#history nerd rambling

[ladyannelister]

I know I missed the reveal here on Tumblr of BBC Studios Germany’s announcement of filming of a German version of Ghosts… but I am honestly so excited!!

I know some people have been making fun of the fact that the German version doesn’t have a WWII captain… but like c’mon people, they’re not going to do that for obvious reasons. They couldn’t really get away with having a WWI captain either… again for obvious reasons. The Roman legionary is a unique choice (but very historically appropriate!). The Roman Empire’s expansion covered well into the regions of today’s Germany.

Anyways, I can’t wait to meet all of them! 👻

[peofun1]

Compiling Metaphor Refantazio humans and their Hieronymus Bosch inspirations

Enemy spoilers up through 7/17 on the in-game calendar

far from complete, since I'm nowhere near done with the game yet, but these are all the funny little guys I've managed to find the inspirations for! I've put the enemy's names and the names of the Bosch paintings in the alt text for each image.

I highly recommend checking out Bosch's paintings, for these guys and the many other fantastical and macabre creatures in his works. it's kind of like a game of I-spy, lol

enemies I was NOT able to find a 1-to-1 inspiration for under the cut. if anyone out there HAS spotted a better match for these ones, feel free to add on!

so I couldn't find a good match for the big terrible baby, unfortunately. best I can say is that Bosch tends to paint a lot of creatures that are just a human head on legs.

same goes for the giant sandworm; I couldn't find anything even remotely similar even after scouring through every Bosch painting (and some sketches!) I could find. it feels inspired by The Garden of Earthly Delights, but I didn't see anything that really resembled this thing.

but again, if anyone knows of a better match for either of these, I'd love to see it!

[ladyannelister]

LOL that definitely would be a funny twist!

Although, technically, heterosexuality was the general norm even in Ancient Rome. But sex between men was allowed with strict rules attached to it. I know it’s a common misconception that homosexuality was rampant in Ancient Rome, but errrr not really… who knows though if the writers will pay close attention to this history detail. lol

I really hope they continue with the “Captain” character being gay. 🤞🤞 Like most Western European countries, Germany is fairly progressive when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights.

If they do make Claudius straight, I hope they would make another Ghost character queer.

Seeing as German Cap is a Roman soldier, I'm wondering how/if they'll incorporate him being in the closet like the UK and US Cap. Or will it be subverted?

"My big confession, one that I could not admit to my fellow Romans....is that I was NOT attracted men!"

[mushroom-through-the-stargate]

odysseus has "hurt more lives than i can count on my hands" which doesnt sound like a lot by our standards BUT the ancient greeks had a finger counting system that they got from the babylonians (probably a few middlemen there too but whatever) which is where WE get the base-twelve grouping names such as dozen and gross - they counted on each knuckle, which got up to twelve on one hand (a dozen) and by using the other hand as a "tens column" could get up to 144 (a gross) so the 600 of his own men, plus the infant prince, anyone he killed in the war, the cyclops, the sirens, calypso, and poseidon equal a whole lot more than 144 so yes, he hurt more lives than he can count on his hands.

penelope is from sparta and she was cunning on her own, so she was definitely into that shit ody had nothing to worry about 😆

[my-pjo-stuff]

Okay but......... imagine if Luke reincarnates as a demigod child of Nemesis.

And he actually has a fairly decent home life and manages to get to camp safely.

So suddenly Annabeth is confronted with a child with hauntingly familiar eyes, a strong sense for justice-

-and also an abnormal interest in anything concerning revolts or revolutions against unjust systems.

[usagi-milktea]

One thing I love about ikesen is that without it I would have never heard what the sengoku period was. Im so glad I’ve come across this game and come to b aware of this time period.

(Currently learning bout (irl) hideyoshi’s failed invasions of Korea- very interesting stuff!)

[over-bi-the-wayside]

Intro I Suppose

@/ninthhousegremilin -> @/over-bi-the-wayside

Hi, I'm Anïas, or Wren, they/he/she, I'm bisexual + genderfluid(aka indecisive), I'm a student, role-player, writer, stitcher, reenactor, theatre and band kid, book nerd and way too many other things Special Interests/current hyper fixations: - The Locked Tomb - Six of Crows - Marvel(MCU) - History - Theatre - Fantasy

OC RP Blogs:

(Not linked innately to a specific fandom but tend to hang with marvel because that’s my main rp fandom)

@faith-monique | @your-local-lawyer | @darling-delilah

Marvel RP Blogs: OCs @moongirlwidow | @iyla-difransisco | @the-barnes-girl | @ghosts-for-friends | @just-a-fucking-civilian | @poor-lost-leo | @moth-to-flames | @luna-st-james | @darla-the-darling | @agent-solenski | @hydras-tiny-dancer | @puppy-love-canis | @leona-gaia | @locked-heart-lex | @november-bishop | @hilda-of-asgard | @axols-greased-lightning

Canon @capt-carter-mostly-official | @liho-the-widows-cat | @midtown-braincell-holder | @that-punk-from-brooklyn | @midtown-news-official | @not-your-peter-parker | @little-witchy-wanda | @miss-carter-official | @peter-ben-parker | @natalia-alianova-romanova | @james-buchanan-barnes1930

Arcane RP Blogs:

Canon

@lady-mel-medarda | @cupcake-lover-69

Gimmick Blogs:

@city-of-boston-real | @crow-detector | @rain-detector

Dividers by @sister-lucifer

[tojisun]

sorry for the shitty cropping but this, apparently, might be the ancestors of sharks

(i say ‘apparently’ because the author, john long, wrote that the exact origin of sharks continues to be a contested topic and mystery)

their teeth are an evolutionary feature - they used to be scales outside of the mouth

[crazycatsiren]

Religion history infodump:

"Catholic" came from the Greek word καθολικός (katholikos), literally meaning "universal". It was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century.

The first known use of "Catholic church" (καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία in Greek, katholikḕ ekklēsía) occurred in a letter written by Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans in about 110 AD: "Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal [katholike] church."

[scherzokinn]

It's so insane and funny to me that film directors of biopics feel the need to add fiction to make the film appear more interesting.

Like. why.

You don't need to come up with anything to make history more compelling.

WHY make anything up, when Friedrich Nietzsche had to buy fucking silk underwears for Richard Wagner once, Abraham Lincoln did wrestling, Victor Hugo lived in a street of his own name when he was alive, Alexandre Dumas fucking shut down a racist with an epic comeback, Edward VII had a sex chair, Tsar Nicholas II has nudes, Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso were arrested for pissing in public together, Oskar Kokoschka commissioned an Alma Mahler fetish doll which he likely had sex with, Roald Dahl wrote some weird and questionable fetish-fanfic books, Salvador Dalí sold a blade of grass to Yoko Ono for $10 000 because he thought she could do witchcraft with a real strand of his hair, etc etc...

Do we REALLY need to make shit up when we have all these batshit stories. DO WE REALLY??????

[chibishortdeath]

Ok so yesterday I was looking up Simon (common occurrence) cause I was drawing him (another common occurrence, drawing isn’t finished yet) and a took a little better of a look at his armor plate from Simon’s Quest and the designs on it.

So—

These gold patterns are very swooshy, fluid shapes with some very spikey, hooked sections. They also have gems inlaid in three places on the chest right at the ends and center of the design, with little circles coming off of it dedicated to them specifically. And it sounds weird, but this looks like a floral design to me, or at least some kind of plantlike. Very stylized for sure, but in the way that the fleur de lis is supposed to be a lily and doesn’t look exactly like one.

So at like uh midnight a bit back I looked up some stylized plants in art and whatnot and boy was that a hard search because google doesn’t know what you mean by “floral stylized in a similar way to the fleur de lis” and the amount of AI that comes up under armor designs specifically doesn’t help. Anyway, two things it could be that I ran into—

It could be a very simplified depiction of acanthus leaves, which are sometimes depicted more like actual leaves of a real plant, but sometimes are just swooping curves with some spikiness on them. They often times also have the motif of three points of interest (usually buds or a bloom) that line up fairly well with the three gems and were common for things like metalworking and gilding. It’s a fair match, not super great since it’s not exact, but considering there’s no distinct flowers, a ok-ish bet. My biggest thing with it, even if the symbolism would be so fitting and cool, is that they’re typically depicted way more clustered and there’s usually not very much of an open space, especially on a breastplate like that.

I also ran into other armors from the time period (or at least the websites said they were) with other closer looking floral designs and had to try to find out what these were on my own. This one in particular caught my eye as a little bit closer.

One seems to be a gladiolus, and the symbolism here works out, it’s pretty standard stuff that’d be on armor. However, again, the Simon’s quest armor does not have very distinct blooms, more similar to simplified buds, so it’s hard to tell.

There’s also a possibility this could be roses, since those tends to have thorns as a main focal point and the hooked parts look thorny, or it could be a combination of multiple flowers I’m just not running into. Of course, I know the original artist likely did not mean anything in particular by this design other than “cool old looking armor design”, BUUUUT— I want to know what looks like closest to it to uh take the flower symbolism for myself hehe :3.

If anyone else has more knowledge on ye olden armor and art styles than I do, do pop up and tell me your thoughts on what this pattern looks like to you!!!

[ricardian-werewolf]

Grishaverse rant: First Army.

(Dominik the Bold in a field dress uniform and Sobachka in... an enlistment's uniform? Bubby, you're a major, what's up, Lapushka?) Sometimes, now that I'm part of the Grishaverse fandom, I wish I was old enough to have been around when It first started. it's all great, but it's So big, sometimes I feel like I'm screaming into a void. Plus, since Leigh Bardugo is so big as an author, I can't just send her an ask anymore about the size of Ravka's armies, which has been a particularly meddlesome problem with regards to my fanfic I've been writing. With history being my major backbone to any work, I always love to situate my works in a period, and annoyingly, Ravka would work for Napoleonic Era Russia, which means I can haul out my giant Oxford History of Russia (on pdf), and go to work. But, the line of reality and fiction blurs, and as someone who's a very linear and realistic thinker... it's difficult. Especially with the Nikolai duology and the sudden leap from 1800 to... 1940ish with the usage of rockets which should more closely resemble V1/V2s then what I assumed - IBCMs.

“In the distance, I saw Os Alta, the Dream City, its spires white and jagged against the cloudless sky. But between us and the capital, arrayed in perfect military formation, stood row after row of armed men. Hundreds of soldiers of the First Army, maybe a thousand—infantry, cavalry, officers, and grunts. Sunlight glittered off the hilts of their swords, and their backs bristled with rifles.”

(hmmm). LB, where's the artillery?! Also why does no one in this book series wear helmets when going into combat?? Basically, I feel like LB should have put more energy into the makeup of First and Second Army. As a historian in training, where are the calvary beyond this one mention, where's the heavy and light artillery? She says regiments? Give me corps, give me battalions! where are the battle-honors, the Colors of regiments? I know First Army is stretched thin and they fight for the king, but I want regimental colors! I want Nikolai pouring over the regimental histories! Give me more than two Generals, Grishaverse wiki! Give me battle stories. Give me a history of regiments who're disbanded in times of peace and risen in times of war. We know Ravka has a draft and they're constantly in active border skirmishes with Fjerda/Shu Han, but I want to see the machinery and guts of a Ravka constantly in a state of ever-active militarism. Give me proper technological advancement by non-grisha, and for saint's sake, give me a reason why LB hasn't thought of this before Nikolai's Nolniki. It can't be Just Nikolai thinking of these things. Nor just Grisha hoarding all their tech!

[xxplastic-cubexx]

HS German anon again but not with a story this time… mostly

So some of my friends and I would joke that our German teacher and the French teacher across the hall were boyfriends. Idk why. Teenagers are weird and I’m glad I grew up.

ANYWAYS Cherik AU where Charles is a HS French teacher and Erik is a HS German teacher. (I can ship fake people all I want haha)

Okay I’m done for real sorry if it was annoying.

NEVER think youre annoying….. your presence and stories are absolute delights… that being said now is my turn to say i thought my highschool history teacher and this one other teacher were Especially Friendly OENDSKJDK ……… HS Teachers AU is peak tho i subscribe to that ….

[livelaughlovelams]

okay okay okay von steuben questions - errrr off the top of my head

he got kicked out of prussia (prussian army) for being gay? i know that's a fact but i don't know details :p

and benjamin franklin... he denied the gay allegations or just graciously ignored them while recommending steuben to washington? i feel like these two facts lack clarity and would love to know more about steuben in the military in general.

i know he was awesome (i read this somewhere, i think it was lafayette's bio - that he would get mad and ask his aides to swear at the soldiers for him lmao)

sorry for the... rambly ask. i'll also definitely be checking out your book recommendations!!!

AAAAAAA YAYAYAYAYAA OKIE!!!!

1. Well, yes and no! He was kicked out of the Prussian army originally because Frederick the Great was cutting down his staff, like, a lot, and Von Steuben initially wasn't KICKED OUT, although he was demoted DRASTICALLY, And was in a regiment he used to command. Count Von Anhalt, who was chief of staff at the time, had beef with Steuben for, like, no reason, and so they allegedly duelled, according to some biographers, though we lack evidence. After the duel, however, Von Anhalt completely removed Steuben from the Prussian army! Thanks to his "very close friend", (wink wink lover) Prince Henry III/ Heinrich III of Prussia, Henry recommended Steuben to a major duchess, and Steuben actually lived in Prussia for 10 more years!! He served a minor role in the court of Hohenzollern-Hechigen, and got Azor during that time! Azor Azor Azor we love Azor. He probably, like, found Azor as a stray or something, and went "oo pretty dawg you're never gonna be hungry again let's get a bedazzled collar on you and now you're a poor aristocrat like me yay" or something like that. That was really off topic actually, continuing. While he served in the court of Hohenzollern-Hechigen, rumors about his sexuality and his relationship with other men spread like wildfire, mostly behind his back. Frederick the Great didn't mind that much, however, being homosexual himself. But the people were incredibly loud about their opinions, and it was clear something had to be done. In the summer of 1777, Von Steuben visited Paris to see his friend, Comte de Saint-Germaine. (Who I think is actually so awesome but that's another story for another time.) While he was visiting Saint-Germaine, Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais and Silas Deane scouted him and we're like "Yoo, you're so cool, wanna get a job with us?" And he was like "nah lol America sounds boring as heck." And then Franklin was like "yo I'm with them and istg it's so cool and I'm like famous so join me" and Von Steuben was like "ERM no I don't wanna hear anything else about this murica I'm going back to Germany" and so he did, and... Uh oh. The second he returns, it turns out while he was gone, an anonymous letter was submitted to the courts, and the princes of Hohenzollern-Hechigen, claiming that Steuben had "taken liberties with young boys", which is an EXTREMELY controversial sentence in the amrev community. They were accusing him of being a p3d0phile, basically, specifically attracted to young boys.... Supposedly? There are many interpretations. I personally believe the letter referred to men around 18 years old, considering Von Steuben's relationship with men around that age later. There has never been any evidence that Von Steuben was a pedophile, though there definitely is evidence he was homosexual, or queer at the very least. Frederick the Great didn't find any evidence he was attracted to children, either, though allegedly did officially exile the baron for charges of homosexuality, which was a federal crime, only 5 days after he returned to Prussia. Von Steuben, now broke and with nowhere to go, returned to Paris and was like "Hey Franklin, about that offer, I could use it right now" and Franklin was like "YEAHHH BOI" And so they met up at a bath house, a place homosexual men commonly met to... H**k up, and a place Von Steuben was DEFINITELY familiar with. Franklin thought everything was looking good, and the group agreed that he'd be a great general for Valley Forge. Right before they sent him, however, they found out that he was attracted to men... THE NEXT PART GOES FOR QUESTION 2 TEEHEE

So... Yeah! Details! Yeah, he was pretty much kicked out for being gay :c

2. FRANKLIN'S RESPONSE WJOWJSJSJS

Franklin, Deane, and Beaumarchais... Honestly didn't care. Beaumarchais himself was pansexual, Deane was an ally and honestly indifferent, and Franklin was a MAJOR ally, some sites even saying he was queer himself, though I, as always, lack evidence. The group actually rushed to send him to America quicker, after finding out that... By law, Von Steuben was to be prosecuted wherever he went, as long as they could find him, and he was still in Europe. That was a thing... Yup... So they basically rushed him over so he wasn't hung or something, yay!! Franklin then wrote a flowery letter to George Washington basically saying "hey man I'm sending this really cool Prussian, he was a general, an aide to the king, and allat." Von Steuben was NOT a general in Prussia, and that was likely something Franklin made up to try to make up for the damage done to Von Steuben's reputation. From what we know, it was likely that Washington actually knew Von Steuben was homosexual before he arrived, but also couldn't care less.

So, that probably makes sense, but if it doesn't, I'm 100% here to clarify, I'm so sorry I ramble a lot.

(as a wise redditor once said, "he doesn't have to BE straight, he just has to shoot straight" man, I love military redditors during pride month.)

3. Yup yup!

Von Steuben actually didn't know much English! He DEFINITELY got, like, scarily and aggressively angry, and would call over his aides, mostly his lovers actually, because his lovers served as his aides-de-camps as Frederick taught him to do, okay I'm rambling sorry, but he would say "My dear Du Ponceau/Walker, please come swear for me in English. These fellows won't do what I bid them to!"

Von Steuben would get, like, ANGRY angry, and they'd usually have to calm him down after a while :P

Du Ponceau, aide and (lover?) to the baron, said that the soldiers would laugh out loud when they heard Du Ponceau translate all these scandalous words in his calm and reserved voice.

... I'm an extremely hardcore Steuponceau shipper btw so I hope this isn't biased but it might be😬

Von Steuben also had an extremely eclectic personality and was a genuinely funny guy, even when he was simultaneously being a big scary drillmaster/inspector general.

OKAY SO UH FIRST OFF TYSMMMM FOR THE QUESTIONS AAAA I LOVE YAPPING, I HOPE YOU ENJOYED AN EVEN MORE RAMBLY ANSWER!!! IF YOU NEED ME TO DO A SECOND ONE ON SPECIFICALLY THE COOL STUFF HE DID IN AMERICA, I 100% WILL, OR IF YOU NEED ME TO CLARIFY ANYTHING OR MAKE IT CLEARER, I 1000000% WILL!

Also EEEEEEEEEEE THE BOOK RECS YAYAYAYAY :OOOO TY!?!?!! (I wasn't loved as a child in case it wasn't obvious :>>>>>)

[excelsior9173]

seeing posts starting to connect lyrics/poses and such from sleep token to the baphomet

cannot even begin to explain how happy my little occultist heart is seeing these connections being made (“the sky above the earth below” -> “as above so below” like hello! first thing i ever thought when i first heard the summoning was the baphomet)

now i desperately want to pick vessel’s brain over his knowledge of the occult/witchcraft/satanism- because the baphomet is often conflated with satanism

it also makes so much sense to me. baphomet is a deity that represents all. represents balance in all things. it is both masculine and feminine, good and evil, light and dark, the heavens and the earth. and that feels very very fitting within the sleep token mythos

[queerslurheritageposts]

Hi! I was curious about the history of the word fairy as a queer slur, and I got the impression that that's the kind if thing you'd love to ramble about. If I'm wrong, that's fine, I can do my own research, but I wanted to ask you first

oh FUCK yes!! funnily enough I don't actually know much about the history of this particular slur other than that it seems to have been used most commonly towards particularly effeminate of flamboyant gay men. So YOU, lovely anon, have given us the opportunity to do something we love- research!

According to the wiktionary page for the word fairy in general, homophobic uses of the term were/are most common in the US and Northern England, and lists a few instances of its use as such in literature from the 1930s, 50s, and 80s. I also came across this fabulous tiktok on the terms history, which mentioned the term being used as early as 1895, in a section of the American Journal of Psychology discussing "inverts" (a common term for gay men at the time). The video also discusses how the term started falling out of fashion once the community started to reclaim the term, particularly thanks to the work of Harry Hay, who cofounded a counterculture movement called Radical Faeries in the late 70s