#historical figure similarities

[constantfragmentation]

Hello frags, youre the one of the best Silco writers. And also, youre seem to have a lot knowledge about historical periods. What real historical figure do you think Silco would be?

I think he can be Julius Caesar or maybe Napoleon (as an fellow european myself)

My dear, I'm so humbled you think that highly of me. I'm in great company in the Silco writer fandom. Thank you for such a compliment.

Caesar and Napoleon were brilliant military minds and not that Silco isn't highly intelligent, I wouldn't put him in the same boat. In similarity, in the beginning, they too wanted a more equal democratic society and were ultimately corrupted by power. Even though Silco's 'the end justifies the means' attitude is still his main drive for what he does as a the mob boss of the Underground, I don't find him completely corrupted by power and wanting to be a king.

Frankly, if Jayce and the Council given Silco everything he wanted, I really wonder what he'd do. He's worked his entire life for liberation and now what? Without Shimmer, I think he would continue his little empire but who knows? Would he want to help create a proper democracy for Zaun or just have the Chembarons rule? IDK.

Historically, I would see him more like the scrappy freedom fighters that get too caught up in their cause and lose their way. Or they are so focused on the end game, they don't see the people they are ruining along the way.

Considering my heritage, I see him as a Michael Collins fighting for an independent Ireland. A blend of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.

I don't think Silco is quite as blood-thirsty as Robespierre, but I can see the similarities as they were young idealists. Had the bridge battle gone in Silco's favour, it makes me wonder what they might have done to Enforcers or possibly Topsiders after all Zaunites suffered at their hands.

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

What's your opinion on malewife/house husband Adrien posts? I asked this to another blog, and like I said to them, I find them a guilty pleasure: The concept is cute, but I know that would be the last thing Adrien would ever wanna be after all his dad put him through.

I don't think that it would be the last thing that Adrien would ever want. I actually think it suits his character in a lot of ways, you just have to handle the topic with care.

First let's talk about why it suits him.

Miraculous has totally failed to give Adrien any sort of career-based passion and - if we ignore the senti complication - I honestly love that for him! I want more characters with no major life ambitions to balance out the Marinettes of the world!

I think that society places way too much pressure and value on finding the perfect career that fulfills us in every way while also allowing us to put food on the table. Most people will never find that and that's okay. It doesn't mean that you've failed or that you're lesser. For most people, the goal is to find a career that pays the bills and that you enjoy enough that you don't hate doing it 40hrs/week. Along similar lines, for most people, your passion will be something that doesn't make money. It will be something like a hobby or spending time with those you love or analyzing badly written French TV shows.

This brings us back to Adrien.

Adrien seems to get a great deal of joy from being around his loved ones and making them happy, so I can absolutely picture him finding a lot of joy in running a home. This is extra true because Marinette is pretty clearly career driven and she's planning to go into a creative field, so she'll probably have a pretty crazy schedule and struggle to stay on top of it all. Having a loving husband to take things like cooking and cleaning off of her plate would be a blessing and a gift that she'd greatly appreciate, but that would feel unbalanced if Adrien was working, too. (Yes, they could hire staff, but that risks the secret identity thing, so I don't see them doing that.)

If they both have power careers, then they'd barely see each other and I hate that for them. I think that it would make Adrien incredibly sad and depressed. Plus, while Marinette thrives off of competition and staying busy, only needing occasional breaks before diving right back in, Adrien seems to hate busy schedules and heavy work loads.

Given all of that, I think that there's a lot to be said for Adrien stepping away from the working world. Especially since he's been in it for years and being a child celebrity is no joke! I think it would be nice for him to escape from strict schedules and expectations. Dinner fails? Order takeout!

While we're on the topic of food, I really like the idea of Adrien falling in love with cooking. Dude needs a creative outlet and that's honestly a great one (I hate it when people write characters as unable to figure out cooking like it's some cute quirk. While an initial struggle is believable, it's not a mystical art that takes years of practice. Between YouTube, the wider Internet, and maybe some classes if he wants to get fancy, I think that he'll be fine.) There's so much variety with what you can do in the kitchen and the end result gets to be shared and appreciated by those you love. It just seems like a perfect fit for him, but I would never make him a professional chef because the hours are insane and the pressure to be perfect is high. I only see him loving it as a hobby where he can go at his own pace, take days off, and make lazy meals when he's not feeling like being a show off.

The big concerns that come with making him a homemaker are a lack of financial independence and a lack of socialization. I don't see the first thing as an issue for Adrien since he comes from a wealthy family, so that one doesn't phase me.

The isolation could very easily be an issue, but it could just as easily be a problem if he started working, too. It's not as if a job is a sure way to have friends or even just consistent positive social interactions, which is another reason why I don't really see a need to give him a traditional job. You can get a vibrant social life in lots of other ways.

Here are the two big things that I keep in mind when writing an Adrien-as-a-homemaker or similar setup as it is where I tend to have Adrien land for all of the above reasons:

Adrien needs to be active in some organization or project. Volunteer work is a good fit as is being an active stay-at-home parent or some combination of the two. Voice acting is also on my radar, but my default is to have him act as the head of team miraculous' out-of-battle activities. Scheduling meet and greets. Going to see sick kids. Jetting around the world for humanitarian aid missions. Basically let Chat Noir be his "career" which gives him a lot of much needed flexibility for making his own schedule, especially if he's a stay-at-home parent to any eventual kids. I also like the poetic nature of Adrien finally being proud to be the face of a "brand" via his hero side while his civilian side becomes just some guy that people kind of remember from old ads.

Consider having a non-traditional living arrangement. I am a big fan of hero teams living together, so my default is to take the Agreste mansion and remodel it into a secret HQ for the team. Adrien and Marinette would have their own apartment/wing/whatever, but they'd still be surrounded by their found family on a near-daily basis, so that social isolation is the last thing on Adrien's mind. There's almost always someone to hang out with! You could also just have Alya and Nino or other friends live in the same apartment building so that they're over a lot/Adrien has a place to hang when Marinette is working late because you know that she'd do that.

Basically, Adrien's rich, so he doesn't need to make money and he doesn't seem to have any interest in a normal job, so I really like letting him having a unique life where he doesn't have a traditional job. He is a superhero, after all. Unique career paths are pretty par for the course. You just have to be careful to make sure that all of this feels like his fully informed and carefully considered choice and not like you forced it on him to make Marinette's life perfect (I only brought her up earlier because this is a story and it makes sense to design characters around each other). I usually do this by sending Adrien to therapy in his late teens or by giving him some other parth of self discovery.

Do note that all of the above is inspired by my read of Adrien which may be totally different from your read of him and that's fine! I just can't picture him as someone who thrives in a traditional career path based on knowing people who strike me as similar to him and from whom I draw my understanding of how to write that part of Adrien's character. I think that he'd be perfectly able to have a traditional career path, but I also think that he'd be pretty miserable for a lot of reasons.

I'll also note that I'm not sure what posts spawned this ask, so there may be elements of those that I'd have criticisms of. This post was about the general concept of Adrien being a homemaker. I tend to avoid the broader fandom for my own sanity and the use of the term "malewife" has me concerned that I'm implying support of something I wouldn't actually support because that's a new one for me and it sounds incredibly sexist.

I'm not a fan of implying that the default definition of "wife" is "submissive homemaker" so a man taking on a homemaking role is clearly submissive and acting like a woman does while his aggressive, domineering wife is acting like a man, which is the definition of this word that I'm finding online and yikes! Wife and husband are legal/social status in my book. They are not clearly defined jobs/roles/personality types, so I'm not a fan of using gendered terms to refer to stuff like this especially since I do actively try to use gender neutral words in my own writing whenever I can, though I'm certainly far from perfect on that front.

I also don't see homemaking as a submissive act. It certainly can be, but that's not how I picture Adrien at all! I picture him as relaxed and plesent, but 100% in charge of the home and all choices about how it's run. I also see him being in charge of their finances like homemakers often were in the "old days" since they were the ones in charge of things like scheduling cleaners, buying food, and other things that needed strong budgeting skills while the person who worked wasn't actually spending money or managing the home since they were at work. I like to think that Nathalie would prep Adrien to be a wealthy man and so he'd have strong skills in finance management.

[ded-lime]

my attempt at lily versions

[fictionadventurer]

The fun part of digging into history from multiple different sources is that you start to piece together information about people across different eras, until history starts to feel like a massive crossover event involving surprise guest stars.

For example:

The book about Lincoln's Cabinet presents William Seward as the expected Republican candidate for the 1860 election. As they discuss his backstory I'm like, "Oh, he's Seward the anti-slavery New York Whig who influenced Zachary Taylor." And then they mention Seward becomes Lincoln's Secretary of State.

And I'm like

Wait a minute...

SEWARD'S FOLLY???

HE'S BEEN THE ALASKA MAN THIS WHOLE TIME???

An emergency trip to Wikipedia confirmed that he was. Which feels much stranger than it probably should, but in high school, all the Alaska stuff was presented as completely separate from the Civil War, so it's taken me a long time to put the pieces together. Still kind of fun to make connections like that, though.

[skitskatdacat63]

The true old man fucker behavior is simping over historical figures

[garashir]

and if I name arthur morgan’s horse vane after charles vane what then?

[genderqueerpond]

the main difference between five and eleven is that five started out believing that he was terrible and gradually, slowly, almost to his dismay, learned that he was also great; and eleven started out believing unshakeably that he was great and then slowly, gradually, almost to his relief, learned that he was also terrible.

(this fallout is also the difference between six and twelve.)

[werewolfetone]

Urgent time machine outreach campaign to alert protestants in the north of ireland in the mid 18th century to the fact that male given names other than henry or james or william exist

[cookie-waffle]

Ngl, as someone who is actually native and has native family, I can’t really bring myself to hate Disney’s Pochahontis, even though I can totally see how it’s the least well-aged of the ren films.

I saw this movie on repeat when I was very little in the hospital. And my Dad, who has much more native blood than I do, enjoyed putting it on and watching it with me. And the chief character, although I didn’t realize why I liked him as a kid, kinda reminded me of my dad. They have similar facial features and manner of speaking.

Ntm, as a lover of animation, I can’t deny that this is an objectively gorgeous-looking movie, despite all it’s faults.

[submech]

Huge day for annoying Rories

[fideidefenswhore]

8, 6 & 22 ;*

common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about (8)

hmmm, AB as heartless and/or 'petty' (she could be petty, tbf), and/or her ruthless acts deriving from 'pettiness', specifically. if anything, too much heart, if such a thing were possible. she might well have threatened cromwell even before that sermon (as, according to chapuys, she did), but in all likelihood this was to prevent 'strong thieves of the realm' from being the primary beneficiaries/ enjoying the windfall of the reformation. most (not all) of her ruthlessness was tied up/from heart&soul, not 'pettiness'. even her least-sympathized, least-excusable ruthlessness, towards catherine and mary, can, as elizabeth norton argues, be attributed to/as an extenstion of/ the protection of her daughter.

also, the tudors (showtime) in general. people seem to have either had a collective eternal-sunshine moment or they watched some version of the show not available to the general public (coa never acknowledged henry's interest in anne? the more you know.)

and becoming elizabeth, lol, 'abuse of thomas seymour aside' when that was almost the entire show. you cannot 'set it aside'.

which ship fans are the most annoying? (6)

mary/chapuys. like the petyr/sansa of the tudor fandom, except at least petyr/sansa enjoyers acknowledge the ship is dark, rather than the achingly tooth-rotting fluff they put out.

also the historic aspect just seems very...wishful-thinking, i guess? chapuys as the white knight, protector, when all chapuys really was, in the end, was someone that gave her false hope and promises/ed (escape, reinstatement) what was ultimately not within his power, and/or diplomatic skill/pull, to grant. she does seem to have really relied on him 1533-36 but shortly thereafter she didn't speak with him much anymore, which is always a choice that is attributed to henry to infantilize her (she can never make an independent choice, it must always come from fear, this woman that was by all accounts, quite brave and didn't suffer fools) and conveniently, as always, villainize her father, to never acknowledge the possibility she might simply have just been disappointed/become disillusioned with/by chapuys; or it's attributed to the exeter conspiracy, ignoring that mary distancing herself from chapuys happened beforehand.

according to his own account, his last conversation with mary was brief, she said what she was expected to say, typical of the by-the-book political niceties (thanked charles v for his good wishes towards her, said she had no power to repay charles v for the same—if not humble equivocation, this sounds more bitter and biting than affectionate—and would pray for her cousin's health and prosperity), and she excused herself early into their farewell by saying she didnt want to detain her fifth stepmother ("appeared unwilling to prolong the interview"). certainly nothing that suggets the wistfulness, nostalgia they feel was 'due', nor the fervent affection and gratitude they assume, nay, insist, was there, but denied, for mary as much in the 1540s as it was in the early to mid 1530s. all considered, mark this as a self-insert ship of sorts, an AU that is not acknowledged as AU.

your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores (22)

what is 'canon' in this context, lol.....

nothing is my 'favorite' but there are certainly commonly ignored home truths about this era:

either that there was never an english uprising against AB as consort (despite the constant dire predictions), but was for philip ii as consort, or that the house of commons took the oath of succession (1534) without dissent.

[wonder-worker]

Do we know what Elizabeth Wydeville looks like? Who would you want to play her?

Unfortunately, we don't have any contemporary portraits of Elizabeth. But we do have contemporary depictions in stained glass and manuscripts (the latest from 1480, when she was in her early forties) that greatly resemble her post-contemporary portraits. Looking at them, Elizabeth seems to have had delicate features and was slender.

As for a fancast, my first choice would always be an unknown actor. It would work much better with Elizabeth's historical situation, and I've always found well-known celebrities playing historical figures a little jarring. But if I had to pick someone ...

Anon asked: What do you think [of] Anya Taylor Joy for Elizabeth Woodville?

I think she would be a great choice, as I believe she resembles Elizabeth's most famous portrait and her Canterbury depiction in 1480 to an uncanny degree. Take a look:

I think she also works really well because she excels in high-stakes plots and intense emotion, all of which fit Elizabeth's life. She's also starred in quite a few period dramas (most of which are not medieval, but still), so there's great material for potential edits and gifs.

Anon asked: Hey, have you seen the film Taras Bulba? I thought Magdalena Mielcarz would be a good choice to play Elizabeth Wydeville, I'm not sure if you've thought of her before but I'm curious to know what you think :)

No, I haven't seen Taras Bulba (how is it?) but I have seen Quo Vadis, which also stars Magdalena Mielcarz. And yes, I've thought of her as a possible fancast for Elizabeth before - I think she's great!

She's 46 right now so I think she'd hypothetically be a perfect fancast for Elizabeth in or post 1483. But since she starred in at least two period dramas in the 2000s, I think there's a lot of material for 1460s and 1470s edits as well. (Unfortunately, I have no energy to make them).

I've also seen Amanda Seyfried, Amber Heard, Phoebe Dynveor and Catherine Deneuve as recommended Elizabeth fancasts, all of whom I think would work really well as well!

[harryforvogue]

i’m loving the name thing, can you please do one for eileen? sending hugs

eileen is such a 1940s woman. clothes are ironed at all times, hair is nicely done, fingernails clean, hat perched above her brow. eileen is prim and elegant. she likes to go out to bars and dances to flirt with people but never lets anything become of it because it’s just for fun! she always insists on splitting the check because she doesn’t want to owe anyone favors. eileen wears blouses and tucks pencils into her hair. she wears heels that hit the ground with a satisfying noise. she has red hair and siren eyes. every night, she has a singular glass of wine as she listens to music from her gramophone. when she falls in love, she falls HARD. crashing and burning. she loses her momentum when she falls in love, and she’s quick to confess her love too. she’s not scared of rejection as much as she’s scared of not trying

[black-rose-writings]

Ancient Aliens may be my guitly pleasure, but sometimes, it gets too stupid to watch.

[yr-obedt-cicero]

there's something so unique about your music tastes that I see so often in your playlists- it's like this indie country feel?? and it's beautiful, like it feels like emo music for country or folk people

It's indie folk (Sometimes dabbled in with rock), and it's an absolute sacred blessing to the world. I can recommend some great bands like Mumford & Sons, The Ballroom Thieves, The Amazing Devil, The Crane Wives, The Last Bison, Patch And The Giant, The Oh Hellos, also Radical Face.