#the song ‘ civilizing people ‘
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HBO's Continued Insistence on Dumbing Down Westerosi Politics
So there have been countless thinkpieces already on how GOT simplified the feudalist politics of Westeros (by giving a lowborn sellsword lordship over The Reach, by having no consequences for destroying the Sept of Baelor, etc.), but I haven't seen a lot of people talking about that for House of the Dragon.
The worst being that the show presupposes that Rhaenyra is the lawful heir when the books showed there are plenty of lawful arguments why she wouldn't be.
Mind you that I've been enjoying the show a lot so far. This is just to vent out my frustration with the writers' failure to fully engage with the values and protocols of the Middle Age-inspired setting. The show seems uninterested in laws of the Realm in a story ostensibly about politics, save for when they're using it as an excuse to amplify depictions of sex and violence.
Blacks vs Greens wasn't a matter of misunderstanding of who each side thought Viserys wanted on the throne. It was the Targaryens' belief of their absolute authority clashing with the Realm's established traditions. Everyone always knew who Viserys chose as heir. In Fire and Blood, Grand Maester Orwyle said as much when he was parleying with Rhaenyra on behalf of the Greens.
Rhaenyra heard his terms in stony silence, then asked Orwyle if he remembered her father, King Viserys. "Of course, Your Grace," the maester answered. "Perhaps you can tell us who he named as his heir and successor," the queen said, her crown upon her head. "You, Your Grace," Orwyle replied. And Rhaenyra nodded and said, "With your own tongue you admit I am your lawful queen. Why do you serve my half-brother, the pretender?" Munkun tells us that Orwyle gave a long and erudite reply, citing the Andal law and the Great Council of 101. Mushroom claims he stammered and voided his bladder. Whichever is true, his answer did not satisfy Princess Rhaenyra.
(For non-F&B readers: Munkun is the Grand Maester who served Aegon III, the king who came after this civil war. Munkun's book, The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, is one of Fire and Blood's source texts. Mushroom is the King Landing court jester from Viserys I to Aegon III's reign. One is a source written with academic rigor but is secondhand at best. The other is a firsthand eyewitness account but is from a literal fool who will take every chance to make things more scandalous and sexual to please the crowd.)
In House of the Dragon, they replaced Orwyle with Otto and Orwyle's discussion of legal precedent with Otto handing Rhaenyra a book page from Alicent. It's quite evident here that the writers, much like Mushroom, thought a discussion on the actual laws of the Realm were negligible in this story about a succession war.
Even Alicent made no pretense that Viserys chose Rhaenyra over her children and I have no idea why the HBO writers decided to make her mistakenly think otherwise. Maybe they thought a queen regent pushing her son to take the throne over another woman made her appear unsympathetic as a character, but if anything, this only makes show!Alicent less politically savvy and more delusional than her book counterpart, fully believing an addled king's vague muttering on his deathbed was sufficient grounds to change heirs last minute.
Book!Alicent following Andal laws instead of her husband's wishes makes sense given her Andal upbringing, her devotion to the Faith of the Seven which enforces said laws, and her desire to protect her children from Rhaenyra given that Rhaenyra has shown she's not above murdering family (see: Laenor).
In the books, there was a long discussion between the former king's council on who should succeed Viserys.
Here are the arguments for Rhaenyra:
Rhaenyra was older than her brothers and had more Targaryen blood
the late king had chosen her as his successor, that he had repeatedly refused to alter the succession despite the pleadings of Queen Alicent and her greens
hundreds of lords and landed knights had done obeisance to the princess in 105 AC, and sworn solemn oaths to defend her rights.
Here are the arguments for Aegon II:
many of the lords who had sworn to defend the succession of Princess Rhaenyra were long dead [...]
Ironrod, the master of laws, cited the Great Council of 101 and the Old King’s choice of Baelon rather than Rhaenys in 92
the hallowed Andal tradition wherein the rights of a trueborn son always came before the rights of a mere daughter
Ser Otto reminded them that Rhaenyra’s husband was none other than Prince Daemon, and “we all know that one’s nature. Make no mistake, should Rhaenyra ever sit the Iron Throne, it will be Lord Flea Bottom who rules us, a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was [...]”
Should the princess reign [...] Jacaerys Velaryon would rule after her. “Seven save this realm if we seat a bastard on the Iron Throne.”
Once again, the show chose to cut out this long political discussion. Instead, the council had already made up their mind and decided to stage a coup (when in their perspectives from the books, it would definitely not be a coup).
For all their marketing how two sides are equally grey, HotD is actively delegitimizing Aegon II. The strongest argument for him is how his claim follows the laws of the Realm, but the show doesn't seem to care about the laws of the Realm or the political need to maintain a more predictable/tested transfer of power.
Instead, the show focuses on Viserys's relationship with his daughter and the mysticism of the Targaryen bloodline. In doing so, they emphasize Rhaenyra's strongest arguments for succession — that she's more of a Targaryen than her half-brother and that her father prefered her.
And what for? Because in our modern-day, we don't have male-prefered inheritance and people can only imagine misogyny as the only injustice here? What about the injustice of a monarch exercising absolute control, thinking that his "superior" heritage makes him above the established laws of the native people?
This is not to say Aegon II is unquestionably the heir. But this is to say that the show removed the political nuance of why people are questioning in the first place. Precedence isn't the end-all-be-all of succession, but neither is "because daddy said so".
#hotd critical#hotd#house of the dragon#Fire and blood#A song of ice and fire#asoiaf#Long post#this doesn't mean I think the writers are Team Black#I just think the writers can't shake off their 21st century values enough to portray the Greens as an equally valid side#They're too girlboss-pilled#Imagine that Queen Nymeria page scene where Rhaenyra asks Otto why he defies the orders of his late king#Otto: The laws of the Realm decree that the crown pass to the king's eldest trueborn son#Rhaenyra: The laws of the Realm? The king's word is law and it is within his power to overturn these unjust traditions#Otto: The king's will is only one of many. The crown's power is derived from the support of its people. Jaehaerys the Conciliator himself—#Rhaenyra: Perhaps the people have forgotten that my forebears did not forge the Iron Throne with “support” but with fire and blood.#There you've shown why this civil war happened and why people fall on either side
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And the experience of each man was peculiar. For Pompey's name and power were greater in the city when he was away from it, owing to his campaigns; but when he was at home, he was often less powerful than Crassus, because the pomp and circumstance of his life led him to shun crowds, retire from the forum, and render aid to a few only of those who asked it of him, and then with no great zest, that he might keep his influence the more unimpaired for use in his own behalf. But Crassus was continually ready with his services, was ever at hand and easy of access, and always took an active part in the enterprises of the hour.
Plutarch, Crassus
from the vault of half finished one shots and rejected scenes! what a pair of guys! some real complementary personality stuff going on with these two!
bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost
#where’s that paper that’s all ‘Fulvia was a manager and Antony was manageable’ there’s a similar dynamic going on here#but it’s both of them @ each other. Crassus does have a very political manager type of. vibe. though. so it could apply to multiple people#roman republic tag#komiks tag#also this is why Pompey and Caesar were a bad match. like of course they were going to get divorced civil war style#anyway. the new tvxq song. any older kpop fans here. ‘So say you want me cause I’m down’ is rattling around in my head abt these two#when they decided to fuck politics together. like oooooh you two chose each other for real#if I was staging a movie or smth the scene where they shake hands on it would be when changmin does THAT with his vocals#tris homines#marcus licinius crassus#gnaeus pompeius magnus
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Cal and Andre loved Nero’s day at Disney land. Believe me. No it dosent matter that their first song came out four years after they died. No it doesn’t matter it would make their ears bleed. No it doesn’t matter it doesn’t match their aesthetic at all. Trust me. I am Smart.
#zero day#zero day 2003#cal gabriel#andre kriegman#neros day at disneyland#caldre#headcanon#ok but honestly#the song ‘ civilizing people ‘#reminds me sO MUCH OF THEM#there’s no lyrics so I can’t do a super duper in depth analysis or whatever#but the instrumentals give off a manic-y + ‘’evil’’ (for lack of a better word) vibe#which is kinda like the feeling they give me planing zero day and their missions n shit#but then at the end it gets kinda quiet and almost sorrowful#which is kinda like at the end#idk hopefully I’m not crazy
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*Poll inspired by typical ambiguity in the new audio story Victory of the Doctor, which on an unrelated note is amazing!
Evidence for each argument beneath the cut!
Open marriage
The Doctor's wedding to Marilyn Monroe occurs in A Christmas Carol, when he storms off to a chapel with lipstick marks on his face. “I’ll just go and get married then, shall I? See how you like that. Marilyn? Get your coat!”
While he wasn't yet with River then, he maintains this relationship afterwards, apparently with River involved. In the mini-episode Good Night, the Doctor enters the TARDIS with a euphonium, calling over his shoulder, “River! I’ll see you later! Tell Marilyn she’s too late, she’ll have to use the biplane. Take care!”
Another piece of evidence comes from The Wedding of River Song, when they're passive-aggressively flirting.
“Hallucinogenic lipstick. Works wonders on President Kennedy. And Cleopatra was a real pushover.” “I always thought so.” “She mentioned you.” “What did she say?” “Put down that gun.” “Did you?” “Eventually.” “Oh, they're flirting. Do I have to watch this?” (from Kovarian)
I've never understood the innuendo (please tell me what I'm missing), but Kovarian does, and as we know from The Husbands of River Song, the Doctor and River are both married to Cleopatra, so… it's definitely something.
There's also that diary page in The Eternity Clock game that suggests the Doctor, River, and Jim the Fish got blackout drunk at karaoke night and started “some sort of religion of love” which went on to last for centuries.
Serial cheaters
“How can you be engaged, in a manner of speaking?” The Doctor is jealous in Flesh and Stone before he's even kissed her, which doesn't set him up as a person who'd be interested in an open marriage.
“No, wait. That's your husband? That's who you're married to? Not anybody else?” In The Husbands of River Song, the Doctor is clearly not expecting the other husbands. Culminating in the same episode…
“So, King Hydroflax?” “Oh, how many times? I married the diamond!” “So you say.” “Elizabeth the First!” “Ramone!” “Marilyn Monroe!” “Stephen Fry!” “Cleopatra!” “Same thing!”
It appears he is well aware of her other spouses (and that she's aware of his); so perhaps his surprise was more that didn't expect her to be so flagrant about them. It makes him insecure (“I posed as his nurse. Took me a week.” “To fall in love?” “It's the easiest lie you can tell a man. They'll automatically believe any story they're the hero of.”) enough to start an argument about it.
River also expresses her jealousy as an obvious fact, as seen in The Day of the Doctor Novelization (written by Moffat who (along with Alex!!) knows the character best):
“Ow!” “Madame de Pompadour?” “Jealous?” “Of course I’m jealous. Keep your hands off her.”
In The Name of the Doctor, we learn that the Doctor, who has had a number of... sexually-charged moments with Clara (including, but not limited to, Victorian Clara), has avoided telling her that River is his wife. Vastra is uncomfortable with having to introduce them, having “gone a darker shade of green.”
“The Doctor might have mentioned me?” “Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, of course he has. Professor Song! Sorry, it's just I never realized you were a woman.” (from Clara)
Actually both
This could mean many things (i.e. open marriage with boundaries which are violated), but potentially, all the same evidence from prior arguments! With a shade of “Our lives are back to front.”
In the mini-episodes First Night/Last Night, when River, having burst into the TARDIS and pretended to faint, mistakes her past self for another woman the Doctor's hiding from her, she openly expresses jealousy.
“Doctor. Have you brought someone else here? Does anyone agree to wear that dress? Where is she!” “River, think it through!” “This happened the last time we were here. You brought someone else!” “No I didn’t!” “Yes you did, I heard you talking to her!”
However, when a third and significantly older version of River makes the same mistake, she no longer expresses jealousy, but rather curiosity, which could at least signal a shift in how she sees their marriage.
Maybe there was a conversation that happened. Maybe it slipped the Doctor's mind when he forgot Clara.
Actually neither
This could also mean multiple things, but one of those things is this. The Doctor is a widower from the start. Likewise, River is well aware of Doctor's death on Trenzalore, “of course River would know, she's always known,” having been raised to prevent those events, and having refused to be bound by that destiny.
How can fidelity be defined the same way for time travelers? Everyone's spouses are dead somewhen. River understands the paradox of her husband's existence better than anyone. To quote The Day of the Doctor Novelization yet again…
‘Because you live in a time machine. All of history is still happening outside those doors. On a good night that means everyone you ever met is still alive and you can’t wait to see them again. On a bad night, it means everyone’s dead, and you want to charge around the universe, pretending you can do something about that.’ She looked up at me. ‘I know which version of you I prefer.’
And there she was, so alive again. I remembered her, twisted, burnt and dead, in the depths of The Library. ‘What if there are people who died because of me?’ I asked. ‘What if there are people I should have saved?’
��People die. All people, everywhere. We grieve and we move on. That is how we respect the dead. That is how we forgive ourselves in their presence and their absence.’
Please feel free to add anything I missed!
#River Song#eleventh doctor#twelfth doctor#yowzah#11th doctor#12th doctor#the doctor#doctor who#new who#please no hate votes from people who hate the ship/just wanna slander them. thank you for your consideration. <3#also I know there is very much the possibility 'monogamy plus threesomes with both parties involved' wherein everything else is cheating#which fits them well as anything given the evidence. anyway- if that's how you read them- vote as you see most accurate!#at the end of the day its all about consent#btw i do have an opinion that isn't likely to change by the results- but im not gonna risk the integrity of this poll by saying it.#this is an interesting aspect of a ship I love and I wanna see how fans interpret it! (please be civil tysm ilysm)#thank you everyone that votes!#words by seaweed#disclaimer that cheating is morally repugnant. ALSO this relationship IS built on lies. 'rule one: the doctor lies. so do I! all the time'
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WELCOME TO THE KANECO FAMILY. 🏙️ - a motorcity mix for Detroit Deluxe ✨
Coming to you live from the City Of The Future - where it's safe and clean and the sun always shines! Founded by your great visionary leader, Abraham Kane, KaneCo's innovation saved a crumbling Detroit from catastrophe and will continue to[WAKE UP. RESIST. WAKE UP. RESIST. WAKE UP-]
helloooooo again guess who's been obsessing over another overly-long playlist for my favorite dead fandom :)))
here come the black mirror/1984 vibes! 👀 where the MIKE & MOTORCITY! mix was all loud kickass rock 'n' roll rebellion, this companion playlist for Deluxe has more of a "character arc" to it - starting off in shiny synthwave heaven, settling into corporate monotony, then slowly peeling back the layers to uncover the dark backstory and dystopian truth underneath in moody beats and epic cinematic pop... (featuring some implied Kane tragedy and one sad Jacob song lol)
but all is not lost! as the Burners chip away at Kane's control and more Deluxians see the truth and escape, the two cities begin to affect each other more...and Motorcity has a few things to teach the kids up top about stickin' it to The Man when it's needed most.
especially when it gets scary. ✊
#motorcity#abraham kane#julie kane#motorcity claire#dutch gordy#hopepunk#motorcity season 2#(I wish)#will probably DEFINITELY add more Kane/dead wife/sad daughter songs to this later but I got too impatient to hold off on posting this lol#my mixes#made by yours truly#Spotify#not to toot my own horn but 'No Place Like Home' is one HELL of a Dutch Gordy song ���#anyway#spoiler alert: everyone wins the fight for liberation! Julie overthrows her dad like a girlboss!#Deluxe is DISMANTLED! Detroit slowly rebuilds and unifies to embrace the balance between safety AND freedom!#Julie hands off all her money and power to the city so the people can build their own future!#and THEN she drives off with Mike and the Burners for the ultimate post-post-apocalyptic road trip to see the rest of civilization!#HELL YEAH! roll credits!
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if you guys had to communicate the griddlehark dynamic to someone using one singular song what would it be
#throw it in the replies/rbs/tags/my askbox!#i would love to know other people's opinions on this bc even though there is a lot going w them somehow there are so many perfect songs#i feel like there should be less considering how insane they are but i have so many#anyways ultimately if i had to pick only one it would be poison & wine by the civil wars#tlt#griddlehark#the locked tomb
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Tag drop: Guizhong (don't mind me re-dropping this with the fixed ones, shh)
#guizhong. [ many things only seem to surface beneath the moon's poignant glow. wherever its light shines; the heart is wont to follow. ]#guizhong: ic. [ wherever her spirit may be among the countless grains of sand and specks of dust between the harbor and the mountains. ]#guizhong: countenance. [ and because they are afraid; they try so hard to become more intelligent. this i understand. ]#guizhong: introspection. [ although she did not live to see the splendid sights of today: she was as much a hero as any other. ]#guizhong: meta. [ her manuscripts lie unfinished in her abode. the blank pages give cause for contemplation on what might have been. ]#guizhong: little notes. [ she always sought to make everyone happy and one must say: she had quite the gift for it. ]#guizhong: wishes. [ it took a treasure hunt just to preserve the commandments that were once the lifeblood of a whole civilization. ]#guizhong: etc. [ we think of human life as like a lantern that's lit one minute and extinguished the next. but are we adepti so different?#guizhong: mortals. [ at their full potential; they could be her equal. a human who has as much to teach an adeptus as to learn from them. ]#guizhong: guili plains. [ as guizhong once said: “it takes every blade of grass and every flower to make a homeland.” ]#guizhong: liyue. [ perhaps she will look at the liyue of today and steal a smile when she sees the prosperous land that it has become. ]#guizhong: realm of clouds. [ a voyage to a sanguine sky. ]#guizhong: mechanical arts. [ in one's heart; i knew that she was indeed the superior talent in the mechanical arts. ]#guizhong: glaze lilies. [ they were far more abundant back then. the entire fields would appear to the eye as a veritable sea of flowers. ]#guizhong: adepti. [ until the moon set and the sun rose. and only then would the banquet finally come to an end. ]#guizhong: morax. [ whoever it was that revered her so much was very clever indeed. ]#guizhong: guili. [ with shortness of breath; i will explain the infinite. and how rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist. ] delusiona#guizhong: marchosius. [ who would dare snub the stove god and his wondrous creations? at the sight: we would all drop any argument. ]#guizhong: streetward rambler. [ it almost felt like she was back again. sitting right there on the stone stool next to me; chatting away. ]#guizhong: cloud retainer. [ we each had our ideals; and neither one of us would yield to the other. ]#guizhong: skybracer. [ to who lived by the mountain; he was their savior. they thought higher of him than they thought of the lord of geo.#guizhong: osial. [ she would disrupt the silence around them with a hum; as if to sing along to the harmony of water. was this his song? ]#guizhong: sea gazer. [ he was quite the braggart when it came to those collectibles he was so fond of; he always loved to show them off. ]#guizhong: ganyu. [ if we planted flowers in the guili plains; do you think that one day we'd be able to recreate the sea of glaze lilies? ]#guizhong: v. descension. [ she descended whose dominion was over dust; and whose reach shrouded the skies for thousands of miles around. ]#guizhong: v. guili assembly. [ it's great to have it back but i want to go back to the world. and start with guili plains. ]#guizhong: v. archon war. [ they fought upon the plains; where black dust choked the heavens and a thousand rocks splintered. ]#guizhong: v. present. [ all wrapped up in a city that has existed for many moons to date. all these things: they are why people chase it. ]#guizhong: inquiries. [ hmph. she always had a way with words. ]
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Just popping in with a little unscheduled post to say how much I LOVE seeing people reblogging all the polls and even more than that I LOVE seeing all the tags where people hype up their faves and all the other poll tournaments encourage propaganda in their reblogs lmao so feel free to go crazy with that!!
It's really fun to see in general but it's also cool to see why everyone is passionate about the songs they're passionate about. So feel free to keep the tags and the rants coming xx
just try to stay away from character/actor bashing for whatever song you're not rooting for lol it hasnt really been a problem so far so lets keep it that way uwu
#glee#glee song tournament#not a poll#like yeah idk reblog with gifs from your fave song as a response#or just try and persuade other people to vote your way lmao idc#as long as its (mostly) civil alsfjsdk
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rhaenicent and daensa... idk just something about redheads and targs being sapphic together ❤
#game of thrones#house of the dragon#daenerys targaryen#rhaenyra targaryen#alicent hightower#sansa stark#screw the civil war & the ice people i want the gays to be happy#rhaenicent is daensa in a different font and I'm here for it tbh#a song of ice and fire is code for rhaenicent/daensa
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It actually really annoys me how "expecting people to read the source material" is considered gatekeeping these days because like. Besides the obvious reasons, it's pretty off-putting trying to have conversations with people who only know a bite sized chunk of the overall story they claim to be a fan of? Like it's so off-putting to try and jump into a headcanon conversation like "oh yeah I think you could also add this aspect from this part of the comics" and the response you get is either "I haven't read that part" at best or "I literally don't care" at worst because it's like. Okay. I don't really want to hang out with people who seem disinterested or outright hateful towards the things that I like, so I'm literally just going to leave that space.
I guess you can be a fan of something without consuming every story it has to offer, but it's pretty fucking annoying to share fandom spaces with people who basically don't give a damn about the source material and will call you a meanie if you point out how this is perhaps a little bit strange.
#fandom wank#honestly i think the whole accusation of gatekeeping is kind of dumb too lmao#like literally no one can control who's allowed to be a fan because this is the internet where there's a billion ways to interact#however i'm perfectly at liberty to think that some fans have shit takes that seem more based on their imagination than the actual story#platitudes like don't like don't read apply to curating your content and interacting with other people#i can be civil to people in fandom and avoid content i don't like. but still have opinions on whether a take is shit or not#idk i just hate it when you say 'i don't like this' and ppl are like NOOOOOO YOU CAN'T SAY NEGATIVE THINGS ABOUT OTHER FANS#yes i literally can and you're not going to stop me#this isn't kindergarten we don't have to hold hands and sing songs all day. i can and do think some ppl and some content is bad#and like as long as i don't spread gossip or try to harass them then why does it fucking matter#i'm not obligated to like every fan i come into contact with i'm just obligated to not be an asshole to them#i just hate tone policers where you'll be like yeah i think xyz headcanon is annoying and makes no sense#and they instantly screech IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT THEN DON'T READ IT YOU BIG MEANIE WHY ARE YOU A GATEKEEPER#stfu i just said i don't like it and i have a right to not like it and complain about it sometimes
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benidorm fest: people fighting after the first semifinal
sanremo: a video about a boomer palm tree that doesn't know how to pronounce "timeline"
#spain said: drama season#the fact that a lot of people are rooting for a girl who can't sing properly + kinda boring staging#'she can improve in three months'#ok bro but why don't we choose someone who can already sing???#that's why i hate knowing the studio version of the songs before the festival#if we had fantasanremo here... second civil war for sure#alba rambles
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Anyways the thread I made on this Union Dixie vid is fuckin gold and I feel you all deserve to be graced with it.
And then a mere 20 mins ago (at time of typing) somebody with gigachad as a pfp says this shit
Which. There is so much to unpack here but uh. Honestly I'm just gonna throw away the suitcase bc why would you ever assume someone with a Gigachad pfp is ever to be taken as good faith.
#youtube comments#youtube#civil war#american civil war#american history#fuck the confederacy#im not gonna tag this palestine or anything like that cause unlike this doopfuck#i actually think palestinian people deserve to not be brought up in irrelevant contexts#and that their suffering at the hands of american policy makers does not mean that talking about other american failures isn't worthwhile#sure we can totally talk about american imperialism and slavery#how that relates to how those in power treat palestine and palestinian peop#but to act like people talking about how shit the confederacy was on a song about how much the confederacy sucked don't give a shit about#something else is just silly
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EL PUEBLO SALVADOREEEÑO TIENE EL CIELO POR SOMBREEROOO
#zagreus rambling#contexto para los no salvies: hay una cancion llamada Sombrero Azul que la escribio Ali Primera para la guerra en apoyo al pueblo#cada vez que me hayo ese hongo en el underdark oigo esa guitarra y la voz del señor#o la version salsa#cualquiera vale#ALJKSFHAKSJF#context for english speaking mutuals: “Blue Hat” is the name of a song made by Ali Primera in support of the salvadorean people during#the civil war years ago#and “The salvadorean folk have the sky as their hat” is the first verse of the song
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when people ask me what i love about lotr i can't quite explain it in a normal way. its not the wizards and the dragons and the wilderness. its not the frightening thrill of moria, or the glory of helms deep. its not the ethereal magic of the elves or the pride of the growing civilizations of men. in fact out of every fantasy setting it is to me the most innocuous, the most irrelevant because what i love about lotr is the love. its the humanity. the hope. it is about goodness and fellowship. it is a manual on how to live right, with your friends by your side and your songs in your ears and a constant reminder that the best thing about going anywhere is coming home
#lotr#frodo baggins#frodo#samwise#samwise gamgee#aragorn#aragorn elessar#gandalf#elves#dwarves#jrr tolkien#tolkien#hope#hopecore#lord of the rings#the fellowship of the ring
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Tiktok needs to learn the difference between original meaning of a song that’s meant to be related to by the public, and mostly there for audience consumption versus the auditory documentation of first hand or second hand trauma.
The issue is the appropriation and neglect of mass pain— a practice that is actively silencing the voices of those still hurting.
That’s not comparable to a person with body insecurities related to a song written by someone who happened to have different body insecurities if you close read the lyrics. At that point who tf cares that song was meant to speak to people on an individualized scale if that speaks to you that’s half of the purpose.
#blogging at 2% mental battery again#avese has a thing on prins mind#this probably only makes partial sense in which case#good it means youve missed internet people being internet people#this isn’t about any one song but while writing the tags I just remembered how territorial people got over sweater weather#it’s not even about being bisexual but people freaked out when it because a non bi exclusive trend#and the same people will go back to walking all over black people with no care in the world#frustrating af being queer and not white sometimes cuz damn people say some wild shit#also for context the types of audio I’m specifically thinking about that have been grossly appropriated are clips from holocaust movies#or songs about slavery or the civil rights movement etc
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thesis about the sea peoples you say? may i request an infodump about the sea peoples?
Heya!
So, basically in college (undergraduate) I got really obsessed with the questions around the Collapse of the Aegean Bronze Age, mostly because I wanted to set my big Magnum Opus historical fiction novel in that time, and the deeper I dug into the rabbit hole the more it appeared that no one, absolutely no one, actually knows why the civilizations around the Mediterranean all fell from a state of pretty sophisticated internationally-trading civilizations to literal Dark Ages (all except for Egypt which was substantially weakened and never really recovered), all at once around 1200-1100 BCE.
The Sea Peoples are the names of the only contemporary (Egyptian) account we have that names who might have been responsible if this collapse was due to an invasion. It's a popular theory because a viking-style invasion is a much sexier reason for a civilization to collapse so we all gather around it like moths to flame. But the thing is, there's a lot of contradictory evidence for and against and shading that hypothesis.
Suffice to say, literally no actually knows what happened and almost every answer comes up, "Some combination of these things, probably?"
But what makes the Collapse even more interesting from a modern perspective is that if there was a historical Trojan War (and I think there was) as fictionalized in the Iliad and the Odyssey (and Song of Achilles, for the Tumbrlistas), then it would have taken place within a generation of the entire civilization that launched the Trojan War crumbling to dust.
So like, if you're Telemachus, your dad Odysseus fights in the Trojan War, some even manage to get home, and then like... everything goes to shit. Catastrophically. And doesn't recover for 400 years.
Seriously, they lost the written word, like how to actually write things down and read them and it took 400 years to get it back. That's how fucked shit got during the Collapse of the Bronze Age.
So my thesis was asking: what if these two things were related? What if the Trojan War either led to the Collapse or it was part of the Collapse or it was a result of the Collapse? Because the timeline is so unknown and muddled that it really could be any of those and again, that's if the Trojan War isn't entirely fictional (which I don't think it is, but many academics disagree, it used to be a whole thing up until Schliemann dug it up, and many doubted it was ever a historical event even after that.)
Ok, so at the risk of writing 75 pages on this again, let me just say:
My conclusion (more of a hypothesis proposal ultimately since there are so many gaps in our knowledge) was that the Trojan War took place before the Collapse of the Bronze Age. But, it might have been launched in response to a wider breakdown in trades routes and resources, causing the Greeks to launch the campaign basically as a bid to replenish their own coffers because they were getting squeezed by what they didn't know was the first rumblings of a global domino effect.
Therefore, since taking out Troy didn't solve those larger trends and forces, they all went home and then got slammed by the REAL problem, which was all the people who had been displaced from further away by this rolling drought or invasion or whatever that was disrupting these delicate international trade routes.
But the Greeks might have been part of the Sea Peoples too! Our only record of the Sea Peoples is from the Egyptians in a highly propagandistic text which makes them sound like this big fearsome foe but that might have been because saying, "We slaughtered a bunch of desperate refugees at our border who were looking for shelter," didn't sound as cool. If the Greeks (or Achaeans or Ahhiyawa) got swept up in this slow-rolling collapse/displacement of people, then they absolutely could have been among those refugees who crashed against the shores of Egypt.
A lot of my evidence was based on looking at how Troy was sacked (it was stripped literally down the nails and there was a lot of evidence of a long-term siege, like what we read about in the Iliad) vs. how Mycenae (Agamemnon's city) or Pylos (King Nestor's city) was sacked, where they were burned and stuff was stolen but they weren't stripped, it looks more like a standard looting hit-and-run type thing. Which led me to believe that it was different turmoil that rocked Mycenae and Pylos than what led to the sacking of Troy, despite the fact these things happened within about 20 years of each other. (Helen being a made-up reason for a resource-driven war would only be the oldest trick in the book, as far as propaganda goes, after all.)
But really, the craziest detail I'll leave you with is: we just don't know! And then it gets weirder. Because the Hittites fell at the same time so the Hittites scholars say, "Nah, the Sea Peoples weren't Hittites, they were probably Greeks." And the GREEK scholars say, "It wasn't us, it was probably the Hittites or someone else. " and the EGYPTIAN scholars say, "Yeah it was someone north of Egypt, maybe the Hittites or the Greeks." and the LEVANT scholars say, "It wasn't from the Levant, we know what was going on there, it has to be from somewhere else."
Literally every single possible source of the Sea Peoples has the scholars who specialize in that location saying it's not them and it must be the guy next door.
It's maddening!
And then there's a big ol' gap around Bulgaria and the Black Sea because, oh yeah, the Soviet Union forbade archaeology in those areas to quash any local pride so those places that were behind the Iron Curtain are decades behind on scholarship that would allow them to say, "Oh hey, it was actually us! Yeah, the invaders came from Bulgaria and got pushed down by a famine." or something to that effect.
We also have some histories from the time saying that the Sons of Heracles returned not long after the Trojan War to lay Greece to waste! And it's really evocative and sounds like it fits what we've got of all these burned cities that happened right after Troy fell! Except that's in doubt now too!
The latest theory is that it was climate change that led to a massive drought. You can read about it in the latest and most popular book on the subject, 1177 BCE which I highly recommend because if it had existed when I wrote my thesis, I wouldn't have had to write it.
But I disagree with the conclusion! Or rather, I'm skeptical. Because very decade, the problems of the day have been hypothesized as being the cause of the Collapse. Like, in the 60s, there was a theory that maybe it was internal strife around a labor strike, like the French Revolution. And y'know when there's a world war, they think it's an invasion. And there was a theory that it was 'cuz of an earthquake (I think that one is nonsense, Mediterranean civilizations famously bounce back quickly from earthquakes.) And now that climate change is on our mind, I'm a little weary to see that it's the new theory because it feels way too much like we're just projecting our problems onto this giant question mark.
Was climate an aspect! I think so! I think it might have contributed to the break down in trade routes that made everyone in the Mediterranean really stressed out and hostile and warlike and led to a lot of displacement. I'm not sure if it's the only reason though and I think the book just kinda reiterates everyone else saying, "I think it was this but in the end, we just don't know, and it was probably a lot of things." which we've known for ages so it's just repeating all the same conclusions. *sigh*
... Like I said, I wrote my thesis on this so yeah, I could go on for a while lol.
#ancient history#bronze age#collapse of the bronze age#sea peoples#lots of generalizations here for brevity so don't jump down my throat if you are also familiar with this era plz
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