#fact based history

[philsmeatylegss]

So I recently dropped this post about who, how, and where to find banned books that is semi popular and I put some recs from others on that post, but one book that kept showing up that I didn't include but actually did read is a book I feel every single American should read:

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

A big ass history book that democrats and republicans alike hate.

And that's because it's revisionist.

The term "revisionist history" is very misleading as it's a good thing. It is the concept of challenging past historical facts through the view of marginalized people.

This is a book on multiple banned book lists.

For that exact reason.

History is written by the winners, by the privileged. Never forget the forgotten.

[gaywineauntsstuff]

Okay but imagine for a second

You’re Bruce Wayne, Batman

The richest, smartest man in every room you have walked into since you turned 20

Every bit of information is at the tip of your fingertips money, brawn and brains are no object

And then you take in a child

Named Dick Grayson

From the circus, who has the most flimsy proof of his existence you’ve ever seen with a birth certificate that looks too worn to properly make out the parents named without knowing them before.

No passport despite traveling all over the globe

No form of identification

So you give the kid an ID and everything is fine

He becomes Robin

Joins a team

Becomes nightwing

Runs all the teams

Becomes Batman

Runs himself into the ground

And then Dicks in his 20s and he’s sick

Really sick

It’s not viral, fungal, parasitic or bacterial

No one else you know has this

And he’s getting sicker

He can’t walk without help and spends all his days wrapped up in blankets fighting off never ending shivers.

He mixes up his brothers names and sometimes outright forgets some of the kids

He didn’t recognize Kori a few weeks ago and hasn’t remembered her since

So Everytime he blearily asks “who are you again?” They All answer with the knowledge that this might be the him decaying blue eyes don’t spark with recognition

The first time it happened it was horror and tears “an Oh my god! I’m so sorry I love you you’re my brother” over time it’s devolved into an “oh right…hi Jason”

And the doctors ask for his family history

Maybe. Maybe there is something that could save him, bring him back or stop this descent… this fall from happening to the most untouchable man that’s ever lived.

(Tim threw up after he saw Dick burst into tears, head resting on Alfred’s shoulder when he realized he couldn’t walk without help- they need to stop this)

So they dig

And dig

And dig

And nothing

There’s no evidence of the Graysons before John, the Lloyd’s before Mary.

Neither had been to a doctor anytime in the states at least

Bruce had redone all of Dicks vaccines once he acquired guardianship of him.

There was nothing

Nothing on his aunts or the uncle that was his namesake

There’s just nothing

Bruce realizes he doesn’t even know Dicks ethnic background. 1000s of tests he’s ran and he doesn’t even know if Dick has ever been to his parents home countries

They do every test they can come up with to try and fake a comprehensive family history

Mary Grayson was a fake name

So way John

They don’t know the real ones

Bruce finds out the mother of his son is Syrian and Romani and the boys first father is Afghani and Italian.

He finds out Mary’s father fled from Syria during the 60s and settled in Germany

He finds out that John Grayson and his brother were orphans together

He can’t even tell you which one of them gave Dick his blood type.

He knows everything

He’s the smartest man in every room he’s ever walked into

And he won’t be able to save his son

Because the boy who holds Bruce Wayne’s very heart in his hands knows that the best way to stay in the shadows is simply to show so little everyone will fill in blank spots with jarring inaccuracies so seamlessly they won’t even notice they did it.

They’ve called everyone

And Dick just keeps getting sicker

[localwhiskeyuncle]

If you were watching Nosferatu and you noticed the doctors talking about how Ellen had too much blood and that's why she was acting crazy - let me explain why (and also how excited I am that it was included in the script).

From ancient Greece through the Renaissance, we believed in The Four Humors in medicine. Essentially, they thought there were four fluids in the body (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) and they determined a person's temperament; an imbalance of them was believed causes illness. The Four Temperaments (based on the balance of their humors) are as follows:

Sanguine: Optimistic and social - (affected by blood)

Choleric: Short-tempered and irritable - (affected by yellow bile)

Melancholic: Analytical and quiet - (affected by black bile)

Phlegmatic: Relaxed and peaceful - (affected by phlegm)

They were also connected to celestial bodies, seasons, body parts, and stages of life. Here's a neat little chart:

Ellen was already rather macabre, and as she spiraled she became less able to adhere to social convention; it makes sense that a doctor of the time would consider that to be an imbalance of her blood. It also feels worth stating that a sanguine temperament can be likened to the manic phase of a bipolar episode, which Ellen's symptoms certainly could have been indicative of.

I also think it's an interesting (though possibly pointless) connection that a sanguine temperament is linked to the heart, to adolescence, and to Spring.

The heart obviously links to Ellen as she's a hopeless romantic. Adolescence also connects due to not only her young age in the film, but the events causing Orlok's fascination with her happened when she was quite young as well. I would argue that you can tie Spring into Ellen's character also - she was blooming, transforming, awaiting a new breath of life (death?).

It made me so happy to see it included so casually, it was such an accurate portrayal of how medicine would have actually been practiced at the time and it wasn't made into a huge thing. It shows the appreciation and effort Eggers brings to his work.

I can absolutely see how you may just brush past that part (it was brief), or attribute it to vampirism, but it's actually a super cool little detail of our real life medical history!

[rabbitinthemeadow]

Alas, the cradle of my heart waits elsewhere || Four

[atlantablack]

Maglor who stayed in Middle Earth all the way through till present day, or close to it, and then for whatever reason finally ends up going back to Valinor, but he has enthusiastically picked up all the modern day curses and slang and sometimes when he talks he's so completely incomprehensible to his family that they're not sure if they want to cry or hit him

aka: Maglor comes back to Valinor and instead of getting a traumatized son/brother back like the expected, they find that Maglor did in fact get over his shit eventually but was just having a blast becoming an agent of chaos and now he's brought all that back with him <3

[adimouze]

.

[schoolchaos]

Mythology and history based musicals are my true love.

[aether-link]

Great now I’m thinking of Obito. I always loved how tall he was when he was little and with his team, little guy was T O L. Specially if he was near kakashi, poor kakashi was somewhat tiny 😭

Then like, when he was older. Some panels/frames Obito was STILL taller. Fr fr I’d be looking up looking at this Uchiha tree standing around.

All my personal au’s lately I picture Obito being the tallest Uchiha on record in the clan that are all alive. And little Sasuke calls him kirin as nickname/joke. (Kirin as a joke way is giraffe.) ANYWAYS.

OBITO TALL HOURS. LETS GOOOOOOOOO

[owl-house-facts-i-just-made-up]

OWL HOUSE FACT #22: During the reconstruction of the Isles this hole was turned into a pool after it was discovered that the Emperor’s Coven scouts didn’t harm it during their raid. After they both passed of old age the pool was named after Luz and Amity, for their bravery in saving the Isles and being the spot where they began their lifelong relationship.

[bogkeep]

my thesis probably doesn't need to be longer than like, 2k-3k words total, i can stick to a reasonable scope, i don't NEED to delve into the origins of the babylonian sexagesimal number system to write about the prague astronomical clock

[my-pjo-stuff]

I thought the shit Riordan pulled with WW2 was the worst call he ever made in his series, then I found out that the guy CANONICALLY HAD CAMP JUPITER FIGHT FOR THE FUCKING CONFEDERACY DURING THE CIVIL WAR.

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville] was the only member of [Crown Prince Edward of Westminster's] original 1471 council not already on the king’s council and her name headed the list of those appointed as administrators in Wales during Edward’s minority. [She remained on the council after it was expanded in 1473 and granted additional governing and judicial powers]."

"In 1478 Prince Richard married the Mowbray heiress. Like his elder brother he had a chancellor, seal, household and council to manage his estates. His council, like that of Prince Edward, comprised the queen [Elizabeth Woodville] and a group of magnates and bishops, few of whom were Woodville supporters. [...] It was Elizabeth who mattered, for Richard resided with her and Rivers treated his affairs as their own."

— J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 / Michael Hicks, Richard III and his Rivals: Magnates and their Motives in the Wars of the Roses

[artcinemas]

sanghis whining about "decolonization" while framing their entire identity on a colonial concept of 'hindu' honestly sums up their hypocrisy lmao

well that is the crux of it.

[protoindoeuropean]

Photos of a bronze armillary sphere with three layers of rotating rings on an equatorial set up. The sphere is supported by three legs in a row, all decorated with detailed ornamentation and dragon figures. The text on the granite base is in Slovene and Mandarin Chinese (translation and originals under read more↓).

The astronomical instrument (an equatorial armillary sphere) that was unveiled on 6 February 2024 in front of the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia in Ljubljana – facing the location of the old Jesuit college, where its conceptor first received his education – is a full-scale replica of the original, finished in 1754, still in place at the Beijing Ancient Observatory in China.

Ferdinand Avguštin Haller von Hallerstein, known also by his Chinese name Liú Sōnglíng (劉松齡; simplified: 刘松龄) was born in 1703, received Jesuit education in Ljubljana, Vienna and Graz and arrived in Beijing in 1739 as a missionary, set to work at the Imperial Astronomical Bureau (which had been run by the Jesuits since 1669). In 1746 he succeeded the office of the head of the bureau and ran it until his death in 1774 – longer than any of his predecessors. He died soon after a stroke he reportedly suffered upon hearing the news that the Pope had disbanded the Jesuit order (in 1773; that suppression was later lifted in 1814).

Beside the astronomical work (published as Observationes astronomicæ), he also worked as a cartographer (creating a map of Macao and its environs, of Manchuria and contributing to the Jesuit Atlas of China) and is noted for making the first exact estimate of the Chinese population (calculated to have been 196,837,977 in 1760 and 198,214,624 in 1761).

Astronomical instruments at the Beijing Ancient Observatory. Hallerstein's armillary sphere is in the foreground. {x} • {x}

The armillary sphere is one of a kind, combining Chinese and European astronomical knowledge as requested by the Qiánlóng Emperor (乾隆帝), who wanted to both honor the tradition of his ancestors and make the instrument as accurate as possible by the standards of the time. The instrument is 3.7 m long, 2.1 m wide and 3.3 m high. It is made of bronze and weighs more than 5 tons. Its replica is made of the same material and is of the same size, built in China using 3D-scanning technology and later transported to Slovenia, and is also fully functional. The design of the original instrument started in 1744 and when it was finished 10 years later, it was considered the pinnacle of Chinese astronomical science as well as artistic craftsmanship.

The Astronomical Instrument was conceived by Augustin Ferdinand Hallerstein (*1703 Ljubljana, †1774 Beijing), a Slovene Jesuit, astronomer, mathematician, cartographer and diplomat, during the time he lived in Qing China. The original stands at the Beijing Ancient Obsevatory. The replica of the instrument is a gift of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China as an incentive for the continuation of cultural exchange between Slovenia and China. Urban Municipality of Ljubljana, 2022

Zvezdni opazovalnik je v času dinastije Qing med svojim življenjem na Kitajskem zasnoval Auguštin Ferdinand Hallerstein (Ljubljana 1703–1774 Peking), slovenski jezuit, astronom, matematik, kartograf in diplomat. Izvirnik stoji na Starem pekinškem astronomskem observatoriju. Repliko opazovalnika je podarilo Veleposlaništvo LR Kitajske kot spodbudo za nadaljevanje kulturnih stikov med Slovenijo in Kitajsko. Mestna občina Ljubljana, 2022

玑衡抚辰仪 值此中华人民共和国同斯洛文尼亚共和国建交30周年，中国驻斯洛文尼亚大使馆和北京天文馆特赠天文观测仪器玑衡抚辰仪同比例复制品，以兹纪念。玑衡抚辰仪由斯洛文尼亚人刘松龄 (1703–1774) 在华担任清朝钦天监监正期间主持制造，原件陈列于北京古观象台。 二〇二二年

(for the latter, thanks go to this anon!!)

[cupidshootstokill]

I think it’s interesting how the extra-canon material paints a picture of the fire nation being militaristic /in general/ and not specifically in the context of the years of and surrounding the Hundred Year War.

Like how the Royal Fire Academy for Girls in the Kyoshi is not just a posh boarding/finishing school. It might be like 1/4 finishing school but it’s like 3/4 boot camp. Rangi is a trained bodyguard /as a teenager/ and that’s not weird or concerning, it’s something honourable, to be proud of.

Agni Kais in general, while very significant to the plot of ATLA, have also existed and played a prominent role in Fire Nation culture long before the Hundred Year War. Which is interesting! It’s so telling of how significant combat is to the Fire Nation and how fire is culturally and ceremonially defined by the ability to overpower your opponent into submission. It really is seen and understood as the element of aggression.

The Fire Nation is also often in conflict either with the world or within itself. It started off as a bunch of warring states, reminiscent of Sengoku period Japan, before becoming a united nation. And even then, in the Shadow of Kyoshi, we see that there is a ‘war of the roses’ type succession war.

And, sure, there’s war and conflict in the Earth Kingdom and probably the Water Tribes, too. But I think with the Earth Kingdom it’s often explained that a country that size is just impossible to govern by a single body. Or it’s a corruption thing? The Earth Kingdom has issues with governance and its class system - which I think makes sense for a country represented by the element of stability, it’s all about trying to maintain the status quo and people taking advantage of their power and status and then facing the repercussions of that.

Whereas our view of the Fire Nation is largely of its aristocracy, we honestly don’t spend much time with non-royal or non-noble Fire Nation characters. We don’t really see class struggles except in early book 3 episodes. And I think it really does solidify the perception of fire as the element of power, because we largely see it associated with powerful people who have the means to wield it over others.

And so the conflict that we do see in the Fire Nation are power struggles. It literally is about being stronger than your opponent physically or politically. And because of the significance of Agni Kai, being physically powerful lends you a lot of political power.

Anyway my main point in all of this is that, yes, fire might have signified more than just war and power, but for at least half a millennium if not longer, war and power was /the/ main association with fire and firebending. In so much that it’s /baked/ into their history, culture, traditions, education system even before Sozin was born, let alone before the war started.

The original show did seem to imply that the Fire Nation had a rich history of things other than war and militarism before the Hundred Year War started. Aang in The Headband was convinced that things were /different/ in the past, and yeah, that’s mainly in reference to dancing and freedom of expression. But coupled with the Sun Warriors’ philosophy about the meaning of fire, it gave off the impression that the Fire Nation was less militaristic as a whole. Or maybe it is a class thing! Maybe the nobility are militaristic and the common folk see fire in different ways to do with passion or life as the Sun Warriors did!

I think if it is the case that the Fire Nation has been about constant war and fighting for power, then Zuko has a tougher job than imagined after the end of the series. Cos it’s one thing to push back against a century of imperialism and aggression, but if it’s been part of your culture and history for half a millennium - woah, that’s an insane amount to unpack. And with how a nation is supposed to embody the nature of their element, I’m a little sceptical of how much a whole nation’s identity can be rewritten.

[shrimpleasthat77]

Is this what the kids call bedrotting