#my favourite eras and those i know most about are medieval all throughout

[yrlocalghost]

i do not talk about it a lot on here for fear of coming off as stupid, but i am very big into fashion history. anyways, recently, due to that cowboy game and radical face, i have been researching 1890s fashion. however. a video came up explaining mid 1500s and then another showing 1100s and i had this moment of “OOOUUUWGHH HOW COULD I FORGET MYSELF”

[greencloakedfae]

Never apologise for talking historical fashion with me, I am always happy to talk historical fashion!!

I'm gonna place my reference pic I've been working from at the top to refer back to:

(Looking back at it I've also just realised I've made a mistake with not leaving cuff openings oops I need to fix that)

Now, the fun thing about Nell is how gender fucky she is. The shirt she wears throughout the series is definitely a men's 18th century shirt rather than a woman's chemise. We also get to see Nell in both types which is very fun for us:

See the difference in neckline and such?

I named Bernadette Banner for a reference to follow as she's a good starting point for new sewists to look at with historical fashion, but with general construction of an 18th century mens shirt it follows a general idea of either one big long body piece or a front and a back (like Nell's does as we can see from the shoulder seams), two rectangles for the sleeves, and two square gussets.

This is a much more complex version of a shirt than Nell's is, but it gives the general idea pretty well:

With the confusion of the gusset I briefly considered the possibility of diamond shaped gussets, something similar to account for weird draping in that scene (as most of my historical fashion interest up until recently has been in medieval fashion, and occasionally you'll see different ways of approaching gussets in those garments). But ultimately I realised the simple answer is the best answer here, and that her gusset is most likely a square gusset that is sized for men. And after sewing it up, and comparing the way her shirt sits in the show vs my own I think this is correct?

Although, I am very curious to know more about this other approach to gores with the rectangle traversing the whole of the arm and body! Cause most of the time when a square gusset is used, it's on a loose fitting garment and aims to allow movement of the arms by giving extra space under the arms. I wonder if it helps with movement by going the opposite route of making the armscye sit right in the armpit like I think you see a lot on tailored garments in later eras. A fun thing to note thats a bit off topic but sleeves on modern patterns tend to sit in a weird middle ground of having armscyes that are too big to sit right in the armpit but also too small so that you don't get general freedom of movement in that respect, making for garments that make putting your arms above your head very difficult.

But also back to the chemises you showed cause those interest me also. Like I said before, most of my fashion knowledge is from 900-1400s, and then now expanded into 1700-1710s, but the way shifts/chemises doesn't really change much anyways between these periods. I think the first two images are from later periods, as they seem much more complicated/pretty than generally what you see. The third image tho! I found the tutorial that accompanies it and apparently it's a reconstruction of a 17th century Italian chemise, so much more in the expected time frame (which you can kind of tell anyways cause it's very very similar to the chemise Nell wears in the image above). I've linked the website, but I grabbed these images detailing garnet pattern and construction guide as you can see below:

Basically the take away is that they love their square gussets for undergarments in these times lol.

To address the 4th image: lousia looks really pretty. (Thats about all I can say on that tbh modern sewing escapes me lmao)

Other than the gore vs gusset tho, the idea is very similar for the chemise you made and the ones from 18th century.

You also made a great point about how historically, shape is the fashionable silhouette rather than size!! It's one of my favourite things to note when people get all high and mighty about corsets and such. You also get great examples of that with Polly when she gets robbed, with her bum roll and the other skirt garment I can't quite remember the name of rn.

I will just potentially correct the idea that structured garments are worn under the chemise tho. Chemises/shifts are as far as I've seen the layer closest to the skin, to provide comfort to the wearer, but also to protect the structured garments they wear from sweat (you really don't want to wash a structured garment like stays if you can help it)

Also a fun thing to note again about Nell's gender fuckery is that she seems to wear a men's shirt like a chemise. She shirt is rather oversized in length (or at least it is in that scene, jury is still out whether her shirt is that long always or it was a costuming choice for Louisa's comfort in the scene), and you don't see her wearing the boxer short like garments the other men wear.

I think I've hit all the points I wanted to hit? If not, I am always willing to talk more lmao. I would love to hear more about the chemise you made though! I'm very interested in those gores. And also, if you're interested in talking more about 18th century shirts/chemises, I have a lot to say about Sofia's white shirt with the black lace lmao cause riding habit shirts are very interesting in their construction.

Nell Shirt Update

Part 1 | Part 2

Okay so update!! I've sewn the body and the sleeves of the shirt, and just have the sleeve cuffs and the collar left to sew. Handsewing is slow so progress is slow so if you just want a tl:dr instead of a full info dump about construction then this is where the shirt is at:

It doesn't look like much now but it's a simple garment anyways so oh well. If you're interested in construction and revisions on the last post, it'll be under the cut.

The Sleeves

I probably won't go into too much depth about general construction as Bernadette Banners pirate shirt video and others alike already go through all that, but I will mention where I stray from that.

Also a revision from my last post:

Originally I thought that she just had an incredibly large gore, and for a moment i was worried that I cut mine too small by being too cautious with my pattern drafting. But, after actually sewing it together I believe that the gore size I chose is probably good, and the side of the 'gore' furthest from her body is probably a bit of the sleeve sitting lower than the seam. The shape drapes like hers does so im going to say I'm happy with my choice either way.

Anyways.

I constructed the sleeves almost in their entirety first. Each of the two uses the sleeve and gore pieces I mention in my first post.

Once these pieces are sewn together you end up with the sleeve piece folded long edges together, with the gore folded into a triangle and attached to the sleeve along its long edges. The armscye is fully left open. As I'm handsewing it, I used a backstitch for attaching the gore, and then a running backstitch for the rest of the sleeve, but it doesn't really matter what you do.

From here, I finished the seams now rather than later. It's much either to fell a seam when it's not attached to the full garment. You're welcome to finish your seams in whatever manner you'd like, but Nell's shirt in the show has felled seams (as is historically accurate), and linen is much less likely to fray with this method.

Felled seams are imo just very neat and pretty <3

Repeat for the other sleeve to get two sleeves ready for attaching:

I haven't attached the cuffs yet, mainly cause I'm not 100% sure of the length of these sleeves, and want to wait to see where they end on me once the rest of the shirt has been constructed.

The Shoulder Seams

To sew the shoulder seams, you first want to decide on how wide they need to be. I just took a measuring tape and held it along my shoulder to decide where I wanted it to sit, based on my reference images. If you want more guidance on how to take this measurement lemme know, I have a video, I just don't feel like putting my face on here lol.

Place the two body pieces together, and on each end of the top edge, measure out your shoulder length, pin and sew.

There will be a bit of extra fabric where the neck hole will be, but that's all gonna gather into the collar and will add to the poofyness of the shirt.

Attaching The Sleeves

If you look at the reference photos from the last post, Nell's sleeve actually has less gathering than the shirt from Bernadette's video. It's more concentrated at the very top, rather than all around the sleeve.

I did do a bit of maths with figuring out the gathers, but most of it comes down to trying smth and saying yeah that looks about right. If you want more insight into this pls reach out I'm happy to chat.

Also I just did a single gathering thread, but if you want to follow good practice I'd actually recommend doing two so ur gathers sit nicer.

Apparently I forgot to take photos of attaching the sleeves, but I just did a backstitch all around the armscye to ensure it is secure and will hold up over time. I also did a running back stitch for the side seams, as they won't take as much strain, and then felled all my seams like before :]

If you're aiming for accuracy also, fell the seams around the armscye towards the body rather than onto the sleeve.

Hemming

Finally, the last part of this update is just that I did a rolled hem with a running backstitch to finish the bottom of the shirt. Lowkey wish I had done a felling stitch instead cause my fabric moved on me so much, but by that point I committed and it turned out fine anyways.

But that's where I've gotten too :D

[fineillsignup]

tips for choosing a Chinese name for your OC when you don’t know Chinese

This is a meta for gifset trade with @purple-fury! Maybe you would like to trade something with me? You can PM me if so!

Choosing a Chinese name, if you don’t know a Chinese language, is difficult, but here’s a secret for you: choosing a Chinese name, when you do know a Chinese language, is also difficult. So, my tip #1 is: Relax. Did you know that Actual Chinese People choose shitty names all the dang time? It’s true!!! Just as you, doubtless, have come across people in your daily life in your native language that you think “God, your parents must have been on SOME SHIT when they named you”, the same is true about Chinese people, now and throughout history. If you choose a shitty name, it’s not the end of the world! Your character’s parents now canonically suck at choosing a name. There, we fixed it!

However. Just because you should not drive yourself to the brink of the grave fretting over choosing a Chinese name for a character, neither does that mean you shouldn’t care at all. Especially, tip #2, Never just pick some syllables that vaguely sound Chinese and call it a day. That shit is awful and tbh it’s as inaccurate and racist as saying “ching chong” to mimic the Chinese language. Examples: Cho Chang from Harry Potter, Tenten from Naruto, and most notorious of all, Fu Manchu and his daughter Fah lo Suee (how the F/UCK did he come up with that one).

So where do you begin then? Well, first you need to pick your character’s surname. This is actually not too difficult, because Chinese actually doesn’t have that many surnames in common use. One hundred surnames cover over eighty percent of China’s population, and in local areas especially, certain surnames within that one hundred are absurdly common, like one out of every ten people you meet is surnamed Wang, for example. Also, if you’re making an OC for an established media franchise, you may already have the surname based on who you want your character related to. Finally, if you’re writing an ethnically Chinese character who was born and raised outside of China, you might only want their surname to be Chinese, and give them a given name from the language/culture of their native country; that’s very very common.

If you don’t have a surname in mind, check out the Wikipedia page for the list of common Chinese surnames, roughly the top one hundred. If you’re not going to pick one of the top one hundred surnames, you should have a good reason why. Now you need to choose a romanization system. You’ll note that the Wikipedia list contains variant spellings. If your character is a Chinese-American (or other non-Chinese country) whose ancestors emigrated before the 1950s (or whose ancestors did not come from mainland China), their name will not be spelled according to pinyin. It might be spelled according to Wade-Giles romanization, or according to the name’s pronunciation in other Chinese languages, or according to what the name sounds like in the language of the country they immigrated to. (The latter is where you get spellings like Lee, Young, Woo, and Law.)  A huge proportion of emigration especially came from southern China, where people spoke Cantonese, Min, Hakka, and other non-Mandarin languages.

So, for example, if you want to make a Chinese-Canadian character whose paternal source of their surname immigrated to Canada in the 20s, don’t give them the surname Xie, spelled that way, because #1 that spelling didn’t exist when their first generation ancestor left China and #2 their first generation ancestor was unlikely to have come from a part of China where Mandarin was spoken anyway (although still could have! that’s up to you). Instead, name them Tse, Tze, Sia, Chia, or Hsieh.

If you’re working with a character who lives in, or who left or is descended from people who left mainland China in the 1960s or later; or if you’re working with a historical or mythological setting, then you are going to want to use the pinyin romanization. The reason I say that you should use pinyin for historical or mythological settings is because pinyin is now the official or de facto romanization system for international standards in academia, the United Nations, etc. So if you’re writing a story with characters from ancient China, or medieval China, use pinyin, even though not only pinyin, but the Mandarin pronunciations themselves didn’t exist back then. Just... just accept this. This is one of those quirks of having a non-alphabetic language.

(Here’s an “exceptions” paragraph: there are various well known Chinese names that are typically, even now, transliterated in a non-standard way: Confucius, Mencius, the Yangtze River, Sun Yat-sen, etc. Go ahead and use these if you want. And if you really consciously want to make a Cantonese or Hakka or whatever setting, more power to you, but in that case you better be far beyond needing this tutorial and I don’t know why you’re here. Get. Scoot!)

One last point about names that use the ü with the umlaut over it. The umlaut ü is actually pretty critical for the meaning because wherever the ü appears, the consonant preceding it also can be used with u: lu/lü, nu/nü, etc. However, de facto, lots of individual people, media franchises, etc, simply drop the umlaut and write u instead when writing a name in English, such as “Lu Bu” in the Dynasty Warriors franchise in English (it should be written Lü Bu). And to be fair, since tones are also typically dropped in Latin script and are just as critical to the meaning and pronunciation of the original, dropping the umlaut probably doesn’t make much difference. This is kind of a choice you have to make for yourself. Maybe you even want to play with it! Maybe everybody thinks your character’s surname is pronounced “loo as in loo roll” but SURPRISE MOFO it’s actually lü! You could Do Something with that. Also, in contexts where people want to distinguish between u and ü when typing but don’t have easy access to a keyboard method of making the ü, the typical shorthand is the letter v. 

Alright! So you have your surname and you know how you want it spelled using the Latin alphabet. Great! What next?

Alright, so, now we get to the hard part: choosing the given name. No, don’t cry, I know baby I know. We can do this. I believe in you.

Here are some premises we’re going to be operating on, and I’m not entirely sure why I made this a numbered list:

Chinese people, generally, love their kids. (Obviously, like in every culture, there are some awful exceptions, and I’ll give one specific example of this later on.)

As part of loving their kids, they want to give them a Good name.

So what makes a name a Good name??? Well, in Chinese culture, the cultural values (which have changed over time) have tended to prioritize things like: education; clan and family; health and beauty; religious devotions of various religions (Buddhism, Taoism, folk religions, Christianity, other); philosophical beliefs (Buddhism, Confucianism, etc) (see also education); refinement and culture (see also education); moral rectitude; and of course many other things as the individual personally finds important. You’ll notice that education is a big one. If you can’t decide on where to start, something related to education, intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, etc, is a bet that can’t go wrong.

Unlike in English speaking cultures (and I’m going to limit myself to English because we’re writing English and good God look at how long this post is already), there is no canon of “names” in Chinese like there has traditionally been in English. No John, Mary, Susan, Jacob, Maxine, William, and other words that are names and only names and which, historically at least, almost everyone was named. Instead, in Chinese culture, you can basically choose any character you want. You can choose one character, or two characters. (More than two characters? No one can live at that speed. Seriously, do not give your character a given name with more than two characters. If you need this tutorial, you don’t know enough to try it.) Congratulations, it is now a name!!

But what this means is that Chinese names aggressively Mean Something in a way that most English names don’t. You know nature names like Rose and Pearl, and Puritan names like Wrestling, Makepeace, Prudence, Silence, Zeal, and Unity? I mean, yeah, you can technically look up that the name Mary comes from a etymological root meaning bitter, but Mary doesn’t mean bitter in the way that Silence means, well, silence. Chinese names are much much more like the latter, because even though there are some characters that are more common as names than as words, the meaning of the name is still far more upfront than English names.

So the meaning of the name is generally a much more direct expression of those Good Values mentioned before. But it gets more complicated!

Being too direct has, across many eras of Chinese history, been considered crude; the very opposite of the education you’re valuing in the first place. Therefore, rather than the Puritan slap you in the face approach where you just name your kid VIRTUE!, Chinese have typically favoured instead more indirect, related words about these virtues and values, or poetic allusions to same. What might seem like a very blunt, concrete name, such as Guan Yu’s “yu” (which means feather), is actually a poetic, referential name to all the things that feathers evoke: flight, freedom, intellectual broadmindness, protection...

So when you’re choosing a name, you start from the value you want to express, then see where looking up related words in a dictionary gets you until you find something that sounds “like a name”; you can also try researching Chinese art symbolism to get more concrete names. Then, here’s my favourite trick, try combining your fake name with several of the most common surnames: 王，李，陈. And Google that shit. If you find Actual Human Beings with that name: congratulations, at least if you did f/uck up, somebody else out there f/ucked up first and stuck a Human Being with it, so you’re still doing better than they are. High five!

You’re going to stick with the same romanization system (or lack thereof) as you’ve used for the surname. In the interests of time, I’m going to focus on pinyin only.

First let’s take a look at some real and actual Chinese names and talk about what they mean, why they might have been chosen, and also some fictional OC names that I’ve come up with that riff off of these actual Chinese names. And then we’ll go over some resources and also some pitfalls. Hopefully you can learn by example! Fun!!!

Let’s start with two great historical strategists: Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, and the names I picked for some (fictional) sons of theirs. Then I will be talking about Sun Shangxiang and Guan Yinping, two historical-legendary women of the same era, and what I named their fictional daughters. And finally I’ll be talking about historical Chinese pirate Gan Ning and what I named his fictional wife and fictional daughter. Uh, this could be considered spoilers for my novel Clouds and Rain and associated one-shots in that universe, so you probably want to go and read that work... and its prequels... and leave lots of comments and kudos first and then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

(I’m just kidding you don’t need to know a thing about my work to find this useful.)

ZHUGE Liang is written 諸葛亮 in traditional Chinese characters and 诸葛亮 in simplified Chinese characters. It is a two-character surname. Two character surnames used to be more common than they are now. When I read Chinese history, I notice that two character surname clans seem to have a bad habit of flying real high and then getting the Icarus treatment if Icarus when his wings melted also got beheaded and had the Nine Familial Exterminations performed on his clan. Yikes. Sooner or later that'll cost ya.

But anyway. Zhuge means “lots of kudzu”, which if you have been to the American south you know is that only way that kudzu comes. Liang means “light, shining” in the sense of daylight, moonlight, etc; and from this literal meaning also such figurative meanings as reveal or clear. (I’m going to talk about words have a primary and secondary meaning in this way because I think it’s important for understanding. It’s just like how in English, ‘run’ has many meanings, but almost of all them are derived from a primary meaning of ‘to move fast via one’s human legs’, if I can be weird for a moment. “Run” as in “home run” comes from that, “run” as in “run in your stocking” comes from that, “run” as in “that’ll run you at least $200″ comes from that. You have to get it straight which is the primary meaning, which is the one that people think of first and they way they get to the secondary meaning.)

“Light” has a similar “enlightenment” concept in Chinese as in English, so the person who chose Zhuge Liang’s name—most likely his father or grandfather—clearly valued learning.

I named my fictional son for Zhuge Liang Zhuge Jing 京. The value or direction I was coming from is that Zhuge Liang has come to the decision that he has to nurture the next generation for the benefit of the land, that he has to remain in the world in a way that he very much did not want to do when he himself was a young man. In this alternate universe, Liu Bei has formed a new Han dynasty and recaptured Luoyang, so when Zhuge Liang���s son is then born he chooses this name Jing which means literally “capital”. This concrete name is meant as an allusion to a devotion to public service and to remaining “central”. After I chose this name, I discovered that Zhuge Liang actually has a recorded grandson named Zhuge Jing with this same character.

above, me, realizing I picked a good name

ZHOU Yu is written 周瑜 in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters.

The surname Zhou was and remains a very common Chinese surname whose original meaning was like... a really nice field. Like just the greatest f/ucking field you’ve ever seen. “Dang, that is a sweet field” said an ancient Chinese farmer, “I’m gonna make a new Chinese character to record just how great it is.” And then it came to mean things along the line of complete and thorough.

Yu means the excellence of a gemstone--its brilliance, lustre, etc, as opposed to its flaws. It is not a common word but does appear in some expressions such as ���不掩瑜 "a flaw does not conceal the rest of the gemstone's beauty; a defect does not mean the whole thing is bad".

Zhou Yu has gone down in history for being not only smart but also artistic and handsome. A real triple threat. And this name speaks to a family that valued art and beauty. It really does suit him.

Zhou Yu had two recorded sons but in my alternate history I gave him four. I borrowed the first one’s name from history: Xun 循, follow. Based on this name, I chose other names that I thought gave a similar sense of his values: Shou 守, guard; Wen 聞, listen. The youngest one I had born when he already knew he was dying, and things had not been going well generally; therefore I had him give him the name Shen 慎, which means “careful, cautious”.

SUN Shangxiang 孫尚香 is one of several names that history and legend give for a sister of w//arlord-king Sun Quan who was married to a rival w//arlord named Liu Bei in a marriage which, historically, uh, didn’t... didn’t go all that well. In my alternate history it goes well! You can’t stop me, I’ve already done it!

The surname Sun means “grandson” and the given name components are Shang mean “values, esteems” and Xiang “scent” which we can combine into meaning something like “precious perfume”. A lot of the recorded names for women in this era (a huge number didn’t have any names recorded, a problem in itself) seem to me to be more concrete, to contain more objects, to be more focused on affection, less focused on hopes and dreams. This makes sense for the era: you love your daughters (I HOPE) but then they get married and leave you. You don’t have long term plans for them because their long term belongs to another clan.

I gave her daughter by Liu Bei the name Liu Yitao 劉義桃. Yi 義 meaning righteousness, rectitude and 桃 meaning... peach. Okay, okay, I know "righteous peach" sounds damn funny in English, but the legendary oath in the peach garden, the "oath of brotherhood" is called in Chinese 結義 "tying righteousness" and the peach garden is, uh, a peach garden. I also give her the cutesy nickname Taotao 桃桃 which you could compare to “Peaches” or “Peachy”. Reduplication of a character in a two-character name is a classic nickname strategy in Chinese.

GUAN Yinping 關銀屏/关银屏 is a “made up” (scare quotes because old legends have their own kind of validity, fight me) name for a historical daughter of Guan Yu. Guan means “to close (a door)”. Yin means “silver” and ping means “a screen, to hide” and according to the legend, her father’s oath brother Zhang Fei named her after a silver treasure. So here again we see a name for a woman that completely lacks the kind of aspirations we see in male names. Who would have an aspiration for a daughter?

My fictional characters, that’s who. I named her daughter Lu Ruofeng 陸若鳳/��若凤, Ruo (like the) Feng (phoenix), based on a quote from a Confucian text about what one should try to be during both times of chaos and times of good government. I portray her father as a devoted Confucian scholar, so that was another factor for why I looked to Confucian texts for a source of a name.

Modern parents also now have big dreams for their daughters :’) and so modern girls receive names that are far more similar to how boys are named. 

GAN Ning 甘寧/甘宁 is a great example of a person whose name does not suit him. Gan 甘 depicts a tongue and means “sweet”, and Ning 寧 which shows a bowl and table and heart beneath a roof means “peaceful”. Which, it would be hard to come up with a name for this guy, a ruthless pirate turned extremely effective general:

that is less suitable than essentially being named “Sweet Peace”.

And when he was an adult, his style name—a name that Chinese men used to be given when they turned 20 (ie became adults) by East Asian reckoning—indeed reflects that. Choosing your own style name was widely considered to be crass. I absolutely think that Gan Ning chose his own style name; he was that kind of a guy. And the name he chose! Xingba 興霸/兴霸! I’ve never seen another style name like it. It means, basically, “thriving dominator”! Brand new official adult Gan Ning treats his style name like he’s picking his Xbox gamer tag and he picks BadassBoss69_420, that’s what this style name is like to me. Except, you know, he had almost certainly killed many hundreds of people by the time he was nineteen, so, uh, it wouldn’t be a wise idea to make fun of his name to his face.

In my fictional version of his life, he married a woman whose father was the exception to the “parents love their children” rule and who named his daughter Pandi 盼第 “expecting a younger brother”, which is a classic “daughters ain’t shit, I want a son” name. Real and actual Chinese women have been given this shitty name and ones like it.

Because Gan Ning had an ironically placid name, I also gave his daughter the placid single character name Wan 婉, which means “gentle, restrained”, as a foil to her wild personality.

So there are a bunch of examples of some historical characters and some OCs and how I chose their names. “But wait, all that was really cool, but how can I do that? You can read Chinese, I can’t!”

I originally had a bunch of links here to dictionaries and resources but Tumblr :) wouldn’t let the post show up in tag search with all the links :) :) :) so you need to check the reblogs of this post to see my own reblog; that reblog has all the links. I’M SORRY ABOUT THIS. Here are a list of the sites without the links if you want to Google them yourself.

MDBG  - an open source dictionary - start here

Wiktionary -  don’t knock it til you try it

iCIBA (they recently changed their user interface and it’s much less English-speaker friendly now but it’s still a great dictionary)

Pleco (an iOS app, maybe also Android???) contains same open source dictionary as MDBG and also its own proprietary dictionary

Chinese Etymology at hanziyuan dot net

You search some English keywords from the value you want, and then you see what kind of characters you get. You should take the character and then reverse search, making sure that it doesn’t have negative words/meanings, and similar. Look into the etymology and see if it has any thematic elements that appeal to what you’re doing with the character--eg a fire radical for a character with fire powers.

And then, like I mention before, when you have got a couple characters and you think “I think this could be a good name”, you go to Google, you take a very common surname, you append your chosen name—don’t forget to use quotation marks—and you see what happens. Did you get some results? Even better, did you get lots of results? Then you’re probably safe! No results does not necessarily mean your name won’t work, but you should probably run it by an Actual Chinese Native Speaker at that point to check. Also, remember, as I said at the beginning, sometimes people have weird names. If you consciously decide “you know what, I think this character’s parents would choose a weird name”, then own that.

THINGS YOU SHOULD PROBABLY IGNORE!

Starting in relatively recent history (not really a big thing until Song dynasty) and continuing, moreso outside of mainland China, to the modern day, there is something called a generation name component to a name. This means that of a name’s two characters, one of the characters is shared with every other paternal line relative of that person’s generation; historically, usually only boys get a generation name and girls don’t. (Chinese history, banging on pots and pans: DAUGHTERS AIN’T SHIT AND DON’T FORGET IT!) “Generation” here means everyone who is equidistant descendant from some past ancestor, not necessarily that they are exactly the same age. For example, all of ancestor’s X’s sons share the character 一 in their names, his grandsons all have the character 二，great-grandsons 三, great-great-grandsons 四 (I just used numbers because I’m lazy). By the time you get to great-great-grandson, you might have some that are forty years old and some that are babies (because of how old their fathers were when they were conceived), but they are still the same generation.

In some clans, this tradition goes so far as to have something called a name poem, where the generations cycle, character by character, through a poem that was specifically written for this purpose and which is generally about how their clan is super rad.

If you want to riff off of this idea and have siblings or paternal cousins share a character in their names, ok, but it genuinely isn’t necessary. Anyone with a single character name obviously doesn’t have one of these generation names, and by no means does every person with a two character name (especially female) have a generation name. If you’re doing an OC for an ancient Chinese setting (certainly anything before the year about 500), you shouldn’t use these generation names because it wasn’t a thing. Also, in a modern setting, even if such a generation name or name poem exists, it’s not like there is any legal requirement to use it (though there may be family pressure to do so).

As a further complication, some parents do the shared character thing among their children without it actually being a generation name per se because it isn’t shared by any cousins. Or, they have all their children (or all their children of the same gender) share a radical, which is a meaning component in a Chinese character.

If someone does have one of these shared character names, then their nickname will never come from that shared character; either they will be called by the full name or by some name riffing off of the character that is not shared. For example, I knew a pair of sisters called Yuru and Yufei with the same first character; the first sister went by her English name in daily life (even when speaking Chinese) while the second sister was called Feifei.

tl;dr If you don’t already know Chinese, consider generation names an extra complication for masochists only. Definitely not required for modern characters.

Fortune telling is another thing that I think you should either ignore or wildly make up. Do you know what ordinary Chinese people who want to choose a lucky name for their child do? They hire someone to work it out. This is not some DIY shit even if you are deeply immured in the culture. There are considerations of the number of strokes, the radicals, the birth date, the birth hour. You’re the god of your fictional universe, so go ahead and unilaterally declare that your desired names are lucky or unlucky as suits the story if you want to.

MILK NAMES

In modern times, babies get named right away, if for no other reason that the government requires it everywhere in the world for record keeping purposes.

However, in traditional times, Chinese people did not give babies a permanent name right away, instead waiting until a certain period of time had passed (3 months/100 days is a classic).

What do you call the baby in the meantime? A milk name 乳名, which your (close, older than you) family may or may not keep on using for you until such time as you die, just so that you remember that you used to be a funny looking little raisin that peed on people.

This kind of name is almost always very humble, sometimes to the point of being outright insulting. This is because to use any name on your baby that implies you might actually like the little thing is tempting Bad News. Possible exception: sometimes a baby would receive a milk name that dedicated it to some deity. In this case, I guess you’re hoping that deity will be flattered enough to take on the job of shooing away all the other spirits and things that might be otherwise attracted to this Delicious Fresh Baby.

Because milk names were only used by one’s (older) family and very close family friends of one’s parents/grandparents, most people’s milk names are not recorded or known, with some notable exceptions. Liu Shan, the son of Liu Bei, who as a baby was rescued by Zhao Yun during the Shu forces retreat from Changban. Perhaps because his big debut in history/legend was as a baby, he is well-known for his milk name A-Dou 阿斗, which means, essentially, Dipper.

If you’re writing a story, you really only need to worry about a milk name for your character if it’s a historical (or pseudohistorical) setting, and even then only if the character either makes an appearance as a small infant or you consciously decide to have them interact with characters who knew them well as a small child and choose to continue using the milk name. Not all parents, etc who could use the milk name with a youth or an adult actually did so.

Here are some milk names I’ve come up with in my fiction: Little Mouse/Xiaoshu 小鼠 for a girl, Tadpole/Kedou 蝌蚪 for a boy, and Shouty/A-Yao 阿吆 for a boy. In the first two cases the babies were both smol and quiet (as babies go). The last one neither small nor quiet, ahahaha. 蔷蔷 Qiangqiang, which is a pretty enough name meaning “wild rose” (duplication to make it lighter), except the baby is a boy, so this is the typical idea that making a boy feminine makes him worth less, which, yikes, but also, historically accurate. Also Xiaohei 小黑 “Blackie” for a work that I will probably never publish because I don’t ever see myself finishing it. I might recycle it to use on another story.

 Here are some more milk names I came up with off the cuff for a friend that wanted an insulting milk name. They ended up not using any of these, so feel free to use, no credit necessary. Rongzi 冗子 “Unwanted Child”; Xiaochou 小丑 “Little Ugly”; A-Xu 阿虛 “Empty”; Pangzhu 胖豬 “Fat Pig”;  Shasha 傻傻 “Dummy”.

PITFALLS!

Chinese has a lot of homophones. Like, so many, you cannot even believe. That means the potential for puns, double meanings, etc, is off the charts. And this can be bad, real real bad, when it comes to names. It is way too easy to pick a name and think to yourself “wow, this name is great” and then realize later that the name sounds exactly the same as “cat shit” or something even worse.

Some Chinese families live the name choosing life on hard mode because their surname is itself a homonym that can make almost any name sound bad. I’m speaking of course of the poor Wus and Bus of the world. You see Wu may have innocuous and pleasant surnames associated with it, but it also means “without, un-”. (Bu is similar, sounds like “no, not”.) Suddenly, any pleasant name you give your kid, your kid is NOT that thing.

This means picking a name that is pleasant in itself yet also somehow also pleasant when combined with Wu. So you might pick a character with a sound like Ting, Xian, Hui, or Liang - unstopping, unlimited, no regrets, immeasurable. A positive negative name, a kind of paradox. Like I said, this is naming on hard mode.

If you are naming an ancient character, I am going to say in my opinion you should ignore all considerations of sound, because reconstruction of ancient Chinese pronunciations is on some other, other level of pedantic and you just don’t need to do that to yourself.

For modern characters, however, an attractive name, in general, should be a mix of tones and a mix of sounds. As a non-Chinese speaker, basically this means especially if you go for a two character given name, having all three characters start with the same sound, or end with the same sound, can sound kind of tongue twistery and thus silly/stupid. That doesn’t mean that such names never exist, and can in some cases even sound good (or at least memorable), but how likely is it that you’ve found the exception? Not very. (Two out of three having repetition isn’t bad. It’s three out of three you have to be careful of. Something like Wang Fang or Zhou Pengpeng is probably fine; it’s something over the top like Guan Guangguo or Li Lili you want to avoid.)

Just like the West (sigh), in the modern Sinosphere it is widely acceptable for girls to have masculine names but totally unacceptable for boys to have feminine names. If you see the radical 女 which means woman, don’t choose that character for a boy, at least if you’re trying to be realistic. Now Chinese ideas of masculinity doesn’t have the same boundaries as Western ideas, but if you want to play around in those boundaries, you gotta do that research on your own; you’ve left what I can teach you in this already entirely too long tutorial.

Don’t name a character after someone else in story, or after a famous person. In some/many Western cultures, and actually in some Eastern cultures too (Japan is basically fine with this, for example), naming a baby the same name as someone else (a relative, a saint, a famous person, etc), is a respected and popular way to honour that person.

But not in Chinese culture, not now, not a thousand years ago, not two thousand years ago. (Disclaimer: I bet there is some weird rare exception that, eventually, somebody will “gotcha” me with. I am prepared to be amazed and delighted when this occurs.)

Part of this is because of a fundamentally different idea in Chinese culture vs many other cultures about what is valuing vs disrespecting with regard to personal names. The highest respect paid in Chinese history to a category of personal names is to the emperor, and what would happen there is that it would be under name taboo, a very serious and onerous custom where you not only have to not say the emperor’s name, but you can’t say anything that sounds the same as the emperor’s name.

Did I mention that this is in the language of CRAZY GO NUTS numbers of homonyms? The day-to-day troubles caused by observing name taboo were so potentially intense that there are even instances where, before ascending to the imperial throne, the emperor-to-be would change his name to something that was easier to observe taboo about!

So you see this is an attitude that says: if you want to honour and show respect to somebody, you don’t speak their name.

As the highest person in the land, only the emperor gets this extreme level of avoidance, but it trickles down all through society. You can’t use the personal names of people superior to you. Naming a baby after someone inherently throws the hierarchy out of whack. Now you have a young baby with the same name as a grown adult, or even a dead person, who is due honour from their rank in life. People who would not be permitted to use the inspiration’s name may now use that name because they are superior to the baby who received the name! This would mean that hierarchy was not being preserved, and oh my heaven, is there anything worse than hierarchy not being preserved? All of Chinese History: Noooooo!

Now. As an author—and I hope to God no one is using my Chinese name guide as a resource to name an actual human baby because I can’t take that kind of pressure—you can use the names of characters to inspire the names of other characters, in the following way.

Remember that I said that the key, the starting point, to naming someone in Chinese is to start from a value. Okay. So what you do, if as the author you want to draw a thematic connection between two fictional characters, is take the Inspiration character’s name, think about what the value is that caused that name to be chosen, and then go from that value to choose the New Character’s name.

If you’ll recall what I said about Gan Ning and his baby Wan, this is exactly the approach I took. Gan Ning had a placid single character name that belied his violent and outrageous personality; I chose a placid single character name for his similarly wild daughter to make them thematically similar. As an author, I named his baby after him. But within the context of the story, she was not named after him. Does the distinction make sense?

Values also run in families for obvious reasons. It’s very common to look at a family tree and see lots of names that follow a kind of theme and give you a sense that, eg, this family is rather low class and uneducated; this family is very erudite but a bit too fussy about it; this family is really big on Confucianism. So yes, as an author, looking to other characters for inspiration is not a bad idea.

Remember, a lot of times, as an author, you can and even should kick realism to the curb sometimes. If you want to make some Ominous Foreshadowing that Character A’s name is something to do with fire but! They name their child something to do with water and therefore they are destined to clash with their own offspring, gasp, you can do that kind of thing because you are the god of your universe. Relish your power.

Do you have any more questions? Feel free to send a PM or an ask. I hope this was helpful! Go forth and name your Chinese OCs with slightly more confidence!

Edit 22 April 2019: I added some more sections (fortune telling, Milk Names, and taboo on naming after people). I also need to overhaul the entirety of the previous to emphasize that even thought I thoughtlessly used “Chinese” as if it was synonymous with “Han”, there are non-Han Chinese and they can have very different naming customs. Mea culpa.

[lady-plantagenet]

Hey, My curiosity and I can't stop wondering where your strong interest in Georges of Clarence comes from?My curiosity and I can't stop wondering where your strong interest in Georges of Clarence comes from?

Oh haha it was the long theory I wrote about, wasn’t it?

Well, it began when about a year ago I discovered that he was my 16x grandfather, which to be honest was quite a surprise as I am not even English. But that’s not why I am interested in him of course. The thing is, I had been interested in The Wars of the Roses ever since I was 12, of course that interest ebbing and flowing throughout the years. Out of nowhere this discovery came and it drew me back in but with a specific focus on him, Isabel Neville and Richard Neville 16th Earl of Warwick, because before, my favourite figures were rather Elizabeth Woodville, Richard III and Edward IV.

I’ve always been partial to him for some reason, I don’t know if it was the portrait, the unusual death or the plain drama that was his life. I’ve also found it quite strange how the most politically disloyal man of that time was one of the few faithful to his wife, it made me wonder but I didn’t go into this any further (though I had attempted a terrible go at writing the story of Isabel Neville then 9 years ago). But now I really wanted to read about him further (not like make a massive project out of it but just dip in), and the more I read the more undiscernable became his motivations and character and what emerged was a man more complex than I previously expected.

Scholarship revealed to me that he was apparently not mad, and although he may have liked a drink, was certainly no drunkard (at least no one at the time thought so). He had indeed masterminded some elaborate plans in his day and by all accounts seemed an illustrious and charming man who had some strong motivations and belief in those, however deluded those belief may be. Some trivia about his religiosity, idolation from the multitudes, patronages (printing press and foundations) and apparent outstanding knowledge of the law has endeared me a bit too but also showed me that there might be more to him than a greedy, foul-tempered himbo (we have histfic to thank for this ugh). Much of what we know from internet biographies might be true, but the issue is they are presented as facts whereas they remain mere assumptions e.g. that he had married Isabel Neville because he had designs for the crown - not necessarily the case as this marriage suggestion had allegedly appeared as early as 1461!

We all look at him as Edward and Richard’s brother, but the main narrative of his life is about his status as a magnate (an institution then heavily a threat to the crown). It all started looking more to me like a story about an overmighty subjects’ tension with the centralising tendencies of the government (despite his royal provenance). His father-in-law had been called ‘The Last of the Barons’ by David Hume and Clarence being his political heir, a personification of the last generation of the truly medieval aristocracy and someone whose reactions to (some aspects of) the new age were an exemplification of the old system of chivalry falling away and the anxiety, hatred and fear that people like him felt, made me very interested in not only him but also what he represented in the grand historical narrative. I thought to myself ‘wow this looks like a fatalistic tragedy someone should write a novel about this’, alas no one had. So then I started writing my own story on AO3 perhaps appropriately called ‘A Bygone Era’ but more centered on his Duchess, Isabel Neville (because a piece of trivia I had discovered about her got me likewise interested). I got a lot of support from some of the other users (shoutout to @feuillesmortes <3) during the earlier chapters and that made me feel inspired to expand the story into a grander one about the aforementioned three figures, also because I was falling more in love with the aesthetics and culture of that era.

With that, came the need felt to do more research and with the pandemic hitting, I had more alone time than before. The more I researched the more interested I got and also frustrated that very little has been written about him (and not for a lack of sources!), and a lot of the times when I would come up with my own interpretation of the sources I would find that no one had ever thought the same thing as me before, so I also felt I had something to contribute. I’m not saying that I intend to make out of his legacy what SKP and others have made out of Richard III’s, I actually don’t intend to do anything but just put some possibilities and facts out there (some not even that obscure but just rarely circulated outside academic circles e.g. his role as good lord of the West Midlands, his legal judgments e.t.c). Also, of course I find this all very entertaining for some reason, it might be my lawyer personality? I mean sure, some aspects of his career and life probably also hit me on some deeper level, but I’m not interested in him because he was necessarily a ‘good’ person, I don’t frankly know the real reason I find his (and Isabel and Warwick’s) life so poignant but I know there is something there and I like challenges. Not to mention the AO3 story just writes itself XD, and often without my permission. The events of his life are fodder for the greatest novel themes, you’d be surprised XD.

Lastly, his posterity also baffles me. I feel strongly about how he is often used by Richardians as a tool to further villianise the Woodvilles, by Whig enlightenment historians (but that’s more Warwick’s issue) as a symbol of corruption - an impediment to progress and constitutional democracy, and by attention-seeking weirdos on TV to discount the current line of succession (have they never heard of right of conquest or attainder???). I don’t know, surely everyone has a right to exist for themselves, not just as someone’s brother ?? In such an individualistic age you’d think people would sympathise with someone who wasn’t blindly loyal and made up their own mind as to what their interests were and by extension how society should be (because in a pious age people invariably acted on what they thought was divine ordinance). Don’t even get me started on how he remains the only individual in a popular historical period whose image as a pantomime villain has never evolved (and when it is it’s always for one of the above motives) into one of a balanced human being. You must admit it’s rare nowadays to find a controversial historical figure who hasn’t recently undergone some romanticised revisionism!

[galvanizedfriend]

Same anon with the writing questions, thank you for answering them, and oh my god Dorian Gray is on my top 20 list of 19th century books. love! that one.

If you don’t mind me asking a few more questions, what author are you most inspired by / who’s writing do you base your writing on the most? And What century/era of writing do you like reading about the most and which one are you most comfortable with writing?

And I agree third person omniscient can be either too noisy or will recede into background static if not done right so I prefer third person limited myself. I think your Klaus and Elijah voice is subtly nuanced and not jarringly polarised from the normal narration/Caroline’s narration, like I’ve read some books where Caroline’s voice is like “Now I gotta go dick my husband down before he gets his murdery ass in a fucking trench” and Klaus is waxing poetic in true Voltaire satirical poeticism style. And it’s like switching between jake Paul and Hamilton, (which actually I’m not insulting, it really takes a LOT of grasp on the language and an experienced narrator voice to do that, and I applaud those authors for the in-depth character understanding they have that bleeds through into their writing and the expansive versatility of the voices they can invoke in their words) but I myself prefer a nuanced narration which is a gradient instead of two opposing shades of voice.

Also I love your Caroline voice, but your Elijah voice is my favourite. You have a Marcel voice in the third/fourth chapter of wolf, and I’ve never read a marcel pov in a klaroline fanfic before and I think that one pov WAS AMAZING, that pov wasn’t plot heavy or even exactly quintessential to the story but it was there and it was perfectly well done, gave the readers another perspective and allowed some much needed enmity against klaus bleed through, you could hear Marcels hypocrisy in it while empathising with his plight and to evoke two such discrepant emotions in the reader without a grating dissonance is actually very very talented of you. And also you’re not clueless in your writing, you’re far far from that.

Yeah, Dorian Gray is such a masterpiece. ❤️ I love it very much. Alice in Wonderland is another of my favorites, I've read it some 50 times already, even collect different editions. But in terms of style, it is very unique, so I'm not sure it counts. 😂

Victoria Schwab is definitely, definitely the current author I admire the most and one whose style I'm very, very into. I don't even like all of her books, but I've read almost everything she ever wrote and even the ones I don't like, I still can’t put down just because her writing is perfection for me. If I could suddenly wake up in a writing Freaky Friday, I would pick her talent to live inside of me. I seriously, seriously love her style. But I can't even say it inspires me because I  think my writing has soaked absolutely nothing from all the books I've read by her, unfortunately. 😆😆 It would be offensive to her to say so.

I don't have a favorite century/era to read about, I guess. I read just about anything. But I think I do have a soft spot for historical fiction set around World War II. But when writing, I only ever write contemporary stories. I don't think I'm cut out to write anything that isn't set in today's world. My one drabble which is set in some fantasy medieval-of-sorts past is kind of a mess. lol

Thank you, anon! ❤️ I'm especially glad you enjoy my Elijah POVs because they happen to be my favorite! Elijah really grew on me throughout this story and I like to think that I got to a place where I'm very comfortable writing him, so it's always nice to know that the way I write him works for other people, especially since, as you mentioned, I write in third person limited (something I learned about today 😂), so each characters' POVs are always meant to reflect their personalities very strongly. And yay for enjoying Marcel! 😊 That's a compliment I don't think I've ever received! lol The Wolf was a super exercise in trying to write different characters.

Thanks very much for your messages, anon! :) You are very sweet!

[emmasplaceonline-blog]

World Book Day 2018

Today is World Book Day. A day I remember fondly from when I was a child. In our school (and most schools throughout the UK) we would dress up as book characters and exchange books at school. It was a day of excitement and we’d even be able to buy books, lots of them, cheaper in the school hall!

When I think back to the World Book Days from my primary school years it makes me very happy. It was always a thrilling day and I guess you could say where my original passion for cosplaying comes from. To any fellow cosplayer out there, we have all been cosplaying our favourite characters for years!

There were many book characters that inspired me when growing up. Two of which were Matilda Wormwood and Hermione Granger. Probably completely cliché of my generation but they were the heroines that were around for me. The girls I wanted to be.

(I chose to put ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’ in the picture because it was the first Harry Potter book I read without an audiobooks help. It took me a long time to finish but I kept going. Also, it has time travel in and the subject has ALWAYS fascinated me.)

Admittedly, Matilda is a book I am yet to read (I know, I know don’t judge just hear me out), I was introduced to the character of Matilda through the film adaptation. Mara Wilson WAS Matilda and it was Matilda’s love of books that inspired me to get reading. She was so clever, so brave and proved that brains were important, that a young girl could be badass, yet remain kind. She showed that even someone as small as Matilda could gain power to help herself and others through knowledge.

As I got older it was Hermione that continued to inspire me. The first great thing about Harry Potter for me was the true escapism I found there. One thing I will mention is that I struggled to read when I was a little girl. Trust me, I wanted to read so much, I just needed some time and help a long the way to get going.

It was Harry Potter that did this for me. We bought the audiobooks and I would listen while Stephen Fry read J.K. Rowling’s beautiful world out to me. All the while I followed along with the book, line by line, associating words with sounds and description with meaning, pronunciation with emotions. Harry Potter genuinely changed my life.  I owe it a lot. It is why, no matter what age I am, I can easily pick up any of the books in the series and fall in love all over again with its characters, with its impossible yet truly believable world.

Hermione was a huge part of that. Again she showed courage and brains could be beautiful. She showed she was brave and strong without being physical. For a young girl who struggled to keep up physically with other kids due to a then undiagnosed EDS, it meant I could be whatever I wanted, if I was brave, kind and educated myself as best I could and always tried my hardest no matter what, then I could be like her.

It was those two characters that inspired me to pursue reading. And read I did. I was often down my local library and reading all kinds of books, admittedly a lot of Jacqueline Wilson. I am grateful to all those authors that gave me escapism, even if it did take me a long time to finish a book!

I am still am not the quickest of readers today, I sometimes even have to read a sentence over a few times but I push on anyway because once I am into a book, into the flow of reading, I enjoy it so much.

So far in 2018 I have read three books. ‘Always with Love’ by Giovanna Fletcher, ‘Girl Online, going solo’ by Zoe Sugg and today I finished ‘Peggy and Me’ by Miranda Heart. Each book was fun in it’s own way and I enjoyed each read for various reasons.

(Giovanna’s fabulous sequel to ‘Billy and Me’)

(Zoe Sugg’s third book in the ‘Girl Online’ series that is rather enjoyable, especially if you enjoy blogging!)

(Miranda Hart’s beautiful ‘Peggy and Me’ which I finally finished today on World Book Day and had me both in tears of laughter and of sadness, sometimes even at the same time. Any dog owner or Miranda fan should read this book!)

Miranda’s book today left me feeling happy, uplifted and was most importantly it was relatable. The book follows her real life journey with her lovely dog Peggy over the past nine years. What this book showed me is that Miranda is even more down to earth than I realised. I was already a massive fan and could already relate to her a huge amount, yet this book opened my eyes to how anxious she could be about life too. It brought home that it is normal and that even your idols struggle with things. It was also incredibly relatable because of the love she spoke of. I love my current companions Merlin and Arthur more than I can even describe to you. The type of stories and love she shares about Peggy run parallel with stories I have of my own loveable dogs.

Books I am currently reading are ‘Nerd do Well’ by Simon Pegg, which is an autobiography following Simon Pegg’s life and career, (again he is a HUGE idol of mine) I am fascinated and intrigued by what he has to share, geek to fellow geek. The other is a fiction novel, ‘Uprooted’ by Naomi Novik, which is set in a medieval era and involving dark magic. So far, both are brilliant.

(A fellow Nerd idol of mine. I love all of his films, and I still stand by my own statement from when I first discovered it, one of the best TV series of all time is ‘Spaced.’ This man is someone who I will always be a loyal fan to, I respect him hugely.)

(Medieval, magic and mystery...this book is right up my street!)

As per my last blog post one of my aims was to get through my pile of books I own first before buying more. I own a lot more than these, including my Doctor Who books, (seriously I have loads of Doctor Who books), but these are the ones at the moment that I have either already started or want to get through first before I can purchase any more. I think it’s important to challenge oneself, that and it saves me money!

(I am a slow reader, but I sure am a determined person. I will finish this pile!)

Overall, World Book day is unbelievably important. It helped motivate me as a child to push through the difficulty I was having with reading, it inspired me to find new worlds and relate to loads of characters who would go onto shape and inspire me into adulthood. I want it to continue on because I want the same thing to happen for my two nieces who celebrated World Book day today. I want them to be inspired and to read to their hearts content. After all, no book can ever be seen the same. The author can guide the reader yes, but it is each individual imagination that makes up the world, and that in itself is very close to magic.

Which books inspired you? Who is your favourite book character? What’s your favourite book? Let me know in the comments.

Take Care,

Emma

[philipbrideaux]

"Coumment qu'tout a changi, hélas!" Ruth Amy-Le Moucheux and the Jèrriais Language

On my previous visit to the Bailiwick of Jersey, Joy and Maurice Marie invite me back to their home in St. Brelade parish to meet and talk with Joy’s niece, Ruth Amy-Le Moucheux. As I sit in their living room with Ruth, I am at first unaware that she is a past-president of l'Assemblée d'Jèrriais. She is steadfastly modest, but overflowing with knowledge about Jèrriais, and memories of its trajectory from the end of the Second World War to the present.

Ruth was born in 1946 (the year of my great grandfather’s passing in St. Mary parish) at Rozel sous le Moulin, St. Martin parish, not far from where my Great Uncle Harold Brideaux would later settle. “My grandfather was a farmer,” she explains, “and I spent a lot of time down in Rozel Bay [on Jersey’s north coast]. All my grandfather’s land, the valleys and all that, went down Rozel Valley. So it was really beautiful to go and pick the primroses. When my grandfather gave up the farm, we moved to La Butiere, which is on the Rozel main road. My father was a grower there, and went to work in the market afterwards, when he gave up growing.”

Beginning in the 1950s, Ruth was educated at Springside School at Faldouët, near Gorey on the east coast. Springside was run by Mrs. Hilda Ahier, and later her sister Miss Linda Le Seelleur, during an era when attending small private schools, founded and run by visionary educators, was not uncommon. “Mrs. Ahier was married to Captain Frank (Francis) Ahier, who was in the navy. Miss Le Seelleur used to teach us piano. Luckily, Mrs. Ahier and Miss Le Seelleur spoke Jèrriais, because I couldn’t speak English. So they taught me my English.” Afterwards, Ruth attended the Girl’s Collegiate on La Colomberie in St. Helier. The original building on the site, dating back to the late 1700s and heavily transformed through the 1800s, was demolished and replaced in 1998, after protracted and acrimonious debate.

At the Girl’s Collegiate, Ruth’s teachers were fascinated by her Jèrriais and encouraged her to speak it during a period where Jèrriais was looked down on. The Jèrriais accent was wrung out of schoolchildren through elocution lessons or masked from teasing English peers.  “The parents sort of thought it was going to ruin their English. You know, you’d have an accent because you were speaking. Like many of us, I was brought up on a farm so, you know, we were really countrified, weren’t we. We went to chapel. I was a Methodist. We were at St. Martin’s. Well a lot of the people there—the Germains, Fauvelles, and that—we all spoke Jèrriais at church. Some children were discouraged from speaking Jèrriais. But I didn’t care. Because Jèrriais was my language, our language, the language my parents spoke, my grandparents spoke, I was brought up to speak it, so really, I didn’t care what the [English] girls thought. I stuck to it and spoke Jèrriais. And later, Amelia Perchard [the late poet, writer and playwright of Jèrriais] taught me how to write Jèrriais.” At the same time, Ruth’s teachers pushed her to compete in the Jersey Eisteddfod festivals.

As I've discovered in my visits to Jersey, preservation efforts of the island’s Jèrriais language well precdes the Second World War. During the German Nazi occupation of Jersey from 1940 to 1945, islanders could avoid Nazi censorship through the public performance of plays in Jèrriais. They could avoid Nazi surveillance of the citizenry by speaking in Jèrriais. While many German soldiers could speak French, they could not understand the centuries-old Norman dialect, which sounded like French, but wasn’t. Moreover, their most learned academics at headquarters couldn’t understand its written form (L'Office du Jèrriais, 2010).

Although the growing influence of English language and culture in the Channel Islands went back to at least the nineteenth century, it increasingly took hold following the war. Despite the resurgence of Jèrriais during the Occupation, returning evacuees from England brought back children schooled solely in English, and St. Helier’s transformation into an international offshore banking centre entrenched Anglo influence. As Ruth mentions, that influence had made Jèrriais culturally unfashionable. Just two years after the war, St. Ouen-born Frank Le Maistre, the noted editor, writer, and scholar of Jèrriais, proclaimed the languages of the Channel Islands to be dying (Le Maistre, 1947). The Auregnais language of neighbouring Alderney is already extinguished, for example, the entire island having been evacuated in advance of the German invasion. The Sercquiais language of the neighbouring Isle of Sark had fewer than 20 speakers in 1998; over 20 years later, that number is most certainly thin (BBC, 2014). Le Maistre went on to compile the famous Dictionnaire Jersiais-Français in 1966 and later was awarded the Order of the British Empire.

To get a sense of this one particular way I've observed the language persevere among the Jèrriais community, one must understand two things: the deliberate, celebratory creation of Jèrriais poetry and plays throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; and their recitations and performances during the Jersey Eisteddfod festivals, among other occasions.

The Eisteddfod is a Welsh name, and an ancient Welsh tradition, involving the celebration and performance of all facets of Welsh literature, language and culture. The Eisteddfod concept inspired other communities and countries outside of Wales to do the same, including Jersey. The Jersey Eisteddfod was established in 1908, growing to become a comprehensive competition of works and performances encompassing all aspects of Jersey culture, including Jèrriais. Many of the entrants were schoolchildren, and teachers became important brokers and champions for participants. Although songs were sung and plays were performed, Jèrriais competitions were characterized by many poetry recitations, monologues and dialogues in Jèrriais. Entrants were evaluated by panels of elder Jèrriais speakers, scoring entrants on facets like pronunciation, accent, and cadence, and giving awards. Those children whose families were losing their Jèrriais had an opportunity to preserve it. Those children whose families had lost their Jèrriais  had an opportunity to revive it. And so a great tradition of writing Jèrriais poetry and plays has flourished around the festival.

As I learn in conversing with the island’s Jèrriais-speaking elders, the Eisteddfod is a major part of sustaining the community of speakers. And the Eisteddfod has been a major part of sustaining Ruth’s Jèrriais. “We used to go in the Eisteddfod, recite learned plays, and everything, it was quite simple really because Amelia Perchard wrote masses of Jèrriais plays and poems for the Eisteddfod. And we used to do the plays. When we did our plays it was lovely. We must’ve gone in for plays, what, ten years? Yes? Auntie [Joy] and I did the duologue. And you were good!” Ruth points at Joy. “She is good! And she won the cup in Jersey French. She had honours!”

I ask Ruth whether she can still recite any of the Jèrriais poems she delivered at past Eisteddfod festivals. Ruth thinks for a moment. "Well one favourite one I’ve got—I mightn’t be able to remember all of it because it is quite long—I think Auntie knows it. It’s all about life. Jersey life. It’s titled Pensées d'à ch't heu, by Amelia Perchard."

Ruth recites the first two stanzas:

Coumment qu'tout a changi, hélas! Dépis les jours dé ma jannèche, La vie paisibl'ye dé ches temps-là N'est qu'eune mémouaithe, pour ma vieillèche. Tch'est qu'éthait janmais pensé d'vaie, Dans not' Jèrri changements patheils? Dites-mé, est-i' pôssibl'ye qu'il faut L' "Conmité d'Bieautés Naturelles", Pour prêsèrver not' héthitage? Est-che qu'les Jèrriais n'sont pus d'aut' sages?

Ah! Tchi bonheu qué les anciens, Heûtheurs au Paradis d's Êlus Né connaissent pon la vie d'à ch't heu, Et n'peuvent pon vaie tch'est qu'j'sommes dév'nus! Tout l'monde remplyis dé jalousie, Envieurs et auv' qu'eune ambition - Dé pathaître mus qué lus vaîsîns! Pouv'-ous m'dithe don qu'il' ont raison? N's'raient-t-il pon pus heûtheurs, pouôrres corps, S'i' s'contentaient pûtôt d'lus sort?

Here is how it sounds when Ruth recites it:

Ruth joined l'Assemblée d'Jèrriais at a young age, becoming secretary in her teens, and eventually becoming its president for a short time. “It must’ve been about 1969 when I became Secretary. Because I’d have been 16. I was young because Dad was in it, you see. Dad was treasurer for many years. Mother was on the committee. Auntie and Uncle [Joy and Maurice] have been on the committee.”

Almost five decades on, many in the community of Jèrriais speakers who had coalesced around l'Assemblée in the postwar years are still here yet. The population of Jersey has diversified as people from around Europe migrate to the bailiwick, but most islanders are solidly English-speaking, and over 30 per cent are British-born (States of Jersey, 2012). There are perhaps 2000 Jèrriais speakers left. Many islanders regard Jèrriais as part of a bygone era, even though the language greets you as you pass through the airport, and the public transit buses sport the names of Jersey’s 12 parishes written in Jèrriais along their sides. The island has evolved far from its Norman culture since being orphaned from the medieval Duchy of Normandy in the mid-1200s. Most British assume the island is part of the United Kingdom, which it isn’t. Owing largely to its loyalty to Angevin rule during the 1204 French invasion of Normandy, and having fallen under the care of the Plantagenet kings following the 1259 Treaty of Paris, Jersey (and neighbouring Guernsey) remains a crown dependency. While loyal to the Queen, it is otherwise not a part of the United Kingdom or the European Union.

This nuanced historical context is understandably lost on many. That’s perhaps why, in December 2018, some islanders were grumbling about the relevancy of a proposition, brought to the Assembly of the States of Jersey (Jersey’s parliament) by one its members, that Jèrriais be incorporated into official government signs and letterhead, as part of an effort to preserve and promote the language. At the time, residents were more preoccupied with the debate about the location of a much-needed new hospital, and raised the usual concerns about money. Money, however, was not an issue. The signs would be replaced, as they wore out, with bilingual replacements at no extra charge. The heartening result was that on February 12, 2019, not only did the States Assembly agree to the proposition, but also agreed on an amendment to adopt Jèrriais as one of the official languages of the States Assembly, alongside English and French.

 Would that my St. Mary parish-born grandfather, whose first language was Jèrriais, could have witnessed this. Symbolism and ceremony were important to him. For Ruth, life simply continues as one of the island’s last native Jèrriais speakers.

“It’s lack of speaking right now. Lack of speaking at all. But we’re going to start now, we’ve made a resolution, Joy and I, that in the future when we speak to one another on the phone, it’s going to be en Jèrriais. So I’m going to instigate that.”

[juniorformulamotorsport]

Saturday, 28th/Sunday, 29th September 2019 – Vaals, Aachen, Ghent, Rotterdam, Home

I started Saturday with a run that took in two countries, literally exercising my right to freedom of movement while I still had it. I ran the half mile to the Dutch/German border and then went about a mile into Germany before turning round and running back to the Netherlands. A shower, and a very good breakfast in the Hotel Kasteel Bloemendal, and then we set off to do some more sightseeing, this time by heading into Aachen, which we had visited before but so long ago (1983) that we’d forgotten most of it, and anyway it had only been a fleeting visit. We weren’t due at the ferry, about fours hours away, until 15:00 at the earliest and 19:00 at the latest so we could take a few hours out before needing to head off to the north west.

Aachen (or Bad Aachen) or even Aix-la-Chapelle started out as a Roman settlement and spa, and has, as with most cities we visited in what can best be described as the borderlands, had an interesting history, belonging to different countries at different times, while remaining inherently itself. It’s Germany’s westernmost city, in a former coal-mining area, and now specialises in technology, with the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH), and an industrial base that covers science, engineering and information technology, as well as the Klinikum Aachen hospital, one of the largest medical facilities in Europe. Humans have been there since the Neolithic era, about 5,000 years ago, probably because of the warm mineral springs that gave it its Latin name, Aquae Granni (waters of Grannus). The second element, that made it Aix-la-Chapelle, was added after Charlemagne built a chapel built there and then made the city his capital.

Before that, though, there was the 25-hectare Roman spa town of Aquae Granni, which developed after the Roman 6th Legion first channelled the hot spring waters into two spa complexes. There was also an extensive residential area, part of it inhabited by a flourishing Jewish community. Bathhouses sprang up, and the town prospered until the end of the 4th Century when the Romans went home. By 470 the town was ruled by the Ripuarian Franks. Later, Pepin the Short had a castle built in the town, partly for strategic reasons, partly due to the proximity of the hot springs and spent the Easter and Christmas seasons of 765–6 in the town. Its importance grew further when Charlemagne came to spend Christmas at Aachen for the first time in 768. He spent most winters in Aachen between 792 and his death in 814, making it the focus of his court and the political centre of his empire and cementing its reputation. For the next 500 years, after its walls were fortified under Emperor Frederick Barbarossa between 1172 and 1176, 31 kings of Germany chosen to rule over the Holy Roman Empire were crowned in Aachen. The last king to be crowned here was Ferdinand I in 1531.

The city was also of considerable mercantile importance because it was close to Flanders, which enabled it to take a share of the wool trade. As an imperial city, Aachen held certain political privileges that allowed it to sidestep a lot of the trouble in Europe for many years, with it being a direct vassal of the Holy Roman Empire throughout most of the Middle Ages. In addition it was also the site of many church councils, which made it an important source of historical manuscripts. It went into something of a decline after 1598, when Frankfurt replaced it as the site for the Imperial coronations, and was further damaged by both war and the great fire of 1656.

In 1801, Aachen and the entire “left bank” of the Rhine were handed over to France, only to be given to Prussia by the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Naopleon. In 1838, the railway from Cologne to Belgium passed through the city, and in 1875 the medieval fortifications were demolished as part of an effort to build new, better housing in the east of the city, where drainage was easiest. In December 1880 a tram network was opened, and in 1895 it was electrified, thus making the transport of both people and goods far easier. Prosperity followed, but history wasn’t done with the city by a long way. It was occupied for a decade after the First World War, and pretty much destroyed during World War II when it was the first German city to be captured by the Allies. Just as in Freiburg the cathedral escaped pretty much undamaged though a great deal else was gone, and by the end there were only around 4000 people left in the place, the rest having evacuated the city long since. After the war, reconstruction meant that a lot of what you now see is not original, though you wouldn’t necessarily know it.

We found a parking garage close to the city centre, parked up, and headed towards the cathedral, stopping off at the Tourist Information office for a map and to get our bearings. From there we went straight to the Centre Charlemagne, where the Neues Stadtmuseum Aachen (the New City Museum) gives an excellent overview of the city’s history and is the starting point of the “Route Charlemagne” which will take you round all the key sites including the cathedral and town hall, the Grashaus (the former town hall) and the Elisenbrunnen hot springs, if you have time. We didn’t on this occasion, but may well go back as there is much more to see. A quick detour into the cafe for a coffee while we planned what we would see, based on advice from the people behind the desk in the museum was time well spent as we knew where we wanted to go by the end of it.

It has some key pieces from the Carolingian era, including Charlemagne’s throne which used to be housed in the cathedral.

There is also a painting of Napoleon styling himself as the successor of Charlemagne in front of the throne at St Mary’s Church, but I couldn’t get far enough back to take a photo of it. It illustrates how, even after his death in 814, Charlemagne continued to influence the history of the city. Legends around the emperor’s grave and the marble throne made the city the venue of choice for coronations throughout the Middle Ages, and the canonisation of Charlemagne on 29th December 1165 only reinforced the “Legend of Charlemagne”, which was often exploited for political purposes. Both Napoleon and Wilhelm II deliberately styled themselves as successors of the Carolingian emperor, Napoleon going so far as the claim “Je suis Charlemagne”. In more recent times, and in the same spirit that regards Charlemagne as the mythical forefather of Europe and the founding father of two nations there is the Aachen Peace Prize, founded in 1988.

There was also information about the Charlemagne Prize. Referring explicitly to Charlemagne as the “Founder of Western Culture”, under whose reign the city of Aachen was once the spiritual and political centre of the whole of what is now Western Europe, it was intended from its foundation in 1950 to promote interest in and support for the process of integration not only among Germans, but also among their European neighbours. The first Charlemagne Prize was awarded to Richard Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the Pan-European Movement. Since then, the International Charlemagne Prize has been awarded to the founding fathers of a United Europe such as Alcide de Gasperi, Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet, Winston Churchill and Konrad Adenauer, and to those who have embodied hope for integration such as Edward Heath, Konstantin Karamanlis, and His Majesty Juan Carlos I. As its founder Kurt Pfeiffer put it, “the Charlemagne Prize reaches into the future, and at the same time it embodies an obligation – an obligation of the highest ethical value. It is directed at a voluntary union of the European peoples without constraint, so that in their new found strength they may defend the highest earthly goods – freedom, humanity and peace – and safeguard the future of their children and children’s children”. Given the state of politics in the UK right now, I cannot begin to explain how depressed this made me feel about where we may be headed. On that note we took ourselves outside with the intention of visiting the cathedral, only to find it was closed until later in the day.

We went round the corner and into the sunshine for a few moments before diving into the Cathedral Treasury. This establishment is home to one of the largest – and outside the frankly barking Vienna Treasury Museum – most stunning collections of valuable church objects north of the Alps. Because the cathedral, otherwise known as the Marienkirche (“Church of St. Mary”), was a coronation church for so long, it has in its possession an incredibly rich and varied collection of valuable artworks, including numerous sacred gold and silver items such as chalices, reliquaries and altarpieces. It’s all very shiny and very impressive in there, though of the original treasures of the cathedral only six have survived, and three of them have been moved elsewhere including to Vienna.

In total the collection contains 210 documented pieces form a variety of sources, including Otto III, who donated the Lothar Cross, the Gospels of Otto III and multiple additional Byzantine silks, while Henry II gave gold that was used to make part of the Pala d’Oro and a covering for the Aachen Gospels, and Frederick Barbarossa donated the candelabrum that adorns the dome of the cathedral.

My favourite piece though, as a staunch Ricardian, was the crown of Margaret of York, handed over by Louis XI.

Objects have been donated across the centuries with the most recent work being a chalice from 1960 made by Ewald Mataré. There was also an interesting exhibition of liturgical clothing which would have been even more interesting if anything had been explained in any language at all.

By the time we’d finished and taken a look at the cloisters as well, the cathedral was open to visitors. We battled our way in along with everyone else, and tried to get a good look at as much as possible. There are a lot of guided tours going round because that is seemingly the only way you can get to some parts of the building, and despite the notices requesting silence it seemed the message hadn’t got through. The other message that hadn’t got through was that if you wanted to take photographs you needed to purchase a permit. I did, because I reckoned that bought me the right to ease in front of people who hadn’t bothered to hand over their €2.

The cathedral itself was begun in 796 and by the time the original building was completed it was the largest cathedral north of the Alps. The model for the structure was the Basilica of San Vitale, in Ravenna, though it was also intended to compete with the Lateran Palace in quality and authority. Built in the Carolingian style, with marble covered walls, and mosaic inlays. Charlemagne’s was buried there, although there is some dispute about where exactly he is. It doesn’t matter, because what is there and can be seen in breathtaking.

Needless to say, bits and pieces have been added on, with gables added in the 13th Century, a choir was added in the 15th Century and the dome was rebuilt after the fire of 1656. The church is still the main attraction in the city and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978, one of the first 12 items to be so listed.

During World War II, the cathedral’s basic structure survived as did many of the artistic objects, some of which had been removed to secure storage, and some which had been protected within the church itself. The 14th-century choir hall glass, the Neo-Gothic altar, a large part of the cloister, and the Heiligtumskapelle were lost. Reconstruction and restoration took place over more than 30 years, and cost an estimated €40 million.

Most of the marble and columns used in the construction of the cathedral were brought from Rome and Ravenna, including the sarcophagus in which Charlemagne was eventually laid to rest. A bronze bear from Gaul was placed inside, along with an equestrian statue from Ravenna, believed to be of Theodric, and bronze pieces such as the doors and railings were cast in a local foundry.

And then we had to head for the car and set off for Rotterdam! We stopped off in Ghent on the way to go to a Belgian supermarket (Delhaize of course) and then, having stocked up on their white port, we pointed the car towards Rotterdam, arriving there by 17:00 to board the ferry and settle in to our suite. Showered and tidied up we had an earlyish dinner in the Brasserie, watching the lights go by as the Pride of Hull edged out towards the North Sea for the overnight crossing.

We went for the fish sharing platter this time with mackerel pate, cockles, smoked salmon, smoked haddock, ro

llmop herrings and prawns in abundance…

Salmon and sea bream were the order of the day for mains, and we drank a perfectly decent though not thrilling bottle of wine with it.

  We finished once more with cheese, had an early night and a decent breakfast (interestingly the limited and disappointing menu from the journey out was not in evidence so eggs Benedict was back and made a good start to the day). We had a quiet run home and were in the door well before midday, before unpacking the car and trying to work out what on earth we were going to do with all the bottles in terms of storing them at the right temperature. 144 bottles need to be put somewhere while we get round to drinking them.

It has definitely been a successful trip, with Alsace proving to be more than worth a visit, and Baden calling out for a re-run where we spend more time there.

  Travel 2019 – Alsace and Baden, Days 16 and 17, Vaals, Aachen, Ghent, Rotterdam, Home Saturday, 28th/Sunday, 29th September 2019 - Vaals, Aachen, Ghent, Rotterdam, Home I started Saturday with a run that took in two countries, literally exercising my right to freedom of movement while I still had it.

[parchmentandquillchronicle]

8th Century Sweden: Erlan Aurvandil, a Viking outlander, has pledged his sword to Sviggar Ivarsson, King of the Sveärs, and sworn enemy of the Danish King Harald Wartooth. But Wartooth, hungry for power, is stirring violence in the borderlands. As the fires of this ancient feud are reignited Erlan is bound by honour and oath to stand with King Sviggar.

But, unbeknownst to the old King, his daughter, Princess Lilla, has fallen under Erlan’s spell. As the armies gather Erlan and Lilla must choose between their duty to Sviggar and their love for each other.

Blooded young, betrayed often, Erlan is no stranger to battle. And hidden in the shadows, there are always those determined to bring about the maelstrom of war…

A Sacred Storm is the second instalment in The Wanderer Chronicles, a fact I wasn’t aware of until I had finished the book! This book review is part of the blog tour organised by Anne Cater that started on the 7th June. Read through to the end for a surprise!

The Basics

Genre: Historical fantasy

Length: 704 pages

Release Date: 7th June 2018 (Corvus)

Available Formats: Kindle and Hardback

Amazon Buylink (Affiliate)

  Theodore Brun studied Dark Age archaeology at Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology and an MPhil in History.  He also rowed in the Boat Race for the university.  Professionally, Theodore qualified and worked as an arbitration lawyer, in London, Moscow, Paris and finally Hong Kong.  In 2010, he quit his job in Hong Kong and cycled 10,000 miles across the whole of Asia and Europe (crossing 20 countries) to his home in Norfolk. Theodore is a third generation Viking immigrant – his Danish grandfather having settled in England in 1932.  He is married and divides his time between London and Norfolk. A Sacred Storm is his second novel.

  My Thoughts

A Sacred Storm by Theodore Brun

Yes that’s a real sword.

A Sacred Storm is a very intriguing read from the start as you follow Erlan as he moves through the higher levels of Viking society. This book promises secrets, magic and a lot of fighting and it delivers on it all. You read about the politics between two kingdoms long at war with each other.

When I first signed up to participate in this blog tour I admit I didn’t do much research into the novel, I just liked the blurb I was given! So imagine my surprise when a rather huge package was delivered a couple weeks later and out comes this 700-page book! Now I found this a little daunting as it has been several years since I last read a book of this size but I found myself enjoying it throughout.

The character development is slow but meaningful. Even though the plot itself covers a couple of months at most, some of the characters find themselves having to change and grow to adapt to changing surroundings. We see how they handle difficult situations; physical, emotional and political of nature. I found the characters getting strong reactions from me before the halfway point, much to my chagrin when towards the end I found myself cursing the author for one particular scene.

The plot develops naturally and comes to what felt like the only conclusion that would make sense. Brun writes the fight scenes throughout the novel in great detail, not shying away from the brutality of medieval warfare. The reader follows Erlan through several battles on various scales so you get to read what war would have been like it that period from a close POV.

I tagged a few places in the novel as there were a few aspects I wanted to talk about specifically. The first simply has to be my favourite line of the whole book, ‘Though without his shield, he’d be about as much use in the sheildwall as a bull with a broken cock.’ I don’t know why this line stuck with me, it’s rude but effective. It demonstrates how important sheildwalls were during combat during that era but with a little humorous imagery attached to it. The second tag is about the relationship between Erlan and Saldas, though now I’m writing this I find I can’t say much without giving spoilers. But I will say that their relationship challenged what I believed about the Vikings and their gender roles in a positive way. The final tag is for a scene that showcases the differences between the classes in the novel and how war affects them. It is parallel to wars throughout history, the higher classes declare war on another country when the political situation doesn’t affect the lower classes. So what are they fighting for?

Overall I found this book very enjoyable and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the Viking era who wants a little bit of magic thrown into the mix.

I promised a surprise didn’t I? Well I am hosting my second giveaway of the month! That’s right, you can read all about Erlan and the events in 8th Century Scandinavia! All you have to do is fill out this form to enter. The giveaway is open for a month (13/7) and the winner will be announced within a week of closing.

Book Review: A Sacred Storm by Theodore Brun @theodorebrun #asacredstorm @annecater #bookreview #bookrecommendation @bloggerstribe @discoverblogRT 8th Century Sweden: Erlan Aurvandil, a Viking outlander, has pledged his sword to Sviggar Ivarsson, King of the Sveärs, and sworn enemy of the Danish King Harald Wartooth.

[seganerds]

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ince SEGA acquired Atlus’ parent company Index Holdings back in 2013, SEGA Nerds have had an additional boost of titles to enjoy under the SEGA umbrella, not least the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei franchises.

This extension of franchises now includes the likes of Rock of Ages. Developed by ACE Team, the first game was released on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and Windows back in 2011, and while Rock of Ages wasn’t perhaps a game that set the world on fire, it was very well received and left fans craving for more.

So, it’s great to see, some six years later, that ACE Team and Atlus are at it again with Rock of Ages 2: Bigger and Boulder.

Take Super Monkey Ball, remove the monkey…

The world map kind of reminds me a little of Super Mario World… though not in appearance.

For those who the original passed them by, the best analogy for Rock of Ages is to take a tower defense game and mix it with Super Monkey Ball. The objective of the game is to defend your castle, using a variety of weapons, barriers and traps, while attacking your enemy’s castle and being the first to break down the door and squash the occupant (your enemy) inside.

The franchise features two main gameplay components, firstly you place your series of weapons and traps along the level – a downhill obstacle course – in the best way to either damage your enemy’s boulder or destroy it completely. That’s the tower defense side of things.

The second part of the gameplay involves you taking direct control of your giant boulder, where you need to navigate the course, avoiding enemy projectiles and traps, to smash down the door of their castle. The more damage your boulder receives, the weaker the impact damage will be on their castle and should your boulder lose all its health, it will be destroyed. This is the Super Monkey Ball part of the game, although, unlike Monkey Ball you control the ball/boulder directly, you don’t move the ground… oh, and there are no monkeys in the game either (shame).

If you enjoyed the gameplay in the original Rock of Ages, then you’ll be happy to hear that Rock of Ages 2 is very much more of the same, just bigger and boulder… err bolder.

One of my first attempts at wall building… it was not very successful.

Its ACE Team’s Flying Circus

Believe it or not, the game has a story to it, which lends itself in alignment with its name.

In Bigger and Boulder, you follow Atlas, the Titan from Greek mythology who was forced to hold the sky upon his back. Though Bigger and Boulder has taken the modern misconception here and adopted the idea that Atlas was holding the Earth on his back – but this common error is forgivable, as it works well with the story.

Anyway, Atlas is doing his thing, holding up the Earth, when God comes along and distracts him. Atlas accidentally drops the Earth and it falls to the heavens below. Panicking, he replaces the Earth with a large boulder. When God notices the Earth looks different he goes to put on his glasses to inspect it. As God is looking away, Atlas jumps from his plinth, still holding his boulder, and as he falls through space, he lands on Earth.

That bit is a little weird, as he was a giant holding the Earth, but is suddenly smaller, more human sized, and can now walk around on the planet, along with the boulder he brought down with him.

Now on Earth, Atlas is walking through notable periods of time, meeting various historical and mythological figures, all of whom have been depicted (in real life) in paintings and other works of art, such as statues or books – from the likes of Henry VIII, to Medusa, to William Wallace and a demon that blew up Mount Vesuvius. Each historical/fictional character you meet, you end up fighting against.

One of the great things about Rock of Ages is the fun art style and sense of humour, which has returned for Bigger and Boulder. The most accurate and best likeness for the art and humour is Monty Python’s Flying Circus – ACE Team has taken samples of works of art and animated them in a similar way to Monty Python’s animated scenes, right down to the absolute insanity, silliness and audio style, with mumbles and odd noises.

For those not familiar with Monty Python’s animation, think South Park, Salad Fingers or Apollo Gauntlet, where you have flat, paper-like, cut-out 2D images – taking figures from old paintings and animating them.

Granted, humour is always a matter of taste and if you really hated Monty Python’s animated scenes, there’s a chance you’ll hate these, but I loved them. While they are not entirely original in design or concept, this style is uncommon enough to give Rock of Ages a unique feeling and one that I really enjoyed throughout the game.

A brief lesson in history and mythology

Starry Night by Van Gogh is one my favourite level designs

In the story campaign, you roll around a map of Europe (and a small segment of north Africa) with each country containing at least one moment in history for you to visit. The map kind of reminded me a bit of Super Mario World, as you can make your way along, tackling the levels in almost any order, as defeating some enemies opens up multiple paths around the continent.

The art style goes much further than in the story animations, as the game’s levels feature a brilliant variety of interpretations of artwork from across time. You find yourself rolling down incredibly well-designed courses, each appropriately matching the historical era or the artistic style of the enemy you are fighting.

In England you fight against Henry VIII, against a medieval backdrop of rolling hills, while in Egypt you face Rameses with the stereotypical pyramids and giant statues surround by a sandy desert. But things change dramatically when you face against mythological enemies such as Baba Yaga and Medusa, as the artistic styles of the levels become something otherworldly and, on occasion, merge a different artistic style into the mythology.

For example, when you face Baba Yaga (a witch-like being from Slavic folklore), you are transported to the Van Gogh painting, Starry Night. It’s brilliant, you wouldn’t think to merge these two ideas, but it works really well and this ended up being one of my favorite levels in the game, because it felt so magical and, frankly, was beautiful to look at.

The great thing is that each course feels unique. While you are essentially rolling down hills getting from point A to point B, ACE Team has done a fantastic job in bringing the world and its history to life through their level designs and no two are alike.

I should also note the music in the game is brilliant. ACE Team has taken classical compositions that are associated either with the country you are fighting in or with the time-period. While I’m not so hot on classical music, I did recognise most of the songs and think it’s great, as it works well to complement the art styles and the world around you.

Great balls of fire!

No moss on these stones

While it’s a joy to look at, the game is also very fun to play. The controls are simple enough to pick up from the short (and very well designed) tutorial level, but you have the skill factor in learning what each weapon/trap does and knowing exactly where to place them for maximum effectiveness.

As you progress and defeat more and more enemies, you unlock new defenses and new boulders. While understanding the weapons is one thing, learning the strengths and weaknesses of the boulders is another.

There are no boulders that are perfect in every situation, but there will no doubt be ones that you prefer, due to your play style. Boulders have different statistics based on: Strength, Speed, Acceleration, Damage and Weight. Each of them affect how well they handle across different types of courses and against different types of weapons.

Each boulder looks unique and many of them have additional bonuses/advantages – such as the Angel Boulder being able to double jump, whereas the Globe Boulder has a moon spinning around it, so it can damage nearby obstacles without receiving any damage.

I think most gamers will enjoy the Monkey Ball aspect of the game – it’s really fun rolling over enemy structures and satisfying destroying the castle door first – but the tower defense side of things is equally enjoyable.

While this side of the game does slow things down, it can be brilliant fun to watch your tactics play out well. Essentially, after you have smashed your boulder into the opposing castle, you need to wait for your new boulder to be built, and this is the time to ready your defenses.

When I first played, I just dropped defenses anywhere on the course, not really caring or bothering to observe how well they worked. But after losing one early level three times in a row, I decided to take notice, and that’s when things clicked for me.

It’s really satisfying when your defences destory the enemy boulder

Rather than dropping defenses all over the map, the best solution is to pick defenses that complement each other and put them in close proximity (I often put them near my castle, because that tended to have the best space for lots of defenses). Once I worked out a good strategy, the tower defense bits became a real joy for me, as I tried to ready them in time before my enemy was able to roll.

If everything works out well, and you continuously destroy the enemy boulder before it can reach your castle, you can unlock a ‘rare’ achievement for destroying the enemy without taking any damage. I’m happy to say I was able to do this, and it’s a really satisfying feeling seeing your defenses work perfectly.

Chip off the old block

In Obstacle Course mode, you race against the opponent to the finish line, avoiding defences

There’s not just a single player to Bigger and Boulder, there’s also some decent offline and online multiplayer modes, including 2-player co-op across the whole single-player campaign – where you both are able to create your defenses at the same time, on the same course and roll your boulders into the enemy structures. But be warned, the AI also has two boulders in this mode, so you will need those extra defenses to fend them both off.

There’s also additional game modes, for both single and multiplayer, which extend the gameplay further, plus plenty of boulders, defenses and customization options to unlock during the main campaign.

Offline, you can only ever have two human players, which is a bit of a shame. Though online you can have up to four players in game modes, two players per console.

The single-player campaign also mixes things up slightly with four boss battles, which take you away from the downhill slopes of normal levels and to battle-type arenas. I’m not sure if everyone will enjoy these, though I did find them a good break from the norm in the campaign.

Geez! Would you look at the buns on that guy! He must work out…

You missed a spot

While I found the majority of my time with Bigger and Boulder to be really enjoyable, there are some things that hindered it.

Firstly, I came across some bugs in the game, one of which ruined the game for my girlfriend. See, she’s not a gamer, and Bigger and Boulder seemed like the perfect game for us both to play – as it is very easy to pick up.

Two player was really fun, when the camera behaved itself

After showing her the tutorial and playing a practice match against her, she picked things up, and we were ready to fight together against the AI. But something kept going wrong with her camera – every time she fell or was pushed off the course, her camera kept swinging around, so it was facing the wrong way. This led to her going backwards up the course and getting frustrated with the game. At first, I thought she was holding down the stick to change the camera angle, but I paid close attention the next time it happened, and sure enough, when she was placed back on the course, her camera was backwards.

The game does try to give you subtle indications on the direction you need to go, but it’s not always clear, especially for someone trying to get used to the controls.

Unfortunately, she became so annoyed with the game she gave up. It’s a shame because she thought it looked really fun when I was playing it, but I don’t blame her for quitting. Strangely, this camera situation never occurred for me in single player, but it was definitely happening to her.

Honey, I broke the cat!

Another annoyance is that to play two-player co-op offline, you need to create a separate Xbox Live account for the second player. There’s no option, like in other games, to just have a guest account. Frankly, this is ridiculous.

I also encountered a game-breaking bug against the Sphinx boss (see image to the left) and accidentally hit the “restart level” button once or twice. Couldn’t they have added a confirmation option?

Even if those annoyances didn’t exist, the biggest downside for Bigger and Boulder is that the game does feel rather repetitive during long gameplay stints. Even with the different boulders, new weapons and varied courses, you’re essentially doing to the same thing over and over again. But it’s great fun for short blasts of gaming!

Another point to note is that the campaign mode isn’t very long (it can be done in about 4-6 hours). But don’t let that put you off as the game is only £11.99/$14.99, and the amount of gameplay across the modes is well worth the entry fee.

Prepare to be squished!

Summary

Rock of Ages 2: Bigger and Boulder is a really enjoyable game and unique enough to warrant a purchase. While it has some flaws, some of which I’m hoping can be ironed out with an update, it is let down solely on its repetition during long gameplay stints.

But the game has enough variety in its level designs and content there for single and multiplayers, that it will keep bringing you back, even after you complete the main campaign.

While the visual aspects of the game don’t push modern hardware, the quirky art styles and imagination put into each level really draws players in, with a cracking soundtrack to roll your way to victory to. The odd humour may not be for everyone, but the gameplay should be enough to draw people in and keep them there.

Pros: + Really fun mix of gameplay styles + Great visuals bring historical & mythological characters/settings to life + Excellent soundtrack complements aesthetics + Good selection of game modes and unlockables

Cons: – Can feel repetitive in long play sessions – You need a second Xbox Live account to play multiplayer offline – WTF? – Bug! Camera kept twisting round in two player co-op

My favourite ‘boulder’ is a giant cube. Hard to control, but very powerful

It’s really satisfying when your defences destory the enemy boulder

Not all boulders are spherical

Starry Night by Van Gogh is one my favourite level designs

We danced on the crsuhed bodies of our fallen enemies

Geez! Would you look at the buns on that guy! He must work out…

In Obstacle Course mode, you race against the opponent to the finish line, avoiding defences

My favourite ‘boulder’ is a giant cube. Hard to control, but very powerful

Two player was really fun, when the camera behaved itself

Once you break down the enemy door, you squish them and claim victory!

Angel Boulder has wings to double jump

Honey, I broke the cat!

Two player was really fun, when the camera behaved itself

Just chilling on the back of a Sphinx…

Cat is still broken…

The world map kind of reminds me a little of Super Mario World… though not in appearance.

Prepare to be squished!

You have plenty of customisation features to unlock

One of my first attempts at wall building… it was not very successful.

Placing defences stragetically helps ensure victory

Great balls of fire!

Time to get the ball rolling again with our #review of #RockofAges2 #Bigger&Boulder! @theACETeam @AtlusUSA #SEGA Since SEGA acquired Atlus’ parent company Index Holdings back in 2013, SEGA Nerds have had an additional boost of titles to enjoy under the SEGA umbrella, not least the…

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Why Margaret Beaufort?

My guest today is a kindred spirit. Judith and I share a love of the Tudor era and the amazing woman who helped to form it. Her latest series features a woman who is more often made the villain in novels, so I asked her about her inspiration for writing from the point of view of the woman famous for being a force behind her son's throne, Margaret Beaufort. Welcome, Judith! I am happy you are here! ~ Samantha

Guest Post by Judith Arnopp

I am often asked why I chose to write about Margaret Beaufort and, although I hate to answer a question with a question, my usual reply is 'Why wouldn't I?' Poor Margaret has gained quite a negative reputation, especially in fiction and I think it has a lot to do with her portraits. The portraiture of most of the women I've written about, Anne Boleyn, Katheryn Parr, Elizabeth of York, depict young, attractive women who've the added bonus of a touch of romance in their lives. Unfortunately for Margaret, her surviving portraits were painted late in life; she appears dour faced, pious and elderly. I believe this severe image has tainted the way authors have chosen to depict her.

It is clear Margaret was never a great beauty, and she never enjoyed a great royal romance but her impact upon history is undeniable. Margaret's political involvement in the wars of the roses helped establish the Tudor dynasty, and her role in Henry's government stabilised it. When I write I imagine I am the protagonist. In Margaret's case I wanted to access the girl and the young woman, so I put away the portrait of the old lady and imagined a painfully young child thrust into the adult world.

Putting aside the assumptions that have been made and using only the known facts of her life, I came up with a rather different view of Margaret. Throughout my life I have favoured York over Lancaster but when it comes to writing I have to be objective. I do not demonise for the sake of drama, history is exciting enough without making too much up. Obviously I use my imagination to fill in gaps, add dialogue etc. but I examine the factual evidence and do my best to consider, without bias, the deeper character of the person I am writing about. When writing in the first person I also have to remember that we are all blind to our own negative side, and Margaret would never have seen her own actions as flawed. This helps me to illustrate her possible motivations without evoking the almost pantomime villain she has become.

Margaret is often blamed for the disappearance of the princes from the Tower but I have found nothing in the record to prove it; there are plenty of other candidates who could be held equally as culpable. Unauthorised entry to the Tower was just not possible; whatever the fate of the boys, it was carried out with either the knowledge of the king or the Constable of the Tower.

Margaret's life, even before her rise to power, was interesting. From infancy she was the sole heiress of the Duke of Somerset, her hand in marriage pursued almost from the cradle. She married four times, her first marriage to John de la Pole took place when she was just six years old but was quickly annulled. Her second marriage, this time to Edmund Tudor at the age of twelve, was also short lived, his death leaving her widowed and pregnant at the age of thirteen. In extremity she turned for support to her brother-in-law, Jasper Tudor and gave birth of her only son at his stronghold in Pembroke. It is believed the birth left Margaret so damaged she could conceive no further children.

Her third marriage to Henry Stafford, second son of the Duke of Buckingham, was of her own choosing, providing her with access to Edward IV's court. In the years that followed Margaret trod a dangerous path through the complexities of the war between York and Lancaster – her heart lay with her Lancaster kin, but when York finally won the throne she seems to have bowed to the inevitable and accepted Edward IV's rule.

With the royal nursery quickly filling with York heirs, the idea of Henry Tudor ever attainting the throne at this time would not have occurred to her but she petitioned instead for his pardon and the return of his estates.  

Margaret managed to survive the upheaval of the next few years while power passed to and fro between York and Lancaster. Henry Stafford died of wounds received at Barnet, fighting for York, leaving Margaret widowed again. She remarried swiftly, choosing for her final husband the powerful northern magnate, Thomas Stanley. This union brought Margaret even closer to the royal family where she formed a link with the Queen, Elizabeth Woodville; a relationship which, after King Edward's sudden death in 1483, was to develop into intrigue.

Initially she seems to have accepted Richard of Gloucester's claim to the throne, bearing the new Queen, Anne Neville's train at the coronation. It was not until later that she began to plot actively to place her own son on the throne but there is nothing to suggest she was complicit in any plan to murder the princes. In fact, there is no actual evidence that they were killed at all – they disappeared, there were later murmurings against Gloucester but nothing has ever been satisfactorily proven. It is the mystery surrounding this period in history that makes it so interesting and irresistible to authors. There are as many theories as there are candidates for the crime (if any existed).

After Bosworth, when Henry became king, Margaret was finally in a position of power. She is often portrayed as the 'mother-in-law from hell' but, while there may have been initial resentments between Margaret and Henry's queen, Elizabeth of York, as there often are between in-laws, ultimately relations between the two women were amicable. While the queen confined her interests to the royal nursery and charitable works, playing no part in administration, Margaret took a leading role in Henry's government. She was one of his chief advisors, taking charge of finances and the running of the royal household, overseeing the upbringing and education of the royal children.

In my novels that form The Beaufort Chronicles, writing from Margaret's perspective, I try to illustrate her motives, show the events and the people of the fifteenth century through her eyes. I have to 'know' only what she may have known. I give voice to her inner self, her passions, even the negative thoughts we all have but never speak aloud. Novels are, of course, only fiction but after the treatment she has received in both fiction and non-fiction, I think she is deserving of a voice.

People love to have someone to blame, and Margaret being plain, pious and forthright provides the perfect scapegoat. She was clearly no beauty but her portraits were taken in later life; the purpose was not to display her good looks but rather her piety, her charity and her intelligence which were, in those days, virtues to be proud of. It seems strange that today these characteristics have come to be regarded in the negative.

Piety in the middle ages was the norm; it would have been far more remarkable if she'd been atheist or lax at prayer. In the twenty-first century we have become uneasy around intense devotion to God, and because of this, in trying to make sense of emotions that are foreign to us, authors have resorted to portraying her as a religious fanatic. But perhaps, if we had to endure the unsanitary conditions of the fifteen century; the child mortality, the frequent bouts of pestilence and famine, and the ever-present threat of death we too might turn to the protection of a greater supernatural power.

I won't deny that Margaret was a forthright woman but determination gets things done and Margaret is one of the few medieval women to have set out, virtually unaided, to achieve her goals. Initially, she seems to have accepted York's rule, she was compliant under Edward IV and in the early part of Richard III's reign but at some point, her agenda altered and she began to work toward what she saw as the rights of her son.

Margaret played a huge part in providing Henry with the means to invade England and take possession of the throne. After Bosworth and the reward of seeing her only child crowned King of England she could have sat back and enjoyed her dotage. Instead, she continued to work diligently for the Tudor cause. She assisted in the establishment of the dynasty and was a key figure at Henry's court, building the public Tudor image, attending to the administration of the court, and overseeing the raising of the Tudor heirs.

Tudors are not everyone's favourite royal dynasty and there are those who will never see virtue in Margaret Beaufort's role in the wars of the roses but, dynastic preferences aside, she was a strong determined person, a religious person who did not rely on beauty to buy her way into power. She relied solely upon her remarkably agile mind. If she were a man she'd be hailed as a political genius.

Connect with Judith

Judith's historical novels offer a view of the Tudor court from the perspective of the women close to the throne.

You can connect with her on her website.

Find her books on Amazon.

Her work includes:

The Beaufort Bride: Book One of The Beaufort Chronicles

The Beaufort Woman: Book Two of The Beaufort Chronicles

The King's Mother: Book Three of The Beaufort Chronicles – coming soon

A Song of Sixpence: the story of Elizabeth of York and Perkin Warbeck

Intractable Heart: the story of Katheryn Parr

The Winchester Goose: at the court of Henry VIII

The Kiss of the Concubine: a story of Anne Boleyn

Medieval Novels

The Song of Heledd

The Forest Dwellers

Peaceweaver

Source: Samantha Wilcoxson