx's case, and with Serval her lightning comes from her gadgets/guitar (?)

BUT NO YEAH. NEEDED TO GET THIS OUT MY BRAIN. RAMBLE OVER. ALSO PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I GOT ANYTHING WRONG (THOUGH I DONT THINK I DID BUT YKNOW SOMETIMES U MESS UP AND DONT WANNA SPREAD MISINFO.)

[astercontrol]

I probably shouldn't go off on a rant about this because 1. I definitely am not an expert, I'm just someone who read absolutely anything i could find as a child and internalized the linguistic patterns in a lot of what i read, and also 2. I am very much not a prescriptivist and in nearly all cases I am 99.9% fine with people screwing around with language in whatever way they want

but

the 0.1% that actually gets under my skin is people using archaic forms of English in ways that there's no historical record of them ever ever EVER being used

like. adding "eth" on the end of absolutely everything. replacing every instance of "my" with "mine." things that just scream "you skimmed through one page of shakespeare once and picked out 2 trends that caught your eye as looking the most iconically old-fashioned and you decided these are the defining characteristics of what you will now call Ye Olde English (the inaccuracy of that term is 3 whole other rants though)"

and i think that the reason my descriptivist, anti-prescriptivist linguist brain still gets so ticked off by this, is that… descriptivism is by definition describing language the way it is.

which usually, most of the time, means describing the living, currently growing and changing language that we speak. which means allowing for all the different ways people actually currently use that language-- as opposed to "prescribing" a "correct" way to use it, based on grammar rules that were already a little out of date from actual usage by the time they got nailed down in style manuals

but when you're describing a language that is not currently growing and changing-- the language of a particular range of years in history, which we currently know only from writings that survived from that time?

then the only approach that makes sense is to describe what we know from those writings.

otherwise, if you just make up a way to talk, and claim that's how people talked back then? that feels (at least from the viewpoint of my own personal and probably ill-advised outrage) a lot closer to prescriptivism.

and again: disclaimer that 1. this is still not a serious problem, compared to god knows what number of other more important things i should complain about, it's just a thing that irritates me… and 2. i am not even an expert by any means on what is the actual "right" way to use older forms of english

but here's like. a couple very basic details that are just the entry-level stuff that a literate child learns from (as i said before) reading absolutely anything they could find and internalizing the linguistic patterns in what they read.

"eth" is the third-person-singular ending for verbs. which means it's like the "-s" on the end of a verb that "he" or "she" or "it" is doing. He has a name = he hath a name. She lives here = she liveth here. It comes and goes = it cometh and goeth.

like probably at least 90% of the time you can tell whether "eth" is appropriate to use by asking yourself, "could I imagine this is just someone with a severe lisp using an s-ending verb here"

-st, on the other hand, is the "thou" form. Thou dost, thou livest, thou speakest. and "thou" doesn't just mean "you," it's the informal version of "you" that's used with close friends and family.

This is one that i admittedly got a cheat code on by being a kid who was raised speaking german as well as english. modern german still has separate formal and informal "you" forms, and the informal one still takes -st endings in german, so i had an unfair advantage there.

and there are also exceptions, irregular verbs where these rules won't work.

(like "be." The second-person thou-form of the word "be" is "thou art," it's not "thou ast" or "thou ist" or "thou beest.")

(the third person singular he-she-it form of the word "be" is the word "is," and i am fairly sure there's no time in history when it was "ith.")

(i could be very wrong though. like i said. i am NOT an expert)

"my" and "mine" are used just the same as we use them now, EXCEPT that "mine" can also be used instead of "my," if it comes before a vowel sound.

this is the same deal we currently still have with the words "a" and "an." the general rule here is that you can use "mine" where you could use "an." An eye? Mine eye. An uncle? Mine uncle. An old house? Mine old house. it goes by the sound that comes immediately after.

(of course, these things can be plural, unlike things referred to by "an." So there are cases where you would not use "an" but you would use "mine." Mine eyes. Mine uncles. Mine old houses. same deal just plural.)

"thy" and "thine" are possessive forms of "thou." they are used just like "my" and "mine," except they're for the person you're talking to (informally). Thine eye. Thine uncle. Thine old house.

"thee" is the object-pronoun form of "thou." It's the informal you, when the informal you is the object of the sentence-- when something is being done TO you, or in relation to you.

I see thee. They love thee. He gave thee a gift. "Thee" is to "thou" basically just what "me" is to "I," or what "him" is to "he."

so anyway that covers probably the majority of misuses that get on my nerves. but i am still not prescriptivist and i sure as heck am still not telling you how to talk or write. you can take it or leave it.

(side note. if you're creating a fantasy world and you include a speech pattern that's based on archaic english but doesn't follow how it was actually spoken or written, this won't necessarily bother me as long as it follows its own internal rules, especially if it's done in a creative way.)

(or if it's influenced by one of the actual lesser-known dialects of archaic english. that's cool too.)

(you know how T'Pau talked in the episode Amok Time in Star Trek TOS? at first it didn't even annoy me that much, how she kept saying "thee are" and "thee has," because it wasn't even one of the boring old misuses, it was a fresh new way i had actually never seen "thee" used before! ….and THEN, i gained a whole new level of respect for it, later on, when i found out it's actually based on a specific way that a Quaker dialect of English used to use "thee.")

[nor5tar]

Well, Agent Phoenix is a blank slate character so you can choose any of these. But it's all up to you.

Regarding the whole "less likely to have family connections", the Philippines is a lot more biased towards people with said connections, especially in government jobs (if you're buying into the "the agency sometimes has ties to the military/government" headcanon but it still applies to other parts of society) so it is a possible (but still kinda unlikely, in my opinion) scenario for Phoenix to have strong family ties that can lead to 'favors' and other similar things when it comes to gathering intel.

Onto the backstory suggestions. I'll just give a blanket warning that this will not paint the countries in a positive light if you dig deep into this and (based on the few in this fandom I've told some details about) would generally be upsetting. Also, I'm going off what I remember.

I'm going off the assumption you headcanon the games' time period to be in the 1960s.

If you're going for third gen, that would mean one of your Phoenix's ancestors would've been alive to see or experience what is called "benevolent assimilation", which may not be a fun thing to read about. It also might contribute to your Phoenix not being able to speak a lot of any of the Philippine languages, no matter which people group he's from (Some areas are hit harder). If you're going to draw from real historical events. It could tie to the theory of "Zoraxis and the agency were once allies", especially if you consider that Zoraxis as a company, may have been pushed onto Filipinos. But this requires a bit more research and nuance that I don't have time to dig into.

If WWII occurred in your interpretation, there can be a lot more nuance to his attitude towards conflict, especially depending on where he lived in at the time. And on those he grew up around. There's a lot of potential characterization elements if you know where to look. (Look into the many guerilla fighter groups in the Philippines since some were against their own fellow Filipinos, which may contribute to why he's treating this espionage career seriously, seeing how many other spies from guerilla groups ended up dead or tortured. But since he's American, he could be more sympathetic towards Americans but also quite resentful if he grew up hearing about the grizzly details of the death march. There is a lot of fodder for that.)

Depending on how you write his parents, you might want to look into OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) and their children. Due to historical events, Filipinos in healthcare can be a good place to start looking into.

There are more but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. The history between these two countries is quite interconnected and nuanced that I can't think of the right words for it since I could misinterpret a side or event.

This got longer than I planned. Whoops.

Thanks for the ideas!

Your asks sent me down a rabbit hole yesterday of looking into Phillipines/US history at the time /pos

So I've heard of some of those things, but I'll dig a little deeper into those

Thoughts of my Phoenix so far under the cut:

First of all, I'm going off of the timeline that IEYTD takes place in 1967 (which I saw from @agent-calivide 's post on the timeline)

(I'm also not American or Filipino and not the most knowledgeable about history so anyone can correct me if I'm wrong and sorry if I mess anything up🙏)

If that's the case and I'm saying Phoenix is in his early 30s, let's say 34. So he would have been born in 1933, right between WW1 and WW2. He would have been 6 when WW2 started and 12 when it ended in 1945, so while he wouldn't have participated, his father probably would have. It would have shaped his childhood and had a huge effect on how he thinks - I could definitely see it as what led him to want a job in an intelligence agency.

So, if we assume people around then are having kids in their 20s, that would put his parents as born around 1913 and their parents around 1893.

I'm also going off of the assumption that he'd have to be white-passing and definitely a US-born citizen to get a government job in that time period.

That tells me that both his grandparents and parents likely married someone born in the US - which causes issues because apparently anti-interracial marriage laws in the US counted for Filipinos, so relationships between them and white people would have been illegal. However, I think people do have a history of going around the law in cases like that.

And from what I can tell, even if the marriage was illegal, as long as their kid was born in the US that would make them a citizen.

I read that the manong generation was the first to come to the US as a group in 1903, right after the US made the Phillipines a colony. In that case, if I say one (or both) of his grandparents came over in 1903 (I can say they were born a little earlier than 1893 in that case, maybe ~1885), that seems to fit pretty well.

That's the extent of my thoughts so far. I think that vague family history works, but I haven't come up with any specifics.

One thing I didn't mention is that it's possible the family/some members went back to the Phillipines at some point - all that matters for my version is that Phoenix was born in the US and had some caucasian ancestors. I made the assumption that his grandparents/parents got married in the US, but there were Americans occupying the Phillipines at the time so that's also a possibility (though based on what I read there could be some very dark implications if his family were in the Phillipines during that time, especially WW2)

I'll look into anon's suggestions and see what comes up along the way, and I'm also open to new comments if anyone has thoughts based on that whole essay :]

[hammyham-o-o]

Favorite thing that John Laurens did historically?

Guys, I gotta admit, for such a huge John Laurens fan (both musical version and historically) I barely know about ANYTHING he did irl other than write essays against slavery, recruit 3000 men for the first all black military regiment, witness wayyy too many of his siblings die, be in love with hamilton, and be a kickass soldier. (Oh and the whole marrying out of pity and then never visiting his daughter thing. And the sexism, but I'd rather not dwell on that -_-)

AND THE TURTLE DRAWINGS MUAHAHAHA (guys I'm kidding I know he wasn't actually obsessed with turtles, but he did love art and nature, right?)

WAIT I THOUGHT OF SOMETHING OMG-

So I once read a Tumblr post about historical John Laurens being left handed (there's an amazing depressedrevolutionariesinlove comic about this too !!), and more specifically about one time when he got injured in his right shoulder in the midst of battle, and just tossed his sword to his left hand and absolutely ANNIHILATED the soldiers he was fending off. Imagine their absolute SHOCK when they think they've won because "hahaha his sword hand is knocked out" and then BOOM he's even better with his left? 😂

I'd link the post if I remembered where it was from arghhh, possibly @john-laurens? (GREAT blog by the way)

I also read part of the SALTIEST letter from Laurens to Kinloch once, but unfortunately don't remember where I could find it or what exactly it was about, other than this man's passive agressivness was through the ROOF lol (does anyone know what I'm talking about?)

So, in hindsight after writing this essay (😭), I do know quite a bit about John Laurens... but I still feel like there's SOOO much I don't know (and plz correct me if I got anything wrong in this post!) Also, I'd LOVE to hear any funny or notable stories you guys have about him!! :D

What's your favourite historical John Laurens moment (moots and random people who see this)??

Maybe we could make a chain!!! :DDD

Also just a lil note in closing, my favourite thing about him historically is probably his bravery, passion for justice/abolitionism, and love for hamilton because live laugh lams <3