#who have little knowledge of historical context

[jostenskeeper]

is it just me that finds 'little women' unbearably preachy?

[nunlolita]

Kinda don't like how the term "Puritanical" started being used as shorthand for "anyone who disagrees with me is a conservative" instead of you know. What that word actually means. And that people don't want to examine how cultural Christianity actually works and affects mainstream western culture, especially American culture, and instead opt to use it as a bludgeoning tool to shut down anyone who doesn't agree with them.

[thecrenellations]

Is the lymond chronicles something I can get into if I know little of history and do not speak many romance languages?

Yes! I mean, it depends on your reading preferences and how you feel about being confused, but I certainly did!

That's my short answer! If you give them a try, I hope you find the series worth it, and I believe that what you like in a story will matter more than what you do or don't know going in.

My much longer answer, about my reading experience, is ....

In my case, I knew the names of monarchs and had a vague familiarity with the setting of the first book (Tudor/1540s Scotland and England). I speak a useful amount of French and a tiny bit of Spanish. Comparing experiences with friends, French was an especially helpful language to have, but I feel confident saying that I would have loved these books without it.

The thing about The Game of Kings (book 1) is that it’s just confusing. Dorothy Dunnett wastes no time in throwing political intrigue, multilingual references, and many characters at you. But even if you’re an expert in the history and in (modern and archaic) English, French, Latin, Spanish, Scots, and a little bit of Italian and German, you are faced with a protagonist who’s running back and forth across the border and interfering with that history … while guarding his goals and motives, explaining nothing about his past, and constantly quoting poetry from the personal library of a mind he doesn’t want to let anyone inside. Most of the people he meets don’t understand him, either.

For me, it was so rewarding when I finally started to learn what was happening and who he is, and after that the ride truly began…

I did not look up many references or translations and just kinda went with it. I was enjoying myself enough that I didn’t mind that so much was going over my head (especially if it was coming out of Lymond’s mouth), and within a few chapters I’d gotten invested in one of the characters (Christian!) and was entranced by a recurring joke/element. By the second section (let’s say … 175 pages in …), I was hooked, obsessed with a second character (Will!), interested in most of the rest, and having a great time.

There’s a character list in non-audio editions (the David Monteath audiobooks are very good, though), and companion books exist with translations/sources for many of the references. There are also various online recaps and chapter-by-chapter discussions. Looking things up yourself as you go along can reduce confusion, but be warned that many of the characters are versions of real people, so you may learn more than you want to know, such as when they die. 470-year-old spoilers, but still.

For me, the characters (complexity, parallels, relationships) and writing (playfulness, beauty, INCREDIBLE use of perspective and unreliable narration) are what make the books so good. They reward rereading, so, when/if you return, you’ll have another chance to go down some reference rabbit holes, and even if you don’t, you will understand much more.

The second book is generally agreed to be easier to understand! Also, there are elephants.

Perhaps more important than knowledge of history and languages is the reader's tolerance for …

angst. pain. agony. devastating reminders of prior angst and pain and agony

on the flipside, truly ridiculous antics, hijinks, and capers

many, many kinds of traumatic/potentially triggering content

bias/bigotry that shows up in characters’ perspectives and in general (not that newer media is free of this, but these books are from the 1960s and 70s, for context)

occasional elements that stretch the definition of historical fiction

revelations about your favorite authors’ influences (this was fun)

excessive reference to and description of Lymond’s beauty

half? a third? a large amount of the cast being in love with Lymond. This made for way more queer text than I knew to expect, which was great, but also … oh my god everyone is in love with him

the most bantering banter to ever banter, mostly, but certainly not entirely, courtesy of Lymond

Thanks for asking! If any of this raises more questions, ask again!

related: my lymond recs tag. There are mild and out-of-context spoilers, but these posts all sum up something about the series. :)

[notbecauseofvictories]

By the way, the inspiration for this was a Shen Yun performance, and I swear this Jia Tolentino article was hammering in the back of my head the whole time. It's a good article, but it also made me think about how America has been the refuge of weird splinter religions from the start---and most of whom in the 20st century have used media to conduct outreach. For example, there are ads in '30s pulp magazines for the Rosicrucians' LA branch; the Moody Bible Institute had phenomenal (decidedly creationist) school science videos in the 50s; in the 60s and 70s Pat Robertson (rest in fucking pieces) had CBN and The 700 Club which in turn led to the founding of American-Catholic tv station EWTN. I'm not even getting into the big names objectively associated with "cults", like Heaven's Gate, which leveraged the web as early as the 90s.

Yesterday, paging through the program brought me to an ad for the online "Shen Yun video platform" which feels like a rhyme on all that's come before. I mean, is there anything more quintessentially American than a sleek slick snake oil salesman, trading on all the religion and nationalism we've left lying around?

(Even just the concept of "snake oil" has its roots in American-Chinese-Native relations; one of the first cases the FDA took on was puncturing Clark Stanley's claims that beef fat and turpentine were "Native American" medicines.)

Afterwards, I went home and watched a bunch of youtube videos about Chinese dance: different variants of Mongolian biyelgee, the Yi's flower dance, even some beautiful Uyghur performances, because it came up on my feed and I was fascinated. Ironically, that led me down a rabbit hole---through First Nations/Native American rap; Latvian choral singing; Yemeni Jewish pop music; Chilean fusion. Maybe a song or two from The Hu to round it out.

All this to say....smart is for children, curiosity is forever, and also people should keep making music, writing articles, and doing things, because for good or ill---nothing on this earth is more fascinating to be around.

I do think that my seemingly limitless interest in the world is my best quality. I have other good qualities probably! But I am always, always deeply fascinated by the world and everything in it, such that even a lackluster dance performance can inspire thoughts about making a living as an artist and the creation/performance of identity and communicating meaning as a political act, plus a couple hours spent watching videos of folk dances to try and clear my palate.

[communistkenobi]

Kind off topic from your actual posts but I like when you use the phrase “ceding ground” in an argument. I may have said this before. It’s a little combative which is helpful in terms of thinking about what in the goal of making a certain statement or responding to something someone said.

YES!!!!! it has been so helpful to my understanding of the world to think of all discourse as ‘situated,’ as part of and connected to (contested) social and political contexts. speech is an act that does something in the world. It is why we understand saying “I do” or “I promise” is both a speech and an act, not merely speaking but speaking a social obligation into existence through speech. And we also understand that these words are backed by various forms of power - “I do” as a wedding vow is a speech-act, but one that only has force as a speech-act because the church and the state enshrine marriage legally & institutionally. To say “I do” is to get married, to enter into a social unit (‘the family’ or ‘the household’) that is the foundation of many state administrative and economic processes like census data, tax records, wages, urban planning, social service provisions, and so on. 

And in that context we understand that speech is not just contributing free-floating ideas to some public square or marketplace where we all weigh and measure the merits of each one, but that it is tied to and articulates specific visions of power. When speaking of “biological sex,” this is not an innocent or simple ‘fact’ that is being contested; you are invoking the authority of medical institutions that produce this source of knowledge & all the violences therein. You are invoking justifications for eg US political histories of white women being as legally classified as non-labourers and non-white women as an eternally labouring underclass. You are invoking histories of psychiatric violence that insists transgender people are suffering from behavioural, sexual, and identity disorders. You are invoking the rationale behind medical violence done to intersex people. “Sex is biological” is a violent sentiment because it is produced as knowledge through violence.

And of course many people don’t realise they are doing this, they don’t know these histories, but the principle is generalisable and can be recognised by anyone (hate speech is probably the most ‘classic’ example for guys who love talking about free speech, see also yelling “bomb” in an airport). discourse is historically situated & the refusal to acknowledge this is endlessly frustrating. Like the “Protestant work ethic” didn’t emerge from the ground fully formed one day, it was produced in material processes of history. You don’t just ‘say’ something, you articulate visions of power. And “sex is biological” is a eugenicist, colonial vision of power. That is contested ground and not an inch should be given, not in discourse, not in research, not in policy, not in law

[mrghostrat]

Hello and good morning/day/night :]

I was wondering, in BNF, we’ve gotten tiny little bits of information about the ‘Nice and Accurate Prophecies’ (not sure if that’s the correct title, sorry) book and TV series, if there was anything else you could tell us about it?

Character names, storylines, plots, any fun details you may have made up or otherwise, etc, etc.

I just think it’s sweet how interested both Aziraphale and Crowley are in the series, and if you might be as interested, if not more, in it too.

Thank you, and have a lovely Sunday. 🫶

this is it, my leash has snapped, i'm wild in the streets, thank u for asking; i'm gonna go be insufferable now

(hi @neil-gaiman if you see this, i think it's safe to read, but it does border on being fan fic. i'm writing a fic where crowley and aziraphale are an artist + writer in an online fandom, much like we are for good omens, and this is the fake story i've made for them to be fans of 💛)

The Nice and Accurate Prophecy

info dump of the fake 5 book series by Agnes Nutter (1985-1992) and its fake fandom:

The Nice and Accurate Prophecy

The Strange and Improbable Prophecy

The Vague and Perfidious Prophecy

The Tense and Harrowing Prophecy

The Faint and Ineffable Prophecy

a dramatic, layered story with a bizarre and unexpectedly lovable cast of characters, humour that hits you out of nowhere, and a lot of attitude from the narrator. a la Good Omens, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

fantasy/historical fantasy and mildly action & romance

a la good omens, a witch and a witchfinder become friends and help each other throughout history, despite being on opposite sides. they get closer as they fight against the immoral plays from their prospective sides (the witchfinder army and a demonic cult the witch was born into) that each lose sight of their core values in a bid to hold more power over the world.

the story is set primarily in a medieval fantasy era, but suddenly jumps to the present in the later books, catching everyone off guard and giving a whole new context to enjoy the story. the challenges they face parallel the earlier story but in a modern take with modern technological twists. the modern era is the late 80s, since that's when it was written.

the witch reincarnates, similar to doctor who, due to a high class black magic ritual they performed in their arrogant youth (which they were NOT supposed to have access to). they've had long lifetimes where they die of old age, and others where they've barely managed to live a year. their reincarnations aren't entirely random; they will reincarnate according to their growth and preferences as a person (a la Magical Boy's magical outfit generations), which includes fluctuation in gender identity. their pronouns fluctuate depending on each "face" they wear, but have canonically been a "they" before. the good side of the fandom (crowley & aziraphale) default to they/them as an overall rule. they do have a name, but they like to change that too, so the fandom almost exclusively calls them witch, or witchy.

the witchfinder also has a name, but the fandom have taken to calling him witchfinder to match the fact that witchy is called by their role. it also helps that a lot of the witchfinder narration refers to him by role instead of name. he is human, 30ish in appearance, but at the end of the first book, the witch fears to lose him and curses him with immortality against his knowledge to try and keep him safe.

witch is crowley-coded, witchfinder is aziraphale-coded. my to-do list includes an illustration of the two of them played by michael and david :') but i picture them being kind of like newt and anathema for the most part.

ship names include witch/finder, witchwitch, w² or witch², and witchfound.

at the start of the first book, they meet and become friends without knowing each other is a witch & finder. the witchfinder is a bit bumbly, like newt, and the witch is cool and suave but neurotic and insecure like many human au variations of crowley (major overcompensation vibes). witch is male at the start of the first book. their friendship is secure when witch finds out he's a witchfinder, so there's less "oh my god i'm friends with the enemy, is he going to kill me in my sleep?" and more "ah fuck, Lets Drink About This"

there's battles, horseback riding, camping out in dark woods, disappearing and losing each other for months at a time, and many missed connections as they try to work together against two common enemies, whilst keeping up the facade that they're on their respective team's sides.

there's charged chemistry in the first book, but it's more plot heavy. there's hints of shippy moments in the 2nd book that fall in between the plot. there's a Moment of almost confession in the 3rd book, and a non romantic kiss towards the end (we gotta, for neil). they're pretty much married in the 4th book, securely at each other's side, but never actually talk about it until the end, and there's a more explicitly stated shippy connection in the 5th book.

agnes herself is a total recluse who drops books out of nowhere then goes back to existing somewhere in the english countryside (people presume). she's happy to supply signed copies to fundraisers and conventions, and sometimes random bookshops across the country will be vandalised with genuine autographs on the inside covers. she's notoriously pedantic about being involved with adaptions behind the scenes, but she has no social media and isn't ~around~. she once did a talk when she was presented with an honorary doctorate, and did a single book signing when the first Prophecy book came out, but beyond that she keeps to herself.

there are a small handful of quotes from her in behind-the-scenes footage talking vaguely about character intensions and clarifying world building, but she likes to leave things up to interpretation like neil does. it's in these few snippets of interaction we've seen from her that she's steadfastly supportive of intersectionality and lgbt rights, like staring dead-eyed at an interviewer when they ask her a ridiculously heteronormative question about the characters (like "have you read my books?")

adaptions include:

(most adaptions start like the book, with a male witch at the beginning that turns into a female witch when they first regenerate. the early ones usually change the pacing by switching to a female actor by the time they realise witchfinder is a witchfinder, unlike in the book where he's male for this scene, and there's way less Charged™ chemistry between the m/m witch/finder.)

Feature Film: late 90s, kind of cheesy, but good spirited fantasy (a la Indiana Jones). focuses on the first book alone, with hints to a sequel that never happened.

Abandoned TV Pilot: early 2000s, a little too dramatic but still a good time (a la the Dungeons and Dragons 2000, ASOUE 2004). good source of gifs and Moments™ but the fandom is generally Fine with it being abandoned.

Stage Performance: late 2000s-early 2010s, a stellar stage adaption of the first book with elements of the 90s movie. f/m witch/finder the whole way through. one cast used m/m actors but it was a short run and only a handful of fans were lucky enough to catch or remember it. crowley would give his left arm (or someone's, anyway) to have experienced it, so a fan sent him some flip phone camera footage of it that he keeps on a harddrive in his safe.

HBO Streaming Series: late 2010s-present, high quality, highly revered, resurged the fandom's popularity and spread the series further overseas. made in america, but doesn't try to americanise the series. extremely respectful to the books, with easter eggs to the film, and is working its way through the entire book series (a la The Witcher netflix series). f/m witch/finder, but has had one episode that included some flash backs/montages of different witch faces. probably like 15 minutes total screentime of a male witch played by a ncuti gatwa level/style of actor, which the fandom has giffed, edited, and screencapped to oblivion.

Several bonus books: Agnes has written a few extra books (a la The Unauthorized Autobiography of Lemony Snicket and The Beatrice Letters), as well as curated some anthologies from other authors (a la A Study In Sherlock). there are a total of 3 anthologies so far, in which other authors have written stories about the characters in their own tellings. basically like canonised, published fan fiction, curated and authorised by agnes herself. There's also an unfinished graphic novel that retells the book series (a la The Adventure Zone comic), but has been WIP/unheard of since the 3rd book.

[thebreakfastgenie]

The Hamilton fandom was extremely fun in the beginning. It lasted like a couple weeks but it was fun at first because it was mostly history nerds, some who were already doing hilarious shitposting and hornyposting about founding fathers (some of them persist to this day and they're great) and some who were newcomers because of the musical because it hadn't occurred to them before but who had preexisting interest in history. When we all had a baseline of historical knowledge and context the absurdity of it being founding fathers was the point. It was the same vibe as weird little girls deciding their dolls are historical figures from whatever nonfiction book they read and having them go on crazy doll adventures. But of course the musical was super popular and dragged in a bunch of people who did not know a lot about history and even when they learned the facts (the musical did help with this! a lot of kids looked up figures from American history because of it and read at least wikipedia pages if not actual books) they didn't really synthesize them or put them into context so the vibe of using real figures from American history as dolls was... different. It quickly became the worst fandom I have personally experienced and it deserves the reputation it has now but it was fun once and I hung on in that fandom for quite a while mostly because the early days were so fun.

[trimmedbushproductions]

okay I haven't exactly agreed with Ashton recently either but I think people are getting a little carried away in their reactions to him showing his powers to the Bright Queen

like. correct me if I'm wrong but the Hells know almost nothing about the Luxon or the geopolitical history of the Dynasty aside from what little Essek has mentioned, right? I don't think this was meant specifically as a targeted jab. Ashton just loves showing their powers off, and they especially (as of late) love showing them off to people who might know things about them. they probably get some smug satisfaction from being able to surprise a monarch, but they don't have the context necessary for this to have been done with malicious intent.

and similarly it seems like a rather uncharitable read of the Bright Queen to think she'd immediately kill Ashton, or kidnap him to dissect and study him. like, she's not a monster. maybe if Ashton presented this as a conscious choice he made, with full knowledge of the historical context, she would want him executed. but if they do end up talking later, I'd imagine he's going to tell the truth, and the truth paints him as a benign and very unlikely anomaly - something that worshipers of a being of pure potentiality would probably appreciate, not want to destroy.

[slocumjoe]

I've said before that the synth thing would work better with a McCarthyism allegory, but for Danse specifically, its so similar to autism that it has to be intentional??

Like. The thing that really solidified that Danse in particular is just straight up about autism is Piper's line in Blind Betrayal. Paraphrased, it goes something like, "I mean...yeah, of course he's a synth. It was kind of obvious, wasn't it? I mean, have you heard him talk?"

The autism accent is a concept that seems to be popping up more recently, but its a real thing, and in my own experience, everyone in my life has been able to clock that there was something different about me from my speech. People thought it was weird that I used "adult" words as a kid, and was very technical and exact when speaking. I was often mistaken as being from places like Brooklyn because I had a weird affectation to my voice.

And there's just. This fucking line. "Have you heard him talk?". Piper is also the person who clicked McDonough as a synth. It's worth noting that McDonough and Danse both use words like "rabble".

But seriously.

Danse goes through his life being respected for his work ethic, intelligence, and strong sense of duty and morals, but he never really bonds with anyone, he doesn't make friends. He's respected, not liked. People want to work with him, but the best they have to say about him is about his work. He makes one single friend in his entire life, and never tries again after that guy dies. And no one tries to befriend him. He's their brother. He's not their friend. And he takes his job too seriously as a commanding officer to attempt emotional connection. He apologizes for overstepping on the few occasions he does.

He talks like a thesaurus, and no one is sure if its to sound smarter, or if that's just genuinely how he thinks. It's strongly implied to be the latter. He's incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about various topics. He sounds like a kid on Christmas when you risk life and limb cracking open a vault that's supposed to have riches, but instead, just has some historical items. He throws his Brotherhood prejudice away the moment he finds a farm run by ghouls that uses pre-war structures in a creative way, and scolds you if you do the Brotherhood thing and insult them. He also seemingly forgets that he's in the Brotherhood when meeting a child ghoul, that kid's parents, a shy, insecure ghoul who clings to children's media (despite Danse finding children's entertainment stupid and a waste of time), and Daisy.

And then there's the synth thing.

Danse has always been Danse, but one little word gets attached to him and his life turns upside down. His work ethic is no longer a work ethic, it's viewed as a perversion. His intelligence and manner of speech are no longer of his own merit and education he had to have given himself, they become inevitable, things he had no say in. His existence is both erased and explained by one word, and anything else is irrelevant or in question. People who once respected him want nothing to do with him, because this one word puts him in a context they find unnatural, corrupted, inhuman. There's even something there with the Institute. Autism is (incorrectly) associated with vaccines, the government, science gone wrong. It's a man-made horror.

And then you have the people he gets lumped in with, after being thrown out for this one word. They take schadenfreude in it. This is comeuppance, this is deserved. This one word, something they take pride in or have sympathy for and want to protect, suddenly becomes weaponized. It's a source of pride for others, but for this one person, we're going to use it as punishment. You weren't with us from the start, so now you really are on your own. It's not that there isn't a right way to be this one word, it's just that there's a wrong way, and even if you change accordingly, you will never belong with the rest of us.

Its. Autism is about exclusion, from everyone and everything. Always being an outsider, often too polite or nervous or jaded to even bother looking in. And at every point in Danse's life he didn't belong. He was a rogue synth, so he didn't belong in the Institute. He naturally thrives as a soldier, so he didn't belong as a junk seller in Rivet City. He was a synth and considerably more kind and compassionate than the rest of the BOS, so he didn't belong there. And because he was a BOS soldier and is still working out some bad traits after his exile, he isn't welcomed by the people who he was thrown to. Everywhere he goes, there's a big neon sign over his head that changes to whatever word will ward off everyone around him and he's so used to it, the thing that makes him angriest about being a synth is that he doesn't even have parents. He doesn't even have that connection to the world, of being born into it. There is nothing he can connect himself to beyond the Institute (which he hates) and the Brotherhood (which, if he continues to connect himself to, will drive him to suicide out of sense of duty, and he already agreed to not do that)

Its just. His entire story is one of absolute isolation and the final dickpunch of "You've always hated yourself, right? Good news, here's a reason to kill yourself that's professional and won't illicit pity from your peers, so no one will judge you for doing it or grieve you."

[physalian]

11 Underexplored settings of post-apocalyptic worlds

Inspired once again by my recent binge of abandoned explorations.

The greatest hits of the sprawling city scapes and farmland that feature in everything from post-alien invasions to zombie takeovers to just worlds gone by in a not-so-distant future tend to be:

Generic office buildings

Churches

Schools

Water parks

Suburbs

Famous monuments

Cruise ships

It’s come to my attention though just how many architectural abnormalities there are, in their own current post-apocalyptic states, that would absolutely befuddle archaeologists centuries from now trying to figure out their purposes.

So whether you want to go hard into “this new world has completely forgotten what came before it” or your very own and unique road trip through desolation, here’s some suggestions for cool and/or practical settings!

1. Disney/Iconic Theme Parks

2000 years from now after X disaster strikes, survivors completely removed from historical context stumble upon…. Disney World. They presume Mickey really was a giant mutant mouse, or a mouse-shaped deity worshiped by the local populace (and I mean… are they wrong?). People who might have never left the local area without planes and feasible transport, or knowledge that land across the ocean even exists, might be astounded by the buildings of Epcot’s World Showcase, or any of Disney’s themed resorts.

Water parks are done to death, but not enough emphasis is put onto how bizarre these places would look without context, even to a younger generation that has no idea what it used to be.

Orlando has a hotel with its own rainforest in a massive atrium, with ponds and boats and boardwalks inside. But, you know, I guess strolling through Chicago or New York City is cooler. It may be unfilmable, but it’s not unwritable.

2. The foundations of unfinished construction projects

The remains of an office building that never was, a veritable modern Stonehenge with how little would survive an apocalypse. Inexplicable areas of land with massive pits for unbuilt parking garages, or sprawling swimming pools and lazy rivers.

Or massive, skeletal towers that would have been the monument to a much larger estate that just lost funding. Buildings still surrounded by scaffolding, only half-complete with their windows.

3. Survivor’s encampment landmarked by a monument/hotel/theme park that was never built

In one of those abandoned videos, a company in China was trying to build a discount Disneyland and all that remains is an unfinished Cinderella Castle with steel shells of the gables… behind a modern shopping mall.

Any structure that would have been deeply out of place either in the country it’s built in, or the newer buildings that surround it, immediately looks more creative than just ‘generic strip mall’ or ‘generic high school’. And it’s also realistic, as projects like this fall through constantly, as a unique piece of your worldbuilding. Or, it did have its run as whatever the strange building was part of, and through bankruptcy and selling the land around it, it ends up being the only structure that remains.

4. Hotels that are made up as if the staff vanished instantaneously

Or, many, many Covid victims. Having your characters scrounge for resources through a hotel with beds still made, coffee cups on the breakfast tables, serving spoons and plates ready to go by the buffet. Halloween, Christmas, or Valentine’s decorations still on display.

The schedules for the final week of business still hanging in the offices, unopened mail, packages for guests still in the mail room, pallets of new soaps and supplies still in the delivery bay from the distribution center, linens still in the industrial dryers. I worked in a hotel scheduled for eventual demolition and the disrepair the interior fell into because, what’s the point of managing mold and bed bugs when it’s all getting gutted anyway, makes it super creepy knowing guests are completely clueless on the other side.

Places that have been completely ransacked and destroyed are creepy, sure, but places that are almost frozen in time despite the decay around them are both eerie, and rather dark. Cruise ships/confined spaces like ships tend to be used more for horror, but these, too, as if they’re frozen in time.

5. Cargo ships/shipping yards

An easy-ish one to film in. Looters breaking open shipping containers, or building entire communities and homes out of those containers either on land, or on the barges and ships. A community that can weigh anchor and move once resources and scavenging dries up, or another violent group moves in on the land.

Or, in the case of a viral apocalypse, a community relatively spared from the violence out on the open ocean.

6. IKEA/Furniture Warehouses and DC’s

Warehouses especially have few entries and fewer windows to secure, but as their contents (except the showroom floor) are in mint condition at the time of the world ending and probably stored in plastic and crates, they’d be relatively spared from the elements as a good base camp.

Furniture is also too heavy to loot in a panic and absconding with a brand new mattress probably wouldn’t be at the top of people’s minds as doomsday approaches.

Your little community each having their own lavish living spaces with whatever eclectic furniture they either liked or could now get their hands on for free would just be cool to read about.

7. Penthouse suites

Climbing those stairs would suck and depending on the build quality, the safety of the structure over time would degrade, but maybe your community has manual cranks for the elevators. There might be one way down, but there’s also only one way up, and you can see invaders and catastrophe coming for miles.

These places tend to be dripping in luxury your characters might otherwise have never experienced and they could either make a base there, or have a grand old time trashing the place up because the rich are dead and gone.

8. Historical forts

They lasted this long, why not a few centuries more? The fort that comes to mind is the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida, right on the beach with a built-in defense wall and a huge courtyard for your community of plucky survivors.

Castles, too, though they’d likely be prime real estate for all manner of interested parties. Aging, famous forts are just never in these types of stories, unless it’s a picture of where the military used to be, now overrun or destroyed.

9. Ski resorts

Similar to the made-up hotels and theme parks, this one comes with presumably multiple buildings, potential use of the slopes and ski transports, isolation via elevation and remoteness from major cities, and the threat of bitter winters and blizzards.

Never been to one myself in winter, but remote locations for a post-apocalypse story tends to just be shorthand for “generic farm or small town,” which isn’t super immersive.

10. Luxury malls

Seen in The Last of US, it gives you a microcosm of so many different environments all slapped together and there’s no limit on what kinds of stores you could include, or all the kiosks, all the mini attractions like trampolines, kiddie parks, massage tables, and even VR flight simulators.

Maybe it has a theater tacked onto it, or a double-story book store, one of those rental spaces dedicated to fancy cars or candy stores. Great for the main setting or even just passing through, especially as they’re already a dying breed you can go ham with. ‘Luxury’ and designer items collecting dust right across from the discount store with everything for under &14.99 could strike a powerful message about social constructs.

11. Science museums

Sure you can make some poignant message about priceless artwork being left to rot, or. When I was a kid, I went to a science center with natural disaster simulators like house fires and tornadoes and a whole-ass IMAX theater where I saw Night at the Museum, the only movie I’ve ever seen in a proper IMAX dome.

There was a whole kids section with a ropes course, area for exploring the human body, a NASA-sponsored mock up space module, mock up grocery store, and little exhibits here and there about optical illusions and the physics behind laying on a bed of nails and how it doesn’t kill you. It’s just something unique and fun that your characters can interact with and gives them plenty to play off and give little anecdotes to make them feel more human.

—

Point is, your post-apocalypse doesn’t have to be limited to the usual suspects. We’ve all seen the strip malls and Walmarts and suburban homes and farms. There is no special effects budget or filming restraint in a book and I’d love to read more stories set in unique and descriptive places, or just fresh takes on your standard survival camp that isn’t just “build a wall around a section of neighborhood”.

It’s the apocalypse. All real estate becomes free real estate.

[knarme-art]

Kxayltirey Lore Dump

One day there may be a cleaner explanation on this one. This is a kind of a draft laying out the basics.

I also talk a little about my characters so you can read about them with the context of their history.

Kxayltirey are my na'vi fan clan consisting of a subspecies of na'vi I call the 'arboreals', - short, dark na'vi with prehensile tails. They descend from a close common ancestor with rainforest na'vi, but specialized to life in heights, like floating mountains and cliffs etc. (Just like the rainforest na'vi, - they can still live just fine in other habitats as well. Just like there are rainforest Na'vi who live in the plains, like Olangi or Zeswa, - there are arboreal na'vi who live in places not "typical" to their kind. Their small size and darker colors make them well-suited to life in deep dense rainforests as well.)

Early Kxayltirey (several millenia old)

Once upon a time, a tribe of flying nomads settled to this mosaic of varied habitats, connected by gigantic vines. These massive superorganisms of a plant that they were, became the homes of most Kxayl.

The vines, the biggest of them becoming the central hub of all Kxayl society, connected three distinct habitats, - the Floating Mountains, the Plateau and the Gorge Forest.

Kxayl specialized and developed local distinct subcultures based on which habitat they lived in, but the vines brought them together as one people, sharing their resources together.

This peaceful time period perhaps saw its smaller conflicts, - but nothing like what came next...

Imperial Occupation (300 years)

The sky people were not the first people to ever touch Pandora who had succumbed to a lifestyle that drained the resources of its environment. This was an unusual, dark time period on this particular corner of Pandora, - as a few power-hungry na'vi empires unlike anything seen before, arose to bloody competition with one another.

One such empire, whose rulers had banned their own people from studying the historical knowledge of their ancestors, - to be able to stay in their power and to justify their rule, - arrived to the Kayltirey lands as occupiers.

They used gas-producing large plants to create explosions. They came flying ikran, having specialized mostly to fight other ikran-riding peoples.

The Floating Mountains Kxayl fell first. Their culture to this day is almost gone. Their cultural attire became the basis for the modern Kxayltirey ikran rider's "uniform", since these people were all forced to become warriors for the empire if they weren't killed.

Plateau Kxayl were divided to those who sided with the occupation to gain a favorable position in it and to climb its ranks, and to those who rebelled. This resulted in a civil conflict between the rebels and those who served the empire. The rebels lost. The empire-serving Plateau folk gained a lot of power over other Kxayl during this time period, and many advantages compared to the rest who were turned into an underclass to serve their new overlords.

Gorge Forest Kxayl were impossible to conquer. Why so? Their biodiverse rainforest habitat made them the most self-sufficient and least exploitable of all Kxayl. They also lived in an environment the occupants weren't well-versed to move or fight in. The Gorge Forest people found friends in several other clans, like the thanator-riding Anurai who were also in trouble with the Empire. They learned the arts of thanator bonding from the Anurai during this time period.

Connection to Eywa, - then and now Most Na'vi, including Kxayltirey before the occupation, have always had an access to their ancestor's memories and knowledge, which has kept many na'vi societies away from developing extremely corrupt prover structures and cultivated a sustainable relationship with their environment.

In this old empire, a different way had taken place. In this way, regular folk could not access Soul Trees at all outside of strictly controlled ceremonies the Tsahik and her scholars supervised. This is how the rulers censored historical information and even fed revised history right into the brain of the people.

Occupied Kxayl were forced out of their old ways by their overlords. The memories of their ancestors, especially those who recorded the crimes of the occupants and those who served them, still live within Eywa. The memories of those who were persecuted, are still there, but were made inaccessible by this gatekeeping.

Gorge Forest folk were able to keep their old ways, connection to Eywa and communion with their ancestors.

The Mountains and Plateau folk were forced to adopt the empire's ways with Eywa, still carried on by their Tsahik's lineage.

Post-occupation Period (roughly 150 - 200 years?)

As all empires fall, so did this one who ruled over the Kxayl...

Several Kxayl whose ancestors had kept resisting the empire, rose their voices about dismantling the warped, barred relationship to Eywa the empire had cultivated.

Unfortunately, those Kxayl who had betrayed their own to serve the empire, had other ideas. They quite liked the power and resources they had over others, and knew that a real revolution could soon cost them their own heads as well.

To ensure their survival and continued dominance, these Kxayl who once served their colonizers, launched a campaign to purge anyone who resisted their rule. This is what cemented their new rule and a luxurious lifestyle maintained by the subjugated people who would now be born, live and die knowing nothing else.

The new Kxayl ruling class created a lie. They claimed they liberated the Kxayl from the old Empire. (actually they inherited the throne from it) They claimed that this is why everyone else (often descenants of the actual rebels) owed them their gratitude and servitude. The free Kxayl could not be so free, after all...

Folks in the Outskirts (common name for all the more distant Kxayl villages in the Plateau and the Mountains) have retained a sustainable relationship with the land, but have local Tsahik's scholars who control their access to the Soul Trees.

Kxayltirey lands are literally haunted! The repressed memories of traumatized ancestors who never got justice, haunt the whole lands. Through Eywa, they inflict bizarre events through the plant and animal life of the region. They inflict events that cause disappearances of people, abnormally and dangerously behaving "possessed" animals and other such events.

Compromised ecosystem The rulers of the Kxayl have their people harvest a lot of materials from their lands to trade with other clans for various products and materials, mostly to cultivate their luxurious, detached lifestyle that doesn't respect where everything they have, comes from.

This complicates the ecosystems of the Kxayl plateau and Mountains especially around the smaller villages in the Outskirts whose people are losing their livable lands the fastest. These people are often forced to send their young to the Upper plateau to serve as Ikran warriors or in other professions to secure the survival of themselves and their families.

Gorge Forest Folk Said Bye The Gorge Forest people are a completely separate tribe at this point. Hostility between the tribes is mutual and neither wants to mess with the other. Gorge Forest people carry the knowledge of everything that happened in the past, and consider Plateau society's story a great tragedy.

The Plateau Kxayl view Gorge Forest people and most other na'vi as "driven insane by the voices in Eywa". This is yet another lie by the Tsahik's lineage to bar the knowledge of their crimes from the people, to protect the status quo.

Who is Kxasi?

Kxasi is born to a village in the partially forested lower plateaus called Talioang'ri (a wordplay from 'Sturmbeest Watch').

He is very much an Outskirts dweller, carrying mixed cultural heritage from Gorge Forest and Plateau folk. The lifeways of his village are more indigenous than those in the central upper Plateau, but have also lost their old connection to Eywa. Kxasi has never bonded to a Soul Tree on his own, - he has only known the ceremonies where the Tsahik's scholar controls the information and spoonfeeds fake history to people.

Kxasi's hairstyle is considered an archaic style of the Gorge Forest people, usually only worn by old people of his village. Most young villagers adopt the tied-up side-shaved styles typical to Upper Plateau, to one day fit in there. Kxasi is an exception to this, as he doesn't change this even when he moves to the Upper plateau to become an Ikran Rider.

People in Talioang'ri village are extremely competitive, since they have shame about their "lower status" in the Upper plateau high society. Most want to prove themselves as well as secure good futures for their families by advancing in the Kxayl hierarchy.

Kxasi is a bit of an oddball, - as he has always been a "nerd" massively uninterested in in his peers and mostly having been invested in impressing teacher and mentor figures in his life. He approaches his Ikran Warrior journey from the POV of "wanting to be fucking awesome" (besides the more material interest of his family's benefit) and he wants to do this all showing off who he is and what he's proud of.

Kxasi isn't about fitting in, but he's very much about "winning". His self-worth and identity are very strongly built around being better than, - so everything is competition in his mind. Kxayltirey society produces many as bitterly competitive individuals as Kxasi is, with high material stakes, so you can only imagine how much drama and bloodshed there will be.

Due to the competitive culture in his village, and also his own asocial nature, - Kxasi is often described in many unflattering ways by his peers. He likes to be admired but usually just doesn't like people very much unless they are Special TM and he looks up to them / considers them better than himself.

Nantangven, a high-ranking Ikran Warrior commander reduced to a humiliating role of a teacher of Ikran-N00bs, really catches Kxasi's eye as a "special one". They have an intense and extremely unprofessional relationship to one another. Kxasi makes Nantangven's life... Quite interesting. ;) (both characters are adults! Nantangven is basically a butch lesbian dilf....) (Yes, Nantangven is also an unusual oddball in the Upper Plateau, - his mother was one of the last Anurai, so he's a rainforest/arboreal na'vi hybrid and therefore taller than everyone else. He also retains his Gorge Forester father's hairstyle. He gained his position by immense skill and effort, which invites a lot of jealousy from the Upper Plateau nepotism babies among the Ikran Commanders.) (Yes, Kxasi adores him for not being a coward and for being truly skilled yet underappreciated... Nantangven has many qualities marking him as Kxasi's favorite person ever!)

Kxasi's Ikran Warrior Arc is followed by.... Him gaining a disability that makes ikran riding impossible to him, and forever renders him unable to compete for a life he finds respectable. In this emptiness he discovers, he has no real community anywhere. However... He just so happens to fall into the Gorge Forest... And a new transformative journey begins.

(His relations with Nantangven have a sour and tragic turn eventually... Oofsie oofs)

(Old!Kxasi is a VERY radically different person from the young adult one... I'm really excited to share him too, but not yet..)

Genderwhat? You may notice I use 'he' when referring to these characters. However, they are not men. Kxayltirey society historically has a gender concept for what would be their version of gender-nonconforming people. One of these concepts is analogous to what butch women and transmasculine folk represent in our world.

While historically these people have been respected and accepted in Kxayl society, they face the most stigma in the Upper Plateau where the ruling class tries to enforce strict gender roles and heterosexuality onto people. (Within the upper class itself the control is the strongest, while in the Plateau regular folk you'll find many different kinds of attitudes, bot acceptance and prejudice).

I call Kxasi and Nantangven botch 'butch' as well as 'lesbian', - and they have a masculine homoerotic dynamic.

There are plants of Pandora that can be used to hijack endorcine systems, and many na'vi use these to either masculinize or feminize their physique. So, HRT is a thing, among any other medicine derived from nature. Both Kxasi and Nantangven have gone through some masculinizing endorcinal treatment, but both have visible breasts. Kxasi doens't mind his own, Nantangven has a mixed and nuanced relationship to his. (Nantangven is very much a 'stone'-adjacent butch, due to physical dysphoria reasons. Kxasi is nondysphoric.)

[openphrase123]

hey hi hi i've read everything of curtain call (except, obviously, what hasn't been posted yet) and i HAVE to ask you to share your lost country/skywatcher language thoughts so i can devour them immediately please.

hiiiiiiii so like 90% of the language worldbuilding i did for curtain call was like. very simple sentences and words since i didn't want to make an entire conlang for this fanfiction. what i have written in-fic would fall apart in two seconds if i tried to expand it to any of the lines outside of what i wrote. HOWEVER i have a lot of thoughts about how it WOULD work if it had the capacity to expand outward

putting under a readmore both for curtain call spoilers and because this is going to get long and insufferable for anyone except ME

also if you're not reading curtain call. this is still a fun little analysis about how siffrin's native language influences their behavior. you might have fun with it wheeeee just know that the actual language i'm talking about is not canon. i made it up.

disclaimer: i speak a couple of languages but my knowledge of languages is VERY limited to what i know. so you're going to see a lot of instances of me calling back to japanese or other english dialects. other languages exist and also have these features but i'm just not gonna say anything if i'm not sure of what i'm saying. if you are interested in these concepts in a more academic setting i am NOT the place to find that

second disclaimer: in curtain call, the name for qilaksut comes from greenlandic/kalaalisut which is an endangered indigenous language. this is an open invitation to go learn who, historically, lived in and supported the land you're living on. consider supporting them whatever way you can.

number ONE. dude is it that serious??

nah.

again, i built this for like ten sentences out of a 100k+ fic. so like. there's some inconsistencies, there's some weird stuff. and i know i could have just written all of the curtain call qilaksut in english but italicized, there would have been nothing wrong with that. but i did not because i thought it would be a good exercise in character exploration

because the language you speak has some measure of how you act and carry yourself in the world. (sorry elizabeth if you're reading this. i'm not going full noam chomsky i swear i don't believe in linguistic determinism i'm using this as a literary device) and since siffrin is the only speaker of the forgotten language we see (loop never engages with that in-game as much) and i was a little bit like. okay. why is he like that. how much of that is siffrin and how much of that is the home they don't know

in odile's friendquest she remarks that she only finds similarity in herself within vaugarde because vaugarde is so welcoming to travelers. however odile never went to vaugarde until she was an adult - siffrin presumably lived on the island until he was a teenager, and your personality is fairly Formed by then (at least enough for people to put iterations on it in adulthood) so as much as i could have gone the route of "siffrin it's okay that you don't see yourself in your past" i thought for the themes of this fic it made more sense to go "oh THAT'S why siffrin is Like That"

so as you're reading through this: yes i'm worldbuilding language. but MOSTLY as a siffrin character study. okay! okay.

number TWO. situational meanings.

so ✦‧₊ is "you" and ✧‧₊ is "me/i". but "hello" is ❇✧ which - hang on, isn't that the word for universe and me? no, actually, there's no pronoun suffix (‧₊ denotes when a person is being talked about) so in this context ✧ means "inside". which means ✦ means "outside" in some contexts.

(but harrie, why does "hello" mean "inside universe"?? well i imagine it's the difference between older medieval greetings and the modern "hi". languages morph and drift. this kind of just suggests that without me having to write an Entire Language Family Background. probably a shortening of some corny shit like "within the universe i find you" or whatever. semantic drift.)

and part of the reason i did that was for unicode constraints - there are only unicode characters that look like stars. but the other half is because in japanese and i THINK also in chinese each character has a few different meanings. take 本, in japanese. it has a lot of meanings on its own but let's look at it in situational context. 本棚 is bookshelf. 本物 means real. 本土 is mainland.

so in qilaksut i think these kinds of multi-use words are common. ERGO. why siffrin has trouble thinking of very situational words in vaugardian. if your native language is built up of tangential mnemonic connections, of course you're going to have trouble remembering the word kiln!!

number THREE. reduplication and repetition

take the phrase "✦‧₊ »»⟢" from ch10. in my head, » means "fast" and doubling it gives you "really fast". this happens in AAVE (e.g. "he's RICH rich") and japanese (there is an entire kanji expressly used as a repetition mark so that you don't have to draw complicated kanji twice, it's 々(noma) and as an example, person is 人 but people is 人々)

reduplication is slightly different from this but i think it shows up for words like »», where you're not literally saying the word twice but the vowels double themselves. kind of in a trilling way. i actually say this in inutile and not curtain call but i think the Siffrin Accent wavers a lot and feels like a twinkling star. because i think it's cute

alsooo repetition. wish craft. do u see the vision

number FOUR. pronouns and clusivity

i don't get into the he/she/they or any other third person pronouns in the fic because. well i think the lost country would go so hard on pronouns. there are child pronouns. adult pronouns. pronouns denoting somebody's job or status. hell loop is SO casual about offering to use the "royal we" i genuinely think pronoun usage in the lost country is more tied to interpersonal relationships than gender. but of course that plays a role too

because i think there's a huge amount of gender concoction you could brew in there. i think it would be really fun if siffrin uses he/they because in qilaksut siffrin is mainly referred to as the neutral pronoun mashed together with the masculine one. i think that would be fun.

and then for funsies. clusivity. i definitely think there is a difference between "we" (me+one other person, excluding you) and "we" (me+others+you) in qilaksut. would be fun if this is why siffrin automatically assumes they're getting excluded from things. "where is the vaugardian inclusive we and why has nobody said it to me???"

number FIVE. structure

i don't have a lot of Full Sentences in qilaksut in the fic but in general it follows the pattern place - > noun - > adjective - > verb. and you might be going "harrie, you weeb, that's japanese again" well. i didn't want it to be like french or english. and that's the one i know. so. shut up!!!!

"well why can't it be the same syntax as vaugardian then?" i'm glad you asked. i wanted it to feed again more into the idea that siffrin is more susceptible to getting "lost" in a conversation. hard to focus when your normal syntax anchors are not there!!

but at the same time. i write siffrin as a polyglot in curtain call. they're pretty equipped to learn and absorb new languages. once you learn a second language, in general, your third/fourth/fifth gets easier

number SIX. things i can't do in the fic except for once or twice because of unicode restrictions

well i could do it ONCE. with two sentences that are coming up in tomorrow's chapter: but i think in qilaksut writing, changing the rotation/orientation of the word also changes the meaning. slight spoilers for tomorrow's chapter but siffrin has two ways of saying "love you" for two different people - for odile, it's ❥✦‧₊ and for isabeau it's ❤✦‧₊

this isn't for any particular reason, i just think it's neat in the context of how i do names and titles for the rest of the fic. getting called different names based on your relationship to somebody, using altered terms of endearment for someone. two extra rotations of the heart could exist in theory so one of them is probably "loving your kid" and the other issss i dunno. maybe a closer platonic love nearer to a qpr or something. or what you use for your parents/guardians or your betters. i didn't think that far!!

also word opposites. ✷ doesn't have another version with just the lines, but that means "yes" and i think a hollowed out version of that would mean "no." obviously the ✦/✧ shift goes here too. and i think the inverse of ✪ (little) would mean big. but i couldn't find those in unicode so they do not exist in this fic oops

if you made it this far into the post. hi. thank you for reading :) that was probably a lot more than you were asking for. i won't apologize. anyway this post doesn't even TOUCH how i do name stuff in the fic but that also feeds into this. (and the name stuff was something i took out of an old dnd campaign anyway) (of which i have a DIFFERENT altered version for my original fiction but shhhh)

[txttletale]

Hi! I have a question to ask you, someone who seems well versed in Marxism and its philosophy, over something that personally confuses me: is there a meaningful difference between materialism and objectivity? The way I've seen the former explained usually just makes me go "Oh, so it's really just about being objective", so I don't really understand why we need another term for it.

i actually think that there is -- at least in the marxist sense of materialism -- a huge gap between being 'materialist' and being 'objective'. a big part of the historical materialist rejection of idealism is the rejection of the idea of timeless, objective truth independent of its observer and context: as engels puts it in socialism: utopian & scientific:

As each one’s special kind of absolute truth, reason, and justice is again conditioned by his subjective understanding, his conditions of existence, the measure of his knowledge and his intellectual training, there is no other ending possible in this conflict of absolute truths than that they shall be mutually exclusive of one another.

the marxist perspective is inherently suspicious of objectivity, because the marxist analysis of society is cognizant of class struggle. because the goals of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (or the king and the peasant, or the slaveholder and the slave) are diametrically opposed, there is very little that can be said to be 'universal', because the system of values that benefits one class is to the detriment of the other. marx summarizes this thusly in the german ideology:

For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones.

so the basic premise of historical materialism is that ideas (i.e. 'truths') arise from the material conditions in which they are developed. there is no such thing as an objective perspective because every perspective is situated historically in a particular time and place and set of social relations. claims to 'objectivity', then, are at best suspect, staking a claim to universality that erases class divisions and historical context.

marxism is not an 'objective' framework--it is proletarian, built from the standpoint of the working class and imperialised peoples around the world, and built upon and adapted for dozens of different historical circumstances by different leaders and thinkers. materialism is in opposition to the notion of objectivity, then, because materialism recognizes that all ideas (even one's own conception of materialism!) are ideas that stem out of dialectical interplay between not only previous ideas but the material and social conditions of the people who have those ideas. ideas and thoughts cannot be 'objective', under the materialist view, because to separate them from the context in which they arose is to distort and falsify them in the pursuit of universality.

[pomefioredove]

so yesterday I theorized that the fae in twst could be french, possibly breton inspiration, and was mercifully corrected by @tresgansosenunabrigo who actually knows things about french folklore unlike meee

we had a really good talk, which breathed life into a thought of mine about Briar Valley being parallel to ancient Irish mythology, that I had brushed off as insane months ago

some of the following is an old essay that I wrote, that I now find very very... um, incomplete at best, incorrect at worst. I've done my best to put out something more accurate, relevant, and interesting

but, for the sake of this essay: this is only for speculative purposes in the context of fiction. I am only drawing small parallels, and this is not a theory. I am not a teacher. I am not claiming to know everything. I'm just some guy who reads

a brief forward:

my credentials are "religious studies major" and not much else. I am not Irish, nor am I pagan, and my knowledge/study in Irish mythology is very secondary to Catholicism. I have been close to and spoken to a handful of experts within the field but am not one myself.

furthermore, I look to old/historical sources for knowledge, and reject eclectic and appropriative wiccan ideas. this has been a seven year long labor of love, but I'm still not perfect, and continue to sift through my sources every day. The misinformation that eclectics have created about Irish mythology have made way into books, into articles, into common belief, so it is, in fact very difficult not to internalize misinformation. I'm trying </3

and I am begging anyone in this field to correct any mistakes I make.

additionally I've only read a little bit of book 7 so I may be totally crazy. this is just a speculative piece, after all.

a glossary of knowledge:

for the purpose of this essay, I may use "fae" as an umbrella term, which includes pixies, medieval French fae, the aos sí, and the Tuatha de Danann*

*please note that the Tuatha de were gods in their original sources, but were changed to fairies, other supernatural beings, and occasionally kings in later Catholicized retellings.

I will be focusing most on ancient beliefs, with vague mentions of medieval/post-Catholicism ones. Catholicism is extremely important in the context of these stories, as it was the Catholic monks who preserved them in written form, and it's quite literally impossible not to mention. it's had a huge influence.

etc.

when talking about folklore, mythology, or religion, it's literally impossible to draw definite lines. it's why I hate when people say "well this religion stole this thing!" because religions intermingle, they share, they swap, they sometimes even meld with each other into something unique. ever-changing and different and the same. the Romans adopted their beliefs from the Greeks, and they shared gods with the Gauls, and then Christianity used the image of Jupiter as God. a big part of being a history major is understanding how to draw connections between cultures and peoples.

Admittedly, I am not familiar with the French idea of fae. I know that it is medieval. post-Christianity. it's a fairly loose term that denotes a "magical woman, skilled with words, herbs and stones" (via Wikipedia) and not much else. this is relevant to the Sleeping Beauty story, in which all the fairies are women. Maleficent's guards are not fairies, but ghouls (is that the right word?). I couldn't tell you the exact origin of French fairies, but it's not far-fetched to say they could have had "Celtic"* influence

*in reference to more than one culture in this context. scottish, manx, welsh, irish, etc

It is, perhaps, more important to add that French fairies are romantic figures in nature. very... fairy-tale esque. characters such as the fairy godmother and the good fairies in Perrault's version of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are good examples of this.

TWST fae... are... a little different. obviously. while it may be easy to simply argue that "it's twisted, so they're darker" or "Briar Valley is based off Maleficent's domain so of course it's dark", it's implied (and shown!) that good entities come from Briar Valley, too. pixies exist in TWST, for example. then there are the good fairies from Sleeping Beauty, which have to exist alongside Maleficent in the canon of TWST. The fae here are layered, much more so than in their sources.

This is where I start seeing shit.

war, weapons, and invasion

When speculating on the influence of French folklore in Briar Valley, I was told that "war" is a rather uncommon thing in their stories. Invasion is, of course, an imperative theme in Briar Valley history, in Lilia's background, and in book 7 as a whole. So. I get thinking.

The war between the fae and the humans carries significant parallels to the war between the Tuatha de Danann and the humans in the Lebor Gabála Érenn, the Book of Invasions, wherein the "fae" and the humans warred over land and resources until the former were driven out of Ireland and the humans became the ancestors of the modern Irish. And by "parallels" I mean this exact thing happens. THE EXACT THING. The Book of Invasions was literally the first thing I thought about when in Lilia's dream.

War is, of course, a recurring theme in Irish mythology. Ná Morríghan is associated with war, there's that entire book of invasions, like, anything about Cú Chulainn, etc.

I also, very quickly, want to draw a comparison between Lilia's magearm and the four treasures of the Tuatha de Danann, which are described in literature such as the Lebor Gabála and Cath Maige Tuired (iirc). magical weaponry is a fairly common motif in various Celtic mythologies. in Irish mythology, it's the Spear of Lugh, and various swords, clubs, etc. The magearm just struck the same chord for me.

nature

I fear this is about to get very ~ohooo magical pagan connection to nature!~ please bear with me.

The mythology of Ireland is very, very, very tied to the land. You can still see this today, actually. Various natural formations- hills, islands, etc- have mythological names. Much like Olympus in Greek mythology, places mentioned in Irish mythological sources have real-world counterparts, such as Tech Duinn, the House of the Dead, being Bull Rock- a tiny island off the coast of Cork (cool post about that and the ancient Irish belief in death here). Trees had important religious, cultural, and linguistic (see: Ogham) connotations. Many of the Tuatha de had animalistic attributes and associations, such as Morríghan and crows. Even more were associated with fertility and agriculture, which was kind of a big deal. Symbols that which represent fertility, are rather common motifs (such as the Lia Fáil on the Hill of Tara, which I've read is theorized to be phallic).

That's not even mentioning the oceans, the cliffs, the forests, or the sidhe (a "fairy mounds", manmade or natural features that connect our world to the otherworld of Irish mythology).

At multiple points in Lilia's dream do we hear the fae talk about how important nature is to fae. I am unsure if this strong love for land is a theme in French folklore.

I also want to briefly point out that, in reputable sources, the "Celtic" day began at sunset. Darkness- night, winter, cold- were important to the ancient Irish, both in culture and in mythology. It's probable that their "New Year" began at Samhain (soh-wen), the holiday that celebrated the beginning of winter, to put it briefly. Here's a discussion post about this (and I sent this ask!!!!)

I just find the significance of darkness and night to hold some ground with the concept of "nocturnal fae" in TWST. "Night's blessing's", they say.

form

I also want to add, very quickly, that there are multiple different iterations of "fairies" in Irish mythology and folklore. The Tuatha de resemble humans. The modern aos sí are more mystical. The Fomorians (whom are or are not fairies, depending on who you ask?) are described as more animalistic and monstrous. The nature of fae in TWST is unclear, but they read, to me, as human-like with different abilities, different physical attributes, and a different connection to land and nature. Which is, in form, similar enough to the "fae" of Irish (and other Celtic) folklore.

Lilia

Head in hands. Shall we talk about the importance of the paternal figure in Irish mythology. I feel I have to.

I really really hate saying the word "fertility" so much because I start sounding like a Wiccan, I promise I'm going somewhere with this.

In the Nature segment, I briefly touched on the importance of fertility and the phallic symbol. I know that usually, when talking about ~fertility~ in reference to paganism, people are talking women/goddesses, but throughout my readings of Irish mythology, I've found that male fertility is just as important. More specifically, fatherhood. I, unfortunately, couldn't find much input on this, but I think it's safe to say that The Dagda, for example, is considered an important father figure and is associated with fatherhood.

It's just important.

Head in hands again. Now let's talk about fostering. Fosterage was, by most sources, a really big thing in ancient Ireland. Raising someone else's child, including that of your enemy, was not only acceptable, not only common, but traditional. And the themes of fosterage exist in the mythos, too- in Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne, the demi-god Diarmuid was fostered by Aengus Og. Aengus Og was also fostered. Fosterage is a theme in Cú Chulainn's story, so on and so forth. The gods/fae/etc foster humans, they foster demi-gods, they foster other gods.

I wanted to mention both of these as important themes in both Irish mythology and Lilia's story because like. come onnn lol.

And One More Thing!!!

This isn't super relevant to this essay, I just like to bring it up: Lilia is vampiric? Well, there's vampires in Irish folklore (or close enough, anyway. the link gives a few different versions of the story and their origins). Some think that Abhartach was actually the true inspiration behind Bram Stoker's Dracula. I don't know how much credibility this theory has, I've read a few essays on it. I just think this is fun.

Silver

Much of what I said in Lilia could be said here, too. All I really want to bring up is the symbolism of acorns. I've mentioned that certain trees had mythological connections, and the oak tree was. Um. A big one. It's a recurring theme, past, and present. Even the "Celtic Tree of Life" is an oak. I don't know, it's just important.

I could also draw some pretty stark comparisons between the story of Fionn mac Cumhaill, a heroic figure in Irish Mythology, and Silver, but that would be a bit much.

Sebek

Half-god and half-human heroes, fae, whatever etc are very much present and important in Irish mythology. That's all I can think of for now.

Malleus

I suppose I could, if I tried very hard, find something to say about Malleus, but this is where the ~medieval Europe~ starts to seep in. I am unaware of any dragons or dragonlike creatures in Irish, or other Celtic, myth.

Nobility is, however, a major theme in Irish mythology. There are many rules, there are laws, there are gods and goddesses of sovereignty, it's huge, and sort of parallels Diasomnia's structure, in a strange way. I'd need to know how their housewarden is chosen, lmao.

conclusion

Do I think the TWST writers have an intimate knowledge of ancient Irish mythology and are purposefully making allusions to drive me insane specifically? no. obviously not. is it possible that these myths have influenced the general idea of fae, and thus were included in the writing process unconsciously? yes. absolutely!

Ultimately, this is more of a thought exercise and an analysis than a theory. Take it as you will.

so on and so forth.

[gladiusveritatis]

There has been a great deal of discussion about what would appeal to the character of William James Moriarty—what dishes he would enjoy, which types of tea he would favor, how he would sleep, and so on. But let’s focus instead on what he would not like.

The desire to live in aesthetics—have you ever considered how utopian and absurd it is, how pro-capitalist it is, thereby representing a piece of the foundation for class inequality? In our time, every "aesthetic" is nothing more than a consumption product, as everyone who wishes to be part of it is not an innovator but a consumer. It represents the final stage not just of the capitalist social structure but of fading thought. People are divided not only into masculinity and femininity, classes, but into entire groups defined by a particular "aesthetic," which in turn fosters stereotyping and limited thinking.

When we see someone in a classic outfit with the hashtag "dark academia," we automatically assume they represent a developed member of society. Do not mistake my words—this is not about individuals but the bubble they stand under, unknowingly supporting. Many of us are familiar with Donna Tartt’s widely acclaimed novel, "The Secret History." This book did not fulfill its purpose. Fans of the book like to argue and say that it satirizes the romanticization of bourgeois pseudo-intellectual lifestyles—yet it failed to do so. Each of Tartt’s books, which has become a symbol of the "dark academia" aesthetic wave, was not written to embed ideas in the masses but rather for mindless consumption.

The need to "aestheticize" has led to the aestheticization and exploitation of religions, books, writers, incorrect historical facts, and misguided interpretations of literature.

In the term "dark academia," there is a lot of darkness and very little "academia," because currently, the books associated with this category do not provide food for thought. It has become more about ties and suits, shirts and chessboards. No, you can’t be both Albert Camus and Fyodor Dostoevsky—have you actually read their works? Have you delved into their contexts, the conditions under which they wrote, and, most importantly, the historical periods they were writing in? Where they were born and what influenced them? Clearly, no.

And this is where the pursuit of so-called "aestheticism" becomes a catastrophe. It is not done for the sake of knowledge, which should always be shared—bringing something to society. It is done for a couple of photos, a few videos, and a few out-of-context quotes from books.

The very popularization of a book that has clearly failed to achieve its purpose, along with the continued use of "prominent" names in Russian literature, stands as evidence of my argument. This wave of aestheticization is nothing more than yet another elegant veil of pseudo-intellectualism.

This is precisely why I cannot take seriously the fans of William who present themselves in this manner. William would never have appreciated all this decorative frippery; he would have condemned it outright.

[spiderbitesandvampirevenom]

sorry if you've already answered this (i searched ur blog) but if it's okay to ask, do you have any recommended readings for modern marxism (with a racism or colonialism lense)?

ok so prefacing this real quick I am high as hell. and also before i say anything id like to make it clear that i am not an authority on marxist communist theory, honestly i barely consider myself familiar with it. i went to school to study history so i interacted with marxist thought primarily in a historical/historiographical context, and generally in the context of colonial and postcolonial history. even then i studied mostly pre/early colonial american (in the broad sense not the USAmerican sense) & medieval islamic history. my knowledge of modern marxist theory is far from comprehensive.

with that said, I can certainly offer some suggestions, though some of them aren't necessarily marxist theory. but what the hell, lets get intersectional. for funsies. heres a few contributors to colonial/post-colonial/marxist thought that worked a little more recently than the 1800s

Fanon - Frantz Fanon was a french afro-caribbean marxist who, along with his wife Josie (who was the actual one writing, he dictated most of his works to her), wrote Black Skin, White Masks, A Dying Colonialism, and The Wretched of the Earth. From the portions I read while in school I would heartily reccomend all three. The Fanons were masters of decolonial theory and their commentary on whiteness, primitivism, anti-colonial historiography, and colonial class violence (among a billion other things, they were really prolific theorists) is the first place i would recommend people go if they want to start decolonizing their marxism.

Che Guevara - I really hope I don't need to explain who Che Guevara is. Anyways read Guerrilla Warfare and his motorcycle diaries. Oh and while I haven't read any of his work personally, I would imagine Fidel Castro would also be a good one to read for 20th century anti-colonial marxism.

Subcomandante Galeano - Previously known as Subcomandante Marcos, this guy was the figurehead/spokesperson for the EZLN until pretty recently. Our Word is Our Weapon is a collection of some of his writings translated into English.

Eduardo Galeano - Eduardo Galeano was an Uruguayan Journalist and his book The Open Veins of Latin America is a cornerstone of 20th century colonial theory even if it might not strictly be marxist thought.

Edward Said - Said was a palestinian academic and journalist whose book Orientalism is required reading for any colonial historian and should be for any self-proclaimed communist as well. It's perhaps marxist in the broadest sense but it is first and foremost a book about peeling the white supremacy goggles off of your face when studying the history of SWANA, which is a practice you should then apply to every intellectual endeavor you undertake for the rest of your life forever including your marxism.

anyway thats hopefully a good list to get you started. I know a few of my mutuals can probably add recommendations and provide a more educated communist perspective. Like I said before I'm a marxist historian more than I am a marxist in a communist sense.