#sources: i have a literature degree now

[underscore-jude]

i take back any and all narrative critiques i had of firebringer when i was a bougie 14 year old thinking i knew my shit. this is par for the course in terms of starkid's narrative cohesiveness and the chorn twist is the funniest fucking thing ive ever seen

[sapphiressmoke]

Outlander I

Summary: She doesn’t know how it happened but they were calling to her to come closer. Touching it was never suppose to uproot her life and transport her somewhere she never thought she could see and witness. She has to try her best to survive if she wants to get back, right?

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen X Modern!Reader.

Warnings: Nothing as of now but angst, romance, smut

Word Count: 2.6K

Next Part

2024 AC Kings Landing

So this was the magical Kings Landing? Once the vast and lively city was now a place of desolation, solitude and history. It had been like this ever since the burning in 305 A.C between two Queens. You read about how it was a horrible event, many innocent people lost their lives… Even the two Queens. Since that moment, no more Targaryens roamed Westeros. It was now a place of history and learning. Most teachers brought their students here to see what they were being taught. Some parents dragged their kids here to learn of their heritage.

You were here for the first reason.

Being in your second year of Vale University, you were studying History and Literature. What were you going to with that degree? You have no idea but at least you were enjoying yourself… For the most part. “The Red Keep took many years to complete. Three reigns to be exact. What started on Aegon’s High Hill names Aegonfort. King Aegon the First used this fort as his seat during the conquest, housing the impeccable Iron Throne. Though it was destroyed in the battle of Kings Landing, paintings portrayed this throne as huge and intimidating.” Your group followed your professor as she guided everyone at the base of what the humongous Keep used to be. You looked around, red brick scattered over the floor. You mind raced as you thought of how these bricks were over 2000 years old, millions of people have touched them and now they were scattered all over the dirt floor. “It isn’t said when but at some point after the Conquest, the King ordered the destruction of the Fort and the construction of the Red Keep began. It was said that Aegon requested the castle be built with red rock to remind people of the fire he roasted and the blood he shed of his enemies, so whenever King’s Landing looked up they’d see the price of defiance.”

Your professor continued to talk but the sound of nature around you drowned it out. The sound of buzzing getting louder in your ear, getting louder and louder. “Ugh! You don’t hear that?” You brought your finger to your ears and tried wiggling it around to see if there was anything there.

“Hear what?” Your friend, Talia, said as she leaned in.

“That stupid buzzing sound. It won’t stop.” You groaned as you continued with your ear.

Your friend gave you a weird look. “I just think you’re going crazy. There is nothing.”

The buzzing softened and turned into a soft whisper, softer than wind. “Y/N… Darling… Y/N.”

You whipped your head back, trying to find the source of the noise. “Please told me heard that!” Before Talia could respond, your professor spoke faster. “Is there something you would like to add, Miss Y/N?”

Your face went beat red from embarrassment. “No ma’am… Sorry.” You said sheepishly.

“Thank you. Now where was I? Ah yes. The start of the fall of the Targaryens, it started when…” You started to zone out and looked back behind you, trying to figure out where the whisper came from. From the bottom of the hill, you spotted a man sporting an eyepatch, long silver hair and cladded in leather. He had his arm extended out towards you, as if he was waiting for you to come and grab it, calling you to run away with him but just as fast as you spotted him, he disappeared.

You felt your arm being grabbed and a hand stroke your upper arm. You turned towards Talia, who wore a worried look. “Is everything okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

You shook your head and ran a hand through your hair. “Yea… Yes. I’m good.” You grasped her hand that was on your upper arm. “Let’s just get this tour over with. It’s giving me the heebie jeebies.”

“You got that right.” She agreed. “But I heard that the Kingswood, which is just behind the hotel, is just as creepy. Maybe even haunted!”

128 AC Kings Landing

“Mother, please tell me I do not need to go to this hunt. There are better things I can do with my time.” The One-Eyed Prince has been trying for days to stay at the Keep, not wanting to waste a morning travelling to the Kingswood just for a hunt that he did not want to participate in.

The Queen sighed at her son, pushing a silver strand away from his stoic face. “Aemond… ‘Tis for Jaehaerys and Jaehaeras name day. Your brother wants to do a grand celebration for them. Especially for Jaehaerys.”

He rolled his one eye. “We all know that it’s an excuse for him to drink away… With reason this time.” He looked up at his mother. “Will father be coming?”

“The Maesters will assess The Kings health before letting us know but I do doubt that he will be able to join with the amount of pain he has been in.” The Queen replied. It has been no secret that The Kings has been declining the past couple of years. Decaying flesh, rotting teeth and constant pain. Drunk day in and out on milk of the poppy.

“If he does not go…” He tried to think of a reason to stay but was stump. “If he does not go then I shall stay here and watch over him.” Lies.

Alice by let out a chuckle. “You are quite the convincing liar, Aemond, but the Maesters will be here to aid your father in anything.” She walked away from her son and looked at the window, looking upon the people of Kings Landing. “I know you would much rather be here, reading in the library and training outside but it will do you some good to be away for a bit. Breath the good air of Kingswood.” She turned around to face her third child. “Plus, Ser Criston Cole shall be joining us if you ever do need to scratch the intense to train.”

Aemond rubbed his face and groaned. “I guess you are right, mother. But I will not ride with Aegon in the carriage. He’s an imbecile and will most likely throw up from all of the wine he has drank.”

“Thank you.” Alicent smiled. “You may ride with with me and Ser Criston. Halaena will be with the children and nurse while Aegon rides with Ser Arryk and Erryk as it seems they are the only ones that can deal with his shenanigans.”

“As I mentioned before… Imbecile.”

The night passed swiftly and once the sun started to rise and was on the horizon line, the Royal Family begun their travels to the Kingswood. Even though Aemond was never a talkative person, worsening after the incident with his eye, he seemed even more lost in his thoughts than usual. He stared out the window, sitting across from his mother who watched him intensely. “What is on your mind, sweet son?”

Aemond continued to look outside the window but sighed. “I had this weird dream. Was just flashes of images. Nothing clear. There was this woman… She seemed lost, searching for help. It sounded like she was calling out to me but the way she dressed did not seem normal.”

The Queen stayed silent for a moment before speaking. “Are you a Dragon Dreamer now?” She joked, causing a small smile to break on the princes face. “Dreams have many meanings. Perhaps it’s just a bad dream from the stress you put on yourself. Free your mind for the next couple of days. Perhaps even participate in the hunt.”

The hunt that went on in the Kingswoods happened every couple of years, usually to celebrate a names day for a royal child. The White Hart was usually the main goal of the hunt but any animal was game. “And if I were to meet the White Hart, would that not be a sign that I should be the King over my buffoon of a brother?” It was quite well known that Aegon did not desire to be King, fought against everything Even fighting with his Grand Father and Mother saying that it was his Half Sisters birthright but all of his complaints were going to a deaf ear. Aemond wished to rule. He was fit to rule and it was simple: he rode the largest dragon in all of Westeros, he excelled in combat and studied on the history and politics of his family and of Westeros but it would not go to him unless everyone in front of him died.

This was a conversation he had with his mother too often but his question was answered with silence. That was how the rest of the carriage ride went. Silence. The dream kept replaying over and over in his mind. Who was this girl? What was she doing? Who was she to him?

Within the next couple of hours, Lords and Ladies and the Royals arrived in Kingswood. The air still cold with the mornings breath. Everything was set up for them to place clothing, tables… Everything. The children were running about, screaming playfully with each other. Jaehaerys and Jaehaera came running towards Aemond, crashing into his legs. “Hi Uncle Aemond!” They squealed.

He looked down at his niece and nephew, rubbing the back of their heads before pushing them back on their way. “Hello you two.”

“Time travels back and is protected by the White King.” Helaena whispered into the cold air of the morning, staring at Aemond from across the way.

Aemond looked up to make eye contact with Halaena, seeing her lips move but not making out what she had said. He cocked his head to the side, deciding to walk towards his sister to see what she had said. She didn’t seem to realize that Aemond was by her side before he squeezed her hand. “What was that, good sister?” Helaena looked up at him and gave him a small smile. “Only Time can tell you… Only Time.”

The rest of day went on eventfully. The men prepared for the hunt while the women gossiped as they ate cake. Of course Alicent chose not to participate in the gossip. She could not bother to hear anymore about Rhaenyra, her bastard sons and how great they are. She decided to watch her grand-children run about. Aegon was nowhere to be found, most likely already drunk in his tent, Helaena chose to rest in her tent as the carriage ride took a lot out of her and Aemond sat with Criston Cole as they sharpened their swords, getting ready for the hunt. She stared around her and for a slight moment, she would think her life was perfect. She had her children and her grand-children around her but then she remembers that she is practically ruling the Seven Kingdoms, her husband was dying and she was alone in the world.

2024 AC Kingswood

You slipped on your black slip dress, continuing to argue with your friend in the hotel room. “You don’t get it, Talia! There is something calling to me out there. I’m not insane. I’m not crazy. It’s been going on ever since we entered Kings Landing.” The buzzing was constant, the whispering was constant and the flashes of that man were at every corner.

Talia sat on the bed, her eyes following you as you continued to pace around the room. “I’m not saying you’re crazy but you sound crazy, Y/N. A silver haired man with only one eye? Listen to yourself!”

You groaned and you pulled yourself into a ball. “I know what I sound like!” You stood back up and waved your arms around. “But this… This place is weird. There has been so many deaths and apparently fucking magic. There is something going on.” You grabbed your black shawl from your luggage and pulled in over your shoulders. “And I am going to figure it out.” You pointed to the woods. “I’m going to go in those stupid woods and try to find something. I don’t what I will try to find but I will know what it is when I see it.”

Your friend gave you a shocked look, standing up quickly and grabbed your arm. “Okay now I’m saying that you are crazy! There’s boars… Bears in those woods! You could die! What would your mom do if you die?”

You ripped your arm from her grasp. “Well she always knew I would die in a stupid way. Tell her I love her. And before you ask, no you can’t come. You’ll be the person to let the teacher know that I’m gone. If I’m not back before the next tour tomorrow morning, you can go all out and tell everyone I’m missing. Okay?”

You saw the perplexed look she wore in her face before answering. “Fine. Fine! If you die… Ugh!”

You put on your pair of shoes, grabbed your flashlight and placed it your bag before heading out. You stood in front of the forest and sighed, were you really this stupid? Yes, yes you were. You took one last look at the hotel before you made your way into the dark, insect infected forest… Gods you were dumb.

It had already been a few hours at this point, you were tired, you were hungry and you still had no idea what you were looking for. You kept hearing animal noises surrounding you and you were terrified. What if a wild boar chased you or a bear mauled you to death? What if you died of dehydration. How many days does it take to die or dehydration or hunger?

Suddenly the aura around you shifted and the whispering begun again. ‘You’re so close, Y/N. Continue.’ It was a man’s voice. It was so clear. ‘Continue straight, My Love, we’ll be together soon.’ The buzzing began and it only got louder as you continued walking straight. The further you walked, the higher the grass got. It was tickling your calves. It was as if a flash of light opened your eyes when all of the sudden a bunch of tall stones stood tall in front of you, being illuminated by the direct moonlight. The aura surrounding it was calling to you to come closer. “This is what I’ve been looking for.” You beamed with excitement.

The buzzing only got louder as you approached the Stones. The high grass tickled your calves, leaving tiny water droplets on your skin. The buzzing sounded as if it was whispering your name, soft as wind. “Y/N… Y/N…”. It only drew you closer.

The Stones had this silver and golden aura surrounding it. Were you the only one that could sense it? Were you the only one that could hear it? See it? Your thoughts were racing as you stood in front of the tall Stone. You raised your right hand to touch it, as if that was what it was telling you to do. The only thing you could do. For a moment you hesitated, wondering what you were doing, why were you here but it just kept calling out. “Y/N… Y/N…”

You let out a long breath and pressed your palm flat against the rough texture. Within the moment, all sound seized to exist around her, life was dark and as soon as it disappeared, everything reappeared.

128 AC Kingswood

You blinked your eyes fast, letting out a shaky breath. You stumbled backwards and the world wasn’t as you just saw. There were more trees surrounding you. The woods seemed to be more lively than before. “Oh Gods, what did I do.”

From back at the camp, Helaena felt the shift in the air. “Welcome home, Time.” Helaena smiled.

———————————————

SOOO what do we think? It’s only getting started and I’m so excited to see where this goes.

[queer-ragnelle]

hi! i apologize if this is outside your ballpark. i recently came across a post about how religion appears in bbc's merlin and it got me thinking about religion in arthurian legend in general. i was wondering if you have any thoughts on the topic? what religions do the characters follow and how does it impact their lives? i know most of the 'cast' is christian but even then medieval christianity is different enough from modern christianity that i constantly feel like i'm missing some nuance/context when i read arthuriana. do other religions feature (such as judaism, islam, pagan spirituality) and are there any essays on it or books where that's explored? thank you for all you do and have a great day!

Hello!

So I’m definitely no religious scholar of any kind. Yet I somehow managed to write an obscenely long post in reply. I've provided copious amounts of literature on everything I'm discussing here, so I encourage anyone who sees this to read what's provided and form their own opinion. Although my reply is based on the Medieval stories I've read and quoted as well as the essays and books of people far more qualified than I am, it's still my own interpretation, and shouldn't be taken as the final word on this highly complex subject. If anyone finds something here I've gotten wrong, please don't hesitate to educate me otherwise and point me in a direction to learn more!

Without further ado...

The first thing anyone looking into this needs to understand is [most of] the Arthurian stories we have were drafted or documented by Christians, oftentimes monks (ie, people very devoted to their religion). Even the texts like the Mabinogion or The Welsh Triads, which contains no Christianity, wasn’t written down until the 12th century after the oral tradition had passed through the Christianizing of Britain. Not to mention translation bias, an oft overlooked factor. For example, French characters Lancelot and Galahad were retroactively added to The Welsh Triads to bring the Triads more in line with the widely popular French narrative. Translator Rachael Bromwich has excellent footnotes regarding this in the file I shared above. So just keep that in mind while reading/researching this subject.

More generally speaking, while some characters themselves aren’t Christian, such as Muslim Palomides or the occasional Jewish character, the texts are [mostly] from an overtly Islamphobic and antisemitic viewpoint. The depictions of religion in Medieval Arthuriana should never be taken as an indication of how things “really were,” either in the time it’s meant to take place (ie, the 5th-6th centuries when the Saxons were colonizing Britain) or the time/place it was written in (ie Chrétien de Troyes wrote from his own 12th century Breton perspective). Point being, it’s all very biased. Perception heavily depends on the place and year things were written and translated. If you're ever unsure which translation of a text will best suit your needs, whether that means accuracy, readability, or containing more robust footnotes, don't hesitate to ask.

That being said, the differences you’re touching on regarding Medieval versus Modern Christianity sometimes stems from Christian Mysticism, which was a prevalent theology in the Middle Ages and still exists today (albeit to a lesser degree). Some contemporary sources on this would be:

The Confessions by Saint Augustine of Hippo

The City of God by Saint Augustine of Hippo

The Book of Divine Works by Saint Hildegard von Bingen

The Letters of Hildegard von Bingen Volume I by Saint Hildegard von Bingen

The Letters of Hildegard von Bingen Volume II by Saint Hildegard von Bingen

The Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe.

Now the thing with Christianity in history and Arthuriana is that the lines between orthodox practice and the mystical was blurred. On an episode about charms, the Medieval Podcast (also available on any podcasting platform like Spotify) explains how people bought and used charms all the time, even within their Christian practice. To them, it was a part of their worship. They may have chanted some words over a sick friend while anointing certain parts of the body in the hopes it would aid in healing. Depending on the time and place, this may or may not have been openly discussed for fear of repercussions or accusations of blasphemy, but it was common enough for historians to have gathered a multitude of examples preserved in spell books. To a desperate Medieval Christian, one of these charms occupied a similar place to Pray the Rosary or Hail Marys in hopes of boosting the success of their endeavor.

So in a similar vein, that concept is sometimes stretched for the sake of an Arthurian story. What you end up with are characters like Merlin, supposedly half-demon, but baptized, therefore his purified magic and prophesizing is considered "Christian;" Morgan le Fay, raised in a nunnery, yet learned necromancy from the holy sisters; and Gawain, who obtained his sun powers, as well as his name, from the hermit that baptized him. At least, so it goes in the Vulgate.

In a way, these people are not magical through their own power, but channeling the divine with the help of their Christian education in order to bestow those benefits, often health, strength, or prosperity related, onto others. (You'll see a lot of real life examples in the contemporary sources I linked above.) Vulgate editor Norris J. Lacy and his translation team left a footnote on the Gawain passage explaining the history of the Gawain/Gwalchmai character that lead me to theorize that this passage might be an attempt by Anonymous to maintain those heightened magical powers while offering a palatable Christian explanation for it.

A similar phenomenon can be seen in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the characters are staunchly Christian, and yet the presence of a green-skinned knight astride a green horse who can survive a beheading is seen as marvelous, even miraculous, rather than monstrous. As Larissa Tracy explains in the essay Shifting Skin Passing as Human Passing as Fay, although the Green Knight is Othered by the court, he's not so Othered as to be held entirely apart. He's "tallest of men" and "half a giant." He is still one of the "in" crowd at least a little bit. So while his green coloring shocks the court, and calls to mind Otherworldly fay, in a way similar to the Lady of the Lake or other such beings, the Green Knight isn't viewed as an enemy of the crown so much as a chance for the court to prove its virtue. In the end, this Green Knight was indeed a man, Sir Bertilak, transformed by Morgan le Fay to take on the monstrous visage, and was indeed "one of them" all along. In this way, concepts which seem magical (read: Pagan) to the modern reader remain steeped in Christian ideals. This extends to Gawain's pentacle shield as well, sometimes misconstrued with a similar Pagan symbol, which the poem outright states represents the five virtues of knighthood or even the five wounds of Jesus Christ. Then again, Rhonda Knight's essay All Dressed Up With Someplace to Go: Regional Identity argues the opposite point, that there is indeed a divide. Knight asserts that the poet has intentionally heightened the dichotomy of insider/outsider, particularly as it relates to the Anglo-Welsh border between Sir Bertilak's Wirral and King Arthur's London Camelot. It's quite plain from the moment the Green Knight enters the scene there's a stark split between the two cultures, whether that be interpreted as the people of Wales and the people of England, or the Otherworld associated with Wales and the dominance of Christianity.

But anyway enough about Christians. Let's talk about my friend Sir Palomides and Islam.

A brief recap for anyone who's unfamiliar with Sir Palomides, he's a Muslim knight, referred to in the Medieval Christian tongue as a "Saracen," who vows to convert to Christianity for the sake of marrying Isolde, but curiously hasn't yet. His father, Esclabor, and both of his younger brothers, Segwarides and Safir, have already converted. Palomides is continuously ostracized for his religion/appearance throughout the narrative and considered lesser than Tristan. This is pretty much always the roles they play. Sometimes Palomides is treated with extreme cruelty, such as in the Post-Vulgate, where Galahad forces him to convert to Christianity at sword point, only for Palomides to be murdered shortly afterward by Gawain once his narrative purpose, ie successful conversion, has been fulfilled.

For this break down, I'm ignoring that portrayal of Palomides as well as the Prose Tristan because they suffer from the issues I already outlined regarding Medieval Christian's malicious depiction of non-Christians. And I hate them</3 We'll be turning our attention to Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory instead as Palomides is slightly more nuanced there. (Very slightly. "The Good Saracen Sir Palomides" is a loaded sentiment, but Malory was a Medieval Englishman imprisoned for his crimes and writing through his madness. We work with what we have.) The copy I linked is translated by Dr. Dorsey Armstrong, not only because it's very good, but because she authored one of the essays I'll be sharing on the subject. She also has a 24 part lecture series on Arthuriana that I highly recommend.

In Le Morte d'Arthur, and the earlier published La Tavola Ritonda as well as Byelorussian Tristan, Palomides is treated a teensy bit better. In most versions of the story, Palomides misses an appointment to duel with Tristan out of cowardice or dishonor. But Malory has written a scenario in which Palomides missed the appointment not out of subservience to Tristan, but because he was jailed elsewhere and couldn't physically make it. He still gets his ass kicked by Tristan, but Malory's change shifts implicational blame of Palomides to circumstantial blame of his situation which serves to create a more sympathetic character. So while Tristan's perception of events remains the same, Palomides is given a narrative excuse which maintains his honor and integrity in the mind of the reader. Yet as Dr. Dorsey Armstrong points out in her essay, Postcolonial Palomides, after Tristan discovers Palomides suffering a bout of grief-induced madness, Palomides's ability to communicate breaks down, and Tristan is unable to understand him. Palomides occupies a space that his fellow "Saracen" knights, such as Priamus of Tuscany, don't. He's Othered by everyone in the narrative yet gains renown among the Christian knights in part because of his extreme desire to join the Round Table, while resisting the necessity to conform to a religious order and community which does not otherwise accept him. Unlike his father and brothers, Palomides seems more aware of, and resistant to, the predatory systems which dictate their conditional acceptance.

Race as a concept did not exist in the Medieval world, rather it was intrinsically tied to religion. That said, colorism was always present. "Saracen" is a term used to refer to Arab people, but according to Hamed Suliman Abuthawabeh, the etymology of the word itself stems from the color brown, ie referential of skin tone. As it relates to fiction... Ever wonder why the Holy Land of the Middle East in Arthurian Legend, where Galahad, Perceval, and Bors seek the grail, is called "Sarras?" Now you know. This concept is not limited to Middle Eastern characters either. Black people in Medieval stories are referred to as "Moorish," ie from the "Moorlands." To that end, ever wonder why Aglovale's half-Black son is named "Morien?" Or how about Parzival's half-Black brother Feirefiz, who's described as having a mixture of "white and black skin," half his father's "fair country Anjou," half his mother's "heathen land Zassamank" with a face two-toned "as a magpie." (Author Wolfram von Eschenbach and translator Jessie Weston's words, not mine).

The fact is non-white, non-Christian characters are often reduced to their skin color, not only in what labels are applied to them as people, but their religions and falsified homelands as well. The cost of a modicum of respect is total assimilation. It's all or nothing for these characters, and even then, it's not a guarantee. Aside from the especially harrowing treatment of Palomides in the Post-Vulgate, this concept appears yet again in the poem The Turk and Sir Gawain, in which Gawain continuously oscillates between foe and friend with an unnamed Turkish knight, only to conclude the story by violently converting this individual through beheading. The Turkish knight is reborn, now Christian, and at last gains a name and identity, Sir Gromer. The expectation put on Pagan knights is so great they must submit to their white comrades and allow them to, literally, kill their former selves to be worthy of personhood in Christendom.

The same can be said of Jewish characters in Arthurian Legend. They're not often the focal point, but they do pop up from time to time. In La Tavola Ritonda, there's Dialantes the Jewish giant, as well as the beautiful Hebrew damsel of Aigua della Spina, who's curiously married to a Christian knight. Then of course there's the rampant antisemitism in Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval, as well as the continuations, which blame "the treacherous Jews" for killing Christ, while also casting Joseph of Arimathea as a Christian knight who brought the Holy Grail to Britain. Furthermore in The History of the Grail portion of the Vulgate, Joe is said to have "converted to the faith of Jesus Christ" while keeping it secret for fear that "the Jews would have killed him." Tons of revisionism happening. The bulk of the Vulgate makes little to no mention of Jewish people, good or bad, as it's mostly tied to the grail story. That said, when it does come up again in The Death of Arthur, it's a slippery slope into every other prejudice, as the term has become synonymous with evil, particularly as it relates to women.

I couldn't possibly outline the entirety of Medieval Christianity's relationship with other religions in a single tumblr post. Here's a link to my huge folder about Race & Religion in the Middle Ages. The essays and books there discuss this subject in a general sense but there's a sub-folder with Arthurian specific essays to learn more about Palomides, Priamus, Gromer, Morien, Feirefiz, and other characters or texts that touch on race/religion.

Despite all of the above, it's not all bad. Sometimes an author was anti-racist toward the non-Christian characters, yet limited by their time. (Think how Herman Melville portrayed Polynesian Queequeg in Moby Dick, positively, but used phrenology to compliment the shape of his skull by comparing him to that of white people. Not up to modern standards, but an attempt at progressive for its time nonetheless.) Looking at Dutch Arthuriana, while Morien's name is an insensitive indication of his unnamed "Moorish" mother, the only characters in the story who treat Morien poorly, such as the boatmen who refuse to ferry him, are openly condemned, even threatened, by the Knights of the Round Table, including Gareth.

I don't know what to call this writing technique, but it's used (and sometimes underutilized...) today. Essentially, as a means to indicate to the reader that the views of the antagonistic (in this case, xenophobic and anti-Black) character isn't shared by the author, they include another character who refutes and combats the negative behavior and who accepts the oppressed party as they are. However rare, it does happen in Medieval texts.

Last but not least, I'd be remiss to omit the Hebrew King Artus from this discussion. It's an incomplete story, but sets out to retell the Arthurian Legend from a Jewish standpoint. All the characters are Jewish and all religious allusions that were once Christian have been rewritten as Jewish. It has a thorough analysis by the translator and tons of footnotes to indicate the Jewish references throughout the text.

Regarding religion in modern Arthuriana like BBC Merlin, Druids aren't actually present in the Legends, with the one and only exception being The Adventure of Melóra and Orlando, which does refer to Merlin as a Druid! There's also the connection made between Merlin and Stonehenge in The History of the King's of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth; the word "Druid" is not used, but Merlin describes his own ability to manipulate the stones as "mystical." One has to remember that Druids didn't write down their own history, as it was their way to memorize religious practices and not document anything. All we know about them comes from outside sources, such as Greeks and Romans as well as Christian missionaries come to convert them. As Christianity took hold and figures like Saint Patrick "drove the snakes [Druids] out of Ireland," much of that history was either lost or purposefully maligned. Did the Druids actually participate in human sacrifice? Who knows! Bearing that in mind, we must acknowledge the influence of the several revivals of Druidism and recent boom in Neopaganism; a lot of popular interpretations of Arthurian Legend are just that, the creator's interpretation, and not necessarily indicative of what the historical people would have been doing. To learn more about that, there's Druids: A Very Short Introduction by Barry Cunliffe which I found helpful.

When it comes to Merlin, or Myrddin Wyllt, his character is potentially based on a few different people who really existed, but there isn't a name given to whatever religion they practiced in anything I've read. While the time period did have clearly delineated religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism (and then Islam), Mithraism, Druidism, etc, there were just as many people who prayed to Jesus Christ while simultaneously leaving out offerings for the local spirits. Most religions come with regional differences, various sects, or shift gradually over time. Saint Patrick himself is said to have had a "fluid identity," as his autobiographical work The Confessions paints him in a fairly positive light as a peaceful missionary, while Dr. Janina Ramirez indicates in her book The Private Life of Saints that other sources characterize Saint Patrick as an aggressor. Some scholars even believe Saint Patrick may have been two different people, combined over the centuries, similarly to Myrddin Wyllt. Modern Arthurian books and shows really lean into a dichotomy between Christianity and the "Old Religion" for the sake of entertainment. But bouts of unrest weren't as fantastical nor made up of two wholly separate, well-defined teams.

Wow this got long. I think we'll leave it at that. I hope that answers your questions! Take care!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

When is it okay to use adverbs? I'm currently paranoid and pondering about deleting every single one from my wips

Here are excerpts of writing tips and advice from editors, publishers, and writers:

Adverbs in your novel must be minimal.

Adverbs are necessary for the English language and have a rightful place as one of the eight parts of speech.

In literature, some adverbs are less desirable than others.

Adverbs with -ly tend to slow the pace.

They also tell what’s happening. They don’t show.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said' —Elmore Leonard

Stephen King:

The adverb is not your friend.

Adverbs, you will remember from your own version of Business English, are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.

They’re the ones that usually end in -ly.

Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind.

With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn’t expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.

Consider the sentence He closed the door firmly.

It’s by no means a terrible sentence (at least it’s got an active verb going for it), but ask yourself if firmly really has to be there. You can argue that it expresses a degree of difference between He closed the door and He slammed the door, and you’ll get no argument from me . . . but what about context? What about all the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before He closed the door firmly? Shouldn’t this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, isn’t firmly an extra word? Isn’t it redundant?

Someone out there is now accusing me of being tiresome and anal-retentive. I deny it. I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day . . . fifty the day after that . . . and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late. I can be a good sport about adverbs, though. Yes I can. With one exception: dialogue attribution. I insist that you use the adverb in dialogue attribution only in the rarest and most special of occasions . . . and not even then, if you can avoid it.

There is a core simplicity to the English language and its American variant, but it’s a slippery core. All I ask is that you do as well as you can, and remember that, while to write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine.

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ Writing Refresher: Adjective or Adverb

Hope this helps! Some sound advice here from different perspectives. Definitely choose which ones are most appropriate for you, as a writer, and for the specific story you are currently working on. I'd also recommend you read the entire sources to get a fuller context since these are just excerpts I handpicked. And because more examples are provided as well, particularly in Stephen King's book.

"Since advice is usually ignored and rules are routinely broken, I refer to these little pearls as merely 'suggestions.'....There’s nothing binding here. All suggestions can be ignored when necessary." —John Grisham

[wellofdean]

OK, I was going to reblog this excellent post by @luckshiptoshore so go read it, because yes. Yes!! YES!!! But then when I got started my post got super long and I felt bad tacking it onto her post and decided to make my own in response to these tags:

#i am actually a bit obsessed by the whole hunting as queerness metaphor#it’s so clearly something everyone involved in the show is thinking about#supernatural

Gurl, me too! Like go back to the start! By the time Supernatural began, the backlash against the Joseph Campbell Monomyth-style mode of storytelling had already begun in the hallowed halls of USC film school, and yo: I was there at the time of Kripke's graduation, and my best friends from college are full scale big giant time filmmakers now, whose names I will not share on main because it's uncool, and I don't want that attention, but... yeah. I am referencing FIRST HAND SOURCES on this.

But, for a real source? The Oxford English Dictionary places the first use of the term "Queer Theory" in 1990, with Queer Studies as an option in the academy by 1992. I know the kids think it's a new-fangled thing, but Kripke graduated USC in 1996 (I graduated in 1995) and it was ALL THE RAGE by then. My friends read queer theory in their Critical Studies courses in the Film School, I read it in the College of Humanities getting my degree in Literature. By that time, you could not get through that school with any degree in any non-STEM subject without knowing about ye olde postmodern lenses, queer and feminist theory, and without knowing how to employ those lenses.

Queer refers to sexuality, yes, but the word's earliest use (again, according to the OED) is in the 1500's, meaning: strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable character; suspicious, dubious.

So, ok, in 2005, Enter Supernatural, episode 1:

Presented? Two brothers. One actively seeking credit in the straight world that is not available to him in the bosom of his family: Stanford, law school, hot co-ed girlfriend, the other bound to his fractured, wounded family by duty, yes, but also by love, living on the fringe, alone, fighting monsters, and chasing after his father's approval, and who has long since given up any dream of being 'normal'. Episode 1 presents Sam's call to adventure, which he refuses when it's just familial duty, honor and love calling him, but accepts when the show takes a very straightforward and very telling path by classically fridging his woman. Ok, now he's on board. Like John, whose motivation is another dead woman, his motivation is revenge. So far so straight!

Dean though: he's different. He is already on the adventure and he was not 'called' or given the option of accepting or refusing because he had no agency when his feet were set upon this road. He does not fit the straight world at all, because he is cobbled together out of love, duty, deep guilt, striving, desperation and fear. This is who he is now, in some elemental, incontrovertible way. It was not a choice for him, he was born to it. His mother is dead, and we later learn, she made the choices that brought them all to this fate. Dean remembers her idyllically, but he is not motivated by revenge, more than any other thing, he wants to be worthy. He wants his father's approval, his brother's love.

Enter Supernatural's main theme: fucked up relationships between men enmeshed in patriarchy, which will eventually expand to include fucking GOD HIMSELF.

And like, there are SO MANY CLEAR STEPS ALONG THE ROAD in season one, and I am not even talking about sexuality and gender here, but there is SO MUCH TO SAY about it in season 1. But I am not talking about that -- I am talking at a structural, narrative level, the whole thing is just fucking all the way queered, yo.

The big climax?

At the end of the season, Dean says: "I just want my family back together. You, me, Dad... it's all I have." He is Sam's mother, John's partner! His vulnerability and emotion is feminized and contrasted with Sam and John's more overtly driven by their more masculine/straight heroic revenge quest. John: "Sam and I can get pretty obsessed, but you always take care of this family." Only that's not John talking, it's Azazel, and Dean knows it is because his father would never forgive how soft he is, how he will always choose love and family over revenge. Then, in the end, the show makes a huge point of telegraphing that Sam is finally aligning with Dean by refusing to shoot Azazel because he's possessing John, and Sam just can't do that to Dean.

Sam and Dean are thus bound together and cemented into a marginalised path, living on the road, haunting liminal spaces and cheap motels, confronting the monstrous everyday. Sam is presented as the brains of the operation, he does research, logics his way through things (masculine) while Dean is the heart who acts impulsively and on instinct and intuition (feminine).

It later transpires that Sam has a piece of the monster inside himself, and Dean has to learn to love the monstrous, he has no choice, because Sam is his brother and then Cas... and, and, and!

Like... I could go on and on, citing ENDLESS EXAMPLES. This could be a literal book. Maybe one you need to read with a magnifying glass like my condensed edition of the OED. LIke, the queerness of Supernatural is DIZZYING and MYRIAD.

But basically? FROM THE START, hunting is a queered version of family, and within that, Dean is a queered version of a Campbellian hero. Hunting is a metaphor for otherness and liminality, and that's even before you say a WORD about sex. It starts in deviation from the norms of family, masculinity and expands from there on so many levels both in story and on a meta level. The story is flesh on queer fucking bones.

I'm so sorry, but anyone who thinks queerness was not BAKED INTO Supernatural and more specifically into Dean from DAY 1 has clearly never seen Dean's insane lip gloss in season 1, and vastly underestimates the cultural awareness of people who write shit in Hollywood, and also the other people who put pink lip gloss on pretty boys in Hollywood. Nothing that gets on your screen wasn't a fucking choice made and approved by a LONG LIST of people who know what they are about.

[maniculum]

Do you have any books or sources for learning Olde English? I want to write a medieval-based story but I don't know how to write the characters speak the language.

That depends -- when you say "Olde English" do you mean Old English, like pre-1066 English? That's pretty far from modern English and it's unlikely that readers will be able to understand it easily. If that's what you're looking for, the texts I was taught with are:

Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader

Quirk's Old English Grammar

Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader

They're all from a while back -- and, as you can see, some use the now-deprecated term "Anglo-Saxon" -- so you can find older editions free in the public domain. More recent revised editions can generally be found in cheap paperback form. I believe there are some more modern textbooks that are quite good, but I haven't looked at them, and I don't know how affordable they are.

I have also consulted with Zoe (@meanderingmedievalist) on this, and she recommends Baker's Introduction to Old English, as well as the related resource Old English Aerobics:

The reason there are textbooks for this, though, is because you genuinely have to treat it as a foreign language. It's very different from modern English. As a sample, here's the beginning of Beowulf:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon hu ða æþelingas      ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing      sceaþena þreatum monegum maegþum      meodosetla ofteah egsode eorle syððan aerest wearð feasceaft funden he þæs frofre gebad weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah oð þæt him aeghwylc þara ymbsittendra ofer hronrade      hyran scolde, gomban gyldan      þæt wæs god cyning.

So if you put a lot of it into a story for a modern audience, most of them will be a bit lost.

If when you say "Olde English" you mean "English that sounds archaic and medieval, but is comprehensible to a modern audience", you're probably looking for Middle English.

I don't have any direct references for learning the language there, as I was mostly taught through immersion (i.e., here's a Middle English text, read and translate it, now do another until you get a feel for it), but Zoe recommends Fulk's Introduction to Middle English, so that's a good bet if you don't want to go through that process.

However, I do think the "just read the texts" method also works fine -- especially since, if you're writing a medieval story, you'll want to read some of the literature anyway for inspiration. Here's what you can do to use that method outside of a classroom setting:

Step One: Get a Middle English text with a facing-page translation. Armitage's edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is good for this. Read the Middle English text, referring to the Modern English translation on the facing page whenever you don't understand it. Do this with a pencil in hand, so you can annotate the text with definitions, translations, and notes about how the sentences work.

Step Two: Get a Middle English text for which modern translations exist. Don't get the modern translation. The Canterbury Tales works for this: it's a classic and you should be able to pick up a copy anywhere. The version on my shelves is Baugh's Chaucer's Major Poetry -- which is heavily footnoted with definitions, potentially saving some time with the dictionary -- but it doesn't really matter as long as it's in the original. Read it. Every time you don't know a word, look it up in the Middle English Dictionary (available free online, in searchable form, here) and write it down. Again, best to annotate directly on the page with a pencil. Trust me, it helps to do it that way. Once you're done, get a modern translation and check your work.

At this point, you'll probably have picked up enough of the language that you should be able to write in it to some degree, though you'll want to continue making reference to the Middle English Dictionary to make sure you're employing period-appropriate usage and spelling. If you have access to the Oxford English Dictionary (if you're at a university, you almost certainly do, otherwise check with your local library), use that to check when the words you're using originated -- the OED has that listed, and that'll keep you from accidentally dropping an 18th-century term into medieval dialogue. You can also use their Historical Thesaurus to find period-appropriate equivalents for terminology.

Optional Step Three: Keep reading more Middle English literature with the dictionary open, annotating as you go, to get additional practice. If you can get through Le Morte Darthur in the original (get the P.J.C. Field edition), I think you'll be set in terms of "writing convincing medieval prose". Not because it's particularly difficult -- it's late medieval, so the language is actually more modern than either of the texts mentioned in steps one and two -- but just because it's long, so you'll get a lot of practice working through it. As a bonus, reading Malory will familiarize you with lots of good knightly vocabulary in case that's the kind of story you want to write.

Optional Step Four: Read scholarly articles on Middle English language and literature to get a more in-depth understanding. Again, check with your local library, or if you're at a university, a university library will have a vast amount of resources on this subject you can browse through.

[alienaiver]

Rugged

Aizawa Shouta x GN!reader

warnings: quirk-induced amnesia, canon minor character death (major in my heart tho), spoilers for... season 5 and forth? to be safe wordcount: 4.9k content: confessions, first kiss, fluff, sfw, no use of y/n, pro hero reader but quirk is unspecified, canon compliant, genderneutral reader, poc!friendly reader, body positive reader, hurt/comfort in like the mildest sense, soft love, amnesia situation, friends to lovers, childhood friends to lovers, started as a meme turned into something serious, something about cats, unbeta'd, flashbacks to high school days

notes: this is so embarassing to admit but i only came up with this story bcos of that tiktok/insta reel (link is a tiktok as thats where i could find the source material) about having a type that's 'rugged'. it was supposed to just turn into a little joke on that and... uh, ykno suddenly i was almost 5k deep into a childhood friends to lovers, ..ya my brain had a VISION alrighty!!!!! please enjoy a one-eyed kitty, one-eyed aizawa and interrupted confessions!

Aizawa’s leaning forward on the desk, meticulously writing down an exact copy of your notes from English Literature that he missed yesterday due to being in the infirmary… again. He’s always known that becoming a Pro Hero with a non-physical quirk would be tough, but he didn’t imagine landing himself in a hospital bed as often as he does. He’s bulking up nicely, but he feels beaten black and blue every other day and it’s… exhausting.

Rewarding, but exhausting nonetheless. He’s momentarily disturbed as a chair is being dragged across the floor, screeching away before haphazardly thrown next to the desk, wrong side facing it, and Yamada throwing himself onto it, arms leaning on the backrest. He says your name in a sing-song voice – your given name, has he no shame? - and steals a peek of you from over the rim of his glasses. You rest your head in your palm and smile at him, “what’s up?” you ask, and he hums as if he’s thinking deeply about something. Aizawa’s got a bad feeling about whatever subject he’s about to bring up; ever since he appointed himself Aizawa’s wing man, the pestering’s both been non-stop and non-discreet.

Aizawa keeps his face buried in the notes, purposefully removing himself from the conversation.

“What’s your type?” Yamada asks and Aizawa has to hold back a facepalm. You simply giggle and play with the zipper from your pencil case before you answer, “hmm, I’m not sure. But with all due respect, I know it’s not you,” you tease him and he straightens his back in mock-surprise, the conversation’s one you’ve had before. He takes a hand to his chest, “what? Not me? Well you’re not my type either!” the shriek in which he yells is a little too loud, his quirk still a little too unmanageable when he gets excited – he winces as the rest of the class turn their heads. You simply laugh and bite your lower lip. Aizawa steals a look at you through his bangs, admiring the glimmer in your eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sorry ‘Zashi, I truly am, but… you’re just not… rugged enough.”

“What? I’m so rugged. I can be rugged!”

“Look at you, you’re not rugged,” you laugh as you gesture vaguely to… all of him. He takes offense as he puffs up his chest, “how am I not rugged? Because I’m not wearing a flannel in 80 degree weather?”

You hide your face in your hand as you try to contain your laughter, “yeah, sure, whatever… but look at you now. You fly off the handle like that, you’re too angry.”

“That’s a very rugged thing to do!”

“No, it’s really not.”

Aizawa has been saddled with the two of you for almost two semesters now, and he’s still not entirely used to the way you joke around. In the beginning he was always worried about you fighting and not getting along and he’d stare at you both with wide eyes like a startled cat and hope you’d settle down soon. You always did, laughing like the greatest joke was just told.

You lean forward on the table to bark out a laughter deep from your stomach, momentarily blocking the view of your notes that Aizawa’s copying. He lets out a soundless grunt at you being so close and pulls away in surprise when he accidentally smell your shampoo. He wants to lean forward again, to commit the scent to memory, but you’re already straightened back up, wiping an imaginary tear from your eye, “you don’t even want me, Hizashi, why is this always so important to you?”

This makes Aizawa freeze, terrified that Yamada will accidentally tell his secret to you. But Yamada simply crosses his arms, puffs up his cheeks and nods, “you’re right, I don’t. But I want you to want me. I’m the entire package.”

You laugh and shake your head, letting your arm fall onto the desk in defeat. “Sure then, ‘Zashi. I want you. Badly. More than anything. Please go out with me.” your face is as flat as Aizawa’s can be, and Yamada smiles proudly, “no thank you.”

Aizawa’s startled out of grading papers when his personal phone starts ringing next to him on the desk, the screen much too bright for the darkened room he’s situated in. It’s an unknown caller, which makes him hesitant at first but since it’s well past office hours, he knows it won’t be a salesman of any sort.

He bites his lower lip before he picks up.

“Aizawa speaking.”

“Ah, good evening. I apologize for contacting you at this hour, however, you are written down as the emergency contact for…” he apologetically butchers the pronunciation of your name, but gets your hero name correctly, “this is Aizawa Shouta, right?” the person on the other end confirms, and Aizawa nods before he verbally comes up with an answer.

“Well, it’s just that…” he explains your situation precariously, advising Aizawa to just come down to the station if he’s able, since someone will need to escort you home. He makes sure to remind Aizawa that you have two more emergency contacts on file in case he’s not available, but after getting the location, he’s already up from the chair before he’s hung up with the poor officer dealing with you.

From the call he knows you’re neither mortally wounded or in any kind of distress. You were on patrol when you encountered two villains. One of them turned out to have an amnesia quirk, and now you were stuck at the precinct, not entirely sure where your apartment is located. The officer informed Aizawa that you seemed calm and collected but that the last date you remember was well over 10 years ago even if you haven’t age-regressed in any way.

When he arrives, the officer leads him to one of the offices, profusely apologizing and thanking him at the same time. He’ll never really get used to the way newly appointed officers act around Pro Heroes.

Even if all facts and rationale tells Aizawa that you’re fine, he still grips the door handle way too tight, throwing open the door and evidently scaring the shit out of you, sprawled out on the couch with an ice bag on your knee. You spew out some profanities as you sit up. Aizawa immediately calms down as he sees you alive and well. He thanks the officer and agrees with the officer to sit down and talk with you before taking you home. He bows before he closes the door and looks back at you.

“I already gave a statement – was anything missing?” you ask, resting your hands neatly on your thighs. Aizawa shakes his head, “I came to pick you up – they informed you about which of the emergency contacts to call, right?”

Realization seems to travel across your features as Aizawa masks the sting he feels. Instinctively you reach out, but ultimately pull your hands back, “Aizawa?”

For a split second he lets his emotion show on his face – the way you say his last name instead of his given name, but he’s quick to hide it again. He nods and sits down on one of the chairs on the other side of the coffee table, “I was informed that your memory’s been wiped.”

You nod and look at the floor, “yeah. They took in the villains and interrogated them. It seems it’ll wear off in five to seven hours, but until then I’m stuck with my first work study as my most recent memory. I don’t feel like high school me, though, it’s just like there’s an empty gap in my timeline and not an age-related kind of thing. I can’t remember what has happened since then, but cognitively speaking, I’m still myself.”

Aizawa breathes in sharply, “well, that’s a relief. I have enough students to take care of,” he dryly jokes and the way your eyes widen make him self-conscious. He shouldn’t have made the joke he thinks as he shrinks in on himself.

“You’re a teacher?”

The way you ask betrays your emotions all too clearly and Aizawa holds back a snort. If the last of his personality you remember is high school, he gets why you struggle with the image of him taking care of the budding youth.

“A homeroom teacher, actually.”

Whatever preconceptions you had initially seems to dissipate and you smile proudly, “that’s amazing.”

You haven’t commented on his appearance; besides the moment where you didn’t recognize him, you don’t seem all too taken aback by his lack of eye and prosthetic leg. He’s relieved.

“You ready to go?” he asks, patting his lap with his palms before bracing himself to get up. You get up too and stretch your arms over your head, waiting for that satisfying pop, but it never comes. Annoyed, you let your arms falls and Aizawa smiles at you.

He leads you out of the room and as you put on the jacket he came with, he thanks the officers for their work with some polite back and forth and a bow.

The trip back is quiet as you seem to just take in your surroundings. You stop by your Agency to grab your personal items and civilian clothes that you left behind before your patrol. Luckily the offices are mostly cleared out, so you don’t have to ‘meet’ everyone and Aizawa gets out of explaining everything to everyone.

“Do you want me to escort you to your place? Or do you want to come to mine?”

The question is straight-forward and innocent; you sleep over so often that Aizawa’s spare futon has simply been dubbed your futon, but you seem taken aback, eyes wide and mouth agape. For a moment Aizawa’s blind to the confusion before he remembers.

“Sorry, you sleep over at my place a lot since it’s close to your work. I thought you might also like to see Benben.”

Your eyes that had seemed so tired ever since he arrived, lights up in recollection and excitement, “Benben’s alive and well?” you ask, absentmindedly leaning into Aizawa’s space in your joy. He struggles not to lean back reflectively.

“Yeah, she’s living with me now. She’s becoming old, though. But you’re still her favorite human, so she’d be happy to see you too.”

You giggle into your palm, clearly trying to picture Benben. She was a stray that you and Aizawa started to feed your leftover lunches to back during your first year at U.A. She was also one of the reasons you even started bonding with the stoic classmate. When you talk about the name Benben, a very bad nickname based off of bento, you always laugh and tease Aizawa about his cat-naming skills. While he defends himself in front of Yamada – the man with a habit of getting out his childish side – he never once argues against you on that subject.

Next to Aizawa, you clear your throat right as he’s about to unlock his front door. He’s been polite enough to not comment on the level of staring you’ve done ever since he picked you up, but it seems to be getting too much for yourself. He smiles at you gently, like he’s communicating with a lost child, and the smile makes you act before you can think too long about the action. Aizawa’s breath hitches and whole body freezes when your cold fingertips reach the skin of his cheeks. Your eyes look at him like they’re searching for something, and shortly after your palms make contact, your thumbs start traveling around his face, from his eyebrows to the slope of his nose and then a finger is being traced over the scar under his right eye. He can see all the questions fly through your head, the way you hold back from tracing the eye patch but stare at it like it’s not supposed to be there. He’s about to clear his throat when a thumb starts tracing his chapped lips before continuing down to his jawline, tickling his 5 o’clock shadow. As he tries to smile patiently at you, you mumble something under your breath that makes Aizawa’s heart stop for just a moment too long before racing at the same speeds as Yamada’s car when he’s late.

“It really is you… you’re just so…” you pause for a moment to swallow thickly and lick your lips, “…rugged.”

Not until you’ve had your (in Aizawa’s terms) grabby little fingers on every part of his face and given his heart an aneurysm with your words, does realization hit you. You seem to shrink and pull away to bow half-way a few times at him. Aizawa grumbles out a weak complaint about personal space and jingle the keys again to find the right one. No matter how advanced his work place is in terms of security and technology, he finds it unbelievable how many different types of keys he is expected carry for the school grounds alone. Logically, he’s aware that he’s fumbling due to your innocent advances but his brain’s not exactly acting calm and rational, so he furrows his brows and as he puts in the correct key, takes in a deep, calming breath.

When he motions for you to enter the apartment, he can’t help but observe you as you curiously peek around while you enter. You don’t toe off your shoes or step up from the genkan until the door behind him is locked and he gestures to the left pair of slippers in front of you. You let out a breath as you mumble, “sorry for intruding…” as if this isn’t your home away from home.

As Aizawa toes off his own shoes, he takes notice of your searching eyes. He jerks his head towards the living room, “she’s probably sleeping on the couch. She can’t hear very well anymore, so she doesn’t greet by the door.”

There’s a clear sort of heartbreak in your eyes that Aizawa recognizes, before you nod and walk in the direction of the living room. While your memory might be gone for the moment, it seems there’s muscle memory still intact as you purposefully step over the loose floorboard he always warns guests about. He smiles at that. Benben seems to spot you from her pillow on the couch because no sooner than you enter the room, he starts hearing the hoarse bleating of the senior kitty in there. She must’ve stayed up when Aizawa suddenly left, since it’s out of routine. She’s never been able to meow properly, which enchanted you since she first bleated at you for a bite of your convenience store-bought onigiri back when the two of you met her for the first time.

He hears you coo at her and can only imagine you both before he turns the other corner for his office to shut down the computer for the night. He quickly rejoins you and finds you with Benben on your lap, purring and headbutting your hands to her heart’s contents. When his eye travel higher to meet yours, he’s taken aback momentarily at the strained smile and wet eyes.

“She looks so loved.” you try to explain, and Aizawa can’t hold back the blush from the compliment. She does look loved now, a little on the fuller side (not by a lot, as her physical health is very important to Aizawa), her coat is shiny despite the coarseness that age brings, and she no longer has that stubborn eye infection it took Aizawa several years to treat out of her; she’s missing an eye now as a result, but she’s healthy.

You look around his living room, smiling and heaving in breaths at all the external proofs for her love; she has a pet staircase to both the windowsill, couch and the dining chair next to his; there are three different cat towers and several cat shelves for her to perch on although they’ve rarely been used for several years now. Aizawa can’t bear to take them down – what if she wants to go on one last adventure to the shelf highway he built for her close to the ceiling? It obviously wouldn’t be safe for her to do so, but robbing her of the options feels cruel to his heart.

When you pet her behind her ear and Aizawa situates himself on the floor pillow, you giggle, “you match.”

You’re referring to the missing eyes and while Aizawa takes no offense from the comment, he can’t help but snort at the straightforward observation. It’s very like you.

“How did you lose it?”

You don’t remove your eyes from Benben as you ask and from the shaky lilt to your voice, he knows you’re afraid of the answer. He’s afraid of telling you, too.

So much bad has happened during those years – you were there during his low points after, and asking that question is like removing the experiences you’ve shared. The grief you’ve suffered.

But he knows you want to know. Before he can answer, you continue, “can you tell me everything? About you… Oboro and Hizashi, too. I was informed it was only you, Hizashi and my mom on my emergency contact list. I know it’s not supposed to be miles long but… yeah…” you trail off and Aizawa’s grateful that you’re not looking at him. He’s not sure he’s able to control his face right now; and the emotion he’s showing wouldn’t be remotely close to soothing for you.

“Uh,” he jerks and clears his throat several times to stall, “when did you say your memory would be back?” he asks instead even if he’s aware of the answer.

You look up and hum thoughtfully, “they said five to seven hours around … two hours ago? So…” you count on your fingers and despite everything, Aizawa huffs out a soundless laugh, “three to five hours? Give or take.”

He inhales sharply. He can’t drive you off for that long, even if he used going to bed as an excuse. You’d just toss and turn in fear of what you’d come to remember.

So he tells you. He retells every painful memory with clear objectivity, pausing to let you process each one, seeing the light slowly dissipate in your eyes for every terrible incident. When he reaches present day, he inhales slowly and holds his breath for a moment to control his own emotions.

You’ve stopped petting Benben who’s sound asleep on your lap now, your hands hanging like lifeless limbs by your side. Aizawa then clears his throat, “you were scouted. In third year. ‘Zashi opened a radio station shortly after graduation. Oboro’s mom still invites us for hotpot for his birthday every year despite the mismatch in dish and weather,” you both laugh at that one – of course she insists on his favorite dish on such an important day. An image of the four of you huddled around, sweating over a pot of delicious food has you throwing your head back in sincere laughter, “you have a prodigy; you inspired me to take a pupil on as well, and he’s graduating this spring… I, uh… I use eye drops now.”

The last tidbit of information makes you turn your head so fast you almost get whiplash. Then, your expression turns stern, “didn’t I tell you! Didn’t I tell you to be careful!” you reprimand and he almost rolls his eye at you. Almost.

You shake your head at him and focus back on Benben, a little more color on you again as the mood has successfully shifted. He’s unsure if you’re pretending to be fine for his sake or if he actually succeeded in making you feel better, but he can’t stifle the yawn that comes out of him as soon as he feels relief.

You look up apologetically, “oh my God I’m so sorry, I’ve kept you up haven’t I? Please, you can just go to bed, I’ll be okay!”

Aizawa wants to argue but he also can’t fight the creaky ache he feels in his bones. He went straight from a night shift to school, napped in the teacher’s lounge and then home to grade papers. He’s dead-tired.

He gets up to carry his futon into the living room and set yours up in his bedroom. Usually, you sleep in the same, bare room as him and Benben, but he feels it might be too much for you without your memories, even if you sleep on separate futons with space in between. You make a joke about the futons but then, in a soft voice admit, “I think it’s nice you sleep on something accessible for Benben…” there’s a warm tone to your voice that makes him blush heavily before he pushes you out of his living room.

“I’ll sleep out here, you take the bedroom.”

You meekly argue about taking his bedroom, but he shuts you down in the same way he’s always done, and urges you to carry Benben in with you. You agree to have the door ajar in case Benben wants to walk around, and you bow your head when you bid him goodnight. Aizawa lets the light in the hallway stay on.

////

You wake up with a hitched breath and sweat on your brow, unsure when you managed to fall asleep. Disoriented, you take in Aizawa’s bedroom; you were supposed to sleep home tonight after your shift though, not to mention that Aizawa’s futon isn’t laid out next to yours. It takes you a moment to gather your bearings until it all comes back to you. You’d lost your memory.

You’d lost yourself. You hug your arms around you as the feeling of being lost still sits heavy in your body and makes you shiver. Seeing Aizawa was terrifying; you’d no idea of the obvious horrors he’d had to endure. You didn’t remember your best friend’s death.

For a moment you control your breathing, making yourself calm down as best as you’re able. It makes sense why Aizawa decided to sleep in the living room, if the last memory of him was a pimple-y teenager and not the gruff man he is today. You close your eyes and think back to right before you entered the apartment.

You roll onto your stomach and hide your face in your hands, letting out a drawn-out flustered groan. Without thinking, you kick your legs on the bedding to alleviate the embarrassment that’s coursing through you at your own actions. You’d just went all up in his face! The sensation of his stubble underneath your fingertips, his warm breath and his chapped but so, so kissable lips.

No!

You groan again, drowning in your one-sided misery of a crush. Your honed Pro Hero senses are completely dulled by your pining, so when Aizawa suddenly throws open the door and asks if you are alright, you screech as you lift your head from the pillow, “Shouta!”

“Shit, sorry, I heard you moving around so I thought you might have a nightmare,” he hurries to explain, secretly relieved to hear you say his given name again. He frowns when he can’t see your face with your back turned to him. Still frozen, you barely breathe before he continues, “...you are alright, right?”

Making a grimace and with no interest in facing him right now, you choke out “mhmyepdefinitelyeverythingsperfect!” in one single breath before you’re forced to inhale deeply. You hear Aizawa’s metallic foot as he walks towards your futon and hear the rustling of his clothes as he bends down in a squat next to you, “you don’t sound perfectly fine to me, though. Do you have a fever? Is it an aftershock from getting your memories back?”

Being the perfectly rational man that he is, he oversteps any boundaries to quickly check your temperature with his palm. Embarrassment can come after he’s made sure you’re okay.

You push his hand away weakly, still looking pointedly at the wall in front of you, letting out a strained laugh, “heehee, I’m just… you’re right, it must be an aftershock, right? Nothing else!”

He lets you swat his hand away without much resistance but stays where he is, letting the silence hang over you both for a minute. Suddenly, he croaks out all hoarse and desperate, “Just tell me if there’s anything, please.”

Your shoulders fall at the voice. Aizawa’s the opposite of having a heart on a sleeve, but you’ve been with him through enough tragedies to know he must be scared shitless right now. Whenever you or Yamada is even remotely bruised, he fusses over you in his own, annoyed way, until he finds you sufficiently healed. You sigh before you let your head fall back onto your pillow, a short moment to gather your thoughts and feelings before having to face him.

It must’ve been a lot for him, when you asked him to recount the years you’d momentarily lost. It would’ve been better to let it be, but he knew you so well and knew you wouldn’t let it go. Curiosity kills the cat, right?

With heavy and slow movement, you turn around so that you’re facing him, hoping your expression won’t betray your real emotions. You sigh and reach out for his hand. It’s shaking but as soon as your warm fingers make contact, he flinches before he relaxes.

Then, he grunts like he’s annoyed and chastises you for worrying him. You giggle, “I’m sorry, you’re tired, right?” you ask, knowing his schedule this week is packed. He usually leaves little wiggle room for emergencies, however many he encounters.

Before he can reply, you pull at his hand and he topples over, half on the futon and half on the floor, on his knees. You laugh and pull him even closer to you, hoping your beating heart isn’t as loud as it feels.

You and Aizawa have cuddled before; loneliness and grief has made you carve out comfort in each other, but nothing else have ever been spoken aloud. No kissing, no romantic notions to trace back to. Having a one-sided crush since high school feels deafening right now, when all the years travel back to you after what only amounts to a moment without them.

You want to tell him how you feel; losing your memories made you realize how much you’d like for him to comfort you with kisses if anything should ever happen; how you’d like for him to hold you without holding back.

He grumbles where his head is rested in your neck after he’s settled, but he makes no effort to move. You nuzzle into the mane of hair and breathe in his scent; it’s a lavender-scented shampoo that Yamada insists on buying for him. He never accepts it without complaining, but he also never showers without using it. There’s a spare in your bathroom, at the Agency’s bathroom and at his teacher’s dorm at U.A.

“Y’know, I was really surprised for a moment that you became a teacher.”

He makes no movement, but you know he’s listening.

“But as soon as I thought about it, it made perfect sense. You care so much it sometimes hurts to watch…”

You feel his fist tighten around your bedding, but he stays otherwise quiet still.

“You hurt watching me, too, right? How we both have a habit of bending over backwards for what we perceive is right.”

You start dragging your hands through his hair, letting out a sigh.

“I like that we know each other so well. I like how after so many years, you’re still right here in my arms…”

You pause as his upper arm snakes around you, a sharp exhale against your neck.

“You’ve never dated anyone. At least, not anyone you’d tell me about, so I have no idea where this will lead me to but,”

You take a moment to gather your nerves. There’s really no backing down now. Even if you regret it, your words have already given your feelings away; there’s nothing you can take back.

There’s nothing you want to take back.

You’re about to continue your confession when Aizawa pushes against your neck, his warm lips, soft despite the dryness, presses against your pulse point. You can hear your heartbeat so loud in your ear that the rustling of the sheets from Benben is indistinguishable to you, the only sensation you’re able to take in being Aizawa’s lips as they briefly pull away from your neck, only to push back higher up, closer to your jaw.

You whine and pout, but it’s shaky and without much force. You want to protest, scold him for interrupting you but suddenly he lifts his head to face you, and you’re faced with wide eyes and blown pupils. He steals a glance at your lips before he licks his own, pink tongue peeking out. You feel like a cornered prey, one that’s about to be devoured by a beast. When he hovers mere millimeters above your lips he pauses as if to ask for permission and the sigh you let out makes him know that everything’s okay. That everything he’s ever wanted, wished for, dreamed of, is real.

That losing your memory for a second made you desperate to make more meaningful ones.

And you kiss.

While curiosity did kill the cat, satisfaction definitely brought it back.

[melrosing]

What do you think about the idea of Cersei and Brienne as Jaime’s Madonna/Whore dichotomy?

talked about this a bit before but I think actually the Madonna-whore dichotomy is widely misinterpreted, and I think even by me to some degree? so pasting the actual definition of the 'complex' below directly from wikipedia.

In psychoanalytic literature, a Madonna–whore complex (also called a Madonna–mistress complex) is the inability to maintain sexual arousal within a committed and loving relationship. First identified by Sigmund Freud, who called it psychic impotence, it is a psychological complex that is said to develop in men who see women as either saintly Madonnas or debased whores. Men with this complex desire a sexual partner who has been degraded (whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (Madonna). Freud wrote, "Where such men love they have no desire, and where they desire they cannot love." X (emphasis mine)

so rather than being simply a narrative contrast between 'the good virgin and the evil whore' (an interpretation which I broke down here a couple of years ago, to argue that a contrast on the basis of their sexual experience was not an intentional dichotomy within the narrative), the complex specifically denotes that the man feel a kind of asexual admiration for the former and a lowly lust for the latter; he can only love the madonna, but he can only desire the whore. most other sources corroborate this definition.

and this does not apply to the Cersei/Jaime/Brienne trio. Jaime and Brienne's relationship is not, and has never been chaste. Jaime has been staring at her body since the first page of his POV, and she has been looking right back at his. they've bathed together, gotten aroused by it, and then gotten aroused reflecting back on it (or in Jaime's case, thought back on it when aroused lol). their first fight together deliberately references a first night together, and intentionally demonstrates their physical chemistry. there's a lot that's sweetly courtly about jb but it is not an asexual romance: the physical, sexual component is as significant as the courtly.

meanwhile: Jaime has never struggled to love and desire Cersei simultaneously. famously: "the things I do for love". Jaime has loved Cersei since they were born, has been as close to her as anyone ever has been or will be, and has desired her plenty. his desire falls away when he falls out of love with her. there is no split: he loved and desired her once, now he loves and desires her less.

fwiw i think Jaime will never stop loving Cersei, even if he lives to 100. it will just take on a new form, and in their case probably some bizarre mix of 'twin sister who i will always feel some unbreakable bond with' and 'irreconcileable-differences-mother-of-my-children ex that I was in a relationship with since we were teens'. the love is always going to be there, but I don't think the desire will. that also contradicts the dichotomy, which argues that the man feels incapable of love for the whore, rather only desire.

so idk if we're going to use the dichotomy to the letter, it simply doesn't apply. if we're talking about Jaime loving Brienne for her 'purity' and hating Cersei as 'damaged goods', then talked about that in the answer linked above.

[outofangband]

Possible medicinal plants in Beleriand part one /?

This is a resource I created upon commission for @creativity-of-death regarding medicinal plants that do have more evidence behind them with the treatment of wounds. Thank you again for the commission! Commission information in the bottom of my pinned post

Related post!

I am also very interested in both botany and herblore so I really enjoyed doing this. This post is heavy on plant information and light on world building but I absolutely plan on writing more detailed world building!

This is going to focus primarily on the plant thyme which are primarily used to treat superficial wounds.

Some notes first!

Elves do not suffer full body infection under most circumstances however, wounds can still worsen, become inflamed, and there are factors that can prevent healing which herbs like these can aid in in. I’m going to make a longer post about my thoughts on immunology and elves and the differences between them and humans going through different aspects of human immune systems and the similarities and differences with elven ones but essentially, while I do believe there are microbial infections in the middle earth, elves are largely immune to communicable diseases that affect humans! however, they are not immune to all poisons, venoms and toxins, as we know from certain examples in canon, for example Aredhel’s death

Ethnobotany is notoriously difficult to research as there are so many conflicted sources and it is often difficult to tell what species have been studied, tested, and proved to have medicinal value, which have been proven to not have significant use in this regard and which have simply not been the subject of much research. Especially when it comes to traditional medicinal practices from marginalized cultures and peoples, information is often dismissed, buried or lost. Oral histories or works in translation are often not included in English literature research.

Second note: understanding of the body and of medicine varies tremendously in my opinion throughout the timeline of middle earth. The information included here is largely the information that we know from modern studies, and the language will not necessarily be the same terms of understanding the characters have, for example boards, like “anti-microbial properties” Would largely be understood by first age, elves, and humans to mean plants that assist in the healing of wounds, prevent them from worsening and prevent illness from falling as a result. Throughout history, we see terms like contamination, blood poisoning, and corruption in place of infection before germ theory was widely understood.

OK now for the plants!

Thyme has been proven in some forms to have significant microbial properties. They are some of the best well antimicrobial properties. Thymol a name for oil of thyme* is and has been used in pesticides and medical disinfectants.

Historically, bandages would be coated in oil of thyme to prevent infection, even before the processes of infection were understood. Thyme contains several different subspecies and tends to grow in Mediterranean climates however has been widely naturalized elsewhere.

In Beleriand it likely grew primarily in Ossiriand and Dorthonion but could easy be naturalized in other temperate regions.

* this compound is also found in other plants to varying degrees, but was named after the substance that was first extracted from common thyme

Wormwood, or Artemisia absinthium has also been studied fairly extensively and has been proven to have antimicrobial properties. I know you mentioned spiders and though it has never been tested on spider venoms, it is proven to have anti parasitic properties and has been used to kill other arachnids such as mites and ticks. Interestingly, it has been examined to have neuroprotective properties which might make it useful in antivenoms. These have not been studied as extensively as its antimicrobial properties however.

In Beleriand this is plant that can be easily naturalized throughout temperate regions, especially in fields and foothills. Dimbar, the region of Nargothrond, and the southern hills are some examples.

Calendula (common marigold)

Evidence has shown that topical application can aid in the healing of wounds and in preventing or treating infection. Tinctures and ointments are the most common forms. These flowers grow throughout the temperate world. Overuse could lead to endangerment/extinction easily. Mount Sinai Hospital’s online medical library discusses these properties as does the National Institute of Health. The properties seem to be well proven, especially by ethnobotanical standards!

Marigold primarily grows in warm regions, including warm temperate ones. In Beleriand it probably grew primarily in the west and central regions.

Common tormentil has mild astringent properties which can aid in blood stopping. Creeping jenny or field balm also has similar properties. These both grow throughout temperate climates though tend towards colder regions.

In Beleriand common tormetil could likely grow in Hithlum and in the plains of Eastern Beleriand. Creeping Jenny would likely be found near ponds such as near the Fen of Serech or Twilit Meres.

[ballinandcantgetup452]

Am I the Only One Who Resents Watchmen?

Like, don't get me wrong. Watchmen is a phenomenally written book, Alan Moore is an excellent writer, For the Man Who Has Everything is an amazing episode of JLU, I appreciate the book and I get it. But, did it really help?

I admit I'm no literary scholar. But I really feel like Watchmen hasn't had its intended effect on society. Lemme explain.

I feel like the point of Watchmen was to be the gun that killed superhero comics for a while. I feel like Alan Moore made Watchmen not just as a good superhero satire, but as the leeway for more diverse comics. Think your Preachers and your horror comics and all that. But instead, society got the exact OPPOSITE POINT of what Alan Moore intended.

Of course, for as long as there's been satire, there's been people who have misunderstood it. But, I don't think that there's been a satirical piece of media that has done as much DAMAGE do a medium such as Watchmen.

Sure your pretentious high school literature teacher might teach you the wrong lesson to be derived from Lord of the Flies, but I don't really see it REACHING people like Watchmen does.

However, I don't think that this is Watchmen's fault. I think it's Zack Snyder's fault. Now, to preface, I don't hate Zack. Do I fundamentally disagree with his interpretation of superheroes? Yes. Do I think that Zack Snyder doesn't even LIKE superhero comics to begin with? Yes. But I don't hate him. He's just a dude that makes movies, and, from what I've heard, he's a delight to be around.

BUT, I feel like Snyder's Watchmen perpetuated this misinterpretation of the original comic to an umpteenth degree. I admit, I'm too young to attest as to what society was like before the Watchmen movie came out (I was like 5 when it released). However, I would like to believe that it was a little harder to get your hands on the book back then. I'm sure that the comic book phobia was even STRONGER back then. So to have a movie that fundamentally misunderstands the source materials and preaches the opposite mentality of the original book, that kind of immortalized this bad interpretation.

Essentially, Watchmen 2009 basically did what The Wolf of Wall Street did to douchey guys to the entire comic book layman.

Ironically, I LOVE Doomsday Clock. But that's another story. But is there anybody else who shares this sentiment? Am I crazy here?

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Hi! Do you know if North and South became Gaskell's most popular novel because of the success of the series or was it already popular before that or a combination of both?

Hi!

Nuance (?) XD

This is what I've learned so far in my research and general reading:

For a long, long time, Gaskell was known as "the author of Cranford". Whenever and wherever she's mentioned after her death and to the beginning of the 20th century at the very least, that's mostly the one or main work she'll be mentioned in association with. For example, Chesterton's The Victorian Age in Literature (1913) only mentions her twice, and both times in passing: once for Cranford, and once for The Life of Charlotte Brontë; the latter as a reference book, a way in which it was often brought up, strictly in reference to Charlotte Brontë herself.

Cranford being short and sweet made for a very reprintable novel. Scholars have studied how it was apparently read pretty extensively in American schools in the early 20th century, and how there was also a push for it in WWII Britain.

Yet on another branch, in the early 20th century the notion of the Victorian Social Novel as a genre took roots, specially through the work of a French academic called Louis Cazamian, who mentioned as the main authors of this genre, Charles Kingsley, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell and Benjamin Disraeli. So as studies on the Victorian Social Novel grew and developed, Gaskell was recognized mainly as the author of Mary Barton and North and South (sometimes with Ruth and Sylvia's Lovers).

From there I can only speculate that the answer to "which was Gaskell's most popular/most known work?" throughout most of the 20th century would be, between those who had heard about her, either Cranford, Mary Barton, or North and South depending on where the person answering was coming from, academically and literarily.

Feminist academic trends post WWII tended to a revalorization of female novelists through an emphasis on the seriousness of their social and political insights, which probably contributed to further highlighting of MB and N&S and sidelining of Cranford.

Now, for the role of adaptations, these are the tv and radio adaptations of Gaskell that I know of, in order of their coming out: - Wives and Daughters (1971, tv) - Cranford (1972, tv) - North and South (1975, tv) - Wives and Daughters (1983, radio) - The Old Nurse's Story (1984, radio) - Mr. Harrison's Confessions (1988, radio) - North and South (1997, radio) - The Grey Woman/Lois the Witch/The Poor Clare/The Crooked Branch/The Squire's Story (1998, radio) - Wives and Daughters (1999, tv) - Mary Barton (2001, radio) - North and South (2004, tv) - Cranford (2007, tv) - Wives and Daughters (2010, radio) - Sylvia's Lovers (2016, radio) - North and South (2022, radio)

Wives and Daughters has been adapted the most, perhaps because it is known as Gaskell's best work and that would be the driving interest for people choosing programming at the BBC.

Now, N&S 2004... it is the weakest of the modern tv adaptations, and also the most heavily edited from the source material for romanticizing purposes. It is by far the most popular, but because of its tranformativeness, it tends to be a rather isolated popularity of the tv series disconnected for the most part from the novel and the author. I remember @bethanydelleman telling me a while ago that there is a Facebook group/page specifically for N&S 2004, while she couldn't find none that was about the novel or Gaskell in general.

The nuance I'm trying to insert here is "to what degree the adaptation making the name, theme and author of the novel more widely heard is translated in popularity?" You can comically compare a similar effect when lokimania was at its peak and people were watching Cranford just to ogle at Tom Hiddleston. Yes, it meant that people heard of Cranford and of Gaskell in association with it, but does that translate to popularity? I think a whole lot of N&S 04 popularity is as a vehicle for Richard Armitage handsomness (I mean, the most often proffered sentence, I believe, after the "have you watched North and South the miniseries?" question is "Richard Armitage is so hot")

In conclusion... yes and no? Kinda? Maybe? It depends? Multiple factors? That's all I can say.

[preservationofnormalcy]

Hi so, I've been following along with dracula daily, like a lot of other people, and now that it finished today, I just finished listening when a grey haired british man knocked on my door and told me he's my solicitor? He seemed confused, and said that this doesn't look anything like the large castle property he was asked to visit by his boss, but that as I am a count who is he to judge.

I'm just in my normal house on Long Island? Like, its not even a particularly big house? He just keeps walking around and talking about how different the property is than he expected, but he's happy to help arrange matters? I'm very confused, why is Johnathan Harker at my house?

Full parafictional manifestation is rare. This happens sometimes, and we have to be careful about it. I’ve talked about it before, but there are Outsider behavior patterns that exploit the psychic energy that comes with human creativity, feeding on both it and humans themselves when possible. In all likelihood this Harker entity is a Chinese Room constructed with the text of Dracula rather than the text of the Chinese language. Meaning, he’s not sentient. He’s an advanced autocorrect construct, matching his input against what is most likely to be the literature’s response (and to a lesser degree the noospheric conception of Harker, collated from different sources and adaptions of the text). In this case you’re going to want to be careful and not interact too much until we get there to prove or disprove harmful psychic interference.

However, it is possible this is a genuine parafictional manifestation. In those cases they usually do go away on their own, running out of psychic energy. Sometimes they stick around, though. We can head out there and run some tests. Just don’t spook the entity for now.

…no, it’s like a weird interference. Like it’s static but there’s a pattern there. You’re really not hearing that?

[dragondream-ing]

It’s kinda funny to me that even team black fans get vicious with other team black fans if they disagree with their interpretation of a character or event or rumor. Now, there are some wild or dubious claims about canon, and I get shutting those down or insisting they be treated with skepticism. But there are also genuine disagreements that, imo, don’t deserve the vitriol.

I am not talking about things we *know*, like dates and events and crucial elements of the characters’ relationships and personalities. I’m talking about the things we *cannot* know because the sources and Gyldayn simply can’t and don’t have access to every inner thought or belief of the characters. Those same sources can’t and don’t have knowledge of everything the characters did and why they did it. Those sources have their own viewpoints and bias, and so they might have witnessed or heard things that they didn’t write down because they deemed those things unimportant or counter to their bias. They might have elevated information that had little factual basis because they trusted the source it came from or it confirmed their bias (*cough* Sara Snow’s entire existence). That’s the beauty of F&B. It isn’t a novel, it isn’t a dry accounting of events, it is a history book written after the events by a maester raised in a post-Dance, post-dragons world with his own belief system, and the sources he used are limited and imperfect.

Because of the nature of the book, I would never claim my interpretation of a character is the definitive truth, only that it seems most plausible to me. I know who Rhaenyra isn’t, but I don’t know all that she is. I know who Daemon isn’t, but I don’t know all that he is. I can’t, and neither can anyone else, because the sources themselves didn’t and couldn’t. F&B is written in a way to obscure and distort at least some of the truth. GRRM isn’t an idiot, he studied journalism and history in college, he knew exactly what he was doing and he well understood the pitfalls and complications of primary sources and secondary literature. It’s not his fault that many of his fans don’t lmao (and yes, I blame HBO for the increase in stupidity, but I digress).

There are many things we know for sure (which makes the shitshow’s manipulation or removal of all the *literal facts* extra infuriating; now we have people claiming those facts are unreliable even when they are among the few things that are reliable). But I’m sorry to say, there is MUCH that is unknown.

The characters do not have their own POVs. That creates fertile ground for different interpretations of them and their motivations, even if some aspects of both are clearly defined. And entertaining those interpretations isn’t bad faith. I know we all like to think we have the One True Interpretation of our fave characters, but in F&B, even the most fleshed-out characters don’t speak in their own words with their own voice. We are reading them in the voices of other people, and those people have their own perspectives, biases, and agendas. That’s why I love the book so much, it reminds me of my days writing my history dissertation and trying to identify the societal influence and personal bias of the people I studied (sorry, I’m a bit of a nerd lol)

I know we are used to fighting team green and years of wild GOT shenanigans, but come on. I’ve seen people absolutely lose their shit because other fans disagree over the degree to which Daemon wanted a Valyrian wife. Another one I love is the fury over Valyrian customs. Some people believe the Targaryens might have continued practicing some Valyrian customs, while others believe they were true followers of the Seven (other than incest). Literally who cares?? The book doesn’t include much on this topic, but why is it so offensive that some readers think the Targaryens truly converted or that they held to their beliefs more than the maesters and septons claimed? We don’t actually KNOW because the sources wouldn’t have been privy to everything, especially things the royal family did privately, and extra especially when the conversion was for political reasons (as confirmed by GRRM) and the Targaryens would’ve had ever reason to hide customs deemed heretical by the majority religion. This, to me, is a completely inoffensive difference in interpretation, and I cannot fathom why some people view it as akin to team green stans claiming book Alicent was a child bride.

There are degrees of difference in which readers believe the sources of F&B, which I think contributes to diverging interpretations, and we should acknowledge that this is a personal choice. If you give more credence to certain sources, you’re going to come away with a different view of a character than if you don’t, and that’s okay! That’s how interpreting primary sources works, and that’s part of why historians can write books using the same bank of sources and come to different conclusions. Another reason is someone coming along that looks at those sources from a different perspective, or pays attention to sources other historians had ignored. For example, most historians pre-1970 didn’t think to check the records of the wives of politicians, so when others went back through the archives, there were tons of revelations missed by earlier scholars. This just goes to show secondary sources, aka Gyldayn, also have their limitations, viewpoints and/or bias.

A lot of people don’t even stop to question the sources. Some people put a lot more stock in Mushroom’s account than I ever would (the shitshow didn’t cast him, but it sure used his dubious claims). Some people think Eustace was pretty much a straight shooter bar a few exceptions, which I completely disagree with. Gyldayn is also a problem for me, he’s a bit of a weirdo and perv. Tbh I don’t trust any of them. Could be because I was trained to interrogate sources, not trust them, but I’d rather do that than blindly believe someone like Orwyle. It’s up to every reader to decide what seems most plausible.

And no, that doesn’t mean everything is fair game. Some things are blatantly untrue, like the bizarre metas I’ve seen claiming the character ages in the shitshow are the actual true ages lmao

Trust in a source isn’t necessary to glean facts, and from these accounts we *can* learn about the Dance, so it’s all about assessing what’s a fact, what’s propaganda, what’s exaggerated but true, what’s true but unspoken, what’s a bald-faced lie or a lie of omission, etc. And with a book like F&B with biased sources and rumors and contradictions, there will be genuine differences in interpretation that are in good faith. It isn’t fair to act like these differences are headcanons pulled out of thin air.

If you want to argue what you believe is more likely, that’s fine, but what’s the point of shitting on other fans that read the book and made their own informed opinion? Some pieces of evidence and supposition are more compelling to me but may not be as compelling to someone else. These differences are fair and good faith and shouldn’t be reduced to “you didn’t read right” or “you didn’t read at all.” And if someone claims that of other book fans, they should have the humility to admit their interpretation might not be entirely right either. Only GRRM can know the full truth, and tbh, I’m not even sure he does because that man can be contradictory af 😂

And yes, I used this as an excuse to nerd out over analyzing primary sources. Even historians that leave the ivory tower retain their obnoxious urge to pour over and question primary sources, and that extends to fictional ones.

[iguessitsjustme]

I’m writing this while walking to work so forgive me if it’s not entirely coherent. I think it might benefit some people to have a reminder that books and show/movie adaptations are different. Reading the book might mean you know the framework for the show/movie but it does not make you An Expert on the show/movie.

First and foremost, I’m not going to say don’t post spoilers, but I will so do not go onto someone else’s post and post spoilers. You would not like it if someone came into your house and spoiled things for you. Do not do that to others. It is not only incredibly rude. It is entirely selfish. Which brings me to my next point.

If reading the book enhances your experience, if it’s something you enjoy, I’m glad! I am so incredibly happy for you. It does not make you smarter or inherently more informed than the people that choose not to read for whatever reason.

You might know what happens and have more knowledge about the story as a whole but that does not mean that people that are posting predictions or speculations don’t know what they’re talking about. I know a lot of people that watch these shows have some sort of degree in writing or literature or visual media. Gonna use myself as an example here, I have a degree in writing. I am decent at analysis. I mostly post silly little shitposts or memes but all of my posts are operating from a place of being informed.

I am capable of predicting what’s gonna happen. I am aware of narrative structures. I’m aware of plot devices. I’m aware of the common tropes in the shows I watch. And that doesn’t matter! Because that is entirely Not The Point. I don’t care if I predict accurately. It’s not about the what happens. It’s always about how we get there.

Of all of the shows that are airing and I can pretty much tell you what the ending of each of them is going to be. Even without reading the novels. That does not make them any less enjoyable for me. It makes them even more enjoyable. Cause now I get to watch for the details. I get to watch and see how this show has decided to show the journey of the story. And sometimes how they completely rewrite expectations. Some of the things I have watched have been very, extremely good at subverting tropes and expectations. Things can veer off in directions you don’t expect even if you’ve read the novel. Simply because it’s a different story. It is imposssible to do a 1 to 1 adaptation. As much as we might want it. It is simply not possible.

I have read a few novels that the shows are based on. Every single show has made drastic changes to the source material. So while you might have knowledge of what’s to come in the novel. You might have the ability to spoil everyone for what’s coming, even you can’t be 100% sure until it happens. And condescendingly telling people it’s so obvious when you have future knowledge is incredibly unacceptable.

This has gotten very long and I am actually at work now and should probably actually do my job but I just need to reiterate. Reading the novels is fine! It’s fun! I am genuinely so happy people are reading and enjoying themselves and also enjoying the shows! That is wonderful! But do not ruin or attempt to ruin someone else’s enjoyment simply because you think you know more. Make posts about the differences on your own blog. Talk about spoilers with friends that have also read the novel. But do not go onto a stranger’s post and post spoilers because you might be ruining the media you love for that person without even realizing what you’re doing.

[galvanizedfriend]

List your nine most favorite books

Tagged by @jinxedwood

It was so hard to keep this to nine. I feel like this is a list that changes a lot, depending on my mood (with a few exceptions). Like jinxedwood, I feel I must add a disclaimer: some of these books are great, some of these books are great to me. I like what I like.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I've lost count of how many times I've read this. It's totally nonsensical and hilarious and I absolutely love it. I collect Alice in Wonderland editions, and I have read every single one of them at least once. Don't feel the same way about Through the Looking Glass though. Wonderland is very uniquely insane, which is what makes it great.

1984 by George Orwell. I fully realize this book is much more impressive when you're 18 and reading it for the first time, but I will absolutely fight anyone who trashes it. It stands the test of time to an eerie (and somewhat depressing) degree. I remember getting to the end of this and being so completely disheartened by the way it ends that I was upset for a week. I was 18, but still. It's a great book.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. I am OBSESSED with Jurassic Park, ok? It's my favorite movie ever. And precisely because of that, I postponed reading this book forever because I was fully convinced it would suck and I didn’t want to live with the source material of my favorite movie letting me down. But then these really really beautiful editions of the series came out and I just had to buy them, and so eventually I had to read them as well. AND LO AND BEHOLD! The book is actually great! Not better than the movies, mind you, but really good. It's different enough that it's surprising even to someone who's seen the movies 30 times like me. And it's also very philosophical, whereas the movie focuses more on the adventure and the T-rex (for obvious reasons, to great success). 10/10.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. First time I read this I was 13 and it was this 1936 edition written in Portugal Portuguese, maybe even the first translation of this work into the language, and I hated it. Then many years later I found this stunning Barnes and Noble edition in English and decided to give it a second try. Instantly obsessed. It's a huge exposition in vanity, hedonism, ego and the human nature, monologues can last for pages and pages, but it's so interesting, so insightful and the dialogues are so good.

Epitaph of a Small Winner (Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas), by Machado de Assis. This is a masterpiece of Brazilian literature and probably my favorite thing I've read by Machado de Assis, who's one of, if not the most revered writer of all time in my country. Brás Cubas is a wealthy 19th century dead man and the narrator of this book, in which he makes reflections and digresses on many chapters of his life - after his death. It's a basically a fictional autobiography written by someone by a dead man. I just googled to see what the first paragraph was like in English, because it's one of my favorites ever, and it's still great. "I am a deceased writer not in the sense of one who has written and is now deceased, but in the sense of one who has died and is now writing." He dedicates the book to the first worm to eat his flesh. Brilliant.

Vicious by V.E. Schwab. I love Victoria Schwab so much, have read almost everything she's ever written. If writing talent was something you could buy at a supermarket, I’d get myself doses of hers. I love her style. Even the things that I objectively don't like, I still enjoy for the writing alone. This is probably my favorite thing she's ever written. I love the duality between Eli and Victor, I love their rivalry, I love the ideological war between and how ruthless they are, how far they are both willing to go just to prove a point. Neither of them is a good guy or a hero, and I love that about this story. It's not really that original, you can see where she drew inspiration from, but still. I love it.

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. The moment I finished reading this, years ago, I wondered how the hell this hadn't been turned into a movie yet. Thank you, Martin Scorsese, for listening to me. Please, don’t fuck this up. It's not fiction, which is not something I read very often because I’m easily bored, but this is amazingly written. And the story is so crazy. Maybe Americans are more familiar with it, but I wasn't, and it stunned me from start to finish. If you don’t know what it’s about, at some point in the history of the USA, the members of the Osage Nation were the richest people in the country, and then they started dying, one by one. The investigation into those murders was crappy because of racism, but it also led to the foundation of the FBI as it is known today. David Grann is a genius. I've read other books by him, all of them non-fiction, and it's always an unbelievable true story that's just shocking. His investigation into the topics is fantastic. He has one about the lost city of Z that is WILD. I’ve told everyone I know about that book.

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne. I know John Boyne has some controversial books (which I have tried to stay away from), but this is so good. His writing is amazing. It's such a heartbreaking story, but the way it's narrated is so light that instead of being depressive, it just made me so hopeful. The main character is probably one of the most naturally likable MC I've ever read, too. Every other character in the story is either insane or absurd, sometimes both. Probably the best dialogues I’ve ever read in a book.

The Conqueror's Wife by Stephanie Thornton. Listen, this is one of those books that I'm sure not everyone will like. But it's almost like it was written for me. It's a historical romance, it has multiple narrators, it’s based in real people that existed and it's about Alexander the Great. I have an inexplicable obsession with Alexander the Great, don't ask. I’ve read tons of stuff on him, so the fact this draws a lot from the real stuff makes it even better. The title is a little misleading, makes you believe it's about Alexander's wife (or one of them anyway), but it's not. The four narrators are two of his wives, his younger sister and Hephaestion. It paints a very gruesome and realistic picture of Alexander, beyond the myth. 10/10 for me.

Honorable mentions: The Song of Aquiles by Madelline Miller, Battle Royale by Koushun Takani.

Tagging: @definedareasofuncertainty, @misssophiachase, @amandakc, @austennerdita2533, @purplesigebert, @sekretny and anyone else who might want to do this. :) Tag me back so I can see your book list, I love that!

[acti-veg]

Hey, how do you deal with people who counter your arguments whether abt veganism or climate change with "there is scientific evidence for the opposite," as in they argue that for whatever you say there is evidence to prove otherwise... if I try to explain of course there are companies with vested interest who back those scientific initiatives, they argue the same is true for what I am saying

Evidence speaks for itself, and I don’t claim anything I don’t know I can prove. If my claim is demonstrably true and has a broad scientific consensus, nobody will be able to show me reliable evidence that disproves it.

Ask to see their sources, look at the studies, who funds them, what methods they used, search the study and see if there is already analysis and critique out there, as there often is. On tumblr especially, people post ‘sources’ that don’t even back up what they’re trying to claim. More often than not what they post states the complete opposite, it just had a misleading headline, so just reading the source is usually enough. More often than not they’ve just typed ‘why vegan bad’ into google and copied and pasted the first link.

Also, be open to being wrong. If the evidence really does contradict your opinions, you should change those opinions, there is no shame in being wrong. I have discarded claims I used to uphold because I either now have updated information, or can no longer sufficiently back it up. There are also many claims that I suspect are true, such as animal agriculture being the number one single cause of climate change, but I can’t prove it with a good enough degree of certainty so I just don’t say it, instead I say ‘one of the biggest causes’, which is certainly demonstrably true.

My more general advice would be to get practiced at reading scientific literature, assessing sources and crucially, at staying away from definitive claims if you can’t back it up. You’ll notice I say ‘we think’ or ‘research suggests’ more often than not, unless it’s something I know has a scientific consensus and is realistically not open to challenge.

Thats a good habit to get into, and so is just keeping up to date with current research as much as you’re able to. You don’t need to be reading every study, but most big ones get good coverage you can read about them from secondary sources just fine. Just know that no matter how iron-clad your claim, you’ll still have people throwing counter-sources at you, but it’s usually the same dozen or so debunked studies that you can learn to respond to quite easily.