#if I got anything wrong feel free to correct me

[cube-cumb3r]

How did people answer the Dungeon Meshi question? (aka. how the Hell do you parse through free-form responses?!?)

(art by Ryokō Kui)

This first part is just going to be babble about google sheets and excel functions, feel free to skim or skip to the results.

Here's how the question was formulated: "Which Dungeon meshi character is objectively the best one If you are unfamiliar with dungeon meshi but still have an answer to this question, you can still answer (you don't need to know the character's name)."

As you can imagine, this made the responses exactly as creative as you'd expect. Which has made them both delightful to read through, but also painful to convert into usable data.

I started with making a list of the most frequently used words, excluding common ones. Here's an excerpt.

From this we already can see some hints as to the character most frequently mentioned, but if I were to make a chart of this it'd be a zillion categories, when ideally the responses obviously referring to the same character should be in one group, so we can truely see how many times a character was mentioned, no?

Although I could individually read every answer and categorize them manually I am NOT going to do that because, 1. it's tedious 2. I don't want to 3. I won't learn anything

If I ever work with a dataset of 1000 observations, doing it manually is absolutely not even feasible, therefore it's good to already know a better way to do it.

I was initially hoping to utilize xlookup, but I realized that xlookup doesn't actually do what I think it did. What I was HOPING it would do was to be able to identify keywords within longer answers, such as "cat girl" or "beardy dwarf" and then match them to some sort of index, where it'd be like Oh "cat girl"? That's obviously "Izutsumi". This is not how xlookup works. Xlookup cannot pick out a keyword from a longer response, it can only identify a partial phrase (example, if the full index phrase was "Delicious In Dungeon", a response saying "Delicious" will match, but a response saying "My favorite anime is Delicious in Dungeon", will not match, because xlookup cannot match a PERFECT MATCH from within a longer chunk of text.)

So instead I had to rely on my long-time good-time pal Regular Expression functions and combine them with xlookup. With my reliable sunday lover Regexextract I can Extract keywords out of answers in one step, and then in the next step match said keyword to my index.

INDEX:

^here is the index. Any non-blank response that doesn't match these gets counted as "Other". I tried to make the keywords as short as possible, that way they'd catch as many alternate spellings as possible without me having to write every variation out myself (LAZY!). For example, "bear" and "beard" don't need to be separate keywords (if they like in this index, correspond to the same character), as the keyword "bear" will match both the word Bear and Beard. Though, and as you will see later, making the keywords too short will result in false matches.

I made some Liberal Assumptions as to who a responder meant, such as in answers mentioning 'lesbians' or 'elf', which could in theory mean many characters. I went back and checked and adjusted the index to see that every answer got coded reasonably, but this has resulted in an index that is extremely adapted to this specific dataset, and it would not be as effective or reliable on a different dataset of Dungeon Meshi Answers.

Also, if a responder mentioned multiple characters, the first match is the one they got counted as. This could also be incorrect, depending on the answer.

RESULTS!!!

Here are the results! The title of the chart is wrong, I was obviously asking about the objectively best character, not "favorite"! Oh well. According to 24.4% responders, the objectively best character is Senshi, which is the correct answer (<- JOKE) (<- actually answered 'Marcille' himself)

You might notice quite a large "Other" category of 21.3% too, this is every response that was difficult to match to a specific Dungeon Meshi character, for a variety of reasons. Check out this hideous pie chart.

I don't know who "the one with teacher vibes" or "the one who is secretly a neutron star" is. Sorgy. Some of these were also referring to characters from other media, which is allowed and I respect it, but none of them recurring sadly. Wouldn't it be crazy if like 4 entirely separate people independently answered Sans. What Would It Mean?

Full responses:

With every "identifiable" response just being coded into a category, you don't actually get to see the beautiful ways in which THOSE people responded this question. So, here they are, in ascending order.

Izutsumi (7.5% of responses)

I was expecting more alternate spellings on this one, I personally think her name is tricky to spell, but that didn't seem to be the case. Also, seems that many people who think she's objectively the best one also don't actually know her name.

Falin (9.4% of responses)

Two of the responses here contains the two keywords, "chicken"/"bird" (which would categorize it as "Falin") and "lesb" (Which would actually categorize it as "Marcille"). Luckily, chicken and bird happened to be written first, so those responses got correctly coded as Falin.

Chilchuck (10.0% of responses)

Nearly everyone who think Chilchuck is the best one also seem to know his name. Maybe you need to be familiar with the show to truely appreciate the Chilchuck?

Laios (12.5% of responses)

Here, due to my laziness of not wanting to account for every possible spelling of Laios, "Ludmila" gets miscategorized as Laios because it contains the keyword "la". However, "The paladin" (which I do think actually is referring to Laios) gets accidentally categorized as Laios for the same reason, correctly.

Marcille (12.5% of responses)

The reason I made the controversial judgement call that responses containing the word lesbian would be coded as Marcille, is because I made the very liberal assumption that anyone responding with just "The lesbian" probably did mean Marcille, anyone familiar enough with Dungeon Meshi to mean Otta is probably be familiar enough to know her name. There is one response here saying "Lesbians", and they probably meant both Marcille and Falin but responders only get one character, so it got counted as Marcille.

Senshi (24.4%)

(You might notice as I just did that a response clearly meaning Chilchuck got coded as Senshi because they happened to mention Senshi first. That's my mistake for not making "halfling" it's own keyword. Sorry!)

Similarly to Izutsumi and Falin, Senshi seems to be a character many responders don't know the name of, in fact it looks like he most out of any character had the most responses mention him without knowing his name. Given that, I would make the assumption that most people who are only vaguely familiar with Dungeon Meshi, and perhaps don't even watch the show, overwhelmingly think Senshi is the Best Guy. Does that make it more of a correct answer, or less?

Anyway,

That's that for Dungeon Meshi. Happy Meshing everybody

[LINK TO MASTERPOST]

Does anyone want to do my new google form

[justtrashperson]

Hi you're the Irish lads expert in my brain. How favorable are people to shipping the lads. (And not magisbur/rtsoot) I need to know for. Reasons

Haha thank you for that anon! I’ll take it I guess

As for that question, I do know there are people who ship the lads with each other, and I feel like you can get quite an audience since the Irish lads community is big, but one thing to know if to try and avoid main tagging them because not everyone is comfortable with that idea

Gonna put it in read more because this got a bit long

For example, Do not use the Tag RTgame or Callmekevin if you want to post a shippy thing about them, but use their ship tag like cmrt (?? I think??)

If they don’t have a ship tag either do not tag any of it, or maybe tag it as like, (…) X (…) though I don’t know if it would also appear in tumblrs tags

Oh also an exception to this tag is Terrornogla/Daithi de Terroriser. As far as I know since they are also in another group called BBS that kind of have shipping in the community, and I think they have also made fun/acknowledge them, most people couldn’t care less if you tag em, but still use the ship tag.

But yeah, basically do not maintag, if there’s a ship tag use that. I think you can tag it as Irish lads if you want to but keep in mind to also tag it as shipping just to be sure

Oh one more note! If it’s vaguely shipping but still can be taken platonically, you can maintag them, or if it’s like an ambiguous relationship that can still be taken platonically, maintag is fine

That is all, now go wild anon

[adipostsstuff]

Es: Mikoto's trial is coming up, I should do some research on dissociation.

Symptoms include confusion, headaches, inability to express emotions, separation from your own identity, feeling like your body isn't your own...

Es: (shuts book) That's enough reading for today.

[real-reulbbr-band]

The Reimagining of Cats Undermines Female Characterization

My anxiety's going to eat me alive if I keep being chicken about posting this so here's my more in depth feelings regarding what I mean in this post. All opinions expressed are my own and based on what I know of pac. Anyone is free to disagree with me. and thank you to @pinkieclown and @per-the-jellicle-magician for proof reading!

I”ll keep this simple cause I don’t want to get ranty on Tumblr, but by removing and cutting so many aspects of the show out they’ve lost key characterization for the female cast and replaced them with virtually nothing.

My problem isn’t that the characters don’t resemble their stage counterparts; that was expected. The issue is that they aren’t given much of a character at all. You could switch their names, and nothing would change. This problem isn’t apparent with their male counterparts with previously established on-stage storylines. 

Male characters in the reimagining, such as Munkustrap, Rum Tum Tugger, and even Macavity, retain or gain distinctive characteristics and storylines. Munkustrap is portrayed as an MC not a leader but still very much leading the show, it’s the same general role; Rum Tum Tugger as a charming rogue though slightly more akin to his 2019 movie counterpart except he still manages to ‘save the day’ at the end, and Macavity, despite his thievery, is given a more comical persona with a deeper relation to his now fellow jellicles.

 In contrast, female characters are stripped of their individuality and reduced to plot devices or mere extensions of male characters. Victoria doesn’t experience a coming-of-age or even touch Grizabella here. (It’s old Deut pretty sure which…I have problems with) She’s simply another attendant at the ball with a solo at the start that lacks deeper meaning. She’s portrayed as a ‘drag baby,’ and as stated by her actress  this isn’t even her first ball. No pas de deux or additional solo is performed to further her importance in the narrative. This reduction strips Victoria of her journey and her role within the tribe or in this case community. 

Demeter and Bombalurina have no dark history with Macavity, which affects Demeter’s characterization more than Bomb’s. They are reduced to his drag daughters and are merely other competitors at the ball who further Macavity’s story by being the ones he steals for. This change eliminates the layers of trauma and complexity in Demeter’s character, reducing her to a plot device for Macavity’s storyline.

If the female characters aren’t given distinct roles, their characters end up heavily associated with male counterparts: Jellylorum with Gus, Jennyanydots with Munkustrap, and of course, Bombalurina and Demeter with Macavity. They don’t exist as individuals without these associations, as their typical roles are relegated to the background.

In the original stage show, despite its issues in instances, female characters like Demeter and Bombalurina exhibit significant agency and emotional depth. Demeter’s fear of Macavity and Bombalurina’s protective nature towards her and the kittens add layers to their characters. The reimagining erases this agency, reducing them to passive participants who exist only to further male characters' narratives. Namely Macavity’s here.

Now, it is important to note that a lot of characterization happens outside of the character’s main numbers. Things like who they interact with in their down time, what they do when they’re not actively participating in a song besides simply watching and waiting for the next que; that’s when the actors are given time to just be the character. The actors don’t have as many opportunities to do that here just due to the formatting of the show with the runway catwalk and walking space outside it. During which they’re mostly interacting with the audience or reacting to what’s happening on stage. They don’t have a lot of moments to just interact with each other to give the audience a better feel of who they are. 

The reduction of female characters in 'Cats: The Jellicle Ball' reflects broader patterns of misogyny in the media. Historically, female characters have often been sidelined, their stories minimized, and their roles diminished to support male-centric plots. This reimagining perpetuates this problematic trend by failing to provide female characters with the same depth and development afforded to their male counterparts.

I know what you’re going to say ‘but Grizabella’. Yea, Grizabella has fifteen minutes of stage time and she’s the character who resembles her stage counterpart the most. That’s why these issues negate her and she’s of the few I don’t have this problem with, the others being Rumpleteazer, Cassandra, and Skimbleshanks as her role has never had a deeper narrative meaning outside of reflecting the behaviors of the tribe as a whole.

In conclusion, the reimagining of 'Cats: The Jellicle Ball' is a missed opportunity to reframe and enrich the narratives of its female characters. Instead, it falls into the trap of diminishing their roles and individuality, perpetuating a longstanding issue in media representation.

[dittydipity]

what is kagepro? - a quick guide

you may be seeing the word "kagepro" around a whole bunch, especially during august, but what the hell is it?

you may have heard or seen something from kagepro without realizing it! you know that vocaloid song, kagerou daze, about the kids who get hit by a truck and are stuck in a timeloop of saving each other? that's actually one of the songs from kagepro.

kagepro, short for the kagerou project, is a series created by vocaloid composer jin (also known as shizen no teki-p). it's a mixed media series that has music, manga, an anime, movie, a radio talk show, books, etc but i’ll try to keep it simple!

basic premise: people who die on 8/15 are taken to another world called the kagerou daze and if they return to the real world, they will have gained a “snake ability” that will turn their eyes red when used. a group of teens that have these abilities form a little gang but are thrown into an endless timeloop.

THE MEDIA

if you want to get into it, there’s a bunch of different ways you can do it, but do keep in mind: each form of media is NOT just a different adaptation of the story.

kagepro is a timeloop story, and each form of media is actually a different timeline (or “route”). the music videos, the anime, the manga, the books - each one is only a piece of the whole story. that’s why many people may have seen the anime, mekakucity actors, and gotten super confused because the anime is actually one of the last routes haha.

but the order of media that has been generally agreed upon to be the most coherent is music videos -> manga -> light novels -> anime

a lot of kagepro media, esp the light novels and manga, are hard to find since they’re almost entirely out of print, but there’s translations or e-book versions of them available, or if you skip them there’s summaries that people have made. you can also ask me if you want :]

music videos

i’ve actually made a couple playlists for the songs! one is in release order and the other is in story chronological order (mostly).

release order: - i tried to get all the original ia/miku versions of the songs with the original pv if there was one - a couple might be a little out of order since some songs came out together in the same album

this is the order that fans got the music, so if you want to try to figure things out and put things together the way we did you can go with this order!

chronological order: - tried to grab some english covers where i could, but if you don’t like eng covers there are plenty of noneng covers or you can use the videos from the other playlist. there's plenty of really great covers out there! - exceptions to the “chronological”: children record acts as the cover/opening song for the series and summertime record is the ending song for the series - some songs aren’t in here bc they’re not part of the music route (they’re mostly from the newer albums and are kinda like ‘epilogue’ songs after the ending of the anime/good ending or are songs made for the anime)

THE STORY

if you don't want to go through all the media yourself, here’s a video explaining the whole story by breadbox/david toth! he also has other really great kagepro videos

[a bit of an extra] a very common misconception about the story/mechanics: people do not have to die in pairs or with somebody else on 8/15 to enter the daze. i didn’t realize this myself until super recently

all in all, the kagerou project is a story about finding strength and support from the people around you, moving on to look towards the future, and overcoming trauma.

there’s definitely other people who have also made guides or summaries or videos that are much better and cover much more than i did, but i hope this was a decent introduction!

feel free to reach out and/or ask me anything! i'm sure there are also plenty of people who would be willing to help newcomers understand kagepro as well :]

happy kagerou day!

[odysseus-crewmate-number38]

hiiii babes, r u just a liker of epic musical, or do you have also any amount of knowledge of the odyssey? if you do, id really like to hear like. any character thoughts on odysseus. he seems like a really interesting guy, but that's percisely why i can't seem to grasp him from like. tumblr shitposts

hii! I rlly like epic the musical but i’ve also read the odyssey two months ago and enjoyed it a lot. Reading how he’s like in the Odyssey compared to how he’s portrayed in Epic was really interesting. His changes from the start of his journey to getting to Ithaca was probably my favourite part of his character overall

like how in polyphemus’s cave he was quick to let pride get to him leading to him revealing his name resulting in multiple catastrophes that cost his crews life to him letting his pride not get in the way when the suitors treated him with no respect so he could strategise with his ‘evil thoughts’

his parallels with penelope were really nice too. she was offered bountiful gifts all better than the last to remarry to one of the suitors but she refused and waited for odysseus. meanwhile odysseus was offered immortality by an all powerful goddess, and even after going through the underworld and seeing how it would treat him once he passes, he still chose going back home to his kingdom and family. Their whole ‘you’re very strange’ exchange was one of my favourite exchanges made in the book ^^

[fuckmatpat]

Hey! I was wondering if you had thoughts on wendigoon? I have been watching his videos lately and he mentioned matpat in his fnaf episode (I found out later after trying to watch the video that fnaf's creator is transphobic). So, transphobic references x2. I am basically on the fence about wendigoon bc he hasn't said anything specifically on the other videos I've seen... idk I was wondering if you had thoughts on this. Thank you for your time!

well... i don't watch him. so i don't have much or any comment on his work or videos. but i'd probably start with the name/branding he has going on. He profits off of indigenous culture/folklore by selling plushes of the creature in its image. The creature is used to represent (from what i've been told) native americans being displaced and their people being horribly mistreated by colonizers. It's representitve of trauma. Knowing what i know from natives in this community and outside of it, it feels extra gross and anti-indigenous, what he's doing.

Also turning a creature from indigenous folklore into a 'quirky username' is kind of 😬😬

i would not really suggest him as a content creator to watch

[vespurrway]

has there been any mcsr-related project (like art, fic, tournament, anything) that you really liked? why?

not gonna find links to past events because i'm lazy but one thing i do admire about mcsr community is how community members always host events & tourneys to raise money for charity.

it's pride month again and every pride month there's always fundraising events, like couples counselling 3 right now for the trevor project (well, it's ongoing, as in the last two days are this weekend, June 15th & 16th) AND another charity event that's gonna take place the weekend after (June 23rd, unannounced for now).

and it's not just pride! i distinctly recall mcsr raising money for women's reproductive rights (US based, for the situation at the time iirc), mcsr for palestine quite recently, and i'm sure there will be many more to come.

tl;dr mcsr is not a very big community but everyone does their part and chips in for charity & other causes which is fucking banger.

[littlepillbugs]

On my site: Cat breeding genes simulator

Use it here!

Note: The ginger gene is sex-linked, so only the XX parent (the queen) can be a tortie/calico in this simulation. But feel free to use this for gay cat pairings if you want to

[mrrosedoodler]

News Update

Let's start with what's going on in Palestine today. On June 25th, 2024, Israeli forces have targeted five displacement camps, have attacked a home in Khan Younis and a tent in al-Mawasi that was sheltering people. Said attack has killed and injured at least six people at the time of this report.

Famine continues to be a struggle for Palestinians, as they are left with little to nothing to feed themselves and their families. Families have been resorting to eating grass, animal feed, and anything they can get their hands on to try and keep themselves alive.

Two schools have been bombed and set ablaze, killing 14 people thus far.

The current death toll for Palestinians stands at 37,658 deaths, with an additional 86,237 injured.

(1) (2) (3)

Sudan has been having a humanitarian crisis for years, with the situation only becoming worse.

Since April 15th, 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been locked in a violent civil war. Many Sudan residents have had to flee their homes to escape the conflict. On top of all of this, Sudan has been experiencing severe weather events - mainly floods and droughts. Crops and livestock have dwindled, bringing about an extreme shortage of food and water.

As of June 10, 2024, 12+ million people have been forced to leave behind their homes and evacuate.

Almost 15,000 people have been killed as of April 19, 2024.

(1) (2) (3)

Here are some charities you can donate to in order to help Palestine and Sudan;

PALESTINE -

Palestine Children's Relief Fund

UNRWA

Doctors Without Borders

SUDAN -

CARE

Doctors Without Borders

Sudan Relief Fund

If you can't help monetarily, spread the word and look into this document for ways to help Palestine. I'm going to start looking into ways to help Sudan outside of charities - if anyone has anything they can contribute, please reach out!

[yaboijakie]

context: i never watched rvb zero, i watched one episode and just never felt the desire to continue watching it

however i am currently rewatching the rvb series with a friend who is watching it for the first time, so i'm willing to give rvb zero a chance once we get to it. maybe it isn't as bad as i saw people say it was

but i got curious and decided to look into the reactions towards it and also learned a bit more about how the season was made and all i can say is

what the fuck were they thinking

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Ok so!

My mind is an overtime worker with benefits that loves its job, and holy moley does having writer friends get those extra hours in

So, Reverse Robin Au’s right? General consensus I see is that Tim gets JJ’d in those worlds to coincide with Jason getting crowbarred and/or Steph goes and has her revenge on Black Mask a-la Jason’s revenge on the Joker

My friend, @thefantasmarex, shared their idea and we got to chatting and I thought “Huh, what about a reverse YJ?”

Reverse in the fact that they have their lives swapped with their other counterparts or more villainous characters like them to fit an Outlaws model to go with the Reverse Robins! Tim and Steph

My mind went to swapping Kon with Match, making Kon an initially obedient clone who escaped and has a degenerative issue with his body YJ!outlaws helped him with when they found him. With this swap Kon isn’t a mixed DNA clone, he’s a genetic ‘Match’ to Superman but is really unstable and needs maintenance CADMUS can’t keep up with for their pet superhero so he’s left to die after a mission gone wrong, so he names himself Matthew after getting consciousness the same way he elongated his Kryptonian name. Kon -> Conner, Match -> Matthew

Bart is swapped with Inertia, aged slower instead of faster and this chaotic kid who’s way to smart and aware for his age bc he aged really messed up. I named him Ardor.

Cassie, in lack of villains or nemeses I knew about for her, is swapped with Artemis of Bana-Mighdall. Having been scooped up by Amazons while with her mom at a dig after she’d wandered off really young and was raised as a warrior in the same vein as Artemis, going in this AU but he name Hestia instead.

Plus, I toyed around with the thought of Artemis and “Match” still being around the same way Jason comes into okay and becomes the next Robin later. The new ‘Superboy’ is a mix of Superman and a human donor to be more stabilized but is more attention seeking and only cares about heroism when it’s caught on camera, leaning into being the perfect pet superhero because it gets him what he wants: Adoration from his fans and praise from his creators.

From what I read (admittedly from a few wiki’s and feel free to correct me or add on) Artemis was raised by patriotic American soldiers as parents (??) so while she gets Cassie’s old backstory she’s also a bit flawed, earning the recognition that grants her the blessing that empower her to be like an Amazon but leans more towards the fighting and warrior spirit bit of it all and not the diplomatic “fight with compassion and love” side of it all Diana also promotes.

[atthebell]

This is kind of a linguistics question but maybe it has to do with lore. I know tazercraft joke with richas about his portuguese and how they can't understand it sometimes, do you know why? Is Ricardao not fluent? Does he use different regional lingo? At first I thought it was a different admin but i think it's definitely Ricardao most if not all of the time.

^ this is not any hate at all towards Pac and Mike, I love them a ton and their relationship with richas is sooo funny, the way they all tease each other is adorable and so entertaining. I'm just curious about the context!

no ricardão is def fluent he's just awful at spelling lmao, and also my impression is he's from a different region of brazil from them. he uses "tu" a decent amount, which is the second person informal form while "você" is the second person formal, although most brazilians use it in informal situations today (similar to how most spanish speakers outside spain don't use vosotros and use ustedes instead-- same thing, wherein the formal version has become the standard and gets used informally by most speakers).

my understanding is using tu is pretty much only common in specific regions of brazil, like the two southern states (rio grande do sul (which is where cellbit is from, although he mostly has a paulista accent as we've talked about before) & santa catarina) as well as some of the northeastern states; map below from portuguesewitheli (+ the article linked gets into more details):

you also have to remember as well that brazil is a very large country, so regional differences can be pretty significant; i would guess ricardão just speaks a slightly different dialect of brazilian portuguese and maybe that's what they're teasing him about, but i couldn't say for sure as obviously ricardão has never said and i'm not familiar enough with textual differences or brazilian accents generally to say. i think mostly they're just making fun of him for his spelling and bc he talks like he spends too much time on twitter though

[max-uhhhh-talks]

This is my attempt at trying to understand this God-forsaken timeline

☆ Primo born about 1930s (stated in wiki)

Nihil would have had to be AT LEAST in his 20s, technically speaking

☆ Secondo+Terzo born about 1950s (stated in wiki)

☆ 1960s (forgot specific date lmao)- KTGG

Nihil about in his 50s? (woah)

☆ Copia born about 1970 (stated in wiki)

☆ Primo as frontman 2008-2012

☆ December 15, 2012 - Primo retires

in his 80s (stated in interview)

Secondo+Terzo in 60s (however interview says Secondo in his 50s idk)

☆ Secondo as frontman 2012-2015

☆ Terzo as frontman 2015-2017

☆ April 30, 2018 - emeriti die

primo late 80s/early 90s

Secondo+Terzo 60s/early 70s

☆ March 3, 2020 - Nihil dies, Copia becomes Papa

Nihil about 110?? Bro's old af???

Copia about 50

[bretwalda-lamnguin]

Ptolemaic Gondor?

Tolkien named Ancient Egypt as one of the inspirations for Gondor-particularly aesthetically and in their capacity for grand architecture. The crown of Gondor also resembles the crown of Upper Egypt, tall and conical, with similar symbolism between the combining of the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt and the combination of the Gondorian crown with the Arnorian diadem-the Elendilmir. I think there is also a deeper link between Gondor and Ancient Egypt, particularly Egypt under the Ptolemaic dynasty, the last to rule Egypt before the Romans annexed it.

Under the cut for a brief history of Ptolemaic Egypt and what that has to do with Gondor!

The Ptolemies were descended from one of Alexander the Great’s generals, called, unsurprisingly, Ptolemy. Alexander and his army were from Macedon, a northern Greek kingdom. In the chaos after Alexander’s death his generals carved up his empire, with Ptolemy rushing to Egypt and having himself proclaimed Pharaoh. The Ptolemaic dynasty ruled from Alexandria, a city founded by Alexander in the Nile delta, on the shores of the Mediterranean. Ptolemy was a Macedonian, and many other Macedonians, both soldiers of Alexander and others, followed them to Egypt. Alexandria became a great centre of Greek Hellenic culture dominated by Macedonians, who became basically a ruling class of this new Ptolemaic state. The highest offices of government were reserved for Macedonians, Macedonian Greek was the court language, the military was made up (at first at least) of Macedonians and mercenaries, with no recruitment from the Egyptian population. The traditional Egyptian religion and the role of the Pharaoh within it remained (with some Greek introductions), but in most other things Macedonians and their customs dominated. No Ptolemaic Pharaoh even knew how to speak Egyptian until Cleopatra VII (yes, that’s THE Cleopatra), the last ruler of the dynasty! Even she seems to have done little to better integrate Egyptians and Macedonians, with the Macedonians remaining firmly in charge until the Romans annexed Egypt.

Now the Ptolemies were not the only successors of Alexander, and one of their main rivals were the Seleucid empire, founded by fellow Macedonian general Seleucus. The Ptolemies often fought for control of the Levant in the Syrian wars. During the reign of Ptolemy IV the Ptolemies and Seleucids were embroiled in the fourth Syrian war. Faced with manpower shortages within the Macedonian ruling class, Ptolemy IV’s army included Egyptians trained to fight in the Macedonian style as part of the phalanx. At Raphia, Ptolemy IV won a decisive victory, with the Egyptian troops playing a key role in the battle. While this did improve the lot of Egyptians within Ptolemaic Egypt, Macedonians continued to dominate both the state and the military, and the failure to further integrate Egyptians into the army contributed to the weakening of the Ptolemaic state, which enjoyed arguably its finest hour at Raphia. A succession of poor rulers and civil war would see the state decline, eventually being annexed into the Roman empire after the death of Cleopatra VII.

Now, how does that fit with Gondor?

Gondor was founded by Númenorian exiles, with a Númenorian ruling class. Its main languages are Westron (descended from Númenorian Andunaic) and Sindarin, a common language among certain Númenorian communities. Comparisons may be made between Alexandria and cities like Pelargir and Osgiliath as centres of Númenorian dominance and culture (Pelargir especially, there is a reason Castamir liked it so much). And, like Ptolemaic Egypt, it seems like Númenorians dominated the military, with other peoples excluded. To quote Faramir:

“But the stewards were wiser and more fortunate. Wiser, for they recruited the strength of our people from the sturdy folk of the sea-coast, and from the hardy mountaineers of Ered Nimrais.”

This would seem to imply that prior to this, these peoples were excluded, and Númenorians dominated the military. But the Gondorians learned their lesson, at least to a greater degree than the Ptolemies did, and were able to slow their decline by better integrating non-Númenorians into the state. Númenorians still hold the highest positions of power (Denethor and Imrahil are the two most powerful men in the country in the late third age, both are Númenorians), but military discrimination is at least heavily reduced.

The appendices and unfinished tales do say that Northmen were recruited into the Gondorian military after the Kin-Strife, and mentions them in Eärnur’s army sent to fight Angmar. These may have been analogous to the mercenary forces used by the Ptolemies, rather than representing a widening of recruitment (though many Northmen did settle in Gondor after the Kin-Strife).

Obviously the comparisons are not 1:1, but I think early Gondor may well have resembled Ptolemaic Egypt in the structure and stratification of society. I suspect that this began heavily breaking down after the Kin-Strife. For a start, a lot of Númenorians are dead, or have been forced to renounce their ancestry by Eldacar. The Gondorians will need to look elsewhere for a supply of manpower. Númenorian supremacy may well start being seen as treasonous due to Castamir’s actions, and an active threat to the continued existence of the Gondorian state. By Denethor II’s time the Gondorian army seems far more diverse, and even many of the aristocrats may well be non-Númenorian (though again, Denethor and Imrahil occupy the most powerful positions).

[angie-da-spoof]

Listen up

For anyone who is somehow not aware what is going on, or is, in Palestine, I want to inform or remind you with whatever knowledge I have. Right now Palestinians are being bombed, tortured, and misplaced from their families. They are without clean water and little food, and almost all houses have been destroyed. Israel is trying to paint the murder they committed as justifiable because Palestinians are "dangerous", and because they deserve their turn at a genocide too. Promised refuge and safety they fled to Gaza, only to be met with more death. They are STEALING the land away from Palestinians, forcing them bit by bit to either hand over $10,000 per person to evacuate, to resist and survive the best they can, or to die. More than 35,000 Palestinians have died, about 5,100 being children. 100 Palestinian journalists have been murdered in an attempt to silence them, so, if you are supporting companies that are funding the genocide against them, shame on you. If you think or say that speaking out against Israeli is "anti-semitic", shame on you. If you believe that because this doesn't affect you it doesn't matter, shame on you. If you are refraining from speaking out because you "don't know enough", shame on you. If you know what is happening and aren't doing anything, anything at all, Shame. On. You. As said by Elie Wiesel-an author who wrote many books on another very important and sickening genocide, the Holocaust- in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, "And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent when and wherever human beings endure suf- fering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." Now, I'm asking you to think. Think reeeeaaalll hard about what's going on. Is it right to stay silent? Is it right, to just ignore everything as Palestinians are being bombed and murdered at this very moment? Is it right, to go to Starbucks because you can't go without your fucking vanilla latte? Even what I'm doing is not enough, and if you're wondering, "then what is?" I can tell you: Banding together and protesting, donating, speaking out, doing all of that, ENDING the genocide for fucks sake. That is what would be enough.