#anyways! historical context for nerds like me:

[skitskatdacat63]

“Amore et Timore” - King Fernando I “El Animoso”

[uldahstreetrat]

Im trying to take note of real world influences in XIV for some projects going forward, like languages used in areas (French names in Ishgard, Roman terms in Garlemald) or like in aesthetics I suppose (like Radz-at-han in particular reminds me of Istanbul), and I'd like to hear others' thoughts about those kinds of influences that they've noticed

(little more context on things im working on under the cut)

right now this has a lot to do with things like stamps lmao I have in fact gotten kinda into stamp collecting now and I'd like to design some for XIV areas based on similar irl counterpart countries? like regular stamps and stuff like a sort of Garlean version of US postal war savings stamps? so having irl countries to reference for stamp styles would be helpful to like figure that stuff out

and honestly all of this is just part of making a physical copy of Q'ihnn's journal more complicated than it needs to be but never let it be said that I dont have a love of unnecessarily dense world building

plus by having a list of reference countries I can also build out other kinds of like, souvenirs? in the journal from the places visited across msq - a lot of things I see people keep in journals, especially travel ones, are stuff like wrappers or other packaging, pieces of maps, receipts (that's its own rabbit hole ive gone down), ticket stubs, and other various little paper things along with photos and drawings (which are much easier to manage in comparison)

cause a lot of this shit doesnt extensively exist within the game often beyond a mention in a stray line of dialogue or two so there's advantages to having irl cultural and historical reference to make something that feels real - plus im often off in lala fantasy land in my head because im stuck at home a lot, im not exactly well traveled, so im sure its easy for me to miss especially like language use in certain areas (I didnt even notice how French Ishgardian names were until someone else made a joke about it, it just doesnt occur to me)

like some of these influences are fairly obvious, right, like Doma and Kugane being Japanese inspired and Greek influence around Sharlayan (which the Greek/Roman dichotomy that Sharlayan and Garlemald have going on is its own whole thing I could go into btw they're so similar yet different in such interesting ways) - but places like Ul'dah?? not a clue. Ala Mhigo? no idea. The Crystarium and Eulmore in the first??? oh I'd put my head through a wall trying to thing of a real world counterpart for reference

granted now having said that someone is going to point out something obvious that I just entirely missed some way or another lmao but like that's why im asking, right? anyway if you have nerd ass thoughts too just hit me up

[cecilysass]

Why I Think The X-Files Isn’t Really As Much About Watergate and Governmental Conspiracy As Everyone Claims, Maybe Including CC

This one’s really nerdy, get ready.

Media covering the X-Files has always emphasized how much the show capitalizes on a post-Watergate worldview, a paranoia about government and belief in high-level conspiracy. I think CC signed on to this interpretation entirely. So much so that he sure kept on feeding those conspiracy plot lines in the mytharc—even when every other plot line was going hungry. 

So much so that in the revival, he really created a problem for himself, which the media picked up on. Government conspiracy nuts in 2016 no longer were hot sensitive 90s guy outcasts like Mulder or quirky cuddly little nerds like the Gunmen. Government conspiracy nuts in 2016 were media savvy right wing commentators manipulating the masses, getting presidents elected through willful misinformation.  The revival series tried to address this head on with Tad O’Malley, a character who represented this new development. But it was definitely a sticky issue: the sociopolitical context of the original show was gone. Was the show relevant any more?

I would argue yes, or at least it could have been. I would argue that the interpretation of the XF as a show primarily about conspiracy at high levels of power and governmental manipulation is a flawed one to begin with. I think this take makes the show way too thematically narrow, limits it, and obscures the show’s more important appeals.

In the 1990s, media coverage of the show almost always mentioned Watergate the historical event. Sometimes coverage discussed how Watergate was directly referenced on the show (Deep Throat, meetings in parking deck, CSM and Diana both living in the actual Watergate), but also Watergate’s specific effect on creator Chris Carter, who specifically cited it as a formative event. Often it was claimed that the show’s popularity with audiences was rooted in post-Watergate suspicion of government.

I think this could have been true generally speaking, although I always thought it somewhat overestimated the impact of Watergate on the XF’s target audience. Consider that in 1997 many in the key 18-49 demographic would not even remember Watergate especially well, or at all. If you were 30 in 1997, you were 6 when the story broke in 1973. I’m sure that could have left a mark on you, but I also think it might have been something that simply left a much bigger impression on Boomers the age of Chris Carter himself.

Me? I was in college in 1997, and I was nonexistent / unborn during Watergate. So I didn’t remember it, and it held no personal significance in my worldview regarding the United States. I don’t think it ever would have occurred to me to trust that the government was telling me the truth all the time, and I wouldn’t ever be shocked to learn I was being intentionally misled. As a late Gen Xer growing up in the Reagan administration with post-Watergate ideas floating in the air, I just assumed the worst from the get-go.

So I admit: sometimes the earnest speeches from Mulder and Scully about the Truth and being lied to from men in power and a government we purport to trust seemed a little repetitive and obvious to me. It’s taken me a while to realize that these speeches are voicing something very specific and historically real, the furious indignation of Boomers that we can’t trust our institutions. I think I felt like, yeah, okay, okay, I get it. I never had the same kind of trust in institutions to lose in this respect, but this was a major betrayal for people my parents’ age.

All of this to say, I don’t think that the conspiracy worldview and the appeal of the paranoia about government was a big part of the draw for me. I’m not saying it wasn’t for many or even most others. But my instinct about storytelling is that that is a little too abstract or bloodless of an appeal to really hook most viewers anyway. Like, you might be interested in conspiracy to get you to watch initially, sure, but that’s probably not going to keep you watching for years. And it’s really not going to be enough to motivate you to tune in to a revival series in the 2010s.

So what was the big hook for viewers? You’re probably expecting me to say MSR, and if so, I’m going to surprise you a little. I do think that was part of it for some percentage of viewers, but I think it is more complex than that.

I think the show tapped into a late 20th century urge for individuals to become part of something greater than ourselves. Something we might think of as numinous or transcendent. Maybe something meaningful and good (like a quest for truth) — or maybe something that will look down and judge us, for good or ill. Something that means that we are not lonely in the universe. This puts X-Files squarely in an overall 1990s angels and aliens otherworldly trend. 

(Personally, and this could be an only me thing, but I can never quite separate out Tony Kushner’s Angels in America and The X-Files in my mind; Angels debuted on Broadway the same year X-Files first aired, and I was exposed to both at about the same time. They’re both about apocalypse and personal crisis and the end of the millennium and the transformative power of authentic relationships with others. I could do a whole thing on this.)

The desire for transcendence is the part of the show that is summed up by Mulder and Scully watching lights together in the sky, by Mulder’s wonder at seeing ships or aliens, by the entire notion of “I Want To Believe,” by the idea expressed in the last episode of the original series that both Mulder and Scully share—that the dead aren’t lost to us, that “they speak to us as part of something greater than us - greater than any alien force.” Mulder says to Scully that if “you and I are powerless now, I want to believe that if we listen to what’s speaking, it can give us the power to save ourselves.” There’s definitely a part of the show that is about little lonely human beings finding how they fit in a big, unfeeling universe.

The show's interest in conspiracy figures into this. Because after all, what are conspiracy theories but reassurance that there is some meaning behind everything after all? That there is some powerful system running the show, even if that system might be kind of evil. A grand organized secret an individual can actually uncover, rather than a bunch of random haphazard incompetence and chaos. I think this is part of the show's interest in transcendence, but only one part.

And there’s also part of the show that’s about a hero who is wracked with loneliness and alienation — and then two heroes who are wracked with loneliness and alienation—finding a kind of salvation in Truth, in Justice, in Trust, in Partnership, and, ambiguously, Love. (Sometimes Mulder sounds more like a 19th century Romantic hero than anything else.) This makes it a little allegory about late 20th century individualism and alienation and desire for meaning and authenticity and connection with others. 

I think what appeals to people emotionally in the show is that part of us that wonders: is there a universe that pays attention to me? Is there anyone who listens to me and who really, really knows me? Does anyone besides me care what is true and what is a lie? Will I find those who are lost to me and repair the parts of me that are broken? Is there anyone who would give up their life for mine?

I think that the desire to connect with others is a really basic human drive, and it’s most obviously foregrounded in the show the Mulder-Scully partnership. Even romance aside, we see from the first episode that these are two people with distinct worldviews who want to communicate, who see something in one another, who are hungry to be understood by one another. They ultimately see the other person as someone who reflects and affirms who they are. The partnership is definitely the emotional hook of the show, whether you see that as a romantic ship or not, and it thematically echoes the show’s overall themes of wanting there to be more in the universe. 

When the show was at its most emotionally devastating, it was one or both of its protagonists losing a relationship or connection that was important to them, or it was their frustration that their efforts were not meaningful on a larger scale: grief over a loss, a coverup that meant Justice wasn’t served or Truth was concealed.

When the show’s moments were most emotionally triumphant, they were always moments of overt connection, usually between Mulder and Scully, both more dramatic (“you’re my touchstone”) and subtle (reaching out to take a partner’s hand in Pusher or Field Trip). When there were moments of triumph concerning the government conspiracy, it felt more allegorical, like information (Truth) getting free, not progress made in specific governmental reform or anything. 

(And honestly, the moments of triumph against the conspiracy were pretty few and far between. We left the original run of show with the protagonists on the run, pretty sure there was going to be an alien invasion in coming years that had been facilitated by complicit human conspirators, so this conspiracy thread of the plot apparently didn’t even seem like the most important and emotionally satisfying story to resolve.)     

CC wrote a NY Times piece addressing the changing landscape on conspiracies in 2021, discussing why he was skeptical of a new UFO report. He was perceived as having the authority to write this because he created a show that quintessentially addressed government conspiracies about visitors from space.

But for me, the question of whether the government was hiding evidence of extraterrestrial life was really not the main takeaway from TXF. At least no more than the question of whether there needed to be an investigation into the undue influence of witchcraft in Scotland was my main takeaway of Macbeth.

I do acknowledge that I may have been in the minority. Maybe this is not how most people felt. But I also wonder if sometimes the urge to make the show primarily about political paranoia became a distraction from what it did best—these larger, more universal themes. I wonder if that is partly what was so frustrating about the storytelling of the revival.

[meikuree]

stuff li aixue says

this is a quick compilation and translation of mandarin chinese segments in exordia, for reference purposes or just the discerning curious reader out there. quotes aren't limited to aixue, of course, but I wanted a catchy title.

I do have the memory of a single-celled organism and am not really skilled at combing through chapters for that one quote, so if I've missed something you're welcome to send it to me to be added.

spoilers ahead.

note: all mandarin chinese bits in Exordia are rendered solely in Hanyu Pinyin and not Hanzi, so I've done some guesswork for hanzi (in places where they're not immediately obvious) based on context.

Chaya's Protocol:

A woman in a red T-shirt trots right past her, headed toward the angel. She’s shooting video on her phone, chattering excitedly: “Jiào tā mén xiān yòng huā cài cauliflower hé xī lán huā tǒng pì yǎn bā, zhè cái suàn shì universality of fractal behavior de lì zǐ!”

=> 叫他们先用花菜 cauliflower 和西兰花捅屁眼吧, 这才算是 universality of fractal behavior 的例子!

ENG: right, tell them to shove some cauliflower and broccoli stalks up their ass then, that's a real example of the universality of fractal behavior!

note: ah, Aixue's memorable entrance. 捅 (lit. poke) 屁眼 (lit. butt) 吧 roughly means 'why don’t you stick it up your ass'. she's insulting the person she's talking about, presumably for saying something incorrect about universal fractality.

-

chapter 33:

Master Sergeant Zhang: Máo gān, zhè shì máo jiān. Wǒ mén xū yào jǐn jí kōng zhōng zhī yuán!

=> 矛杆、这是矛剑。我们需要紧急空中支援！

ENG: High Spear, this is Sharp Sword. We need urgent air support!

-

chapter 39:

Aixue: Wǒmen bìxū yào Pò fǔ chén zhōu… / Bù xíng! Wǒmen bìxū yào pò fǔ chén zhōu!

=> 我们必须要破釜沉舟... / 不行！我们必须要破釜沉舟

ENG: we need to fight to the very end... / no! we need to fight to the very end!

note: Aixue says 破釜沉舟, which is a four-word chengyu (idiom) that roughly means 'to pursue your last resort'; it literally means to sink one's entire fleet in an offensive, and figuratively refers to cutting off your own means of retreat i.e., to fight to the very death and leave yourself no choice.

-

and some trivia on other Chinese phrases:

lala (拉拉): Chinese slang for 'lesbian'. comes from lazi (拉子), from the novel Notes of a Crocodile by famous Taiwanese lesbian author Qiu Miaojin.

T / P: the Chinese counterpart to the butch/femme spectrum. T = tomboy, P = po ('wife') or also pretty girl, apparently.

tongzhi (同志): Huang Lim says this to Chaya. this is slang for homosexual in Chinese, but also means comrade (with historical communist associations), hence Huang Lim phrasing it as comrade first.

Li Aixue: aixue's name itself makes sense once you learn about her whole shtick with prajna, a fact that impresses me because Seth had already set her name into stone as early as the precursor short story for Exordia. just things that make you wonder if they'd planned everything out from the very beginning. anyway, Aixue sounds like 爱学, i.e., 'love for learning'. get it? there are many possible surnames with the hanyu pinyin Li, but my pet theory is that Li = 厉 (lit. 'powerful'), so that putting it all together into 厉爱学 means Aixue is an ultra nerd.

[tansyuduri]

Merlin Loregasm Rewatch S1E4

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my rewatch of Merlin focusing on the lore. I am a giant nerd so pretty excited about this. We're on THE POISONED CHALICE

OKAY so @catsconflictscopicsandchamomile our resident Old English expert explained to me something really interesting. the spell used by Nimueh draws its power from the Spear-Danes, the semi pagan culture featured in Beowulf (Who had their own lake lady in Grendel's mother who was likely a priestess of the old religion And linguisticly called Disir) There is more though The first lines of the spell also seem to be Nimue saying she owes her magic to the spear Danes (that Grendel the monster in Beowolf ate) At this point I'm wondering if its meant to establish she is saying HEY MY SPELLS ARE PAGEN This will not be the only Beowulf reference in this episode. (Its never referenced or quoted after this episode) I'm wondering if the translators threw this in as a joke or easter egg Or in my freind's words "fuck it. lets canonize Beowulf in this universe real fast" (Okay I just discovered one of their choices I'll talk about later and HOLY FREAKING SHIT)

Mercia is traditionally thought of as a kingdom formed during the anglo-saxon settlement of Britain (Which occurs post Merlin acoirding to Merlin having saxons of enemies in later seasons) The historic king Arthur if he existed was said to have fought against the anglo saxons but this is just a footnote as we are focusing on Merlin Universe) HOWEVER a 13th century text says "“Pagans came from Germany and occupied East Anglia, that is, the country of the East Angles; and some of them invaded Mercia, and waged war against the British.” 

British here being Original pre-saxon inhabitents. SO it is possible that a Mercia existed before The Anglo-Saxons. This could also be the Historian using the name he knows. Bayard is not a recorded later King of Mercia either so good choice in name if we want him to be a Britonic king from a Mercia founded before the Anglo-Saxons apear. Fun fact Mercia also resisted leaving paganism longer than any other Anglo-Saxon kingdom! BUT Anyway in Merlin Mercia is a thing, Its ruled by Bayard, and its color is blue. It would be in the midlands of England most likely.

Also he was at war with Camalot, but now is not. I wonder if that has to do with Uther having not inherited but taking over the kingdom! Uther: The treaty we sign today marks an end to war and the beginning of a new friendship between our peoples

I also think Uther as a peacemaker is interesting, especially as we see this more than once. It might be why some people view him as "A good king."

So this at first glance SEEMS like it hints more toward paganism. Beltane is a Gaelic May Day festival. But its renamed version May Day was not exactly Christianized. See most other big Gaelic festivals (usually religious) Were kinda taken over by Christianity when it came. Yule became Christmas Samhain became All Saints Day (All Hollows Eve) ETC. Beltane was also celebrated in some places ALONG with Christianity until the 1800s. (Scotland did this specifically) In modern times Beltane is VERY Pagan. And it is very possible this hints further toward the Camalot is pagan or just nonreligious side of the entire debate. (Despite people using words like god or hell.) But it's not quite as conclusive as many other type of references would be.

(For context despite it saying we've Arthur here is talking about Merlin, who just announced his cup was poisoned, exclusively which is interesting!) See slow gin is a type of alcohol made with juniper berries and blackthorn fruits. It was traditionally brewed (With a lot of home brewing) in October and November and used as a warming drink in the depths of winter. AS you can tell this episode does not take place in winter. I think there are two possibilities for Arthur picking this drink specifically to mention despite that. The first is that as a prince perhaps the drink is available to him year round if he wants it and he doesn't know that is not true of most people yet. The second is he is so panicked at the prospect of the trouble Merlin is in his mind latched on to the first drink that popped into it.

Okay, so Mort means death in Latin. And the ending suffix here Usually makes the word an adjective from proper or place names BUT often appears in flower naming. So basically this plant is named The "Death Flower" Flower or "Capital D Deathly" Flower

Gaius: it can only be found in the caves deep beneeth the forest of Baloch The flower grows on the roots of the Mortaeus tree.

Uh okay. THERE IS SOME SHIT GOING DOWN with this plant. First of all, flowers growing from the roots of a tree is just weird. flowers are basically there to attract things to pollinate a plant usualy. If a tree has flowers they do not grow from the roots. Second of all its kinda weird for flowers or trees to grow in DEEP caves. Sunlight cannot read them there. I would give it a pass if it did not say deep because if there were cracks in the ceiling of the cave that could put light though. It does kinda explain why they can ONLY be found there though. If its so odd and specialized it might be the only place it can grow.

This flower is either innately magical in some odd way or does not conform to evolution. So at this point I am pretty sure it was bred/engineered/magiced into being but some sorcerer. Likely specifically for poisoning people. and that person wanted to limit the people who knew of it and thus kept it in once set of caves. BUT SOMHOW news got out about it. Ok so I also looked up Baloch. In Welsh it can mean dig or sorry. In Irish it means boy and in scottish the same thing. So no info to be gleaned from that

Gauis: A cockatrice-- it guards the forest. Its venom is extremely potent, a single drop would mean certain death. OK first of all I'm doubling down on there being some past sorcerer, Because they were FOR SURE using these as guard dogs. Second of all I LOVE Merlin paying fast and loose with magical creatures from folklore because I can too in my fics A Cockatrice in folklore was a monster created when a toad or snake egg was hatched beneath a chicken. It could kill with a look, or a breath, or a touch, and was basically a two-legged dragonish creature with a rooster head. In the Merlin world it is very diferant. We'll see one soon! "Few who have crossed the mountains of Isgard in search of the Moraeus flower have made it back alive." Yeah can't find any meaning behind the name Isgard! BUT HAVE I MENTIONED I THINK A SORCER ONCE LIVED IN THE CAVES/FOREST.

Okay I think this is a reference to the actual historical job of taster. Basically important people (ESP royalty) would hire someone to taste all their food before thay ate it. That way if it was poisoned the taster would die instead of them. It was viewed as a pretty plum gig because poisoning didn't often happen (ESP if people knew there was a taster) and the taster got to eat REALLY good food and get paid for it. I think its also an interesting character detail that while this kinda implies that Uther might have someone (At least for his private food and not banquets) We see multiple times that Arthur in fact does NOT. It is quite possible he managed to put his foot down and get out of this somehow because he believes it to be wrong. Which not gonna lie is a very Arthur thing to do.

(Context: Arthur talking about how Gaius said they can save Merlin if they get the leaf so it is not a fools errand) Waiiit is this trying to imply that Gaius was the one who brought up the idea that one could use the old religion to give Uther a son? I mean we knew he was the messenger. but HOLY SHIT. And if that is true, Uther somhow forgave him? Why would Uther forgive him? The only thing I can think is if Gaius talked about how magic had tricked him and gave Uther something else to blame. This is all conjecture though. Uther could be referring on how Gaius is close to Merlin or something else. It just feels like it might be a nod at what all went down around Arthur's birth.

Okay so this is Merlin quoting Beowolf here. A Poem that is yet to be written down but might have had some oral tradition and actually takes place at the traditional time Arthur is said to have lived. Merlin is basically talking about how Arthur/Beowolf is endowed with honnor. This happens right after Arthur decides to ride out to save Merlin.

Magic Rule Established: Potions/Poisons can be more potent if magic is used in their preperation

Okay MORE Beowolf

Merlin says Arthurs name then basically talks about a young man doing good deeds.

Playing hard and fast as I said. LOOK Dinosaur!

Okay so more Beowolf At this point I am 99.99% sure the people hired to write the spells at the time where having the time of their life. Let me explain

This line talks about gifts of treasure (the light) he conjuress to help Arthur. Fine. BUT then it mentions Arthur being under his father's protection. Expect Merlinto protectg him. The spell writers used a freaking old english poem to let Merlin call himself Arthur's "daddy" I am not sure what I am expected to do with this knowledge. (It might have been chosen so they could use the next line of the spell but THEY DID NOT HAVE TO DO THIS) The next line (Which is actually also the next line in the poem) says something about how so that when Arthur is older his companions can stand with him when war comes.

Okay so yeah turns out there is no tree or roots. I'm chalking this up to he said she said. STILL GOING WITH THE SORCERER.

OKAY so it a potion is made using magic the antidote may ALSO need magic

Oh look our first hint Merlin is immortal. I find his brand of immortality intersting. HE CAN DIE he just comes back after a bit.

[aphfanficwriters]

Every month we will pose a question and collate responses as a fun and informal little exercise in getting to know each other and spark discussion.

For Hetalia's 18th anniversary, we asked our writers:

“How did you first get into Hetalia?”

Beetroot / @council-of-beetroot: People had recommended it to me prior since I'm a geography nerd but I heard it was offensive. At one point I read a fanfic about Hetalia Lithuania and that piqued my interest. But then like six months, around March of 2022, later I recalled my sister talking about a funny scene from Hetalia. So I decided to look up Hetalia out of context on YouTube. I decided nothing could be more offensive than I was at 13 so I watched that and then knew I had to watch the show. I watched the show in a weekend. It was particularly funny to watch at the time because my best friends that year in highs were foreign exchange students from Germany and Japan. Anyway here I am now.

Angel / @billowingangel: I got into Hetalia around 2015 by reading x Reader fanfiction and I stumbled upon a Germany x Reader on DeviantArt and then I went down a rabbit hole of the Hetalia countries x readers. The x reader fanfiction comforted me immensely as I was struggling greatly at the time and that was probably the worst time of my life. Then I found other Hetalia fanfiction and fanart, and I then watched some of the episodes on YouTube. Since then Hetalia has been something of great comfort and nostalgia to me. Hetalia honestly means so much to me and there's been so many lovely people in this fandom that I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with 💗

Didi / @teaedon: Searched my country on deviantart, found Hetalia OCs comics. Watched the anime when it had just 1 or 2 seasons out (both 2009), and began to keep up with blog and page translations on Livejournal (did I understand English at the time? Barely lmao). Then jumped from Livejournal to Tumblr but because a funny-unrelated-to-Heta blog, but soon more than later I started following Hetalia blogs... Made my sideblog in 2015; I should have done that sooner, it's around that time that my actual main fandom was another for a while. Even with the manga hiatus ending in 2021 (also new anime season), I only fully returned in 2022. No fics until... 2023, omg (the deleted ff.net one from when I was in school doesn't count).

Tama / @delgumofics: Back in 2012 my sister suggested I check it out, said it was funny. I watched ep1 subbed and by the end I had a glassy look in my eyes, shut it off, and promptly forgot about it. Later on it was on Netflix so I gave the dub a shot and died laughing. I binged the whole original run in a couple days then started looking at fics.

Eru / @eruverse: I first learned of Hetalia around well 10 years ago, but couldn’t get properly into it. I alrd liked Vanya but that was that [...] I properly got into Hetalia after they released Indonesia, so it was just around 2021. Was immediately thrown into Netherlands/Indonesia, the beloved ship of Indonesian fandom, creating fanarts for them and brainrotting with other Indonesian fans. Good times! Ah, NLID… other Indonesia ships would simply not compare to the weight of history, emotional baggage, and all kinds of other baggage of this one ship. You should check it out, and being Indonesian I have the front seat for accessing juicy historical materials. Nobody in the fandom knows the special side of Netherlands that Indonesians do.

@folightening: Bought and watched the first season a long time ago, I think it was out of curiosity. I remember people talking about it at school and I recognized the name at the store so I got the first season to check out. Didn't do anything more with it until ~2 years ago I think? Watched it again on a whim, bought the series in a collection set, found where I could read it, got my writer's block shattered, and the rest is history.

Yukihitomi / @arthurhonda: This is actually a funny story. So it was back in 2011, and my friend recommended it to me because I like history and was a history kid. It also had nekotalia, and I love cats. Combine the two, and it was a good recomendation. Ironically, she said "don't get into the fandom." Clearly, I didn't listen.

Ash / Lutz: A friend told me the anime was really funny so we watched a few episodes of it when we were in high school. I was hooked and almost immediately started googling amecan fanart lmao

Prush / @proosh: I can't remember exactly but I think my discovery of it was connected to the old DeviantArt series Scandinavia and the World? But it was around 2011, I'm pretty sure, and I got into it via the dubbed parts uploaded to Youtube. It activated me like a sleeper agent, having already had an early interest in history, and I've been trapped in here ever since.

Lacy: I randomly found the series while I was reading some news. (Think it was back in 2013-14). Sort of got very obsessed with it and was joining groups left and right, bought fktons of merch for a lot of characters. (i just love them all crazy at that point of time) One of the groups i was in decided to hold some event and thats where i wrote my first fic. Then theres so much stupid drama i just withdrew eventually and kept to myself with just one ship. (At this point there was this one person who was writing with me). Then came the time when she left as well, so I did question at that point if i still want to stay in this fandom alone (and i did, because i just want to finish up my wips 🫠).

Mossman / @one-more-mossman: I don't remember exactly how I did get into Hetalia , but I checked out the date of my first Hetalia pfp and it's December of 2012. I remember being super into Ivan and putting him on all my pfps and telling my friends about him and being all mushy and stupid. I had pretty limited access to the internet at that time, and didn't speak any English, so I wasn't a part of the Hetalia fandom - neither the English speaking nor Russian. So I didn't know he was an unstoppable rape truck y'know. I was drawing him and just silently vibing with him. I got into the actual fandom about three years ago - was a lurker first, not interacting aside from leaving kudos/comments, then got into fic writing (for English speaking fandom, I thought it was more lively than the Russian one). Found wonderful people here. Happy to be here, glad to have people sharing my interests. (Notice there is not a single mention of liking history. I don't like it. I can't remember a single fact.)

WhiteWings / @smuttyandabsurd: Gosh everyone started so much later than me... Anyway back in 2007, my sister forwarded a random USUK fanart to me on deviantArt simply because "it's BL and you might like it." I binged the first season of the anime and was tickled enough to keep watching as further seasons came out. I was already casually interested in history - it was my second favourite school subject behind English lit - but after Hetalia? Yeah I was reading the densest modern history nonfictions around, hovering in the military history section of the library among random middle-aged men, and writing rapetruck smutfics with a ~historical~ flavour. Anyway, 17 years later, everything from the way I consume Hetalia and tangentially-related topics to my writing has had a dramatic evolution from my humble weeb-y beginnings, but I'm still in this dang ass fandom and I can't find the exit.

Sicily: I was into countryhumans and I came across it, and was like, pft I'm never going to like hetalia.., and now we are here

[ineffable-rohese]

Oh hey, I've gotten a few followers/mutuals, so I guess it's time for a pinned intro post?

Demographic info (because it gives context to my words): Early 40s white fat cis queer poly pagan woman living in the wet corner of North America. My nearest and dearest are almost all trans/non-binary.

Personal (public facing): I'm an Aziraphale-coded hobbit. Like, so cozy and wholesome you might want to puke. I rewatch just the first disc of the LOTR extended edition because I love the Shire so much. I drink Earl Grey with milk and one sugar. (Or a good scotch, cause every Aziraphale needs a little bit of Crowley inside them, right Sheenie?) I read mainly historical fiction, especially anything set in (actual, not fantasy) medieval Europe and I was at one point a medieval music history nerd. I wear cozy sweaters. I love rain on ferns and April flowers. I make soup with things I've tended and harvested. I work a Wholesome AF job. I unironically hug trees. I'm in love with the world.

Personal (in private): I'm deeply kinky. I'm primarily a Sensual Sadist with a significant Dominant streak. I often play as a Panther. I love consensual violence, and get great joy from hurting people who want me to hurt them. I've only really given myself permission to be that in the last year or so.

Fandoms: I fell in love with Good Omens in 2000 when a college roommate gave it to me. It was genuinely the funniest, greatest thing I had ever read, and I evangelized about it to anyone who would listen. S1 of the show immediately became a comfort show, and it got me through a time of massive loss and upheaval. I put it on when everything was too hard and I needed something that made me feel like everything was going to be OK. S2 - well we're all here still, aren't we? It dropped when I desperately needed One Good Thing for my brain to latch on to as I got through some intense pressure, and boy howdy did it lodge itself in me.

Other fandoms in roughly chronological order: Star Wars (original trilogy made me a child nerd), X-Files (first real social fandom, and intro to fanfic!), Buffy/Angel/Firefly, LOTR, Doctor Who, Torchwood (the only other show I've been driven to write fic for), Sherlock to an extent. OFMD and WWDITS are great fun, though not obsessions.

My Writing: Writing Index Here I'm really enjoying writing right now! I don't know how long this ADHD hyperfocus will last, but I'll take it while it lasts. My goal in writing is to challenge myself, create things I'd want to read, and have fun with it (for a definition of fun).

I'm also definitely working on being comfortable expressing the things I like and want and being unashamed about that. I worry too much about how my 😈 side might reflect on my 😇 side, and honestly, these shades of grey lovelies are helping me with that a lot. It's probably why I love writing Dom Aziraphale so much, because he is just so sweet and good and bright, and also a toppy BAMF who can make demons (and their Bentleys) do whatever he wants and wields a flaming sword against Satan himself.

So yeah, every time I make Aziraphale go to a dark place, and then come back again to being a ball of delight, it's helping me create a map that allows me to do the same (to a, you know, more reasonable extent). And when others read and like the things that come from the darkest corners of my brain, it makes me feel seen.

Anyway, you made it this far. Here are my cats for tax. Yes, I have one of each of the Kinds of Cats.

[waterfall-ambience]

i will not put noli me tangere and el filibusterismo in perpetua, i will not put noli me tangere and el filibusterismo in perpetua, i will not put noli me tangere and el filibusterismo in perpetua, i will not-

rambling under the cut because i need to figure out something to finish this scene:

the reason why i bring it up at all is because i want to show what a mundane conversation between damien and avery is like when there's not really much else happening in their lives.

much of their conversations in arc 1 were mundane yes but it was like 'getting to know each other (and also letting damien heal a bit after going through the horrors)'. also i will probably need another pass at arc 1 act 2 because i think things are a little messy thematically and i start juggling quite a lot.

-> anyways i wanted that mundane friendship conversation to be about a piece of media. i think literary analysis is something the two of them would talk about (because that's exactly the type of nerds they are, and you've gotta write what you know, yknow?)

there is a precedent for including real books and pieces of media in perpetua. i did it early in arc 1 with mary shelley's frankenstein, to establish perpetua as an educated community, suggest at minerva's sense of humour, and introduce ideas like the rage towards one's creator (with a parent-child / mad science twist).

> haunted hollow (the owl house, but i can't just name drop that one because it's too recent) was mostly used to establish the kind of nerd that avery is, give damien an in-universe blorbo in the form of a zuko/hunter-alike.

>> i might go back to this in arc 3 when the gods chew damien out for not living up to their expectations and compare him to his own blorbo.

> ponyo (which has no in-universe name as of now) was also used to bring in the general theme of "it doesn't matter what you are, i still love you" to the context of damien and avery's friendship. i just needed it to work for a scene and i think it does?

so i absolutely can use real books. the question is whether i should use noli me tangere / el filibusterismo specifically:

el noli came to mind because i'm pretty into it at the moment, and it's thematically rich enough for damien to passionately talk at length about just how hard it goes.

> i'm trying to do this to show that he hasn't just been thinking about haunted hollow for the past 8 months or so, lmao. not that its unrealistic for that to happen, i just think he wouldn't. he's more the type to have a broad knowledge of a lot of different things and then excitedly draw connections between them, rather than fixate on one thing for a long time if that makes sense.

> on a meta level i want to show infodumping and passion in a positive light (avery finds it cute, etc.) because some of my family members don't really appreciate it. i feel like a freak sometimes, i really do.

BUT ANYWAY. the implications of the books

both noli me tangere and el filibusterismo are very much rooted in their socio-historical context, that being the philippines during the late spanish colonial era, and the way it portrays society and the systems in power is unfortunately evergreen. sometimes it feels like hardly anything has changed 137 years later.

in relation to perpetua, the books show a world that the characters have never experienced, whether that be past or present. damien has filipino heritage but the disconnect is apparent (so ironically it loops back around into being a pinoy diaspora experience?). its something to consider when the gods judge him for not being 'good enough representation'.

i dont know how this is going to play out because captain luna is broadly similar to ibarra, in that they're idealistic, upper class illustrado filipinos who studied abroad and had childhood sweethearts named maria-[something], neither of whom they got with in the end. with bonus queer aspects of their stories because tbh it reads like there was Something between ibarra and elias. but anyway. i dont think luna would've read noli and i dont know how he'd feel about the parallels between him and ibarra. probably not very good!

maria-isabel was named after maria clara YES, but i read noli and fili recently so everything surrounding the luna/ibarra parallels are a coincidence.

> damien will likely pick up on these parallels and that opens up an entire can of worms!! worms that i don't know what to do with! but also its an interesting book and i want more people to read it because it fucks severely.

if you have any suggestions for works that damien can be interested in (thematic relevance to greater story ideal) i would love to hear them

[quietblueriver]

Very fucked up few days over at SCOTUS.

Quick, self-indulgent queer law nerd reflection on Justice Sotomayor's powerful dissent in 303 Creative (case in which SCOTUS said a web designer can exclude queer couples from her hypothetical wedding site business because 1st Am.) because the internet is the void I can come scream into about this.

She is not pulling punches at any point. This is what she says about the argument that Smith (web designer) isn't actually refusing to serve queer people: The majority protests that Smith will gladly sell her goods and services to anyone, including same-sex couples. She just will not sell websites for same-sex weddings. Apparently, a gay or lesbian couple might buy a wedding website for their straight friends. This logic would be amusing if it were not so embarrassing. I suppose the Heart of Atlanta Motel could have argued that Black people may still rent rooms for their white friends. Smith answers that she will sell other websites for gay or lesbian clients. But then she, like Ollie McClung, who would serve Black people take-out but not table service, discriminates against LGBT people by offering them a limited menu. This is plain to see, for all who do not look the other way. (Quick context without getting super into the weeds: in Heart of Atlanta and Katzenbach v. McClung, the Court found that business owners could be forced to abide by the Civil Rights Act. They did this by holding that Congress has the right to regulate interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution and discriminatory actions interfered with interstate commerce.)

She cites almost all of the major LGBT rights cases and Loving, the case that struck down anti-miscegenation laws. She also cites Kenji Yoshino in making the argument that asking queer people to hide who they are can actively put them in danger on top of the emotional and mental harm it causes: By issuing this new license to discriminate in a case brought by a company that seeks to deny same-sex couples the full and equal enjoyment of its services, the immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status. In this way, the decision itself inflicts a kind of stigmatic harm, on top of any harm caused by denials of service. . . . It reminds LGBT people of a painful feeling that they know all too well: There are some public places where they can be themselves, and some where they cannot. K. Yoshino, Covering 61–66 (2006). Ask any LGBT person, and you will learn just how often they are forced to navigate life in this way. They must ask themselves: If I reveal my identity to this co-worker, or to this shopkeeper, will they treat me the same way? If I hold the hand of my partner in this setting, will someone stare at me, harass me, or even hurt me? It is an awful way to live.

She closes with a quote from the dissent in Korematsu, the case in which SCOTUS said Japanese internment was constitutional because it was about national security. It's an incredibly disgusting and embarrassing part of legal history. Interestingly, Justice Sotomayor also brought up Korematsu in Trump v. Hawaii, the travel ban case. There, she compared the majority's logic in upholding the ban to the logic in Korematsu, which Chief Justice Roberts, the author of the majority opinion upholding the ban, really did not like. Anyway, her use of the case again is a shot at the logic of the majority but it is mostly a very clear shot at what she thinks of their position morally and about how it will be viewed historically: I fear that the symbolic damage of the Court’s opinion is done. But that does not mean that we are powerless in the face of the decision. The meaning of our Constitution is found not in any law volume, but in the spirit of the people who live under it. Every business owner in America has a choice whether to live out the values in the Constitution. Make no mistake: Invidious discrimination is not one of them.“[D]iscrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life.” Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 242 (1944) (Murphy, J., dissenting). “It is unattractive in any setting but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States.”

Basically, all of this is absolute shit but the progressive Justices are not being quiet about it and I'm very grateful for that.

[starlene]

Titanic: the Artifact Exhibition thoughts:

Let me start by saying that I have some... let's say, ethical qualms about the whole artifact exhibition thing. Obviously, they're not severe enough to prevent me from seeing the touring exhibition (and to be clear, I have seen different iterations of it in four different countries now.) But even so – I just don't think it's super cool that these historical artifacts are owned by a company who thinks Las Vegas is a proper permanent home for them. There is something very sideshow-esque about the whole thing. While it's cool that some of the artifacts tour the world for many people to see, if I got to decide, their permanent home would be in a well-established museum in a location that figures in the story of the RMS Titanic somehow. But I don't get to decide that, so whatever, I guess!

Mostly, the exhibition is both respectful and informative, but there are some little problems. The most notable one is that they haven't updated all their info plaques and their audio guide, so there are issues like two plaques right next to each other having contradictory info (say, how much the tickets cost in today's money.)

I also don't think it's, hmm, super great how you walk by the names of everybody that died – straight into a souvenir shop stand of teddy bears dressed as captains. I mean, sure, they need to make their money somehow, and I did buy a bunch of postcards and stuff myself... but apart from a handful of replica newspapers, cups and such, the shop really has the most tasteless selection of Titanic merch known to man. The only things missing are the "Titanic Swim Team 1912" shirts and the ice cube trays.

To make it clear: I'm not saying you're a horrible person if you wear a Titanic Swim Team tee or whatever (tbh, I would buy a Vasa Swim Team 1628 one in a heartbeat myself) – these days, the sinking of the Titanic is a part of popular culture just as much as it's a historical event, so it's just natural there are joke-y products around. I just think the contrast of a memorial wall for the actual victims and the captain teddies is rather gruesome.

Also, speaking of Titanic in popular culture and the public consciousness, I don't think it's super great how the exhibition strengthens certain Titanic myths that don't really have much truth to them, or are less black-and-white than the usual story goes.

They make a big deal of the Titanic (and the Titanic alone) being "unsinkable", to the point of lifting Captain Smith's "modern shipbuilding" quote¹ out of context, which of course makes guests assume he said that about the Titanic specifically. They also claim Captain Smith was about to retire after the Titanic's maiden voyage, though there isn't really any evidence to prove that. And of course, they keep mentioning how the Titanic was the largest ship ever built – which is technically true, sure, but I think it's worth mentioning that in practice, she and the Olympic were twin sisters.

I even spotted a new piece of nonsense in the exhibition that I've never heard before: they claim that Thomas Andrews was not supposed to be on the maiden voyage at all, but he had to travel in place of Lord Pirrie when he fell ill. I believe Thomas Andrews was always meant to lead the guarantee group, like he had done on previous maiden voyages, and I have never heard anything to the contrary before. But what do I know?

Props to the exhibition for not demonising J. Bruce Ismay, though! On the contrary, they mention he helped passengers board the lifeboats before leaving on the last lifeboat to be properly launched.

Anyway!! I think I have been negative enough here. I may have a lot of nitpicks, but even so, as a whole, I think the exhibition is a good introduction to the story of the Titanic, and it's interesting and touching to nerds like me, too. I like the interactive parts such as the changing soundscapes. I feel the sound design has gotten better since the last time I saw the exhibition, I especially enjoyed the soundscape near the 3rd class cabin reproduction that demostrated how you could hear the engines all the time in those cabins. The touch the iceberg thing is good and very sobering too, it really helps you to understand how hypothermia was only a matter of minutes on a night as cold as April 15th, 1912.

And of course, there are the artifacts themselves! I assume they keep most of the flashier ones in Vegas, but there were some good ones. My favourite was a golden chain with three lucky charms: a clover, a star, and a lucky pig. The lucky pig obviously didn't make it, but I do wish its owner did. I also liked the Extra Moist Cherry Toothpaste jar just because that sounds so silly. There were reproductions of that in the souvenir shop, but I couldn't justify buying one – maybe I would have if it came with some of that moist paste, but nope!

ETA: Something I found interesting was that pretty much every single artifact that was a part of the ship's decor, from dishes to lamp holders, was stamped with the White Star Line logo, even the fancy first class tableware. Was that all about boosting their brand recognition, or were they that worried about things being stolen? Or did they want to show off that everything was custom-made just for them, no off-the-shelf items from any generic manufacturer? Maybe it was a little bit of each?

I also think it's interesting to think about the weird journey the artifacts have made. Someone put them in their luggage to cross the Atlantic, they sunk along with the ship and spent about 80 years in the darkness... and then someone else came along with an underwater robot that has little hands and picked them up. The people who originally owned them could never have imagined the journey their everyday items would go on – or, if they briefly saw a vision of their trousers ending up in a glass case in a Swedish mall with some Finnish nerd staring at them, they probably thought they're just about to lose their mind.

All in all, Titanic: the Artifact Exhibition in Täby, Sweden, was a thought-provoking experience for me in many ways. I'm glad I got the chance to go.

¹ "I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that." (Said by Smith after the RMS Adriatic's maiden voyage in 1907)

[skitskatdacat63]

Aforementioned Napoleonic AU! Martian !! I said it would just be a wip but then oops, I basically finished it! Ty to everyone who was interested :D

Really really proud of these I'm ngl! I rendered in a really different way than ever before and I'm very satisfied with it :D

Ramble about historical influences(basically me being a nerd about who I consider the F1 drivers of the Napoleonic era):

So I wanted to explain my thought process because I think that the specific context behind the uniforms I drew is very relevant, as I didn't just pick them on a whim.

I drew them in Hussars' uniforms(Austrian Empire = Red Bull, but like obviously not 100% accurate because the uniform colors are based off the RBR racesuits.) Hussars are, in my opinion, the F1 drivers of their time. Let me quote several things that led me to this conclusion:

"During the Napoleonic period, hussars, as in all armies, were employed as scouts, given raiding missions or despatched to harry and pursue a defeated enemy on the run. Mounted on light, nimble horses..."

"...Their flamboyant costume and their reputation for daredevil acts..."

"...developed a romanticized image of being dashing and adventurous.

Okay....so they're dashing and adventurous, riding specifically on fast, light horses, dressed in flamboyant outfits committing daredevil acts...sir that is literally an F1 driver!!! Tell me they aren't the historical predecessor to F1 drivers!!!

I have this big book of Napoleonic uniforms(yea I'm a nerd) and I was paging through it to see what uniforms I wanted to draw(I have a habit of drawing my one oc in the Napoleonic era. So when I started drawing fanart, I'm like of course I must draw them as this!) Austria's normal uniforms in this era are soooo boring compared to France's, so I was really 😒 about drawing them, but then I came across the Hussars, and then started noticing all these similarities and thought it was perfect. Also I need to mention the fact that Austria's royal cipher at the time was literally this:

IT'S "F1", IT IS LITERALLY FUCKING F1, WHAT THE HELLLLL!?!?!?!? I had like a partial mental crisis coming across this, at that point it was destiny for me to draw this

*I forgot to include actual ref images 😐, so here you go!!

*I wrote most of his around when I started this drawing, which was all the way back in April. And it's really interesting to consider now that I was basically immersed in the history of the Austrian Empire for a month. I apologize to everyone in my life who had to endure my lecture on why Hussars are the F1 drivers of their time. But god I could not hold it back when I saw some of these uniforms in person. And it was cool to pull out this drawing, even if it was just a wip, and be like "oh hey I've drawn these!!" Anyways, I digress.

Obviously the martian drawing is a direct reference to this pic from Malaysia 2010:

My thoughts on this picture:

I almost wanted to draw Seb in the Austrian Kaiser's outfit, but it is nowhere near as slay as the Hussar uniform, so Hussar uniform it is!

I have many thoughts and opinions on the lore of this au so pls ask if you're curious but it's also just a lot.

[isabellehemlock]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💗

Hi Sarah!  I hope you know that I saw that one reblog where you shared you dyed your hair with rainbow colors? (hopefully I'm not misremebering?) - anyways, so now I think of you with magical unicorn vibes gloriousness anytime I get a notification from you 🦄

Thank you so much for this fun ask!!  So cute, and hopefully no one minds me sharing more details about each piece I picked - only because I know I genuinely enjoy hearing about the creative process and what an author got out of it, or their essential “why’s” so I’m gonna list seven from the TOG fandom (because no joke, I calculated it, 96% of my stuff on ao3 is TOG lol), and with three bonus ones from other fandoms - because I have some 86 works listed on AO3 (though plenty are fanarts), but yeah, I just couldn’t narrow it down more than that lol.

In no particular order: 

Their souls were knit together (and he loved him as himself) 

I sort of consider this one my magnum opus of all the pre-canon JoexNicky pieces I had written before then.  It’s like each and every fic/meta/post/research piece led me to this one that I embarked on in the fall of 2021 (and even with some academic and religious studies, still spent a few extra weeks on research just to ensure I had a few key pieces in place).  I’m a history nerd at heart, what can I say lol.  The religious symbolism is thick and they fall in love slowly, so then, sprinkle in some historical contexts from Genova, Tunisia, Constantinople, and Crete, and it sort of snowballed to 88k in three months lol.  But there are definitely scenes from it that I’ve re-read several times over, because yeah, it just speaks to me on multiple levels, and I’m glad it seemed to resonate for a few others as well ❤️

Called you by name 

This was one of those pre-canon ficlets I was referring to just above, and looking back, I think this could easily be a sort of soft sequel for TSWKT (even though I wrote CYBN beforehand) - but it’s essentially an existential one-shot, stand alone of Nicky returning to his home land about two centuries after he had left it.  I projected a lot, but in the end it’s about faith but also the freedom to label your own identity.  I still look back at it fondly.

The Returning 

This is more of a drabble piece, based on a tumblr prompt, that I wrote for Nile - which is still one of my favorites.  Nile is a character I would have loved to explore more about/through/with due to me being a military brat, and my father being a wounded vet (my father had his TBI 20 years ago this August, and for all intents and purposes, died that day).  Between that, and her faith, there were actually quite a few meta posts I had wanted to write up, but I kept it personal to a few friends instead after seeing some discourse.  So, writing a canon adjacent Nile, instead of the modern au’s I had been doing up until then, and finally explore even some of that?  Yeah, deeply personal and I’m glad I had the opportunity to 🥹

Pwimo 

For personal reasons, but I still get a giggle out of it 😎

Precious Days 

I think some of my favorite pieces are the ones that I make with others (whether that’s by a prompt suggestion, plotting together, making a fic based on art, or vice versa - and I’m so grateful for people who allowed me to sort of practice with them before deep diving into fandom events lol).  Now most of my fandom collabs have been art (but also podfics??  Who am I lol) - but yeah, this was one of those giggling with a friend in DM’s over plot ideas kind, that I still look back on fondly.  I was grateful for the opportunity to write something as a birthday gift, but also have some fun trying a different trope, and looking at it from a different perspective/lens that I normally tend to write in.  It was like this fantastic experiment, dedicated as a gift, but somehow still resonated with several readers, and it’s also one of the few fics of mine that I sometimes re-read scenes from.

Promises, promises 

One of my absolute faves because I got to explore one of my favorite subjects - interfaith dialogue - through the whole team, in this modern au, which was also a bit of a rom-com <333  Some scenes and dialogues were projected from my own experiences, and discussions, and though niche as heck, also resonated with some fellow LGBTQIA+ religious readers 💒

Bonus - other fandoms: 

Miracoli

Should we call it TOG-adjacent?  Lol.  I adored writing Daan and Paolo, and the found family trope was THIQ within this FIC yo.  Plus, getting to write a teenager, and a preschooler?  And exploring those dynamics of building a family together?  Yesh, please - there are so many scenes from this one that I re-read just to bask in the serotonin because it’s probably one of the sweetest fics I’ve written, uplifting, romantic and soft 💕

Mixing It Up 

My Steddie fic!  I binged ST, resonated with Eddie Munson hard, and projected some aceness onto their potential dynamics.  I’ve received some of the sweetest “I feel seen” comments with this one, and some are saved on my phone on days when posting anxiety tells me not to bother.  Write the stories your teen self would have loved to read, because I guarantee there are others out there who it will speak to, too.

Pretty Ballads Hide Bastard Truths 

This was one that has fallen on the back burner due to other fandom events/projects but I promise it’s outlined and ready to resume come late summer.  Like, it’s on my list - I’m itching for it!  I adored Calanthe x Eist’s scenes in the first season, and I wanted to devour more of it, and with some loving encouragement I was glad to dedicate this one to Claz.  It’s still one of my favorites for the worldbuilding, and little nods to canon throughout, but just that exploration of growth, healing, and coming together over the years that has yet to leave my brain.  I’m looking forward to finishing it and allowing the story to come full circle.

Thanks again Sarah ~ looking forward to passing this one on soon 🤗

[downtroddendeity]

None of you asked, but here it is anyway.

And for the record, yes, I did eventually eat lunch.

Starting assumptions:

I'm putting the start of the game contemporaneous with its release date, so 2018.

The single definite point of timeline divergence I have decided on between the US in our universe and what I have taken to calling "The United Union of Eagleland" is that Reagan didn't exist. Therefore, the Republican Party is still evil but it doesn't have rabies yet, and all major political events in the last 40 years are up in the air.

I overshot my guesses about Roland's age in my first few posts because it was funnier; with full-game and DLC context, he's probably meant to be in the Obama age bracket and is just going gray early. He is absolutely still significantly older than Batu, though.

Even before the DLC validated me I had Roland pegged as a "my role model is FDR"-style infrastructure Democrat, because canon-wise his skillset is in the nuts and bolts of making a government that functions and he doesn't get heated enough about Broadleaf's corporatocracy to be a social justice or labor guy- he can keep his mouth shut when the other rulers are evil, but slips up when the way they run things is just dumb.

Since our guy is the Jungian Archetype of The President of the United States, when in doubt, assume the most Generically Presidential option.

I said in one of my jokes that he's from Illinois solely because a midwestern swing state is the most Generically Presidential and Illinois is the one with the funniest-sounding name. This reasoning is clearly foolproof.

Roland is born in 1966 (making him 52 at the start of the game), and growing up has zero intention of going into politics. The incident with the bullies is when he's 10. He gets into gun sports as a hobby as a teen because he's good at it and into 14th-century German longsword combat because he's a fucking nerd, unwittingly creating both an extensive paper trail of pictures of him at firing ranges that will become very convenient for countering NRA PR and an equally extensive paper trail of pictures of him at Renaissance Fairs that will become the greatest gift Eagleland political memes have ever received. He graduates law school somewhere respectable but not elite and goes into civil litigation. He marries his theoretical mystery wife at 31, but they keep putting off having kids because This Just Isn't A Good Time For Us. Then in like 1999, he's representing the plaintiffs in a lawsuit where some Regional Business Asshole who basically owns a couple of small towns has been doing a bunch of blatantly illegal stuff to harass people in a specific area because Business Asshole has a huge deal pending with some giant petrochemical company for fracking but can't move forward with it because a handful of people smack in the middle refuse to sign over the mineral rights for their property. Being a lawyer is frequently depressing, so now that Roland has one of the relatively rare chances in the job to be categorically The Good Guy he is getting into it. Giant petrochemical companies are evil but impersonal, but Regional Business Assholes are just some shitty guy and thus prone to getting mad and doing things that are evil but also very stupid, and that is why one day when Roland Crane, Esq. is walking out of his office on his way to a deposition some guy he's never seen before in his life walks up to him and fucking shoots him.

Except, unfortunately for the guy who got handed twenty grand in unmarked bills by the brother of the buddy of this guy the associate director of operations to the Business Asshole knows, being something you only study if you're a fucking nerd does not change the fact that historical European martial arts is, in fact, a form of close combat training, and Roland kicks the shit out of him. The security camera footage is pretty grainy, but the photos are incredible. It makes the news. It makes so much news, and of course it gets picked up nationally because they've got time to fill and this is fucking wild, and since it's 1999 and even though fracking is starting to really take off almost nobody has heard of it yet, this also kicks off a bunch of people going "oh my god I can't believe we didn't know about this sinister corporate scheme in MAYBE OUR NEIGHBORHOOD that they sent CORPORATE NINJA ASSASSINS over!!!" (Roland always corrects people that it wasn't a corporate ninja assassin, it was some guy who wanted beer money, and also the giant corporate conglomerate didn't actually do anything, it was some dumb asshole, but he knows that just makes him sound modest and while he’d be forced to admit that isn’t exactly a downside he would occasionally like it if people believed him.)

(Roland Crane, Master of Repression, subsequently started doing very normal things like, oh, say, wearing a loaded gun in a concealed carry holster on a thirty-minute drive from the airport to his hotel, which are certainly not indicative of any sort of trauma at all, and he finds it quite strange when anyone suggests that this is anything but a completely reasonable and sensible precaution to begin taking. Worked out for Evan, at least.)

Roland realizes his five minutes of fame are a golden opportunity, because he never really thought about going into government before but right now everyone knows his name and face and thinks of him as a badass crusader for justice standing up to The Man. He announces a run for House of Reps in like March and crushes the incumbent in the primary and that’s why I keep getting my difficulty gauge hiked up in the bonus dungeon. He wins in the general election and stays there for four terms while racking up a record of bills and amendments and cosponsorships on the kind of legislation that nobody gets really excited about, but if you list a few of them pretty much everyone will react to at least one of them as something that they just kinda noticed made their life get easier and more pleasant one day and didn’t realize was something their personal Congress Guy had a hand in. "Your income tax paperwork is slightly easier now," "you don't get 12 scam robocalls a day anymore," "you can buy diapers with food stamps," that kind of stuff.

Will is born in 2005. This was not planned, but Roland and his unnamed mystery wife kinda went, “Well, it’s still not a great time, but the time’s not going to be getting better any time soon, so…”

In 2008, Roland runs for Senate and wins.

Roland’s wife dies of terminal Being A Mom In The Ni No Kuni Franchise in 2013. The fact that he literally never alludes to her in any way in the entire game even on the single occasion she is directly mentioned is proof of how totally healthily he has processed his grief and certainly not indicative of any emotional baggage at all. Will is eight at the time, and totally definitely having healthy grief processing modeled for him and receiving the emotional support he needs.

He keeps his Senate seat in 2014. I have no idea what the overall 2016 Presidential election lineup looked like in Eagleland because the one in our universe was such a nightmare clownshow, but somebody notices that hey, they’ve got this guy who a) is charismatic and good-looking, b) has a reasonable amount of government experience without being a Washington Insider™, c) has a legislative record so deeply boring that it’s surprisingly hard to attack despite being extensive, but, d) simultaneously has a handful of details of his personal life and history so absolutely buck-fucking-wild that they instantly make him the most interesting person in basically any room.

And that’s how the United Union of Eagleland got universal health care, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

I accidentally headcanoned 1200 words of Roland Crane backstory instead of eating lunch. Happy Presidents' Day, everyone.

[breitzbachbea]

A Rec For All The Hetalia History Nerds Out Here

Hello my fellow enthusiasts of the five minute comedy anime. I actually decided I should do even more unpaid PR for my favourite BBC4 Podcast.

Anyways, if you are a fan of Hetalia and already a history nerd/would like to get into history, do I have the thing for you:

You're Dead To Me is a Podcast for "people who don't like history, people who do like history and those who forgot to learn any at school". Each episode, the host Greg Jenner (Public Historian & "Chief Nerd to the TV show Horrible Histories") sits down with a comedian and a historical expert, to deliver nearly an hour of a funny history lesson. While you can't cite a podcast for a term paper (as my Dozent pointed out again today), it is still genuine, university lecture level knowledge! And to make sure your head won't explode from all the facts or that the academics won't get lost in ivory tower vocabulary, the class clown is there to ask clever questions and make silly jokes. So it is super factual and super accessible at the same time.

Often, you will get a glimpse at how historians work & how they access the past, too! I know the Anti-Intellectualism is rampant these days, but making academia more transparent and shed light on why certain stories haven't been in the spotlight until recently due to all kinds of bigotry is a much better start than people making shit up on tiktok.

Tomorrow (June 10th), the new series starts, but you can start to listen to the podcast right now with a backlog of over 80 Episodes!

Over 80 Episodes on what, you ask? Everything!

You want to learn about Black History? You will love the episodes on The Notting Hill Carnival, Paul Robeson, the Haitian Revolution, the Harlem Renaissance & many more!

You like your royal history, full of politicking, personal drama and intrigue? We've got The Borgias, King James IV. of Scotland, Saladin and The Mughal Empire for you!

Love the ladies, past and present? Let me introduce you to Eleanor of Aquitane, Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman, Josephine Baker, Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft!

Sick of hearing about Western (European) history? Sure thing, find something more to your tastes with The Asante Empire, Mansa Musa, The Tang Dynasty, Genghis Khan, Ivan The Terrible or The Ancient Babylonians.

I could make so many more categories and I'd still not cover every single episode, I am sure. You're Dead To Me is avaible online, on the BBC Sounds App, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

If you could check out the podcast & share this post/the podcast itself, it would mean a lot to me. As a history student who is currently working on getting her BA, it's immensely important for me that people learn how to recognize the past in the present. That they look around the world and see how we got here a little more clearly; that they look at remnants or depictions of the past and see its context better. If you think that sounds marvellous, if you always wanted to get into history beyond the googleable hard facts, then I invite you to start your journey here with me.

Also, the jokes are often really funny, I swear to God, there are so many bangers that live in my head rentfree.

"So I'm a Dutch-Brit?" "You're a Dutch-Brit." "So I'm Brutch -"

"I have a few silk shirts, every single one of them a mistake. I bought one of them in Italy and I don't know what I was thinking, I look flat-out divorced."

"They found 400.000 [clay] tablets, mate? That's amazing, that's more than at Glastonbury!"

[hahahax30]

Ik you already know most of this but I still found it pretty interesting so-

Wagner you don't understand the hell you've unleashed. Scroll past if you don't want to know my very Objective™ opinion of the Spanish Habsburgs.

First off: Juana. Wagner there are no words to express to how sorry I feel for this woman. She most likely had schizophrenia btw. Ik monarchs shouldn't be worshipped because there's a 99% chance that they were severely morally-challenged people, but Juana has been done dirty. Her mother was a piece of shit (though a very interesting person in her own way), her father was a piece of shit, her husband was a piece of shit (he cheated on her multiple times and basically facilitated the ideal scenarios for the worsening of her already-frail mental state), everyone was a piece of shit to her.

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HER SON. Ngl one of my biggest pet peeves is people calling him Charles V when they're talking about him in the context of Spain: he's not Charles V, that's his German title, his Spanish title is Carlos I. But anyways. I hate him just as much as I pity his mother. Wagner he (1) didn't know Spanish (2) didn't spend time in Spain (3) never focused on Spain. Might be controversial, but I think a King should focus on his kingdom.

Now, ✨Felipe II���

(ik this called him Philip but Wagner he'd hate this anglosification-whatever-you-call-anglowashing of his name)

Felipe was Español™ which was a genuine upgrade from his father. I love him. Unashamedly, and not because he was Español™. This video just leaves out the best thing, hyperfixating on the Armada Invencible like my uncle. Felipe as a person was way more interesting. He's *funny*. He overworked himself because he insisted on knowing everything, and then complained that he had too much work to do! He was such a grammar nerd that he corrected spelling mistakes on the documents he was sent and then insisted they be rewritten! He didn't care about the economy (but still had to be informed of it so that he could say he'd 'read this document twice and how can I tell you I don't understand it') and busied himself deciding where to put the toilets in the palace! His annotations are the funniest thing ever!!!!!

We actually don't learn much about Felipe III. He's there ig. The only thing he did was delegate his role to his right-hand men because he did *not* want to overwork himself like his father lol.

Felipe IV is the Whore™ (I hope you remember him) and I can't believe this video didn't say that he was a sex addict with around 40 illegitimate children. And 'competent king' mis huevos. He was an Austria menor, which meant he didn't do anything. He was the king only in name since a guy called Gaspar de Guzmán Conde-Duque de Olivares (he was in the selectividad exam I think) was the actual ruler. Felipe was only whoring all around Spain. For all I know *I* and half of Spain could descend from him (the Carranzas certainly do lol).

Also I am at awe at this woman. I didn't know someone could pronounce Spanish this badly. No hate but 'hechizado' isn't a difficult word and she made it sound straight-up wrong.

Anyways, about Charles II (yk, second because Charles V was actually Charles I). His disabilities historically have been blown out of proportion to fit the French’s agenda (their king back then hated us). He had Klinefelter syndrome and many other stuff and was infertile, but he was far from the caricature this woman buys into, and Spain somewhat prospered under his reign. Honestly, this woman has made a few mistakes, particularly: Charles II didn’t make another Habsburg his successor, but Felipe/Philip of Anjou (French guy —I have mixed feelings about him because he was a dick but also very severely mentally ill and somewhat abused by his wife), who’d go on to become Felipe V after the War Of Succession, which started because the Habsburg guy felt like he had ownership over the Spanish throne even though Charles II never said that. My best bet is that the English have altered history lol, because they supported the Habsburg guy.

[textsfromthefifthbasement]

I finally finished MAZM: Phantom of the Opera! I’m leaving the review under the cut because it’s long and also spoilers for some elements of the game that aren’t in other Phantom adaptations.

General

First off, I loved the art style of the game. The character designs were quite adorable, and it definitely seemed like they made an effort to follow the original Leroux character designs. They had a blonde Christine and an olive-skinned, dark-haired Meg. I also thought they did a great job with Erik’s character design (though there was too much hair). The sets were beautiful. The majority of the main plot of the game does follow the Leroux book, which I really appreciated. There were some favorite moments in the book that I wish had been incorporated, such as Raoul waking up to find Erik watching him sleep (don’t judge I just find it freaking hilarious), but they incorporated so many other small scenes from the book, such as the managers trying to prevent Erik from taking his salary by using the safety pin. As a history nerd, I also really appreciated the collectible notes giving historical context to some of the discussions, including about three notes on the Paris Commune/Bloody Week. I wished the characters would have had different outfits rather than wear the same outfit the entire story. At the very least, I wished they had made a Red Death outfit for Erik during the masquerade.

I also want to point out and give a warning to anyone who has suicide ideation before they try this game. Pretty early on in the story, you play an episode in which you control Joseph Buquet after he’s dropped into Erik’s torture chamber, and eventually, you have to walk to the noose and pick it. The scene cuts right before he hangs himself. About partway through the story, when you control Christine, there’s a scene in which she has to talk Erik out of killing himself with a shard from a broken vase. At the end, when Christine and Raoul go down to Erik’s house to bury him, they found that he had committed suicide.

In all, I spent about 23 hours on the game from start to finish. I still need to go back and replay a few episodes to complete the achievements. I missed quite a few of the historical notes, and there are parts where you can make different decisions to influence what happens.

In this game, the studio added a lot of subplots that didn’t exist in the book and expanded on some canonical subplots as well. I did enjoy quite a few of these.

The Dancers

Meg, Jammes, and Sorelli are all major characters in the game, and I loved seeing them have more characterization and actual character arcs. Jammes, as a character, doesn’t change as much as the others, but she is only a child. As in the book, she is pretty frightened of ghost stories, strangers, and the Phantom, but in the game, she also loves and takes care of the stray cats living around the opera house and does turn into a bit of a spitfire when her friends are threatened by the various happenings at the opera. Sorelli has a knife and is not afraid to use it, and she comes to realize that her fear of being alone led her to stay with Philippe de Chagny in spite of the fact that he would never officially acknowledge her. Meg, in the beginning, seems afraid of her own shadow, but throughout the game, definitely comes into her own and also develops a much healthier relationship with her mother.

Union

This had to be hands-down my favorite subplot of the game. In the beginning, when Moncharmin and Richard first become the managers of the Palais Garnier, they mistreat Christine and mass fire anyone who mentions the Phantom of the Opera. When Christine goes missing for several weeks, Meg, Sorelli, and Jammes finally decide they have had enough and basically unionize the ballet dancers. There’s an entire protest, a performance in which the ballerinas refuse to perform, and they end up getting a promise from the managers to stop indiscriminately firing and mistreating people.

Christine’s Ending

GUYS. When I joked about Christine just traveling the world and performing instead I had no idea that was an actual choice you can make for her. It’s such a bittersweet ending, but I personally hope that one day she would have emotionally healed enough from her ordeal to come back to Paris and reunite with her old friends.

That being said, there were also a lot of additions/changes that I…really wasn’t a fan of.

Melek

So, for context. During Christine’s first stay at Erik’s house, she decides to do some exploring while he’s gone. While in his room, she hears a woman’s voice behind a wall and goes to investigate. She discovers a hidden door, and behind that hidden door is Melek. We find that Melek is a blind Turkish woman who had been one of Erik’s servants during his time in Constantinople. She had refused to marry him, and so he had kidnapped her and had kept her locked in that room for ten years.

Yes, I have a lot of problems with this.

I think the first thing is that when Melek was introduced is when I really realized that the game was never going to go in the direction of presenting Erik as a character who was sympathetic at times and not so much at others. The game had already painted him as a very unsympathetic character up until then through showing how he had gaslit Christine as the Angel of Music. Introducing Melek really drove that point home, which was kind of disappointing seeing as how the literal point of Leroux’s Le Fantome de l’Opera was that we should pity Erik for how he was treated because of his face.

Additionally, Melek’s character just…didn’t do anything. The more she was around, the more I wondered what the point of her character was. She does offer Christine support half of the time, and then the other half of the time is her being upset because Christine wants to change Erik rather than murder him. Ultimately, it’s my point of view that her character was not a great addition to the game and would have preferred a closer adherence to the book in that regard.

Hatim and PTSD

*sigh* This part seriously pissed me off. While Raoul and Hatim (the Daroga) are in the torture chamber, Hatim tells Raoul the story between him and Erik. We end up playing through a flashback of when Hatim discovers Erik living at the opera house ten years ago. As they discuss their past, we and Hatim quickly realize that Erik has PTSD, and mentioning the Shah of Persia is a serious trigger for him. Which, alright. That does make some sense story-wise.

And then through other flashbacks, Hatim proceeds to use this against Erik. Like he literally would trigger him purposefully as a punishment. And say that he was doing it for his own good.

Like, excuse me, but. What the fuck. What. The actual. Fuck. No. Don’t ever do that, that’s shitty.

Anyways by the end I was legitimately rooting for Erik to punt him.

Erik’s Ending

In the original Leroux novel, Erik presents Christine with a choice: turn the scorpion, and she will marry him, or turn the grasshopper, and the entire opera house will blow up. Christine chooses the scorpion, kisses him on the forehead, and he is so overwhelmed by the action that he saves Raoul’s life and lets them go together. The only promise he extracts from Christine is that she will come back and bury him when he dies, which he believes will be soon. Two weeks later, an ad runs in the newspaper that reads simply, “Erik is dead.”

Yeah. The game really went off the rails here in respect to following the Leroux book. After Christine turns the scorpion, Erik pulls Raoul into the lake and leaves him there, thinking he’ll drown or freeze to death, and then returns to force the marriage. He does eventually let Christine and Melek go, as Christine tells him that she will never love him and that she believes he is a monster, all while he is on his knees begging her just to love him a little. There is no forehead kiss. To the end, Erik writes and tells Hatim that Christine is the devil, and that she abandoned him in hell and wants her to suffer for the rest of her life knowing what she did to him. Yeah, I wish I was making that up.

There is one point where Christine tells Erik it’s not her job to save him. Which I agree with. I feel like whoever wrote the story had a misunderstanding of the ending of the book, or else thought the idea wasn’t explicitly stated enough. The forehead kiss does, in some respect, save Erik. It makes him realize how badly he’s treated everyone and yet Christine is still willing to extend kindness towards him. But it’s not Christine saving him, it’s him coming to that realization on his own. Ultimately, the game traded that idea for a way more heavy-handed “I am not here to save you, I am going to make my own decisions from here on.”

And then, in the face of all that, we’re also missing Erik changing and redeeming himself despite the fact that he’s close to death. Instead, he dies while leaving basically a suicide note to Hatim saying that Christine is the devil and he made her promise to return to bury him to hurt her. Which is so out of character if we look at the book characterization.

Like I knew I was signing up to get my heart ripped out, I just figured it was going to maybe be the brand of Christine having to choose whether or not to stay while Erik dies. And damnit, I just wanted a single forehead kiss.

Anyways, I really enjoyed the game up until the ending. I just seriously disliked the ending for the most part. If you’re more of a fan of the idea of Christine being on her own and finding her own path, that is an enjoyable option to go with. I still need to play through that episode with the marry Raoul choice and see what happens with that option though.