#meant to be more. how do i describe this

[wormspoodle]

scientific discussions

[wonder-worker]

Angelberga was a peculiarly prominent personality in manifold aspects of European politics [in the late 9th century. Born to the Supponid family of Italy, she married Emperor Louis II and had several opportunities to establish her position as an active and controversial player in the vicissitudes of her husband's reign]. She acted as Louis's regent, accompanied him on expansionary military campaigns in the south of the peninsula and represented him at [congresses, tribunals, and diplomatic negotiations]. Strikingly, she was also the beneficiary of a spectacular collection of charters. Almost one in seven of Louis II’s extant charters were issued in her favour. Angelberga’s conspicuous exploits in the field of charter acquisition did not diminish after the emperor’s death, and this helped her to maintain a position as a key power-broker in Italian politics, control of land [particularly monastic foundations] being a fundamental building-block of power in this period. In the interregnum following 875, during which Charles the Bald of West Francia and Karlmann of Bavaria fought to claim the succession to the heirless Louis, Angelberga herself conducted the negotiations and decided the loyalty of a major sector of the Lombard political community. She maintained this high profile until her death [having supported her son-in-law Boso's quest for power, endured a temporary exile, maintained the support of Pope John VIII, and founded the monastery of San Sisto in the city of Piacenza, where she probably ended her days sometime before 891].

— Simon MacLean, "Queenship, nunneries and royal widowhood in Carolingian Europe"

[lilacerull0]

the initial appeal of lila to me was how in her childhood days, she was the brightest student, but managed to do it in the most unconventional way possible, a way that so closely mirrored my academic experience and that i was never able to find a description of until now. the prototype of the good at school kid is always somehow related to wanting to prove one's self to someone or living up to the expectations, be it your own or somebody else's, there is a level of obedience involved and a desire to be liked (sometimes hidden, sometimes quite outwardly) and it almost always ends in gifted kid burnout and being surrounded by this sort of portrayal has always felt kind of isolating to me who did and continues to get top marks, but fails to bow their head. as a child, lila is the best student in her school, but not because she has to be. it is simply the consequence of who she is, but her particular brand of intelligent fails to meet the parameters of how students are supposed to behave. and okay yeah, this is portrayed in fiction, but that kind of student usually doesn't get top marks in spite of being the smartest person in the room. lila does. because she is able to translate the awfully restricted, written according to some unwritten step by step guidebook, material (that is supposed to offer information, but unable free thinking or thinking at all) and give it her own spin that results in teachers being obligated to grade her accordingly because she understands what's being taught, but also resent her because her understanding of it is too out there to be acceptable. she takes the material out of context (the context being school) and tries to understand it for what it is simply because it interests her. it's the sentences that have been following me for as long as i can remember "you're incredible bright, but you wander off" or "your knowledge lacks structure" or "you're incredibly bright, but your way of thinking is incompatible with the world's mechanisms". (something that has been said about me in kindergarten because that's an okay thing to do to a child apparently) and i have mentioned this in relation to lila before, but i think she is able to keep this attitude alive because it isn't an attitude at all, it's a way of being. she isn't a rebel by choice, she's a rebel almost biologically. (which is an advantage, but the world isn't too into people who think, no restrictions attached) it's almost like her main trait is having too much individuality which was always how i felt about myself and what causes people to characterize you as unfeeling. i love her forever <3

[tapiocapo]

Do you think klimt ever imagined he’d ever have his art turned into a my little pony. What would he think

[liaprime]

Unmasked and bare he stood and gazed upon this world consumed by raging storms. His reflection stared at him with eyes so stern at the figure of a fragile man with a mind so strong but the flesh so humble. The task ahead near insurmountable that a man no longer he shall be. For his desires and the future he foresees a stalwart idol he must become to defend from all the lies and things depraved. He shall destroy himself to do what no one dared - to fight for an Empire unmarred.

[confusedspaceotter]

(Meme stolen from Reddit

[silusvesuius]

my nelvas and moraak thought crumblets

[mostofthingsmostofthetime]

So the new Hunger Games book. I have some thoughts.

Can't wait to see who's gonna play which characters.

Wonder what Snow will look like middle-aged.

I'm guessing the movie will cut Maysilee having a sister due to Madge being absent from the original films & if so, I wonder how that will affect the Mockingjay pin origins or if they'll completely remove the fact that it originally belonged to her.

Omg, the film could use the same reaping dress (or more likely a replica) for teen Miss Everdeen that they used for Katniss as it is said to be something that belonged to her mother during her time as a Merchant, in the original series.

Can't believe we might finally learn Katniss's parents' names lol.

Omg, do you think they'll at least hint at the baker/apocathery/hunter love triangle?

Oh (no hate to Woody Harrison but) young Haymitch is gonna be white, isn't he? Well, at least they could let him have black hair. & that wouldn't nessaryly even break movie cannon. All they'd need is to have a scene showing/implying that the stylists are gonna dye his hair after he ends up winning the games. The movie could even create an in-universe reason (outside of the Capitol citerzens just thinking it looked better). Such as with blonde people in 12, not coming from the Seam. Snow views it as the perfect subtle punishment to help Haymitch feel a loss of cultural identity by separating him from his community (now that he looks & lives more like a Merchant).

Hope the movie won't try to appeal to Hayffee/Effie stans by adding unnecessary scenes of them getting close, as if Haymitch didn't have a whole ass girlfriend while Effie would be nose deep in Capitol propaganda at that point in time.

Everyone who's saying it's gonna be weird to find Haymitch hot is weak. I was attracted to Woody Harrelson in a wig.

Don't know if this is at all realistic/accruate, but this is how I'd want the movie to end. Haymitch, back in 12. Maybe waking up in his new house after being sedated (due to him losing it after his last interview). Him desperately trying to find out where his family/GF is after discovering his old house empty (left there as a reminder), his GF's family not opening the door & everyone seemingly too nervous to speak to him. Till he eventually ends up on the Everdeen's doorstep (where Miss Everdeen is being comforted) & they explain what happened as best as they can. Then, after he returns to his new home, he gets a phone call from Snow bassically telling him that he should have behaved himself, leading him to rip the phone out of the wall before completely trashing the place. When he eventually wakes up, Hazelle is cleaning up the mess (he forgot to lock the front door). She tries to talk to him about applying alcohol (she was given by miss Everdeen) to the wounds he sustained from smashing up the place & about his girlfriend (as I could imagine the two having been friends as I can only see Haymitch's GF being from the Seam), but he tells her to get out before he starts drinking the alcohol right from the bottle, with a voice over of older Haymitch saying the line 'there's survivors, there's no winners'. Or something along those lines.

Maybe that's too fanficy, though lol.

[neige-leblanche]

also y'all

does anybody have the original japanese of this line from book 5 ch 27???

bc rereading it i was like. O_O. is he. not talking about vil.

i was thinking like "the first read through you're definitely meant to think so, and vil did absolutely change rook's life, but with context from both book 6 and his halloween vignette, what he's describing here leans more towards the latter" which is like. masterful gaybait i can't even be mad. it's like that post saying "some gaybaiting is like a box propped up with a stick and a block of cheese underneath" except this has all the intricacy of a steampunk clock.

but my VERY shoddy japanese skills r telling me the line translates more to "beauty in your eyes and the darkness, lighting up your entire life for you—in a time in your existence when you'll be able to have [such an experience] (expanding on the prev line where he says they'll be able to understand his ideology in the future)"

^ and i probably mangled this so bad but the main point is i didn't hear him refer to a "someone" like he does in the english tl & i'm wondering if i missed it or if it was in fact added!!!

[chatdae]

Grace FUMBLED Ryan! BAD parenting to preach respect and then act contrarily (ie saying she wants him to feel safe, then not allowing him any autonomy). She should've let him leave and come back... or at least explained why she didn't want him to leave before deciding (ex: 'Homelander will kidnap you', etc). She needed to let him make the decision for himself... agh. AAAAA.

And now Butcher's no use because he's committed to being evil and can't offer ANYTHING good to Ryan!!! He was so right, they NEEDED to give Ryan more space... I know the external pressures seemed impossible, but dammit, Grace, this was no way to beat the odds!

(this is about The Boys season four)

[skunkes]

Your post about loving to study the beauty of the human body as well as wanting to love someone male while also be them is something I've been feeling for the past few years tbh but I've never heard someone put it in the exact words I use before. I think it's also because when it comes to topics like that I also feel embarrassed trying to explain a melded and complicated but beautiful emotion that doesn't have a word for it other than imagery in my mind

Sorry for the random soul post in your inbox but I get you! And that makes me happy

Also you're art is very cool and holds the very idea of human warmth and love within keep it up

responding to the compliment first, thank you!!!

as for the rest, yes! In the past I've definitely understood "love someone so much you want to crawl into them because hugging and physical intimacy isn't enough" as well as the usual "do i wanna fuck them or be them 🤪" sentiment floating around,

but it's not until very recently that I pieced together the, "well, what would I do if I literally got my hands on another [human being]. I'm not sure it would be enough to just Behold a [beautiful human being], I also want to be a beautiful [human being], but in the way this [person] is, which is. Unlike the way I am. Different from how I am. (In the many ways that can be interpreted)."

Which is adjacent to the "crawling into them", and adjacent to wishing I could be desired in the same way that I desire, and then directly connected to the way I am being genuine and casual when I say I love looking at and am in awe of the human form, but it's so very easy for that genuine love to slip into that intense and strange enthusiasm to map out, touch, explore, examine, open, crawl, meld, Be. Be!

[wonder-worker]

Is it true that Elizabeth of York birth celebrated like she was a son? I have seen some historians say this.

Hi! Yes, Edward IV did celebrate his daughter’s birth as though she was a male heir (“a prince”), iirc as per the Great Chronicle.

While we have no contemporary reports at the time of Elizabeth of York's birth, we know that Luchino Dallaghiexia reported that the birth of Edward and Elizabeth's third child, Cecily of York, "rejoiced the king and all the nobles exceedingly*, though they would have preferred a son'. Wanting a son (ie: an heir) was typical for their time period, likely enhanced by Edward and Elizabeth's unprecedentedly controversial marriage, her very unsuitable origins and his own status as a usurper. The fact that he was described as being "exceedingly" delighted at the birth of his third daughter in a row regardless does support the claim that he would have gone over-the-top to celebrate the birth of his first legitimate** child.

Hope this helps!

*Bizarrely, I have seen several historians and blogs use Dallaghiexia's letter to claim that Edward IV was bitterly disappointed at Cecily of York's birth. I don't understand how historical reading comprehension can be so poor that "rejoiced the king exceedingly" has somehow been rewritten as the...exact opposite of that. With no self-awareness whatsoever. **Edward's illegitimate daughter Margaret - popularly known as Elizabeth for some reason - was almost definitely born before his marriage. We don't know the birth dates of his other two illegitimate children: I think the likeliest conception date for Arthur was in early 1470 (when he was away from court, near Hampshire), but it's unverified; and we know nothing about Grace - which was probably her surname, not her name - other than the fact that Elizabeth Woodville seems to have been very attached to her.

[morelikesin]

This, the proof of my existence,

Let this be the catalyst

of my love

of my dignity

and the evidence of my belief

in my body to serve everything

beyond myself.

"Aldrnari."

-

A lengthy passage of my writing including a transcript of the above images beneath the cut. Translations will be in the replies.

This, the proof of my existence,

Let this be the catalyst

of my love

of my dignity

and the evidence of my belief

in my body to serve everything

beyond myself.

Through the harsh winds against the mountain face, the short bowings of Frea’s tagelharpa - strings played loose and softly - reverberated against the ice of the glaciers and the cold snow cushioning the land beneath their feet: the chill both a reminder of their living against heated skin, and the preservation of everything before them in its still permanence. From the horn, blowing distant into the dark, vibrant beauty of the night sparkling with glittery snow and stars that melted into the aurora within a canvas of black and violet night, was a sense of grounding.

So much had happened, and so much will - but for now, they stood, alive, atop the mountain face. It would, for now, be enough.

A night so still, and yet so alive, to be relished in with grace and weeping humbleness. What is to come after will be the same as it had before: the world will continue to turn, with them in it or not.

Raising a hand to their chest, Blóðhundr’s fingers grasped the jaw hanging from the leather string of their necklace. It felt frozen underneath the mercy of the biting wind. Tentative and slow, they began to drag the jewelry upward - pulling it off of their neck by lifting it above their head; looking down at what was a gift from their beloved, from a time that felt so long ago. They supposed it was.

Their other hand lifted the cover of their journal. Upon the pages that proved their existence in the form of their poem written from the previous night, they, after one more longing look upon the smooth, gently yellowed bone of teeth and mandible, thumbing over the divets of the mandibular and mental foramen, placed the coyote’s jaw onto the pages for weight.

Ný sól rís,

Ný dögun,

Með sóma,

Með kærleik.

“Aldrnari

Eldr bal bruni.”

“Hyr hiti

Logi seyðir.”

Through winds to sky,

The birds to keep cawing,

The wind to keep blowing,

with or without

you and me.

“Aldrnari

Eldr bal bruni.”

Unfettered in my mourning,

Jǫrð be our will

In our deaths and what life we've left to live.

“Hyr hiti

Logi seyðir.”

Heilir, mín nýr byrjun,

Með virðingu

Do I lay you to rest.

"Elddansurin."

“Aldrnari

Eldr bal bruni.”

Sofna upp frá þessu;

Mercy unto you

As you have given to me.

"Elddansurin."

“Hyr hiti

Logi seyðir.”

Að elska,

My greatest weakness,

Cradled by you:

My favorite memory.

"Elddansurin."

“Aldrnari

Eldr bal bruni.”

Leyf mik vilja þínn skilja.

“Elddansurin.”

“Hyr hiti

Logi seyðir.”

My traust into you I give

My body yours to carve

Your blóð mine to bear

And your grave mine to keep.

“Elddansurin.”

“Aldrnari

Eldr bal bruni.”

For now,

We lay in each other's arms

Flesh and bones in Earth's embrace

For what brevity we are allowed to be.

“Hyr hiti

Logi seyðir.”

May death be our home

As life was our respite;

Hann þarf þinn styrk.

Þú þarft hjarta hans frjótt.

[o-uncle-newt]

I read Possession by AS Byatt after people told me "if you liked Gaudy Night you'll like this" and WELL.

Warning- spoilers for both books abound below!

So it sounded great- as a lapsed academic (though not in the field of literature by any means) there's a part of me that loves reading about academia because it's full of such obsessive people, and this book seemed to be exactly that and so I was excited.

Then I read it, and on the one hand, my first thought was "all these people are dull as heck, the only sane modern-day one is Val, and at the end of the day the historical stuff is just two people having an affair, who cares." My second thought was "there's just enough stuff here that makes me think that maybe the author knows that all of this is stupid, like the fact that Val is obviously one of the few sane ones here." But the ending made me doubt even that. Essentially, and I say this even as that lapsed academic, the author could not convince me to care about the important things at stake here, and as a result couldn't get me to care about the people who only seemed to care about those things.

I didn't care about Ash and LaMotte- they came across as two people high on their own supply who had a tawdry affair. (And each of them is the less interesting person, as a person, than their official partner!) As a result of not caring about them, I couldn't POSSIBLY care about Roland, Maud, and the rest of their crew, because their only functions were to be possessed by, and weirdly possessive of, these two entirely unworthy individuals, whose in-universe historical and literary significance Byatt couldn't convince me of, and to use that possession as a mirror for their own very lame romance. Beyond that they're utterly uninteresting, and there isn't even meant to BE much beyond that so it's not that surprising.

Anyway, I didn't like this book much, but it still made me think a lot. And there's a way in which a certain kind of person might say "well if it made you think then that's surely a sign of some positive quality" and... maybe? I don't know. I didn't hate all of it, and some parts were interesting, and I do have a whole separate list of things about the book that bug me including a breakdown of some of the book's (perceived by me) themes that I particularly disliked lol. Perhaps I'll post it another time. So I guess you can say it spurred me to thought, but loads of things that I don't like do that, and the only positive thing that that draws from me is that they're not downright dull.

The thing is, after finishing the book I was immediately struck by that "if you like Gaudy Night..." element, because it has a situation that felt weirdly similar (if for totally different reasons)- a young scholar stealing a letter from a library/archive. The circumstances are different- in Gaudy Night, the scholar does it to hide its existence so as not to contradict his thesis, and in Possession, the scholar does it so as to explore the document further, though still secretly- but there are still some interesting parallels vis a vis class. Possession goes into the class thing more than Gaudy Night does, but neither book goes much into it- the scholar is lower-class and someone who has scraped their way to their position, and is encumbered by a female partner of lower social and academic standing, and in the end they are juxtaposed against scholars who come from an elevated class and who have more money and opportunity. In Gaudy Night, Arthur Robinson is judged by the likes of Lord Peter Wimsey and a college full of women who don't have to do anything but think, teach, write, and grade papers; in Possession, Roland has to convince a bunch of academics of standing and resources to take a chance on him (and while this is more about money than class, he's the main one who's like "maybe it's good if Lady Bailey gets her wheelchair"). Byatt elides over this at the end by having him magically become in demand and on his way to achieving his academic goals, but I think in both books, the class element really could have taken on more significance in the text.

(I'd add as well that Byatt pits the upper-class and moneyed Maud, who of course is doing things for "the right reasons," vs the evil American businessman who clearly... doesn't care about Ash enough? Despite how much he clearly and obviously cares about Ash? The book was way more interesting when he seemed like a valid rival to the British team, who only thought that they deserved the letters more because of their obsession, rather than how it turned out at the end where the American dude is an actual cartoon villain. What made him genuinely less worthy besides having money without class, and of course having the bad taste to be American? What makes one scholar's possession more justified? Sayers was never this unsubtle.)

So that made me think more about Possession vs Gaudy Night, and the thing is, there are actual living people in Gaudy Night! Say what you will about the unworldliness of the academics at Shrewsbury, but you get a very keen view of their personalities by the end, even as they are (by necessity given the rules of their world) subsumed by academia, or subsume themselves in it. And the people who do fall in love are REALLY in love, and you understand why...

And somehow a book from 1935 feels far more interrogative of the possession (or lack thereof) found in love and romance, and just about the place of women in academia and relationships overall, than one from the late 80s. In Gaudy Night, Harriet accepts Peter once she has determined that despite their power differential (brought on by class, money, history, and to a degree gender) he will not threaten her personhood, because he has proven himself to her. In Possession, Maud accepts Roland because she has the power (money, class, position, even height) and so Roland actually cannot threaten her- and yet still that final scene is about her being taken by him, basically to prove some kind of a point. In contrast, in Busman's Honeymoon, the euphemistic sex scenes are about Peter trying to please Harriet.

When I say it's to prove a point, I'm paraphrasing Byatt, incidentally- who said: "And in the case of Maud I had made it very inhibiting. She was a woman inhibited both by beauty (which actually isn't very good for very beautiful women because they feel it isn't really them people love) and she was also inhibited by Feminism, because she had all sorts of theories that perhaps she would be a more noble kind of woman if she was a lesbian. And so she was a bit stuck. And Roland was timid because I am naturally good at timid men. It's the kind of men I happen to like. He's a timid thinking man, so of course it took him the whole book." I mean... yikes, but also that explains a lot. Maud can only bring herself to be with a man who is weak/effeminate (?) enough to justify whatever weird psyche Byatt has imagined up for her, but still she needs to get over her inhibitions and under him because... reasons. I don't know.

(Height is also interesting here as a point of contrast- Byatt makes Maud taller than Roland to make a point about how on the one hand she retains the power but on the other hand there is now even more of her that has to surrender. Peter and Harriet are the same medium height and wear the same size gown.)

I think the thing that most stuns me is how regressive Possession feels when it comes to gender politics on relationships than Gaudy Night does. I'd need a whole other post to talk about this, but the theme of Possession seems to me to be "relationships that produce things (whether art or children) are worth more than ones that don't." Roland is better with Maud than with Val because Val is a second rate scholar who drags him down (while supporting him financially) and Ash is better with LaMotte than with Ellen because LaMotte didn't only inspire his writing (Ellen's contributions are described only in the negative "didn't impede"), she gave him the child that Ellen refused to. Incidentally, in both cases it's the man pursuing a relationship that will give HIM something... But, to paraphrase Peter in Busman's Honeymoon, one wouldn't want to regard relationships in that agricultural light. Gaudy Night is about how two people can produce great things without each other but choose to be with each other for their own, and each other's, happiness. They aren't each less apart, and as I noted in a prior post, they don't need to solve cases together or conjoin their work in order for their relationship to be worth something. It is worth it for them to be together because it encourages some kind of inner balance within them and between them, as people. They enjoy collaborating but that is by no means the basis of their love (and, incidentally, I think that a lot of, if not most, detective series romances fail this basic test of "would they have fallen in love if they were accountants who met on a dating app." Peter and Harriet definitely would have- would, say, Albert Campion and Amanda Fitton have? I do NOT think so).

And here's the thing- another reason why Byatt's quote above is so off-putting is that it makes it clear that not only in the text but on a meta level, the purpose of the relationships is to prove a Point. I found Roland and Maud to have zero chemistry, and honestly I was expecting them to get together 3/4 of the way through and split up at the end when it turned out they had nothing in common- it seemed like that kind of book. I was kind of stunned when they only got together at the end in an "it's meant to be" way because nothing about it seemed meant to be. They were stuck together by that one thing and they each apparently needed the relationship for some kind of self-actualization or historical rhyming or other. (Whatever I say about Ash and LaMotte... at least they seemed to like each other!)

Peter and Harriet... they get together because they love each other. Do they change over the course of Gaudy Night, and over the course of the other books they share together? Of course they do. But if it makes sense, I'll put it this way- Harriet doesn't accept Peter's proposal as proof that she got over her hangups, Harriet gets over her hangups so that she can accept Peter's proposal. Her hangups only matter because they were keeping her from this particular kind of happiness- she was a fully actualized person even with them. She is a person who does things for human reasons so that she can build a mutually happy life with the person she loves, not a little plot mannequin being moved around in order to tell the author's desired Message. People can say what they want about Gaudy Night and its flaws, but despite the intricacies of its construction, nobody can call the characters' actions and motivations anything but brutally human.

Whether within their universes or on a meta level, the books have SUCH different things to say about the value and nature of love, the place of and purpose of sex, the place of art and intellectual accomplishment in relationships, all of the above in the context of femininity… and I can't help but feel that each time, Gaudy Night wins the contest. It's possible I'm missing something major about Possession, and maybe sometime I'll post the rest of my notes about the things I disliked and people can tell me what I'm wrong about- but if nothing else it made me appreciate Gaudy Night even more, so for that I'm grateful.

[classicintp]

There is this whole idea that flipping a two sided coin doesn't have a 50-50 probability. It's not a new idea by any means, but the explanation is if you measured the mass of the coin, the force of the flip, the temperature of the coin & of the room, the force of any breeze, wind, or vibration in the air as it traveled, and so on, you could accurately determine within a small margin of error what side the coin will land on every time, and if you kept those constant it would flip on the same side every time. And that idea is also KIND OF the explanation for the conclusion in quantum physics that there is no free will.

A lot of people hear that and either clutch their pearls, roll their eyes, or aren't interested either way. (I mean, when you say some shit like that you're just going to immediately turn off any interest most people would have otherwise had but I'm digressing now). We all like to think we make decisions and choices, and then amateurs who want to talk about quantum mechanics alienate everyone by saying it's not true: you were always going to make these choices with no chance to make the other one.

But what I said in the first paragraph is something-like (but not exactly) what it means when you hear or read that according to quantum physics we have no free will. That if we had an unfathomable device that has been measuring all the variables of every single particle that was expelled during the Big Bang, with an also-sufficient/also-currently-unfathomable algorithm to plug those variables into, all within a computer that could do all of the calulations for BILLIONS of years, we could compute exactly where every particle was going and where it would end up, including those that make up the stars and planets, that make up the ground and oceans, that make up the animals and plants, that make up your brain and all of the proteins and neurotransmitters. That if it could all be measured and an algorithm sufficiently built then the decisions you make are already determined by the ongoing relationships and interactions the particles that make up your brain had in the past and are having right now.

However, humans cannot measure that, they likely never ever will.

Anyone that tells me they don't like quantum mechanics because something something affront to nature blah blah "they" don't believe in free will, etc. literally doesn't know it's just a rescale of the coin toss description. You still believe coin tosses are 50-50 because you aren't going to measure the variables used to receive an answer, you can still believe in free will because you can't measure the variables used to determine the ultimate path of all particles; I mean, I wouldn't become a theoretical physicist if that meant so much to you but I'm not your dad, do what you want.

Edit: I know I described the science mostly wrong, please check out the replies and reblogs for others' corrections and feel free to add corrections of your own for mine and others' learning, thank you.

[silverselfshippingchaos]

it's genuinely so funny how he's all covered up EXCEPT for the abs