#but. i have so many friends who are or have been historians [of the ancient world] | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

goldrushenthusiast · 1 year ago

Note

The Hunger Games characters have some unique names based on many cultures we've lived in today.

What's your favourite character names from THG world? What's their names meaning?

Bonus questions :

If you're a fanfic writer writing about characters who lives in Panem, what's their name gonna be?

If you're a reader, what's a name you read in a THG fanfic that stuck with you?

Thank you, @curiousnonny

Got to be Sejanus. By far who his name is based off of and who is is just…perfect.

Copied straight from the Wikipedia page, the very first paragraph;

“Lucius Aelius Sejanus (c. 20 BC – 18 October AD 31), commonly known as Sejanus (/sɪˈdʒeɪnəs/),[1] was a Roman soldier, friend, and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Of the Equites class by birth, Sejanus rose to power as prefect of the Praetorian Guard (the Roman imperial bodyguard), of which he was commander from AD 14 until his execution for treason in AD 31.”

Like ok come on now Suzanne at least make me have something more to interpret!!

What’s interesting about him though is the fact that he is district born, and as we see in Katniss, Gale, Primrose, Madge, Mayfair, Carine (Katniss’ mom), Rue, Delly, and any non career district, district kids typically have fairly normal names or names related to their districts (Reaper the farming name from D11, Coral & Mizzen, sea & ship names from d4). While their names still have something to do with their character, they make more sense with district kids and are less obvious (will explain later).

However, with Sejanus, he was born in district two. His parents were from district two. Strabo even can be related to Strabo’s character but that’s for later.

Sure, it can be argued that district two is a career district, but Katniss & Coriolanus’ accounts together hint that this process took decades to be sure of and to really benefit from. District two would be a bit better off after the first revolution, but not much.

I just find it funny it’s so clear with Sejanus what he was always meant to be.

Strabo’s name is a bit more a stretch, but Strabo was an Ancient Greek geographer. He was mostly known for being, and I quote;

“historian whose Geography is the only extant work covering the whole range of peoples and countries known to both Greeks and Romans during the reign of Augustus (27 BCE–14 CE)”

He specialized in geography. District two is full of mountains (that Ma loves), and he literally moved his whole family. As I said, a bit of a stretch, but still there’s SOMETHING there.

Even the family’s last name, Plinth, means a heavy base supporting a statue or vase. Every part of Sejanus’ name includes some type of support, and it’s so apparent with just one google search. I love it, and we know so much about his character so it’s easier to make these inferences than it will be with the Ring Twins or Remus Dolittle, yet I will. This answer might have to be two parts lol.

Now onto other characters that we know just a bit better: Tigris, Persephone, Iphigenia, Vipsania, Arachne, and saving last for last, Coriolanus.

Firstly; Tigris! Tigris was the easternmost river out of two that defined Mesopotamia, one of (or maybe the) the earliest civilizations/cultures, dating back to 14,000 BC as the time period when people originally started settling. Because I’m not here to give a history lesson I’m not gonna explain the importance of a river to a civilization, but I went through 6th grade geography and suffice to say she was important as hell.

Tigris was believed to have been created by the God Enki, the Sumerian god of knowledge, crafts, and creation among other things. Tigris is continually proven to be resourceful, creative, and gives very much DIY girlie vibes, which sound a lot like Enki.

As I said before, the Mesopotamian region was one of the first civilizations. Many have theorized that mankind as we know it wouldn’t exist without Mesopotamia, and what would Mesopotamia not exist without? Tigris.

Tigris provided opportunities for the Mesopotamian region (Coriolanus) to grow, get stronger, become innovative, and provided for them. If that doesn’t scream Tigris I don’t know what does.

Now, Persephone! My favorite capital names are the ones from Greek mythology (I am a Percy Jackson fan page) or ancient mythology, because it’s less work to find connecting factors. Honestly I had no clue who Sejanus was, I just googled his name, and my mom is a Shakespeare fan which is how I know Coriolanus.

Anywho, for y’all who are normal, Persephone was the daughter of the farming/harvest goddess who was kidnapped by the death god. All versions of this myth agree on that. Some say that it was part of a deal with Zeus that Hades (the death god) knew about, but Demeter (farming/harvest goddess) didn’t. Of course these are definitely a very simple and quick way to describe Hades & Demeter, but it gets my point across.

The funny thing is, we don’t know much about Persephone in canon. I don’t know if Suzanne did this on purpose like she clearly did with Sejanus, but I find it interesting that whenever Persephone Price is brought up, so is cannibalism.

See, Nero Price, Persephone dad and Coriolanus was the main example that Coriolanus used to show how bad things were during the war. Coriolanus and Tigris saw him one snowy evening sawing off the leg of a maid with a large knife, wrapping it in the skirt from her waist, and going on his way. It makes Coriolanus question if he could ever be seen as edible, which is kinda funny to me lowkey, but the whole scene is on page 31-32.

Persephone. She is literally torn between the harvest (farmers food & stuff) and the underworld, the realm of the dead. Part of her myth is she stays there for 3 months and in the realm of the living for the other 9 because she ATE 3,pomegranate seeds. She ate something she wasn’t supposed to. Let me also mention, in different versions of the myth she wanted to leave or didn’t. When Festus and Persephone are getting close, Coriolanus questions if Persephone ever knew what was on her plate.

Now Iphigenia!! If y’all didn’t remember Persephone, I doubt yall will remember Iphigenia, as I only did combing the list of names Coriolanus had for interesting ones and finding her. She’s a very minor character- we don’t know much about her hobbies or likes and dislikes or her personality. But I’ll get to TBOSAS Iphigenia in a second.

I’m sure of y’all at least know the Trojan war. If anyone studied it specifically, you probably know Agamemnon. Here’s the paragraph explaining the story from Wikipedia;

“In the story, Agamemnon offends the goddess Artemis on his way to the Trojan War by hunting and killing one of Artemis' sacred stags. She retaliates by preventing the Greek troops from reaching Troy unless Agamemnon kills his eldest daughter, Iphigenia, at Aulis as a human sacrifice. In some versions, Iphigenia dies at Aulis, and in others, Artemis rescues her.”

You’re probably wondering, “wow, what could such a minor character have to do with that tale?”

When I say we get very little from her, I mean it. I don’t mean we get very little from her in the same way as I do when talking about Festus, or any other classmates. We know she doesn’t know if district 5 girl’s (her tribute’s) name is Sol or Sal (it’s Sol).

There’s one piece of information on her that stands out though. I’m going to paraphrase Coriolanus on page 252 when I say this- “her father oversaw food stuff in Panem, but she always looked almost malnourished. Clemensia had once said it was the only revenge she could take on her father but didn’t give any other details,”

boy oh boy. Because of this one, small little paragraph, Iphigenia has always interested me. When Clemensia doesn’t give any other details, she means it. NO details appear afterwards and Iphigenia is maybe mentioned once ever again. Trust me, I know. Every time I reread TBOSAS I look for different things, which is part of the reason I reread it sm.

We never know why Iphigenia takes revenge. We never know anything about her relationship with her father. There are so many possibilities (abuse, Iphigenia the rebel, etc), and considering her namesake’s issues with her father it’s just crazy the amount of detail Suzanne put into such a minor character.

Next, Vipsania- there’s actually not much I can say about her, I just thought it was a funny coincidence this is what came up when I googled her;

“Vipsania Agrippina (/ˌæɡrəˈpaɪnə, -ˈpiː-/; 36 BC – 20 AD) was the first wife of the Emperor Tiberius.”

Two things- first, recognize what emperor she married? Yep! Tiberius- aka the emperor Sejanus was a friend and confident of. I think Suzanne might’ve gone down a Tiberius rabbit hole, because her last is familiar as well- Professor Agrippina. She was the gym teacher, and Sejanus’ mentor. This little circle of names and relations is just funny to me is all, although there’s not much on VA in history or much to say about Vipsania.

Arachne!!! Gosh I love her. Well, I love how plain the connection is between her character in TBOSAS and her character in mythology. Really she’s pretty disrespectful and a jerk in both lol.

In Greek mythology, Arachne is a woman-turned spider, the first spider. Arachne believed she could win a weaving competition against Athena, goddess of crafts, because of how beautiful her work was and how much everyone complimented her.

Athena, hearing this hubris, disguised herself as an old woman and told Arachne not to boast like that. Arachne then challenged Athena, and told the old woman the only reason Athena hadn’t gone against her herself was she was too scared.

Of course Athena then revealed herself, and they battled. Athena’s weaver thing showed the Greek gods doing good stuff, Arachne’s showed the gods in their most unfavorable aspects. Due to this disrespect, and in some versions because it was better (tho I personally don’t believe that), Athena turned Arachne into a spider so she could weave forever.

The pride?? The taunting until it becomes serious?? The permanent change?? The rage that prompted the act?? Arachne as Arachne is the most perfect name on here, because who else would she be?? Another great one of Suzanne’s names. Genius.

Before we get to the last name, Coriolanus himself, let me point out I have no district people on here. Let this show just how interesting Strabo & Sejanus’ names are.

Finally!! The last one!! Coriolanus.

Coriolanus is actually quite disappointing compared to Sejanus or Arachne, but there’s still something here so I’m going to paste the Wikipedia on Coriolanus, the man Shakespeare based his play after & what happened in the play.

“Coriolanus is the name given to a Roman general after his military feats against the Volscians at Corioli. Following his success he seeks to be consul, but his disdain for the plebeians and the mutual hostility of the tribunes lead to his banishment from Rome. In exile, he presents himself to the Volscians, then leads them against Rome. After he relents and agrees to a peace with Rome, he is killed by his previous Volscian allies”

Now, unlike many of these other characters, Coriolanus’ relationship to his namesake mirrors his relationship to another character (Lucy Gray) more than his personality.

Coriolanus wants to be with Lucy Gray, but eventually due to his hatred of the districts and love of the capital, he ends up turning against her. He starts out wanting to help her, yet his own disgust only ends up hurting him.

Coriolanus is eventually killed by his former allies, what he’s created. That’s what happens in the original hunger games series. When Coin does the faked bomb drop, everyone he worked so hard to make love him turn against him quickly. He revolutionized the capital and they turned against him.

He almost changed his own feelings about district people and it ended up almost taking his life and career.

Help I forgot there was another part to the question 😭. Anywho if I was gonna write some, I’d probably just use random names or if I had a really good and accurate name (or totally opposite name) from mythology or a poem or something I’d use that and make it correspond to the character.

This is embarrassing, but a lot of the names from crimson rivers, a hunger games/marauders au stuck with me! Nothing specific, but anything that wasn’t a marauders character always made me go “huh! I like that!”

In conclusion though, Suzanne is a genius. As I said, I might have to reblog this later with more names if I ever think of any. This is probably my most researched answer, due to all the mythology and Wikipedia searches I had to do, so sorry that it took longer! Usually I just remember things and explain them lol.

Thank you for the question @curiousnonny, and as always, feel free to debate in the comments/reblogs but please don’t argue. I always enjoy answering and dissecting questions, so anyone feel free to ask!

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zerogate · 2 months ago

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Today, people tend chiefly to remember the healings of Jesus – and not without reason. These miracles played so prominent a part in the early Christian message that one historian of early Christianity, Adolf von Harnack, bluntly wrote that ‘Christianity is a medical religion.’

But Christianity wasn’t the only medical religion. This was a world that could glitter with miracles and be moved by the hand of heaven. One Greek text – from the third century BC – praises a divine ‘gentle healer’ for the ‘diseases that thou didst wipe away, Lord, by laying on us thy gentle hands.’ One single ancient stone – inscribed in the fourth century BC – gives grateful thanks to a god from a group of supplicants who have variously had ‘the sight of both eyes restored’, had their lameness healed and been cured of paralysis. Long before Jesus arrived on earth, there were many who took up their beds, and walked.

Accounts in which the blind were healed and the lame walked were perennially popular – perhaps, a cynic might say, because they were easiest to fake. (Accounts in which amputated limbs regrew are rather harder to find in the historical record.) Some of these stories became particularly celebrated. In the first century AD, in the East, a prophecy started to circulate that said men would come from Judaea who would rule over the entire world.

Many came to believe that the prophecy had referred to the emperor Vespasian – not, it must be said, without reason, since he did. Certainly he seems to have been touched by heavenly powers. One day, after he had visited a temple, two sick men approached him. One of the men was blind, the other lame, and they implored him to heal them.

Vespasian was reluctant; he was both sceptical that such a stunt would work and had a lot to lose and little to gain from attempting it. As the historian Suetonius records, ‘he could scarcely believe that the thing would any how succeed, and therefore hesitated to venture on making the experiment.’ Vespasian was eventually jollied, or perhaps bullied, into it by the encouragement of his friends and, in public and before a large crowd, did as the men asked, touching the eyes of the blind man with his spittle, and touching the lame man’s heel. His attempt ‘was crowned with success in both cases’. The blind man saw and the lame man walked. For an ancient event, this story is exceptionally well attested. It appears in Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio Cassius – and was clearly widespread in late AD 69 or early AD 70, when it (allegedly) happened.

It is notably similar to other stories told at the time – perhaps most famously in the story that Christians told of Jesus, which was probably written down at about the same time. In this, Jesus is approached by ‘some people [who] brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him.’ Jesus, more willing than Vespasian to attempt such a thing, immediately helped: he took the blind man and ‘spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him’. Initially, the blind man saw nothing, then ‘he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” ’ Then Jesus ‘laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.’ It has been suggested that the story of Jesus was tweaked to compete with that of Vespasian.

Christians were initially happy to admit similarities between their own healer and the healers of other religions. ‘When we say that He made well the lame and the paralytic,’ Justin Martyr wrote, ‘and that he resurrected the dead, we seem to be mentioning deeds similar to and even identical with those which were said to have been performed by [the Greek god] Asclepius.’ Asclepius wasn’t the only wonder-worker with whom Christian healers were compared – or perhaps confused. When St Paul and a companion arrived in a town and healed a lame man there, the crowd knew precisely what had happened. ‘The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!’ they cried. St Paul and his companion were assumed to be, respectively, Hermes and Zeus in human form; so much so that the local priest of Zeus promptly brought wreaths to the city gates ‘to offer sacrifice with the crowds.’

It is Jesus’ healing miracles that are remembered today; but in the ancient world his fame was far eclipsed by that of Asclepius. And, as ancient critics of Christianity didn’t hesitate to point out, the similarities between the two men didn’t stop merely at their miracles. Asclepius was also not merely a son of a god, but was said to be a god on earth: some believed he was none other than Apollo, made flesh in human form.

The similarities went on: Asclepius, like Jesus, suffered a violent death, and was also deified and ascended into heaven. Devoted followers of Asclepius would describe him as being dressed in ‘white raiment and with flowing hair’ and as sitting, as one second-century-AD follower put it, ‘enthroned in the sky’. He too was able to perform all the usual miracles: to make the mute speak and the blind see; to make withered hands work again; to smooth the skin of the leprous, raise the dead and heal the lame. Indeed, in one account, Asclepius, with Apollo’s help, healed a lame man so successfully that, when a small boy stole his crutch, the man instantly got up and ‘pursued him’. He was so loved for his healings that his followers took to calling him ‘Lord’ and ‘Saviour’ and even ‘Saviour of the human race’.

-- Catherine Nixey, Heresy

#quotes

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myeagleexpert · 2 years ago

Text

The Silence of the Seven

Synopsis:

The peaceful atmosphere is shattered when Yuu finds one of her friends in a coma of unknown causes. Determined to uncover the truth, Yuu and her friends begin investigating the case and discover a curious pattern that links the victims. But as the investigation progresses, they find themselves in a tangle with powerful enemies, and this time the danger is out of Twisted Wonderland. Yuu and her friends will have to fight against unknown forces to find answers and unravel the mystery before it's too late.

Notes: I won't give many warnings before each chapter, because, you know, the suspense. Yuu is a girl and is around 18 years old. I'm just saying that we will have many platonic and romantic moments in the series, and that you always read until the end of the chapter <3

Chapter I: I'll Get You

Yuu walked through the long corridors of the ancient library, passing them as if he knew every old corner and every forgotten book. Because actually, she does. As soon as she arrived in this strange world, she tried in every way to return to her original dimension, digging through all the books on multi-dimensional travel, mining any and all information about how to return home. But that's not why she's here today and with Riddle much less.

“If you want to survive in this world, you have to learn about it”

It was the purpose Riddle insisted on taking some classes with the foreign student. The leader of Heartslabyul had crimson red hair and the temper of a kindergarten principal, his nostrils always smoked and his mouth recited the 810 questionable laws of the Queen of Hearts. If not for the beautiful blue-gray eyes, Yuu would have joined the chaos of anarchy, but being peaceful she opted for one provocation or another.

"Riddle, I've been wondering, are these laws really necessary?" usually this led to some fun discussions with the grinning Cheshire cat

Today they were at a secluded table in the ancient library, discussing the origin of some figures and mythology.

“According to historians, the Queen of Hearts had a proportionate head, but due to an accident just before the coronation, she suffered an injury that led to swelling of her head.”

“And your ego…” Yuu muttered, he had several things to say about the tyrannical majesty but bit his tongue… today at least

"What did you say?"

“What about the creatures from the Kingdom of Roses?”

“It is said that the creatures are extinct species from the kingdom during the colonization…- he stopped and looked for the page in the book with illustrations- When the settlers tried to explore some unknown lands it was reported that they found flowers so tall that they stopped them from going on, so they decided to cut them down and heard voices from the forest expelling them.” Was that supposed to be scary? An idea flashed through the mind of the magicless student, her eyes glistening with memories and she did the best horror storytelling voice she could muster.

“The legends here are very interesting, but in my world we have a different view of nature”

“Ah, please tell me Yuu.” Riddle leaned forward as Yuu approached, naturally curious and thirsty for knowledge.

“In the era of exploration, a rich farmer wanted to increase his lands and for that, he destroyed the protected lands of the indigenous people. Once he took his foreman to open the forest in a sacred land and on this day, the furious nature sent a creature with a head of fire and feet turned backwards to end man's miserable life.”

Widening his eyes and holding his breath, Riddle silently nodded his head for Yuu to continue "With an animalistic scream the creature drove a fiery stake through the heart of the man who fell 'dead' to the ground-

“Why the quotes? Is he not dead?” Rido questioned the physical quotation marks his friend made, but felt an immediate chill when he saw how much his face darkened.

“However… he was so hideously terrible that both heaven and hell rejected him and earth refused to bury such a devilish soul. The now Dry Corps was cursed eternally into a condition of filthy spirit doomed to roam the cities until the end of time but… it is said that if the Dry Corps finds a host as bad as it is, it will possess it and use the living body to do even worse evils until a stronger entity of nature appears.”

The so stern leader of Heartabull kept his eyes fixed on a specific corner, he felt anesthetized with so much information that he had just heard so much that he didn't even notice that Yuu had gotten up from his chair with the mischievous intentions of scaring him from behind.

“Riddlee~” with a light pat, the red-haired one let out a high-pitched squeal that, yes, the entire library heard.

“Oh by the Seven! Yuu!”

"Riddle-chan, you shouldn't make noise in the library, you know?" teased him

“I wouldn't have yelled if you hadn't—

“Yanoo….cans of tuna…” a darling feline, Grim, was sleeping peacefully with no problems on top of the books when he escaped words in his sleep Such an action, brought to the two leaders childish and innocent giggles, which were muffled by the soft fur of Grimm. A sweet moment few would ever see…

And like all good things come to an end….

"Aaaah Kingyo-chann I know you're there" a very familiar voice of the two echoed through the halls

“Aa-ah Floyd! He can't see me, otherwise I'll be late for the Riding Club" his little antennae flick up in warning and in agitated whispers he turns to Yuu

"I distract him, Grim takes him to the corridor 03 passage" whispered back Yuu and traded a can of tuna for his companion

The girl knew the secret passages of the NRC like the back of her hands, and Riddle trusted them so because Ramshackle's memorable duo were like brothers to him, which was very difficult considering the walls and barriers that had been built since his overblot .

“See you later, thank you.” "Thank you"

A code of signs was exchanged between the two before Riddle entered the dark secret passage on the other side of the library, the language was created little by little, a mix of the sign language of his dear world and Twisted Wonderland that deepened as he went. that the bonds with the other person were deepening.

“Who was Koebi-chann talking to?” The twin's voice snapped her out of her thoughts, he was at the table they'd been studying at just now, his posture relaxed with the familiar wide, sharp-toothed smile.

"Floyd, let's play."- determined she started her plan in mind.

“Aaah, I'm not in the mood to play tag with Koebi-chan, I want to play with Kingyo-chan"- Already uninterested Floyd got up with a serious expression

“What if we make a deal?” When Yuu stepped in front of the tallest one, he didn't expect those words from her "If you catch me in 3 minutes, I'll tell you where Riddle is, but if not, I won't tell you anything." Oh that got his attention, already setting the timer on her watch

“Koebi-chan is so creative! Let's play! I count ok: 1…2…3 and that's it! Run fast or I'll catch you~” the twin hummed, lazy voice but a predator's gaze

The two ran wild leaving the library, Yuu was dodging the tables while Floyd, the mermaid, preferred to jump on top of them to annoy the students. Outside, the girl got a good boost down the hall, taking advantage of Floyd trying to get through the door.

2 minutes…

Each on the opposite side of the hall, Floyd showing his sharp teeth and Yuu a playful smile, the laughter of both spread in the hall: loud, uncoordinated and without any concern. As she turned a corner that led to the patio, she lost Floyd and only then did the adrenaline let her remember a little thing: Where there's fire, there's smoke. And the horror twins, as Grim calls them, are a real fire. Floyd is here…where is Jade?

1 minute-she checked her watch

"Ahh I'm so close to getting rid of this crazy guy!"-She thought with her chest rising and falling and breathing heavily. Her eyes searched every possible place to climb or hide, Floyd is faster but if she can stay away from him until time stands still…

"The tree!"

30 seconds

The girl ran with all her might towards the patio tree, her loud footsteps alerted Floyd who was trying to see where she was. The little bug was out of breath and was trying to circle the patio trying to kill time to get to the damn tree just didn't count that—

“Oya oya, what do we have here?”- She didn't see where the voice was coming from, she just felt someone put her foot on her for her to fall, Floyd who is not silly at all, took the opportunity and grabbed the student rolling them both on the floor.

“I got you Koebi-chan!~~~” for a moment they forgot why they were running, laughing until their stomachs hurt, biting each other- hey, that's a sign of trust, right?- “Come on little shrimp…I got you ahead of time. You have to do your part of the bargain!”

“You cheated Floyd! I made the deal with you and not Jade-

“I was just passing by and coincidentally tripped over it just as our dear Yuu was running. Oh, I'm so sorry. What a tragedy.” With her hand on her chest, Jade helped her to get up from the ground, but her smile had nothing innocent about it.

“Don't even come with that Jade-” not here you felaa-” Floyd, it was supposed to be you alone but since I'm in a good mood today let's do this: I'll tell you where Riddle is NOT and you can hug me more…”

“What a good treat Koebii~” Floyd didn't need any more words to convince him, throwing his tall frame on top of Yuu and her brother, taking them to the ground.

But she was used to the twins' unpredictable tendencies. After all, 1 year had passed since his arrival. When she arrived in this strange world, everything was very “strange” for her, so much so that reality only dropped three days later, and when it did, all she could think about was hiding in a dark corner of the abandoned house.

The sun was setting when they got up, after laughing and talking about various topics Yuu would probably regret someday. After so much brutality, Floyd extended a gentle hand for his friend to stand up, his eyes widening as he realized—

“Neee~Koebi-chan, you're getting heavy and meaty too!” happily he comments

“Hunhun, and it looks stronger fufu. It ran a lot further this time and endured my brother's hugs longer” Jade congratulates her, looking at her legs and biceps that were no longer fragile matchsticks

“But if you grow too big, I won't be able to call you little shrimp anymore…ah! Ah! I know! If you grow any bigger I’ll call you the little lobster, okay?”

“Well, get ready, honey, I’m going to be a lobster!” determined Yuu hugs her friends and then says goodbye. She didn't know it, but there were eyes watching her...

A year later adaptation arrived, his body that had lost a lot of weight due to the excessive work of a certain crow and the constant stress that brought it, was weak and thin, but now with the balanced diet that Vil himself had prepared and physical exercises with Vargas she was able to get back to the body she was: strong, toned and curvy, she could keep up with the athletics group with Deuce and go for morning jogs with Jack - when Grim pushed her out of bed she inevitably woke up and by coincidence Jack was passing by Ramcharchle. Killing two with one stone.-

It was at the start of quiet sophomore year that her hair, once a shade of brown with golden, curly strands, was dyed night-black. Her hair was opaque before and didn't reach her chin, as the foreigner used her impulsive cuts as a defense mechanism, saying it was "not to draw attention". A year later, her hair was bust-length, shiny and perfectly brushed and styled.

At first glance, her ties were deepened here, but there was a symbolism behind it that left your mouth bitter. Her natural hair was her memory of home, something that says "I'm not from here, I have a place to go back". Crowley was the one who came up with the idea "Well, if you're going to stay longer, why don't you look like your beloved director who welcomed you as a father figure, my little bird?" Crowley and Crewel became very attached to the girl, always taking care of the puppy with affection but with hugs that didn't allow her to go very far. .

In her second year, she improved her beast taming capabilities. Occasionally, she is seen piloting a great blue dragon through the skies, or combing the fur of a dangerous chimera, or stopping Grim from stuffing his mouth with fish at Scarabia's dinner. The latter, he finds to be the most useful skill.

Not far from there, Riddle had finished his Riding training, saying goodbye elegantly to his colleagues and walking to the Heartstabull...unfortunately he didn't get there.

Trim..trim…

'Huh? Call from Carter?' - In the middle of her sacred coffee with Grim, Yuu receives a call from her senior, Carter Diamond. What would the magicam star want at a time like this?

-Hello? It's Yuu, all right senpai? -A-ahh Yuu, I need you to come to the dorm now! -Is it really necessary? I put my coffee on now… -What Yuu?? I'm not l-l- istening! Something… interfering… -The toast is warm too…want to have a coffee with me? -I'm serious Yuu! It's- an emergency! Come quickly!

And hung up…

Her precious coffee was already in the cup filled to the top, waiting to be taken and enjoyed by the tired student, but the agitated and trembling voice of the so cheerful Carter made her take only three sips worriedly, leaving quickly with Grim meowing that the toast would get cold. Until a hoarse, frightening scream interrupted her mind and the thousand scenarios of what could be happening.

“How strang-!!!”- Yuu gasps, clutching Grim protectively in her arms, despite being flustered the girl takes a moment to record the image of the sound maker, who was on an old pole near the house.

It was a white bird, a type of owl with a heart-shaped face and eyes like completely black spheres, then a hook-shaped beak. The creature turns 160 degrees and stares at Yuu and Grim, the girl feels a shiver run down her spine and a bad feeling settles in her stomach but….

Yuu decides that with so many fantastical creatures and so many overblots, a white owl is the least of her problems right now and continuing on her way more quickly she thinks back to what could have happened in the dorm, which she considered her second home.

Of all her imagined scenarios none came close to the vision in front of her.

Riddle was lying on the floor. His body pale and icy. His eyes were completely white, without corneas, without irises and without pupils. His red hair was an aged shade of red, as if all of his life had been sucked out of him. Veins, now transparent, pulsing reluctantly to life and bringing a barely existent low breath, no signs of waking up.

“Carter! What's going on? What happened to Riddle?”- one of the clones of the red haired one grabbed Yuu who ran when he saw the scene and tried to calm her down, while Trey covered his fallen friend's body with a jacket.

“Riddle took a long time to come back, 15min late. This has never happened before.”- Trey replied from afar.

“We arrived here and when we saw his state, we called you and the Director”- completed Carter, who was trying to take Yuu to check the body, he himself didn't have the courage- “We cast an invisible barrier spell, and we waited for the director to arrive to take him quickly to the infirmary.” he concluded.

“What do you think it could be?”

“I don't know, I've never seen anything like it. It must have been something really strong to catch him off guard and leave him with…”- swallowing the fear and sadness trapped in his throat, the green-haired one tries to continue, being the responsible senpai ever-”… with that expression. terrified in the face.”

There were no signs of violence on the body, no spell fighting, no signs of poisoning. Grim didn't smell any different, saying it was the same as the one in the library.

“Let's sort this out, guys.”- giving one last look at his friend, Yuu puts his jacket over him again and stands up to look and investigate.

They checked every inch of that area, but the wind blew a small white feather from the enclosure.

You are here Next>>

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specialagentartemis · 1 year ago

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#wait is there something wrong with the history hates lovers song? I read the linked post and now I'm worried D: (via @gardenofarson)

I thought I explained pretty straightforwardly in the linked post why I hate the "History Hates Lovers" song: It takes the explicit stance that you, ordinary citizen of the world with no special training, are actually smarter than the experts by virtue of being gay. It assumes that historians are all old ivory-tower eggheads and homophobic clueless idiots and only they, youtube user Oublaire, know the REAL truth. It's smugly anti-intellectual in a meme way, rather than historically curious in any serious way. "Too afraid to call it what it is / It doesn't take a scholar to understand this" like oh Come On.

Other reasons I hate it:

"Who's gonna tell us the stories, that our textbooks don't?" Gosh I don't know, maybe Actual Historians? Believe it or not, "writing high school history textbooks" is not the sum total of what historians do. There are so many books about queer history written by queer historians out there. Aside from narratives about Stonewall, AIDS, and various worldwide rights movements in the 20th century, of which there are Lots, how about any of these books or these ones or these or this book about Sappho or these biographies of Oscar Wilde or this study of homosexuality in Ancient Greece - by a historian from the 1970s! Wow!!! Maybe historians have been thinking about this for a While! - and all the various articles written by academic historians about homosexuality in history. Untangling histories that were either treated as derogatory, hidden in shame, or ignored is important... and people are doing it. This is such a dismissal of the work that a lot of historians - especially queer historians - are doing these days!

Have you (Oublaire) ever read a biography. Even once. Historians and biographers LOVE to speculate about historical figures' sexualities. You can't get away from it. Especially when someone never married, biographers and writers looooove to speculate about the love affairs and heartbreaks they must have been having. Gay or straight. History loves lovers to the point where it's hard to find a discussion of a perpetual-bachelor-or-spinster figure that doesn't dip into trying to imagine them as Being A Lover. Yes I'm vaguing at American Bloomsbury's treatment of Thoreau (and Margaret Fuller, who she soooo wanted to be having torrid romances with both Hawthorne and Emerson) and The Fossil Hunter's insistence on imagining Mary Anning as secretly being in love with her male friend despite no evidence of this.

The haughty amatonormativity. "'Just friends' don't live like that / They don't look at each other / With love in their eyes" Deeply sorry to all Oublaire's supposed friends for learning via this song that Oublaire doesn't care about their friends, I Guess. The assumption that anyone who cares about each other has to be In Love. Fuck off.

"How many decades of hiding? Twenty-one centuries of hate Some things may not've been okay back then But it's sure all right today" This is what proves that Oublaire doesn't actually care about history. Back when? Are they implying that homophobia was invented with the birth of Christ? Was history just the same for 2,100 years, until a switch flipped in the 21st cenntury and now everyone is chill with gay people? What a narrow-sighted reduction! "It's a rhetorical flourish" well I hate it anyway. Get better rhetorical flourishes.

People who really like the song keep applying it to Achilles and Patroclus, who are, notably, fictional characters, and not historical figures.

The scansion and rhymes are terrible.

#history and the world #misinformation

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bots-and-cons · 1 year ago

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Can I request some hc's about bot!reader who's friends with the predacon trio (predaking, skylynx, darksteel) platonic or romantic is up to you

I honestly don't have a good grasp on the personalities of Skylynx and Darksteel, so these are mostly focused on Predaking. I watched the movie in like 2019 and have not watched it since. Honestly I considered making this like a romantic polycule thing, but I felt like it was a bit too much for me, so I just went with platonic, and this is like the very start of the friendship

•You met Predaking, Darksteel and Skylynx when you returned to Cybertron after the war

•They were really isolated from everyone else, but Predaking especially preferred it that way

•Darksteel and Skylynx were much more interested in the other cybertronians, because they had never really met anyone they didn’t have to fight or didn’t actively dislike

•You’re a historian, so your familiar with the predacons that way, but not with any of the new generation personally

•You went to look for them for research purposes, and ended up making friends with the trio

•Predaking is not very enthusiastic about your questions when you appear, and his answers are very limited

•Darksteel and Skylynx on the other hand, will tell you what they know, which isn’t very much, but they ask just as many questions in return

•The questions are pretty different from yours in theme, but you answer happily

•Predaking isn’t particularly happy when you visit them the first couple of times, but you start growing on him

•While you’re taking an interest in what he is, you’re also interested in who he is, and he appreciates that

•Sure, maybe you ask wayyyy to many questions, but it’s nothing weird or inappropriate

•They’re all much bigger than you, which was pretty intimidating at first, since all of them were also pretty aggressive or at least irritated

•You were scared for a while, sure, but you never let it show, and they grew to respect you more quickly because of that

•If you had been running and screaming in fear, it would not have led to friendship and mutual respect

•You’re of course older than all of them since they’re all very newly made, but that doesn’t really earn you any points or admiration or anything

•Predaking acts like an ancient relic already, and Skylynx and Darksteel can be like bickering younglings sometimes

•They can be a bit of a headache sometimes, but they became good friends to you, which also includes them being protective of you

•They don’t exactly consider you weak, but you are small compared to them, so they think you need protecting sometimes

•It’s very rare for others to mess with you or pick a fight with you, especially when any of the trio are around

#transformers #tfp #transformers prime #decepticons #tfp headcanons #predaking #darksteel #skylynx #reader insert #platonic transformers x reader

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alexjcrowley · 20 days ago

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I saw a TikTok of Cicero and Hortensius on the music of Non-Stop (I feel like just naming Hortensius is making this niche) as someone who hasn't really thought about Hamilton in...5 years now and I have realized many thing:

1) THAT USER WAS SO RIGHT, IT IS THEM

2) Cicero's existence answers the question: what if Alexander Hamilton was a looser? (yeah historically he comes before Hamilton but I don't care right now).

3) Mark Anthony is Jefferson.

Evidence:

"Where have you been?" "Mhhhh Par Egypt" "We have to win (against this kid Ottavianus)" "SO WHAT'D I MISS"

Come on Egypt (and Cleopatra) are his France

But he is the one who dressed like fake royalty (COME ON THE PHILIPPICAE, THE CABINET'S BATTLES ARE JUST THE PHILIPPICAE)

4) I don't care for the Greek God musical, give me a musical about Ancient Rome. Come on, it is just as controversial as a musical on founding fathers. And I do want to hear Cicero rapping the Catilinarian orations.

5) ALSO COME ON CATILINE OWNS THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS.

Bro staged a COUP D'ÉTAT to be in THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS.

5) Also do you know we could have "Dear Theodosia" and "It's quiet Uptown"? Cicero's daughter, Tullia, affectionately called Tulliola, died on him when she was still young. I could talk a lot about this and how for her death Cicero created a new word in latin (taken from greek, actually: apotheosis) but if I start now I'll be very emotional.

6) "The Caesar Administration"

7) I would pay real money to see Cicero being beaten repeatedly by every historical figure in Rome

8) Atticus is his John Laurens's but like waaaay more annoyed by Cicero. He is also very "Why do you write like you're running out of time". Cicero used to write Atticus 2 times a week and an ungodly amount of pages, I want Atticus's song on "maybe I chose a bad friend".

9) Atticus coward villain song in which he gives his and Cicero's personal letters to Mark Anthony because I am not over that yet. It could be a but like Burn, you know. We're still talking letters. But Atticus is the little shit here.

10) The whole first number with people talking about Hamilton, but there are actual quotations on Cicero by fellow romans and later historians.

11) "Bright young man. Yo, who the eff is this?" will always be more Cicero-coded than any other historical figure. AT 26 CICERO CHALLENGED BASICALLY THE GOVERNMENT TO DEFEND A KID WHO WAS BEING ACCUSED OF KILLING HIS OWN FATHER BY THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY KILLED HIS DAD SO THEY COULD TAKE HIS RICHES (I am oversimplifying a bit but what I said is essentially correct, reference is the Pro Roscio Amerino). And it was Cicero's first criminal law case. Fresh new kid from the block exposes dictatorship crimes. Nice.

12) Once again, I would pay actual money to see a song about Cicero writing the Pro Milone saying this is going to be his masterpiece and then being unable to recite it because the crowd is threatening to kill him. Just imagine Cicero with a song or without a song maybe reciting a few sentences on his own, a choir going something like "This is gonna the best oration ever" or "This is gonna be a masterpiece", "This is gonna go down in history as the best oration ever seen", you get the gist. And then he is in the square (well, the forum) and he is about about to start talking but you hear threats getting louder and louder, and a crowd with weapons, making noise with their feet (and swords!) and then Cicero just can't utter another word because he is too scared they'll kill him. His perfect oration, going to waste, not able to save his friend. Yeah I haven't got over this one either.

13) Cicero singing a song on how Augustus is going to save them. AH.

14) I think Cicero's Reynolds Pamphlet would be, you know, sentencing people to death without the provocatio ad populum (after Catiline's failed coup d'etat)

15) I already said that but Catiline villain song.

16) Funky neoteroi song. Can you imagine. Catullus and friends just following around Cicero to annoy him while he insults them.

17) Obligatory song on how Rome is changing and Republic is dead.

18) Is it a major event? No. But I would love to hear a take on what Caesar said to Cicero when they were walking all on their own after Caesar won on Pompeius. After Caesar won against Pompeius people were all expecting him in the Brindisi harbour and Cicero was dying inside because he had taken the wrong side. Again. So Caesar gets off the ship, Cicero thinks he is dead, but Caesar pardons him in front of everybody and then take him for a private walk, just them two. And sometimes instead of sleeping I think of what Caesar might have said to him.

19) I'd also need a general chorus to comment on how many bad decisions Cicero is taking.

20) song on Cicero trying to remain back his good reputation as he feels everything that he has ever known about Rome is changing and that's not his or Republican time anymore

21) angst Cicero song about holing himself up in his villa, writing philosophical dialogue because the time of politics and freedom is over

22) BAM LAST SURPRISE SONG THEY KILL HIM AND HE SINGS THE LAST SONG THAT MUSICALLY REPRISES ONE OF THE FIRST SONGS (maybe the Pro Roscio Amerino one during which he was so young and hopeful) BUT HE SINGS IT WHILE HE IS ALREADY DEAD ON THE ROSTRA LIKE THAT'S HIS SPIRIT SINGING

23) And then you see Rome become and empire with Ottavianus villanously declaring the Republic is no more

#I FOUND THIS IN MY DRAFTS I WROTE THIS POST LIKE MORE THAN A YEAR AGO #marcus tullius cicero #cicero they could never make me NOT utterly obsessed with you #musical #ancient history #ancient rome #cicero I hope I get to fistfight you in hell for that fucking table you know what I am talking about❤��

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augustus-hater · 2 years ago

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An essay on why Octavius from NATM is NOT Augustus

It is evident that I hate Augustus. However, hating Augustus does not mean I should support misinformation about Augustus. There are many characteristics that Octavius from NATM has that do not match up with Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Here's why I believe they are completely different people:

1-Appearance

First of all, let's compare their physical appearances. Augustus has been described by Suetonius as pale, dirty bllonde and blue/grey eyed. He was quite skinny and short, most likely due to his asthma preventing him from going out in his childhood and teenage years. While Octavius from NATM has dark hair, dark eyes and is well built. They don't look alike at all. I see no reason as to why the creators of NATM changed his appearance other than because 1. They are different people. or 2. NATM Octavius is a made-up ancient Roman. Of course, there may be other reasons such as Octavius' appearance not being important enough for them to do research on it but I insist that if he really were Augustus, he would not be a general at all.

2-Personality

Second of all, they have different personalities. NATM Octavius is stubborn, brave, a leader. Just your average roman general. Augustus, on the other hand, is not a man to be put on the battlefield. Augustus is said to have been completely disinterested by all things military and often fled the battlefield due to an affliction (sometimes stomach aches, sometimes asthma attacks). An example of this could be the battle of Philippi, when he fled into the marsh because he was feeling ill. He left his battles for his best friend Marcus Agrippa, who handled them with his outstanding military mind. NATM Octavius seems to have no problem with leading an army and fighting during the first movie. Another distinction between their personalities is their composure. Augustus is said to be strangely calm, no matter how bad the situation is while Octavius seems to get pretty hostile sometimes, like he did with Jedediah in the first movie.

3-Name

Third of all, their names don't exactly match. This is a very important thing, because there are many romans named "Octavius" and NATM Octavius could have been any other Octavius. Augustus' birth name was Gaius Octavius Thurinus, but he eventually changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, after finding out that Julius Caesar had adopted him and named him as hjs heir. Since then, this Roman politician has been referred to as "Julius Caesar". You may think that they called him Octavius to differentiate him with Julius Caesar but that is also wrong, because if they did change his name, they would change it to "Octavian", the name that historians used to call him before he was Augustus. They could've also used Augustus. There is nothing that really indicates that NATM Octavius is Octavian before Actium.

4-Agrippa

Because I love Agrippa, I will give him his own paragraph. NATM Octavius can do what Octavian/Augustus could not do : excel in the military domain. However, that is what Agrippa is for. Let's say Octavian learned strategies and logistics and becomes a good general. What the hell happened to Marcus Agrippa? Did he die from some illness? Perhaps gout? Did he betray Octavian? Where is he then? Is he safe? Is he alright? This paragraph is about Agrippa but Agrippa isn't Octavian's only companion. There is Taurus, another of Octavian generals. Maybe he wasn't important enough to be shown. But what about Livia? Octavian's wife? Where is she? At home? They don't really have one. Does she approve of his affair with Jedediah.? Maybe she listens to the album Be the Cowboy by Mitski because she is so sad that her husband is going on adventures and sleeping with a cowboy. What about Maecenas? What about the poets? What about Octavia? Marcellus?

The fandom doesn't acknowledge those people. However, you know which roman they remembered? Julia the elder. I was so mad when I found out you people draw them together, doing wholesome things. Augustus would never. Your fanfiction is super cute but it doesn't change what happened to Julia (TL ; DR for people who don't want to search it up : she got exiled because of Augustus' misogynistic policies against adultery (cheating)). NATM fans who mention what really happened to Julia, I like you and thank you.

Though this may be subjective, I believe that NATM Octavius is not Augustus because he does not have those essential allies that Augustus had.

Conclusion

NATM Octavius is not Augustus because he does not have the same physical appearance, qualities, names & titles, and friends as him. I don't understand why people believe that Octavius is Augustus when they only share a nationality and birth nomen (not even his real name). I'm not saying this because I want to hate on Augustus without hating on Octavius because I hate Octavius too.

#augustus caesar #marcus agrippa #jedtavius #roman #NATM #night at the museum #jedediah #octavius #natm octavius #natm jedtavius #natm jedediah #roman empire #Rage against the museum

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theteaofhistory · 3 months ago

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Hadrian & Antinous

The Roman Empire is a place of so many interesting stories, it is quite sad that most of them are not that well known.

Especially the one of Roman Emperor Hadrian & Antinous, which is probably one of my favourites from that time.

(So please prepare your cups, because some tragic ancient romance is about to go down)

So, Hadrian himself was like a pretty good Emperor, he did a lot to secure & strengthen the Roman Empire from 117-138 AD. He had a wife, Vibia Sabina (who is the grandniece of Hadrians Predecessor), but their marriage was rather poor. They never had any biological children (but 2 adopted ones), which may be, because Hadrians interests lay elsewhere.

Hadrian travelled a lot and during one of those in 123 AD he probably met Antinous, who was a greek from Bithynia and around 14 at the time. (meanwhile Hadrian was 47, which was quite normal back then, but it still is incredibly weird)

Of course, while Antinous became Hadrian's lover, many historians dubbed them as "very close friends" (cause of course they do, but future actions will speak for themselves). Antinous accompanied Hadrian on various travels, which leads us to Egypt in the year of 130 AD, where the tragedy begins.

While sailing on the Nile, Antinous drowned in the river, the exact circumstances remain unknown.

What is known is that Hadrian must have been lowkey pretty heartbroken and extremly sad about the death of his "very close friend", because he founded a whole city in honor of him and named it Antinoöpolis.

But it doesn't stop there, dear readers.

Hadrian ordered Antinous deification & founded an organised cult devoted to him, AND he founded games in remembrance of him. Antinous lowkey became a figure of "Pop culture" in the Roman Empire.

There even are dozens and dozens of sculptures of Antinous, which now can be found in various museums across the world.

Sometimes I wonder how people get the idea, that some people are "just good friends"? like, LOOK AT THIS.

#emperor hadrian #antinous #ancient rome #roman empire #roman emperors #history #gay love #gay men #queer #queer history

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rocklover719 · 1 year ago

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History Lessons (Jiahto x Reader) (botw/totk)

Don’t fucking look at me. I don’t know what I’m doing.

My pal @thezoraprince and I had a conversation about if we HAD to fuck an elderly Zora…who would we take? They decided on Jiahto while I picked Seggin (because let’s be honest, Dorephan is too damn big to survive)

Here’s Jiahto, and your last warning to keep your sanity- I mean unless you LIKE expired sushi?

No specific age range or gender for the reader!

———————————————————————————————————

The rain pelted the stained glass window of the office as a soft light emitted from the luminous stone and candlelight. You let out a deep sigh, comfortable, with the smell of old books, leather, and ink hanging in the air. In the hearth a cozy fire thrives, heating the quaint but cozy space. Jiahto’s office provides a calm and comfortable ambience for research. The old historian mumbles to himself, flicking through a few folders. You two had been working on piecing together more of the story of the ancient Zora and their connections to the other races throughout Hyrule, hoping to collaborate it all into a single book. As Hyrule grew, so did travel and trade. All the races felt it was important to reach out to others and spread their culture and knowledge. Jiahto took this as an opportunity to condense and spread the joys of Zora history.

Several trips to various stone monuments and days spent digging through the library archives left the two of you tired but determined to sew together any missing pieces in the known records. You had just finished your section on the Royal Zora line, which was difficult considering that the passing of the throne was not based on bloodline alone, as Sidon had informed you during your process of interviewing him. Put simply, you couldn’t just trace up one family tree. Rather, you had to search for specific documentation in the instances where a king or queen had no heir, or did not have a worthy heir. You sighed again, this time more so about the work you two still had left.

“Aha, here we are..” Jiahto nodded as he placed a new scroll on the table, this one very dusty and tattered- indicative of its age. You perked up, excited for something new.

“This appears to be from the time of Queen Rutela. This should be interesting..” Jiahto explained as he carefully opened the scroll. You stood up, standing beside him as he laid out the canvas.

You had to admit, all this time spent with the senior historian had brought the two of you closer together quite drastically. Originally your relation was cordial, polite, and distanced appropriately. But as time passed, you began to take comfort in his presence, as the two of you slowly became research companions. He is one of the most intelligent people you know and takes great care in his research. His strive for preserving and encouraging education in Zora’s domain was admirable. He was so thoughtful about it, too. He would constantly repeat phrases such as, “We must learn our history or else we are doomed to repeat it,” and “Knowledge is the power which guides the flowing stream of the mind”.

“Look here, Y/N…” He points to a string of text, his finger moving along it as he speaks, “This text here describes the prosperity of the kingdom, and how the economy was booming. And over here, the trade system between ancient Zora and Hylians.” You took diligent notes, leaning in at some points to get a better look. Jiahto kept speaking, excitement growing in his voice as he lamented from the old text.

The firewood popped, making you glance up. Jiahto didn’t stop speaking. You pull your eyes away from the fire, and take a moment to observe your friend. There was this…spark in Jiahto’s eyes- and not one from the reflection of the hearth. His cat-like eyes were softened, pupils dilated ever so slightly. A small smile had etched his way into his features, aged smile lines showing his true joy as he continued to read. It was…sweet. He was sweet. Many know the Zora for being a kind but incredibly strong race. With tall statures, strong muscles, and sharp teeth, the Zora are careful to be mild-mannered and friendly- lest their appearance alone scare off potential friends. Even the elders, while decrepit more often than not, are surprisingly strong. Zora elders are known for their bitterness and crotchety attitudes, mostly those who lived during the time before and during the Calamity. And while Jiahto was definitely stern and often chose to remain alone as he studied, he certainly has a soft side. You had grown close to him, and it seemed that he enjoyed your company as much as you did his. Often times he would carry your books for you, or hold your bag while you took down notes at a monument.

As you observed your friend, a warmth bloomed in your chest. He was caring and soft as well as determined and educated. You found that attractive. His wisdom was gathered not just from his long lifetime but also gathered from his ambition and desire to seek knowledge and grow his mind. You were so lost in the thought of your admirations of the Zora that you didn’t even realize he was looking right at you.

“…Y/N? Is something the matter?” He questioned, a bit worried by your glazed over eyes.

“Hm? What? Sorry.. I did not mean to space out!” You quickly waved your hands, attempting to hide your embarrassment. “I think it’s just been a long day, is all!”

Jiahto stared at you for a moment, for the slight blush across your cheeks did not go unnoticed by him. He was old and wise enough to understand without question, but chose to hide this. He nodded.

“It has been. Though I suppose I must have gotten carried away with my excitement. Allow me to repeat myself.” Jiahto cleared his throat, and began to restate the tale of Queen Rutela’s demise and the life of her son Prince Ralis. You listened this time and focused your attention on the scroll spread out in front of you. As Jiahto’s hand moved across the page, you found yourself leaning towards him as you followed the words on the page. You place your hand on the table for stability, accidentally brushing against his still hand in the process. With a sharp inhale, you retract your hand closer to you, putting another few inches between your hand and his on the table.

Jiahto notices, taking just a second to glance in the corner of his eye towards you, but resumes his talking. You do your best to swallow your nerves and snuff out the flames of your anxiety as you try to keep your focus. But, all of your hard effort was instantly shattered the moment you felt his hand shift to graze against yours. You froze, holding your breath, and glanced at him from under your lashes. He kept his gaze forward on the documents, and you felt his pinky slowly move over yours, intertwining slightly.

Your heart nearly leapt out of your chest! He looked down at you for a moment and a small smile made its way across his lips. Your mouth hung open like a trout, and he found some humor in that. He returned to his reading, leaving you stunned. But you weren’t one to be dragged along, so you closed your jaw and took a breath before stepping closer to him, your sides just barely brushing. He reciprocated by lighting pressing into you, clearly receptive to the advance.

But after a moment or two passed he pulled away, walking to a cabinet against the wall. Your heart dropped, but only for a moment. Jiahto opened a liquor cabinet and you watched as he poured two glasses of a fine wine. He returned to the desk, holding out a glass for you with a warm expression.

“I believe we have worked hard, Y/N. We deserve a treat, won’t you say?”

You accepted the glass and smiled in return, lightly clinking it against his own before taking a sip. He did the same, though he did not take his eyes off of yours. After his sip, he took the journal he has been noting his historical findings in and motioned for his to join him on the small sofa in front of the hearth. You did not hesitate to join him. You sank comfortably into the plush material and sighed at the warmth from the blaze.

“Comfortable?” Jiahto smiled, sitting close to you, knee grazing against yours. He opened the journal and scribbled down his notes from the scroll he just read, and made his plan on where to incorporate it in the historical text you two have been planning. Then he set the journal aside and turned his full attention to you.

“Tell me, my dear, what’s gotten you in a tizzy this evening?” He remarked, a glint of mirth in his eyes. You try to avoid his gaze as your embarrassment begins to show. Suddenly the luminous stone flooring is very interesting. Just as your eyes begin to trace some of the natural inclusions, you feel a gentle finger curl under your chin. Jiahto raises your chin so that you face him properly as he gazes at you with kind eyes.

“My dear Y/N… why don’t we enjoy this evening expressing how we truly feel..?”

Historical findings be damned, this was the most important discovery of your evening.

—————————————————————————

There it is, and yes I will work on a Seggin one when my college schedule allows.

Sadly for me, physics and geology is more important than fish people.

#breath of the wild #tears of the kingdom #zora #loz zora #botw zora #jiahto botw #jiahto totk #zora’s domain

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weirdestbooks · 3 months ago

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Love Letters Between Ancient Tahiti and France (Wattpad | Ao3)

Table of Contents | Prev | Next

This collection of letters was compiled after the French Republic reached out to the Countryhumans Research Archival Project in order to set the record straight on her relationship with the Countryhuman of Ancient Tahiti. France and Ancient Tahiti were lovers and despite the evidence proving that, many historians choose to describe them as “very good friends” because they are both women. France, annoyed by this, has given us photocopies of many of the letters exchanged, as well as an interview discussing the course of their relationship, so we can, in her words, “make those homophobic historians see what really happened.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Recording of an Interview with France, 28 February 2022, Transcribed and Translated from French by Pierre Roux.

[Start recording]

Interviewer: Interview with the Countryhuman of France about her relationship with the Countryhuman of Ancient Tahiti. Good morning, France. I must thank you again for contacting us about wanting an interview.

France: Of course I did. If people are going to be idiots and assume that I am a straight woman who didn’t spend the first twenty years of my life in a relationship with a woman, and a woman of color at that, I’m going to make sure no one pretends to be confused about the nature of our relationship anymore.

Interviewer: People could always just not listen to the interview. While we aren’t as obscure as we used to be, people might not want to learn.

France: Ugh, of course, humans wouldn’t. It’s these kinds of circumstances that led to me castrating Napoleon back in…1812, I think it was?

Interviewer [shocked]: You did WHAT?

France [smugly]: They don’t teach you that in your history classes, do they? Now, back to my Tahiti. Oh, that was a time. I was a new nation and eager to prove my worth. It didn’t help that many people believed I should follow the example of the France before [Transcribers Note: Referring to the Kingdom of France] and be a country that stays at home and makes the government look all pretty. I would not do that. I was born of blood and struggle, and that is the life I wanted. After the War of the First Coalition, when I had proven myself as a republic and as a countryperson, my government wanted me to rapidly expand my knowledge of the world. The one before may have been a fool and a coward, but she had been more traveled and educated than me, and my government wanted to rectify that. Not to mention, they were getting a lot of hate for having a female nation on the front lines, and they wanted me out of the way.

Interviewer: Did they choose to send you to Tahiti?

France: They wanted me in Egypt, but I had heard stories of the Oceania isles, and I was curious, so I decided we would go there, and I could Go back to my land once I was tired and done there.

Interview: And by Go, you mean—

France: The teleportation, yes. When I first arrived in Tahiti in 1798…well, I should start by saying I was born when the Catholic church was banned in my land. So, while many of my people were Catholics, my government supported that stupid religion that had been invented, and I, in the chaos of that, would not practice anything. I started practicing Catholicism after Napoleon came into power. So…1800, 1801, perhaps. That is why, when I first saw my Tahiti, I did not feel my crush, and my love for her was a sin. That silly idea had not been taught to me.

Interviewer: So, you have always been comfortable with your queerness?

France [laughing]: Oh, Pierre, I have always been comfortable with myself. I know who I am, even if everyone else doesn’t.

Interviewer: How did your relationship start?

France: Ah, poorly. I would love to paint myself as being suave and sexy in this, but I was a lovestruck fool, and I won’t distort history to save face. Besides, you’ll get my letters. I was…perhaps a little too desperate for her love. But my Tahiti had this grace about her, that confidence and power, and she was awe-inspiring. She was beautiful, too. Her people called her a goddess, and I believed it. She was more beautiful than Aphrodite, a goddess of beauty to make all others jealous. In my mind, then and now forever, she was the image of exquisite perfection.

Interviewer: It sounds like you really loved her. But what was the start of your relationship?

France: Ah, right. Well, I was very confident at the time, perhaps overconfident, and I was convinced that Tahiti would be impressed by me. I wanted to impress her because I felt I could not live up to her centuries of life. Tahiti, I think she found me funny at first. She had an air of power like any empire, an air that drew you in and made you admire her power, and I watched her twist many people around her finger with just a few short words. She was so beautiful in those moments when her beauty became a deadly kind of power.

Interviewer [concerned]: That sounds like a red flag.

France: There are details about this relationship that would horrify humans and would be seen as abusive. But this was a country-country relationship. There are inherently going to be power dynamics put into place. Was it toxic being with her? Maybe. Was she perhaps manipulating me? Maybe. But she made me happy and made me feel loved and adored. It is the same love I feel with human partners. I will not call it toxic because we loved each other, and for a country relationship between a white country and a colored one, it was very, very good. Now, back on topic, Tahiti did not seem interested at first until we grew to know each other more, and she realized that my people would have me…what’s a good word…forced, I guess, forced me to give up my affection for women. I think…she hated that, and she was very eager to support my queerness. That grew into our love. Our collective hatred for people trying to control us.

Interviewer: You began to get along because you were powerful women with similar beliefs.

France: Yes, that is a good way of putting it. I think Tahiti and her people were also what gave me the god complex I had for so long. It was brought on by being around her and her people, being seen as a goddess. Then, I would go home and be told to be a woman, and I hated that. So I began to inflate my ego, which my Tahiti helped to do, as she told me I should be treated like a god. Combined with my religious confusion, I was… pushy, mean, demanding. Part of it was due to the fact that I was not being taken seriously as a woman due to the France from before me, but Tahiti pushed that mindset. World War Two brought me out of that, with…well, you know why. My point is, I think that was the only part I would see as toxic in any way.

Interviewer: Do you think your relationship would have continued if Ancient Tahiti had lived?

France: Yes, I do think so. It never weakened in her final years, and our love only grew stronger. I believe if we had more time it could have lasted many decades more. And even if our relationship had ended, I think we could have remained friends. I have thought much about those what-ifs over the years.

Interviewer: What was the reaction of people who you knew during that time period to your relationship?

France: Hatred, scorn, and…oh, what’s the word…hmm…people did not like it, that much was clear. It was used by my enemies in the Napoleonic Wars to attempt to destroy my standing as a country, and it was used by others to treat me as lesser. I was the godless nation, and many people believed that I was never going to be blessed by God. Some even believed that I was not a Holy Angel like the other countries but rather a demon sent by the Devil to plunge France into a godless age and make it the country of sinners and the Devil.

Interviewer: How did that make you feel?

France: I didn’t care. Sure, my dear Britain brought it up in almost every conversation, acting like he had some sort of high ground, like he wasn’t beating every colony that came under his control, and many of my politicians and leaders attempted to send me to a nunnery or some other religious place to save me from sin. It never worked because they could never keep me there. When I converted to Catholicism, I appeased some, as they believed they had “purified the demon” or some such nonsense, but I never stopped being open about the fact that I was queer. Eventually, the humans gave up. The countryhumans took longer, but they, too, just accepted that they could not change me from who I am and just resorted to using it for barbs and insults like it was insulting to be queer.

Interviewer: Did you know anyone who admired you for being queer at that time?

France: I’ve had a few people tell me now that it was appreciated, but no one brought it up then; too hesitant to be seen as gay as well. Most preferred the closet then, as I’m sure you know. I think the closest and, mind you, that this was not admiration more of the closest queer experience I had with another properly-recognized nation was with Hawaii.

Interviewer: Don’t you two hate each other? I’ve seen your tweets.

France: I’d like to think we understand each other. But I first met her when she was…starting to be indoctrinated into internalized homophobia. I always tried to convince her to give that up because she had told me about a partner, a female partner, and I…I…I didn’t want her to hate herself. We are very close in age, and I felt I could find a…confidant in her, someone who understood. Of course, I was too late; Britain was already in her head. It was a shame, but I still tried.

Interviewer: Wasn’t Hawaiʻi related to Ancient Tahiti?

France: She is…the niece of my Tahiti. Hawaiʻi believed my Tahiti was her grandmother for a long time, however.

Interviewer: Oh, right, there was a significant age gap between you and Ancient Tahiti, right?

France: She was about 2300 years older than me.

Interviewer [shocked]: Holy…did the age gap ever bother you or anyone who knew?

France: The people who knew were more concerned by the fact I was sinning by fucking her. And no, it never bothered me. We countrypeople perceive age much differently than you. A country born yesterday is an adult, while a colony born three hundred years ago is a child. How we view age is based more on status than physical or chronological years. To me, my Tahiti and I were of equal status and, therefore, of similar age.

Interviewer: That’s strange.

France: What about us isn’t? Is there anything else related to my relationship with Tahiti that you would like to know about?

Interviewer: I know you have only given us a small sample of the surviving letters that you and Ancient Tahiti sent to each other. Is there anything about the letters or your correspondence that might not be covered in the letters provided?

France: Well, we had properly the world’s first long-distance relationship.

Interviewer: I don’t think that’s right.

France: Yes, it is now hush. Much of our relationship was done through letters. We did the letter version of sexting, and we grew as partners through our letters. I was the one to show Tahiti how to travel to that little world that countries only live in, and that allowed us to meet more often and be physically affectionate with one another. Many of the more private letters I will keep to myself, as those words are meant for myself and my Tahiti, but…the ones I gave, I think, will paint an accurate picture of how we grew as lovers.

Interviewer: Thank you for your time. I have no more questions, but is there anything else you’d like to say?

France: The next person who calls me and my Tahiti “very good friends,” I will be suing for defamation.

Interviewer: Agh, alright.

[recording ends]

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Letter from France to Ancient Tahiti, 12 June 1798. Translated from French by Pierre Roux. France says that this is the first letter she ever sent to Ancient Tahiti.

12 June 1798

Countryhuman of Tahiti

I hope you will excuse the lack of formalities in this letter. I have never been one for them, and you do not strike me as a woman who will mind if I am more open in this letter than another else would be. You are an intriguing woman, someone who has captured my thoughts and been the first countryhuman I have met that I would truly classify as holy and godlike. You are filled with a grace and beauty that the countries of Europe could never hope to replicate. I know that we have only known each other for a short time, but I wish that we could get to know each other more. You are more respectful to me than many of the other countryhumans I have met have been, and it is something I appreciate greatly. You recognize me as an equal, an equal in the unique power we share.

I came to your land in hopes of learning more about the world, in hopes of finding someone who appreciates me for who I am and, more importantly knows what I am. My people have not been the kindest nor the most understanding to me. They are unsure what to do with a new France that acts so differently from the old one. I’m sure you understand, after all, you have that countryhuman that so many of your people are determined to see as the new countryhuman for your land, and you must know the scorn that the supporters of that young one give you. However, our commonality is that we are both the true countryhuman in power over our land, but, unlike you, I am not respected for it. I am treated as if I am a mere human.

I don’t know exactly what I am writing this letter for. I want to start a correspondence, yes, but I really need not to bother you with my personal issues. There is just something about you that consumes my thoughts and makes me want to divulge my secrets and troubles to you. I am unsure if it is some power of our nature or simply a feeling that derives from your presence and power that you project, but you are the kind of woman that all women should strive to be. You are a being that could make Aphrodite herself jealous.

I wish you good health and good fortune for all the many hundreds of years to come.

Yours respectfully,

The French Republic

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Letter from Ancient Tahiti to France, approximately 1804. Translated from French by Pierre Roux.

France,

I have heard that you have become involved in another war with the other nations of Europe. I wish you luck with that. While I am unsure of how war is conducted in your land, I know it is very different from mine, so I won’t try to offer any advice other than don’t be an idiot and use people’s perceptions of you as a weapon. Those have always served me well. However, I am confident that you will have victory. You may be young, but you are more competent than many other land spirits I’ve met.

I will admit I miss your company too. You are entertaining to talk to, and I enjoy getting to share stories and spend time together. It is a shame that our land has to be so far and that delivering letters takes so long. I wish to hear news faster and know what is happening in your land. I know you are having internal problems, and that, combined with the new war, makes me worry for you. Farāni, I do not want to lose you, not when I have just met you. We have barely begun to know each other in a way that surpasses who we are as goddesses, and I want to think that we could be friends for a long time.

You and I have much in common, and I wish to learn more about your styles of combat and your strange customs. You are fascinating and full of fury and courage that I have seen land spirits twice your age lack. When you return, I wish to learn from you and teach you. I am many hundreds of years old, and in all my years I have never met someone like you. You are strange and in many ways foreign, but that is what I like the most. I have grown somewhat bored and complacent in the repetitive day to day life I have lived here for the past thousand or more so odd years. You bring an excitement to my life that I have not felt in a long time.

I thank you so much for that.

The last thing I wish to talk to you about concerns the captains from your nation, as well as other places in Europe, that visit. They do not speak positively of you, something that concerns me greatly. They do not understand that you are a goddess, that you are above them. They talk about you as if you were a common criminal. They speak as if your bold and fierce nature is a crime. They say they want to drain you of all that you are and turn you into something so terrible I cannot find the words for it.

They speak as if you, in all that you are, are wrong. It is most terrible. I would defend your honor on your behalf, but they respect me less than they respect you, and I know you would much rather fight your own battles. It disgusts me.

I hope you do well in your battles and show those other nations the Fārani that I know.

Tahiti

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Letter from Ancient Tahiti to France, approximately 1812. Translated from French by Pierre Roux. France informed us that her human name at the time was Catherine, and Ancient Tahiti often used the more Tahitian form of the name, Tatarina, in their letters.

Tatarina,

I am so delighted to hear of what you did to Napoleon. I know you will regret it because he is your leader, and you are you, but you cannot argue that he did not deserve it. He has spent much of his reign trying to deny you your place and your purpose simply because you are a female in a relationship with me. It is against the very nature of the world for him to do that, and I am so happy that you showed him who you are and the consequences of going against the divine. Napoleon already disliked much about you, so it’s not like you are losing any sort of respect with the man.

Do not feel guilty about that. It is not your fault, and I find it very amusing.

I have been practicing going to that strange world you showed me how to visit, and it has been very enlightening. I am glad that I now have the skill to be able to visit you more frequently, and be able to share my affection with you outside of just the words we write in these letters. It is far more fun and far better to see you in person. I still write to you, however, because I enjoy doing so, and the power of the written word will never stop being exciting to me. Your past letters also cheer me up, and I can read them when things involving that false god that calls itself a kingdom get rough.

Truth be told, my love, is that I am starting to believe that that kingdom will take my place, like how that Kingdom of Hawaiʻi took the place of my son. For the first time in my life, I am beginning to grow worried about the possibility of death. I have met many young countries recently, and it seems like the world is in the middle of a great change, where all the gods of old are being replaced by younger ones. Despite my worries, I ask you not to worry about me. I know you will because your heart is big and you care far too much about others (even if you don’t care about what they think of you) and know that even if I do die, it is far from your fault and that you made my last days some of the greatest and most exciting of my entire life.

I wish that there had not been this great change in the world, that so many people I knew and loved didn’t pass, for I wish I could have introduced you to my family the way I have with many of my other partners. I hope that you could have met my children and I yours. But between all those that have passed here and the endless wars you have been caught up in by Europe’s refusal to leave you in peace, I fear that that may not be possible for many more years.

I know those years will pass quickly for me, for I, as old as I am, see time so quickly pass. But with you being so young, I know those years will pass by slowly. As you have said many times in past letters, six months is too long for you.

But if time truly does pass by slower for you, then perhaps, if I do only have a few short years left, those will feel like an eternity to you.

With all the love I have to give,

Tahiti

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Letter from Ancient Tahiti to France, approximately 1814. Translated from French by Pierre Roux.

Tatarina, why is it that whenever I hear of you, you are at war? I know that you do not seem eager for it and that you blame the other nations of Europe, but why is it that they attack you and leave you unable to leave for a visit? Why do they keep you from me? I miss you, and visiting you in that world is not the same as when your mind is clouded by war and fear.

I worry still that all this war will cause you to waste away into a shell of yourself. I have seen time change many, but I worry that if wars do not end for you, it will change you beyond repair. However, that depressing matter is not what I want to discuss today. I send you letters to bring you joy and hope in these hard times for you, not to bring you down with the ramblings of an old woman. However, my mind has been clouded recently, and I find it hard to keep myself thinking positively. I do not know if it is my fear for you, that you will eventually lose against superior numbers, or if it is the fact that meeting you made me begin to feel lonely when you aren’t around.

I am beginning to wish I had been more open to having human friends. I try now, but too many of them fear the goddess Tahiti, and the friendship I am trying to achieve feels more like worship. I know you have a human friend, and I want to know how you did that. How did you convince a human that although you may be a goddess, you can be just like them? How did you convince them you wanted to know them for friendship, not worship? I cannot figure it out, and you have a way with people. You have a way that I lack, and I think that is a flaw on my part. I did not understand how wonderful friendship really was until you.

It has been so many hundreds of years since I have had a true friend, and as much as I love you, you are far, far more than a friend to me. I hope that this request is not seen as silly by you. I can’t wait to see you again.

Much love,

Tahiti

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Letter from Ancient Tahiti to France, approximately 1819. Translated from French by Pierre Roux.

Tatarina,

My love, I write this with shaky hands, feeling weaker than ever. I write this with tears on my face and love in my heart, wishing that I was by your side so I could tell you this in person. I write this wishing I had the strength to travel to that in between so I could hold you one last time.

I write this, knowing I am about to die.

I have much to say, so I write this hastily. I do not know when death will come for me, and I do not want to pass before I can finish my last words to you.

First, you are not allowed to blame yourself for my death. The only person at fault is the kingdom and it’s foolish people, and those are the only people you are allowed to blame. Any guilt and anger you have should be placed on them, not on yourself.

Second, you must get around to killing Britain at some point. He is annoying, and I know you dislike him greatly. I know for a fact that you are stronger and more capable than him, and I have faith that someday, you will be the victor in your rivalry. You can put an end to what your mother started with England all those years ago.

Third, I know you will lose your teacher of my language with me gone, but I implore you to seek out someone else who can teach you my language. You might not be the most fluent speaker, but the way you speak my language is beautiful, and I would hate for the world to lose that beauty just because I am gone.

Lastly, the time we had together, however short, was some of the best years of my life. I loved the time we spent together, and I love you so badly that the thought of leaving you behind hurts me more than any wound. I am not prepared to be the one to leave someone behind. Normally, I am left behind by others. I know that hurts like it is an old friend, and I know that my death will hurt you. But please, never be afraid to love again just because I am gone. The hurt of my death will fade in time, and any person you choose to be in a relationship with after I am gone will be a very lucky person indeed. I am fortunate to be your first love, and I am grateful that you were my last.

All my love, now and forever,

Tahiti

#countryhumans #forget them not: the great countryhumans archive by weird #historical countryhumans #countryhumans france #countryhumans ancient tahiti

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keibea · 1 year ago

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15 Questions for 15 Mutuals

Is everyone sick of learning random facts about me yet? Yes? Well, here we go again, cause I LOVE THEM. Thank you @vmsims23 , @nectar-cellar and @johziii for tagging me, you all know me too well.

Are you named after anyone? LOL nope, I honestly wish I was. Jessica was the only name my parents could agree on BAHHAHA.

When was the last time you cried? Monday 🙃I had a painful exam experience.

Do you have kids? Nope and thank goodness for that because I can barely take care of myself BAHAHHA.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Oh yeah, I'm terrible. Not as much as I used to I don't think though, but often WHOOPS.

What sports do you play/have you played? I was forced to play a lot for school, as I think most people were. The ones I can remember the most clearly are netball (I was let on the team out of necessity I think), bocce (because we could all get away with sitting around most of the time and occasionaly rolling the balls), zumba (it was mostly just dance which was SICK), and ballet (if that counts??) is the one I stuck with the longest and the only one I chose to wilingly do myself.

What’s the first thing you notice about other people? Hair or smile. I'm not quite sure. One of those I think.

Scary movies or happy endings? No scary movies for me, nope. I'm horribly paranoid, I will start checking my wardorbe. Happy endings ALL THE WAY. Genuinely I will only watch a movie and read a book if I know it has a happy ending idc YES IM ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE.

Any special talents? Depends on what you define as a special talent. So I don't know if this counts, but I am weirdly a natural at baking??? Definitely not freestyle but if I follow a recipe (which I always do because I like doing things in order) it always turns out really well. So I guess that's just following a recipe, but I like to think I'm special and naturally talented at baking. My mum always finishes my baking off though because I get bored halfway through whoops and she genrally always helps me because I'm terrible with the oven so tbh maybe it's just mum that's talented.

Where were you born? AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE, OI, OI, OI 🦘

What are your hobbies? Sims, sims, also sims, reading about early Victorian fashion, reading about the Victorian era, reading and that's probably it.

Do you have any pets? I have a beautiful little cat named Mikey. He is my best cat friend (and tbh, best friend in general) and I love him very much.

How tall are you? My father says I'm very short, and calls me a worm (both said affectionately I should add), so I assume pretty short. In terms of numbers though, not a clue. I believe I'm average-ish height for a woman, maybe a bit shorter.

Fave subject in school? HISTORY ALL THE WAY. Mostly modern history, purely because I love the Victorian era, but I do enjoy ancient history as well.

Dream job? Fashion historian! That or an author of historical fiction OR a book on early Victorian women's fashion.

Eye colour? I like to call them swamp green, but my mum would disagree, so I'll say green.

I shall annoy @lazysunjade , @amuhav , @thesimperiuscurse (oh yes you bet I am @ ing people who are inactive and who also never do these things, I am 100% that sort of person), @akioakashiya , @itssimplythesims , @lifewithmysims , @elderwisp , @happy-lemon , @servospawn , @tau1tvec , @bunmou , @stinkrascal , @cozygirlsimmer , @moonsonnet , @doka-chan

Please forgive/ignore me if you hate doing this sort of thing, or if you've been tagged and done it already, and wow thank you all for being my mutuals I didn't know I had so many amazing people following me back LETS GOOOO

#nonsims #saviourhide #aboutkeibea #:)#alright off to uni BYE EVERYONE LOVE U

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year ago

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By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Apr 20, 2023

I am at the home of a psychopath. Here on the easternmost point of the island of Capri, the ancient ruins of the Villa Jovis still cling to the summit of the mountain. This was the former residence of the Emperor Tiberius, who retired here for the last decade of his life in order to indulge in what Milton described as “his horrid lusts”. He conducted wild orgies for his nymphs and catamites. He forced children to swim between his thighs, calling them his “little fish”. He raped two brothers and broke their legs when they complained. He threw countless individuals to their deaths from a precipice looming high over the sea.

That these stories are unlikely to be true is beside the point; Tiberius’s reputation has done wonders for the tourist trade here on Capri. The historians Suetonius and Tacitus started the rumours and, with the help of successive generations of sensationalists, established a tradition that was to persist for almost two millennia.

All of which serves as a reminder that reputations can be constructed and sustained on the flimsiest of foundations. Suetonius and Tacitus were writing almost a century after the emperor’s death, and many of their lurid stories were doubtless echoes of those circulated by his most spiteful enemies. Or perhaps it’s simply a matter of prurience. Who can deny that the more lascivious and outlandish acts of the Roman emperors are by far the most memorable? One thinks immediately of Caligula having sex with his siblings and appointing his horse as consul. Or Nero murdering his own mother, and taking a castrated slave for his bride, naming him after the wife he had kicked to death. For all their horror, who doesn’t feel cheated when such tales turn out to be false?

Our reputations are changelings: protean shades of other people’s imaginations. More often than not, they are birthed from a combination of uninformed prejudice and wishful thinking. And we should be in no doubt that in our online age, when lies are disseminated at lightning speed and casual defamation has become the activist’s principal strategy, reputations are harder to heal once tarnished.

I am tempted to feel pity for future historians. Quite how they will be expected to wade through endless reams of emails, texts, and other digital materials — an infinitude of conflicting narratives and individual “truths” — really is beyond me. At least when there is a dearth of primary sources it is possible to piggyback onto a firm conclusion. “Suetonius said…” has a satisfactory and definitive air, but only because there are so few of his contemporary voices available to contradict him.

As the culture war rumbles on, and I have found myself ostracised by former friends who now interpret even minor political disagreements as evidence of malevolence, I have learned that reputation is invariably a form of fiction. One such friend used to complain endlessly about a certain conservative commentator, asserting that he was a mendacious hatemonger whose every action was motivated by contempt for marginalised communities. These ideas were so frequently repeated in conversation, and confirmed by others within our circle, that I had no doubt they must be true. Imagine my confusion, then, when I eventually became well acquainted with this man, and found him to be both generous and empathetic. It’s like meeting Beelzebub and finding that he has been secretly baking cupcakes for the poor.

The same sense of bewilderment has struck me whenever I have happened upon bad-faith critics attempting to summarise my views. I have been variously described as “far-Right”, “bigoted”, “racist”, “sexist” and even “homophobic”. Of course, I would not expect total strangers to know my mind, but given that my actual opinions are freely available to anyone with a search engine, it does feel odd to be so wildly mischaracterised.

I am not alone in this. That false narratives can be more powerful than reality is, of course, the reason why our opponents so readily resort to distortions and smears. A colleague recently alerted me to one of the more bizarre hit pieces that has been written about me in an online magazine. The strategy was at least novel: the writer had contacted former students from my time as a teacher in order to trawl for unflattering anecdotes. According to one account, I had sent a pupil out of the classroom because he dared to disagree with me about the use of metaphorical language in Of Mice and Men.

But perhaps funnier than the story itself is that the author of this article was gulled into repeating it as though it could possibly be authentic. It is a reminder that reputations are often cultivated by those who must first suspend their critical faculties. This kind of nonsense is harmless enough, of course. It falls far short of defamation and, as RuPaul so neatly put it: “what other people think of me is none of my business.”

For all that, more serious attacks on people’s reputations can be devastating. Three years ago, I lost a friend to cancer after he had been falsely accused of sexual assault. In his final days he told me that he had no doubt that the years of intense anxiety following the trial had exacerbated his illness. The source of his distress wasn’t even so much the initial accusation, which was easily disproved in court, but rather the gossip that continued to reverberate and the loved ones who no longer picked up the phone.

In the past, I have often made the mistake of assuming the worst of my detractors, simply because a scurrilous lie has seemed more appealing than a complicated truth. Few of us who have been dragged into the deranging ideological skirmishes of the past few years will have avoided making these mistakes, but these days I like to keep in mind Philip Roth’s remark in The Human Stain: “our understanding of people must always be at best slightly wrong.”

No doubt it is hopelessly optimistic to assume that this approach will become the default. Our brains are hardwired to take mental shortcuts — known as heuristics — and we are generally more willing to believe the worst of others than make the effort to consider that we may have been misinformed. Worse still, the inherent appeal of scandalous and titillating tales means they will be propagated at an accelerated rate, so that even outright lies can quickly become received wisdom. We tend to accept that there is “no smoke without fire”, when more often than not it’s just a few troublemakers with a dry ice machine.

So perhaps we ought to give Tiberius the benefit of the doubt. In that spirit, let us consider one of Suetonius’s more flattering accounts. While living on the island of Rhodes, Tiberius remarked that he ought to visit all the sick people in the town. His servants assumed that this was some kind of decree, and the local invalids were hastily summoned. Rather than turn them away, Tiberius took the time to speak to each one and apologise for the misunderstanding. This story may not satisfy our appetite for murder and depravity, but at least it might be true.

#Andrew Doyle #reputation #cancel culture #strawman #online mob #false narrative #religion is a mental illness

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