#mostly for pre Roman and post Roman time

[gregmarriage]

has someone invented a version of love, without loss? asking for a friend

[binmeister]

Office worker AU

Saja Boys x Office worker! Reader

Taking over the world via, checks notes, corporate slavery.

Summary - Modern, human AU - no demons, just office romance with sprinkles of pre-established dynamics & relationships - OOC / entirely self indulgent - Fem! Reader

A/N: I don’t actually know what to classify this as, eventually may post scenarios from this AU on top of this but hey. Self indulgence for me to enjoy. This is mostly for me to read but eventually I’ll share my headcanons and notes maybe but otherwise it's entirely just something I want to work on outside of the other current ficlets I have.

CW: not perfectly proofread, fem! reader, OOC obviously - may eventually contain suggestive / NSFW content intended for (18+) readers

Wordcount: 8.8k

Note: Baby (Byeol), Mystery (Minseok) and Romance (Roman / Ro) have been given AU head-canoned names in this and Abs has just been set as Abby but if you prefer to read them as non head-canoned names please feel free to do so!

Feel free to comment, reblog or even create your own AU based off of this - just don't claim my work as your own please.

The mundane routine of an office job hadn't sounded appealing to you back in high school, but as you go through the tediously simple steps each day now you had to admit that there were some perks amidst all the major cons. Firstly there was routine, even amidst abrupt tight deadlines. Secondly was the promise of a paycheque, consistent income in the form of an annual salary had been the biggest reason you’d stayed loyal the last few years to Saja LLC. Though to be fair the other reason you may have enjoyed working there was because of the short commute time, realistically a half hour subway ride was way better than a 2 to 3 hour commute one way.

The only gripe you had now was that it still required you to wake up at 6:00am to get ready for the day, giving yourself a half hour to process the weight of being awake and the reality of being a corporate pawn before you drag yourself out of bed at 6:30 to get ready and prepped for the day. At 7:15 you’re fully dressed and refreshed from your morning routine, white blouse tucked neatly into a stretchy pencil skirt and some plain dark stockings layered underneath that. You manage to grab a quick snack as breakfast as you slip on your short pumps and pick up your handbag, slinging it over your left shoulder and grabbing your apartment keys. At 7:25 you’ve made it down to the subway in time to catch the 7:30 train and get onto the women’s passenger car, then at 7:45 you’re packed up tight with a multitude of other commuting women - ranging from students to business women to mothers on their way to attend appointments.

By the time you reached your stop and be free of the stuffy car you felt relieved that you had managed to get off the packed subway in one piece, hating how sweaty and sticky it felt being trapped amongst the other women on the train ride but at least there were no creeps that had tried to worm their way onto the women only car. You lifted your arm to glance at your wrist watch, a sigh of relief when you confirmed you’d been right on time and didn’t need to rush yourself as you paced up the stairs to exit the subway - heels clicking against the concrete stairs and echoing slightly amidst all the bustling business folk going about their day as well. By the time you’d reached the top of the stairs your calves ached a little, and you couldn’t help internally curse at yourself for not packing your spare shoes so walking could be a bit more comfortable.

“[Name]!” A familiar male voice calls out and you stop for a moment, head turning around as you tried to locate where the call originated from and then soon enough you feels his hands before you can see his face. Jinu, in all his magnificent glory like he wasn’t an 9-6 office worker not including commute time. You seriously couldn’t believe that he’s still a morning person after all the years of knowing him, thinking back about how you thought your time together in university would’ve changed him but nope. Still an early bird even when he had little to no sleep. He’d over-explain and say something about ‘waking up early just lets him think better’, yeah sure buddy.

“Morning.” Came your greeting as your eyes caught sight of his face finally, he shifted to walk on your right and you began to match your strides with him - or rather he matched his longer strides with your smaller heel cladded ones. He was dressed in a plain light blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tucked and pressed neatly into black suit pants and had a laptop bag slung over his shoulder with the strap crossing over his torso. It was comforting as he blabbered on about what he did last night, how when he called up Minseok to come hang out the guy had the audacity to agree only to stand him up which you proceed to poke fun at him over it. ‘Maybe if you were prettier, he’d actually show up’ was what you said and Jinu had looked back towards you as if you called him an ugly unlovable animal. 

“I’m just saying.. you’d look great with some dangly earrings, you’ve still got the piercing holes anyway.” Was what you pointed out to him, your right hand had reached out to brush against his visible pierced ear lobe only to be met with a swift swat of his hand - an attempt to hide his reddening ear tips as well but you simply laughed at him more because of it. From the subway station was about a 10 minute walk to the office, any longer and you’d be questioning god on why you decided not packing a pair of flats was a good idea and not at all detrimental to your poor feet.

“I think I’d look better in big hoops than those flimsy dangly ones.” Jinu had retorted, straightening himself up and doing an exaggerated flip of his hand as he tossed his invisible flowing locks over his shoulder like he was some kind of actress in a show. You rolled your eyes at him and had taken a few steps side ways to get some distance from him, pretending to be embarrassed to be seen with him, which only made him complain as he reached out to grab you by your right arm and tug you back closer whilst he sang out a complaint of, “Wow, you’re so unsupportive of me. Not very girls girl of you I thought you were better than that.” 

It continued on like that for the remainder of the walk, his hand hadn’t let go of your arm and when the pair of you had made it to the revolving doors of your shared office he finally realised and let you go. Honestly you hadn’t realised he’d still been touching you until the warmth of his hand disappeared but mentally shrugged it off as you stepped forward to the doors first since he gave a mocking bow and a grand gesture with his hands ‘You first, m’lady’. Once the two of you had stepped into the main lobby you’d both began to rummage in your respective bags for your work passes, needing them to get through the gates that blocked off the building elevators as you continued to match your steps together.

“Did you remember your pass today?” He asked as he gave you a knowing look, given your history of repeatedly forgetting to bring it to work the next day and you simply pouted up at him for a moment before victoriously showing him a simple black lanyard - a plastic covered work ID attached securely. Jinu opened his mouth slightly, feigning surprise and gave a small little applause before he moved to scan his ID at the gates first then stepped through and to the side to wait for you to come on through. As you did you instinctively threw your pass back in your bag as he simply stuffed his into his right pant pocket, the lanyard hanging loosely out of it.

When you’d stepped through he fell back into step alongside you as you made your way over to stand in front of the elevator doors, Jinu taking a brief step forward to press the button for the lift to descend before shifting back and stuffing his hands in his pockets. Your guys’ conversation had lulled now and you both seemed content with just waiting in silence for a little while, it was still early in the morning so not too many people were spotted in the lobby yet. A soft ding resounded and he removed his right hand from his pant pocket for you to step in first, stepping in right after you and stuffing that hand back into his pocket after he clicked the 11th button to get to your shared destination.

The two of you stood side by side, a small gap between you both as the doors closed and the lift began it’s ascent to the next floor. The doors slid open and a few people stepped in, causing the pair of you to step toward the back of the space to be polite as the new tenants clicked buttons for levels lower than the floor either of you needed to get to. The doors slid closed again, followed by another smooth ascent to the third floor now and the same song and dance happened where more bodies entered and once again you’d both been forced to shift further into the lift and toward the back corner - your smaller body slotting between his and the railing connected to the wall but still enough space for now to be comfortable. Then it happened again at the next floor where even more bodies piled on in and Jinu had bumped into you, his hands no longer in his pockets as he tried to limit the space he was taking so he wouldn’t crush you. As if you  were in some twisted comedy it happened again on the next floor and Jinu had turned his body when he realised he was about to be forcibly shoved into you and he raised an arm up and braced his forearm against the metal wall as he let out a grunt trying his best not to squish you against the elevator wall but to no avail as someone bumped against him and now you were pressed against each other.

He felt heat rising to his face and didn’t want to look down at your face so he had looked up at the ceiling, praying to anything holy that his body didn’t have an unfortunate reaction to the proximity, ‘think about wrinkly naked old guys’  he told himself mentally. You were admittedly a little stun locked in this moment as your hands had reflexively gone up to brace for the expected impact of Jinu slamming into you but it never came so now your hands were stuck pressed against his chest and the rest of your body was flush against his as the elevator shifted and groaned slightly at the weight of so many people inside. The lift was definitely overly crowded, probably getting close to full capacity as you waited for the next ding for the potential relief of people exiting but you couldn’t see the panel to see what floors people were getting off on and some of the people inside the lift were busy chatting over something that happened on the weekend. You didn’t crane your neck to look up at Jinu, opting to keep your head down now that you realised there was no chance of you being able to see anything through the dense mass of bodies that had trapped the two of you in the back corner of the metal cell.

Jinu made the mistake of looking down finally, his neck hurting from craning to look up and he let his head fall to look down at you and he had to actively think to keep his breathing steady as he processed what was happening. Your hands were flat on his chest and you’d absentmindedly started to drum your fingers against the fabric of his shirt, your head was tilted down and he was glad for that because if you looked up at him now he was sure he’d do something stupid. He let out a grunt when he felt someone behind him elbow him in the back and he would’ve turned around to check who it was but even that was a little difficult to do given the amount of room available. It occurred to him that he wasn’t too opposed to this proximity lasting longer but soon enough at the next floor a herd of people had walked out, finally allowing him the space to take a step back as he mumbled an apology to you.

By the 8th floor there were only maybe two other people in the lift besides you then by the 9th it had gone back to just being the two of you. You couldn’t help the laugh that started to echo out of you as your shoulders shook, trying your best to suppress it but failing miserably as you couldn’t help but think back to the last 8 or so minutes of your life. As you finally spoke again, letting out a small “Rom-com drama much.” comment as you looked at Jinu. His expression made you want to laugh harder as he visibly looked like he was processing what you just said and then a smile breaks out on his face and he lets out a chuckle.

“Hah.. yeah you’re right.” He finally agreed as he hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his suit pants, looking forward for a moment before tilting his head slightly to side eye you and letting a sly comment slip out, “For the record, I’m totally the pretty female lead that everyone’s fighting over.”

You feigned hurt as you dramatically placed a hand over your heart, offended at what he could be insinuating about your dynamic. “Are you saying that I’m just male love interest #4? The unlucky co-worker that’s never going to win?” Then he hummed a small maybe and looked away from you, then the both of you let out another laugh as you both looked over to the panel that counted the floor levels - watching it flash 10 ^ for a brief second before it flashed to 11 and the elevator came to a halt. Before he could gesture for you to go first, it was your turn to give a dramatic gesture and urge him to go out the door first.

“You first my sweet lady.” You’d teased, attempting to lower your voice as you did so and it was his turn to roll his eyes at you now as he stepped off, pitching up his voice as he replied to you - attempting a very poor attempt at a feminine voice. “Ohh.. you’re such a gentleman oh my gosh.”

When you’d straightened yourself up and stepped out of the lift after him the expression on his face was sly, eye lids lowered a little as he stared down at you and then you both did your best to stop your shaking shoulders as the laughs leaked out of you. You’d parted ways after that, Jinu needing to check in with his supervisor so you gave a small wave as he saluted to you and walked in the opposite direction you were heading. As you walked to the right of the reasonably spacious area you saw a familiar mop of lavender hair over the series of cubicle walls and your pace quickened a little as you walked over towards it.

Minseok was settling down at his desk, just arrived a few minutes before you and Jinu had and was minding his business as he dropped his bag by his feet and pulled out a few essentials. Water bottle, phone, notebook, as he placed the items on his desk he shifted again to lean back down and check if he needed to grab anything else and he noticed your shoes. But his non-functioning brain was trying to process why he had apparently brought women’s heels to work and then it hits him that you’re standing there.

“Good morning.” You chirped happily at him and he straightened himself up, murmuring a greeting in return as you moved out of his vision briefly before appearing again on his left side. You’d plopped your handbag on your desk and took out the lanyard you’d thrown back in there earlier back out, hooking it around your neck and grabbing your own water bottle out as well as your phone before carefully sliding your bag to the back left corner of your desk.

You finally sat down before turning in your chair to look at him now, his appearance the same as always - a little unkempt but you’d be terrified if he walked in one day pristine and tidy. His hair was still the same familiar awkwardly long length that just barely kept his eyes covered but short enough that people couldn’t complain that he didn’t look well maintained, he was wearing a regular long sleeved light grey dress shirt, dark grey suit pants and just some regular leather dress shoes - the top button of his shirt was undone and he was currently in the process of unbuttoning the cuffs on his sleeves so he could roll them up a little.

“Jinu was complaining that you stood him up.” You said as you watched him go through the familiar motion of messily pushing the sleeves up until you reached a hand out to shoo his own away from it, wheeling yourself closer so you could neatly fold the cuffs up to his desired length before carefully tucking the sleeve securely so it wouldn’t sag back down his forearm. “You’ll wrinkle it if you just shove it up like that..” You’d huffed as you motioned for him to give you his other arm so you could repeat the same neat folds.

“In my defence, he messaged me at like 11pm on a work night.” He hummed before saying a soft thank you when you’d finished folding up his other sleeve, he’d turned his chair slightly so it was easier for you and when you were finished he fully turned in your direction now. “I’m not being his late night booty call.”

Your expression said it all, eyebrow quirked as you couldn’t help the sly smile that slipped onto your face as you gave him a look that just screamed ‘you’re kidding’ before you spoke again. “We both know that man has never gotten any ass in his life. C’mon we’ve known him since high school.“ He hummed in agreement and relaxed back into the back rest of his chair as he let you continue on.

“We’ve talked about it before mystery man, you’ve gotten laid more than Jinu’s fumbled a date. Which is an impressive number at that.” You teased the ‘mystery man’ in front of you as he shrugged you off, trying to hide his embarrassment at you bringing up his past actions and going on the defence as he retorted that ‘university was a different life time’ and you backed off after that. Both of you repositioning yourselves at your desk to get started with work for the day, occasionally making small talk before you both had quietened down to focus on whatever document either of you had to read through.

Maybe an hour or two had passed when you heard the familiar ‘ehem’ of your supervisor which caused you and Minseok to look up and away from your monitors, both turning in your chairs a little towards the right where she stood with a younger looking man with teal hair. He was dressed in a plain white dress shirt and light grey dress pants, a backpack slung on one shoulder and his resting expression seemed a little bored. She’d given you a quick run down on the new face and mentioned that the young man had recently been hired and that she expected both yourself and Minseok to train him as well as that the new hire would be seated at the spare desk beside you, she was about to introduce your new co-worker when her phone blared and she apologetically bowed at you all before having to rush off to handle whatever matters had come up.

“Uhm.. My name’s Byeol, I was hired on as a junior assistant, uh, please take care of me.” He awkwardly introduced himself, voice surprisingly low in contrast to his appearance as he bowed at you and Minseok with stiff arms by his side. Clearly uncomfortable at just being thrown into the deep end with no warning, his eyes shifted from you then to Minseok and then to the floor as he looked like he’d rather be absolutely anywhere except for here. Minseok tilted his head to catch your eye and you nodded at him like ‘you go first’ to which he did, as the both of you stood from your chairs now to bow a little to show respect.

“I’m Minseok, I’m a financial analyst so we may not be working together too frequently.” He spoke, voice still low and soft before he gestured for you to introduce yourself next. “I’m [Name], it seems like you’ll probably working with me more - I’m a finance officer.” 

After your introduction you awkwardly gestured to the desk beside you on your left, clean and tidy like no one has ever worked there which is partly true from what you knew and Byeol nodded at that as he stepped over and got himself situated in the space. He seemed a little nervous yet radiated a cool unbothered aura that made you feel like you didn’t really need to keep an eye on him too much which was a relief to you, you were not paid to be someone’s emotional support at this office. He piped up suddenly as he settled in on the slightly creaky office chair and pulled out a notebook from his bag.

“Is this floor always so empty?” He’d asked you, or rather the pair of you as he let his eyes make a quick sweep around the area. You froze for a moment as you tried to process his question and then regurgitate what information you had available. 

“Ah, yeah it is. It’s just our little group in finance and the legal guys on this floor.” When you mentioned the legal team, you pointed at the few cubicles behind you, the walls were facing the three of you so you never really had to worry on if anyone would be seated behind you. “There’s a couple more members in finance but Mimi’s on maternity leave and Jiyoung is taking an extended vacation at the moment.”

Byeol had made a soft ‘mm’ of acknowledgement at the information you gave him, seeming to relax a little knowing that there wouldn’t be too many annoyances in the work space then which was a huge relief for him. He didn’t say much else as he booted up the computer and input the login information your supervisor seemingly gave him before she had to leave, he turned his head slightly to talk to you directly now and listed off the information she had told him. Mentioning that today was just getting familiar with the systems, the workflow and for you or Minseok to assist him in getting the necessary privileges to get access to certain documents and databases. The usual corporate on-boarding. 

“Gooooood morning.” A voice boomed out suddenly which made you jump and Byeol stared blankly at you, Minseok cursed under his breath as a familiar mess of violet hair appeared above the aforementioned legal department cubicles. A muscular figure arrived, a man a good inch or two taller than Jinu had appeared after he threw his bag onto his desk - coming up to stand over Minseok’s cubicle and leant on the wall of it much to the latter’s dismay.

“Oh hey, an extra body.” He commented as he noticed the presence of a third body in the usually empty desk beside you. He squinted for a second and then his eyes lit up as he rushed over and trapped Byeol in an overly familiar headlock. “Aye! It’s my baby boy.”

“Abby hyung- let me go.” Byeol had managed to grunt out as he desperately tried to flee Abby’s grasp and failed miserably. Begrudgingly accepting his fate as you and Minseok shared a confused look and you had instinctively rolled your chair away from what was going on in front of you. Sorry new guy, you were way too weak to help in this situation.

Abby finally released him and stood up, his button up shirt was well fitted today and surprisingly wasn’t bursting at the seams despite his figure. He rested his hands on his hips as he started to badger the younger man about how he’s been, why hasn’t ‘Baby’ come along for a drinking night, when will the next game night be and you can see the way Byeol is contemplating submitting his resignation already. But you had a feeling he won’t because the pay is just way too good at Saja LLC to leave.

“Why’s Abby hazing the new guy?” You heard Jinu’s voice from behind you and both yourself and Minseok had turned your heads around at that, Jinu had his hands in his pockets and his lanyard around his neck now as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on. It wasn’t an unfamiliar scene that Abby would be chatting with people in the office in general, a bit of an out-going guy that just liked to get to know people but he usually wasn’t touchy feely with people at work since he never wanted to cross that line.

“Apparently that’s his baby boy.” Minseok commented, he had leaned back in his chair and lazily crossed his legs as he rested his right arm on his desk but Jinu simply said a small ‘uh huh..’ with extreme uncertainty and disbelief. A few minutes had gone by at this rate with the three of you staring at Abby babbling on at Byeol, the younger man looked drained and no longer the same awkward guy you’d seen earlier as he answers selectively to whatever he was questioned with. Then it’s like someone finally turned the light on in Abby’s head and he looks up and over to you guys like you’d just appeared out of thin air and he lets out a sharp ‘aha!’.

“My bad! Sorry, it’s lil baby man back from uni - do you guys remember? That freshman buddy program I signed up for as a credit thing.” That was it, that was his explanation and that made everything click into place for the three of you. Memories of when Abby had shown up to gush about his ‘baby’ when the four of you would hang out at Jinu and Minseok’s shared dorm, he had never actually shown pictures of the freshman’s face but you feel like you would’ve recognised the teal hair now that you really try to focus on your recounting of the events.

“Ohhh. Oh my god you were the unlucky kid that got stuck with Abby, I remember you now!” You clapped your hands, straightening up in your seat while you celebrated your little victory over your failing memory. It came together in a much clearer picture now when Abby had shown up to the guys’ dorm with a disgruntled looking student, way too tired to function and he looked like all he wanted to do was leave as he was literally forced to hang out with the lot of you who were a few years older than him and definitely had no idea how to talk to him. Byeol’s brows furrowed as he tried to remember who you were, because he swears he would’ve remembered your face if he did know you then it hits him and he briskly stands up and excuses himself to go to the restroom. He remembers distinctly now. 

The four of you were left dumbfounded at his sudden departure but Jinu and Minseok are both quick to jump on Abby’s case about it, saying that it was his fault and he probably scared the kid off now. Abby had looked at you with pleading eyes like you would save him from the other two giving him shit but you avoid eye contact as you recall how frequently the taller man used to force all of you introverts into going out to party and ‘explore your horizons’ despite everyone’s objections and complaints. Then he throws you under the bus.

“Hey, he was taking my affection - he ran off when lil missy over here talked to him.” Then suddenly all of the attention is on you and you’re complaining that the guys always bully you just because you’re a girl, but they rebuttal with how they don’t do this to any of the other women on your floor but then you’re staring at them with big eyes and they shut up for a moment. After talking in circles you had shut yourself up, grumbling a little as you tuned them out and shifted back to your desk to get some work done since it was going no where. 

It had quietened down shortly after as Jinu and Abby headed back to their respective desks, deciding finally to get to work now that they were done messing with you and Minseok had buried his head back in some new financial audit that had been sent his way. Byeol had eventually returned and was a little thrown off by the peaceful environment, the only sound really being the clacking of keys or the clicking of mice, maybe the low voices of Jinu and Abby as they discussed something in regards to work. He’d quietly sat back down in his chair, trying to hide the mild shame of what he’d done as he opened up excel and the company’s intranet to see what steps he could take to get his access sorted for the day. A minute went by and he sees you move out of the corner of his eye, you clear your throat to get his attention so he turns his head ever so slightly to your direction to let you know that he’s listening even as his eyes are scanning the information on the screen in front of him.

“Hey, did chief tell you what level of access you needed at all? Or is there a note or anything that she left?” You’d asked, voice a little soft and low and it made a tingle ripple through his body and he shifts in his chair to reorient himself. He nodded dumbly as he opened the thin manila folder HR had handed off to him earlier in the morning, looking down at them before grabbing out a couple of papers and handing them over to you which you accepted graciously. “Just some low level stuff for now, but apparently they really want me to have a look at the previous year’s finances to understand what’s going on or something.”

You’d nodded at his answer and looked at the couple of sheets he’d given you, mentally taking note of which folders and files he needed access to and turning to your own computer to start raising the ticket requests so the IT team could handle it from there. You hummed as you submitted the last request then turned back to Byeol, offering him the papers he’d given you and he’d grabbed them without turning to look while he continued to click through the currently accessible files and software that he had been approved for.

“You’ll probably be able to access stuff after lunch, if not tomorrow.” You alerted him and he gave a small nod at that. Your eyes lingered on him a little longer as you realised that he’s definitely shaped up a bit since the time you saw him at university, still relatively baby faced but there’s this mature cool vibe from him now instead of the irritable teen you remember. 

“Lunch?” Abby called out and Minseok groaned, both of you well aware that the guy definitely just stood up at his desk with golden retriever levels of excitement which means now you definitely have to go get lunch otherwise he’ll complain for whoever knows how long about how he just wants to spend time with you guys and don’t you guys feel lucky that you all ended up in the same company after university. The usual spiel he always pulled on you guys when you were giving him shit when you’d gone for company drinks and ended up staying out later just hanging out as a group. 

“You too my sweet baby boy.” Came his voice again and it was Byeol’s turn to groan, muttering complaints under his breath that you managed to catch. “Thought I’d never have to see that fucker again after he graduated but nooo.. course he’s at my first big boy job.”

Byeol shuts up when he hears you snort and then he’s smirking a little to himself. You lock your computer, using your mouse to do so and you hear Minseok doing the same thing and then you hear Byeol just clack a few keys on his keyboard and his computer is locked too so the three of you lean back in your chairs and just wait for the legal boys to get themselves sorted. It didn’t take long as you hear Jinu’s iconic chair creak as he stretched and stood up, the tell tale sign that he’s getting up from his desk which let you and Minseok know to get up as well. You stretched your arms up, as you got to your feet before patting down your skirt to make sure it hadn’t ridden up your thighs too much before grabbing your company phone.

“Are you gonna join us, Byeol?” Minseok was the one to ask as you got yourself sorted, pushing your chair under your desk  as you waited for either of the men in your vicinity to move as well. Byeol nodded, getting up himself and tucking his chair under his desk as well - grabbing his phone of the table top in the process and slipping it into his pocket. You’d walked over to the wall blocking off the two legal department desks and peered your head over to check if they had actually gotten up or not to go get lunch, you’d tippy toed a little but it wasn’t worth it as the two men were standing and looking at you like you were a kid trying to peek at them.

“Hi.” You offered up weakly as you lowered your heels back to the ground, Jinu looked like he was ready to poke fun at you when Abby speaks first. “Ro’s already there, he sent me a message complaining that he’s lonely without us.” Ping!

“And he has tea to spill.” He commented as he pulled out his personal phone to check what Mr. Gossip had to say. Like a shepherd with his sheep, the extrovert of your group ushered his herd of introverts away and into the elevator to get down to the office cafeteria. It arrives quickly, allowing the five of you to get on and hit the 3rd button and settle in as it smoothly dropped with no stops on the way down for once. Jinu and you had briefly made eye contact and had to stifle your laughs as if your connected braincell shared the same memory of this morning.

When you arrive at your desired floor - Abby leads the way and slings an arm around Byeol despite his protests, leaving you, Minseok and Jinu to follow after them as you idly chattered about what today’s food options might be. Minseok and Jinu spoke a little quieter to each other as they tried to recount any memories they had of Byeol and then Minseok admits that he had completely forgotten his name because Abby only ever referred to him as baby, baby boy, baby man, lil baby, any iteration that involved the word baby.

“I remember that. Guy had to deal with the three of us awkwardly calling him baby man or lil guy because Abby managed to cut him off every damn time he tried to tell us his name.” Jinu replied, recollections of memories from that period of time in university finally unlocking for him as well and you hummed in agreement before chiming in as well. “I think I avoided calling out to him because it was awkward to say ‘hey lil dude’ or ‘hey baby’.”

You hadn’t noticed the way your two companions freeze as you casually call out ‘hey baby’, both needing to either swallow down whatever they were about to say or clear their throat by coughing into a closed fist. Soon enough the familiar cafeteria doors are in front of you and you fall into line with the other staff members still trailing through and getting their trays filled up with food. You end up behind Minseok who handed you two trays, keeping one for youself you pass one to Jinu behind you and Abby had taken Byeol ahead of you guys already so you guys grabbed bits and pieces of food before heading over to your usual table tucked away at the far back. You’d all agreed it was for the better of everyone else if you were hidden away because lord did your last friend like to gossip about what goes on in the marketing department.

Minseok had waited for you where as Jinu had headed off to your groups’ table first so he could avoid any unwanted attention ladies from the other departments would pester him with, a fun little thing you teased him about pretty frequently. By the time you’d arrived at your corner table tucked away in the back you saw Byeol look like he was ready to murder the next unsuspecting bystander as a familiar head of pink and Abby were poking fun at him. Jinu was sat across from them, two seats available beside him and was munching on some rice as he watched his free entertainment. Minseok sits on the chair by the window which leaves you to take the middle seat between him and Jinu, placing your tray neatly and picking up your chop sticks as you tried to piece together what the three men were doing. Byeol was stuck in between them across from you, ‘Ro’ on the window seat across from Minseok, Abby across from Jinu and the two were coo-ing at Byeol like he was.. a baby.

“Oh little baby man.” Abby sang out as he prodded at Byeol’s cheeks, Ro mimicking the same thing on the opposing side until he was swatted away by flailing limbs and Byeol looked like he was trying so hard not to explode. Your eyes locked for a moment and he silently pleaded that you or either of the guys on either side of you would save him.

“So.. how’s your first day been lil baby?” Minseok was the one to ask it, your head whipped to him and Byeol had a look of utter betrayal on his face like seriously? His own department now against him. Jinu choked on his rice from the sudden laugh that he let out and your jaw had gone slack at the fact that Minseok joined in on the bullying.

“If I wasn’t on probation I’d kill every single one of you, except for her.” Byeol said threateningly, voice almost dangerously low and that made all of the men at the table freeze. Jinu had managed to clear his throat of the lodged rice and then pointed at himself with his chopsticks with an over the top ‘wait me as well?’ only to be met with a deadpan stare. “I remember you from uni.”

Jinu was about to open his mouth and argue but then he thought it over a little more, nodding in agreement with what was said and digging back into his lunch without another word. You let out a nervous chuckle finally as you looked at Ro. “...uh.. so what tea do you have Roman?”

The tension left him immediately as his eyes lit up, finally you could take in his appearance properly now as he started to lay out the details of whatever marketing team scandalous office drama was going on this time. He wore a warm yellow cardigan, a pastel blue dress shirt peaking out from underneath it but for some reason it worked relatively well together.  The top few buttons of his shirt were undone revealing a simple necklace and his hands had a few rings decorating his fingers, of course his hair was styled in that familiar heart shaped mullet that you’ve grown accustomed to as well.

“You guys remember Jia right, the one that kept hitting on Jinu?” The four of you that were familiar with the people in the office shook your head no at this information, because that did nothing to narrow down the list of people. “She tried to hit on Abby next.” Another shake of your heads. “Tried to hit on our mystery boy over here.” Nope still no bells ringing.

“She poured coffee on [Name] then called her a stupid slut?” Ah. That one yes. The three men who had been shaking their heads no at the information prior scrunched their faces in disgust suddenly, remembering that incident clearly and Byeol had looked at you in surprise at that information. Roman caught his gaze and patted the younger man on the shoulder, reassuring him that you’ll all catch him up on that office drama another day.

“Anyway that one yeah,” He started up again and started to talk with his hands as you began to pick away at your food bit by bit, being careful not to take too big of a bite in case you started choking on it because of whatever next he was due to reveal. “Turns out she got caught sexting one of the team leads in the business department on her company phone.”

Okay relatively juicy information, but pretty standard- “The one who’s wife beat cancer.” Oh god.

“Also,” Jinu, Minseok and you all shared a look with each other like ‘there’s more?’ and Abby had just raised a flared brow at all this information. He didn’t expect much from Jia after she called you a derogatory insult unprompted so he was curious what else she could’ve been trying to do. “Allegedly, repeat with me allegedly,” You rolled your eyes at him before listening to what he said next. “She may have been trying to get it on with that same team lead’s son and his nephew as well. All adults for clarification.”

“HUH?” You let out finally because damn Jia was getting busy apparently when she wasn’t trying to get it on with your friends. Jinu had stopped mid chew as he processed the information, Minseok had put the spoon he was using to drink up his soup back on his tray, Byeol looked mildly disgusted because why was he hearing about this shit on his first day of the job and Abby just looked a little bored now.

“Wow. Didn’t know she was going for a family completionist run.” He’d joked as he picked up his paper cup filled with water and took a small sip from it. It seemed like he was the only one that wasn’t too thrown off by the news but then again out of all of you at the table aside from Roman, he had a relatively good read on people and had known she was bad news since the first time he conversed with her at an office drinking party. 

“How did you guys even get this information?” You asked, your hand had instinctively gone to pick up a cup of water before you realised you hadn’t actually grabbed one. Abby noticed and simply handed you his to sip from and you mouthed a ‘thanks’ to him as you took a careful sip from the small paper cup before handing it back to him. Roman looked at you, smile on his face as he did a little rainbow gesture with his hands and whispered. “Marketing..!” As if that answered your question but you let him off with it, starting to dig back into your food since all the other guys had started to do the same.

“Well they both are on probation until HR figures out how to get rid of them without fucking up our public image.” Roman finished off finally with his tale, his tray had been emptied long before you sat down since he’d seemingly come down first and he sighed dramatically. “Can’t wait to be called at midnight about needing to sort out an emergency PR stunt to cover it up.”

You gave him a pitying look as the other guys gave their own insight on things, mostly analytical from all of them rather than derogatory since they were just curious how it even got this bad. You’d gotten more details here and there, surprised by how much stuff had happened just from this situation alone and then Byeol had asked if he was due to get a company phone at some point to which Abby responded he should be soon. The five of you had all picked up your company phones to show him what he could expect and he looked annoyed that he’ll soon have to start carrying two phones around, but at least he wouldn’t be getting contacted on his personal device for it.

“It’s okay baby, you can expect me to be contacting you twice as much once you get it.” Abby coo-ed at the smaller man before leaning away from him to narrowly avoid a fist that had gone flying in his direction and laughing it off. By the time you’d finished half of your tray of food, everyone had been long done and you felt bad you were holding them up but Minseok hushed you and told you to eat up otherwise you’ll never grow big and strong like them. You gave him the stank eye before continuing to pick at your food, Jinu had nudged you with his elbow to remind you that you shouldn’t have gotten the veggie mix if you weren’t going to eat it and you couldn’t help the small pout you sent his way. “..don’t be mean to me, I thought I was hungry.”

The rest of the guys were quick to start bagging on Jinu after that, even Byeol throwing in a few jabs as well as he seemed to loosen up steadily through out your lunch session as a group. The ravenette had raised his hands up in a mock surrender, defending himself as a simple caring friend that was concerned for his dear friend about whether or not said friend was eating well and making good choices. The topic switched after that and you finished up most of what you could, a few different things still left on your tray and wordlessly Jinu picks it up and slides it between his and Abby’s trays for the two of them to finish up your leftovers for you because they already know you’ll feel bad for leaving waste behind. At some point Minseok had gone and refilled his and Abby’s water cups so he had handed you his one so you could wash down your meal properly and Byeol’s just watching all of these interactions with Roman like a free domestic romance flick.

“It never gets boring.” Roman commented and Byeol nodded in agreement, he could get used to this dynamic again. It’s matured since the last time he witnessed it in university and honestly it’s a little fascinating to now be a part of it, not necessarily just an outsider looking in anymore. Soon enough you’d all gotten up from the table, before you could try to pick up your tray to help clean away things Abby has already stacked it on top of his and Jinu’s and gone ahead first to dispose of the food so you trailed behind Jinu as you walked towards the elevator first whilst the others busied themselves with cleaning up too.

Once again you’d lucked out on your timing, being undisturbed on your elevator lift and Roman was the first to get off at the 7th floor with a sad wave as he left you all to go back up to the 11th floor. You felt your phone vibrate in your hand and you checked to see what email you’d received, mostly approvals and the tickets you had raised for Byeol earlier had all been changed to ‘action’ states whilst a couple had been marked as ‘pending server’ which meant that he wouldn’t be getting much more done until tomorrow. You voiced that to him as he hovered beside you on your left, Abby was leant against the right wall of the lift in front of the panel, Minseok behind him and Jinu on your right and sandwiched a little between the other guys.

At least he gets an easy first day then? The rest of the afternoon goes by in a blur, you’d walked Byeol through some of your company’s oddly specific reporting processes and services as Minseok gave a general breakdown on the software that you’d be dealing with frequently as well as explained how the payroll system is handled as he’d most likely be asked questions about that from people that didn’t understand that payroll and finance were not the same department - something that still happens frequently enough despite many company wide emails being sent out to discourage people from going to bother the finance department for this reason. At some point your supervisor as well as the legal departments’ supervisors had bid you all good bye for the day and had left already, which meant that you guys could mess around a little and just chatter about whatever you felt like.

Which leads to the instance here where Jinu and Abby had wheeled themselves from their desk over into the finance space, both now eager to talk about the earlier office drama with you three now that they’ve been told that it’ll become a legal, HR and marketing department problem to deal with. Abby was complaining about how annoying the legalities will be because defamation or unfair termination clauses could apply whilst Jinu pointed out that abuse of company properties was applicable to this case as well. Minseok occasionally threw out a comment as his back was turned to them, still skimming the audit from earlier in the day whilst Byeol had simply logged out for the day and was listening intently despite playing some game on his phone.

“Contract was pretty clear that misuse of company assets was prohibited.” He commented, fingers tapping rapidly at the horizontal screen as he was slouched in his chair, his legs were spread a little and he’d turned to face the group of you as well so his voice projected better than when he’d been facing away. Then Abby responded by pointing out, “But it’ll depend on the contract she signed when she joined.”

“I thought she was only our senior by a year?” You said as you finished up your last email for the day, closing and saving out documents and any final checks before locking your PC for the day. After you sure you were logged out safely you turned in your chair to better join the discussion as well now. The chatter kept going on like that until you’d all finally decided it’s time to leave for the day when Minseok threw the towel in as well on his work, all grabbing your bags and essentials. By the time you were on the main lobby and out the front door of the building you felt exhaustion work it’s way into your shoulders, a small groan escaping you as you rubbed at the shoulder that was holding your bag.

Shortly after you feel someone pull your bag and you instinctively grab it tighter only for the voice of Abby to be by your ear as he asks you to let him carry it, then you finally let him take it as you loiter around the front of your office. Small talk and banter was exchanged, then the guys started being guys and making dirty innuendoes at each other that made you question them on whether or not they’d hooked up with one another yet before Byeol decides he wants to head home and bids you all farewell as he heads off to catch the next bus to his place. The remaining four of you decide that today will be the night you all invade Minseok’s place, even if it was only a Tuesday and you guys had work the next day surely he could be kind enough in his heart to allow some tired office workers to take refuge in his nearby apartment? He was against it until he noticed that you’d started to shift your weight from foot to foot, occasionally leaning down slightly to rub at your sore ankles and he changes his mind and leads the way back to his place which was only a short 5 minute walk thankfully. Jinu and Abby cheers in victory, obnoxious wooping for a bit until you smacked them both upside the head for causing a scene.

A slightly mundane routine that brought comfort to you as you deal with all the losers that are your friends.

[specialagentartemis]

Feel like dropping the rant about how "pre-written records = prehistory" is not a good way of conceptualizing history? It's not my area at all so I'm fascinated.

Hah absolutely

It’s a mix of semantics, and word connotations, and the way history gets presented, and tbh legacies of racism.

So. Part of it comes from the distinctions between the academic field and practice of history, and the academic field and practice of archaeology. The practice of history means analyzing the past through written texts and records; the practice of archaeology means analyzing the past through the material remains left behind. This is fine. It refers to the way you approach information about the past and what tools and theories you use to do so. I have no problem with this part!

Of course, it starts to get more complicated when you also have classicists (who study ancient Greek and Roman history primarily through texts but also incorporate some aspects of archaeology) and Assyriologists (ditto but for Mesopotamia), which have their roots in old-school European practices of formal education. There’s also historical archaeology, which is primarily archaeology but incorporates written records of the time and place for a fuller picture, or uses archaeology to complicate or fill gaps in the records. Historical archaeology is a practice that can be applied to any place and time with historical records, but primarily it refers to archaeology of the Americas post-European colonialism.

These refer to the ways we study the past. Where I start to disagree is when these terms get applied to the past itself.

Historians study history through written texts, so there is often a delineation where history = the presence of written texts, and prehistory = before that. And I have problems with that delineation of time.

For one thing, the connotations of the terms. History, in common use, is important, it’s everything that built the world we live in and led to where we are now. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. While prehistory conjures images of dinosaurs, or cavemen. It implies that the things that happened in it aren’t as important as the things that happened once history proper started. It also feels very, very old—it feels weird to call, say, the Inca empire prehistoric, when the Inca Empire is younger than Oxford University and the first Inca emperor was crowned in Peru after the Norman Invasion of England in 1066—something nobody calls prehistoric.

Because that brings up a more objective issue with splitting time into “history” and “prehistory”: writing was invented at different times in different places, and used to different extents. Writing was first invented in Mesopotamia in the Early Bronze Age, about 5,000 years ago. It was probably independently invented in Egypt shortly afterward, and was independently invented in China 3400 years ago, and in Central America about 2500 years ago. Writing spread across Asia, India, North Africa, Europe, and Mexico/Guatemala; it was not used in North America, South America, southern Africa, Australia, most parts of Polynesia, Micronesia, Australia, or New Zealand at all until European contact. According to the written records definition, this means history starts in very different times in these different places. Not only does this unbalance what we think of as “history” a lot, it ends up discounting or minimizing these people’s own ways of reckoning history, making their history start when Europeans arrived.

This is an incredibly dismissive way to consider whole continents’ worth of people and cultures! It turns them into a “people without history,” and implies that whatever they were doing before Europeans (or Chinese, Indians, or North Africans depending on the region, but mostly Europeans) doesn’t really matter to what happened since. If anything happened at all in that “time before history”; a common perspective of both early colonists and modern pop-history in places like the American West or Australia is that the people there have been living the exact same way for thousands of years, unchanging since the Stone Age. Only upon contact with Europeans did anything change and “history” start. This is hugely dismissive of these people’s autonomy and their past. (You’ll notice it’s a lot of people who suffer from racism who are denied the title of “history”!) It’s also just not true.

I’m an archaeologist who studies the US Southwest/Mexican Northwest region; I focus on Arizona and New Mexico in the 1000s–1400s AD. And one of the things that opened my mind so much in studying the US southwest was just how much things changed from decade to decade and century to century in the past, the same way they did anywhere else in history at this time. There was no written history in this part of the world, but what we do have is very precise tree-ring dates. Using tree rings, we can date when this or that building was built down to the precise year. And because it’s a desert, things preserve well for a long time, so we have lots of ancient tree-ring dates. Because of this, we can see how art styles, architectural styles, settlement patterns, family organization, farming practices, religion, politics, and cultural interactions changed over the past four thousand years. And we can see that they did change, and sometimes they changed slowly and sometimes they changed rapidly. People did things. They had new ideas, they formed new political organizations and adopted new religions, they came together and broke apart, they developed new art styles and new technologies, elite lineages controlled the social order until their power fractured, people moved into new places and adapted their old practices to what they found there, or developed new ones… and because of tree-rings and desert preservation, archaeologists can see it in ways we can’t in cooler and wetter environments. This is history. This is people doing things, shaping the physical and social landscape for the centuries that followed.

And of course, Pueblo and Diné and Apache and O’odham people of the Southwest have their own oral histories that overlap with these archaeological studies. This is true in many, many places that did not traditionally use writing. They can’t be discounted just because they weren’t written down.

So to me, history = writing and prehistory = before writing is a false dichotomy that’s unhelpful at best and racist at worst. To me, history starts when people become socially organized enough that they care about what happened before, what happened where, and why it’s important, and what it means. Every culture has history, whether they wrote it down or not. Studying it may not always be suited to the skillset of historians, but that doesn’t mean it’s not history.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Can u please post sum pjo oc content the tag's been runnin dry

🫡 you've got it boss. uhh let's do these ones for now -

these are all some misc rough doodles thinking about potential Big 3 kids pre-the current modern set of Big 3 kids in the series. There's not a ton of hard concepts in here, mostly just fiddling around. elaboration for these guys below the cut:

- Poseidon twins i imagine were already at CHB when the oath was taken and died relatively soon after (smited for prophecy-avoidance reasons).

- The girl i imagine went unclaimed her entire stay at CHB but strongly suspected that she was a daughter of Poseidon and everybody else kind of had an inkling. She was mysteriously smited without explanation (prophecy avoidance) before she turned 16.

- Zeus cabin gang (forgive my outfit anachronisms i didnt feel like getting deep in the weeds about 1930s+ camp attire for doodles) - first row i think perhaps is the Zeus kids that were already at CHB when the oath was made and were all killed before they turned 16. Second and third rows I imagine gradually cropped up over time and ended up at chb at some time or another. Half of them probably went totally unclaimed and all got smited/killed pretty quickly after arriving. I dont have a ton of thoughts for each individual, though I did pick out some themes each of them are based off of relating to Zeus' aspects. I imagine the first girl in the first row is very wolf-themed and was cabin counselor for awhile. Second kid is a huge flirt. The last kid in the first row is based off of Zeus as youngest of Kronos' children/young Zeus and is cabin 1 baby. etc etc.

And then the Romans!

- My personal hc is Hades/Pluto just absolutely does not have demigod kids much at all, and when he does there's like a 50% chance or more Persephone will have kids around the same time, if not with the same mortal(s). So Hades & Persephone siblings are not uncommon when they do crop up. I also like to think that because they're so uncommon, these guys are pretty much the only time a Hades/Pluto kid has cropped up at either camp at all (at least so far as being recorded) before Bianca/Hazel/Nico.

[templekhrysenios]

who was artemis?

first post on the new blog!! i've done posts like these on my other accounts for dionysus, hekate, and ganymede, so now i'm doing artemis! this by far has taken me the longest, since i thought devoting more time to my matron would be appropriate (also seeing as the dionysus and hekate posts were for my friend who's a beginner anyways).

i will definitely be leaving out some stories/details in favor of succinctness, but if you want more detail check out my cited sources.

IM SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG THIS IS

Domain and Worship: hunting, the wild, nature, fertility, domesticated and wild animals, marshes/springs/wetlands/coves, transitions, adolescence, girls and women, boundaries, plague (and healing plague), nymphs, and freeing slaves (especially female). she was a virgin goddess and often appeared as a teenage girl

she was described as loving dance, which translated over into her worship and paralleled her brother Apollo's domain over music. she was also seen as the caretaker of young children and animals, although the kourotrophos ("child nurturer") aspect is likely from syncretism with Hekate. she was also invoked to preside over birth, which is another syncretism with the goddess Eileithyia

early syncretism with pre-hellenic goddesses solidified her as Potnia Theron ("mistress of animals"), which was also itself an image/votive of a (often) winged, nude woman

later syncretism resulted in her elevation to a war goddess (mostly in Sparta), and, most notably, the moon (from Roman Diana). in some cases Artemis/Diana outright replaces Selene/Luna as goddess of the moon. in others, Artemis/Diana is just the one who carries the moon across the night sky, and Selene/Luna remains personification of the moon

my personal worship honors the later syncretism, and Artemis' role as a moon and nature goddess are most often called upon by me. in the beginning of my practice i honored specifically Diana, but recently I began using the name Artemis and combined the two

she was also considered goddess of boundaries due to the fact that her temples were most often places on the very edges of a nation's territory; thus representing the country's borders

notably, Artemis' virginity is not maintained in the way that Athena's and Hestia's, who are almost always portrayed as adult women that rebuke men. in Artemis' case, she is seen as being between the ages of childhood and adulthood, so she is not "ready" (so to speak) to lose her virginity. her virginity was important to solidify her power, as it was one thing to be a woman in patriarchal ancient greece, and another entirely to be a married woman/mother (who was entirely beholden to her husband/father/etc.)

for Artemis' priestesses it was not uncommon for those that swore life-long devotion to take on husbands and bear children. this was largely believed to be acceptable to Artemis and priestesses often did not have to worry about being struck down

Parentage: Zeus, king of the gods, and Leto, a titaness who presided over motherhood and modesty. other stories have other parents, but they were largely to syncretise her with existing deities

Important Imagery:

-bow and arrows or hunting spears

-torches

-chiton (a knee length maiden's dress)

-animal pelt cap and cape

-bears

-birds, often small birds that are commonly hunted like quail or guinea-fowl, and large water birds like herons or swans

-deer (young and adult, male and female)

-hunting dogs

-Potnia Theron votives

-Ephesian Artemis was associated with bees

Ancient Offerings: cypress leaves/wood, palm leaves/wood, jewelry, a girl's finest clothes (at times of transition from girl to woman to even mother), animal parts (pelts/bones/meat), dance, dressing up as a bear/other animals. also as period typical generic offerings like water, wine, honey, milk, frankincense/myrrh, barley

Other Offerings: forgeables (like nuts/seeds, berries, herbs, etc.), mugwort and wormwood (scientific name artemisia), jasmine (associated with the moon), lavender (personal UPG, used to promote calm/sleep), cedar (she has an epithet meaning cedar), willow (associated with marshes and the moon), moon water (duh), laurel/bay leaves (associated with Apollo and winning athletic competitions), amaranth (personal UPG and she has a similar sounding epithet)

Crystals: black or regular moonstone, selenite, smokey quartz, amethyst, black tourmaline, labradorite, angelite, flower/moss/tree agate, aventurine, various jaspers (but bumblebee or star jasper would be cool), opal, blue calcite, celestite

Associated Holidays: Artemisia, Elaphebolia, Artemis' birthday on the 6th of Thargelion (Thargelia, which also celebrates Apollo's birthday on the following day), Mounykhia

Some Lore:

-During her pregnancy Leto was relentlessly pursued by Hera out of jealousy, making it impossible to find somewhere to give birth. In the end, she settled in Delos just in time to have twins Artemis and Apollo. In some versions, Artemis came first in Ortygia, and in some Artemis actually assisted in the birth of her brother, defining her domain over childbirth (this story may come before or after her syncretism with Eileithyia, I'm not sure)

-Artemis may have taken on the hunter Orion as a lover, who was then killed by a scorpion sent by Apollo before her virginity was lost. Out of grief, Orion and the scorpion (Scorpius) were immortalized as constellations. Other versions have Orion trying to compete with/rape Artemis and then being punished by her, or Gaia punishing the hunter for proclaiming he would/could kill all wild beasts on Earth

-Artemis' companion Kallisto was either assaulted by/seduced by Zeus (in some versions, he takes on the appearance of Artemis), and became pregnant. Artemis punished her by transforming her into a bear, said to be the most maternal of all animals

-When the hunter Actaeon peeked at Artemis and her nymphs bathing, she turned him into a stag and had him ripped apart by her hounds

-Artemis sent the Calydonian Boar to punish the King Oineus for lacking in his offerings to the gods

-This boar was then killed by the great hero Atalanta (from Jason and the Argonauts), whom Artemis had found abandoned as a baby and gave to a bear to be raised into adolescence. Upon becoming a teenager, Atalanta was allowed to join Artemis' group of virgin huntresses

-It is said that King Agamemnon angered the goddess Artemis, who calmed the waters upon the Greeks departure towards Troy. To appease her, Agamemnon sacrificed his young daughter Iphigeneia

-One of Artemis' most devoted, Hippolytus, was a man who had fiercely declared himself never to marry and to always be free and wild. When he visited his father Theseus and step-mother Phaedra, the woman became enamored with the young man. Upon declaring her love, however, she was rebuked whereupon she accused Hippolytus of raping her and hung herself. Theseus, in his grief and rage, called upon his father Poseidon, who summoned a bull to frighten Hippolytus' horse into trampling him to death

-When Kore/Persephone is kidnapped by Hades while she is with Athena and Artemis, Artemis (alongside Hekate) assists Demeter in searching for Kore/Persephone. This gives her the epithets Phosphoros (light-bearer) and Amphipyron (with a torch in both hands), which she shares with Hekate

-The theory that Artemis could be queer is not so unfounded, considering cultural norms of the time. I'll let my source speak for itself:

Epithets:

-Aeginaea: wielder of the javelin

-Agrotera: the huntress

-Apanchomene: the strangled (goddess), related to a worship tradition where a votive/statue was hung or "strangled." strangulation was weirdly synonymous with virginity

-Aristo: the greatest

-Chitone: related to Artemis' depiction of wearing a chiton

-Chrysaor: the god(dess) with the golden sword/arms

-Daphnaea: derived from daphne, or laurel

-Delios/Delia: from Delos (Apollo and Artemis' birthplace)

-Gamelioi: presiding over marriage (as goddess of transitions)

-Genetullis: protectress of births

-Hegemone: leader/ruler

-Hemeresia: the soothing goddess

-Heurippe: finder of horses

-Limenia: protector of the harbor

-Phoebe: goddess of the moon

-Phosphoros/Selasphoros: bringer of light

-Soteira: savior

-Diktynnaia: of the hunting nets

-Pheraia: of the beasts

-Elaphiaia: of the deer

-Kedreatis: derived from the cedar tree

-Karyai/Karyatis: derived from the walnut tree

-Limnaie/Limnatis: of the lake

-Heleia: of the marshes

-Eurynome: of broad pastures

-Lykeia: of the wolves

-Paidotrophos: nurse of children

-Philomeirax: friend of young girls

-Orsilokhia: helper of childbirth

-Hegemone: leader of dance/choir

-Ariste: the best/excellent

-Kalliste: the very beautiful

-Basileis: the princess

-Hiereia: the priestess

-Lygodesme: willow-bound (like offerings can be for her)

-Potnia Theron: queen of beasts

-Potnia Thea: goddess queen

-Letois/Latoia/Letoias: daughter of Leto

-Hekate/Hekatebolos: the far-shooting

-Iokheaira: of showering arrows

-Khryselakatos: of the golden distaff

-Theroscopus: hunter of wild beasts

-Elaphebolos: the deer-shooting

-Khrysenios: of the golden reins (namesake of this blog!! can be relating to her domination over animals or (UPG) relating to her chariot that pulls the moon across the sky)

-Khrysothronos: of the golden throne

-Keladeinos: the strong-voiced

-Hagne: the chaste/pure

-Parthenus: the virgin/maiden

-Aidoios Parthenos: the revered virgin

-Prostateria: the guardian

Sources:

theoi.com

artemis by stephanie budin (from the series "gods and heroes of the ancient world")

wikipedia (briefly)

[hollowed-theory-hall]

do you think it’s strange that the uk monarchy is, as far as i remember, never mentioned in the books? it seems so weird to me since, for better or worse, it’s such an integral part of the concept of “britishness” - even if wizarding society seems pretty removed from muggle society, the monarchy has such a long history that it seems weird for the two societies to not intermingle in it. has wizarding society cut ties with it after the issue of the statute of secrecy? how many of the crown jewels are actually magical items? how *noble* is the house of black, really? were there ever kings or queens who were wizards?

there’s so many questions i have about this! such a world building plot hole!

Ok, so there are a lot of questions here and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability. I will note there are a bunch of my own headcanons in this post. They are based on what we know about Wizarding History and what I know about irl UK history but they are still headcanons.

So, we know the Ministry of Magic was founded in 1707 after the Statue of Secrecy was enacted in 1692. The ministry was an immediate response to said statute since wizards needed a more uniform government to enforce their secrecy and cover up any slip ups. This means that before the Statue of Secrecy, the muggle government or monarchy earlier was the governing force for wizards as well as muggles. Yes, the Wizengamot already existed, but it seemed to behave differently from how it does in the modern ministry.

I wrote about the Wizengamot and how I believe it works along with some of its history here although I learned more UK history since, so this post is more accurate on the history front.

Now, I hope you won't mind me going into some medieval history of the UK in general, since the monarchy has changed over time, and in the early Middle Ages, the UK was comprised of multiple smaller kingdoms. Wales had 3 big kingdoms, but also a bunch of smaller ones (there were also warlords that took over abandoned Roman fortresses after the Romans left Britain in eastern Wales), England had the Anglo-Saxons settling in after the Romans left and creating multiple Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (like Wessex and Marcia). Scotland and Ireland were similarly divided. There were the biking invasions and a whole Viking kingdom in north-east England that's referred to as "The Dane Law". England did unite under King Aethelstan eventually, but with all these fractured kingdoms and warlords, I'm sure there were some wizards among them. Then, of course, there is the Norman monarchy and nobility established after the Norman conquests, which officially settled in 1066.

My point with all of this history is that like muggle society, wizarding society changed and evolved and that the monarchy in Britain wasn't the same throughout the entirety of history. So, the status of wizards and wizard nobility changed based on the specific time period we are discussing. But let's look at post-normans pre-Statue of Secrecy wizarding high society, and for that the Pottermore article about the Malfoy family is incredibly helpful:

Like many other progenitors of noble English families, the wizard Armand Malfoy arrived in Britain with William the Conqueror as part of the invading Norman army. Having rendered unknown, shady (and almost certainly magical) services to King William I, Malfoy was given a prime piece of land in Wiltshire, seized from local landowners, upon which his descendants have lived for ten consecutive centuries.

(from Pottermore)

Most nobility in England after the conquest were normans close to William who arrived with him and were given muggle noble titles, lands, and status. irl, the first Peverell in England, William Peverell was similarly given lands as he was said to be a son of William the Conqueror. That being said, some Anglo-Saxon nobility (mostly from the south of England since the northern Anglo-Saxon nobility were mostly killed after their rebellion) were kept in place by William as long as they swore fealty to him. Families like the Blacks and Longbottoms (both having Anglo-Saxon surnames) are likely among this leftover Anglo-Saxon nobility.

Now besides the muggle nobility, which is very much aware of wizards and even includes wizards (like the Malfoys, Peverells, Lestranges, and the Gaunts) we have the Wizangamot. The Wizaengamot, which I wrote more about in the post I linked, have likely been around and acted as a council of wizard nobility alongside the muggle one before the Norman invasion since around when Hogwarts was founded (around 990). The Blacks and Longbottoms (and the Notts who also have a Germanic name dating to the Dane Law I referenced earlier and King Knut who ruled that portion of England) were probably in this council.

We also know the Malfoys aren't in the Wizengamot in the books, meaning the circles of nobility for each council were different. This is easily explained by the Wizengamot being there earlier and being Anglo-Saxon rather than Norman. The name Wizangamot is, in itself, from old English which supports this speculation.

Since the Wizengamot continued existing after the conquest, I assume William the Conquerer left it as it is, wanting to ally himself with the local wizarding community rather than going to war with them. Wizards are, after all, really fucking useful, and irl he did keep some of the Anglo-Saxon nobility, so that's in character.

I think, after the conquest the Wizengamot either grew in the number of families there or that the families that opposed William were replaced with Norman wizard nobles that William trusted to represent him in the magical community.

The same Pottermore article about the Malfoy family also notes:

Historically, the Malfoys drew a sharp distinction between poor Muggles and those with wealth and authority. Until the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692, the Malfoy family was active within high-born Muggle circles, and it is said that their fervent opposition to the imposition of the Statute was due, in part, to the fact that they would have to withdraw from this enjoyable sphere of social life. Though hotly denied by subsequent generations, there is ample evidence to suggest that the first Lucius Malfoy was an unsuccessful aspirant to the hand of Elizabeth I, and some wizarding historians allege that the Queen’s subsequent opposition to marriage was due to a jinx placed upon her by the thwarted Malfoy.

(from Pottermore)

This means the monarchy throughout history was well aware of wizards and that the magical nobility was also muggle nobility and allowed in the same circles, but not vice versa. It seems to me, that the Malfoys had a muggle noble title from William I, and once the Statue of Secrecy was enacted they lost their title since they weren't also Wizarding nobility (Wizengamot members). (The Malfoys did keep all their money though).

Considering what Pottermore implies, it seems to me, there is a high chance of some crown jewels being magical. I mean, Lucius Malfoy I proposed to Queen Elizabeth I, and in my headcanon the aforementioned Willaim Peverell is the father of the three brothers of the Deathly Hallows, and in this headcanon, William Peverell is a half-blood wizard. Point is, yeah, the monarchy was well aware of wizards and seemed to have been in an alliance with the Wizengamot and the magical community. Although, I'm sure attitudes changed over time and differed from monarch to monarch with some being closer to the Wizarding community than others, but in general the Wizengamot and the wizarding community as a whole were under the governance of the muggle monarch.

It's actually possible there were a few wizards who ruled the UK (or any of the earlier kingdoms that eventually united) across the Isles's history. I think it's even likely if we're being honest. Egbert the Egregious, for example, might've been a king of Kent or Wessex (two of the older kingdoms before England united) as kings of the same name are recorded in both.

Once the Statue of Secrecy was enacted the wizards drew away from muggle society and wizards who held muggle noble titles likely lost them. But we know some muggles are aware of wizards' existence. We see at the beginning of HBP that the muggle Prime Minister is informed of wizards' existence and obliviated when they leave office. If I had to bet, the monarch (and perhaps more in the royal family) are similarly aware that wizards exist but aren't really involved. Like, the monarch probably knows but is only informed when something in the Wizarding World spills out to the muggle one. So, the monarch knows wizards exist, but not much more than that.

As for how noble the House of Black really was, I mentioned I believe they were nobles of the Wizengamot and Anglo-Saxon nobility before the Normans. I think all magical families in the Wizengamot that were around before the Normans would be considered: "Noble and Ancient". We see the Blacks being referred to as "The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black" compared to the Gaunts who are just: "House of Gaunt" which is how wizard nobility from after the conquest would be titled in my headcanon.

The name Gaunt is one that arrived in Britain with the Normans as stated in a survey of England's land done by William after the conquest (this survey is known as the "Doomsday Book" and it essentially details which land belongs to which lord. The book names both Norman lords and Anglo-Saxon ones and is a super useful historical document. It occasionally even mentions which Anglo-Saxon lord was deposed for the sake of a new Norman one). Gilbert de Ghent (standardized spelling wasn't a thing yet), named in said survey was the nephew of King William I's wife and as such received lands. A lot of them, actually:

"Few among the Conqueror's companions of arms were so splendidly rewarded as Gilbert de Ghent, who held one hundred and seventy-two English manors."

(Manors refers to actual manors, but also the land surrounding them. Basically, it refers to a family seat)

As the Gaunts were so favored, it's likely William I placed his nephew's family (who I headcanon at least some are wizards) in the Wizengamot. I believe the Slytherins married into the Gaunt family around the same time to add legitimacy to the Gaunts' status in the wizarding community.

The Malfoy Family that doesn't have a magical noble title and lost their muggle one is just referred to as: "Malfoy Family" and never "House of Malfoy" which again, to me, suggests this is how these titles work.

The aforementioned Doomsday Book does mention a William Black with 5 manors in Devon. William Peverell, as a son of King William I is mentioned to have 153 manors given to him and another 75 to Ranulf Peverell (not sure of the familial relationship). Reginald Cnut (older spelling of Nott) is also mentioned in the Doomsday Book to have 26 manors. Malfoy is a name JKR made up and isn't mentioned in the Doomsday Book or any other survey of UK landowners done in the Middle Ages. I did read a legend about one Guy Le Strange who participated in a tournament at Castle Peverell around 1083 and won the hand of Mellette, the niece of William Peverell. Although the Lestranges are not mentioned in the Doomsday Book and this legend likely dates from the 13th century a good 200 years after the supposed events it details.

So, to summarise, wizards don't seem to have or ever had a royal family of their own but there were most likely wizard royals throughout the various kingdoms that existed in history. Some wizards do have a noble status that I headcanon/speculate is connected to their status as members of the Wizengamot. These Wizengamot titles were also muggle titles and there were wizards with muggle titles that weren't part of the Wizengamot. These wizards probably interacted very closely with the muggle nobility and even shared family trees and were all probably considered half-blooded if you asked a Death Eater. After the Statue of Secrecy, the muggle titles became irrelevant and stopped being used leaving only the Wizarding titles behind (I headcanon "Ancient and Noble houses" refers to Anglo-Saxon nobility, and just "noble houses" refers to Norman nobility among wizards). The UK monarch likely is informed about the wizarding world to a similar degree as we see the muggle prime minister is informed. Blood purity probably only became relevant after the Statue of Secrecy as before that we see intermarriages with muggle royalty and nobility being practiced (I talked a bit about the timing of the witch hunts and the Statue of Secrecy here).

Sorry for the nerdy history talk, but, I answered this after a few weeks of medieval UK research and I have so many thoughts about medieval wizarding society in Britain.

[mask131]

Just a quick reminder of something, because I saw people talk about this on recent posts...

So, I made a TON of posts explaining why it is important to remember that the Roman gods are not the Greek gods per se - as in, the Romans had a different view and perception of the Greek gods, and so ended up creating yes, mostly equivalents and counterparts to the Greek gods, but with their own religious and cultural significance slightly different from the Greek deities - each culture having its focus on a different thing. (Aphrodite became more of a motherly and national goddess, Hermes became suddenly very merchant and commerce obsessed and not much of a thief anymore, Poseidon's rule extended to all waters not just the sea, Ares became a god of peace and agriculture?) Etc, etc.

However I now see people taking this way further than it should. I am not surprised because that's what people do on the Internet, you tell them one thing and they extrapolate it all.

But so you know, the difference between Greek and Roman gods is only valuable and interesting by the times of the Ancient Greek and Romans themselves.

When you go by the Renaissance, or by the modern eras that followed it, you'll notice that all paintings and books and sculptures are about the Roman gods - Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Venus, Mercury, Vulcan and whatnot. Does it mean they are about the Roman gods? NOT AT ALL! They're all about the Greek gods mainly, but mixed with some Roman elements.

That's something some people are apparetly not aware of, so I'll try to briefly summarize it for ya... By the Middle-Ages, people knew of what we call today the "Classical mythology" mostly and mainly through the Roman texts and authors. Later by the Renaissance some of the Greek texts and authors were rediscovered, shared around and used a lot - not all though, as the rediscovery of Ancient Greece would be slow and steady, and we still find new fragments of Greek texts today! But here's the gist: the Roman texts and legends having been there before the Greek ones in people's cultures and heads... By the Renaissance and forward, the Roman names of the gods were the one used by default. For them these names were the famous and recognizable ones, and almost the "truest" of their names... Even when depicting entirely Greek myths and legends.

Because that's the subtle trick of Renaissance and all that would follow: the Greek texts and legends being THE big piece everybody was talking about and discussing about, the gods depicted in the arts and fiction by these eras were mostly and mainly their Greek versions. But, due to the "I was here first" and pre-eminence of the Roman literature and culture in Europe, these Greek identites and personas of the gods were refered to by their Roman names, and the Greek myths coexisted with the Roman legends. And that's the whole point: throughout the history of modern Europe, the difference between Roman and Greek god does not matter because they were conflated and unified into one and same set of entity, and people didn't care about the difference.

Which is what led to today's belief that "Roman gods are just the Greek gods by a different name" - and also led to stuff like this horrible thing I experienced as a teenager when the teacher supposed to teach us about Latin, when talking about the Roman gods, just handed to us a description of the Greek gods and told us to just swap the Greek names with the Roman ones (this teacher was an AWFUL awful teacher, not mean, but very bad at her job).

Because yes, that's the irony: you'd think that because people were more familiar with Roman mythology and the Romans personas of the gods during the Middle-Ages and the Renaissance, the Roman gods would have overshadowed the Greek ones, but in effect that's the reverse. The Roman gods being erased by the Greek gods: which is why people still think today Mars is a bloodthirsty war god, or that Minerva has all the attributes of Athena, or that Mercury was just as much a god of thieves as of legal business. The main problem today isn't to highlight the purely Greek things - because the Ancient Greeks have won this historical battle. The problem is pointing out how the Roman gods had their own unique thing on the aside that the Greek gods did not.

In conclusion: yes, you can use paintings of Jupiter to illustrate an article about Zeus, because at the time they were made, the artist probably was thinking about Zeus but just used a different name.

[yugsly]

Hello!

Do you have any favorite Japanese music? (or games bgm......)

Sorry, I'm using a translator so my text may be strange...（ ; ; ）

Yes I do ^_^ I am actually very well versed in a lot of Japanese music (mostly pre-2000s stuff though)! The folk-rock movement from the late 60s in particular, I really love. I have a special interest in the group of musicians who formed Happy End (in 1969), and all of their future collaborations & collaborators... (most notably Yellow Magic Orchestra). Also from Happy End, I love everything Haruomi Hosono has done- his solo work is so so so good. I could talk about his work FOREVER I love it, and every collaboration or band he's been in. He really is a musical pioneer & a genius... I love this live performance from him so much. I could talk about Hosono's work for hours!!!!!!! I love all of the genres he has explored. I even put Happy End's Kazemachi Roman album cover in Be Kind, My Neighbor...

I also really really like Shintaro Sakamoto's work (& his work in Yura Yura Teikoku), it has a similar vibe as the previous work I mentioned, but more psychedelic.

I also LOVE the group TAMA. They are so unforgettably unique, I absolutely love everything about them. I wish if my art style were to be translated into sound, for it to sound like them...

Some other Japanese music I love: -Tatsuro Yamashita -Masayoshi Takanaka -HOFF DYLAN -Denki Groove -Eiichi Ohtaki -QUEEN BEE (very contemporary compared to everything else I listed lol)

I COULD KEEP GOING... but I don't want this to be a 40-foot long post hahaha. Thank you for asking, it's fun to gush about stuff I love :) EDIT: I FORGOT TO MENTION GEZAN. KLUE is one of my favorite albums of all time it will make you shit your pants

[gallopinggallifreyans]

I would love to hear your opinions about ancient currency! And any recommendations you have for learning more about the Roman economy!

oh boy i am SO glad you asked! I'm going to put everything under a readmore because it's a Lot.

I have a few opinions on Greek coinage, specifically that of the introduction of coinage to Athens, though I'm working on a proposal for studying Spartan coinage rn.

Current publications re:Athens haven't really determined For Sure who introduced coins; it's a toss-up between Solon and Pisistratus but I'm in the Pisistratus camp for reasons that I can absolutely summarize in a separate post, as I've written and published a paper in my undergrad journal that (hopefully) holds weight in the current hodgepodge of thoughts. If you'd like that, I can write it up and link it here!

Re:Spartan coinage, I think the Spartan homoioi were real idiots. Most city-states were using silver (and very occasionally gold) for their coins, but Spartan homoioi were using iron spits. The spits (obeloi) were six to a drachma, which was the exchange rate for a long time. And by long time I mean there was no such thing as a floating conversion, coins were just the most portable form of precious metal, which was intrinsically valued. Outside Sparta (even the perioikoi) most city-states would have used ingots pre-coinage and that evolved into stamped metal, i.e. coinage. The Spartans considered themselves to be very religious and followed the Great Rhetra (unsure if Lykourgos existed), which maintained that silver and gold were holy and could not be used, so they used iron.

Unfortunately, the rest of Greece didn't follow that, and used silver in their coins, especially influenced by Attic-Ionian city-states who were in regular trade with Persia and further east, i.e. regions that valued precious metal outside their religious significance. Essentially, Spartans kinda screwed themselves over re:trade outside Sparta; they couldn't even trade in contemporary currency with the rest of Lakonia and forced their subject city-states into the same position. This is supported mostly by the explosion of Messenian and other Lakonian coinages after Sparta collapsed, though I want to see if I can find more text evidence, since I (an archaeologist) tend to rely too heavily on material. It's a whole thing, personally I believe this was a significant factor in Sparta's collapse, though other things factored in as well. Sparta was incredibly insular both in its trade/economy and religious practice and that combination led to its downfall.

For the Roman sources, I recommend starting with the Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy by Walter Scheidel, and The Ancient Economy by Walter Scheidel and Sitta von Reden. Von Reden has excellent articles related to the ancient economy in general, and most are available on JSTOR, so I recommend giving her stuff a look.

I also highly recommend reading Moses Finley's work The Ancient Economy (no relation to Scheidel and Von Reden's work), as it lays the foundation for much of our current school of thought. Peter Temin's subsequent work, The Roman Market Economy argues against Finley and kicks off a whole debate about how to define an economy without using capitalism as the basis, because capitalism as we know and define it did not exist then, and it is incorrect to assume that. We can call it protocapitalist, but not capitalist.

Slavery in Rome is a nuanced subject that is integral to learning about its economy — I suggest keeping an open mind and treading carefully with respect to post-1492 slave trades. Noel Lenski's chapter "Framing the Question" (linked; you need access through your institution) discusses the slave trade against a Finleyan model, while Scheidel (him again) talks about how to determine the wages of slaves (JSTOR link). W. V. Harris talks about the demography and geography of slaves here (JSTOR link). These three are good starts for learning about Roman slavery, but if you want more sources, I can pull some up for you.

I don't want to overload you with sources, so in general I'll recommend anything by Scheidel, Von Reden, Nicholas Purcell and Peregrine Horden (connectivity), Seth Bernard (coins and emissions), Astrid Van Oyen (tech innovation), and Willem Jongman (economic structure). As with the slavery sources, if you want direct links I can definitely find them for you! I'm always happy to share info :)

[jackhkeynes]

Can you give an overview of your conworld and language for new people?

Absolutely! :D

The World

The setting I write in (hereafter "Boralverse") is an alternate history of Earth. The original difference from our own history (hereafter "IRL") is the existence of the island of Borland (Istr Boral) between Great Britain and Denmark, inspired by the IRL existence of Doggerland.

The human pre-classical history of Borland can be summarised as:

With sea level rise about 8k years ago, Borland was cut off from the continent and from Britain (this is when Doggerland was submerged IRL); some Stone Age people remain. They leave some monuments—burial mounds, the Çadrosc labyrinth—and were farmers, but they had no writing or ironworking.

The Celts arrive in Borland shortly before they settle Britain in the second millennium BCE, taking up iron tools and establishing many tribal groups. Due to some later migration from Britain to Borland, they speak a language (Borland Celtic) which is most closely related to Proto-Brythonic.

I assume that as far as possible the history of the rest of the world is indistinguishable from the IRL history up to this point. I continue to do so while the Romans invade and settle Borland shortly after Britain, despite conceding to credulity and allowing a few classical references:

...in Ptolemy's description of the Pritannoi we can understand he referred to the Insular Kelts of Ireland, Britain and Borland as a whole... ...contrasting Hadrian's policies in Britain and in Borland is vital for understanding their different fates in the post-Classical age...

where I admit that the Roman Empire having an entire additional province should probably have some observable effects.

Once the Western Roman Empire collapses, I start properly diverging Boralverse history from IRL history. This begins with a different pattern of Anglo-Saxon migration; the two petty kingdoms of Angland and Southbar arise in western Borland, while the settlement of England proceeds slightly slower than IRL.

Historical divergence spreads through western Europe over the next few centuries, and by 1000 CE things are beginning to go off the rails all across Eurasia and North Africa. I leave the history of the Americas the same until Old World contact (via Basque fishermen stumbling across Newfoundland in 1470 CE), and likewise with Australia.

The map below shows Europe in 1120, during the Second Tetrarchy Period. At this time, Europe was unusually centralised, with four great empires: the First Drengot Empire (red), the German Empire (brown), the Second Roman Empire (purple) and the Single Caliphate (green).

In the modern era, my hope is that the Boralverse world feels fractally uncanny; at every scale something is unexpectedly different, from political borders and languages to fashion and pop culture references.

For clarity, I employ an inconsistent Translation Convention when writing from a Boralverse perspective, mostly using IRL English but peppering in calques of Boralverse English jargon for flavour, such as threshold force "nuclear power" or jalick "garment socially equivalent to a tuxedo".

The Language

The original motivation for this alternate history setting is Borlish (Borallesc), the Romance language spoken on Borland.

It picked up a few Borland Celtic loanwords from the existing population at the time of the conquest (macquar ~ Welsh magu "raise, rear"; vrug ~ Welsh grug "heather"), but was much more influenced through the first millennium by Anglo-Saxon settlement and then Norse conquest during the Viking Age. The following is an example of late Old Borlish (ca. 1240):

…sovravnt il deft nostre saȝntaðesem eð atavalesem n iȝ atrevre golfhavn seȝ hamar dont y verb divin ismetre ac povre paian. peðiv soul ez font istovent por vn nov cliȝs d istroienz istablir… …uphold our most sacred and ancient duty to let Gulfhaven be the centre from which we will send the Word of God to pagan lands. We ask only for the necessary funds for a new teachinghouse…

The Modern Borlish language has undergone spelling standardisation (most recently deprecated some irregular spellings in 1870), and contains many more Latin and Greek loanwords, along with borrowings from languages across the world.

Y stal zajadau dy marcað nogtorn accis par lamp fumer eð y lun fragnt de mar receven cos equal party a domn pescour pevr jarras e fenogl gostant tan eð eç nobr robað n'ornament fluibond ant queldin raut frigsað ne papir cerous. The night market's various stalls lit by smoky lamps and the sea-shattered moon welcomed flocks of fishwives sampling paprika and fennel as well as notables in flowing finery carrying stir-fried suppers in wax papers.

In terms of sound changes and grammatical developments, the major points include:

Intervocalic lenition /p t k b d g/ > /v ð j ∅ ∅ ∅/: catēna > caðen "chain", dēbēre > deïr "must".

The use of ç (and c before e i y) for /ts/, and the use of g in coda to represent /j/. Along with some vowel shifts, this leads to things like cigl /tsajl/ "darling".

Total loss of final consonants in multisyllable words, including -s, which leads to:

Collapse of noun declension, including number; Borlish does not mark number on nouns, and if it wants to it uses demonstratives or simply relies of verb agreement: l'oc scuir pasc, l'ec scuir pascn "this boy eats, these boys eat".

[littlesparklight]

Is Ganymede's age ever said in any of the ancient texts? I've heard people say he's 12-13 without any sources to back that up

Generally, not really.

In most Greek sources where he's mentioned, it's usually his name and "son" (of whoever he's imagined to be son of, as this varies, but usually and in the oldest sources, Tros). At best you're sometimes gonna get the "youth" designation; meirakion/ephebe, or even a more general "spring-tide/flowering time".

Even if "child", that is, pais, is used, it doesn't really mean Ganymede would be imagined to be pre-pubescent.

Pais can be used as an endearment for a teenager, or even a general descriptor of someone who's not considered an adult (that is ~21 and older) yet. The meirakion "age-bracket" was somewhere between mid-teens to 20/21. In the Aeneid, when at one point a scene with him on a cloak is described, "puer" is used. Generally translated as "boy" (but, male slaves would be called this their whole lives, because they are not considered to be real/adult men at any point), the word-tool/dictionary attached to Perseus tells me the word applies to (citizen) boys generally up to seventeen.

The thing is, of course, that Ganymede is considered the ~exemplary~ youth and eromenos in Greek myth and cultural thought.

A youth was suitable to be an eromenos as long as he hadn't gotten facial hair (the first down of it marked the beginning of the downfall, so to speak, but there's a lot of lyricism to that whole moment). In reality, facial hair can be real slow to appear, but generally, again, what the Greek sensibility for this was that things stopped being proper at around 20-21 at most (with citizen youths, I have to point out. Slaves are free game whether boys or men). The poet Strato/n, somewhere in the early centuries post-0, has a poem where the end point is seventeen ("it is not mine to seek, but rather Zeus'"), and that anyone looking for a youth older than this is looking for someone who can take his turn in fucking, basically. The lower age of what's "acceptable" is, however, floating, and probably very much depended on whether the individual was free or slave, etc.

Visual art has Ganymede depicted what's probably meant to indicate somewhere between younger teens to older teenager. Though even when he's as tall as Zeus, he's usually portrayed more slender than athletic youths of equivalent age.

As for absolutely anything that implies a younger Ganymede in text, Lucian's Dialogue of the Gods has a conversation between Zeus and Ganymede where Ganymede is very clearly 12-13 at most. Probably even younger, by the way he talks.

Lucian, however, is a satirist. Most of his stuff must definitely be looked at with that in mind. On the other hand, in Roman times it seems like it was acceptable to use slave boys that young and even much younger. And the Warren Cup as what's been called a "Greek" side and a "Roman" side. The Greek side has a young man who's very clearly upper teens at the very least having sex with an older, bearded man. The Roman side has what's equally clearly a rather young boy in the arms of a clean-shaven older man.

Anyway, my personal opinion is if you use Lucian's Dialogue (cited or uncited as these people do) as your only jumping-off point on insisting that Ganymede is absolutely and only ever intended to be 12-13, you're wrong.

Not that you can't say he is that young, if that's the shock value you want to go for. And not like, if your interpretation of Zeus and Ganymede's relationship is nothing but sexual assault, that it would be "better" even if Ganymede was imagined to be 17-20.

But mostly the point is that no, there's no solid age for Ganymede set anywhere. More a sliding scale of possibility, that probably leans more towards the mid-older teens than younger, in general.

[timetraveltasting]

SAVILLUM (ANCIENT ROMAN CHEESECAKE, 2nd c. BC)

It's Easter, so I decided to make a sweet treat to bring over to a friend's place to celebrate. Little did they know, they would be my guinea pigs to try this Tasting History dish and Ancient Roman version of cheesecake from the 2nd century BC: Savillum. The recipe comes from De Agri Cultura, a treatise on Roman agriculture by Marcus Porcius Cato, better known today as Cato the Elder. The treatise is the oldest surviving work of Latin prose and describes farming, agriculture, and related topics in detail, including how to make three different cheesecakes! Feasts in Ancient Rome were lengthy affairs. If you had the money, a feast could be made up of several courses, starting with hors d’oeuvres and aperitifs - gustatio - continuing with the main course - mensa prima - and ending with sweet dessert dishes - mensa secunda. These dessert-type foods were sweetened with fruit or honey, just like in this cheesecake. While sugarcane was used during this time in Ancient Rome, it tended to be used more for medicines than for foods. I can't really see how a cheesecake could go wrong, even if there is no sugar in it, so let's find out! See Max’s video on how to make this dish here or see the ingredients and process at the end of this post, sourced from his website.

My experience making it:

I made a couple slight changes to the stated recipe. I decided to use ricotta cheese, but it turned out I had not bought quite enough and the stores were closed for the holiday, so I "three-quartered" the recipe in order to keep the ratios correct. I still used a 9-inch pan however (although enamel instead of ceramic), so I expected the cheesecake to come out a little thinner than Max's. Because I don't have a lid for this pan, I decided to just not use one at all and hope for the best. I used plain white wheat flour and blue poppyseeds, and the honey I used was linden tree honey - so a bit thicker than the honey Max used.

Pre-heating the oven first of all, I then portioned out my ingredients and got out a big bowl to mix them into. I first added the ricotta cheese and flour into the bowl and mixed with a spoon until it was all combined together. I beat the egg with a whisk in a separate small bowl, then added it to the large bowl and mixed until combined. Lastly, I added in the honey and continued mixing until the batter was uniform. The batter was pretty thick overall. I prepared the enamel baking pan with a light coating of olive oil, then placed the batter in the pan. Because it was so thick, it took a bit of work to spread it out evenly and make sure there were no air pockets at the bottom. Eventually, I was able to smooth out the top, then I threw it in the oven and baked it for 45 minutes. I took the Savillum out at that point to test its "doneness" with a toothpick in the middle. During baking, it had ballooned up into a dome like a soufflé! I poked it with the toothpick, and it deflated into a wrinkled top. The toothpick came out with cheese on it still, so I put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes, even though the top was already quite browned. The next time I checked it with the toothpick, the toothpick came out pretty clean, so I called it done. I drizzled (or more like spread, due to its thickness) the honey evenly on top, maybe two tablespoons-worth. Because the surface was wrinkly, the honey quickly melted into the valleys, and when I sprinkled the blue poppyseeds on top, they mostly stuck to these areas. I put the cheesecake back into the oven - this time only for five minutes (even though the recipe says 10 minutes), since I had already put it in for an extra five minutes before. When I took the cheesecake out at the end, the honey was all melted and the poppyseeds had also pooled into the deepest points of the wrinkly, browned top. It smelled subtly sweet, and looked just a bit plain. I served my husband and I a small slice so we could try it and make sure we did, in fact, want to bring this dessert to our friend's place.

My experience tasting it:

Cutting into the Savillum, it was very clear that the browned 'crust' on top had ballooned, then wrinkled, and pretty much separated completely from the cheesecake below it. As a result, it was a little hard to cut it and keep the top crust attached and intact on its slice. It was also clear, upon seeing the cross-section of the cake, that this Ancient cheesecake was a lot more dense than the modern cheesecakes of various types. Just a little squidgy. I had my first bite and immediately tasted the honey on top, which added a wonderful sweetness to the fairly plain taste of the cheesecake below it. I don't think I noticed the taste of the poppyseeds at all. The cheesecake itself did taste like cheesecake, but a whisper of a cheesecake. Admittedly, ricotta is a pretty light-tasting cheese in general, so this recipe might have tasted stronger if I had used a stronger-tasting cheese. Still, I think the ricotta flavour did go nicely with the honey, and the browned parts did taste extra nice. Texture-wise, despite being very dense, the Savillum was quite smooth. There were no lumps of flour or other ingredients, so it did feel quite nice to eat despite its thickness. I really appreciated how easy it was to make this dish - it's a 'throw all the ingredients in a bowl and bake' type of dessert. As a result, I will probably make it again in a pinch. My husband and friends all agreed it was a little plain and could use a bit more sweetness, but otherwise was good. So, next time I would probably add some berries, jam, or other bright fruit on top. It also might help to add a little bit of sugar or more honey into the batter, or to experiment using other, more flavourful cheeses as a base. The ricotta wasn't bad, it was just very light - a blank canvas that is ready for more flavour! While the Ancient Roman cheesecake, Savillum, is a little on the plain side, it was still tasty overall and might just be perfect for the person who doesn't like their desserts too sweet. I still thought it was amazing to taste a dessert that we still eat today but in its Ancient Roman, several thousand year-old form. If you end up making this dish, if you liked it, or if you changed anything from the original recipe, do let me know!

Savillum original recipe (2nd c. BC)

Sourced from De Agri Cultura by Cato the Elder (2nd c. BC).

Make the savillum this way. Take half a pound of flour and two and a half pounds of cheese, and mix together as for the libum. Add 1/4 pound of honey and 1 egg. Grease an earthenware dish with oil. When you have mixed the ingredients well, pour into the dish and cover it with an earthenware lid. See that you cook it well in the middle, where it is thickest. When it is cooked, remove the dish, coat with honey, sprinkle with poppy seeds, and put it back beneath the lid for a short while, then remove from the fire. Serve it in the dish with a spoon.

Modern Recipe

Based on the recipe from De Agri Cultura by Cato the Elder (2nd c. BC) and Max Miller’s version in his Tasting History video.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups (165 g) whole wheat or barley flour

3 1/3 cups (820 g) cheese*, I used ricotta

1 large egg, beaten

1/4 cup (80 g) honey, plus more for drizzling on top

Poppy seeds**, for sprinkling on top

*The ancient recipe isn’t specific, so use what you like. Any cheese, hard or soft, should work, but you probably want to steer clear of super salty cheeses.

**Black and white poppy seeds were both used in ancient Rome. If you use white, I recommend toasting them in a dry pan for about 10 to 15 seconds.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

In a large bowl, mix the flour and cheese until combined. If you’re using a harder or dryer cheese than ricotta, try grating it or chopping it fine.

Add the egg and stir it in, then stir in the 1/4 cup (80 g) of honey.

Coat a 9-inch round ceramic baking dish with a little olive oil. You can use a smaller dish for a taller cheesecake, you'll just need to bake it for a little longer. Pour the cheese mixture into the dish and smooth out the top. If you have an oven-safe cover for your dish, put it on, but I don’t think it will make much of a difference with this recipe if you don’t use a cover.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour (closer to an hour if you made a taller cheesecake), or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out mostly clean.

Remove the cheesecake and immediately drizzle honey over it. The amount for this is up to you and depends on how sweet you want your cheesecake. Sprinkle it with poppy seeds, and again, the amount of poppy seeds is up to you and your preference.

Cover the dish again (if you’re using a cover) and place it back in the oven for 10 minutes, then take it out of the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool completely.

[dndeceit]

Fander Fic Rec Friday (#30)

(Friends in Low Places - Demon AUs)

shot lipgloss through my veins by kikiikindakool Demon AU (Dukeceit, Losleep) Rating: G Remus's brothers had cast him out of their lives altogether. Remus and Virgil used to be close, but even he had turned his back on him. Only Logan really tolerated him anymore, and just that had severely strained his relationship with the rest of their family. After Virgil's death, the only item in his inheritance includes a book of magic spells. When he winds up summoning a demon, Remus considers this his chance to make things right. Notes: Patton and Roman are straight-up assholes in this one, and it's suggested Virgil wasn't much better.

On a Technicality by TheAsexualofSpades Demon AU (Intrulogical) Rating: G Remus is kidnapped by a cult to be sacrificed to a demon. Outcast and unwanted, no one is going to miss him. Unfortunately for the cultists, they don't seem to understand the fine print of their ritual, and it turns out the demon they've summoned is rather exacting. Notes: So much hurt/comfort. Demon!Logan dotes on Remus, and it's so good.

Just Your Typical Tuesday by TheFaerieCourt (Ended_Flames) Demon AU (Prinxieceit) Rating: E Janus wasn't enthusiastic about Remus's plans to try summoning a demon together, but whatever. Still, one day he gets bored and decides to play around with a ritual from one of the websites Remus linked him to. It's not as if he actually believes it will do anything... Notes: In which a bored, lonely afternoon ends with Janus summoning two very handsy demons who give him the time of his life. (Also the banter in this one is so funny.)

Cosmic Latte by Avery_Kedavra Supernatural/Coffee Shop AU (Roceit) Rating: T Working in customer service is basically Hell anyway, why not work somewhere with literal demons? Notes: In which Janus is an overworked employee at the Spirit Cafe, which might be located on some kind of dimensional rift, and whose manager, Patton, may or may not actually exist.

The And They Were Roomates series by ArtistOwl Supernatural AU (pre-Dukeceit) Rating: T Janus is a witch, and Remus is their pesky demon familiar meant to serve them...where "service" largely involves pestering the neighbors and eating all their muffins. Notes: A couple of short fics of mostly-domestic silliness between Janus and his chaotic demon roommate.

WIPs

How to Make Friends and Influence Demons by Prodigal_Sunlight Demon AU (Moceit) Rating: T Making friends as an adult is hard, but ultimately worth the sacrifice... In this case, literally, as Patton finds himself desperate enough to sell his soul to a demon in return for help making friends. Notes: Only two chapters, but this is such a concept, it kind of makes me nuts.

(I've got a lot going on IRL at the moment, so expect shorter lists and later/late posting times for a while, but I'm going to try to keep these going.)

[qqueenofhades]

How much of Coriolane Aureus’ character and his situationship with Gheslyn and Vestalia was influenced by Constantine IX Monomakhos and his double marriage to Zoe and Theodora?

AN EMPIRE OF BONES QUESTION?!??! You have intrigued, nay delighted, nay, THRILLED me. Blessings upon you. Blessings upon your cow. I'm not sure how much in-depth to answer this because I want to avoid spoiling you if you haven't finished the entire book, but please know that I am restraining myself.

In this case, no: Coriolane, Gheslyn, and Vestalia were not actually (or at least intentionally) based on Constantine and co. (Although Empress Zoe is fascinating, was actually a minor character in one of my earlier historical novels, and would definitely get along with Gheslyn for SO many reasons.) For one thing, Constantine IX had a reputation as an easygoing pretty boy who was mostly the figurehead content to let the women run things, and I think you'll find that's definitely not Coriolane. Moreover, Zoe and Theodora were sisters briefly appointed as co-empresses, whereas Coriolane is married to both Gheslyn and Vestalia and that ends up causing problems. (Again, attempting to be not-spoilery.) Coriolane is obviously a fictionalized version of a post-Christianization Roman emperor, and I have not felt any obligation to aim for scrupulous period accuracy (since as noted in an earlier ask, it's a giant historical smorgasbord anyway). But if you would like to read more about the role of Roman emperor, his personal life, and his function in the imperial government in the pre-Christian era, some of which I drew on for Coriolane, I recommend Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard (in paperback just in time for Christmas!)

I must, however, share the exciting (?) news that I am working on a sequel entitled The World of Shadows, which is absolutely 75% due to the loving bullying of @silverbirching, EoB's first and biggest fan. He loves the empresses, especially when they are at their most conniving and awful, and also loves Byzantium, so he demanded gently enabled me to start a sequel incorporating more of, as he put it, Sissy Merone for Gaylords. As such, Book 2 focuses a lot more on the city of Coriolanople (EoB-verse's version of Constantinople) and we have a much more direct analogue for a dumb pretty-boy Byzantine emperor largely controlled by the empresses. You will see this plotline being set up at the end of EoB, but yes. Ahem.

[babyrdie]

It's interesting to think that the 2 wives attributed to Helenus in the Greek sources are window women (mostly Andromache, but one source also attributes Deidamia. And I emphasize "Greek" because I didn't check the Roman ones, so there's no way I can consider them in this post). Because when I think about it… I don't remember Helenus having any lovers attributed to him? Pre-war, he was probably very young. And during the war, he's not shown having relations with anyone, probably because he's more focused on the war. And yes, I know there's the whole "Helenus is Apollo's lover" thing, but I've literally only found that in Ptolemy Chennus and he's a questionable source. So overall, Helenus doesn't have any lovers. He apparently had interest in Helen in some versions, as some sources have him and Deiphobus arguing over who would be Helen's new husband after Paris' death, but it's generally agreed that Deiphobus becomes the new husband, so Helen really isn't one of Helenus' lovers.

Which means it's a possibility that his first wife was his first lover. Most often, it's Andromache (Deidamia is only in one source, so it really seems like the consensus is Andromache being his only wife). I wonder…considering that Andromache was Hector's wife, did Helenus ever think that he would never be romantically loved by her since Hector was the crown prince, the favorite son, the best warrior, etc? Was he confused about the role of husband? Like, yes, he is married to Andromache, but it wasn't planned and I imagine neither of them really saw it as a genuine marriage at first. It was more like "I'm glad you're here" after everything they've been through. But what about afterwards? At what point did they actually become a couple? And in Andromache's case, did she ever feel guilty about it? Some people feel guilty about getting married a second time after the death of a spouse, was that the case for her? And if so, at what point did she realize that being with a new husband doesn't mean the first husband has lost his importance?

And finally, what happens when they go to the Underworld? I mean, Hector is supposed to be waiting for Andromache, but at the same time Andromache died already married to Helenus… does she return with Hector? Does she stay with Helenus? Do we have Andromache and her two husbands? I don't think Hector would be annoyed with Helenus or Andromache, I think he would be happy to know that his brother and his wife found happiness at some point.

[meirimerens]

re: most recent post. shirt that says I ❤️ MARY

i was raised quaker so when i entered a catholic church for the first time you can imagine my tits were blown clean off. hate the church itself but you can’t deny they went off with the aesthetics unfortunately. love all religious art but i especially love mary. and especially when shes depicted absolutely whaling on some motherfucker i love that. sorry this is a dumb ask but i just needed to share bc she makes me so very happy

I ❤️ MARY i was raised atheist (my dad's a closeted animist, if you mention it he will agree and reiterate his own beliefs in his own words which are animist paraphrase but mostly he dgaf and vibes) but my country is The catholic country after Italy (it's called Roman catholic church after all) like from the baptism to one of our kings in 500AD ish and until the Révolution france was called "the eldest daughter of the Church" right so catholic monuments are Plentiful. and who says "catholic" says "mary". you cannot exhale in this country without your breath hitting a Notre Dame ("Our Lady") whatever. "Notre Dame de" this "Notre Dame de" that. you find little Mary statues just dotting the landscape around.

that and, indeed, we have some banging churches. same as you said Hate The Church (maybe even more deeply because the southwest, where i live, is "cathare country", the "cathares" being a medieval """heretic""" christian sect that the catholic church hunted to extinction through horrible massacres. the "spanish inquisition" is like meme famous at this point, but the Inquisition was first made up during the cathares' time with the explicit purpose of hunting down all the cathares, forcing them to convert or, when they didn't (and they rarely did), killing them) but will not lie. you step into Sainte-Cécile d'Albi... or even some random unassuming, kinda ugly on the outside church in a rural mountain town and here she is...

and then when you're goddessmaxxing mythologicalnarrotologypilled like me you #see you're #seeing how she's been associated with the moon (in mirror to her son, associated with the sun, for the moon shines by reflecting the sun) and that many prechristian goddesses associated with the moon were also virgins (artémis/diane)... you're seeing how her Big Day here in france (l'Assomption) is in mid-august and replaced a roman festival of the Harvest which, while in it's august 15 form, was also to celebrate the Emperor [Augustus], was ALSO reallyyyy close (as in 48hrs later) to a day of celebration for Diane (cf relation above) AND "the harvest" is a topic typically associated to a mother-goddess type (think Demeter/Ceres, Mbaba Mwana Waresa, Etügen Ekhe, Pachamama,...).... you see how in orthodox christianity one of her titles is "mother of god" [theotokos] and you see how Cybele, an antique phrygian goddess, was know as "mother of the gods"... how she is called "queen of heaven", a title shared by pre-dating goddesses such as Isis, Inanna or Astarte...... so you #see all of this and then you consider the Historical mary, this likely teenage girl who had, by all means, something happen to her, because Virgin Birth Not Real Unless You Are Lizard, this likely teenage girl who, potentially by her very word and through an incredible display of rhetorical survival instinct, made of her son that of god's, and watched him die a slow and painful death.

and you #see all this and you're like. aww 🥹 i don't even gaf about your son because his fanclub is sooo annoying and also responsible for some of the worst and bloodiest massacres my land and others have ever seen but i fw you. i fw you heavy.

^ damn that was long. sorry. marypilled goddesshistorymaxxer.

i fw her i fw her heavy.