#bc it's a recent development not an ancient one

[mqfx]

tea anon i fucking invented to-go cups in this setting for you. NEVER SAY I DIDN'T TRY

[milkweedman]

Genuinely spending 2 hours a day just prepping the fiber, RIP

To be fair at least a third of that time is pushing the executive function button so I can start the next nest. They're unfortunately one of those activities that has enough steps that each one feels like it's own separate thing, so I have to Start Task each damn time. So there's a 5-10 minute cooldown between them.

Got 9 nests, I think (on top), middle is some fleece that's already had a lot of locks picked out so it's kind of jumbled, bottom is combing waste.

[thatdeadaquarius]

imagine if reader is given an ancient scripture from around the time humanity founded out how to write and do the alphabet (somehow it was preserved so well that you can still see the words with no issue)

and it's the most heart wrenching, soul crushing, tear inducing, hyperventilating, sanity disappearing angst, misunderstandings, hurt/no comfort, it gets worse but never better, major character death, unrequited love story to have ever existed in teyvat.

and after reader goes through the whole thing, they can barely talk or breathe properly with how much they're crying.

(even better, it was smut not angst and reader is staring ar the scripture, jaw dropped to the floor with shaking hands.)

STOP- I avoid fanfics like that at all costs 😭 id stop reading it after the first angsty event LMAO

Im like... too emotionally affected by fanfics, esp angst ones 💀

Its just, ppl who write closer to my generation or just very psychologically honestly, are like fucking deadly writers. Got my day ruined and shit w/just fanfics 😭

LMAO THE GIF IS JUST YOU ON THE SPOT NOT EVEN HALFWAY THRU-

☆

Sun: Gender Neutral Reader (you/they/them)

Orbit: Short! Headcanons-ish

Stars: my first of the Fontians!! Fontainianes? Fontainains?? u get it

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: sobbing, discussion of vague smut/NSFW book at the end, okay for Teen/Mature audiences, & Trigger Warnings: none known.

no but it’d be hilarious if u got this crazy like hand-width deep tablet for each “page” of the book, like how every novel or info in genshin is like one page at a time 😭

Sumeru and other international academics are literally constantly harassing politely requesting your translation of these and sending them to you in whichever country you’re visiting at the moment

Fontaine was even more complex and pretty in real life than it could ever be in game and i can def see you at like Neuvillette’s office or a nice french fontaine cafe and just WHAM

huge ass tablet bc as much as the fic tortures you, you have to know what the fuck happens to these miserable idiots

Neuvillette, Clorinde, and Lynette are all the type to immediately try and dissuade you from reading it again, bc from their point of view you just pull out this huge old rock and start sobbing quietly about 10 mins into the read every time 😭😭

(unsurprisingly, Neuvillette would even go so far as to get the Marechaussee Phantom to sneakily steal ur most recent tablets of the story to hide them, which sucks for you LMAO)

Freminet, Wriothesley, Navia, Lyney, and Furina,all frantically try to distract you, and also theyre in order of who would be the most dramatic w/it lmao

NO BC I JUST HAD THE THOUGHT-

Ur tears absolutely are top priority to Neuvillette and Furina so when they inevitably find the memories in them (and the traveler too maybe)

of what the story is about, except its like all the feelings and stuff, so like its the best “translation” they get of the book so far, u best believe it rains for a week straight

it started out as a light drizzle, but as Neuvillette “read on” in ur tear’s memories if got worse HAHA

mans is out here trying to convince himself like, “this is a classic tragedy from eons ago, its about a human romance, im definitely unaffected, though im glad i could figure out what ails My Majesty so”

meanwhile the story gets worse and its just like that meme “ohHHhhhHH its got a little kiicckkk”

Neuvillette nearly floods the streets by chapter 5 when the miscommunication happens and then they cant get in contact with each other to fix it lmao

LMAO I JUST HAD A VISIONNN

ur in fontaine and while yes drinks were popular (like obv fonta)

business is rlly booming bc now everyone you know (like the Vision-users or archons Neuvill, etc) all have develop this habit of having a water bottle or drink on them to offer you when u start reading to rehydrate you 😭😭😭

Navia, Clorinde, Neuvillette, Wriothesley, Lyney, Lynette all have a handkerchief on them at all times too 😭😭

Good God-

the moment you translate the now instant Shakespearean-level tragedy classic, it is a known tear-jerker thruout all of Teyvat,

like theres trigger warnings and age limits and shit 💀

◇

on another note,

if its smut,

ur desperately combing thru all the tablets and wall carvings and cave paintings to try and lowkey cover it up LMAO

and its not like a story with a smut scene either, its like what anon said,

just fully like the ao3 tag “Porn What Plot/Porn With Plot”

STOP

not u yanking the tablets out of Neuvillette’s hands when he curiously picks them up one time lmao

(he is now invested in getting these translated too bc of ur reaction lol)

☆

consider supporting me with an iced coffee? :0

Spooky Season! Spooky Season!! Spooky Season!!!

still not dead btw

just got hired at my new job so ive been training and busy!! :)

im a host at Olive Garden lol its weird and kinda hard, my feet hurt a lot and i havent had a full shift yet ;-; its a brand new one so it opens the 23rd

dw that eldritch one shot is still coming btw, just talking with betas and editing it now lol

hope if you read this you have a great upcoming weekend!!

Safe Travels Anon,

💀♒

☆

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

☆

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657

[oh-no-its-bird]

recently, i've started to see things where tobirama is reincarnated as sakura or is sakura's "inner", which is really interesting. could i get your take on this?

Unfortunatley I don't actually know much ab Sakura's inner! I learned naruto lore via fanfiction (never actually touched any canon media, oops) and have only actually read like 3 Sakura centric ones, I straight up didn't even know Sakura had a multiple personality(?) thing going for her till a few months ago (and boy wasn't that a surprise)

I think Tobirama being reincarnated as her could be p fun!! But also I think I'd be more interested in telling a story where he just straight up reincarnated as someone not existing in canon, if only bc then he could also interact WITH Sakura instead of just being her

I find that a lot of stories that try to give Sakura agency just kind of toss her entire character out the window and start from scratch, which is fun and valid! But it's more fun for me to make direct, uncomfortable eyecontact w canon her and find increasingly stupid or chaotic ways to fast track that whole "character development" thing or at least find ways to explain why she's Like That(tm)

So yeah I don't have toooo much interest in Tobirama reincarnating as specifically Sakura or her inner, but I could be into a story where he just reincarnates in proximity to her and then see how they bounce off of eachother. Maybe as a sibling? That could be cool

If he's born a girl we can zap em with the trans beam on top of the body dismorphia of suddenly being a whole child, that could be interesting. The blatant sexism of naruto canon could also make for an interesting plotline if we want to actually get into that

I kind of like the idea of him not actually remembering his previous life, at least not in full. Maybe he has weird dreams sometimes, maybe he looks at photos of the Nidaime and gets weird feelings of dejavu.

I suddenly have a very specific mental image of him getting a scar on his cheek, where one of his tattoos used to be, and just staring in a mirror afterwards at this super weird feeling of dejavu mixed w a sensation of it not being right mixed w just general body dismorphia and aw fuck why does he feel like he's both a little more right and further from himself than he's ever been?

Anyways would he be born younger or older than Sakura? Older brother him is just super overprotective, often suffering from nightmares of sensing as Sakura and some unnamed "other sibling" of his dies. It could also mean he can interact with Itachi actually, maybe they can be emotionally stunted baby genius friends or smthn

But younger sibling him could make for a surprisingly compelling parallel with Sakura and Hashirama! Especially w how Sakura later goes on to train with Tsunade n stuff

Part of me wants to say he's still names Tobirama for simplicitys sake, he can just be named after the Nidaime or smthn. But also that feels a bit cheap even if it is easier, so at least for now we'll name him Tora

Him and cat Tora can square off for name rights idk

Tora speaking oddly formally for a civilian, and having the kind of respect for your elders that come from being a second son in an elder run clan in ancient Japan. He has an awful time trying to form emotional attachments with people, including but especially his parents, who for some reason never really felt like his

But also him having a super easy time being attached to his new little sister Sakura, who he refuses to see anything bad happen to ever

So Tora and Sakura's parents being like suuper traditional, which is why Sakura is Like That when it comes to boys (she's constantly being told she needs to find a man to take care of her) Tora acts as a good figure and role model in her life, so while she's still interested in romance like canon she isn't AS boy crazy and can do a bit of thinking for herself.

And then we can get some fun conflict between Tora and his parents, who unfortunatley don't get the whole trans thing and constantly insist he needs to either drop the shinobi thing and find a husband, or if he does keep going at the shinobi thing, use it to find a husband there then drop it

Yeah he's not doing either of those things.

(they find out he's friends w the Uchiha clan heir and immediatley get weird about it, all glowing with pride that he's "attracting such good potential husbands" n stuff (Tora is PISSED))

Anyways Tora being just alarmingly good at literally any jutsu Tobirama invented. Like, ALARMINGLY good. He has that first life muscle memory, which unfortunatley is NOT a valid alibi and he's about to get his ass beat for seeming to have reverse engineered secret jutsus he shouldn't be able to know.

It isn't HIS fault that just glancing at the flying thunder god technique that one time was apparently enough for him to instinctively understand how to use it!!! Maybe this "Tobirama" guy should have just been better at making his jutsu harder to understand, this is clearly not his fault

He manages to help avoid the Uchiha massacre by being friends with Itachi, the two of them both graduating early and at the same ages, joining the same team and then ANBU together and so on.

Tora being really strong and graduating early and all that only further motivating Sakura to be a super strong shinobi, just like her big brother! Maybe she and Sasuke can even bond or have met earlier through Itachi and Tora's friendship.

Sakura and Sasuke childhood friends agreeing to try and graduate early together just like their older siblings. Not really into sasusaku but Ill say Sakura can keep her crush on him but be actually normal about it via exposure plus maybe some boy advice from Tora (he's a shinobi, so if you really want to charm him, you'll have to beat him first)

She can maybe lose it with time (and exposure to him being a dumb cringe fail kid w his brother still around) and maybe go kiss Ino idk

Anyways, Tora and Itachi friendship. Shisui is also there!! (Love that guy)

They're dynamic is just emotionally suppressed bastard (thinks hes better than you) + emotionally suppressed bastard (knows hes better than you) + upbeat guy smiling at you as he holds a gun to your head

Shisui and Tora take turns driving the car as Itachi sits in the back seat peacefully eating some applesauce (he's just happy to be here)

They're gonna blow up the hokage tower for the good of the people 👍

They're on an ANBU team w Kakashi and Tenzo and forget about going grey, they're gonna make Kakashi's hair straight up fall out from the stress

Maybe Tora can move out of his parents house the first chance he gets, and then whatever place he manages to find can be a little safe place for Itachi. Itachi accidentally ends up almost moving in w him as things at home get worse and worse w the coup. He just stays over more and more and doesn't want to return home

Circling back to the "Tora instinctivley knows how to navigate Tobirama's seals/techniques" the most terrifying point of the story is when he sees Naruto's jinchuriki seal and realizes he knows how to mess with it

Uh oh!! Shouldn't have that information!!

Anyways take some doodles

(Danzo is "that jackass who won't let me look at the nidaime's old research" and Tora has a GRUDGE.)

[gemsofgreece]

Grecanico

I wasn't very familiar with the dialects of the Griko community, the Greek minority of Italy, residing mostly in Calabria and Apulia. Once in a travel show I had seen a grandpa speaking in one of them but it was so fast and idiomatic that I could only catch one word or two and I consequently thought the Griko dialects had grown really distant from Greece's or Eastern Greek dialects.

Recently I watched this Griko song performance in Italy and it moved me deeply. First of all, it impressed me how it could seamlessly pass as a Modern Greek music style. Of course, Italy and Greece do share a lot of similar sounds, so it perhaps was to be expected. Even the la-la-le-o-la-la pattern, I have heard it in many familiar Greek urban songs (as in, not folk).

I just read that there are in fact two Italiot Greek dialects, Griko (spoken by ~ 45,000 people) and the smaller one, Grecanico (severely endangered and spoken only by ~ 2,000 people). The latter is believed to have incorporated more Italian influences. According to Wikipedia, there are many similarities with Standard Modern Greek, although linguists assert they evolved independently from either Ancient or Koine Greek. If you ask me, judging from the song, there is no way they evolved independently from Ancient Greek. Not only that but if the linguists did not only examine the Ancient and Koine theories, I would have thought they evolved independently from early Modern or super late Koine at most. This could be explained by an influx of Greeks to Italy as a consequence of the Crusader conquests or the Fall of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire to the Ottoman Turks because - fun fact - the type of Greek spoken during both those periods was Modern Greek. Very early Modern Greek at the times of the Fourth Crusade (1202 - 1204), yet modern nonetheless. So the Greeks that might have fled the Latin and the Ottoman blows to the East Roman Empire may have perhaps influenced the language of the ancient and medieval Greek communities of Italy. Then, this late koine - early modern Greek dialect also got influenced by Latin / Italian, especially in the pronunciation and some of the vocabulary. That’s my theory that’s just on me. Perhaps they indeed developed independently from Koine Greek because the Greek language is pretty conservative after all. But Ancient, as in prior to 200 BC, no fricking the frick way.

The song is in Grecanico of Apulia. The video of this performance had the lyrics in Grecanico (they use the Latin alphabet) and a translation in Standard Modern Greek. I was shocked by how much more I could understand in the slower way they were singing compared to the mumbling grandpa. It was deeply touching so I decided to share the video and I even decided to offer the Standard Modern Greek equivalent version in a Latin transliteration, in case any of you is interested in the study of the evolution between Standard Modern Demotic Greek and the Grecanico of Italy.

Lyrics in Grecanico and Standard Modern Greek (with Latin characters) below the cut:

G: KALINITTA SMG: KALINICHTA

G: Ti en glicea tusi nifta, ti en ória SMG: Ti glikiá in' túti i níchta, ti oréa íne

G: cíevó plonno penséonta 'ss' esena SMG: ki eghó xaplóno skeftómenos eséna

G: C'ettú mpἰ's ti ffenéstra ssu agápi mu SMG: Ke káto ap'to paráthiro su agápi mu

G: tis kardia mmu su nifto ti ppena SMG: tis karðiás mu su ðíchno ton póno

G: Evó pánta ss' esena penseo SMG: Eghó pánta eséna skéftome

G: jati 'sena, fsichi mmu 'gapó SMG: jatí eséna psichí mu agapó

G: ce pu pao, pu sirno, pu steo SMG: ke ópu páo, ópu sérno, ópu stéko

G: sti kkardía panta sena vastó. SMG: stin karðiá pánta eséna vastó.

G: T' asteracia pu panu me vlepune SMG: T' asterákia pu páno me vlépune

G: ca mo féngo friffizun nomena SMG: ke me to fengári psithirízun omú (?)

G: ce jelú ce mu leone ¨ston anemo SMG: ke jelún ke mu léne ¨ston ánemo

G: ta traudia pelis, i chamena" SMG: ta traghúðia petás, íne chaména¨

G: Kalí nifta! Se finno ce féo SMG: Kalí níchta! Se afíno ke févgho

G: Plaja 'su ti 'vó pirta prikó SMG: Plájase jatí eghó févgho (?) pikrá

G: ce pu pao, pu sirno, pu steo SMG: ke ópu páo, ópu sérno, ópu stéko

G: sti kkardía panta sena vastó. SMG: stin karðiá pánta eséna vastó.

Hopefully, the Greeks of Italy and the Greek state will aid in rescuing Grecanico from fading forever. 🙏

Oh and here’s an English translation of the song to not leave it entirely obscure:

What a sweet night it is, how beautiful

and I lay down thinking of you

and under your window, my love

I show you the pain of my heart.

I always think about you

because it’s you, my soul, that I love

and wherever I go, I set to, I stand

I always keep you in my heart.

The little stars look at me from above

and they chat together with the moon

and they laugh and tell me “In the wind

you throw your songs, they go wasted”.

Good night! I am leaving you and I am going away.

Go to bed for I am leaving in bitterness

and wherever I go, I set to, I stand

I always keep you in my heart.

[ganondoodle]

you know, not like i had enough zelda ideas and rewrites already

but i thought of another (just roughly .. for now) for totk ... and its one where theres no time travel and no direct views into the past either, and no sonau shown, been wanting to think up one like this before but i recently got the basic idea for it (it ignores all of totk aside from some ideas like .. underground stuff)

the basic idea being that the sonau, whoever they were, had an understanding of the cycle hyrule keeps falling into, based on their use of the three animals representing the three virtues, perhaps them being so aware in fact that they were working on dismantling it, finding out why and get at it at its roots, perhaps being one of the only tribes left that knew some things of the past- with the twilight princess referecnes in that boar statue and the seven stones around it with one toppled over (like the sage that was killed)- or even just being aware of it, but not doing anythign against it bc they thought it should be and remain like it (though i like the first idea more)

them not being a high tech people either, perhaps more naturalistic or magic adjacent thing- to contrast the shiekah, who, as their place under the hyrulean monarchy, firmly believedd in hyrules divine right to conquer it all, and the sonau with their knowledge of the past and the cycle of reincarnation beign a threat to the royal families absoulute power position- thus leading to the sonaus destruction and why all their (botw) ruins are highjacked by shiekah shrines!

since the sonau kept most of their knowledge to themselves (hey hey, heres and idea, they didnt communicate vie normal languegs but vie sign language or some magic- making them even more different and mysterious to the others living in the world) no one really got to know what they knew nor their culture or plans; the shiekah findign out what they know or just that they might be a threat to hyrule being sent to get rid of them, in the process finding out more about the past (like the king of the gerudo being the one who has resisted hyrule before and his potential to go monster mode) beginning the plan to imprison the current king of the gerudo (picking up some of the ideas i have had before, the whole betrayel plot) before he can become a danger to hyrule

ganondorf finds out about it (perhaps being in a shaky alliance out of necessity- like the shiekah intentionally minign below the desert without the gerudo knowing that it robs the land of life- thus makign them dependend on trade with hyrule) and plans to counteract it (a big somehow for now, like assassinate the king of hyrule? or try and force him to abandon their plan or sth), and the plan works out for the most part, but theres one gerudo thats been on the side of the hyrulean family the whole time leading to ganondorf ending up sealed and trapped by the queen of hyrule (sealing powers and all, perhaps, again picking up former ideas, after starting a war for ganondorf killing the king) and after realizing ganondorfs undying spirit will never rest try and purify the malice hed sent out to break free, leading to them discovering a much more efficient way to power their newly developing tech, rather than luminous stones which are hard to mine and process, using ganondorfs spirit/malice instead (yes i WILL include battery theory again) which allows them to make all the ancient shiekah tech in the scale we see in botw (and hear of in the past calamity)

its sort of more like the first ideas i had for a totk rewrite, zelda being your companion from the start and link loosing his arm and gettign a shiekah tech replacement- with the added bonus of including the sonau without robbing them of their mystery while still developing them further

most of their recording having been destroyed, either intentionally or by the tides of time, but due to the cataclysm changing the landscape there being new caves uncovered with cave painting like remains of the sonau, entrances to the underground revealing that they came in fact from there and the population on the surface was a small fraction of the last ones of them, with the underground being filled with even more (botw) sonau ruins, but also shiekah labs in other parts

yes it paints the shiekah in a bad light .. which honeslty why not, they are hyrules pawns more or less, and given what the monks do just to give a future hero their last bit of spirit they must have very strong believe in it all- but then the next king turning on them and persecuting them just like they did to the sonau .. being yet another cycle

you slowly discovering everything real time, no memories and no direct views into the past, just real discoveris

ganondorf would once again be the villain, but it would give alot more background to him, in this case making him much more a victim of said cycle, it repeating by wanting to avoid it etc etc, and you wouldnt be able to reason with him after a little over ten thousand years of solitary imprisonment AND your spirit/energy being continueosly exploited to power tech built to fight off any of his attempts to break free (calamity ganon) leading to the desperation of literally tryign to rebuild himself out of malice, which is how you get weird spider ganon and the malice build lumps, eyes, mouths and even rib like structures- the monsters and bosses being a creation of him yes, it being an attempt, or antoehr really, to take revenge on all those that plotted against him, that helped in putting him in this agonzing condition between life and death AND then even exploiting his spirit too-- making the end fight more of a mercy kill with a tragic note, but still hopeful to a better future and not to let the cycle begin anew once a new gerudo king is born- so its not utterly throwing it all in dissarray but giving you the sense of ... theres a future, hope for soemthign better even if it wasnt fixable now

it falls more in line with the 'traditional' zelda formular, but makes it a bit more .. involved? nuanced?

(havent yet thought of ideas for the sky except .. it being there still like i had previously thought, idk if i will develop this further but i like this ones alot bc .... i dont like the totk sonau at all and find it extremely boring to just say yep they are here and actually everywhere and here they are literally in your face as people with voices- i liked them alot more as unkowns)

[loth-creatures]

So... how does Baylan become a wolf? In one post you said it was Sabine, but in another you said Sabine bit Shin who then got Baylan later on.Si which is it?

So originally Shin bit Baylan simply bc I hadn't yet committed to writing in the entire ahsoka series and didn't think about it much; that just seemed like a likely scenario.

But I decided on Sabine biting Baylan instead (she still also bites Shin first, on Seatos) when thinking about how she would attempt to escape and compromise the Sion, as well as developing Sabine and Baylan's dynamic more...I just so happen to have a substantial wall of text of ideas about the Sion's voyage sitting around if anyone is interested in that. It just needs some refinement.

ANYWAY, gory details below cut

Sabine makes her escape attempt a day or two before landing on Peridea. At this point, her and Shin are somewhat getting along and she's allowed her lightsaber for sparring. As soon as the opportunity arises she incapacitates Shin long enough to disappear into the walls Ezra style and spends the last 24 hours of the trip hiding deep in the guts of the ship and using the saber parts including the kyber to create a small bomb that can hopefully later be used to disable the Sion. Sacrificing the lightsaber almost breaks her heart again, and she is 100% banking on finding Ezra to pull this off, bc there's no way to detonate it without someone using the Force.

Once they've landed, she tries to get off the ship, and might have even succeeded if she didn't have to go back for her armor. She is then confronted by Baylan. He could have killed her using the Force the entire time but they didn't really want her corpse stuck somewhere hard to reach, so waited for her to make a move.

Idk why I got the idea but I've been imagining one of Baylan's Force talents as being really in tune with bodies, kind of like the heartrenders from Grishaverse, though not nearly on their level of percision.

He's been listening to Sabine's heartbeat since the moment she made a break for it. When he finds her, he squeezes her heart through the Force, crippling her. But before he crushes it, he makes the mistake of taking a moment to apologize for this, and the fact that she came this far only to never see Ezra again.

I mentioned before recently that Baylan knew of the Wolfwalkers from ancient stories in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, and is lowkey a fan. He attempts to get on better terms with Sabine during the trip in part because of that. She told him in no uncertain terms to fuck off but he still was hoping to not have to kill her.

In that moment of desperation, Sabine wolfs. It's like the moment in Wolfwalkers when Robyn's father becomes a wolf out of shear desperation to protect her.

Baylan wasn't aware that was a thing that could happen (spontaneous wolfing) and has about half a second to react before Wolfbine nails him. She misses his throat but crushes his shoulder and half his ribs in her jaws, fully intending to kill him. And she would have if WolfShin didn't show up just in time to intervene. And Shin would've ripped Sabine's throat out for reals, if Morgan and her soldiers didn't intervene just in time. Lucky for her they already contacted Thrawn and he wants her alive. Morgan, who watched Baylan leave to go kill her moments before getting Thrawn on the line is like 'Ahh. I'll see what I can do...'

Anyway, Baylan pulls through just barely, and is now a Wolfwalker as well, which he is actually very happy about. He hardly resents Sabine, even if he'll never be able to use that arm properly again and limps badly as a wolf. It is only fair, after all he tried to kill her first. Shin is the one Sabine will have to worry about seeking vengeance. Meanwhile Sabine is beating herself up even more for letting anyone affiliated with the Empire close to Lothal's secrets, though in the end neither Baylan nor Shin give a shit about the Empire.

[vague-mintyboy]

I am rewatching Misfits and Magic in preparation for the new season, and I am determined to figure out the exact date when The wizarding world of Misfits and Magic (WWMM for short) cut off technologically. I mean like Brennan keep saying, everything is technology so at some point the world was contemporary. So I will be keeping track of specific technology that stands out. I will update this post as I watch.

I will not count technologies an individual may have as some wizards are shown to have family etc in the NAMP world. This is a list of the wildly accepted technology.

So far no travel technology canonically described (in no real order)

Notable known technology

- Velocipede bicycles

Invented June 12, 1818.

So far this is the most recent date we can get. This specific type of hike also comes up in episode 2 so it isn’t a one-off from a more open-minded character. Dr. Boodle even implies that the school offers students complementary velocipedes in episode 2, so this technology is not considered out of place in the WWMM

- Tobacco pipe

While pipes in general can be traced back to Ancient Egypt, English Pipes do not become popularized until the late 1500s with the colonization/subsequent genocide of Indigenous Americans. This is when Tobacco in particular gets pairs with Pipes as it is native to the Americas.

- Parchment

Invented in Pergamum, 1500 BC.

However, it is not popular in England until seemingly 1500 CE, so this date keeps coming up.

- Indoor plumbing for water but not toilets

(so far unclear if that includes sinks or a water pump or what)

I knew this was going to give me trouble. Also TW a lot of literal shit talk.

Plumbing in general can be dated back to the Neolithic period but Aabria does say they have water pipes. If we are assuming these pipes are iron, and the typical shape then this would date to 1455

However, we can get more specific as the use of toilets/plumbing integrated gives us a cut off date. While again there are examples of various cultures using water to clean their versions of toilets, the flushing toilet is not invented until 1775.

This creates a problem. As shown Velocipedes were not invented at 1818. However, this could mean than instead of a single cut-off date, the transition to seclusion was slightly more gradual. As the lack of toilets seems to me more systematically in-forced (while velocipedes are easier to integrate) I am confident to say that by 1775 the wizarding world began to close itself off but had not fully done so. It also makes sense for typical public toilets/latrines not to be integrated into wizarding society as those are unhygienic and so a magical solution would be warranted, and that would still fit the contemporary needs. Furthermore the idea of pooping somewhere and then cleaning it matches with the social etiquette of latrines (versus just magicing away the waste pre-actual pooping.) this shows that socially pre-1755 the wizarding board was contemporary with medieval Europe.

- Pushbroom

Evan’s broom is specifically called a pushbroom. The pushbroom’s patent was filed in 1950! However, I could attribute this to the broom shop owner being particularly connected to the outside world? Or maybe it is just an older broom that looks similar to a pushbroom so Evan calls it that.

- Mop

Traditional mops (not just rags) seems to appear by the late 15th century for ships, and the idea is popular in association with more general cleaning by the 1840s.

- toffee

Toffee first becomes a word for candy around 1843. However, this was a general word for taffy-like candy. English toffee seems to be often dated to from around 1890s but that date is unreliable. https://www.etymonline.com/word/toffee

- Tea

Tea does not arrive in Europe until the 1600s from China. At the start, tea was still consumed like Chinese tea (no milk or sugar, etc). England then takes over the industry in 1858 with the government taking over the East India Company / relying on colonized India for tea production instead of China. However, this didn’t really affect popular culture / tea consumption habits until the 1900s and then really boomed in WWII.

I do admit that a handful of savvy more-modern Wizards could have taken tea’s popularity and broke into the untapped Wizard Market. However, even then you’d expect to see some sort of cultural difference (like how McDonald’s in different countries all have different menus, etc).

Notable technology not known about

- Nukes

We know definitively that nukes are not generally known about, so the WWMM is definitely completely closed off by 1945 bc even if there was slight connection people would know. Even if the WWMM closed after because of nukes people would know.

- Radio

Repeatedly radio is confirmed to be foreign. Radios were invented in 1899, and audio transmissions were then added in 1906.

Conclusion so far:

The WWMM was relatively contemporary with NAMP Britain through the 1500s. However, by 1755 WWMM began to close itself off. At least, architecture stopped being updated with modern plumbing which reflects a larger systematic shift. However, there was still a steady exchange of ideas through the 1840s, as tea, velocipedes, toffee, and modern mops all are treated as everyday items. However, by 1906 major technological trends went unnoticed, and certainly by 1945 the WWMM was completely cut off from world-wide news.

I feel like it is likely that by 1906 the WWMM stagnated completely and looked relatively the same to season 1’s world.

Currently, my theory is the political strife leading up to WWI, likely before the actual war, lead to the intellectual closure of the WWMM. However I will repost/update this with any new info. Also feel free to add your own insights.

[legends-on-legends]

People who get defensive about Ganondorf’s characterization (or lack thereof) in ToTK seem to willfully misunderstand the criticisms we’re making about that game. Nobody’s demanding that Ganondorf have a “tragic backstory” that exonerates him or a “redemption arc,” we’re just asking for the bare minimum: a coherent motivation and some thematic relevance, that’s it. Also, maybe some actual dignity for the Gerudo, too, instead of them getting disproportionately shamed for the deeds of One Guy over ten thousand years ago.

It’s not like ToTK would have had to stretch very far to give Ganondorf that bare minimum, all the ingredients were already there: the Zonai mining activities in the Gerudo region, the “ancient evil” that existed before Ganondorf entered the scene, the Gerudo’s own archaeological site from where they investigated the Depths, etc. Just add like 2 – 3 more backstory scenes focused on developing Ganondorf a little more, put some actual meat on the skeleton of a story we got in ToTK, and there you go.

The fact that some Zelda fans are so vehemently opposed to the bare minimum effort of writing for one of Nintendo’s most iconic villains is honestly baffling. The fact that they’re so opposed to Ganondorf having any semblance of humanity, that they’re apparently fine with Nintendo outsourcing the script for the highly anticipated sequel to one of their most successful games, absolutely bewilders me.

Like…this is definitely a combination of Modern Fandom’s extreme polarization and moral puritanism, plus the Zelda franchise containing conservative themes that a large part of the fandom seems to have internalized, and of course, good ol’ fashioned orientalism.

I’m inclined to mostly blame Modern Fandom because the way that people talk about villain tropes and “redemption arcs” and all that seems to overlap with “antishipper” nonsense. It’s like many young people nowadays are terrified of being judged for the “sin” of liking or relating to the designated Bad Guys, so they have to loudly and repeatedly proclaim that they are Good and Proper Christian Fans who engage with media in the Appropriate Manner, and denounce anyone who wants villains to be interesting or complex.

Even something like ATLA that recently had a revival is seeing Discourse like “Zuko should never have been redeemed bc he’s an evil colonizer, that teenage boy should have been executed instead!!!1! and Aang not killing Ozai at the end means that the writers are trying to excuse/defend genocide!!!1!”

I know it’s not most fans who have this kind of mindset, but dang, it’s getting more common.

[sapphicdib]

my headcanon is that nhs thinks that they are more powerful than sliver idk i just feel that they THAT full of themselves

I’m assuming this is about the rot au! I recently added SOS to it, so this was a perfect ask!!

Sliver is local group Senior of a nearby cluster of iterators, which includes Chasing Wind. She never got along with Sig in general, and Moon was on thin ice. Now? She’s fucking PISSED. More below the cut bc this is gonna get LONG (also a transcript in case my handwriting is illegible).

So because the ancients are still alive during the rot au, Sliver hasn’t died yet. She is one of the youngest local group Seniors, one of the first of the mid gen Iterators, (her arm design matches Sig and Wind’s!) so she feels like she has to prove herself to the others. She takes her purpose and duties VERY seriously, so I put Wind in her Group, because his intense personality in relation to his citizens matches more to how Sliver would mentor someone, rather than Moon or Suns. Speaking OF Moon, they have a very tense relationship. Moon is a lot more laid back with her Group because when her personality cores were still stabilizing, her citizens treated her more like an accomplishment, an amazing feat, her construction was met with jubilation! Meanwhile, by the time Sliver was built, she was just another iterator, and meant to work like she was supposed to. Of course there was celebration, but her citizens treated her more as a means to an end, so she picked up on this and integrated it into her personality. When she was first put online, she did idolize Moon quite a bit, but eventually came to see her as a kinda shitty leader and too soft on her local group, especially Sig. She refers to Moon as Sig’s “handler” because she thinks he acts incredibly immaturely, and Moon is the one who has to yank his leash any time he gets a bit too annoying (though she doesn’t do a very good job, in Sliver’s opinion).

Sliver does not like Sig. Never has, and this shit has pushed her over the edge. She is incredibly aware of the intense political ramifications Sig and Pebbles’ actions have caused, and as local group Senior, she feels it is her responsibility to calm her group down and prevent them from getting hurt. She knows certain factions of citizens want to literally kill their iterators thanks to this, and if one of her group died she would see it as a MASSIVE failure on her part. She thinks it would make everyone think that she is an incompetent leader. In terms of her relationship with Pebbles, she still didn’t like him before, but she at least respected the fact he actually had a drive to solve the great problem, unlike Sig. Now she blames him for this mess as well, and is just as pissed at him.

As the news of this unfortunate development spreads, many workgroups are created, all with different goals. Some want to find a cure for the rot, to help calm Sig and Pebbles back down and hopefully repair their relationships with their citizens. Others are considering joining them, terrified of their citizens’ reactions and confiding in one another about what they should do. Sliver wants them dead. She is in a small workgroup that is attempting to find a way to straight up deactivate Sig and Pebbles to restore order. The problem is, she is not their senior and has no seniority privileges over them, so she has to figure out a way to take matters into her own hands.

Wind…Wind is Sig’s best friend. He is barely 50 cycles older than her, and despite Sliver’s VEHEMENT disapproval, they are very close. He plays video games with Sig and rants about his citizens being annoying, he actually drops his stoic personality around him and can chill out for a little while. However, despite the fact that he demands his citizen’s respect and is practically a dictator over his city, he is terrified of them. So, he took initiative when he was put online and scared THEM into submission before they had the chance to. Now? He’s even more afraid. He thinks his citizens will take the first opportunity to deactivate him in a form of rebellion. At first, he’s part of workgroups to try to find a cure, but eventually joins a few groups that are considering joining Sig and Pebbles. As the rot gets worse and he watches Sig’s personality get more and more corrupted, he realizes there’s no way to cure this in time, and…that’s a spoiler I might keep to myself for now >:3€

Thank you for being interested in my silly au!! I’ve actually started writing it, and chapter 1 is almost done! Feel free to send more asks x3

————

TRANSCRIPT:

SOS: This idiotic stunt of yours has gone too far. I am not asking you to fix this. I am telling you to.

CW: Sig…

SOS: Quiet, Wind.

SOS: I fail to understand why your handler refuses to do anything. You take Moon’s foolish mercy for granted. I will not be so kind.

NSH: PFFT!

NSH: “Handler”? Well that’s a new one~

NSH: Unfortunately for you,

NSH: You have no power over me.

NSH: No one does anymore.

[scriptorsapiens]

Classicstober Day 1: Cassandra (𒅗𒊭𒀭𒁕𒊏)

On instagram they're doing a ClassicsTober and since Greek Mythology has been my thing since I was little I decided to go hog-wild and participate with minimal preparation. Even though the visions are terrible and unbelievable, her older brother Hector (𒃶𒆠𒌅𒌨) is always there to help comfort her. @sisterofiris I tried my best with the Hittite Cuneiform. My thought process and stuff continues under the cut.

So as I mentioned before I love greek mythology, but recently I have developed a fixation on 'historically accurate' depictions of the myths. Contrary to pop-culture imaginings, the ancient greek myths did not take place in the Classical Period (c. 700 BC and on) but in the much earlier Mycenaean Period (c. 1500-1100 BC). Rather than elegantly gathered chitons and painted marble temples, the Mycenaeans (and their predecessors the Minoans) wore tailored tunics and lived in massive stone fortresses. This creates an entirely different vibe for artistic depictions of these characters and I really want to lean into it.

All that said, these two do NOT wear Mycenaean clothing. For the Trojans I decided to lean much more into the neighboring Hittite fashions. Troy, or as it was known to the Hittites 'Wiluša (𒌷𒃾𒇻𒊭),' was situated on the border between the Mycenaean and Hittite worlds, and since Priam is one of the few names from the Iliad that, as far as I can research, definitively comes from Luwian (𒉺𒊑𒀀𒈬𒀀 Pa-ri-a-mu-a), which is very close to Hittite, I decided to lean all the way in on that. It also provides a convenient visual separation between the two sides of the Trojan War. There was VERY little I could find about Hittite clothing except for the article written by Anna's New Rome as well as her reconstructed garments. I based Hector's beard decorations off some suggested details from a stone carving.

Last but not least, I am also trying my best to render the names of these characters in what would have been their native writing systems. Hittite Cuneiform is much more complicated (to my eye at least) than Linear B, so take my reconstructions with a MASSIVE pinch of salt.

That's all for now, folks.

[finelythreadedsky]

Hey! I just saw one of your qrts of a poem on censorship and I’m really curious about one of the tags you added that said there is a connection between the Jewish sense of identity and the ancient Carthaginians/Phoenicians and I’m super interested, could you please elaborate?

um so the genesis of those tags is actually in two conference talks i heard in december that discussed dido in the civilization video games, which i have never played and know nothing about, but i found it really interesting that the creators of that game give dido an in-game affinity with judaism (that's the religion she's inclined to 'found' if you play as her? or something) and reconstructed the phoenician dialogue her voice actor delivers based on modern hebrew pronunciation. i think it was maureen attali who went into more detail about various jewish approaches to/reception of dido, but i don't remember specifics. i believe the conference proceedings will eventually be published as a book about the reception of the women of the aeneid-- edith hall and magdalena zira are the people behind that.

in an even broader context, i just think it's fascinating that a sense of affinity with the ancient phoenicians and carthaginians seems to develop so easily among modern jews. like the way sonya taaffe's poetry frames both carthage and judea as victims of roman imperialism. and it's sort of baked in on a linguistic level too: it's really easy to learn phoenician/punic if you already know hebrew, and the older convention was even to print phoenician and punic with hebrew letters. if you're familiar with hebrew or even just anything jewish, there are a lot of moments of recognition when you start to look at phoenician and punic history and material culture! like oh wait the suffete? same word as the hebrew name for the book of judges, shoftim. and that's the baal that the bible is always going off about.

like a friend of mine recently joked that the movie frozen is an aeneid 4 retelling bc the sisters elsa and anna map onto elissa (dido) and anna, but the names aren't a coincidence! elsa derives ultimately from the hebrew elisheva, which uses the same root el- as the phoenician name elishat which became elissa in greek/latin! and the name anna became common in europe because hannah (anna in greek) was a common jewish name around the turn of the millennium, cognate with the phoenician name based on the same root that was also latinized as anna!

and also the phoenicians were characterized (both in texts and in reality) by their involvement with trade, which rings with more modern characterizations of jews, and there's also often a degree of untrustworthiness attributed to them because of that association with trading that feels weirdly akin to the last millennium of antisemitism. like i'm thinking of dougherty 2001, the raft of odysseus ch 5-- the picture of the phoenicians suggested in the odyssey looks very much like portrayals of jews, with varying degrees of antisemitism. so i do think there's a sense of (sometimes defensive) identification that easily arises there.

and all that is particularly interesting bc within the bible the phoenicians/canaanites are presented as the enemies of the israelites against whom they're trying to define themselves! and that israelite hostility toward the canaanites is perhaps precisely because they are so similar and so closely related.

anyway reception of the phoenicians is so cool

[isa-ghost]

Hey Isa!! So I haven’t really been following the QSMP, I’ll admit, but I heard about the recent angst of the “Cage for a cage” situation, and I’m very intrigued! What are Philza and Wilbur’s stories in the QSMP? I’d love to know more! Also where could I find all their footage to catch up?

Well Wilbur's sorta yeeted into the void bc of Lovejoy things, so there's not much to talk about on his front. He has his egg daughter Talullah, who Phil is looking after and has adopted as his own at this point bc its been months, and that's kinda it as far as major keypoints go for Wilbur lore. That and he canonized (or tried to?) him/Phil father/son dynamics again. Haven't heard much from the community if we accepted that as canon or as a Wilbur Bit Because Of Course He Tried To Canonize That Again.

Phil lore on the other hand. OUGH. I don't know where to start, it feels like so little and so much at the same time. Which is funny bc this motherfucker is so allergic to lore despite being a bomb ass rper (I have 11+ years experience rping, this man is rp veteran approved). I get timezones exist and whatnot & he's usually 3-4 hours into a stream already by the time he gets on QSMP to begin with, but he dodged so much of The Horrors for so long. This week has been an outlier and the crows are suffering thriving.

As far as his lore (in a simplified tldr) goes: Ancient bird man wired for nothing but survival gets plopped on a weird island with other English speakers & Spanish speakers. Shit Is Weird And Continues To Be, but all the islanders make friends with eacg other. They're *emotionally slams fist on table* levels of tightknit. Phil especially is always so ready to help anyone out. Timeskip a month or so, Island Federation decides to play matchmaker and then make said matches parents. They're given a dragon's eggs because Dragon Gone ??? Phil acquires egg kid and raises them to be a careful & loving powerhouse like himself (& then later gets second egg kid who's meant to be Wilbur's) only for the island he's stuck on to throw every wrench at him they can in the form of mobs, federation people, trivial ass tasks given by said feds, and more. The longer things go on the worse they get, and ancient man's biggest weakness is his two kids who keep getting used against him. But ancient bird man is an anarchist, this federation can pound sand. Federation doesn't like that! Ancient bird man get punished. (And that's skipping chunks of things, but I have the memory of a peanut so I'll leave better summaries to someone better equipped.) Also when he's not experiencing the horrors he has at least 4 other men thirsting for him at any given time and he donowalls their advances beautifully while also playing into their flirting and thirsting at the same time because he has No /R Thoughts, Only Goddess Wife and egg children. Goddess wife also encourages his unintentional yaoi-ing.

I DO know you can catch up on QSMP lore via the official recap channel "QSMP Info" on YouTube! There's two videos out so far so the recaps aren't caught up to date yet, but they're made by the admins of the server, so they're thorough and accurate.

There's also a Phil VODs channel that's run by one of the most devoted PEGS (Philza Early Gang Society, Phil's offline chatters <3) in the crow community. I'm sure they have every single QSMP vod uploaded (but strap in, Phil's not a 1-3 hour stream andy, he's a 5-8 hour stream chad). Most times, he does Hardcore first then QSMP later (though I think a few times while playing TOTK he'd get on later too so ??? Good luck?) so realistically despite being a 5-8 hour stream chad, there's only 2-4 hours of QSMP in the vod, you just gotta skim through the last half of the vod. For reference, you'll want to search for vods from March 22nd, 2023 to now. That's how long QSMP has been going. It'd be laborious to fish out every crumb of QSMP stream time but I do genuinely think it's worth it just to see how things on the island develop and why so many people are screaming about The Horrors every day.

I'm sure you could also scrape around YouTube for like. Fanmade recaps, perhaps even Phil-centric ones, though I'd be wary of ones that have character analysis rather than just the plain ol stream content a) because they won't have every bit of footage & b) Sometimes People Are Wrong About Characters. You could also dig for clips of major moments (Phil has some on his Phil Clips YT but they're mostly funny) but that'd probably not give you the whole picture if you wanna be slamming your fists on the table and screaming like a monkey with the rest of us LOL.

There's also plenty of livebloggers who scream as streams progress, so check out some tags maybe. The main one is probably #qsmp liveblogging but that'll be any & all member POVs so it's not the most helpful resource but an idea nonetheless. You'd probably be better off looking through #qsmp philza or #q!philza or something, you'd just have to sift through creative works, memes & shitposts too.

Any crows who follow me that might have more/better resources are welcome & encouraged to reblog or reply to this and add Phil lore summaries (and your character analyses bc Phil mains are trustworthy) or more things to check out in order to get all the Good Shit Lore(TM) btw!

(Reblogging might also help this reach crows who DO have more/better suggestions or the capability to recap Phil lore thoroughly, so please do that. :] )

[lollytea]

in a hypothetical toh/Peter pan au (bc the parallels are interesting to explore) The Collector is probably the closest equivalent to Peter (eternal child who's repressed all their troubles in the name of Fun and Whimsy and has an ambivalent approach to morality) (though keep in mind I'm not a scholar and it's been a while since I last interacted with a pan adaptation. You're the more knowledgeable one here feel free to correct me)

And then Wendy's closest equivalent as the viewpoint character who learns the main lesson about growing up and moving on and while not losing the part of yourself that made childhood seem so wonderful would probably have to be Luz (though obviously if we're going for this lineup then the peter/Wendy dynamic would have to be decidedly not romantic. Probably lean more into the "mother" thing from the book or Luz and Collie's like. Babysitter and baby dynamic)

Though again I'm very interested in what you, Lollytea, local Peter Pan scholar and toh enthusiast has to say and whether or not I'm off the mark on these ideas. P.S I feel very seen w/ u obsessing about an early 1900s western children's Isekai (/j) bc I did the exact same thing w/ the wizard of oz.

Okay okay okay okay okay okay this is a huntlow AU for my little huntlow brain but I decided to develop the universe a little and give some info on where all the main characters currently are and what they're doing.

Yes absolutely the Collector is this universe's version of Peter. The island adores them for mysterious reasons and their mood and temperment has complete control over the elements. All his whims and dreams and fantasies become a reality here so the place is very chaotic. I'm imagining that the island has the same starry sparkly aesthetic as the BL in S3.

The Collector is heaps of fun and the Lost Boys love hanging out with him and going on adventures. However....he's also prone to tantrums and his tantrums can have devastating consequences so.....none of them are really his true friends either. They're afraid of him, they tiptoe around him, they try to keep him happy.

His only real friend is King, a Neverbeast whose species is as ancient as the Island itself. King has a depthless cavern of power that he just....hasn't really developed yet. He might be a few centuries old but he ages similarly to the Collector. Just a pair of babies. Boys will be boys.

Luz is the most recent Lost Boy in a whole village of Lost Boys. You know how they had that epic village in Hook (1991) Yeah that shit was so cool, I'm giving them one of those. Anyway Luz's reasons for taking the Collector's offer are very similar to her reasons for choosing to stay in the BL. Fantasy as a form of escapism, struggling with the conventional education system and also grief and her mom trying to get her help that she doesn't want. It lands her here.

Amity is a girl who used to be frequently visited by a fairy named Willow when they were both little kids. However, Willow's friendship influenced Amity's overzealous imagination. She was drawing pictures of and writing about fairies and the stories her friend told her about Neverland and this got her in trouble with her parents. Cracking under the threat of more severe punishment, Amity got into a huge fight with Willow, ending in her declaring "I don't believe in fairies!" before slamming her window shut. This is the most cutting thing you could possibly say to a fairy.

Now, years later, Amity is residing in the world she tried so hard to forget about all those years ago. You see, she was at the age where her parents were preparing to send her off to finishing school and were having discussions about future arranged marriages. But Amity is not ready for that just yet. She wants to be a teacher!! She wants to be an inventor!!! So she runs away to Neverland where she can live out her dreams for a while until she's ready to return home.

She's currently running a "school" for the Lost Boys and is affectionately referred to as "Miss Amity", while also tinkering in her spare time. She feels very comforted by the order and control she has over her life now.

It's Luz's arrival that throws it all into disarray. Luz doesn't agree with Amity's style of teaching and though she doesn't deliberately try to interfere, a lot of Lost Boys do end up gravitating towards her, preferring her strange anecdotes and insane hyperfixation infodumps to Amity's lessons. This ends up putting the two of them at odds.

Gus is a Lost Boy....with a gift!!! The Collector was initially drawn to Gus because of their fascination with his primative human "Magic" tricks. Cards, coins behind the ear, cute silly stuff like that. He chose to go to Neverland because the stress of his Dad's high expectations was getting to him and he wanted a bit of a break (a case of miscommunication between father and son).

However, after being spirited away, Gus became Neverland's official Magician, knighted by the Collector himself. And by that I mean the Collector went "Haha I like you. I wonder what you could do if you had real magic!" and then proceeded to snap their fingers and gave Gus powers beyond his comprehension. Like waaaaay too much power. Gus is currently struggling to control his new magic and it tends to come out in uncontrollable bursts and its actually more of a curse than a gift. But he's pretty optimistic about his ability to eventually master it. And also the Collector refuses to change him back so....[shrug]

Willow and Gus? Besties. They're kinda like Peter and Tink in that Willow's favourite place to chill is atop Gus' shoulder or in his pocket.

She does not tell Gus about her secret romantic rendezvous with a certain pirate because that pirate tried to kidnap her once and Gus is very protective of his best friend.

Eda is.....a lot.

Okay. Originally a rebellious but insanely intelligent human girl, Eda and her sister were preparing to take on the world together. They were both aiming to attend the same university on a scholarship, but due to circumstances, the opportunity was only available to one of them. Eda's sister Lilith, panicking about all her dreams being ruined, wound up doing something she'd regret.

She snitched. She told a representative of their dream school of one of the delinquent acts Eda committed. Things quickly got out of hand. One person told another, things getting warped and exaggerated and other people who knew Eda personally began chiming in with their opinions of her. Some things were true. Others were not. But the most hurtful thing is that everybody was willing to believe all of it, because that just seemed to be the person Eda was. All of a sudden, it felt like the whole world had turned on her.

Life became very difficult Eda, she felt isolated and detested. She felt like a monster. This resulted in her running away to Neverland, but she carried her outcast feelings with her. She continued to stew in her own self loathing but that had terrible consequences.

Neverland is unpredictable. Its wishy washy. Its very attuned to imagination and dreams. Because Eda felt so strongly about being a monster, she gradually became a monster.

The Owl Beast is like the Crocodile to Belos' Captain Hook. She sees him as a reflection of the way she was treated back home, while he views her as everything vile and disturbing about this wretched island. Plus when he looks in her eyes, she reminds him of somebody he used to know. Somebody he hates with his whole heart and soul. He needs her dead. She needs him dead.

A huge part of Luz's goal in this AU is uncovering the mystery of the Owl Beast and eventually bonding with her and maybe even helping her return to her human form.

Anyway so yeah thats what's poppin on the island if anybody was interested. We can have our fun with this stuff, incorporate it however we want. I'm very focused on huntlow being silly tho. It's fun to me.

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

Thoughts about the library of Alexandria?

THANK YOU FOR ASKING i'm always glad to talk about this lol

think about the library of alexandria. i bet i can guess what you think you know about it: a vast store of knowledge which was destroyed by julius caesar, as a result of which europe was plunged into a dark age.

what if i told you that none of that is true? or, at the very least, not substantiated in a way that any scholar would accept it?

putting details under the cut bc um. i am very passionate about this

let's start with the most egregious and outdated claim: that the loss of knowledge stored in the library of alexandria was responsible for a wider loss of knowledge in europe, commonly called the dark ages.

the whole concept of a 'dark age' in european history has been strongly contested in recent years, with many scholars pointing out continued scholarly activity and education, serious artistic development and monumental building, and little evidence for a large increase in illiteracy. basically, there wasn't a 'dark age' when all ancient knowledge was lost and barbarism took over - this is a fiction, first concocted by renaissance scholars who wanted to distinguish their age from earlier ones, and maintained by such bastards as edward gibbon, who had their own agendas to maintain through the claim that the birth of nations and the rise of christianity in europe was the death of knowledge. it therefore stands to reason that if there were no 'dark ages', then the destruction of the library of alexandria was not responsible for them.

"but pinkie!" i hear you cry, "maybe the destruction of the library didn't cause a worldshattering loss of knowledge, but it did exist, and it was destroyed? right?"

alas. the past is never as simple as that, especially not the ancient past. you might have seen this post about the difficulty in truly knowing 'facts' about the ancient world. while it is true that it is very difficult to know 100% for absolute certain what happened 2000+ years ago, there are many things that classicists can be pretty sure about. when a classicist says something happened, it is an argument they are making based on multiple independent written sources and supporting archaeological evidence.

a good example is the rhodes earthquake of 226/7BC - while we obviously don't have seismic data, or newspaper articles, or video of this event, we have multiple records of the event from different chroniclers, and epigraphic evidence of aid given from other Hellenistic kingdoms to rebuild the city after the earthquake. therefore, we can be fairly certain that it did happen, even if some specifics are still debatable (like whether or not there was a tsunami after the earthquake, or exactly what year it happened in since ancient greek years were different from the system we use now).

in the case of the library of alexandria - its construction, its contents, its scale, its destruction - we have very little in the way of corroborating evidence. the earliest source which mentions the library is a rhetorical letter by an unknown author, dating from the 2nd century BC. over the next six centuries many others wrote accounts which mentioned the library; they contradict each other on almost every point, and most of the agreeing facts are explainable by the fact that later writers were basing their accounts on earlier ones.

some of the key points these accounts disagree on are:

• who was responsible for building the library in the first place, and when (ptolemy I? ptolemy II? demetrius of phalerum? aristotle?)

• how many books the library contained (ancient estimates range from 40,000 to 700,000 - Bagnall (2002) and Nesselrath (2012) have both attempted to calculate the number of works which could have been held in the library, based on the number of ancient texts known to have existed at the time and have found the numbers. overblown to say the least)

• the kinds of texts the library contained (everything ever written or just texts in greek and latin? key point of contention in this category is whether or not early jewish texts were included)

• what happened to the library, exactly (destroyed by a fire started by julius caesar in 48 BC? destroyed by Christians in the 391 AD riots which also killed Hypatia? destroyed when the emperor Aurelian invaded in 272 AD? or, as some modern scholars have suggested, had the library already deteriorated by 48 BC due to natural causes and political neglect? many accounts also record evidence of scholarship continuing in alexandria long after 48 BC - how could this happen if the library had been destroyed? some accounts don't mention the destruction of the library at all)

what's more, there is, to date, very little archaeological evidence to support the ideas that:

1) a library of the scale described by even the most moderate of ancient accounts existed (remember that texts at the time were written on scrolls, which took up far more space than books)

2) there was any great destructive event in 48 BC (evidence has been found for the destruction caused by Aurelian's invasion in the late 3rd century - see Empereur (2008))

(it's worth noting that improved marine archaeology techniques have lead to some impressive discoveries in Alexandria in recent years - no evidence yet which has been argued to be the library, but it could definitely happen)

i could go on, but i feel like nobody would enjoy that (and i have to get my laundry from the dryer in like 5 minutes). to conclude, basically everything people think they know about the library of alexandria is either demonstrably false, or not able to be corroborated to any acceptacle scholarly standard. and it really annoys me when people still post that fucking bullshit graph of the """""knowledge lost""""" when the library was destroyed lmao it's bullshit!!!!!!!

rant over bc i do need to get my laundry lol. might reblog later and add sources in case anyone wants to read up on this!! bc u shouldn't just take my word for it obviously ❤️

[templeofoccultpractices]

Bennu

Bennu  is an ancient Egyptian deity linked with the Sun, creation, and rebirth. He may have been the original inspiration for the  phoenix  legends that developed in Greek mythology

Roles

According to  Egyptian mythology, Bennu was a self-created being said to have played a role in the creation of the world. He was said to be the ba of Ra and to have enabled the creative actions of Atum.The deity was said to have flown over the waters of  Nun that existed before creation, landing on a rock and issuing a call that determined the nature of creation. He also was a symbol of rebirth and, therefore, was associated with  Osiris.

Some of the titles of Bennu were "He Who Came Into Being by Himself", and "Lord of Jubilees"; the latter epithet referred to the belief that Bennu periodically renewed himself like the sun was thought to do. His name is related to the Egyptian verb  wbn, meaning "to rise in brilliance" or "to shine".

Depiction

The Pyramid Texts, which date to the Old Kingdom, refer to the 'bnw' as a symbol of Atum, and it may have been the original form of Bennu. In this word the shape of a bird is used that is definitely not a heron, but a small singing bird. The old 'Woerterbuch der Aegyptische Sprache' surmised that this small singing bird might have been a Yellow Wagtail ('Motacilla flava', but no clear reason is given.However, the same bird used in the spelling of a word 'bn.t' in a painted limestone relief wall fragment from the suntemple of the Vth Dynasty king Niuserre from the Old Kingdom, now in the Aegypisches Museum at Berlin (inv.nr. Aeg.Mus. 20038-20039), clearly shows traces of blue-grey paint on much of the body of this bird-sign, so that a different bird species was definitely meant. Shape and colour seem to point rather to a (Mediterranean) Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) for whom, however, another name was in use: 'hn.t<y'= lit. 'the one of the canal'.

Traces of orange(brown)coloring existing on and also outside the chiseled glyph did originally not belong to this particular bird sign. They are caused by natural stains in the white limestone, as the higher lying layer of blue paint on the bird shows as well. The advantage of such bird identification might be, that a Kingfisher flying lowly over watery surfaces and shrieking loudly would be a reasonable mythical example for the creator deity Atum of Heliopolis as having risen from the first dark waters, called Nun, in order to start his creation of the world. If so, this Kingfisher 'bnw' or 'bn.t' is a good match for the mythical and cultic Nilegoose (Eg. 'smn') of the creator deity Amun in later periods, imagined to having been honking loudly in the primeval dark above the still waters in order to bring forth all creation by its voice.

New Kingdom artwork shows Bennu as a huge grey heron with a long beak and a two-feathered crest. Sometimes Bennu is depicted as perched on a benben stone (representing Ra and the name of the top stone of a pyramid) or in a willow tree (representing Osiris). Because of the connection with Osiris, Bennu sometimes wears the Atef crown, instead of the solar disk.

Possible Animal Model

In comparatively recent times, a large species of heron, now extinct, lived on the Arabian Peninsula. It shares many characteristics with Bennu. It may have been the animal after which Bennu was modeled by the ancient Egyptians during the New Kingdom.

Worship

Like Atum and Ra, the Bennu was probably worshipped in their cult center at Heliopolis.The deity also appears on funerary scarab amulets as a symbol of rebirth.

Connection To The Greek Phoenix

The Greek historian Herodotus, writing about Egyptian customs and traditions in the fifth century BC, wrote that the people at Heliopolis described the "phoenix" to him. They said it lived for 500 years before dying, resuscitating, building a funerary egg with myrrh for the paternal corpse, and carrying it to the temple of the Sun at Heliopolis.His description of the phoenix likens it to an eagle with red and gold plumage, reminiscent of the sun.

Long after Herodotus, the theme ultimately associated with the Greek phoenix, with the fire, pyre, and ashes of the dying bird developed in Greek traditions.

The name, "phoenix", could be derived from "Bennu" and its rebirth and connections with the sun resemble the beliefs about Bennu, however, Egyptian sources do not mention a death of the deity.

Chosen as scientific name of the bird

Remains of a giant, human-sized heron species, thought to have gone extinct around 1500 BC, have been discovered in the United Arab Emirates.That species may have been the animal model for the deity, Bennu, so archaeologist Dr. Ella Hoch from the Geological Museum at Copenhagen University named it the Bennu heron (Ardea bennuides).

──────⊰In Workings⊱──────

*Please know basic protections and energy work before attempting any deity work.*

*It is important to note that everyone's experiences are different and will work with spirits for different reasons. Some people may like a spirit while others will not and that's okay. Ask these spirits what they will work with you on as well as ask them if they can help you with whatever it is you need.*

Ideas for honoring or working with/worshipping Bennu

Altar

Create an altar/sacred space for your rituals and giving offerings for Bennu. Items may include

⬩An altar cloth

⬩Cup or chalice

⬩Incense and an incense burner

⬩Offering bowl

⬩Statue of Bennu or Bennu bird

⬩Yellow candles (you can use any color)

For more information on basic deity work and altar setups check out the deity work post.

Basic offerings:Bread, Frankincense, Game Meat, Lion Statue Myrrh, Sour Dough, Meat, Sun Symbols,

Rituals

Ideas for rituals may include

⬩Honoring creation and life

⬩Honoring the Sun

⬩Life and rebirth

⬩Summer solstice

⬩Ask him what else he can help with⬩

𓆀𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣

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