#meso american stuff

[mysticusfreeze-art]

Yuri Knorozov - the man who opened the door to translating written mayan. With his kitty of course (listed as co authoring his paper). Behind him is the bishop Landa alphabet that he used to crack the code so to speak. If you are interested in the story I highly recommend Breaking the Maya Code by Micheal Coe a friend of Yuri's

[movedtomysticusfreeze-art]

Concept for a typical Mesoamerican peasant, will probably be completely reworked at a later time

For more info and full sources check the read more

just scroll down to see the peasant:)

[notjanine]

i am so beyond tired beyond burnout, i went out for coffee this morning and when i placed my order, the barista so gently asked “would you like an extra shot of espresso in that? it’s on the house” and i almost cried. people good sometimes

[billiebustupofficial]

Hi, I really love Billy Bust Up and it's cute and beautiful art style, and the songs of the characters but I been wondering since a while. Since Barnaby love parties would he celebrate "Día de muertos" You know cause the thematic of this party it's to celebrate the memories of the death ones and if he don't celebrate it I would recommend him to celebrate it 💖

Also I'm from Mexico so I would not take this like a cultural apropiation. 💘🇲🇽

So we do have a lot of Mexican inspired stuff in our game as the lead writer and character designer, Ash Ortiz, is Mexican! They wanted to add a piece of their home and culture into the game. It’s why they added an Axolotl character. Aristotles tent area also has a lot of meso american themes behind the environmental design.

There was a point in Barnabys design that he was coloured to look like a alebrije, so I imagine he would love Día de los Muertos.

[kitchenwitchupinthisbitch]

Failed ritual?

So I recently read about a ritual that was done by meso American people in the olden times to communicate with their ancestors.

What I was SUPPOSED to do was light a fire with offerings, prick my tongue with a cactus spine, write a message/question to my ancestors with the blood and burn it to deliver it to them via Ītzpāpalōtl the butterfly skeleton Lady in Aztec spirituality.

The only cactus I have has tiny spines and wouldn't break the skin no matter how hard I tried. I thought may be if I can't write a whole ass message, I could at least add a drop of blood from my tongue 😭 I just ended up with a poked tongue instead 🤣

What the heck was I supposed to do now?! Well, I happen to start my period every full moon and that night was a full moon 👀 Do you see where this is going?

Well I must've done something wrong bc the only message I got that night was dreams of one of my ancestors being a temple priestess/concubine. Interesting, but not exactly what I asked for 😅

I wish I lived closer to my ancestral people so I didn't have to read books etc to learn this stuff and could learn from people who share a history with me.

I might try again but sneak off to the garden store and steal a cactus spine from them 😉

[blysse-and-blunder]

In lieu of a making a comeback

11:45pm Sunday, June 18, 2023

Went through my drafts folder today, scrolling quickly past all the posts I’ve saved for when I’ve finally finished succession and found that the last time I drafted a commonplace book post was back in early May? I may post that one later—it’s a bit of a time capsule now, and isn’t even fully finished (hence why I saved it rather than posting). but rather than wait for perfection—my lesson of the year it seems—I’ll dash off a short one here. for my own entertainment, which of course is the point.

[no read more on mobile; scroll or press J to skip]

Reading just started victoria goddard’s bee sting cake, the second book in the greenwing & dart series. jemis’ narrative voice sounds a little too much like fitzroy’s — exacerbating my prejudice against first-person narration where the pov character just kinda sounds like the author’s mouthpiece—but seeing more of ragnor bella, this area of the twelve kingdoms, these references to the Interim and the Last Emperor, remains delightful. Also about 80% of the way through ursula k. le guin’s a wizard of earthsea for the very first time, which has been a slow because I’m absolutely savoring it. one of those books that feels like it’s in conversation with Tolkien but goes about ‘let’s make magic literary’ in a totally different way.

watching the aforementioned succession. @hematiterings and I were doing a rewatch (for me; her first time) and we have now gotten up to season 4 episode 3, You Know the One, which means that there’s only one more episode before I’m in new territory. it’s been a really rewarding rewatch, even as I’ve been doing laptop work the whole time—I’m understanding characters’ relationships and the stakes of different decisions and events so much better than I did the first time.

listening for some reason this week and last I have not been able to get enough of Hildegard von Blingen’s bardcore covers. Specifically the cover of taylor swift’s willow, which is not a song I knew, cared about, or really even noticed before now? But it the bardcore cover elevates it so well? hildegard’s voice is so lovely? one of those sopranos I usually don’t quite believe are real—just a pleasure to listen to. bad romance and holding out for a hero have been on repeat as well, and pumped up kicks (buskin boots!) is so much more interesting than the original, but willow has been the one I actively searched by name.

playing d+d campaign one tonight for the first time since FEBRUARY. it was good! we laughed! R tried to seduce a jaguar! we might be starting a schism in a fantasy meso-american religion or possibly playing the ball game to avoid that! we won’t be able to play again until late July, early august! The real boss fight is—has always been—scheduling.

making look at this dining room chair I glued back together.

No after pictures yet but it was clamped for a few days and has now been back in use with no ill effects since…gosh, last weekend? so we’ll count that as a win.

working on between finishing my most recent slog of grading (32 review assignments, which I spent waaaaaay too long on out of an anxiety of needin to help them revise for their final portfolios) and the next round of grading (final exams for 385 are due…thursday, possibly? and portfolios Friday, though I expect I get many either late or with extension requests, my fault entirely), I think I have to write at least one job app for June 30 and. maybe try to slap some new stuff into ch 2. or conference paper? hm.

[grandhotelabyss]

What kind of music do you typically listen to? Are there any musicians that have inspired or influenced your work in any way?

I pretty much answered this one here back at the end of 2023. For an update and more specific answer to your question about inspiration: lately, I've been trying to listen to at least period-specific music as I work on the Invisible College research and preparation, like Beethoven and Chopin paired with the Romantics, some Wagner with Shaw, Rachmaninov with Conrad, etc. I'll make an attempt at Schoenberg when I get to Beckett for the full Adorno trip. The algorithm has really been insisting on Sibelius lately, however, which I'm guessing Adorno would call fascist. (I never read Adorno's music criticism, though I studied—mainly visual art and literature—with one of its distinguished translators.) Also, speaking of fascism, even though I gave Dune: Part Two a bad review, I have been listening to that soundtrack for better or worse; this is a plebeian taste, I'm sure, or maybe "Reddit" or whatever other insult, but I like a lot of the ambient soundtrack music popular on YouTube: Zimmer, Einaudi, Richter, that style of material. For some reason, maybe also algorithmic, I lately went back to that electronica group I remembered from the '90s, VNV Nation, and was interested to see they had some new material; this has been a recent favorite, somewhat relatable lyrics if you ask me. Speaking of the '90s or even the '80s, I listened to a lot of music from that era when I was writing Major Arcana last year to create the appropriate late-20th-century Dark-Age-of-Comics mood, everything from Joy Division and The Smiths up through Portishead and Massive Attack and the like, and Americans, too, my melodramatic preference for Tori Amos and the Smashing Pumpkins being well-known to my regular readers, as well as "Malibu"-era Hole (even if she [allegedly] did kill Kurt, I like "Malibu" better than any of his stuff). That and some of the jazz favored by my character Ellen Chandler, especially Sketches of Spain and A Love Supreme, which are thematically crucial to the novel. What else? I'm excited for the apparent Joanna Newsom revival-comeback. She might be the most inspirational musical artist of my generation just by her example: create your own strange world, and listeners will come. (I wrote a little tribute to her on here a few years ago.) The aforementioned algorithm knows I compared Lana to Shakespeare 10 years ago—she had to forgive the rest of you for how you treated her; she didn't have to forgive me!—so I usually happily let it give me all the visionary "sad girls" past and present. But, and just in case this was a subtext of your question, there being so few ways nowadays to draw the line between macroculture and meso- and microcultures, I must halt at the frontier of Ms. Swift's empire.

[lilareviewsbooks]

The Teixcalaan Series: 5/5

Book 1: A Memory Called Empire & Book 2: A Desolation Called Peace

I’d pitch this as Game of Thrones in space. Full to the brim with plots and with politics, this series follows Mahit Dzmare, an ambassador from the tiny Lsel Station as she navigates her new life in the Teixcalaan Empire -- the culture Mahit has been in love with for years, but that is slowly swallowing up her home one. The first book sets you up with a murder mystery with a romantic subplot -- and what a subplot!! Sapphics in space yearning for each other? Sign me the fuck up!! -- and then expands into so much more with little warning, kind of like you’re on an intensely political roller-coaster. The second one plays out kind of like the movie Arrival, and to say anything else would be to spoil it. 

I loved every single second of it. 

I think what calls out to me the most in this series is its almost anthropological approach to describing culture. It’s almost hard to explain if you haven’t read it, yourself, but the detail given to every cultural decision is impressive. From the way the Teixcalaani smile, to their language -- which is described in detail in a post-script -- and their naming conventions, Ms. Martine tackles every single cultural avenue she can find. The result is this brilliant, vibrant, Meso-American Indigenous-inspired culture, that you get to understand so deeply, almost as if you have studied it.  And you get to watch all these moving pieces of this world you barely understand with a main character who doesn’t truly understand it, either, which is a great device through which to world-build. 

I’d highly recommend this for anyone who’d like some gay yearning, some good characters with nice development, and lots, lots of politics. Plus, of course, questions of anthropological nature, that tackle language, culture, colonialism -- but in space!! 

(And for the second book, get ready for some aliens!!)

Reminded me of...

- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K Le Guin: anthropological/sociological approach; an envoy coming to a different planet than theirs and trying to understand it; queer, kinda?, BUT this one is more political, if I’m remembering correctly

- A Song Of Ice and Fire/A Game of Thrones, George R R Martin: the politics; morally grey characters; what the fuck is going oh my god am I going insane who is this character the cast is so huge; world-building being absurdly good, BUT this one is gay and in space :)

- Gideon the Ninth/The Locked Tomb Series: the gayness; lyrical writing; SPACE!!; yearning; i’m so fucking confused what is going right now, BUT this one has like cultural stuff involved???

and the movie Arrival, dir. Denis Villeneuve: can’t tell you why without spoiling both of them, BUT it’s basically the second book with more time-travel and less politics!

[rottingmanifesto]

Diesel Pyun

Overview

Diesel is based off of an alleged beta character, a Korean-American soldier who was friends with Lincoln (assuming this was prior to the development of John Donovan). So, I took the idea and ran with it, and made him my own character!

Basic

Name: “Diesel” Pyun

Nickname(s): ‘Petrol’ (by girlfriend’s friend group), ‘D-Day’ (by old military buddies)

Age/Birthday: 24 years | 02/04/1944 (10:29 pm)

Place of Birth: Ulsan, (South) Korea

Zodiac: Aquarius sun, Gemini moon, Libra rising

Current Residence: Somewhere near New Bordeaux, LA

Gender: Male..?, He/him

Orientation: Closeted bisexual

Nationality: 1st generation American

Ethnicity: Korean and Japanese

Race: Asian

Affiliations: US Marines Corp., Department of Defense, Clay crime family (loosely)

Education: high school

Hair color: Black

Eye color: Dark brown

Height: 5’11”

Body type: Meso-ectomorph, more on the lean side

Scars/marks/blemishes/etc.: various scars along chest, gut, and forearms, and a few marks on shoulders

Personality

Diesel is primarily known for his strategies, his far-stretched plans and idealism, and kind but emotionally distant mannerisms. He’s witty and has a very dry sense of humor, and finds a lot of joy in discussing the future (in terms of art, technology, music, etc.) and how he predicts things will happen. (He’s not always right, to be fair, but usually he’s in the ballpark). People who truly know him know how music helps him release emotions he cannot express with words.

MBTI & Enneagram: INxJ, 1w9

Other comments: painfully air sign. Just… painfully noticeable.

Relationships

Lincoln: war time friend, kept meeting each other in Laos and Vietnam to the point of it becoming a joke of sorts. Sees him as a younger brother sometimes, and can get annoyed by Linc’s impulsivity and emotional intensity. Acts as an emotional anchor for him and helps lighten the mood with dry humor. Also helps with Lincoln’s revenge against the Marcanos.

John: definitely a tense relationship. They respect one another, but Diesel really doesn’t care for him and thinks he’s a bit “full of it”, so to speak. They clash on many things and Diesel ultimately thinks that though Donovan is trying to be a good person, he’s failing pretty badly (in his opinion).

FJ: no strong convictions, really. Good guy, but fails to see who’s in front of him— only sees the morals or signs of a long-gone past. Kind heart, but can be a coward. Doesn’t share this opinion much at all though.

The underbosses: generally not super opinionated, but believes they’re mostly greedy, short-sighted assholes.

Dasia: respects her choices and convictions, but ultimately finds her to be too wrapped up in small details to notice the big picture. They get along alright, overall.

Canary: good kid, good sense of the future, just maybe a tad bit too passionate at times. Views them as a younger sibling of sorts and disapproves of them being involved (due to 1: being a civilian, and 2: being nineteen).

Childhood

[Data expunged.]

Story

Within the storyline in-game, Diesel enters roughly after Lincoln regains consciousness (it’s John of all people who actually calls him, but that’s a story in of itself). Despite his own mild qualms with how Lincoln is going about things, he offers his services and helps in any way he can— explanation below.

Explanation: Diesel can say “adding him to the racket would prove beneficial in (x) department” or “just kill the bastard” type stuff and/or deal with timing— primarily with Santangelo thing after killing 2 of the capos. Being able to call in and say “hey, something seems off about this part of town, Donovan heard some people chatting on the wire about a meet up. If you got business, get out of there in 2 minutes” or something of the sort.

Within a DLC I’m writing, he helps Lincoln with a not-so-minor situation (keeping that a secret for now) when John is busy with his own project.

Random

Not really a smoker. He’ll do it when someone offers him one, but doesn’t smoke much himself. He does, however, have a collection of zippos

Spoke Korean (and Japanese on rare occasion) at home and English at school/in public, still slips into Korean when he thinks he’s alone

Can swing dance, but that’s about it with dancing. He is far better with creating music

Plays violin, fiddle, piano, a bit of cello, VERY basic trumpet, and the harmonica. Is trying to learn the guitar and bass

Composes music in his spare time

Adores all kinds of music and will listen to anything at least once

Agnostic

Surprisingly enough, he’s anti-war, but he’s not vocal about his stances for a myriad of reasons (mostly because it’s unsafe for him to do so)

[ur-resident-golden-cherri]

Wakanda Forever

…………………. Major spoiler alerts in this one dnr

⚠️dni spoiler Wakanda forever⚠️

⚠️⚠️SPOILER ALERT DONT READ!!!!!!! ⚠️⚠️

I just came out of watching Wakanda forever and I don’t know where to start with this movie. It’s so well written with all the characters having deep human flaws, the portrayal of grief and the stages of growth for each character was just pure gold.

Shuri’s personal growth and her sudden and rapid change into maturity was incredibly well done. She experiences the death of multiple family members and she eventually gets consumed by rage and vengeance, (shown when she sees N’Jdaka in the ancestral plane) and wanting to burn the world down. Her grief is so tangible and her hurt is so powerful bc she lost the very anchor to her emotions. Once Queen Ramonda dies, Shuri states her heart is buried with her mother, showing a well done parallel to Namors name, the child without love. Shuri also rapidly matured bc of the constant trauma and the forced ascension to the throne, causing her to see Namor in a new light and recognize the damage that colonizing countries want to inflict on the two empires of land and sea. It was all a grab for resources and the usage of manipulative tactics of pitting one minority group against the other to gain power thru extortion. Shuri and Namor were both ready to burn it to the ground, but chose to save and heal their traumas and keep their people safe. Ugh I love this too much I’m never gonna get over it!!!! Eeeeeeee :’’DD

Namor is also an incredible character. He represents the more melanated Meso-American kings and empires that colonization has erased and lost. It also brings a sense of dignity back to Indigenous culture and history, since Namor’s uses two names, one in the mother tongue, the translation being the Feathered Serpent God, (Ku’kulkan). This name he used in familiarity with his people, with his allies. His other name, “Namor” was cursed upon him by a Spanish priest who forced his mother out of her home. Names hold a lot of power in Indigenous and Black communities; it’s a reminder of the past, who you were, and provided a kind of identification within those communities. It’s crucial to understand that when Namor have the choice to Shuri and Ramonda to use either name, it was almost as if he was testing their resolve and who they were. Choose wisely bc one is for my enemies and one is for my allies. He also oozes confidence and strength, which isn’t something that men of color can’t often do without it being critiqued or considered arrogant. Same thing with women of color, particularly Black and Indigenous women. It’s such a great choice for him to be such a beautiful character (both physically and written), and I would watch this again and again <3

if you want me to do more analysis on this- plz let me know or request scenes and stuff…. Idk how it works but ask and I will do my best to answer! :)

Thank you!! :DD

[mysticusfreeze-art]

How to take photos of traditional art?

Study on Pakals coffin lid/ Linda Scheles's drawings

[movedtomysticusfreeze-art]

Concept for a pan-Mesoamerican ballplayer

If you want more info and a full list of sources check the read more :)

[motuzi]

˗ˏˋINTRODUCTION´ˎ˗

Hello, I go by Motzui or any variation of my username. I’m a 20 y/o I’m a Hispanic meso American living in the US, and I use any pronouns but They/Them are the default. I’m more of a reader than a writer but making these looks all cool and fancy so that’s why this is here

˗ˏˋREQUESTS´ˎ˗

I only write fem/fab reader x character

Fandoms I write for

Demon slayer

South Park

Blue lock ✮

Tokyo revengers ✮

Spider-Man Atsv/Itsv ✮

Haikyuu ✮

Genshin impact

(This list will be updated as time goes on) Starred fandoms are fandoms I’m better at writing for.

I Write fluff, smut, and angst. If I make a master list they will all be categorized but even without the genre is mentioned in/throughout the tags of the fic

I wont write male reader, character x character, transitioning reader, specific race reader (Hispanic!Reader x character), incest, homophobia, racism, or any other weird stuff.

I will write basically everything else, things that may be seen as triggering I will add a tag for in the intro of the request.

No master list is currently made

I won’t continue a Drabble if it doesn’t have significant viewer count/is not requested for a part 2.

Please enjoy my content :)

˗ˏˋEND´ˎ˗

[jessreviewsthings]

📚 Book Review 📚

Empire of Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson

First Impressions/Summary: I discovered this book on a NetGalley Instagram story and fell in love with the cover and description. Quick summary is supernatural elements interwoven with archaeology and anthropology with a spunky, independent, intelligent British female lead and crass-appearing but actually intelligent in his own way American male counterpart.

Review: I felt the amount of archaeology was a lot. And this is coming from someone who double majored in anthropology. It helped listening to the audiobook (in addition to reading), which felt easier to digest all the history that Benson was providing. I loved Ellie's spunk and fire and absolute tear down of anything remotely patriarchal or chivalrous. It also felt a bit long, getting to the heart of the story. I loved when we finally made it to the big quest/adventure and the pacing of it at the quest was good.

Rating:

Characters: 5/5 — Loving Ellie's spunk, sass and intelligence. Adam feels very American good-ol'-boy and I mean that as a compliment. A nice complement to Ellie's prim-and-proper Britishness.

Plot/storyline: 4/5 — Undervalued woman trying to make her way in academia encounters a gruff, turning-away-from-his-wealth American discovering magical elements in our world. Centered in Central America with a lot of information, history and background regarding Meso-American cultures.

Storytelling: 4/5 — I felt it was a bit long regarding the historical and cultural elements, but I do see why Benson did that. She is assuming we all know nothing and most of us don't so it was a great amount of detail to explain Mayan myths and other history and culture of the time.

Predictability: 3/5 — Lots of fun twists to push the plot along. It did plod a little bit, but nothing that made you skip several chapters ahead.

Spice/Smut: 1/5 — Perfect young-adult level of kissing and passion. I love that stuff and it was well written and really made you feel the burn of passion without being smutty.

Overall: What a fun, entertaining and educational read by Jacquelyn Benson. There is a lot of background information to educate the reader coupled with really likeable, relatable characters. I would recommend this book and have already added the second book in this series (Tomb of the Sun King, releasing October 1) to my Libby (e-library) holds.

[scentedchildnacho]

Voorburg is the sister city of Temecula California so it's the Hague I guess I have to report immigration and indigenous hatred to

To the landscapeing terrorists indigenous peoples are an inferior race compared to their superior that can imagine something out of the destruction so

Needs to then create the superiors cosmogenesis as native often subjects immigration to institutionalized hatred like vaccines

I'm sorry but it's wrong to force people to understand the native overseers philosophy so

I am a homeless person so I may make terrorist decisions and nobels from Africa about these types of conflicts between the poor and the wealthy land lord is they won't stop killing and detroying things and will have to dig their own graves so

Its that indigenous peoples world wide were forced into indigenous resistance colonies and returns to the land and I am more of a laborist the land lord should not stalk and terrorize to be the who did work there

The wealthy land lord should not be disturbed but the poors is always open for invasion so

I would say my indigenous religions class is that I view them more as the Irish...they want to metropolize and want to formulate company strategies without indigenous people so

Well there are maybe people out there in the mountains attempting to live meso American resilience and that also has been turned into a weird hellish row of clear cutting

Agnotology uhm the point is to control various masculines sense of ignorance so they can over come their gay thing to re unite with their platonic feminine so

What would Brian do Brian would have his plant and he would work slowly with his one plant

And that's how a masculine possession may leave my body

Myal...she explains about her husband as the white man that he did enjoy aspects of power that end the abstracted souls of some people's....

Brian about bipolar did enjoy the aspects of indigenous art like heat waves over a destructed lawn or parking lot to even and clear out his mind of distraction Brian about bipolar would have to go to an institution if he didn't like contemporary creationism in urbane speculation

If you want to do extreme relief work the military gives personality changes instead of peace man creating a line predators can pick a fuck out of the peace line and kill it in an institution and parasite on it

Brian as a Scorpio had mysterious or secret friends from Mexicanism many mentals confess their dualistic tendencies to me

If I collapse from over exertion in outside meditation.....then I'm usually finally allowed a theory change....and people finally give me food science or contemporarily correct pharmaceuticals instead of people trying to kill me for a bed they could use or need

For instance I had to tolerate Jews and vets if I had a bed in life and so these gross farty bitches kept harassing my room with strip shows and over consumptive clepto hoarding

So if I follow hare Krishna and go back outside and into the true battle of it....The Jew finally is also a fraud not a true democratic hero.....and my care is re evaluated to nutrition assistance

The Jew.....bitches steal your stuff and try to spread their depression with verbal abuse

Its a bitch it kept acting like a pedophilic flasher and so people lose feeling or compassion for it and it's just go to crash clepto

[amphiptere-art]

In all my research trying to find different meso American gods to base my ittbag guys off I found out there's a God about homosexual and all the nice things like dancing singing flowers and a bunch of other stuff like that. It is honestly very intriguing.

The Aztecs and other mesoamerican versions of this guy had more willingness to point out homosexuality then modern day.