#at least in modern military general and commander are different ranks but i guess people just mean he leads the armies

[antikristvs]

Tagged by @blodbranddod ❤

last song: Sparta by Sabaton

favorite color: black, dark red, dark green, dark purple, soft pink, white, dark blue, silver, golden...

last movie/show: Yellowjackets (S2) and Run

next on my watchlist: probably AHS, I have many seasons yet to see... Not sure about what movie.

last game: Gardenscapes

last book: The Iliad

sweet/savory/spicy: depends on the mood, mostly spicy

relationship status: single

last thing i searched online: "is archangel michael a general or a commander" (people use those as synonyms with him, and I'm trying to decide which one to pick in my works)

current obsession: the Antichrist, the Book of Revelations (Biblical lore in general), angels/demons, the occult, the stories I'm trying to work on, the characters I create, horror media...

greatest flaw: that's classified information

fic i'm currently reading: none, I just write them (mostly focused on my AHS: Apocalypse works right now)... I've already read all Michael Langdon x Cordelia Goode fics I found that caught my attention, I'd gladly read more, but there aren't any

[bomberqueen17]

New Work: Fit For Pearls now a series

Due to my failure to anticipate quite how much of Fit For Pearls there was going to be, I made some structural choices, and so instead of just having straight-ahead sequels I gotta go back and fill in some earlier material.

Instead of literally any of the things I meant to, I very quickly wrote this backfill story set in late summer of 1271, because it was for some reason easier to do than any of the complicated stuff I need to do. Listen this is my idea of being gentle with myself.

So I present to you, in atonement for a blank Friday, this nice little Monday update of a standalone short prequel.

The Boy General, on AO3.

Yeah mostly this is me being like “CDPR please google how military ranks work and what a division is” to go alongside my overarching thesis of “CDPR, this book character was described as a child in 1268 why is he 45 in 1271?”

[Here is the quick result of my research:  1) officers: start as lieutenant -> captain -> major -> lt. colonel -> colonel -> major general -> lieutenant general -> general - maybe a marshal?. (in different systems there may be more fine gradations of generalship but there are gonna be like five guys who get that far for it to matter anyway; this is the basic outline.)  2) an Army or Group is made of several Corps commanded by a lieutenant general or general, and a Corps is made of a handful of Divisions commanded by a major general or maybe lieutenant general, and a Division is commanded by a colonel or major general at most, and so if Morvran is 1) 18, 2) a general, and 3) in command of a division, something is sort of hinky. Before you protest that the modern US Army is not the same as the Nilfgaardian Army, no I know, but Sapkowski organized his shit this way too because guess what, he was writing about WWII, at least in part, and people who miss that do miss a lot of the point of the books. And military ranks work the way they do for reasons, but. Whatever. Okay. Here.]

anyway. i still have to go make Fit For Pearls into a series. I’ll get there. Meanwhile here.

“I’m sure,” Braibant said, “that you’ve had very high expectations placed on you for most of your life, and as such you likely believe that it’s possible to do everything perfectly. But that’s just not how war works, Voorhis.”

The mask fell away, and just for a moment, the boy looked at him with huge, tragic eyes, unnervingly pale blue, tired and frightened. Braibant bit down ruthlessly on his desire to embrace the poor child, and just looked back at him. Voorhis pulled himself together after a moment, setting his jaw, and if he couldn’t quite get the tragic look out of his eyes at least he broke the eye contact. “Well,” he said, and it was a little hollow but he was making a credible stab at resolute, “I still have room for improvement.”

[attackfish]

Do you have any thoughts about Zuko interacting with nobility?

I do in fact. I have a lot of them, and different manifestations of them tend to show up in my AUs. However, underlying all of them are my assumptions and speculations about what exactly the Fire Nation nobility is at the time of the end of the Hundred Year War.

Typically the nobility of a country or region are the people who either control the most resources, or who can bring the means to make war to bear, or more usually, both. In a feudal society, warlords (or kings if you like) vie for territory, and distribute conquered territory to their followers and/or cooperative members of the conquered territory's elites. These people may further divvy up territory to people who will then owe their allegiance to them first, and though them to the warlord. In return, the new landholders provide local administration of the territory, resources from the land in the form of rents, taxes, or tribute, and military service to the landholders directly above them, and through them, to the warlord. If this warlord and his followers last long enough and are able to pass these territories to their children and grandchildren, they become the royalty and nobility.

This was a pretty common pattern of human governance for a large stretch of history in a whole lot of places. And as seen in "Smoke and Shadow", the Fire Nation has an origin story that fits this pattern well. The first Firelord was a man who conquered the rest of the Fire Nation, uniting the islands into one nation, and presumably setting up a nobility comprised of the cooperative former territorial rulers, and his own followers.

But by the end of the Hundred Year War, the Fire Nation is no longer properly feudal. The Fire Nation has a standing military with a system of rank at least nominally independent from the nobility. Iroh is a prince, but he is also a general, and it is as a general, not as a prince, that he leads an army. Zhao rises from captain, to commander, to admiral. It's entirely possible and even probable that ones family status influences one's career trajectory within the Fire Nation military, with higher born people rising faster and more readily through the ranks than their more humbly born comrades, but the Fire Nation military for the most part, Azula excepted, doesn't have princes and lords leading as princes and lords.

This means that the nobility at this point are no longer the means by which military force is controlled and organized. They might still be wealthy, and command cultural respect, but their power is waning. I would hazard a guess that this is the result of the Hundred Year War itself, that as the Fire Nation changed in order to more efficiently conquer and control more and more territory, and as the Firelord's personal control grew tighter over the military apparatus, the nobility grew weaker and less important to the governance of the country and the military.

This puts the social, governmental, and economic systems of the Fire Nation at the time of the end of the Hundred Year War into a state of transition. I have mentioned that the writers drew not only on the modern US and Imperial Japan for its inspiration for how the Fire Nation empire works, but also on the British Empire: [Link], This is a large part of what I mean by this, and why I sometimes draw inspiration myself for the Fire Nation going forward from British imperial history: [Link]. Following the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, and the installation of the Hanoverians, the Brits really got going on this making an empire thing. And at the same time, their economy and military were rapidly becoming something that we might recognize as similar to modern ones. The military had ranks and a command structure separate from the feudal hierarchy, and while the nobility might occupy nearly all of the top positions in the military, they didn't command as feudal lords. At the same time, merchants and industrialists were building vast fortunes to rival and often surpass the old landed aristocracy.

This meant that the nobility in the UK has been slowly declining in power ever since. Now, in Great Britain during the empire period, that power, along with the power of the royal family spread to more and more segments of society, but during the Hundred Year War, the power of the nobility seems instead to have accrued to the Firelord. This can even be seen in the royal architecture of the Fire Nation. In Sozin's youth, the Fire Nation throne room was open, well lit, and spacious, with the Firelord's throne on a dais, but otherwise not curtained off. By the end of Azulon's reign, the Firelord is hidden on a throne behind a curtain of fire. It's theatrical, dramatic, and meant to intimidate and separate. It serves to cast the Firelord as distant, remote, and no longer quite human.

Ultimately after the end of the war, Zuko's interaction with the nobility is going to be shaped both by his personal characteristics, his awkwardness, his anxiety, his desire to please and be liked, his existing social ties, to Mai and Ty Lee for example, and just who he is willing and ready to share power with as Firelord.

[stevedonnellyfaith-blog]

Family Gatherings (Post 118) 12-2-15

About two months ago Pam's mother Barb let me know about that Pam's Aunt Patty was planning a family reunion for the Saturday after Thanksgiving and asked us if we would be able to make it down.  I told her we would attend as my social calendar is as empty as the state of Wyoming in a spring snow storm.  I think my next semi-firm appointment is my brother's retirement from the Navy this spring. I don't count the plant Christmas party because really that is business.  

I will probably attend that as well, as my office mate has solemnly promised me that he will not twerk this year.  Several people have offered to provide me with video clips of his outstanding performance last year, but I am a "no twerking none of the time" type of guy.  Anyway I guess I have a few things I will be going to this holiday season, but a trip down to Maryland sounded like a good way for Natalie to get to meet more of Pam's family than she has gotten to see since we migrated back East.

Although Abby had made plans to spend Thanksgiving with her friend Tyler in New York City, she arranged her schedule so that she could catch a bus down to Baltimore on Friday morning.  As usual, she had everything about her week in New York and the transit south to meet up with the rest of the family planned down to a tee.  Nicholas also performed to his consistent level of planning efficiency by forgetting to ask off from work at O'Reilly's Auto Parts but that was serendipitous for me as his oversight freed me from having to kennel the two dogs that my middle children conned me into allowing them to purchase nearly two years ago.  One of the two critters is actually lying on my legs and gnawing on a raw hide product as I am typing.

So everything about the trip to Maryland went smoothly unless you count the text message that I got almost immediately after leaving my Ohio house. It was from Tyler who let me know Abby's schedule because Abby had left her phone accidentally in Tyler's dormitory room and was headed to Baltimore incommunicado - something no normal person has considered doing on purpose since 2005.  Unfortunately for Abby, I had goofed off that morning and slept in late enough so that my vector was trailing her now silent arrival into the greater Baltimore area by several hours.  Luckily, Barb was able to coordinate an effective meetup without the need of cellular communication.  I wasn't all that disturbed as the rendezvous was in broad daylight at the White Marsh park-and-drive which, in no way, resembles the hood.

Stephen, Natalie and I arrived at Barb's house a few hours later to find Abby and Denny, Pam's father, binge watching some type of post zombie apocalypse martial arts cable series of which I had never heard.  Abby had planned to stay at the house with Denny, Barb, Pam's brother and his son.  She wanted to do what she could to cheer up Denny who was recovering from shoulder surgery and has been feeling out of sorts.  In retirement Denny likes to keep busy but physical activity does not mix well with a shoulder sling.  My father-in-law looked quite pleased to have his granddaughter handy for watching what looked to me to be the modern equivalent of a spaghetti western.

The rest of us, on the other hand, were scheduled to stay with Pam's uncle Johnnie, a retired probation officer who lives alone in the old house that his father had built for the family fifty or sixty years previous.  Johnnie gets a kick out of Natalie and Abby, but was quite satisfied to have at least one of them under his roof, which is located about twenty minutes away and within a couple of minutes' drive of the family plot where Pam is buried along with her grandparents.  We met up with Johnnie at one of Pam's sisters' houses located another twenty minutes from Pam's folk's house in another direction entirely.  Pam's Baltimore-centric immediate family does a Friday night post-Thanksgiving left-over pot luck that was quite enjoyable.  Plates cleared, we trailed behind Uncle Johnnie, or UJ as the kids call him, back towards his Hanover, MD abode after the dinner broke up.

I stayed up a while talking with him after Natalie shuffled off to her guest bedroom.  Stephen and I were sleeping in the living room.  I enjoy talking to Johnnie as he and I share many interests.  His politics are more conservative than mine and he prefers the Latin Mass only while I am more Catholic with respect to my Catholic masses, but we both share a love for military history.  With regard to the Civil War, he likes the gentility of the Gray while I prefer the idealism of the Blue.  I am forever a Yankee in all respects other than baseball, but Johnnie and I appreciate each other's opinion.  We also share an unspoken camaraderie as circumstances have turned both of our lives into sometimes lonely but not morose slogs in the footprints of those who have preceded us towards and though the veil to eternal life.

We woke up relatively late, breakfasted and made a quick stop at the cemetery for a visit with Pam and her grandparents before heading to the family reunion on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  Natalie was pleased that her memorial stones painted as a butterfly and hamburger were still in the same positions on the graves where she had left them in September.  Some poor soul had pilfered the bronze vase from the marker assembly of Pam's grandmother, but Johnnie was already aware of the desecration and seemed resigned to the fact that we live among a generation of grave robbers.  

After a short visit and no tears we began a much longer car trip than I expected to where Barb's other sibling, Patty, now resides.  Her husband, a twice retired cop - formerly a barracks commander for the State Police and then a County Sherriff - has now found work in an unelected second-in-command at the Sherriff's office of a county that is very close to a place called Ocean City that I had heard of but never visited.  I believe that Ocean City is a Maryland equivalent of the Jersey Shore without as much swearing and orange toner.  That might be an inaccurate characterization as I am a rank amateur with respect to Maryland cultural studies.

The journey did include a fly-by of Annapolis, my stomping ground several decades previous, but mostly the drive broke new ground for me.  I am sure that I probably have been across the Bay Bridge - Chesapeake version, but I didn't really remember the road or the scenery.  I did notice a definite improvement in how property was maintained in the towns of the Eastern Shore in comparison with some of the Baltimore neighborhoods we had driven through the previous day.  Things appeared conservatively well-kept if not crazy wealthy and the drive was a pleasant one.  I was just glad that the reunion was not planned for the summer as there seemed to be only one main drag, Route 50, which probably would be grossly inadequate for the onslaught of weekend beachcombers if we were visiting in the last days of July instead of the final November weekend.

Once we arrived, we enjoyed the party although we found the festivities slightly divided along family lines as many reunions tend to be.  Patty's relatives tended to congregate in the living room and sun room of the house, while her husband's relations mostly conversed in the kitchen and family room.  It was a natural division and an amicable one.  I had joined the family over a quarter century pervious and had encountered a couple of Scott's extended family members less than a handful of times.  

I caught up with the lives of those few that I knew, but mostly played wingman for Johnnie when I wasn't conversing with Abby.  Natalie played with the pack of collective kiddies, while Stephen wandered around the yard which had little bit of a beachhead on a creek-side location that let into a river then into the Chesapeake and eventually into the Atlantic. I was disappointed not to catch of whiff of salt marsh, an odor that evokes my seafaring days.  Unfortunately, this property was more inland and manicured like a golf-course in a tasteful and charming sort of way.  Perhaps Copperopolis, Round Valley and Muir Wood has spoiled me so that I can now only appreciate the breathtaking.  Ohio fall forest colors does fit the bill, though.

While we were frittering through the afternoon in small talk over light snacks, I did catch a bad vibe from Johnnie.  The nexus of his discomfort seemed to be the respective spouses of the brother and sister who had been the flower girl and ring bearer at my wedding what seems like eons ago.  To my eye both had married well.  The ring bearer had picked up the tools of the family trade, a badge and pistol of some sort.  His spouse was a pretty blonde whose slim waist seemed in congruent with her three rug rats that I could see pictured in the family portrait on the coffee table next to where we sat.  His sister had married a nice looking young man that was thoroughly balding but pretty athletic for a posture that was probably pushing thirty-five. I watched him pitch whiffle balls to his two pre-school aged sons alternately.  The younger one was a tiger. 

I didn't see the problem, so Johnnie explained the issue.  Both the spouses were atheists and none of the kids had been baptized.  Under closer observation, I noticed that neither of the spouses really smiled or enjoyed other people. Maybe they were put off by being tertiary participants in a family gathering that didn't interest them, but they seemed to be alone within a large group of joyous people. It is possible that other people were thinking the same thoughts about me, but their separation seemed to be palpably different, and I considered adding the two of them to my prayer list, but I didn't know their names.  Johnnie couldn't provide them, he said that he had never been introduced in the half decade since the two joined the family.  Evidently, both the flower girl and ring bearer live quite close to Johnnie, but there is no contact between them. I expect that UJ is the Godfather of both of them as he is to one of my children.

 The separation seemed strange and disheartening to the both of us.  Both of the little families had raised high bulwarks to prevent any possible intrusion of Jesus Christ. I expect that someday and unforeseen tragedy will visit them in their purposefully insular worlds and they will discover that their walls bricked to keep out Our Savior will unfortunately form a bathtub of pain for them to marinate in.  Neither Johnnie, Jesus nor I are satisfied with that situation, but we respect and disagree with their choices as responsible adults.  

I am not a particularly good prayer warrior, but I do plan to spend some time praying for something to innocuously breach the walls of their atheistic aquaria.  Advent seems like an excellent time to affix our eyes on a better outcome for whatever relatives and friends we have that have chosen problematic paths that are currently orientated away from True North.