#maybe its just the pedantic historian in me but like

[sabraeal]

House of Stone (Preview)

The fourth and final fic of the Holiday Rare Pair series...or is it? The vote originally selected a full chapter of this fic, but unfortunately...there’s a prequel fic I have to write to really nail down what I want to do. There’s no Zihal in this preview, just some HINTS...and so post-bingo (maybe even post-obiyukiweek?) I’ll be writing an ACTUAL Zihal fic. But until then...enjoy this little sneak peek of a fic series that should be upcoming next year...

In the annals of the kingdom’s histories, before they become the North’s warden, it is said the House of Bergatt once served as its kings; a long uninterrupted line from Dai the Iron-Handed to Kenzo Bent-Knee. Zen would never doubt the words of the court historians-- not where his tutors could hear, at least-- but Tomo classified dolphins as fish, and Kohi was notoriously beneath the thumb of the Wisteria king of his age, and by extension, his Bergatt wife. A little embellishment went a long way over a few centuries.

But he believes every word of it now.

Tariga glares at the boat with such icy derision, Zen half expects the rail to rime over, no matter how humid the sea air. “I don’t understand. Yuris has to have a port. It’s a major part of our trading routes outside the continent.”

“It does.” It sits in the distance, a gentle mound bristling with trees, hunched on the horizon. Kihal told him that from the air it looked like a bird nested in sleep, but on the map it’s just another craggy oval, larger than the others in its chain. “But that’s on the other side of the island.”

“Then why aren’t we going there?” The row boat rattles on the winch, and Tariga’s face blanches a shade whiter, like the snows of Wilant themselves. “It’s better to dock than leave the ship anchored out at sea, isn’t it? The crew would probably appreciate--”

“The crew will be heading back to the port city as soon as we’re off.” By the new shade of pale Tariga discovers, this is not the sort of assurance he’d been hoping for. “The port is on Brecker’s side of the island. Who I’d like to avoid, otherwise he’ll have to invite us to dinner.”

Tariga casts him a dubious glance. “Would that be so terrible?”

“No,” Zen allows, “but then we’d have to go.”

It’s the sort of joke that, in his humble opinion. merits at least a chuckle. Obi might have delivered the line with more aplomb, a little more colorful sarcasm, but his timing was at least solid. At least worth more than the crickets it gets. And it certainly didn’t earn the wide-eyed wariness Tariga aims at him now, as if--

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Mitsuhide says, so mild, from just above his shoulder. “But I was under the impression that Izana asked you specifically to dine with the viscount while we were here. As a courtesy.”

“Ah...” Mitsuhide might never get really, truly angry, but the weight of his disappointment has smothered better men than him. “Yes, he did. But he didn’t say we had to do it right away...”

Even with nearly a decade of service, it will never cease to surprise him how easily his aide can move. A head taller than nearly any man besides his brother and twice as wide in the shoulders, Mitsuhide still springs to his side with a cat’s grace, catching his shoulder before he can slink away.

“But you won’t forget, I hope?” His hand might as well be a yoke for how heavy it sits on him. “Zen?”

“Ah...” If he doesn’t look at him, then there’s no possible way Mitsuhide can see him sweat. “Of course. I would never disappoint my esteemed brother. I just think...it’s better to meet with the Yuris first. You know, for...diplomacy.”

Tariga’s mouth bent into a stubborn frown. “Protocol dictates that you are to introduce yourself formally to the lord of a land before taking up residence.”

If Obi were here, he’d have some choice remarks to make about that. I wouldn’t expect you to know about that one, your grace, he’d probably say, all limbs and sly smiles, considering how easily your brother forgot that little bit of politesse.

He would have had to scold him of course-- one didn’t spout truths with such blithe impunity in the company of lords-- but that would at least save him the trouble of these impromptu etiquette lessons.

“And since you’re the prince royal,” Tariga continues, warming to the subject, “wouldn’t it would be rude if the viscount didn’t also offer to house you and your--?”

“Right, but this is different.” He’s not quite sure how, but surely he’ll be able to invent a reason between the start of his next sentence and the end of it. “The Yuris are a, ah, sovereign tribe, who provide a vital service to the crown, and they would take it as a personal insult if we were to meet with Brecker before coming to greet them.”

Tariga’s pale brows draw tight over his nose. “Sovereign tribe? I thought Yuris as a whole was beneath the viscount, not foreign allies...?”

Mitsuhide’s dark eyes pin him with the sort of look that says, now how do you plan to get out of this one? Zen bites his cheeks to keep from scowling back. Of all the things he’d like Kiki to answer for, leaving him with a suddenly pedantic and intently rules-abiding aide would be at the top.

“Semi-sovereign,” he corrects. “They handle themselves on the whole, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the interests of Clarines.”

His aide shifts, the sternness in his expression turning to the fainest ghost of humor. “I don’t think many of the Yuris would appreciate the insinuation they owed anything to the viscount besides what he earns.”

Tariga, guileless, asks, “And that would be...?”

“Why don’t you ask them when you get there?” Zen suggests. He could use the entertainment after the last few months cooped up in Wilant. “I’m sure the chieftain’s granddaughter would be happy to give her opinion.”

It is a herculean effort not to grin, especially under Mitsuhide’s warning gaze. He keeps it down to a twitch of his lips, easily buried beneath his hand. Kihal would certainly have a long list of ideas, starting with a swift kick in the posterior and possibly ending with being tossed out his own tower, this time not sea-side.

“And all this,” Tariga says after a long moment, “is why we have to go ashore in...these?”

The wind knocks the row boat against the ship’s side, earning a dubious glare from Tariga, the sort that only a lord born land-locked and frozen could.

“Yes.” Zen gives it a pat for good measure, biting back a grin as his aide’s knees quiver. “Don’t worry, you’ll love it.”

No matter how many times he makes he trip to Yuris, Zen can never remember how long the actually crossing takes. In his memory, they are hanging from the ship’s deck one moment, Yuris a hunched, jade shell in the distance, and the next they are at the dock, the tribesmen clapping them on the back. But in truth, well--

“Two hours,” Tariga reports to him as they arrive, salt-soaked and pink, at the dock. “We’ve been rowing for two hours.”

“The crew has,” Mitsuhide corrects, so gentle. “It’s not a short trip.”

“No,” Tariga agrees, “just long enough to boil us for dinner.”

Ah, and that had been another thing he’d forgotten-- as nice as the sun felt on the ship’s deck, wind ruffling through his hair, on the open waters it was no better than a mirror, reflecting the heat a thousand ways. When the wind wound to a lull, cooking seemed an apt description for what occurred in the confines of their vessel.

Zen leaned back in his seat, letting his fingers trail in the bay. The water is clear this close the the islands, like looking through glass.

“Do you see them?” he asks, smiling down at the colorful shapes swimming below. “All those fish, off on their own business, not even aware we’re here. A whole world beneath our feet, and not an inch of it explored by man.”

His newest aide tilts, just slightly, head turning to gaze out mildly across the water. It is the only concession he makes before saying, “Were you bringing that to some point?”

Zen’s mouth twitches; he hides it in the crook of his arm. “It feels like freedom, doesn’t it?”

Tariga sits quietly as the boat bumps the pier, mouth pressed to a thin, white line.

“I’m not sure how to break this to you, Highness,” Tariga says finally, trembling wretchedly in his seat. “I know you believed I would enjoy this excursion, but--” his mouth wrinkles with displeasure-- “I do not love it.”

“But it’s an adventure.” Zen gives him a wide grin. “More fun than sitting up in that old, drafty castle in the middle of the winter snows, at least.”

Tariga lets out a sniff. “I think that perhaps you and I do not see eye to eye on what makes a good time.”

“Oh.” He casts a long glance back at Mitsuhide, who is making a valiant effort to stay sober and stalwart even as his mouth twitches. “I think you’ll come around.”

[jali-writes]

thirty-one asks for writers.📜

what is a genre you love reading but will probably never write?

horror, cyberpunk  

which writer has had the greatest stylistic influence on your writing?

fuck if i know

has a specific song or lyric ever inspired a work of art for you?

HAS IT

a writer whose personal lifestyle speaks to you?

i’m not interested in the lifestyles of other creators. it’s personal and furthermore, whatever works for them usually doesn’t work for me.

do you write both prose or poetry? which do you prefer?

prose. i hate poetry.

do you read both prose and poetry? preference?

see above

which languages do you write in? which do you want to write in someday?

uhhhhhhhh english??? unless you wanna count french, my n5 japanese, my fluency in html and css, and my pidgin python?

share a quote or verse that has been on your mind lately.

It is said that when his wife died, Cronus wept for one thousand days and nights, collecting his tears and fashioning them into a beautiful crystal devoid of color –for his world felt devoid of love or joy without his lover, and the only beauty he could see were the memories in his tears.

a writer/poet whose life you find very interesting?

again, i literally don’t care. probably the only writer i know anything about was hemmingway, and i think he was a complete chad, with anger issues and addition issues. plus all his work sucks, don’t @ me.

what do you feel about the idea about someone unearthing your unseen or discarded drafts someday, long after your death? what about your personal journal?

i write my diaries with the frame of mind that someday, someone might stumble upon them and have a peek into what life was like during the years of my life recorded. who knows, maybe it’ll help future historians. or maybe they’ll just find me very irritating and pedantic.

do you prefer to write in silence or listen to something? what do you listen to?

lately it’s been chillhop in general. i used to write to just about anything, provided it worked for the scene, but i was younger and more energetic, and uninhibited by the effects of depression.

has an image ever impacted your artistic lens/inspired your work?

yes and no. for my current project, i’ve had in mind different geographical elements, architecture, and fashions for each different location, so i sought out the best i could find based on real-world examples to serve as visual reminders.

what would you describe the experience of writing itself? as in putting the words to paper, not planning or moodboards etc. do you agree with the common idea that the satisfaction lies in reading your work after you are done with it, rather than the process of writing itself?

uhhhh.... writing is .... making words happen in an appealing and emotive way? the satisfaction for me lies in finding just the right words and arranging them just so, so that the exact idea in my head is transcribed for others. but i tend to work in a vacuum so it’s up to my editor(s) to make sure my transcription makes any sense lol

how often do you write?

when depression permits, when i have a story to tell.

how disciplined are you about your writing?

i don’t block time, i just neglect other things in favor of writing. this means going without food or shower or sleep, and i’m well aware it isn’t healthy, but it’s how i roll. my digital files are immaculately named and organized. my diaries and bullet journals are dated, and my written-on-paper drafts are in bound notebooks labelled by volume.

what was your last long-lasting spurt of motivation?

about 2 days ago. i was on a 3 day binge, writing.

have you ever been professionally published? are you trying to be?

some would argue publishing online is “professional enough”, but seeing as all i’ve got are fanfics, i’m gonna say no. i would be sued black and blue if i tried to make bank off those ips. i would very much love to become published in hardcopy one day, but it’s a struggle for me to make my original constructions play out.

do you read literary magazines?

no. in fact i’m not a fan of anything literary, i find it pretentious and the people associated therein imo look down on fiction like it’s a dirty old scab.

a lesser known writer you adore?

n/a

do you write short stories? do you read them?

write, yes, read, no. unless it’s something my friend sends me for feedback, of course.

do you prefer to involve yourself with literary history and movements or are you more focused on the writing itself? any favourite literary movements?

we don’t do literary anything in this house. it’s pure fiction or gtfo. i barely have the energy to write at all most days, nevermind change the world and the way it views [concept] at large.

are you working on anything right now?

yes.

how did you get started with writing?

at some point in my late infancy i developed the motor skills to hold a writing implement. i would staple sheets of paper into a booklet and scribble on them, and then read back my “book” to anyone who would listen. i’m told i’ve been making up fanciful stories since i could talk. ironically enough by the time i was expected to learn how to read, i was so steadfastly against it, my mother and teachers feared i’d have to repeat first grade or be illiterate for the rest of my life. somehow my mom got through to me and after that, i consumed more books through scholastic orders than food. by 2nd grade i was reading at a 5th grade level; by 3rd i was reading at a 9th grade level.

do you have any “writer friends”?

at least 2

what is your earliest work you can remember?

i was 11 years old, in 6th grade, and my english teacher told us to make up our own fairytale. so i wrote about my cat.

have you found your writer’s voice yet? does your work have a distinct tone?

i have a portfolio of voices.

do your works share themes/are commonly about certain topics? or are your subjects all over the place?

mythology, love in all its forms, acceptance, family, self-discovery, neato buildings, supernatural, magic

what does writing mean to you?

the act of creation; getting to see places and journey with people i’d never otherwise meet; thinking about the way people are

in an alternate universe, imagine you had not found writing. what do you think would be your fixation otherwise?

screwing on the caps of toothpaste tubes

do you feel defined by your work?

as far as i can tell, i have yet to be defined by anything. i think being defined by something means it has ownership over you, but i am the creator, the maker, the god here, and i own it all. it does not own me.

have you ever written/considered writing under a pen name? if you would be okay saying, why?

yeah but i’m not saying what that penname would be because that would ruin the anonymity of having such a name.

[rgr-pop]

even in light of every point I’m about to make, I found that little interview interesting and thoughtful, worth a read. I especially found the examples of “emotional labor” as recently defined in the press to be very jarring and illuminating. I’m not pedantic about social science terms (or like, I’m trying to not be, because pedantry is a form of incorrectness, and it’s important to be correct) and I know it can’t count as scholarship if we aren’t reworking concepts. but yeah, in the past I’ve tended to land very much on the side of “that’s absolutely not what those words mean,” and in the case of “emotional labor” the misuses are really wild. at the same time, I think that what’s going on is not really even exactly “concept creep” (imo) and, more importantly, I think “concept creep” is a bad concept that we shouldn’t use. above all of my political issues with its new mobilization, it’s a term coming out of psychology and I think it’s fundamentally unsuited for talking about a social-political phenomenon taking place in a content-producing economy. the application is like, extremely I Want to Fuck The Concept Of Social Sciences, which makes it sort of funny given the argument at hand! is our endgame here to make sure we run every idea by a panel of five tenured social scientists before we make a claim? or are we trying to be more precise, and get to the heart of a problem? (the answer is neither: we are trying to sell the shiniest new trickle-down social theory! and then, the shiniest new social theory patch. our goal is to produce more and more short posts that talk about how we need to be more precise! only that.)

I’m going to test something out here, an idea I’ve come to after reading some thoughts from other labor historians I “know” (am mutuals with on twitter/whose work I read), as well as other stuff: I’m not sure “emotional labor” as hochshild imagined it is either a great framework or the framework we really need right now. or, rather, I know it’s not the framework we need, the term we’re looking for. I more tentatively think it’s maybe not that workable even on its own terms. 

one thing I find pretty interesting about her interview there is that she herself seems to be making a “creep” away from some of her earlier stakes. the managed heart doesn’t exactly argue that “emotional labor” is always paid, nor that it is always as necessarily operating only formally. just look at her interview definition vs. the definition in the introduction of the book:

Emotional labor, as I introduced the term in The Managed Heart, is the work, for which you’re paid, which centrally involves trying to feel the right feeling for the job. This involves evoking and suppressing feelings. 

(2018)

[Emotional labor] requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others--in [the case of flight attendants], the sense of being cared for in a convivial and safe place. This kind of labor calls for the coordination of mind and feeling, and it sometimes draws on a source of self that we honor as deep and integral to our individuality. 

Beneath the difference between physical and emotional labor there lies a similarity in the possible cost of doing the work: the worker can become estranged or alienated from an aspect of self--either the body or the margins of the soul--that is used to do the work.

(1979)

two things stuck out to me about this interview. in it, she suggests that “emotional labor” was always intended to describe paid, public labor, but she also suggests that she is newly imagining it to describe the management of others’ emotions, especially domestically. this is pretty interesting to me because the management of others’ emotions--the production of an emotional response in service industry consumers--was always and is very obviously central to the managed heart. at the same time, much of the book is about non-paid emotional management (or at least, it deals with unpaid emotional labor in order to pull out ideas about its commercialization.)

I feel a couple of ways about what she is doing above with “feeling the right feeling.” on one hand, I feel like she has recently been overemphasizing the affective experiential component of what made her original argument good. on the other hand, looking back at that book, the feeling of emotional labor is so much more central to the argument than I think is even workable, maybe.

so, yes, I mean, I’m not just pointing out that what she is saying about her own work is itself her own new interpretation of her own work, because..that’s actually good scholarship. but pulling this up now I’m also reminded that many of the “emotional labor isn’t x, it’s actually blah blah” stuff on tumblr has not really been correct! it’s funny, we’re dealing with “this concept belongs only to this book and the scholar who wrote it” and it’s not even a long book and people can’t even get it right! but that’s whatever, I don’t actually care about that part. I just think it’s no longer a matter of who is right about “emotional labor,” but what if we consider whether “emotional labor” is a good theory.

she does talk about some things, in this interview, that get to the heart of (one of) the problems with what she was doing with the managed heart, look at this:

Beck: Is it emotional labor when you try to say your ideas in a meeting in a nonthreatening way? Hochschild: Not unless it is experienced as anxiety-provoking or fear-evoking to you.

the managed heart was, additionally, always about the human toll of alienation (and explaining a new form of alienation produced in a then-arguably-new system of production), but the above exchange has me asking... is this good? do we like and agree with that? do we think it’s useful to classify exploitation like this? (”alienation” in marx as “a feeling,” for one, commodifiication only as commodification if it produces alienation as an affective experience.) (to answer for you: I myself don’t think this is going to do anything useful for us.)

so this gets at some of the best and the worst of the project, in my opinion. one dated and silly thing I like about the work is its concern with the “commercialization” of emotion in a new service economy--I want to untangle that more (close reading probably, ugh), and I think that’s one part of the puzzle that is more useful to us now. but one of the most questionable parts of the project is also the one she seems most wedded to, which is also dated in kind of a sweet way, but is something we should be more critical about, which is that she argues (she believes) that there is a “self” that needs protecting from commodification, and that the toll of emotional labor is not just psychological, it concerns the fate of an authentic humanity. the truth about the managed heart that I don’t think people want to hear is that it’s a book of social-psychology, not a book of [good] labor theory. I don’t think it’s going to help us! so it’s striking to me to watch people call everything they don’t like “emotional labor” then see other people accuse those people of being individualistic, while pointing to this book that is...as far as I can tell, often criticized from the left for being a text on individualism. I dunno how I feel about that part of it, but I do think the text itself leaves me wanting more in that regard.

(also her use of “mental labor” in the interview is weird.)

[aion-rsa]

The Last Kingdom’s Historical Advisor on Accuracy: ‘It’s a Constant Compromise’

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After completing his PhD in Early Medieval History, Ryan Lavelle picked up a novel dramatising the events of King Alfred’s early reign. The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell was the first in what was then known as the Saxon Stories saga. It told the story of Uhtred, a fictional 9th century Northumbrian warrior raised by Vikings who, despite a conflicted relationship with the king of Wessex, became Alfred’s military tactician. Lavelle lapped it up.

In the following years, Cornwell published another, and then another and another. Lavelle read them all, delighting in their inclusion of real historical events and use of a central character whose divided loyalties allowed a perspective into the very different worlds of Saxon and Dane.

“There were certain things in the novels, details that made me think ‘this isn’t quite right’, but I was impressed with Cornwell’s engagement with historical records and places,” he tells Den of Geek over Zoom, pointing out his editions of the Saxon Stories on the bookshelves behind him.

A decade after reading the first of the books, Lavelle was contacted by fellow historian Dame Janet ‘Jinty’ Nelson, to ask if he’d be interested in advising on a new historical TV drama. Filming was due to take place in Hungary, explained Professor Nelson, and she wasn’t keen to travel. The drama, she said, was an adaptation of a set of novels by “some chap called Cornwell”. 

Bernard Cornwell makes a cameo in The Last Kingdom season four

Lavelle laughs at the memory. “To me, Bernard Cornwell was a major figure in my consciousness! He wasn’t just ‘some chap called Cornwell’, this was the Bernard Cornwell. I was enormously excited. I still have an element of that initial excitement of thinking that this is a world that I’ve tried to inhabit in my mind, and it’s being paid enough attention to be able to put flesh on the bones of characters who’ve been dead for 1000 years.”

Six years later, and Lavelle has served as historical advisor across five seasons of The Last Kingdom, the hit Netflix drama that Cornwell’s book series has since been renamed for, which plans to start filming its fifth season in late 2020. On set, he’s felt the heat of a burning Viking hall and heard the battle cries and clashing swords of medieval warriors. Off set, he’s used the show as a talking point for undergraduates at the University of Winchester, looking at how its representation of events differs from historical evidence.

When that happens on The Last Kingdom, says Lavelle, it’s the choice of creators who are informed about the historical context but are choosing to serve the drama. “I have to be pedantic. I have to let them know when things aren’t right, but they have to make the decision, and they make those decisions from a perspective of being informed of the actual history.”

‘The historical clock moves faster than the clock in the drama’

Lavelle found his job relatively straightforward on The Last Kingdom’s first season. It retold the events of King Alfred’s reign from around 871 to the Battle of Edington (or Ethandun as it’s styled in the series) “reasonably closely, with a certain amount of licence.” That licence commonly involved condensing the timeline to cover more story over a shorter period. “In the first year of Alfred’s reign there were lots of different battles against the Vikings and in the series, that basically gets boiled down to two encounters.”

The most recent season took more liberties with the timeline. “Edward the Elder’s reign, on which the fourth season is based, was from 899-900 through to 924. Some of the things mentioned in season four actually happened quite late in Edward’s reign, so you’ve got the battle of Tettenhall, which took place in 910. Aethelred, the ealdorman of the Mercians, died in 911. Aethelflaed receiving the submission of the men of York didn’t happen until in 918… there’s a lot of things they’re having to change.”

Read more

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The Last Kingdom: How Historically Accurate is the Netflix Drama?

By Louisa Mellor

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There’s a very good reason for the drama to condense these events: the age of its cast. If the series stuck slavishly to the historical chronology, its characters would have had to have aged almost two decades over the course of the last eight episodes. According to a lay-person’s timeline like this one, that would leave lead character Uhtred (played by 37-year-old Alexander Dreymon) nearing his seventies by the finale, which clearly wouldn’t do.

“You’ll have noticed that Alex Dreymon’s still a good looking young man,” laughs Lavelle, “so we can’t push Uhtred’s age on too far! The historical clock moves on faster than the clock in the drama.”

For Lavelle, the most startling change to historical chronology in season four is the continued existence of King Alfred’s widow Aelswith, played by Eliza Butterworth. “Historically, she’s meant to be dead by 903! But she’s such a great character that I would have been very sad if she wasn’t there in season four. Aelswith, as a device, allows the family tensions to play out. If she wasn’t there, it would be difficult to get that to work.”

After being poisoned by the scheming Lord Aethelhelm in the season four finale, Aelswith was looking a bit peaky the last time we saw her, I point out. Lavelle laughs. “She’s not looking well at the end, no indeed! Maybe this is the historical clock catching up with her!”

‘You can’t have something as momentous as the Black Death and it not have a long-term affect’

Season four included a storyline that felt particularly timely when it arrived on Netflix in April 2020 mid-coronavirus pandemic. A deadly sickness was passing through the kingdoms, cutting a swathe through villages. The original idea from the writers was to portray it as “a full on bubonic plague,” says Lavelle, but that was dialled back for the series.

“Where the story eventually ended up, it was a small-scale epidemic in a confined area rather than being the Black Death, which would have totally changed the storyline. Bubonic plague happened much later, in the Late Middle Ages. You can’t have something as momentous as the Black Death and have it not affect life for the next fifty years, but the way the story was panning out, it only affected the drama over a short period. I hope I had some influence in this, because historically, that would have been a big change.”

Lavelle was able to reconcile himself to the sickness plot because there had been an outbreak of a plague in the period, just 10 years earlier, at the end of Alfred’s reign. “It was a case of history catching up with the storyline a little bit.”

‘We always have to play with history to some extent’

As an Early Medieval historian, Lavelle is accustomed to using his imagination to bridge gaps between what is and isn’t known from historical sources. “The evidence for our period is limited so we always have to play with history to some extent.” The Last Kingdom does the same, he says. It’s by no means a documentary, but demonstrates “a respectful acquaintance with the history of the period, a tip of the hat to historical events, you could say!”

Part of Lavelle’s advisory role involves making the Medieval character and place names accessible to a modern audience. He researches the names and spends a few hours practicing the pronunciations before making recordings that are interpreted by a dialogue coach and taught to the cast.

“People who are real experts in Old English would probably have me over a barrel in pronouncing them wrong, but it’s no use having the names beautifully pronounced in Old English or Old Norse if the viewers are constantly baffled by them. There are necessary compromises to get these names over the line and to allow viewers to talk about them too. There are constant discussions about what form the names should take.”

Lavelle admires the series’ place name captions, which appear in the original language before transitioning to the modern version. “Eoforwic is one of the most difficult, because there’s the old Norse name of ‘Jorvik’ which became the predominant place name form. What appears in historical documents is often a form of the name that’s been affected by its role in a sentence of historical record. In Old English there are particular forms of words according to what they’re doing in a sentence. What I’ve tried to do, in my imperfect Old English, is convert those to the nominative version of the place name in order that it reflects a version of the historical place name. We do think about these things,” he laughs, “they’re not just plucked off the back of an envelope!”

If he had his way, he laughs, the series would use the Old English letter ‘Thorn’, but it’s a matter of accessibility. “It’s a constant compromise. These things are… oh dear, I just fell into a pun,” he laughs, “a thorn in the side!”

Author Bernard Cornwell describes his books as a gateway into the study of real history, and Lavelle hopes the TV series is the same. On that note, outside of Cornwell’s novels, where might fans go looking for a hint of what’s to come in season five?

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“It’ll be based on books nine and ten – The Warriors of the Storm and The Flame Bearer. Uhtred is charged with training King Edward’s first-born son Aethelstan as a warrior, so Aethelstan is one thing. Read a little bit more about Edward. If you do the homework of looking at the historical sources then it could allow the possibility of seeing some of the faces that might appear on screen! History has its own spoilers!”

Read more from Professor Lavelle on The Last Kingdom at History Extra.

The post The Last Kingdom’s Historical Advisor on Accuracy: ‘It’s a Constant Compromise’ appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3fR47La

[catsnuggler]

I was tagged by @lesliethebestie

rules: answer the questions in a new post and tag blogs you would like to get to know better.

nickname(s): Nate. Also the occasional “Nathaniel”, because some people think “Nathan” is always short for “Nathaniel” when that isn’t the case

starsign: hardcore Taurus

height: 6′1″

last thing I googled: Linear A. It’s the form of writing used by the ancient Minoans, and it hasn’t been deciphered to this day! I googled it because I was doing homework, and the chapter I’m in in my history textbook is about the dawn of agriculture, and briefly mentions the beginnings of Ancient Greece. In-depth Greek stuff is down the road, though.

fave music artist: I’ve been digging the Faroese metal band Tyr lately. They’re like Metallica but Norse. Pretty cool dudes. The vocalist supports whaling though, so ya kinda need to take ‘em with an Atlantic of salt.

song stuck in my head: God of War

last movie I watched: Blade Runner, with my big sis @pansexual-princess! Great movie! If you intend to watch it, though tw for sexual assault, gore, and aichmophobia.

last tv show I watched: Star Trek: The Next Generation, also during my visit yesterday. I love that show, and even though I’ve seen all the episodes, it’s the kind of show you have to see again and again.

when did you create your blog: back in 2011 I believe. Admittedly, I purged a few years of my posts like, last year at some point, or the year before that, out of embarrassment. I was a rather obnoxious Homestuck blogger. Now, well, I don’t have anything against Homestuck or its fans, and it was definitely an entertaining webcomic, but it’s still going and I honestly don’t have the patience to continue with it. At least not right now.

what kind of stuff do I post: memes, SJ, politics (far-left, particularly anarchist), cats, a ton of text posts about my thoughts (maybe some of which I shouldn’t post but oh well), whatever I like

do I have any other blogs: 

@swordofyggverd. Since a lot of my main blog’s followers are Atheist, Christian, Jewish, or otherwise non-pagan, I have a separate blog for my religious content. I’m a Heathen, but I intend to branch my practice out to other pantheons in due time, assuming other gods will give me the time of day. :P

@the-arch-conservative. I took the URL so no reactionaries could. I haven’t posted on it in months. The URL is a parody, because all that was really going to be posted were pictures of arches, with rants about how no one uses arches anymore, so they must be saved/conserved. A rather trivial pun, but I like being a pedantic ass to fascist filth.

@anarcho-tarkinism This one is also rather niche, and also rather unused. What it was going to be is communist or semi-communist quotes written as if Grand Moff Tarkin said them, himself. I never got that into making the posts after making the few on the blog, and, um, the other mod, uh... the other mod and I had a, um, falling out of sorts. Yeah.

do I get asks regularly: Not exactly, but within the past week or two I’ve got more from my followers, and I really appreciate that!

why did I choose my url: Because I snuggle cats and oh my goodness, this is the best URL ever and I’m so glad and so lucky to snag this one before anyone else did, I love it. I should probably post more cats sometime, because that would be pretty fitting. It’s just, well, you’ve probably seen my posts, how depressed I’ve gotten sometimes... but cats would help, wouldn’t they? I’ll post more cats sometime.

gender: male

Hogwarts house: Gryffindor, according to this test?

Pokemon team: Looks like I’m Valor

favorite colour: red and black

average hours of sleep: 7 if I’m lucky. I wish I could sleep more.

lucky number: 5 and 6, because of my birthday (5/5) and my name (a 666 name)

favourite characters: Ron Weasley, all the Star Trek: TNG characters (especially Guinan and Picard), Mikado (Durarara!!), Jaune Arc (RWBY), Aragorn (LOTR)

how many blankets do I sleep with: One. Even so, my room’s too hot, so I have to sleep shirtless. I can’t just wear a shirt and put the blanket only over my legs, though; it doesn’t work like that.

dream job: Still figuring that out. For now, I’ve considered being a historian, librarian, or a chemist of some sort, but which one of those I want to be is uncertain. I also considered being a child therapist a few months ago, but I’m not sure if that would actually be the right job for me. Heck, maybe I could be a writer. I should actually write the stories I intended to write since 2015 sometime, so I can see if I actually stand a chance at that!

following: Haha, um, would you believe it’s at 851?

tagging: @nauthirbleeding @alvocodosarecool @kleptoprophet @laceknots