#and some are given name then family name

[canisalbus]

You’ve most likely answered this before but what breed exactly is Machete? I’ve been trying to figure it out for a while I’ve thought maybe a saluki but the ears arnt right.

In theory his breed is fictional Podenco Siciliano, but he's not a purebred example. Out of existing dog breeds he looks closest to (and is related to) Ibizan Hound.

But sometimes I see Silken Windhounds that also kind of remind me of him. They just don't have the characteristic bat ears.

[shorthaltsjester]

the mighty nein - critical role

this is a place where i don't feel alone. this is a place where i feel at home.

[ofswordsandpens]

I'm sincerely very happy for anyone who is enjoying the show but every time I see takes that the show has improved the book characterizations or that the book characters are underdeveloped in comparison to the show...

[whetstonefires]

I think it's reached the status of pet peeve for me at this point, how common it is in the fandom for people to assume that adoption into the Jiang family was a unilateral good, that Wei Wuxian definitely wanted and which was withheld from him, thereby proving he was not valued enough by his sect and teacher.

Partly just because that's boring, and leads to boring interpretations of the characters, personal opinion.

Partly because it often tends to reflect an uncritical absorption of the in-universe classist belief that being the son of Wei Changze was inherently valueless, and not worth keeping for its own sake.

And maybe especially because I'm starting to feel like it arises from an overall really flat perception of adoption as an institution, that American fans of a Chinese piece of fiction should maybe subject to more scrutiny.

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville] was the only member of [Crown Prince Edward of Westminster's] original 1471 council not already on the king’s council and her name headed the list of those appointed as administrators in Wales during Edward’s minority. [She remained on the council after it was expanded in 1473 and granted significant new governing and judicial powers]."

"In 1478 Prince Richard [of Shrewsbury] married the Mowbray heiress. Like his elder brother he had a chancellor, seal, household and council to manage his estates. His council, like that of Prince Edward, comprised the queen [Elizabeth Woodville] and a group of magnates and bishops, few of whom were Woodville supporters [...] It was Elizabeth who mattered, for Richard resided with her and Rivers treated his affairs as their own."

-J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 / Michael Hicks, Richard III and his Rivals: Magnates and their Motives in the Wars of the Roses

[serpentface]

FAMILY TITLES AMONG THE HILL TRIBES

(ft. various linguistic notes and tangents)

In-universe Brakul’s self-given title of ‘Red-Dog’ is Brakul 'ne-Dainh' in his native language (Bict-Urbinnas dialect of the Highland language group) and Brakul 'Chin-Reyla' in Wardi. Ne-Dainh/Chin-Reyla is not something he treats as or considers an actual surname or identity, just a self-styled nickname. He already has a title.

Family names/surnames are not a native practice among the Hill Tribes (though some clans or individual families have adopted this practice), and all traditionally use titles that designate immediate ancestry, clan and tribe. These full titles are officially given when one comes of age and are spoken aloud in ceremony (with the entire direct male and female lines listed by name, with most traditions expecting 12 generations of each being named).

The function is to cement one’s sense of place in the world, and their place in a direct ancestral line, which puts the person under the full watch and guidance of their ancestors. It's also a critical method of recording lineage- the long held practice of each person memorizing at least 24 total direct ancestors allows for very long, largely accurate records of family history to be kept, with some people able to trace their ancestry all the way back to initial settlement of the Highlands (or even beyond).

Brakul’s full title is:

“Brakul virsum Kuligan et Borunil an Briyonis ne-Taig an Bict-Urbinnas”

Which dead literally translates to “Brakul son of Kuligan and Borunil of the Foothills (of) Red-Cattle, of the North (Urbin/Erubin) River Valley” but has a much richer meaning in the original language.

"BRAKUL VIRSUM KULIGAN ET BORUNIL"

The actual meaning here is closer to ‘Brakul, son of Kuligan and his father’s fathers, and Borunil and her mother’s mothers’.

“Virsum” means ‘child (son/daughter) of’ (the gender is contextual), but implies the person’s status as a descendant of a full male and female line of ancestors. A different word is used if you’re just saying ‘I’m so and so’s son”. The title describes him as a son of his father Kuligan and of Kuligan’s male line, and of his mother Borunil and Borunil's female line.

All ancestors (within this particular system of kinship, divided into one direct male line from the father and one direct female line from the mother, and not including husbands from the female line or wives from the male line) are invoked and credited with the word ‘virsum’. Speaking it as part of the personal title is part of the routine and necessary honoring of one’s ancestors, who watch over their descendants from the afterlife and can temporarily return to the land to guide and protect (and sometimes punish, or teach sharp lessons to) the living.

"AN BRIYONIS NE-TAIG"

The actual meaning here would be understood as ‘clan/people of the foothills where cattle are lit red by the setting sun'.

‘Briyonis’ is the word for ‘foothill’, citing his clan’s specific location being the foothills that form the slopes of the north Urbin river valley. He is of a lesser clan within the powerful North Urbin River tribe. His clan benefits from close affiliation to their more powerful ruling clans located directly in the river valley, which grants them access to a greater variety of cultivated foods, but their actual position in the foothills still renders them predominantly reliant on cattle for subsistence. Clan names referencing cattle or horses are very common, given their frequent centrality to life.

The ‘ne-Taig’ literally means ‘red cattle’, but the ‘ne’ color word for red specifically invokes shades of red seen in and cast by a rising/setting sun. This red cast is culturally regarded as a unique beauty and evocative (and part of the name) of the solar god Hraighne. The foothills his clan is physically located on are a vantage point from which the western horizon is not fully obscured by mountains, and they experience very striking sunsets and are directly touched by the light. This is fairly unique to this location, and is invoked in the clan name and identity. ‘Ne-Taig’ here suggests a visual of grazing cattle illuminated red by the sun as it crosses the horizon.

‘Ne-Dainh’ carries the same implication, a dog illuminated red by setting sunlight. The Wardi language does not have a comparable word for a sunlit red and ‘Chin-Reyla’ really does just mean ‘(orangeish) red dog’ (‘reyla’ is specific to orangey-red colors, which is the closest match he could get. There’s no way to impart the meaning of ‘sunlit-red dog’ in Wardi that is non-clunky enough to be appropriate for a name).

"AN BICT-URBINNAS"

‘an Bict-Urbinnas’ is fairly simple, Bict means ‘north’, and 'Urbin' is the name of the specific river that stems from a northern and eastern tributary. This river has a very ancient name (or a derivative of one) that predates settlement by the Hill Tribes, and its exact meaning is lost.

The root -(n)nas designates a river valley, but has strong implications of being an esteemed and bountiful place, rather than solely a literal geographical descriptor (as the river valleys are centers of power and trade in the highlands). It may be a loanword from the Wardi language family, as its usage is VERY similar in form and function to the Wardi -(n)nos, which also suggests a place of esteem and bounty (more specifically having connotations of a kingdom).

’An’ literally means ‘of’, but in the specific sense of describing the place and identity of a collection of people. ‘an Bict Urbinnas’ would be understood in speech as ‘of the north Urbin River Valley (people)’. The clans historically settled in and around the valley of the North Urbin River form the totality of the Bict-Urbinnas tribe.

The ‘Urbin’ word predates the contemporary Wardi name ‘Erubin’ for the river, the latter of which invokes the semi-mythological founding figure Erub, who himself was of a Wardi tribe located downriver to the south of the Highlands. The real historically extant ‘Erub’ was most likely named Urub after the river, with his cited name shifting over the centuries in folklore, and the Wardi name for the river shifting with it.

‘Erubin’ as a corruption of ‘Urbin’ functions very well in Wardi language due to ‘-bi/bin’ denoting something as a ‘gift’, usually in a more metaphorical sense. ‘Erubin’ is understood as meaning ‘(The river that is) Erub’s gift’, and the Erubin/Urbin river is a key tributary to the much larger Black river, one of the key rivers that feeds the region's wetter and more fertile west. This 'gift' meaning also occurs in the name of the southeastern Imperial Wardi city-state Erubinnos, which is understood as meaning ’((The kingdom that is) Erub’s gift’. He is considered to have conquered and taken the land (from the core city's actual founders, the Wogan people) and established a kingdom there in the early days of warring Wardi tribal monarchies.

[epiphainie]

.

[shih-coulda-had-it]

LEAK NIGHT

[mx-giraffe]

A lil present for @tinymonstrosity and Mesmerized <333

I was feeling the creeping beginning of art block so I decided to smash the block with a sledgehammer by doing a smol baby sketch of our favourite silly lil ice prince from Under A Moonless Sky.

BONUSS:

[minkschasijasi]

HAPPEY (5-DAY-LATE-TO-THE-PARTY-LMAO) VALENTINES WITH MY BBGS !!!!

Also if yall got some the usagi chronicles deets then hmu !! I need some of that lore…

[tiffanybluesclues]

Every week someone makes a post about how annoying it is that Dick Grayson fans don't acknowledge his flaws, and every week someone replies with an explanation that the flaws OP listed are entirely fanon and inconsistent with canon as it actually happened and at this point I have to assume that none of those explanations are ever going to stick because clearly some people just want the fanon to be true.

Anyway, I'm just putting this here for me to edit and add relevant-to-the-topic links later so I'll have them nicely at hand to read and sooth my frustrations when it gets real bad out there. (Echo chambers are good when we use them to drown out character mischaracterizing fanon.)

[bayofwolves]

Do you have any thoughts on what Meilin’s mother was like? She’s such a source of untapped potential in canon. What happened to her spirit animal? Does General Teng share stories about her with Meilin? Do she and Abeke bond over losing their mothers at such a young age? I feel like she’s one of the many many things the authors forgot about :(

Yes! I agree, we really missed out on learning about Meilin's mom. I haven't developed her too much yet, but I'll tell you what I do know.

I currently have her name as Qianyue (骞月), but that is subject to change. Her spirit animal was a yellow-throated marten named Sujia. She was only twenty years old when she died giving birth to Meilin.

Qianyue did not get the chance to become a Greencloak, as her betrothal to Teng was arranged quite soon after her Nectar Ceremony. She was no warrior, conforming to what Zhong expected of women in that period, but Meilin desperately wishes she knew her. Everything she knows about Qianyue came from General Teng and her maternal grandparents. They told her she was clever and artistic but solitary, spending long hours in the garden of their mansion with Sujia by her side, lost in her own thoughts. With the guidance of her Marked parents, Qianyue spent much time working on her bond, too, learning to channel Sujia's speed and agility. Had her circumstances been different, she could have made a fine Greencloak. Teng always expressed that he loved her deeply, and she him, and Meilin doesn't doubt that -- but she sometimes wonders if her mother felt unhappy in her life. Married so young, unable to choose her own path, and on her deathbed five years later. It's not a life Meilin would have wanted.

Sujia survived the initial loss of her human partner and lived in agony for several more years. She was allowed to roam the family mansion freely and wanted for nothing in terms of comfort, but she never found peace. She retreated into herself and, over time, started to act more like a common animal. Finally, when Meilin was six, she refused all food and fasted to death. Meilin's memories of her are hazy, but she remembers being very little and sitting with her as she gazed wistfully into the garden where Qianyue used to walk, stroking her fur, encouraging her to eat with offerings of fruit, asking her what her mother was like. Sujia, of course, couldn't reply. When she died, it devastated Meilin. Sujia was her closest connection to her mother, and it felt like Qianyue was dying all over again.

Meilin grieves for her mother in a strange way, given that she never knew her, and that she herself was the cause of her death. That's a fact that has always been difficult for her to reckon with, even if she knows it was not her fault.

The nature of Qianyue's death has shadowed Meilin her whole life. It has left her with a fear of pregnancy and childbirth, and is one of the reasons why she and Rollan decide to adopt in adulthood.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Maybe the truth at the heart of Shadowstruck is the importance of family. Because the most compelling stories in this universe are about what happens when you tell parents that some of their children have no right to their love, care, and protection. It destroys what should be the strongest and most natural bonds of love, and that simple horrible thing leads to all the complicated problems in their oppressive society.

[maxellminidisc]

Hey just a heads up cause I'm seeing pics of it on my dash a lot today, but the Fete d'Jean or Arc is a festival rooted in fascism, specifically one very much based on antisemitism. The far right figures who founded it, specifically the group Act10n Fr4nca1s3 (censoring cause I don't want fash in my notes) based it around Joan D'Arc's narrative as a force against "foreigners" and through this they turned her into a symbol of nationalism and pushing out the Jewish people of France (mentions of this festival start on pg. 29 in regards to "Place de la Pyramide" and then mentioned by it's original name under the "Writers of French Nationalism" section but honestly read this whole thing).

It rebranded a bit in later years to be more "welcoming" but lots of nationalist/fash are still highly preoccupied with the festival to today. Even so far as to direct hatred and scorn at the festival's first Black Joan of Arc. So frankly, I'd rather steer clear the damn thing.

And for some further context, I remembered this because of seeing this post at one point, scroll down to when op starts talking about WWII and you'll see mentions of this festival. TW for antisemetism/antisemetic art!!!

[impossible-rat-babies]

I really should sit down and flesh out eyrie’s ex-wife because the two of them were quite close, and loved and understood each other a great deal. even if they did encounter each other as they are now, there would still be that recognition—the whole “despite everything, it’s still you.”

and the two of them could still see how they loved each other—what drew them to each other so long ago. the fragments of the people they were are still there, deep down.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

“Everyone always asks about the name change. It’s simple really, I didn’t want to carry around my family anymore but I’m stuck carrying around the last thing they did to me. So, I figured I’d own it. The only person I belong to is myself, and so I am Schrödinger’s cat.”