#people were enslaved

[lainalit]

[hamletshoeratio]

"A strong queen is just what this country needs!"

The Irish who know the queen in question as the famine queen:

[spirit-meets-the-b0ne]

The thing that Targaryen antis either don’t or can’t understand is that in spite of all the discussions, discourse and arguments (& moral conjecture): I simply love dragons and mentally ill women with great hair sorry if you can’t relate

[itwasanangryinch]

L'odeur de la mort

He remembered the smell of death.

Not the antiseptic, clinical smell of a modern death. A body sterilized and removed of fluids. Removed of its humanity and everything that had made a person alive.

Not even the less-modern, but honest smell of a natural death. The sweetened, heady fragrance of putrefaction taking over a body as it took over the air.

As it hung in the humidified climate.

Clinging to anything it touched.

Digging into soft fabrics the longer the body was kept for viewing.

No, Louis remembered the smell of death from his youth. Before they moved into the final de Pointe du Lac family home half an hour from the Quarter, when they buried his grandfather and his father took the mantel as head of the family.

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At first, the de Pointe du Lacs decked out in their best existing black finery as an urgent correspondence was sent to a favored tailor and its twin to their favored dressmaker. The children's current clothes all fit smaller versions of them; the whole family many seasons out of style. Grace would have been… six…? to Louis' nine. It hadn't even been a quarter century since they parted, but recent proceedings made it harder than usual to focus on the particulars.

New clothes in the latest style were delivered before the death notice hit the papers. Favored servants also received updated, but less stylish additions to their wardrobes. Regardless of what went on in their personal lives, when the house was in mourning, the whole household was in mourning.

Unfavored servants though. It was unfavored servants who created the Creole smell of death.

Despite the custom for open casket viewings in an ill-suited climate, it wasn't the smell of a less-than-fresh corpse that created the smell of death in New Orleans. Instead it was the smell of the fresh dye that in the city permeated the air for blocks and for miles from the not-quite-plantation house at the edge of town. It was gag inducing and its permanence ensured their servants would be clad only in black until they could afford to replace the clothes.

Officially, they would only have to wear black as long as the lady of the house dictated, but in practice? In practice, they were worn for years after, re-dyed with each death. Re-colored with each loss. The dye as much a literal reflection of mourning as it was metaphor rubbing from the fabric and into their skin. A literal marking of the family loss imprinting semi-indelible on everything it brushed upon.

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It was that smell more than anything that Louis found himself missing those first nights at sea. The crisp, salt air seemed an affront to the unnatural death that they had witnessed in New Orleans. That they had caused in New Orleans. That they had fled in New Orleans.

His mourning clothes weren't to be black. Dingy greys, muted browns, muddy greens, earthy purples. All colors he and Claudia cloaked themselves in to hide amongst the mortals on the warfront. But not black.

Lestat had died, but in his stead there was to be no full page, black-ringed notice in the evening paper. No open house allowing loved ones and spectators one last glimpse at the carefully prepared body of the illusive, flamboyant former investor of the French Quarter. No black wreath adorning their front door marking their house as having an untraditionally sombre Lent.

All their carefully packed and coordinated accoutrements had been abandoned almost as soon as they debarked. Traded in to play-act as wartorn locals. As much a lie as the photograph of Grace they used to pretend to be a family looking for their missing member. But they knew where their missing family member lie.

Lestat was dead. What did petty trinkets matter?

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A respected family like the de Pointe du Lacs had their mausoleum well established. Long since built in anticipation of generations not only yet interred, but yet birthed. An anticipation of generations of death reunited for family members yet to come.

The last interment Louis had witnessed had been that of his father. The singular death that catapulted him from second, but capable son to patriarch and provider. His mother's man in society, his sister's caretaker until Letty proved himself worthy — if he ever proved himself worthy. Paul's alleged savior, bringing him home from hospital and back to the parish church where his delusions were indulged and not beaten. Where his standing as a stalwart local noble carried an air of deference as opposed to being seen as just another crazy negro.

Florence's mourning period for her husband was longer than it had been for the previous patriarch. She had liked her father-in-law well enough, a curt respect and show of deference to where their young family had tithed from. But where Grandfather du Lac had found himself with a lack of a wife to prolong his life much beyond what it took for the Second Line to play their last, Florence had a place in society to maintain. She loved her late husband, of course, but her mourning was as much performance and societal duty as it was grief. She counted down the days till she could reintroduce a small splash of color to her wardrobe.

And yet, when the time came to enter half mourning, she found herself reluctant to add any colors to her wardrobe. And Louis wondered if it were as much about the loss of a husband as it was finding him to be a lack of a worthy replacement.

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Claudia found Louis' rituals to be tedious. It had been hard enough to convince him to kill Lestat. To keep Louis engaged with the plan once he had given himself over to illusion and allowed himself to love Lestat without reservation. Able to tell himself that this was the illusion and not the distance he had kept between them for so many years beforehand.

She almost killed Louis herself when he suggested a final update to her much ignored doll collection. What did she care of the human custom for black dressed widow dolls? What use would she have had for a mourning trinket meant to signal the death of a loved one? Lestat wasn't her loved one so much as her captor.

"You're supposed to be a child," Louis chided as they bedded down in a makeshift shelter.

"A teenager, not a fuckin' baby," she reminded him, her sleep already soured before she made the nightly commitment to coffin.

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Before they left Rue Royal for the final time, Louis went around the house and covered the remaining mirrors. "Closin' up the house," he deflected.

"Makin' sure he won't get trapped," came the surly reply. "He was a goddamned bastard. At least if he's trapped, we know where he is."

But Lestat doesn't deserve that, Louis thought to himself. Numb in his blood soaked clothes as he draped cloth over each mirror in the residence.

The horror that had been Lestat. The husband that had been Lestat.

What was death without the trappings of mourning? Without the rituals of loss? Without the overt signals to the neighborhood that a beloved family member had shuffled off this mortal plan and to the next?

What was life without Lestat?

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Final notes: All of the cultural mourning information is based on the historical information and research of the Hermann-Grima + Gallier Historic Houses in New Orleans. Their Fall tour of the Gallier House is based on Creole practices circa 1860-1865 complete with historic ads for some of the items mentioned like the widow dolls.

While this information would be 50-80 years out of date for the show's timeline, Florence was definitely old school in the way she comported herself and Louis "clings to his Creole heritage" so it wouldn't be out of step for the characters to have an old fashioned way of doing things, especially as it would gain them respect in an increasingly hostile society.

Gallier House, of course, being notable to the narrative as the exterior model and address of 1132 Rue Royal and the basis for the interior layout as well.

[rider-of-bulls]

I know that it's fiction and fantasy and it's okay to be creative and have headcanons, but I think it's kind of weird to take what are essentially fantasy POC allegories and go "I headcanon them as way more animalistic and weird looking"

Like, oh you think the elves from dragon age should look more like deer/cats/foxes? Or that the Qunari are more animalistic in nature and have a heightened sense of smell and rely more on their base instinct and urges? Hm! Interesting!

[dramatic-dolphin]

Helots as a concept shouldn't exist if the world was right!

oh yeah. it's honestly just so fucked when you actually look at ancient romr and greece with both eyes and you realize "oh. these were slave states. that was a state built on slavery. a state that could not have existed without slavery." i think we don't talk about that enough.

[meyhew]

learning abt how deeply woven the Quran and muslims are in the fabric of american history….

[tamaruaart]

I want a Nauiskaa saga

[sanyu-thewitch05]

SOMEONE NEEDS TO FIND OUT WHAT TRIBE ANDRE WILKES BELONGED TO SO THEY CAN BE ADDED TO THE LIST WITH THE OTHER TRIBES THAT OWE ADOS REPARATIONS(Cherokee, Seminole, etc)

@queen-shiba

[quietwingsinthesky]

Hot new pieces of eden just discovered: fidget spinner, flash light, mug that keeps your drink warm, iPad with a dead battery, RC isu helicopter, animitronic from a children's party entertainment place (suspiciously sentient), the Canon isu infinite food despenser in the grand temple (it seems to make Goo? Shaun doesn't like it)

i need an assassin’s creed game fully centered around a fight over some completely useless shit. i want to watch a character lose everything in their struggle to kill all the templars who might get to it first. and then for it to just be a mug that keeps everything in it kind of warm.

and im saying that and it sounds like a meme. i don’t mean it as such! i’m being completely serious! i think it would do a great service to the series sense of power scaling and to underscoring just how fucking tragic this fight for these artifacts is if a bunch of people have to die to get their hands on this fabled item. only for it to be bullshit. not important tech, not a weapon, just a lucky mugwarmer that one of the isu used for their coffee thousands of years ago that managed to survive. value and myth placed on it to the point of being worth killing for simply by virtue of being from those who came before.

it’s both weirdly humanizing of this culture. because they were fucked and we know they were, but they still lived, so they still probably had useless shit like mugwarmers and fidget spinners. and it’s tragic. because it gives us a new way of looking at the pieces of eden. it’s always been a tragedy that the war for them ruins lives, but it’s always been framed as worth it in the end, because the pieces ARE important, ARE powerful, ARE valuable. so what if it’s not. because before someone actually gets their hand on it and uses it, no one could know what it does, just that it’s isu tech and therefore maybe it’s the key to the next century of this conflict. what if it’s not. what if we get to follow an assassin who didn’t get lucky and who ended up losing friends and family to get their hands on a mugwarmer.

it’s kind of a downer ending but idk, it’s been a long series. i feel like it’s about time to have another downer ending. just to keep things fresh. and so that the isu tech in the games doesn’t have to keep one-upping itself. reset our expectations a little? if that makes sense.

[zenjestrr]

I know it'll never happen while Todd is in charge and while Emil is lead writer but I hope we get more playable races in future TES games. they can super easily add Minotaurs, Sea Elves, and Imga with very little lore massaging and with some minor lore additions they can bring Snow Elves, Kothringi, and Lilmothiit back (old faithful bs excuse: hidden population hiding somewhere makes a grand reappearance).

[sukibenders]

"Cannibalism as a metaphor for love is such an interesting narrative choice!" Until you add poc into the narrative and here come the millions of "think pieces" that either 1.) dehumanize them for the same thing their yte counterparts are praised and, sometimes, even...applauded for (eg. Yellowjackets and other supernatural media), 2.) or use it inappropriately to justify harm brought on to poc communities. But that's a conversation for another time.

(tw for some of the tags as well)

[austin-friars]

No matter how much I tried, I just couldn't get into Vikings. The whole Rollo rape part threw me off. Like, I know that he gets redeemed but that is just not something I can look past. I don't mind characters who are rapists (Aegon and Daemon are two of my faves). What I do mind is when the narrative attempts to pacify them for that, or in a way redeem them and try to act like that isn't a big deal. I know that Rollo ends up marrying Gisela, and basically becoming a ruler in is own right. I saw that much from YouTube shorts...and I thought it was sweet...but he is a rapist lol.

[swallowtail-ageha]

Girl who has been utterly traumatized by watching a town of light gameplay when she was 9: So hm you know when i see those old victorian or early 1900's medical buildings all that i can think of is the way most of its patients had suffered terrible abuse from the staff there especially if mentally ill or ill from sexual diseases?

My friend, who just wanted to walk to the train station with me: idk man

[birdmenmanga]

dreamt about balatro

[random-letters-i-just-thought-of]

You know you are in trouble when your fandom has a tag for 'canon typical genocide'