#reading the historian!

[therefugeofbooks]

vampire book and matching stickers ✨

[ciderbird]

academic bias is so funny because you’ll be reading about the same historical event and one person is like “Despite the troubles that befell his homeland and near constant criticism of the court King Blorbo remained strong in the face of adversity” and the other one is like “after letting his people carry the brunt of his cringefail decisions Blorbo the Shitface refused to listen to any reason and continued to be a warmongering piece of shit. Also he was ugly.”

[hesbuckcompton-baby]

people who don't study history will simply never understand the joy of reading historian beef. there's nothing like it

[suntails]

knighted

[bretwalda-lamnguin]

Tolkien, repeatedly and consistently: Whatever Denethor's flaws he was one of the most learned and wise Men in Gondor.

Fandom, inexplicably: Denethor hates Faramir because he reads books.

[thebubblesareevil]

I’ve been playing Black Myth Wukong and decided to listen to journey to the west….

This book is 400 years old…..

Needless to say I was not expecting the MPREG…

[tealeavesandtrash]

Wolfstar Micro Fic - @wolfstarmicrofic prompt: Ancient Greece - 363 words

“Are you just going to sit here reading?”

Remus glances up, face scrunching against the sun in a way that’s so endearing Sirius wants to smoosh his face in his hands.

“Yes?” Remus blinks like it’s obvious and - to be fair - it's a silly question because of course Remus would be content to spend his holiday with his nose in a book.

Sirius flops down next to him, sprawling out on the soft sand. The sea is calling Sirius’ name, crystal-clear waves lapping invitingly at the shore. And as much as he wants to jump into the warm Ionian waters, he is also not about to pass up an opportunity to appreciate Remus in this element - long limbs stretching out, sun-kissed skin contrasting beautifully against the white sands and the blue of the sky and sea.

“What are you reading?”

“The Iliad,” Remus says simply, attention flickering back to the book.

Sirius sits up, shuffles closer to peer over Remus’ shoulder. “Didn’t you read that in Uni?”

“Yes but this is a new translation,” Remus explains with an air of excitement. “And it’s fitting, we’re going to the Palace of Nestor tomorrow.”

Sirius nips at Remus’ bare shoulder, just as quickly presses a light kiss in the same spot. “You’re such a nerd.”

“It’s the best preserved Mycenaean Greek palace, of course I’m going to brush up a bit.”

“Nerd,” Sirius mutters again, not hiding the playful tone in his voice because as much as he teases, there is nothing Sirius loves more than listening to Remus’ passionate rambling about history (even if he can’t always follow them.)

Like he reads Sirius as well as the book in front of him, Remus says “Once I finish this chapter I’ll come swimming with you.”

Sirius hums with content, wraps his arms loosely around Remus’ waist and murmurs into his skin, “Thank you for letting me drag you to the beach when you’d rather be poking old ruins.”

Remus rests his head against Sirius’. He can hear his soft smile in his voice, “And thank you in advance for letting me drag you to all my old ruins when you’d rather be at the beach.”

[helvidius]

something something me when i'm in a frev symbolism competition and my enemy is fire + ice

[spocks-kaathyra]

thoughts about the Cardassian writing system

I've thinking about the Cardassian script as shown on screen and in beta canon and such and like. Is it just me or would it be very difficult to write by hand?? Like.

I traced some of this image for a recent drawing I did and like. The varying line thicknesses?? The little rectangular holes?? It's not at all intuitive to write by hand. Even if you imagine, like, a different writing implement—I suppose a chisel-tip pen would work better—it still seems like it wasn't meant to be handwritten. Which has a few possible explanations.

Like, maybe it's just a fancy font for computers, and handwritten text looks a little different. Times New Roman isn't very easily written by hand either, right? Maybe the line thickness differences are just decorative, and it's totally possible to convey the same orthographic information with the two line thicknesses of a chisel-tip pen, or with no variation in line thickness at all.

A more interesting explanation, though, and the one I thought of first, is that this writing system was never designed to be handwritten. This is a writing system developed in Cardassia's digital age. Maybe the original Cardassian script didn’t digitize well, so they invented a new one specifically for digital use? Like, when they invented coding, they realized that their writing system didn’t work very well for that purpose. I know next to nothing about coding, but I cannot imagine doing it using Chinese characters. So maybe they came up with a new writing system that worked well for that purpose, and when computer use became widespread, they stuck with it. 

Or maybe the script was invented for political reasons! Maybe Cardassia was already fairly technologically advanced when the Cardassian Union was formed, and, to reinforce a cohesive national identity, they developed a new standardized national writing system. Like, y'know, the First Emperor of Qin standardizing hanzi when he unified China, or that Korean king inventing hangul. Except that at this point in Cardassian history, all official records were digital and typing was a lot more common than handwriting, so the new script was designed to be typed and not written. Of course, this reform would be slower to reach the more rural parts of Cardassia, and even in a technologically advanced society, there are people who don't have access to that technology. But I imagine the government would be big on infrastructure and education, and would make sure all good Cardassian citizens become literate. And old regional scripts would stop being taught in schools and be phased out of digital use and all the kids would grow up learning the digital script.

Which is good for the totalitarian government! Imagine you can only write digitally. On computers. That the government can monitor. If you, like, write a physical letter and send it to someone, then it's possible for the contents to stay totally private. But if you send an email, it can be very easily intercepted. Especially if the government is controlling which computers can be manufactured and sold, and what software is in widespread use, etc. 

AND. Historical documents are now only readable for scholars. Remember that Korean king that invented hangul? Before him, Korea used to use Chinese characters too. And don't get me wrong, hangul is a genius writing system! It fits the Korean language so much better than Chinese characters did! It increased literacy at incredible rates! But by switching writing systems, they broke that historical link. The average literate Chinese person can read texts that are thousands of years old. The average literate Korean person can't. They'd have to specifically study that field, learn a whole new writing system. So with the new generation of Cardassian youths unable to read historical texts, it's much easier for the government to revise history. The primary source documents are in a script that most people can't read. You just trust the translation they teach you in school. In ASIT it's literally a crucial plot point that the Cardassian government revised history! Wouldn't it make it soooo much easier for them if only very few people can actually read the historical accounts of what happened.

I guess I am thinking of this like Chinese characters. Like, all the different Chinese "dialects" being written with hanzi, even though otherwise they could barely be considered the same language. And even non-Sinitic languages that historically adopted hanzi, like Japanese and Korean and Vietnamese. Which worked because hanzi is a logography—it encodes meaning, not sound, so the same word in different languages can be written the same. It didn’t work well! Nowadays, Japanese has made significant modifications and Korean has invented a new writing system entirely and Vietnamese has adapted a different foreign writing system, because while hanzi could write their languages, it didn’t do a very good job at it. But the Cardassian government probably cares more about assimilation and national unity than making things easier for speakers of minority languages. So, Cardassia used to have different cultures with different languages, like the Hebitians, and maybe instead of the Union forcing everyone to start speaking the same language, they just made everyone use the same writing system. Though that does seem less likely than them enforcing a standard language like the Federation does. Maybe they enforce a standard language, and invent the new writing system to increase literacy for people who are newly learning it.

And I can imagine it being a kind of purely digital language for some people? Like if you’re living on a colonized planet lightyears away from Cardassia Prime and you never have to speak Cardassian, but your computer’s interface is in Cardassian and if you go online then everyone there uses Cardassian. Like people irl who participate in the anglophone internet but don’t really use English in person because they don’t live in an anglophone country. Except if English were a logographic writing system that you could use to write your own language. And you can’t handwrite it, if for whatever reason you wanted to. Almost a similar idea to a liturgical language? Like, it’s only used in specific contexts and not really in daily life. In daily life you’d still speak your own language, and maybe even handwrite it when needed. I think old writing systems would survive even closer to the imperial core (does it make sense to call it that?), though the government would discourage it. I imagine there’d be a revival movement after the Fire, not only because of the cultural shift away from the old totalitarian Cardassia, but because people realize the importance of having a written communication system that doesn’t rely on everyone having a padd and electricity and wifi.

[saturnpanther]

I think everyone is doing Austria a disservice when they write him as a prudish blushing flower, and not as a manipulative bitch who has mastered weaponized sexuality. YES he's an uptight snob, but when you look at the history of Austria's military alliances there is a lot of calculated moves based around arranged unions instead of (or to subdue) all out wars. It's much more fun imo to see Roderich as someone who can seduce you into a strategic marriage for the sake of saving his own ass.

[bottombaron]

you know, i can handle a little bit of fun "Nandor is dumb" talk, but i have a net-zero tolerance for any implication that Nandor is not educated.

Nandor would have been incredibly educated in his lifetime.

even (or especially) as a soldier in the Islamic World. being a soldier was more like getting sent to boarding school that's also a military camp. they weren't just concerned with creating loyal fodder for war. they were building the next government officials, generals, accountants, advisors, etc. it was important that young men knew how to read, write, speak multiple languages, learn philosophy...sometimes even studying art and music was mandatory.

if he was nobility (and its most likely he was), take all that shit and multiply it exponentially. Nandor would have been reading Plato at the same age most people are still potty training. he would have been specifically groomed in such a way to not be just a brilliant strategist and warrior, but also diplomate and ambassador of literally the center of scientific and cultural excellence of the age.

so like yeah, he can be a big dummy sometimes, sure. but that bitch is probably more educated than any of us will ever be.

[therefugeofbooks]

Currently reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

[franken-shits]

Thinking about punk herstory again...

[canisalbus]

you say machete has to be closeted then why's he always wearing them little heels

Maybe he thinks he's a tiny bit nicer looking in them.

[damiel-of-real]

im replaying pokemon legends arceus and im thinking. do you think they preserved laventon's pokedex?? like im imagining present day archaeologists flipping through the pages and suddenly seeing that porygon was documented in a journal in the 19th century. and judging by the professor's writing fucking nobody has any clue how it got there

[ganondoodle]

kind of expected that the ability breakdown wouldnt get that much traction (especially on twitter bc if it doesnt do well in the first few hours it might as well be dead) but what i didnt need to wake up to was looking at my twitter notifications and thinking there was a long comment on it at first but then i read it and it turned out to be some guy having dug up one of my old totk tweets where i talked about how zelda was treated-

and if a quote retweet with a thread attached already starts with "this entitled brat didnt understand that zelda was being a history nerd by being in the past and getting to experience it herself" with two screenshots attached of the end of totk with zelda staring at the cam all uwu (which has ??? to do with their point??) i dont even want to know what else was in that thread

if thats how the majority of the fandom is then im even less surprised that nintendy doesnt even have to try to write anything good :I

ah yes, i am a game nerd, and by putting me in a game where i stand around doing puppy dog eyes while being shoved around by NPCs is me being a game nerd OBVIOSULY