#beowulf in space

[leohtttbriar]

what a way to explore the consequences and sources of paternalism. the interventionist efforts of the caretaker to fix what was broken by providing the end-products necessary for survival but not the means, while dooming others to a somewhat artificial competition, creating an ecosystem that cannot sustain itself nor foster any aspect of higher-level sentience in beings (like curiosity! or deep passion! which is punished!), all of which relies on reproduction.

reproduction which is delicate and fragile and yet insurmountable in its demands. like of course this civilization that depends on a top-down selective distribution of power also depends entirely on reproduction and fails when reproduction fails. it's like the failures of medieval lords-and-bondsman, where "the institution cannot guarantee the continuity of kingly life, but it is the only institution available" and beowulf, alone and irreproduced (son-less), dies with a dragon. of course b'elanna and harry are honored guests---they were foundational to the entire ocampa people for the brief moments they were among them. their illness was just a symbol of the foundation's brittleness.

contrasted with janeway cutting the entirety of voyager's strings to their community, their infrastructure, their source of power, their foundational space. they're all in a similar helplessness to the ocampa by the end of it, but the degree of choice is vastly different--as in, choice exists. the implication being that while voyager is now more lost than imaginable they're also not. and the fact that the ship is named the same name as NASA's voyager 1 and voyager 2, both of which were sent out with the absolute intention of them never being returned home, speaks to something particular as well. what ties a people to a place has to be something more dependable than the "honor" of producing offspring.

[itspileofgoodthings]

I need to buy more art for my classroom.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Howard Finster :: [Howard Finster's Paradise Garden]

* * * *

"The monsters had been the foes of the gods, the captains of men, and within Time the monsters would win. In the heroic siege and last defeat, men and gods alike had been imagined in the same host. Now the heroic figure, the men of old, remained and still fought on until defeat. For the monsters do not depart, whether the gods go or come."

-J.R.R. Tolkien

[— J. R. R. TOLKIEN, from “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”]

[elecktrum]

4 and 18 for the get to know your author ask meme.

4) favorite character you’ve written

Oh . . . that’s a tough choice. I adore most all the characters I write, even as I put them through hell. My short list of favorites is six characters long, all male. I always have the worst time writing women.

My all-time favorite to write, though, I think would have to be Peter Pevensie, High King of Narnia, from the Chronicles of Narnia. He has so many characteristics I aspire to, and he’s remarkably caring and worthy of being a king. What’s more, he’s fun to write – smart, witty, a bit thick at times, and a hell of a good commander in the field. I’m a freak who loves to write battles, and knights in armor swinging legendary swords and fighting minotaurs and giants is just too tempting for me. Mind, now, his brother King Edmund is a very close second simply because he’s a world-class wiseass who just lends himself to over-the-top drama.

My favorite of the moment, is, of course, Avocato from Final Space. He’s so much fun to annoy.

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

Off the top of my head, definitely The Lord of the Rings. That’s, like, the foundation of storytelling for me and a large part of the reason there are so many songs in my Narnia stories. I would also say the Iliad has always had a huge influence on me – the rawness of battle, the small details that help set the scene, the sheer emotion of the characters in their overwhelming anger and sorrow and grief, is nothing short of breathtaking. And then there’s Beowulf, with all those magnificent kennings and action sequences. Patrick O’Brian’s sea stories has greatly influenced the way I write dialogue. His banter between characters is peerless, and remarkably witty.  I also try to emulate Edgar Rice Burroughs’ descriptive style from his ‘Princess of Mars’ series. His descriptions are brief, but so remarkably clear that you know precisely what the thing or species he’s describing looks like. Plus he built a world that blends sci-fi and fantasy, laser guns and sword fights.

[silmarillion-ways-to-die]

Grētung, mīn frēond. Wē ealle sindon geornfulle ymbe þā tōweardan, for þǣr is þǣr þū and ic gāþ tō forlǣtan ��ā lāf ūres līfes. And gemun, mīn frēond, tōweardan gefaren swilce þās sceolon þē hrīnan on þām tōweardan. Þū eart geornful ymbe þā uncuðan, þā dīgellan, þā unāsmeaganlīcan. For þām þū eart hēr. And nū, for þǣre forme sīðe, wē bringaþ tō þē þā fulle sǣge hwæt gelamp on þǣm earmlican dæge. Wē sellaþ þē eall þā gewitnesse, gebūned ænlīce on þām dīgellan cyðnessum þāra earmra sāwla þe þis egeslīc gefeoht oferlifdon. Þā gefaren, þā stōwa, mīn frēond wē ne magon þis healdean dīgel nā leng. Uton wrecan þā scyldigan, uton mēdian þā unsceððigan. Mīn frēond, mæg þīn heorte þolian þā egeslīcan sōðfæstnesse ymbe byrgelsere ofer þām yterlican rūme?

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Reading Tolkien’s annotated translation of Beowulf, and learning all kinds of things about LOTR and the Silm from it!

First:

Leave here your warlike shields [from Beowulf]

[Tolkien’s commentary; bold mine:] Note the prohibition of weapons or accoutrements of battle in the hall. To walk in with spear and shield was like walking in nowadays with your hat on. The basis of these rules was of course fear and prudence among the ever-present dangers of a heroic age, but they were made part of the ritual, of good manners. Compare the prohibition against drawing a sword in the officers’ mess. Swords of course also were dangerous; but they were evidently regarded as part of a knight’s attire, and he would not in any case be willing to lay aside his sword, a thing of great cost and often an heirloom.

This gives me some perspective around Tolkien’s probable intended tone for the moment in Meduseld in The Two Towers where Aragon strongly protests against being told to leave Andúril (a sword of very great value and ancientry, and very much an heirloom) with the door-warden. From a contemporary perspective it’s easy to read it as Aragorn being unnecessarily prideful and combative, but this passage strongly indicates that Tolkien intends it to be Théoden who is being unreasonable in that event, an indication - along with many others in the scene, prior to Gandalf dislodging Saruman’s influence - that Théoden is being discourteous and behaving in a manner unworthy of a king who is recieving heroes offering aid. (The fact of Meduseld being a ‘golden hall’ like famous Heorot in Beowulf may be deliberate to strengthen the parallel.)

Second (immediately following the above commentary):

But against this danger [from swords] very severe laws existed protecting the ‘peace’ of a king’s hall. It was death in Scandanavia to cause a brawl in the king’s hall. Among the laws of the West Saxon king Ine is found: ‘If any man fight in the king’s house, he shall forfeit all his estate, and it shall be for the king to judge whether he be put to death or not.’

This adds context to the incident in the story of Túrin in The Silmarillion where Saeros taunts Túrin in Menegroth and Túrin responds by throwing a heavy drinking-vessel at him and injuring him (it’s indicated the injury is serious, so I’d take it along the lines of him giving him a broken nose and knocking out some teeth.) It is stated in at least some versions of the story that death is the punishment for drawing weapons in the king’s hall, in line with the historical customs mentioned here. This gives a further emphasis that what actually happens - Túrin is not punished at all and Mablung strongly reprimands Saeros for provoking him - illustrates that Túrin is, Saeros’ behaviour notwithstanding, in very high favour in Menegroth. (Saeros as the king’s counsellor is also in roughly the same position as Unferth in Beowulf, who taunts the titular character - Beowulf responds heatedly but without violence. Tolkien may be setting up a deliberate contrast here.)

Third:

The word hádor is an adjective meaning ‘clear, bright’…it is almost always found in reference to the sky (or the sun or stars). But that association is in description of brightness…

This was one a lightbulb moment: oh, in the name of Hador Goldenhead (the ancestor of Húrin, Túrin, and Tuor in The Silmarillion), ‘Goldenhead’ isn’t an additional name/epessë so much as it’s a glossed translation of ‘Hador’! The guy with bright, golden hair.

Fourth: Going back to the Rohirrim - Edoras, the name of their capital city/royal court, is basically just the Old English for ‘courts’:

under was very frequently used in describing position within, or movement to within, a confined space, especially of enclosures or prisons, ‘within four walls’. Cf. in under eoderas (eoderas being the outer fences of the courts), ‘in amid the courts’….‘eoder’ means both ‘fence (protection)’ and ‘fenced enclosure, a court’.

I’m also learning a lot about Beowulf - Tolkien’s notes are clarifying a lot of tone and nuances, not to mention the political/diplomatic relationships between the different kingdoms, which were confusing me - but it’s amazing how much it reveals about ways that Tolkien’s knowledge informed his legendarium!

[vaspider]

In defense of retellings & reimaginings

I'm not going to respond to the post that sparked this, because honestly, I don't really feel like getting in an argument, and because it's only vaguely even about the particular story that the other post discussed. The post in question objected to retellings of the Rape of Persephone which changed important elements of the story -- specifically, Persephone's level of agency, whether she was kidnapped, whether she ate seeds out of hunger, and so on. It is permissible, according to this thesis, to 'fill in empty spaces,' but not to change story elements, because 'those were important to the original tellers.' (These are acknowledged paraphrases, and I will launch you into the sun if you nitpick this paragraph.)

I understand why to the person writing that, that perspective is important, and why they -- especially as a self-described devotee of Persephone -- feel like they should proscribe boundaries around the myth. It's a perfectly valid perspective to use when sorting -- for example -- which things you choose to read. If you choose not to read anything which changes the elements which you feel are important, I applaud you.

However, the idea that one should only 'color in missing pieces,' especially when dealing with stories as old, multi-sourced, and fractional as ancient myths, and doing so with the argument that you shouldn't change things because those base elements were important to the people who originally crafted the stories, misses -- in my opinion -- the fundamental reason we tell stories and create myths in the first place.

Forgive me as I get super fucking nerdy about this. I've spent the last several years of my life wrestling with the concept of myths as storytelling devices, universality of myths, and why myths are even important at all as part of writing on something like a dozen books (a bunch of which aren't out yet) for a game centered around mythology. A lot of the stuff I've written has had to wrestle with exactly this concept -- that there is a Sacred Canon which cannot be disrupted, and that any disregard of [specific story elements] is an inexcusable betrayal.

Myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us as individuals, as social groups, and as a society. The elements we utilize or change, those things we choose to include and exclude when telling and retelling a story, tell us what's important to us.

I could sit down and argue over the specific details which change over the -- at minimum -- 1700 years where Persephone/Kore/Proserpina was actively worshiped in Greek and Roman mystery cults, but I actually don't think those variations in specific are very important. What I think is important, however, is both the duration of her cults -- at minimum from 1500 BCE to 200CE -- and the concept that myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us.

The idea that there was one, or even a small handful, of things that were most important to even a large swath of the people who 'originally' told the store of the Rape of Persephone or any other 'foundational' myth of what is broadly considered 'Western Culture,' when those myths were told and retold in active cultic worship for 1700 years... that seems kind of absurd to me on its face. Do we have the same broad cultural values as the original tellers of Beowulf, which is only (heh) between 1k-1.3k years old? How different are our marital traditions, our family traditions, and even our language? We can, at best, make broad statements, and of inclusive necessity, those statements must be broad enough as to lose incredible amounts of specificity. In order to make definitive, specific statements, we must leave out large swaths of the people to whom this story, or any like it, was important.

To move away from the specific story brought up by the poster whose words spun this off, because it really isn't about that story in particular, let's use The Matter of Britain/Arthuriana as our framing for the rest of this discussion. If you ask a random nerd on Tumblr, they'd probably cite a handful of story elements as essential -- though of course which ones they find most essential undoubtedly vary from nerd to nerd -- from the concept that Camelot Always Falls to Gawain and the Green Knight, Percival and the grail, Lancelot and Guinevere...

... but Lancelot/Guinevere and Percival are from Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century, some ~500 years after Taliesin's first verses. Lancelot doesn't appear as a main character at all before de Troyes, and we can only potentially link him to characters from an 11th century story (Culhwch and Olwen) for which we don't have any extant manuscripts before the 15th century. Gawain's various roles in his numerous appearances are... conflicting characterizations at best.

The point here is not just that 'the things you think are essential parts of the story are not necessarily original,' or that 'there are a lot of different versions of this story over the centuries,' but also 'what you think of as essential is going to come back to that first thesis statement above.' What you find important about The Matter of Britain, and which story elements you think can be altered, filed off or filled in, will depend on what that story needs to tell you about yourself and what's important to you.

Does creating a new incarnation of Arthur in which she is a diasporic lesbian in outer space ruin a story originally about Welsh national identity and chivalric love? Does that disrespect the original stories? How about if Arthur is a 13th century Italian Jew? Does it disrespect the original stories if the author draws deliberate parallels between the seduction of Igerne and the story of David and Bathsheba?

Well. That depends on what's important to you.

Insisting that the core elements of a myth -- whichever elements you believe those to be -- must remain static essentially means 'I want this myth to stagnate and die.' Maybe it's because I am Jewish, and we constantly re-evaluate every word in Torah, over and over again, every single year, or maybe it's because I spend way, way too much time thinking about what's valuable in stories specifically because I write words about these concepts for money, but I don't find these arguments compelling at all, especially not when it comes to core, 'mainstream' mythologies. These are tools in the common toolbox, and everybody has access to them.

More important to me than the idea that these core elements of any given story must remain constant is, to paraphrase Dolly Parton, that a story knows what it is and does it on purpose. Should authors present retellings or reimaginings of the Rape of Persephone or The Matter of Britain which significantly alter historically-known story elements as 'uncovered' myths or present them as 'the real and original' story? Absolutely not. If someone handed me a book in which the new Grail was a limited edition Macklemore Taco Bell Baja Blast cup and told me this comes directly from recently-discovered 6th century writings of Taliesin, I would bonk them on the head with my hardcover The Once & Future King. Of course that's not the case, right?

But the concept of canon, historically, in these foundational myths has not been anything like our concept of canon today. Canon should function like a properly-fitted corset, in that it should support, not constrict, the breath in the story's lungs. If it does otherwise, authors should feel free to discard it in part or in whole.

Concepts of familial duty and the obligation of marriage don't necessarily resonate with modern audiences the way that the concept of self-determination, subversion of unreasonable and unjustified authority, and consent do. That is not what we, as a general society, value now. If the latter values are the values important to the author -- the story that the author needs to tell in order to express who they are individually and culturally and what values are important to them* -- then of course they should retell the story with those changed values. That is the point of myths, and always has been.

Common threads remain -- many of us move away from family support regardless of the consent involved in our relationships, and life can be terrifying when you're suddenly out of the immediate reach and support of your family -- because no matter how different some values are, essential human elements remain in every story. It's scary to be away from your mother for the first time. It's scary to live with someone new, in a new place. It's intimidating to find out that other people think you have a Purpose in life that you need to fulfill. It's hard to negotiate between the needs of your birth family and your chosen family.

None of this, to be clear, is to say that any particular person should feel that they need to read, enjoy, or appreciate any particular retelling, or that it's cool, hip and groovy to misrepresent your reworking of a myth as a 'new secret truth which has always been there.' If you're reworking a myth, be truthful about it, and if somebody told you 'hey did you know that it really -- ' and you ran with that and find out later you were wrong, well, correct the record. It's okay to not want to read or to not enjoy a retelling in which Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere negotiate a triad and live happily ever after; it's not really okay to say 'you can't do that because you changed a story element which I feel is non-negotiable.' It's okay to say 'I don't think this works because -- ' because part of writing a story is that people are going to have opinions on it. It's kind of weird to say 'you're only allowed to color inside these lines.'

That's not true, and it never has been. Greek myths are not from a closed culture. Roman myths are not sacrosanct. There are plenty of stories which outsiders should leave the hell alone, but Greek and Roman myths are simply not on that list. There is just no world in which you can make an argument that the stories of the Greek and Roman Empires are somehow not open season to the entire English-speaking world. They are the public-est of domain.

You don't have to like what people do with it, but that doesn't make people wrong for writing it, and they certainly don't have to color within the lines you or anyone else draws. Critique how they tell the story, but they haven't committed some sort of cultural treachery by telling the stories which are important to them rather than the stories important to someone 2500 years dead.

****

*These are not the only reasons to tell a story and I am not in any way saying that an author is only permitted to retell a story to express their own values. There are as many reasons to tell a story as there are stories, and I don't really think any reason to create fiction is more or less valid than any other. I am discussing, specifically, the concept of myths as conveyors of essential cultural truths.

[taurasiscntybun]

But we’re roommates! Pt 2

-College DT x nerdy reader

-18 plus minors DNI

-Warnings: Adult language, anxiety, internalized homophobia, descriptions of foreplay, virginity kink

-2,800 words

Diana’s POV

I shove my headphone over my head, my hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, the curls threatening to escape. 50 cent blares in my ear as I cross through the hallway of the dormitory.

“Distracts me?” I mutter to myself. I don’t understand my weird ass roommate, it’s rare she actually talks to me, even rarer that she comes close. Maybe it’s for the best, if she knew the thoughts I had about her I'm sure she’d never speak to me again.

“Distracts me?” I mumble again, I’m stuck on that, it has to fucking mean something. Why would it bother her if I’m in my sports bra? I wish she wouldn’t walk around in her goddamn tank top and shorts, well not really, I think her thin sleep shirt is my favorite thing she owns. I let out a groan as I picture her, the thin fabric stretching over her tits.

“Fuck” I mumble and shake my head to clear the thoughts. If only she knew how distracting she was, I keep my music blaring so I don’t notice her. I already know today is going to be a waste in class. Not that I give two fucks about my English class, as long as I get a C I can keep my scholarship and keep playing basketball. I should care more, I’m the first in my family to go to college; I’m not gonna flunk out or some shit but I’m happy with getting by. I hate my English class the most, what the fuck am I learning by reading Beowulf and Pride and Prejudice? At least my roomie helps me with English, she’s so smart. I turn up the volume on my mp3 player, keeping my mind from drifting to thoughts about my nervous baby bunny. I wave to a few people as I walk through the green, I don’t know everyone but since my face was on the fucking school magazine everyone seems to know me. Finally I get to one of the biggest buildings on campus, it’s on the other side of the fucking campus from my dorm but at least most of my classes are here. I glance down at my watch and swear under my breath, I’m like five minutes late.

“Miss Taurasi, you do know class starts at nine, correct?” My professor says, a smug look on his face.

“Yes sir, I got held up this morning.” I reply and flop down in my seat, pulling out my notebook.

“It’s five minutes, can he fucking chillax?” I mumble under my breath as he drones on about the oral history of Beowulf. I should be paying attention, I should be taking notes, but I can’t stop thinking about my fucking roommate. The way my hands fit perfectly around her waist, her touching my shoulder, her soft voice saying I’m distracting plays over and over in my head. It means something, it has too; why would my sweaty body be distracting to her? I look up from my blank notebook, realizing.

”Fuck, she’s attracted to me.” I mutter without thinking and a few heads turn my way but I ignore them. Now all I want is my classes to be over so I can get back to my dorm.

“Oh god, shit.” You say and run your fingers through your hair. Your classes start a little later in the day, back to back history classes then humanities. You stare at Diana’s unmade bed and replay your conversation. You had admitted she was distracting, you’d said her body was distracting.

“God she’s gonna think I’m some lesbo weirdo.” You mutter and pace the small space.

”No.. no.. it’s normal to be distracted, she’s hot.” You try and reassure yourself but it doesn’t work, you know deep down that the feelings you have towards Diana aren’t platonic. You want to feel her big hands on you, her lips, her everything, you want to be consumed by her presence. She’s gorgeous, a mix of strong muscles and soft curves that make your mouth water.

“Don’t be weird, it’s fine, it’s fine.” You dress quickly, a tank top and loose cargo pants and hurry out the door for class; your mind clouded with anxiety with before class.

The rest of the day goes by in a droning bore, your classes blurring together as your stomach tumbles in anxiety. When your last class leaves you bolt for the door and race across campus to your dorm. Diana’s day ends before yours but she has practice so it’s fine.

“Calm down, calm down, its fine, she’s at practice and I’m sure she doesn’t even remember what I said this morning.” You mutter as you fit the key in your dorm room door. You swing it open and yelp as Diana looks up at you from her bed.

”Finally you're home, I didn't know when your last class ended.” She says and stands to come closer.

”No it’s Monday, your math class lets out at four and your practice starts at four-thirty, why are you here? It’s five?” You say and shake your head.

“You memorized my schedule?” She asks and cocks her head to the side, her hair is down for once and the dark curls bob as she turns her head.

”I..I..I wanted to know the times you wouldn’t be here, for.. for studying.” You stammer, still standing in the open doorway. Diana gives you a wolffish grin and takes another step towards you, she’s in touching distance now but she feels much closer, her large statue looming.

”Oh yes because I’m so distracting right?”

“Y..your music and..and..” You stammer but she cuts you off by grabbing you and pulling you into the room, the door clicking shut and locking behind her.

”We dont need to have this talk with the door open.” Diana says in a hushed tone, her hands still on your arms.

”And I know, you find me walking around in my sports bra very distracting right?” She taunts, her thumbs rubbing up and down your bare arms, leaving goosebumps along your skin.

”I..I..”

“Why does my body distract you Baby bunny?” She whispers, drawing you even closer.

”I’m not the genius you are but could I be distracting you because you find me hot?” She’s standing so close now you could count the freckles across her face, she looks down at you with a serious expression, something you're not used to. You look up at her slack jawed and you know you're blushing but you can’t stop. You try to think of something, anything to say to her but your mind is drawing a blank.

”Y..yes you..you are pretty but..but lots of g..girls are pretty.” You stammer and try to pull away but her grip tightens to nearly painful.

”Do you look at a lot of other girls?” She whispers and searches your face.

”I..I mean a normal amount, everyone notices pretty girls right? I mean you notice pretty girls right?” You answer nervously and look down. Diana moves one of her hands from your arm to under your chin and she tilts your head up gently to look at her.

”Oh yeah, I notice pretty girls, all the time, but then again I don’t notice boys.. if you understand what I mean. I definitely fucking notice you. You think I’m distracting? Baby I can hardly think when you're around, everything comes out in a rush of word vomit when you look at me with your big eyes.” She’s leaned down to you, your air mingling as her eyes dart from yours to your lips.

“Do you feel the same way baby? Am I right?” Diana says, her tone so hushed its barely audible over the roaring in your ears. The room feels too small, Diana too close, you can’t breathe let alone think. As if she can read your thoughts she takes a step back and lets go of your arms, raising her hands in surrender.

“Tell me I’m wrong, tell me to fuck off and I’ll never bring it up again, I’ll even wear a shirt all the time.“ Her eyes search your face and you can see the quiet vulnerability in her face. You’re frozen, not able to deny how you feel but not knowing what to say either. Diana looks at you concerned and then a look of understanding crosses over her face.

“You’re new to liking girls aren’t you? Or rather new to admitting it to yourself?” Her tone is soft and her gaze warm. She sits on her bed and pats the place next to her.

“It’s ok, everyone’s been there.” You take a tentative step towards her, trying to think of anything to say.

“If you don’t say anything cause you’re scared of rejection, don’t be.” Diana says in a hushed tone and you sit, she immediately puts her hand on your thigh, nothing scandalous just resting on your knee but it was enough to get your blood heating.

“I don’t know why I feel this way about… about you.” You say softly and turn to look at her.

“Are you attracted to me? Do you get distracted by my body because it turns you on? You don’t understand why I affect you… it’s nothing I did baby, you just like women.” Diana says and grins, her touch on your thigh turning teasing as she traced patterns on your inner thigh; the calluses on her long fingers leaving goosebumps under your pants.

“It’s ok, I feel the same way, I want you baby, fuck I want to kiss you all the time, I want you to come to my games in my jersey. I want to devour you.” Her tone dropped as she spoke and she squeezed your thigh for emphasis on the last part. You let out a hushed whimper and she moved closer, her hand moving up your thigh.

“You gotta say something babygirl, I’m not going to keep touching you unless I’m sure you want it.” She starts to pull away and immediately you feel the loss of contact and speak before thinking.

“No please keep touching me. Fuck I want you to touch me please.” You admit and she grinned.

“Thank fuck.” Diana groans and doesn’t give you a chance to respond before pulling you in tight, her lips crashing into yours. You freeze, your body locking up under the foreign touch.

“Come on baby, let go, let me show you how I good I can make you feel.” Diana says and kisses down your neck.

“Don’t think, just feel; you want me to keep touching you? Well I want you to touch me too, give in baby.” She almost begs and her soft suck on your pulse point makes you come undone. You melt against her, and pull her down for another kiss. Your kiss is clumsy and unpracticed but passionate; Diana’s hand comes up behind you and tangles in your hair, tilting your head back as she takes control. She slows your kiss, her mouth moving against yours with practiced ease.

“God you don’t know what you do to me.” Diana practically growls and pulls away a bit.

“Talk to me baby.” She begs and strokes your back.

”Im sorry I..I’m not good at this at uh talking about stuff.” You manage to say and she grins.

“No apologies baby, you don’t need to try, just be you.” She kisses down your jaw and you gasp.

“O..Ok” you say in a breathy tone, collecting yourself a bit.

”I like you, i really like you in a way I haven’t liked another girl before and I didn't know what to do or how to act because i didn't want you to think I’m a freak but then that meant you needed to stay away from me because my like brain stops working when you're around.” Your words tumble out a fast long sentence and Diana pulls away to process your words.

“Firstly I dont think you're a freak, I’m actually super fucking happy that you have feelings for me because fuck I’ve wanted you since you walked into this dorm all wide eyed and excited the first day.” She smiles and pulls you close again, this time in a tight hug, Diana was successfully breaking your walls down, bit by little bit. She waited until she felt you relax in her embrace to speak.

“When you see me walking around in my underwear what are you thinking baby?” She whispers against your hair, her tone low.

”I..I..” You start to stutter in response.

”You tell me and I’ll tell you what I’m thinking when I see you in your cute little pajamas.” She teases, moving her head down to whisper in your ear.

“I..I think about your body and.. and how much I like it and want to touch you. I..I think about your boobs probably too much and your uh sweaty sports bras hide little.” You admit and pull away again, sitting next to her. Diana raises her eyebrows in question.

”My…boobs?” She asks and looks down at her somewhat flat chest.

“Yes yes I think about them all the time, every time I see you without a bra at night or when you walk around after practice. God Diana were you not doing that on purpose?” You ask, you're softening, feeling more comfortable with her now that your crush was out in the open. Diana laughs and shakes her head incredulously.

”I honestly just started dressing in here because it seemed to annoy you and you look so adorable when you're mad but you weren’t mad were you? You were horny?” She hooks a finger in your belt loop and tugs you towards her, forcing your body to angle to her. You blush and look down at your hands in your lap.

“Nah baby dont get shy on me now, you were just telling me how much you like my boobs.” Diana’s hands cover yours and you tilt your head to look at her.

“Do you wanna see ‘em baby?” Her voice drops to a whisper and she looks down at you with heat in her gaze. You suddenly realize yes, you’d very much like to see her boobs and the rest of her.

”Yes, Diana I..I want you.” You say in a shaky tone and bite your lip. She lets out a groan in response.

“Ok , you can have me but fuck that means I get you, I get to really know you, you gotta let me in.” Dianas words came out in almost a plea, she needed you as much as you needed her right now.

“Yes I promise Dee you can-“

”Don’t call me that.” She cuts you off abruptly and you look at her in confusion.

”But everyone calls you that?”

“Yeah but you aren’t everyone and you’ve never called me Dee, I uh I like that you're the only one that calls me by my full name. To everyone Im Dee or DT but you have always called me Diana.” She brings your hands to her lips and kisses across your knuckles; you're left breathless by the reverence in her touch.

”Diana I promise I’ll be myself, I want you, I don’t want to hide from you anymore.” You admit to her as she kisses your knuckles again.

“Thank god baby, now I want to touch you, I want to touch you everywhere, can I?” Diana asks softly and drags her big hands up your arms.

“I wanna show you how much I like you.” Her thumbs hook under the thin straps of your tank top and pulls them down your shoulders.

”I..I dont know what to do, i.. I’ve never..” You stutter and she groans low in her throat.

”Fuck are you telling me you're a virgin?” Her thumbs move in small circles on your shoulders as she looks down at you predatorily.

“Y..yeah I uh have never with uh anyone.” You say quietly, a touch embarrassed.

”But you want me to touch you right? You want me to make you cum dont you baby bunny?” She asks in a raspy tone, dipping her head to kiss down your neck.

“Y.yes Diana p..please.” You say and let your head lull to the side giving her more access.

“Mhhmm you're so beautiful.” She said against your skin, one hand fisted in your hair to gently lean your head and her other hand wandered up your body, teasing at the hem of your shirt.

“Diana please I..I want you to make me cum I… I want you.” You whine and arch your back into her touch, your body automatically knowing what to do. Diana chuckles against your skin and places one more kiss on your pulse point before pulling away.

“Ok baby but first I need you out of these clothes.” She leans down and starts untying your sneakers, her long finger moving deftly as she undoes the knot and slips the shoe off you.

“Lay back, lemme take care of you.” She says softly and kisses your inner ankle sending a buzz of heat through your body. Diana repeats her actions with your other shoe then stands.

[novankenn]

Cinder: (Swings door open quickly ignoring the note.) My Queen! Those brats have broke into the castle we must stop!

(Pauses while looking at the scene)

Jaune: (His head on Weiss's lap as she runs her fingers though his hair) Alyx was a brat but she still was like family she didn't deserve what that cat did.

Salem: I understand life is usually cruel. Now tell me more about this Curious Cat.

Cinder: WTF?!?

Cinder stalked through the halls and corridors of EverNight Castle. Her twin obsidian blades ready to strike down the intruders... if she could find them. Normally she would have zeroed in on the sounds of conflict and combat, but there was none. The grimm she passed, when she did come across them were just wandering about aimlessly, that was if they weren't sitting or laying down.

So without the sounds of a fierce pitched battle to guide her, Cinder was forced to actually search for the interlopers... who she knew was team RWBY and their friends.

Cinder: This is RIDICULOUS! I must ask my queen for help, to locate these brats.

Cinder made a turn at the next corner and stomped her way toward the throne room. She emerged from one of the side halls into the main corridor and turned towards her destination. Five minutes later she stood there before the large double doors... in total shock.

Cinder: I...

A Beowulf, dressed in a tasteful skirt and blouse ensemble, matched with a set of sensible heels, and topped off with a pearl necklace, and a pair of wire rim glasses... stood before the doors baring her entry.

Cinder: I...

The Beowulf pointed to a sign near the door, well a set of signs in fact. It took ever ounce of her will power to draw her eyes off the figure before her, and look at the signs.

(1) If the doors are closed there is either a meeting or session in progress. Unless it is an EMERGENCY no admittance.

(2) Sessions are by appointment ONLY.

(3) This is a ZERO TOLERANCE work place. Anyone causing a disturbance, or harassing staff will be asked to leave. Failure to do so will cause the authorities to be summoned.

(4) I am the boss, but my secretary is in charge. If she says NO then it's NO. There are no exceptions.

Cinder: Secretary?

The Beowulf nodded its head and using a metal ruler tapped the desk name plate.

Cinder: Grendelsa Grimmsald, Executive Assistant to Doctor Salem Salem?

The Beowulf who Cinder now knew was named Grendelsa nodded.

Cinder: But, I...

Grendelsa: *Grunt like growl*

Cinder: I know I don't have an appointment, but this is an emergency! The castle is under attack! I must speak to Queen...

Grendelsa: *Growl like grunt*

Cinder: I mean Doctor Salem.

Grendelsa pointed to a set of rather comfy looking waiting room chairs, and Cinder knew instantly she had no choice. So she sat down, and after a few seconds wiggled her butt into the plush cushioning getting more comfortable.

Cinder dozed off, and awoke with a start at the sound of the door opening.

Salem: I understand it is quiet the commute so I will have Grendelsa arrange for some accommodations for you, as in my opinion there is a need to have a few more sessions over the next week before I feel confident that we can space them out further. Is that acceptable Ms Schnee? Mr Arc?

Weiss: More than. Thank you for your hospitality, and all your help.

Cinder shot to her feet, her eyes wide in shock. Salem, her queen. Malevolent Evil Incarnate was in a black pant suit, wearing glasses and SHAKING HANDS with the SCHNEE who was holding the hand of the blond wanna-be knight from Beacon!

Jaune: I still don't...

Salem: It's alright Mr Arc. These things take time, and we progress at the pace that you set. There is no rushing this. Your mental health is very important, and with Ms Schnee's support and my assistance we will help you find resolutions.

Weiss: Can we give it a couple more sessions Jaune? I really do think this is good for you, me and us.

Jaune: Okay. I'll try a few more times.

Salem: Excellent. Grendelsa will make all the...

Cinder: WHAT THE FUCK IT THIS!!!!

Salem: Ms Fall. Those types of outbursts are not acceptable!

Cinder: WHAT THE FUCK, SALEM? THEY'RE FROM BEACON! THEY'RE YOUR ENEMIES!

Salem: Lower your voice or you will be escorted out.

Cinder: WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!? ARE YOU GIVING THEM THERAPY???

Salem: You were warned Ms Fall. Ms Grimmslad if you please...

/==/

Twenty minutes later Cinder found herself sitting outside of the main gate of EverNight Castle, right next to Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, and Blake Belladonna.

Ruby: You get kicked out too?

Cinder: ...

[ochipi]

So I might’ve actually lectured my lecturer. He’s an archivist, but not a historian (in the broadest version of the word).

Previously mentioned: Roman archives, didn’t really survive because of wax tablets and papyri decaying but we know they wrote and archived. Sure.

After the disappearance of the Western Roman Empire (he was very safe with his word choices here), archiving or writing large amounts of texts wasn’t really a thing, until the Arabs came by the 12th century and Europe was archiving again.

HOLD THE FFING PHONE RIGHT THERE! And I did ask why he was reasoning this way. He didn’t really got me immediately so I provided him with examples.

Roman law didn’t disappear, it was held up and added upon. (Fine = income!) we know this because A) we have catholic additions on it making pagan elements in society illegal, B) we have written versions of the Lex Salica as old as the 8th century, C) Carolingian Minuskel is a thing, learned how to read it at previous Uni.

They just continued copying/translating Greek to Latin to f.e. Diets.

Laws are only useful when you have an institute that has them, can check on them and execute them. All those laws are stored somewhere (= archived).

Handy for cloisters to know how many properties they have and what they provide in income and how much they cost.

Roman law became regional, the Goths, Salic Franks, Anglians all had written law. The Catholic Church even invited Irish monks over to baptize Europeans and they introduced the space in written language in the process to make it easier for them. Writing… archiving…

The Catholic Church was very keen on making martyrs immediate saints. Their stories were recorded (!) into hagiographies. We still have those. They were kept (archived!) in churches and cloisters.

They like their heroes. Tales like Beowulf are 8th century. The church wrote their hymns down so they could hand it out to their singers. The church provided education. The male elite could write…

Gregorius of Tours wrote his Historia Francorum. He wrote the history of the Francs, while they were still around! That’s archiving!

Yeah sure, they wrote how the Vikings were invaders and so on and on. But they wrote it down in the cloister archives!

I mean I can continue. But these were the things I mentioned in class.

To clarify, the Arabs did not re-introduce the production of archiving material and archives themself. They were just never gone. What the Arabs did do was re-introduced science! (Scream it out loud for the people in the back!). While Charlemagne was busy killing Slavs, the Arabs had libraries (Baghdad House of Wisdom) and research institutes and were good mathematicians and astronomers (many stars in our night sky have Arab names to this day). Europe owes a ton of stuff thanks to the Islamic Golden Age. But not really recording and archiving.

On the other hand, I was later informed that the lecturer started panicking because i apparently cornered him good. I just took the one time I get to prove that the last five years of me working around the Early Middle Ages wasn’t for nothing. I don’t want to apologise

[broomsick]

Holy spaces & shrines in the modern norse path

Before we dive into the oh-so-diverse topic of holy spaces, let me first specify a few practical tips!

I’m very much aware that the definition of the term “holy” is deeply subjective and varies depending on one’s opinions. I’ll elaborate on a few of my thoughts on the topic further!

In no way are you bound by any rule regarding this aspect of paganism.

I will base my post off of my research, granted, but also on my personal experiences and practices!

Now, what makes a holy space sacred? Not necessarily "holy" per say, but simply sacred.

The very first factor to consider is, what is sacredness? Lots and lots of pagans engage mostly in solitary practice, so much is true. Which is why lots of us find ourselves gravitating towards spaces others may not necessarily find any sense of "sacredness" in. The corner of your room where you tend to pray the most? Sacred. Or the spot in your garden where you perform your harvest ritual every year! It’s the connection we feel to the space that makes it sacred in the first place. But a space being holy depends on whether or not we choose to anoint it in such a way.

When something is sacred to me, I tend to feel a sort of spiritual pull. A swelling of the heart, if you will, like the feeling I get when faced with a breathtaking landscape. The feeling of spiritual connection to a particular spot is the first intuition one needs to tune into when choosing a holy space. After all, staying in tune with one's intuition might be one of the most important aspect of any spiritual practice.

Within nordic practice, a holy space is often called vé, a sacred enclosure. Vé's are attested in numerous toponyms as well as ancient texts, such as Beowulf, or the Skáldskaparmál. Their omnipresence in Scandinavian toponyms might, when considered through a pagan lense, signify something quite interesting: the holiness of a space depends on the space itself, its location, rather than what's inside it— or rather, how grand and ornate it is. When building a holy space for oneself, one does not need lavish decoration, or an elaborate shrine with the gold foil and the statues.

However, there are a few steps one can follow in order to anoint a space as holy, if one wants to reconstruct a few practices from pre-Christian Scandinavia. Although I'll specify that as always, no rule is set in stone when it comes to neopaganism. The choice to abide by them or not is entirely up to the practitioner. And in any case, even as I was gathering these few ideas, it was clear that, as always, pre-Christian practices centered around holy spaces vastly differed depending on the place and the time. Regardless, I think it's fun to do some research on the topic in order to reconstruct on our own terms a holy space in the nordic tradition.

The first step? Having a good knowledge of your area. Both before and during the Viking Age, holy places were more often than not located outside. It can be a great help to know where to find the greenery in one's area. Is there a beach near home that the public has access to? How about a large park where you can spend some time alone without being bothered? Even your backyard does the trick! Anywhere you can see the sky and breathe the open air is already perfect. Now, the Germanic tribes would generally worship near an object of particular importance, such as a grove, a body of water, a clearing in the forest, a hill... Although this doesn't seem to be very present in historical attestations, and considering I'm devoted to Yngvi-Freyr, I'm an especially big fan of worshipping in plains, or fields!

I think it's important for me to note that if you are lucky enough to live near a body of water, you can choose to engage in one of the most popular forms of offering in nordic historical practice: throwing offerings out to sink into the water! This practice was especially widespread, evidence of it having been found as far as Britain and Iceland. Evidently, if one chooses to engage in such a practice, it's important to respect the ecosystems and stick with offerings that won't damage them (acorns, stones, flowers and the like). As for an outdoors shrine located in a forest, or near woodland, it would have been customary during pre-Christian times to center a holy space around a tall tree, perhaps representing the World Tree Yggdrasil.

Considering lots of neo-pagans prefer to keep their practice discreet, it goes without saying that the holy space of your choosing does not need to be especially big, nor especially decorated. It can be as small as it is humble! One of the spaces where I most like to worship is the little corner of the yard, tucked under a cedar tree, where I rebuild my hörgr every year, as soon as the snow melts for good. Nothing too flamboyant!

Now, the second step to building a little outdoors shrine for yourself is to choose a representation of the deity to adore. It's said that the human-like appearance of this representation mattered little to the Germanic tribes, whose representations of the Gods could be rather simple, and not especially ornate. For this reason, it would be perfectly logical to even choose an object associated with the deity in question to serve as the main representation placed in the sanctuary. If we're talking about Freyja, a falcon statuette, or feather could do the trick! As for Fenrir, any wolf imagery could work as well! In the case of Thórr, one could replicate the case of Donar's Oak and choose to center their shrine around a particular tree (the rowan are the oak would make the best choices, if one is to pick a tree sacred to Thórr). These are just examples, and the possibilities in this regard are limitless. This "main" representation can be used as the center of your sacred space, and given offerings during rituals or celebrations. In my case, I like greet this representation both when "entering" the sacred space and when leaving it, as a sign of respect!

If one so desires, it's possible to set up some kind of "delimitation" in order to mark the entrance of the sacred space, or its outline. I like to place either ribbons on nearby branches, or litter stones here and there to lie in a loose circle (we wouldn't want to block the rays of the sun from reaching the earth and keep the greenery from growing). In order to signal the entrance of shrines, the Germanic tribes would generally use heaps of dirt or pillars of stone, among other things.

Another intresting element one might include in their sacred space is the presence of fire! Whether this be a bonfire, incense, a simple candle or even just a handful of ash, there's lots of ways to include the "element" of fire into a modern day shrine. It's a means of warming up the space, so to speak: tending a fire in the shrine is akin to having a hearth in the home!

Ideas for common, historically attested offerings: Ethically-sourced animal bones, gold or golden jewelry, tools, representation of the Gods, beads and beaded jewelry, alcohol, food and meat…

Now, let's pull away from the history lesson and let's dive into modern, neo-pagan practice! I'd wager some of you are wondering, how exactly can one keep a whole shrine, but make their practice as low-key as possible?! After all, I know firsthand that solo practice is especially common among neo-pagans. So my answer to this question is, who said anything about keeping? One piece of advice I've already given to a few fellow pagans in the past is to create a little portable shrine all to yourself! Let me explain myself: you arrive at your chosen location, you put down a basket full of decoration and you put up a temporary space in which to worship for an hour or two. You take out a deity representation, a few candles (if they're allowed on site!), a handful of offerings and a cloth on which to place them. And when you're done with the ritual, you pack up your things and make sure you leave the site as clean as when you first found it. In other words, what I’m suggesting is the possibility of gathering a few designated worship items in order to make oneself a portable, personal little shrine! It might seem like a silly idea at first, but I’ve discovered it’s not only a fun habit, but it’s also greatly helpful on a tight schedule to have a quick and easy way to engage in outdoors practice.

As always, I wrote this post aiming to help fellow pagans find ways to balance historical practice and modern, solo practice! I hope these few ideas did the trick, and wish you all a good and plentiful spring season!

First picture

[alligade]

Were-kubrow Au

welcome.... to my twisted mind!!!

What if Tenno... but werewolf.

The origin of were-kubrows can be dated back to the days of the Orokin Empire, and is directly related to one high-ranking member who's name has since been lost to history. She was a lover of the exotic and macabre, and her personal guardian Warframe was the pinnacle of her collection: Beowulf, the hunter

He was modelled after an old-Earth species that had gone extinct generations ago, and named after an ancient hero. It's said that she commissioned him from Ballas in exchange for a relic of unparalleled rarity, but rumors rarely have any sort of truth to them. How she acquired Beowulf is unimportant: what matters primarily is what she did after he fell during a particularly bold Sentient Invasion.

She mourned his death as one might mourn a meal eaten too quickly. There was no care for the Warframe himself-- why should there be? At the end of the day he was only a tool. He was her muse, howling and vengeful and filled to the brim with hunger. He reminded her so pointedly of an ancient myth, told only on Naberus nights when Lua is at its highest peak and the night chill is at its most biting.

Men and women stalking the night in strange forms. Bestial, armed with claw and fang and a stomach that could never be filled. Bloody-mawed, draped in gore and fur.

How delightful! How intriguing! Surely, if she could bring this myth to life, she would not feel as bored! The silence left in Beowulf's wake would be filled with chattering teeth and inhuman growls. Yes, this was exactly what she required!

And so she visited an expert. Not Ballas-- she was not after another Warframe-- but one who specialized in the sculpting of flesh. She required a potion. One that would change the body into the shape of another for one night only. This was the most important aspect, you see. She very easily could have had another body fashioned, and then utilized kuva to bring it to life, but there would be no fun in that. The ancient were-beast of Earth were not beasts permanently. Her creations had to shift alongside Lua. This she was adamant about.

The task was difficult and the creation was lengthy but the expert was eventually successful. The Orokin Noblewoman was handed a flask, small and discrete, filled with a murky brown liquid. Only one sip would change something deep within the drinker, assured the expert. Something that would rise to howl alongside the full moon and disappeared at Sol's first light, but could never be banished completely.

And so she went-- out into the city in which she lived, giggling and skipping, drawing many curious glances from the other Orokin. Her excitement could not be contained. This would be a Naberus to remember! Now, she only had to find the perfect playmate!

Eventually, she stumbled upon the barracks of the local Dax Guard. Those in the lower ranks did not have houses of their own, and instead resided in spaces graciously handed to them by their merciful Golden Lords. Yes, they would be the perfect candidates. Loyal but strong; they wouldn't keel over at the first hint of danger. She slipped into the kitchen of said barrack, past the low-born cooks who knew better than to acknowledge what she was doing, much less even look in her direction without permission. The meals were being prepared for dinner, and after choosing a single plate at random, she tipped the flask and watched with glee as a single drop of the concoction fell.

That night, the Dax gathered and ate their food, unaware of the poison lacing one of the bowls. No one was any wiser to the fact that their food had been tampered with until--

A young Dax began to cough and sputter, clutching at the armor over his chest as his meal fell from his hands. The others were concerned, thinking he was choking and needed assistance. One of his close friends rushed to his side, asking if he needed help, but when he turned to look at her she realized something was horribly wrong.

His teeth had lengthened into fangs, and the lower half of his face jutted out unnaturally from his skull. He grabbed onto her with fingers sharpened into claws and surged forward, biting down onto her neck as the overwhelming urge to eat overcame him.

What followed was carnage; the other Dax stabbed and slashed but nothing they did stopped the beast. By the end of the hour, it was the only thing remaining.

But remain for long, it did not. It took a few stumbling steps towards the door, only to collapse, completely and utterly dead. The Orokin, who had watched all of this happen from a hidden sentry-drone, felt her heart sink. Why was her creation dead? Why had it not changed completely? This half-formed thing was not the hound she had requested!

She stormed off, knowing that she would make her displeasure known to the so-called "expert" that gave her a faulty product. What she didn't see was the crew of Warframes that had been summoned to investigate the commotion. And she most certainly did not see the child that slip from within one of them. The child knew that they would be punished severely if they were seen, but they had to get a closer look at the strange not-Dax.

They stared at the thing's bloody mouth, and reached out in order to touch one of the fangs. A sound startled them, and when they pulled their hand back, they accidentally scratched themselves on the thing's tooth. Back to their Warframe they went, curiosity only partially satisfied.

The following year, on Naberus night, the strangest thing occurred.

A Kubrow was seen stalking the halls of the most exalted Orokin cities, teeth blood-red and fur covered in tattered clothing. And it was not alone.

We wear masks and costumes on Naberus in order to hide our identities and blend in with the creatures that spend the evening seeking out their prey. It has been many years since the Orokin died, and surely that strange Kubrow couldn't have managed to survive all this time. And yet, when the clock strikes midnight, if you stand very still and strain your ears, it is said you can hear the sound of it howling, and the desperate screams of it's creator, begging to be spared her life.

This started out as a writing exercise to see if I could replicate the Naberus tales told by Grandmother and sort of spiraled from there. The story above is the story told by Tenno to explain the origins of were-kubrows, but the truth, as always, is far less straightforward.

No one is entirely sure how the curse began.

Were-kubrows spread the infliction solely through saliva. The most common method is via biting but just licking an open wound would be enough to infect someone. Anyone could theoretically become one but Tenno are the only ones that are able to both 1. complete the full transformation and 2. survive the ordeal.

They're a lot more durable than normal people and can't technically die due to their connection to the Void. This means that were-Kubrows are pretty much only Tenno.

There's no cure and most have been living with it for long enough that they either dont really care anymore or have developed ways to cope with it. It affects their daily lives very little-- they usually don't develop packs or exhibit kubrow-like traits. The only change that all were-kubrows exhibit is a heightened sense of smell. However, on full moons (not specifically Naberus) they transform into AWESOME giant kubrows.

Younger Tenno are able to hold onto their humanity more easily. They don't feel the call of the hunt as strongly, since Kubrows live in organized family structures and the young aren't expected or really capable of feeding themselves. Usually, they wait out the night alongside others close to their age.

Older Tenno (over the age of 20, usually) are consumed almost entirely by instinct and hormones. While still more intelligent than actual Kubrows, they are still animalistic and brutal. They hunt for food and gorge themselves but never feel satiated. Males fight to establish dominance, secure territory, and earn breeding rights. (Despite the fact that every Tenno is completely sterile and no actual breeding ever happens. They spend the entire night attacking each other and by the time a winner has been decided it's already morning)

Males have longer nose horns than females which they use for sparring. They also tend to have large manes of fur around their necks to protect the area from competitors while fighting. Females are not any more docile, though. They form into hunting parties that can reach numbers of over 30. While males tend to be bulkier, females are only slightly smaller in height on average.

^ Some adult were-kubrows, specifically Drifter and Delta. Adults are typically the size of a large Kubrow, though some can reach over six feet tall at the shoulder.

^ Kaz is an example of the typical adolescent were-kubrow. He has a small, dull nose-horn that indicates he is not fully mature. His ears are too big for his head and he's pissed off because he'll never get the chance to grow into them lol

erm anyways that's what I have so far feel free to scream about werewolves with me teehee

[astronicht]

Replying to a comment on this ask reply about evil in the North in LOTR (but it was too long to actually put in a comment ,)

@warrioreowynofrohan I'm so glad evil is in the north in The Silmarillion!! I have also been promised that the story of the creation of the world is also in there, since Frodo fell asleep during Tom Bombadil’s early medieval cosmology lesson. I really, really want to know what happens in Elf Creation, because Tolkien did not write a book about it academically but CLEARLY had at least a few opinions about early medieval ideas of where the world came from, which he possibly just put in Middle Earth, if he had them fleshed out enough. This makes me nuts bc CS Lewis, meanwhile, wrote a whole-ass book called The Discarded Image about his idea* of the medieval vision of the cosmos (like where is outer space, where are the planets, where’s heaven, etc, including How It All Got Made) and also per the word of a thesis supervisor back in the day who was super into this stuff, worked symbolism of the planets in the medieval cosmos into one of his fictional works.

*bc the rest is under cut: if you want a more accurate read for medieval and Renaissance cosmology, the textbook is Planets, Stars, and Orbs by Edward Grant. I would not recommend TDI for historical accuracy

Lewis brushes over early medieval ideas only briefly (early medieval anything is actually not usually included in medieval academia on a theme; it’s sort of a weird zone from ca. 600-1100 AD, and Grant doesn't cover it either). But while the book is interesting on some points, it's pretty misleading, and CS Lewis's one solid error was presenting all of medieval cosmology as a Single Idea, which it also very much was not. People did not magically stop arguing about how the world got made and what it looked like for one thousand years, and modern scholarship has looked at that. But he was reading all the same texts as Tolkien, and this weird oversight that has bothered me for years, and for YEARS i have been wondering if Tolkien thought something else. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t! WHY did he put the seven stars (the five visible planets plus the sun and moon) on Aragorn’s sword PLUS the sun and moon, throwing off the count entirely?? Maybe he did not actually give a shit). I look forward to finding out, and probably suffering for it.

RE: Gollum! Your actual question! Honestly at the moment (aka at the end of Fellowship), Gollum seems like such a thoroughly Grendel figure that I almost get worried I’m being lured into a 1:1 comparison, when Tolkien seems to enjoy making a bunch of different references within each character. Strider is King Arthur, Strider is that guy in that saga nicknamed Strider, Strider is another guy with a sword situation in another saga(??) (I have not read enough Norse sagas). Gollum, though, is associated with the underground and with water; he has his dark low pool; Grendel lives in a low dark pool (with his mum). Even being cast out by a matriarch maaaaybe suggests something of Grendel’s Mother, who is just as much a main character, or perhaps more so; she’s the final boss of the Grendel bit of Beowulf, after all. So in conclusion: yeah I see your point! I'd be curious to figure out what else is being folded in. However, assuming the Grendel similarities are on purpose, congrats to Tolkien for the only good Beowulf adaptation ever.

[budo-bujo]

Intro to Literary Studies

This is my intro post for cyberstudious's masterpost jam challenge! I wanted to participate because 1) there doesn't seem to be a lot of representation for humanities in studyblr spaces and 2) there are a lot of misconceptions about literary studies as a field (what do you mean it's not just reading books all day?)(Well, it kind of is but not like you think!)

Disclaimer: I study contemporary "American"* literature and while I have very close contact with people in other fields in my program, I will inevitably be biased.

What is literary studies?

Literary studies is a general term that describes the study of literature very broadly. In the US, this is mostly housed in English departments**, but there are a lot of overlaps with fields like comparative literature, film studies, visual studies, etc.

Generally, I think people's views of what literary studies is is incredibly skewed by high school English classes or maybe some general education courses in college, but those classes do not paint an accurate picture of the field at an advanced level. Literary scholars are performing intensive research, not just teaching or reading books all day! I will say that I didn't even completely understand what an "English major" does academically until graduate school because the work is just on a completely different level.

What are notable career paths/organizations?

Most people who do literary studies are interested in traditional academic careers as professors. However, with the state of higher education in the US, those jobs are insanely competitive and very rare. Other "alt-ac" careers include publishing, academic administration, or other public humanities work. Many people also get concurrent or extra degrees in library and information science, book arts, digital humanities, education, or other fields which can additionally open up your career options.

From an academic standpoint, it's difficult to list specific journals/organizations since the field is so broad. One kind of universal organization in the United States is the Modern Language Association (MLA) (yes that MLA) which has several regional and one large conference every year along with a journal that is pretty much the pinnacle of the field. However, there are countless smaller journals, conferences, and organizations for every specialization that are way more accessible.

What are different fields/specializations?

There are generally two ways to describe what you study: Time period and special area. People often dabble in other things, especially post-PhD, and some people end up switching fields entirely. However, PhD's are about specializing and going deep, unlike a Bachelor's English degree which usually has students completing survey courses and going broadly through a lot of different areas. Here is some more detail about time periods and special areas.

Time period is pretty self explanatory. This is just the time period of literature that you study. Again most people read more widely than this, and we do have to have general knowledge of all of them, but picking one to specialize in is pretty much required. Here are common, incredibly general, ways of categorizing time periods with some example texts/authors***:

Medieval (pre-1400): This is things like Beowulf that require learning Old English and also Chaucer which is Middle English.

Early Modern (1500-1800): Also sometimes called the Renaissance especially for the early texts. This is your Shakespeare and Marlowe etc.

Early American/Victorian (1800-1900): This is where American literature starts to show up with your Hawthorne and Melville. This is also British literature like Dickens, Austen, Bronte, Shelly, etc. Romanticism is huge here.

Modernism (1900-1945): Modernism is more of a style than a time period that includes many non-literary works, but because it was so dominating during the interwar years it's shorthand for the time period. This includes Eliot, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Woolf, etc.

Post-Modernism/Contemporary (1945-present): This is where things get silly in my opinion, because quite literally everything post WWII is generally referred to as contemporary literature. This is my area of specialty so I could go off on it forever, but just know it's a very, very broad time period (arguably the most broad because it's so undefined).

While again these time periods are very broad, the distinctions are pretty significant. It drives me nuts when I tell people I study literature and they ask me questions about Shakespeare! It's also why most people's understanding of "Classic Literature" is very silly. Putting Dickens, Chaucer, and Toni Morrison on the same list makes very little sense!

Special Areas are kind of the core of the field regardless of your time period. This is also where I think the misconceptions around what we do comes from. Special areas can pull from literally any other field alongside literature/literary studies itself, and many literature scholars these days end up becoming very skilled in history, political science, psychology, sociology, art history, film studies, religious studies, or really any other field as a method of complementing their analytical skills. We read A Lot, but so much of it is actually theory!

Some common areas of expertise you will encounter include: Race/ethnicity, ecocriticism, postsecular studies, regionalism, postcolonial/decolonial, book history, performance, sexuality/gender, Marxism, Deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and so many more. Literature provides an avenue to study pretty much anything else you want!

What are the biggest goals/questions?

As I've already described, literature can be used to answer pretty much any question you want. If I were to describe a single question, it would probably be something like "What do literary texts show us about social and cultural issues and vice versa?" This question is very broad, but so is the field! And it allows you almost infinite possibility on how you want to approach the literature.

The central skill to all of this is close reading. Close reading describes the ability to understand a text down to the level of the word and pull out meaning much deeper than a general surface-level reading. This is a skill that takes tons of practice and years of reading to be good at, but is something that anyone can learn how to do! If literature is something that interests you, this is the skill you need to learn to build. If you care about "critical thinking" or "media literacy," it's the same skills!

Conclusion:

That's all I have for now! I may or may not post more of these this week for the challenge, but I am always available to answer questions about literature! I love talking about this stuff!

*I put "American" in quotes because I mostly mean texts written/published within the United States, but that's a bit of a nebulous category. **To add on to my note about bias, this is coming from the perspective of a scholar in the US who mostly works in English. I'm sure the field has some nuances and differences in other languages/countries, but this is not meant to be exhaustive. ***Note that these time periods are very vague and also incredibly Anglocentric so please take them with a grain of salt.

[fandom-friday]

Thank you so much to everyone that submitted recommendations this week! A comprehensive list of this week’s submissions can be found under the cut! Recommendations are organized by show/media, and any main pairings will be listed after the title.

🌿 = 18+ content 🟢 = contains spoilers of a currently running show

Fics:

The Clone Wars: 🌿 In Command (Captain Rex x OC Senna Aven) by @wild-karrde Vacation (Hawk x gn!Reader) by @rinwritesfics The Chase by @kimiheartblade (art by @mire-draws-things) The Ties That Bind Us by @saggitary

The Bad Batch: 🟢 (TBB S3) The Plant Prowler of Pabu (Crosshair x gn!Reader) by @dystopicjumpsuit 🟢 (TBB S3) The Phee Fall Manuever (Tech x Phee Genoa) by @eclec-tech The Only Exception (Captain Howzer x OC June Kiore) by @starqueensthings Magnetic Pull by The_Absent_Minded_One (AO3) Art of War by moxibustion (AO3)

The Book of Boba Fett: 🌿 Biscuits and Beskar (Boba Fett x OC Kaylee Manu) by @marierg

Star Wars Original Trilogy: Endless Blue Skies by SquidWonder (AO3) Stretching Out Your Arms to Something That's Just Not There by SquidWonder (AO3)

Batman: Butler, Father, Assassin, Spy by cabezas_de_vaca (AO3) The Birds: Hatching Family by @oceanera12 Come One, Come All by @incogneat-oh

Young Justice: A Collision of Masks by movaz (AO3)

My Hero Academia: By Any Other Name (Dabi x Hawks) by @satelliteblue

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Matchmaker of Your Dreams (Miranda Gardiner x Sherman Yang) by TheAmazingMaddy (AO3) Longing to Linger (Clovis x Pollux) by hehkhatea (AO3) It Feels Like We Have the Same Wounds by lingeringlucidity (AO3) The Clew Chronicles! by IzzyInk13 (AO3) Weezl's Riordanverse Drabbles by WeezlBot (AO3)

Art:

The Clone Wars: Frog-O-First Battalion by @mwolf0epsilon Commander Fox Art by @nikscribbles 🌿 Jesse Art by @for-the-sake-of-color Captain Rex in Casual Clothing by @saga-ordsmed Aayla Secura Art by @ddeck Girls Night by @cobaltbeam

The Bad Batch: The Bad Batch Art by @eso-terrors Tech Art by @local-cryptid 🟢 (TBB S3) Behind the Mask by @gorlicberd Crosshair Art by @clonemedickix 🟢 (TBB S3) Hunter and Crosshair Art by @queddadraw Hunter Art by @corukant

Rebels: Rebels Comic by @tyquu

The High Republic Series: Avar Kriss Art by @nataliabdraws

A Court of Thorns and Roses Series: Modern Day Elain and Azriel Art by dudledudlesss (Instagram)

Critical Role: Space Pirate AU Fjord Art by @phi-guy

GIF Sets:

Rebels: Ezra Bridger Beowulf GIF Set by @gizkalord

[put-me-out-of-my-destiny]

My new and improved pinned post.

Plot ideas:

"Devil May Cry 5, but Dante gets captured and turned into an Angelo knight, while Lady and Trish escape with Nero and V."

The original idea.

Naming Dante's Angelo-sona.

What the women do between the Prologue and Mission 1.

Dante's nude scene.

What happens to Devil Sword Sparda.

Where does the bike come from?

A fitting design for Lady.

Lucia's role in the story (feat. Griffon, Shadow, and Nightmare).

"The one where Kyrie gains her own demonic minions, like V's familiars, but based on bosses from Devil May Cry 4."

The original ideas.

On Kyrie's minions.

The plot outline.

On Kyrie's Savior.

On Kyrie's singing mechanic.

Kyrie's transformation, first draft.

Kyrie's transformation, second draft.

The conflict, first draft.

The conflict, second draft.

How the Fortunians react to Kyrie's nightmares.

"The Machiavelli Duology."

The Underworld Plot, first draft.

Why an organization of devil hunters would try to capture Trish.

The theme that should guide a female-led spinoff.

On Yamato's destruction.

The AMO plot.

The Underworld plot, second draft.

On Morrigan's gender.

How Morrigan might (but probably wouldn't) use Rebellion's hilt.

The source of the AMO's technology.

What does "profit" mean to Machiavelli?

Machiavelli's partnership with the AMO, what events Machiavelli could have orchestrated, and how he would pit Lucia against Trish.

The extent to which Machiavelli cares about others.

Dante gets sick.

A new devil arm for Dante.

How Machiavelli would break Dante.

How Machiavelli would gather intel on Dante and lower his guard, and how Dante being split would go down.

On Morrigan's motivations.

Nico's new job.

"The Rodin Plot."

The plot outline, first draft.

Eva's role.

The plot outline, second draft.

Rethinking Rodin's backstory.

How the events of DMC1 play out in the alternate timeline.

"What if Nico recreated Agnus's work, and gained a demonic form?"

How far would Nico go in dabbling with Agnus's research?

A silly scene with Nero.

Would Nico's bugsona have boobs?

Other posts.

Lore Speculation/Headcanons.

On the power of V's cane.

On Rebellion's purpose.

How Dante and Vergil create devil arms.

On the Idol of Time and Space.

On Anima Mercury.

On Trish's devil form.

What kind of magic would Trish use?

Christmas in the Devil May Cry universe.

The Combat Adjudicator, and the gods of Devil May Cry.

On the power of human blood.

Where the Sin Devil Trigger gets its (English) name.

Devil Sword Vergil.

The origin of Devil Sword Vergil.

What additional power should Yamato have after Devil May Cry 5?

On the power of V's cane.

What Devil Sword Vergil should look like.

How Dante's demonic power should manifest in his human form.

On Yamato's destruction.

What Vergil's psuedo-SDT in Devil May Cry 5 should have looked like.

A proper Sin Devil Trigger moveset.

An expanded sword moveset.

Miscellaneous Moveset/Game Design posts.

A cool gimmick for another Dante prequel.

In defense of 5!Vergil's Sin Devil Trigger.

Lady should be allowed to use items.

The natural evolution of Vergil's unarmed moveset.

Ways for Vergil to replace Beowulf.

Comparing 5!Nero and 3!Dante's limitations.

Musing on the contrasts between Dante and Vergil's movesets.

Ways to further build on Nero's moveset.

Should Vergil be able to Air Hike or Glide?

How Nero's first solo adventure could stay fresh.

What if Dante's Sin Devil Trigger was as versatile as Vergil's?

My ideal Urizen prequel.

What kind of magic can Trish use?

Why does Trish share unarmed attacks with Vergil?

How to "fix" V's playstyle.

What if Vergil had different weapons in Devil May Cry 4: Special edition?

Two possible moveset concepts for Trish.

On payphones.