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yamayuandadu · 2 months ago

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WLW - Women-Loving Wizard(esse)s? Lesbian love spells from Roman Egypt

I said there will be no dedicated femslash february-adjacent post this year, and in the end that turned out to be nominally true. That’s only because this article, which I didn’t plan too far ahead, is a few weeks late due to unforeseen irl compilations. In my previous, also unplanned, article I’ve included a brief introduction to the Greco-Egyptian magical papyri, and discussed some unusual attestations of Hecate in them - perhaps some of the most fun material to research not directly related to anything I usually write about I’ve had the pleasure to go through in a long while. This text corpus is a gift that keeps on giving in general, but perhaps the single most welcome surprise was learning that there are at least two - possibly three - examples of lesbian love spells in it. While I considered waiting for pride month to cover them, I ultimately decided to publish an article about them much sooner (I have a different, highly esoteric pride month special in the pipeline already though, worry not).

Without further ado, let’s take a look at these unique wlw (women-loving wizard) testimonies and their historical context. Which supernatural entities were, at least for these women, apparent lesbian allies? Why does one of the lesbian spells contain an elaborate poetic passage pairing Osiris with Persephone? Why Lucian of Samosata might be the key to determining if 2 or 3 lesbian love spells are available to researchers? Answers to all of these questions - and more - await under the cut!

Before you proceed, I feel obliged to warn you that the article discusses historical homophobia, so if that might bother you, you’ll have to skip one of the sections. Furthermore, some of the images, as well as parts of the text itself, are not safe for work.

Part 1: the spells

Through the article I will refer to the discussed texts as “lesbian spells”. This is merely intended as a convenient label, not a definite statement - we can’t be 100% sure of the orientation of everyone involved, obviously. On top of that, none of the spells give us any hints about the terms the women involved in their composition used to describe themselves. Needless to say, the fact that the discussed spells even exist is nothing short of a miracle. The corpus of magical papyri and other related objects like inscribed tablets and gems is relatively small, and covers a short period of time - for the most part just the first four centuries CE. On top of that not all of them are specifically love spells. For comparison, while there is a sizable corpus of Mesopotamian love incantations spanning over two millennia, not even a single lesbian one has been identified among them so far (Frans A. M. Wiggermann, Sexuality A. In Mesopotamia in RlA vol. 12, p. 414).

They also represent one of the only indisputable examples of ancient texts in whose composition women who at the very least desired relationships with other women were involved (Bernardette J. Brooten, Love Between Women. Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, p. 105). How active that involvement was might be difficult to ascertain, though.

Spell 1: angel or corpse daimon? The first spell of the discussed variety I’ve stumbled upon lacks a distinct title, but it’s included in the basic modern edition of many of the magical papyri, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells edited by Hand Dieter Betz, as PGM XXXII. 1-19 ( p. 266):

It was discovered in Hawara, an archeological site in the Fayum Oasis, and most likely dates to the second century CE (Love Between…, p. 77). At the time of its initial publication, some doubts were expressed about whether it’s really a love spell by authors such as Richard Wünsch - as you can imagine, for at least implicitly homophobic reasons - but it’s been the consensus view for a long while that it's explicitly lesbian. I left the brief comment included in the standard modern edition on the screencap above to highlight this. It needs to be stressed here that the opposition to this now mainstream interpretation was a minority opinion in the first decades of the 20th century already, and was conclusively rejected as early as in the 1930s (Arthur S. Hunt notably contributed to this) and basically never entertained by any authors since (Love Between…, p. 80-81). Sadly, there is not much to say about the dramatis personae of the spell. Herais’ name is Greek, but her mother’s, Thermoutharin, is Egyptian; both Helen and Sarapias are Greek names, but the latter is theophoric and invokes, as you can probably guess, Serapis. This sort of combination is fairly standard for Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, and it’s not possible to determine if one or both of the women involved were Greeks who settled in Egypt, Egyptians who adopted Greek names, or if they came from mixed families (Love Between…, p. 79).

While it’s likely Herais simply commissioned the spell from a specialist (Love Between…, p. 109), it’s worth noting that in the most recent commentary on it I was able to find, Heta Björklund argues that she was a magician herself (Invocations and Offerings as Structural Elements in the Love Spells in Papyri Graecae Magicae, p. 38). She also assumes some of the heterosexual love spells were the work of female magicians. Sadly, in the relatively short period of time I dedicated to preparations for this article I failed to find any study which would make it possible to establish whether this is a proposal with more widespread support. Female conjurers are certainly not uncommon in works of fiction, though, so even if the magical papyri were mostly written by men until proven otherwise I see no strong reason to doubt that we’re really dealing with a wlw (women-loving wizard).

The vocabulary employed in Herais’ spell is identical as in the heterosexual love spells. However, since examples aimed at both men and women are known, and do not significantly differ in that regard, the fact most of them were written by men seeking to secure the love of women doesn’t necessarily imply Herais necessarily took a masculine role herself just because she adhered to the same convention regarding magical formulas (Love Between…, p. 105).

An interesting aspect of the spell are its theological implications. At least from Herais’ perspective, Anubis, Hermes and “the rest down below” - in other words, a host of other unspecified deities residing in the underworld, not to mention the entity invoked to help her - not only would have no objections to her orientation, but would actively aid her in securing the love of the target of her affection (Love Between…, p. 80).

Invoking deities is basically a standard in love spells, regardless of the orientation of the people involved. Three distinct categories of them can be identified: Aphrodite and her entourage (ex. Eros and Peitho); heavenly deities (like Helios and Selene) and, perhaps unexpectedly, underworld deities (Hecate, Hermes, Persephone and others) - and, by extension, ghosts. From the first century CE onward it was actually the last group which appears most commonly in love spells. This likely reflects their association with magic and fate (Invocations and Offerings…, p. 45-46).

While there’s no point in dwelling upon the references to Anubis and Hermes, which are self-explanatory, there is some disagreement about the nature of Evangelos, who Herais basically asks to act as a supernatural wingman for her. Björklund argues that he should be interpreted as an angel or divine messenger (Invocations and Offerings…, p. 38). This is not implausible at first glance. Angels are invoked in multiple other spells from the magical papyri as helpers. For example, PGM VII 862-918 focuses on a request to Selene to send one of her angels presiding over a specific hour of the night (Leda Jean Ciraolo, Supernatural Assistants in the Greek Magical Papyri, p. 283; as a side note, there's a chance I will discuss early angels - especially the oddities like PGM angels - in a separate future article).

However, another view is that Evangelos was a “corpse daimon” (nekudaimon) - this would offer a good parallel with other love spells. What was a corpse daimon, though? Simply put, the restless, but not necessarily malevolent, spirit of a person who died prematurely (Love Between…, p. 80). In Egypt this idea intersected with other views on the origin of ghosts - for example that they could be people who died so long ago nobody made tomb offerings to them (Ljuba Merlina Bortolani, Magical Hymns from Roman Egypt. A Study of Greek and Egyptians Traditions of Divinity, p. 224). It’s possible that in some cases, perhaps including Herais’, papyri with spells have been deposited in, or at least read above, the graves of people who died in circumstances which made them eligible to become corpse daimons, in order to secure their help (Love Between…, p. 80). There is also evidence that food could be left for them in appropriate places instead, as attested for example in the “love spell of attraction in the presence of heroes or gladiators or those who died violently” (ωγὴ ἐπὶ ἡρώων ἢ μονομάχων ἢ βιαίων; PGM IV 1390-1495). This was a practice derived from a common type of offering to Hecate and her ghost entourage (Magical Hymns…, p. 223). It’s worth noting a daimon didn’t necessarily have to be human - the “cat spell for all purposes" (ἡ πρᾶξις τοῦ αἰλούρου περὶ πάσης πράξεως; PGM III 1-164), described as equally effective whether employed as a love spell, enmity spell or… a way to alter the results of chariot races (a relatively common goal in the magical papyri). instructs how to enlist the help of a “cat daimon” (τὸν δαίμονα τοῦ αἰλούρου). In this case the magician has to first “create” this entity by offering a cat as sacrifice, though, instead of invoking a preexisting daimon (Invocations and Offerings…, p. 32).

Spell 2: Osiris, Persephone and inflamed liver

While the spell discussed above seems to be brought up online the most often in discussions of references to lesbian and gay love in antiquity, the second known example is much more elaborate. Its standard translation was published in 1990 in the first volume of Robert W. Daniel’s and Franco Maltomini’s Supplementum Magicum, intended as a supplement to the already mentioned compendium of translated magical papyri (p. 137-139):

The text is inscribed on a tablet discovered in Hermopolis, and dates to the third or fourth century CE (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 132). It’s possible it was commissioned from a magician, rather than written by Sophia herself. Both her name and Gorgonia’s are not declined, which might indicate that a magician simply inserted them into blank spaces in a preexisting formulary offered to clients (Love Between…, p. 88-89). It’s nonetheless quite interesting as a work of literature, even if it was just a stock formulary sold over and over again. Some sections deliberately use poetic forms. Furthermore, some of the long compound words in them are entirely without parallel. It’s possible that this was a conscious source meant to create a peculiar overwhelming atmosphere, suitable for invoking ghosts and underworld deities (Love Between…, p. 88). While Herais’ spell is brief and vague and doesn’t really reveal much about her desires, beyond establishing that the object of her affection was a woman and that she believed supernatural entities would plausibly approve of pursuing her, Sophia’s commissioned(?) one seems to involve a pretty detailed fantasy. Of course, an argument can be made that it doesn’t necessarily specifically reflect her individual desires, but rather the widespread perception of bath houses as places suitable for flirtation and related ventures (Love Between…, p. 89). Still, while obviously we’ll never be able to know, it’s interesting to wonder if she perhaps had to choose from a larger repertoire of love spells offered by a magician (or perhaps even by multiple magicians) and went with the formula which matched her expectations to the greatest degree. Interestingly, the idea of a love spell being more effective in bath houses recurs in multiple magical papyri. The view that they can be haunted was fairly widespread, which made them a favored location for casting spells of all sorts, to be fair. The request for the “corpse daimon” to masquerade as a bath attendant to help with accomplishing a specific goal is unparalleled, though (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 132-133).

A combinative "Isis-Persephone" (or vice versa) from the late second century CE (Wikimedia Commons) As far as other appeals to supernatural entities go, it might be surprising to see Osiris mentioned in association with Persephone, Cerberus, the Erinyes and various elements of topography of the Greek underworld. It is presumed that this passage depends on the identification between him (as well as Serapis) and Hades, which is fairly well documented in Ptolemaic sources (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 146). However, it’s also worth pointing out that Persephone could serve as the interpretatio graeca of Isis, though it was by no means exclusive, and the latter could in various contexts or time periods be linked with Demeter, Cybele, Selene, Hecate, Aphrodite and others instead (Magical Hymns…, p. 9-10)

The unnamed “messenger” of Osiris is presumed to be Hermes, invoked not under his proper name but under a standard Homeric epithet. Referring to him as a “boy” most likely reflects the convention of depicting him as a child, which is attested through Hellenistic and Roman periods (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 146-147).

In addition to invoking a nameless corpse daimon and a number of deities, the spell uses a lot of voces magicae - magical formulas with no apparent meaning, sometimes the result of religious terms or even theonyms from langues other than Greek and Egyptian . Perhaps the most interesting inclusion among these is “Ereschigal”. This is obviously a derivative of Mesopotamian Ereshkigal, though as I outlined in my previous article, we’re essentially dealing with a ship of Thesus in this case; and if we are to take this as a reference to a specific deity rather than a hocus pocus formula, it’s best to think of it as an unusual epithet of Hecate as opposed to a conscious reference to a deity from a theological system otherwise basically entirely absent from Greco-Egyptian magic. The other interesting cameos are Azael and Beliam, a misspelling or variant form of Belial (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 144).

One last detail which requires some explanation is the reference to inflaming the liver, in addition to heart and soul. This is not a magical curiosity, but rather a reflection of a belief widespread all across the Roman Empire in the first centuries CE: the liver was believed to be the organ responsible for passions of various types. Invoking it alongside the heart in spells is well documented (Love Between…, p. 90).

Spell 3: the pronoun controversy

There might be a third lesbian spell. It is inscribed on two lead tablets from Panoplis, most likely from the second century CE (Love Between…, p. 90-91). The provenance was possible to establish based on the presence of the name Tmesios, “midwife”, which in Egyptian was written with the same determinative as the names of gods. It is most likely an euphemistic reference to Heqet, the goddess of midwifery, who was a very popular deity of Panoplis (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 116-117). The most recent edition I’m aware of is included in the Supplementum Magicum, vol. 1 (p. 116):

The text is undeniably a standard love spell. It even features an appeal to a corpse daimon - a certain Horion, son of Saropus - like the two discussed above (Love Between…, p. 91). The fact he is invoked by name is unusual - most corpse daimons are left anonymous (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 115). A further unique detail is the inclusion of a small drawing of a mummy - generally assumed to be Horion:

The supposed corpse daimon, via Supplementum Magicum vol. 1, p. 116; reproduced here for educational purposes only. An alternate proposal is that this is a symbolic representation of Nike being affected by the spell, as there are no other depictions of corpse daimons, and such entities are consistently described as mobile, which to be fair indeed doesn’t fit a mummy particularly well (Christopher A. Faraone, Four Missing Persons, a Misunderstood Mummy, and Further Adventures in Greek Magical Texts, p. 151-152). Still, unless further evidence emerges, there’s no reason not to stick to the consensus view.

Next to the mummy drawing, the other mystery is the reference to a period of five months. Why exactly would Nike be under the effect of the spell for that period of time remains uncertain (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 117). It might be a nod to the notion of “trial marriage”, which also lasted for five months. After this period, the parties involved would determine whether they want to formalize the relationship with a written contract or part ways instead (Love Between…, p. 107). However, by far the main topic of debate regarding the spell is the gender of Pantous/Paitous. While Nike bears an undeniably feminine name, the other name is not spelled consistently even on the tablets themselves, and has no other attestations. This also holds true for Gorgonia from spell #2, but in her case there’s no ambiguity - the name is undeniably feminine. However, -ous can be a suffix of both feminine and masculine names; while pa- occurs in Egyptian names as a masculine prefix. To make things more complicated, in both cases the relative pronoun referring to Pantous/Paitous is feminine - but it has been suggested that this is a typo due to presence of an incision on the tablet which might indicate the scribe made a typo wanted to actually write the masculine form. The gender of this person is thus difficult to determine (Love Between…, p. 93-94).

The assumption that we’re dealing with a double typo, according to the authors of the most recent translation, is supported by similar typos in other magical papyri, where the context makes it easier to ascertain the gender of the parties involved (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 117). Bernadette J. Brooten argues this is an overabundance of caution, though, since the spell under discussion is the only example where every single pronoun would have to be a typo. Furthermore, there are no other errors in the text (Love Between…, p. 95).

Brooten also offers an interesting solution to the uncertainty stemming from Pantous/Paitous’ name itself: even if it is masculine after all, its bearer might have been a woman who took on a masculine persona in some contexts, complete with a masculine name, or perhaps a nickname. She offers a precedent for this interpretation: the character Megilla/Megillos from Lucian of Samosata’s Dialogues of the Courtesans (Love Between…, p. 96). Since exploring this topic fully goes beyond the scope of the spells themselves, I will explore it in more detail in a separate section.

Part 2: WLWizards in context

From Plato to Lucian

In the fifth of Lucian’s dialogues a certain Leaina discusses recent events in her life with a friend. She is, as you can probably tell from the title of the whole work, a courtesan. At some point in the not-so-distant past she encountered a person who she refers to as Megilla, but who, as she stresses, at one point used the name Megillos in private. The character is AFAB, but for all intents and purposes presents masculinely - “like the most manly of athletes”, to be precise, as they describe it (Love Between…, p. 52). They engage in typically masculine pursuits, like holding symposiums, cut their hair short like young men (but wear a wig in public to hide that) and bring up that another character, Demonassa, is their wife in order to stress own masculinity (Andreas Fountoulakis, Silencing Female Intimacies: Sexual Practices, Silence and Cultural Assumptions in Lucian, Dial. Meretr. 5, p. 119-120). From a modern POV, it might appear that Megillos is a partially closeted trans man whose name is the masculine form of his deadname, but while this would be an obvious angle for a retelling to take, in reality the character is an example of a Greco-Roman stereotype of a woman attracted to women. Lucian refers to Megilla/Megillos as a hetairistria. He states that this rare term refers to women who pursue relationships with other women, and explains that this basically makes them like men (Love Between…, p. 23).

It’s important to stress we have no real evidence that this word - or any other ancient labels of similar sort - were actually used by any women to describe themselves (Love Between…, p. 7). Lucian most likely decided to use it as a nod to Plato (Love Between…, p. 53). The plural form, hetairistriai, is used to refer to women attracted to women in his Symposium (Love Between…, p. 41). It was most likely etymologically related to hetaira, in this context to be understood as something like “companion” (though it could also refer to a courtesan - as it does in the original title of Lucian’s work). It’s fairly rare in later sources, though dictionaries from the early centuries CE confirm it was understood as a synonym of tribas (plural: tribades), which was more or less the default term for women attracted to women in Greek, and later on as a loanword in Latin as well. An anonymous medieval Byzantine commentary on Clement of Alexandria, a second century CE Christian writer (more on him later) provides a second synonym, lesbia, which constitutes the oldest attested example of explicitly using this term to refer to a woman attracted to women, rather than to an inhabitant of Lesbos, though the context is not exactly identical with its modern application as a self-designation, obviously (Love Between…, p. 4-5). In Symposium the existence of hetairistriai is presented neutrally, as a fact of life - the reference to them is a part of the well known narrative about primordial beings consisting of two people each. Plato apparently later changed his mind, though, and in Laws, his final work, he condemns them as acting against nature (Love Between…, p. 41). It has been argued that the negative attitude might have been widespread in the classical period, though for slightly different reasons - it is possible that relationships between women would be seen as a transgression against the dominant hierarchy of power, on which the notions of polis and oikos rested (Silencing Female…, p. 113). As far as I can tell this is speculative, though.

While Plato’s rhetoric about nature finds many parallels in later sources - up to the present conservative discourse of all stripes worldwide (though obviously it is not necessarily the effect of reading Plato) - other arguments could be mustered to justify opposition to relationships between women as well. In one of his epigrams the third century BCE poet Asclepiades decided to employ theology to that end. He declared that the relationship between two women named Bitto and Nannion was an affront to Aphrodite; a scholion accompanying this text clarifies that they were tribades (Love Between…, p. 42). Note that I don’t think the fact that all three of the lesbian spells don’t invoke Aphrodite is necessarily evidence of the women who wrote or commissioned them adhering to a similar interpretation of her character, though - especially since they are separated by a minimum of some 500 years than the aforementioned source. While obviously we can’t entirely rule out that Asclepiades’ poem reflected a sentiment which wasn’t just his personal view regarding Aphrodite, it seems much more likely to me that the fact all three spells postdate the times when underworld deities and ghosts started to successfully encroach upon her role in this genre of texts is more relevant here. "Masculinization" and related phenomena

While clearly hostile, neither Plato’s nor Asclepiades’ works contain the tropes on which Lucian’s dialogue depended. What has been characterized by modern authors as “masculinization” of women attracted to other women only arose as a trend in literature after the rise of the Roman Empire, especially from the reign of Augustus onward (Love Between…, p. 42-43). This reflected the fact that Roman thinkers - as well as their Greek contemporaries - apparently struggled with grasping the idea of sex in which they couldn’t neatly delineate who is passively penetrated and who is actively penetrating. This resulted in the conclusion that surely one of the two women involved must have played the “masculine”, active role, and that sex between women must also have been penetrative. In some cases this involved confabulations about what some described in scholarship as an “some unnamed phallus-like appendage” (Love Between…, p. 6). A good example of an author wholly dedicated to this idea is the second century CE dream interpretation enthusiast Artemidoros. He evaluated sex between women as “unnatural” - a category in which he also placed oral, which he however saw as an act which by default had a man on the receiving end (Love Between…, p. 181). The sole passage in his opus magnum dealing with sex between women can be seen below (translation via Daniel E. Harris-McCoy, Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica. Text, Translation & Commentary, p. 149):

It needs to be pointed out here that earlier visual representations do not appear to be quite as fixated on this point. Evidence includes a Greek red figure vine vessel dated to 515-495 BCE or so decorated with a scene involving a woman touching another’s inner thigh and genitals; another slightly younger work of similar variety shows a kneeling woman reaching for another’s genitals, though it might depict depilation (contemporary sources indicate women plucked public hair by hand) rather than sex (Love Between…, p. 57-58). I must admit I really like the contemplative expression of the kneeling woman, which you can see on the screencap below (also available to view here):

Obviously, works of art such as the one above don’t necessarily reflect an ancient wlw point of view, and might very well be voyeuristic erotica which instead reflects what male painters presumed lesbian sex entailed. However, alongside a slightly bigger number of contemporary works possibly depicting couples in other situations they nonetheless make it possible to establish that the participants aren’t really differentiated from each other - in other words, they neither present differently, nor seem to be separated by age (Love Between…, p. 59).

Needless to say, it’s difficult to tell if either the older or the newer sources reflected actual trends in presentation among women attracted to women - with small exceptions, like the spells this article ultimately focuses on, we have next to no texts actually composed by them or for them, and the same caveat applies to visual arts. The majority of sources we are left with were, as you can probably already tell based on the sample above, written by men who at the absolute best considered them immoral (Silencing Female…, p. 112-113). For this reason, evaluating whether Lucian’s Megilla/Megillos is entirely literary fiction or merely a mocking exaggeration, and by extension whether she can be used as an argument in discussion about the identity of Pantous/Paitous from the third spell, is difficult at best.

For what it’s worth, an anonymous physiognomic treatise from the fourth century does mention that there are “women who have sex with women whose appearance is feminine, but who are more devoted to masculine women, who correspond more to a masculine type of appearance”, but further passages in this work would indicate that this might be yet another case of stereotyping rather than a nuanced account of varying presentation (Love Between…, p. 56-57). One specific aspect of Megilla/Megillos' character appears to match a single other source as well. Claudius Ptolemy, a second century astronomer and astrologer, offers a twist on the stereotype relevant to his primary interests. He states it is one of the “diseases of the soul” in his Tetrabiblos. He characterizes it as a result of a specific combination of constellations and planets (a term which in this context also encompassed the sun and the moon) at the time of an individual’s birth. Based on the specific scenario, women might become tribades - which according to Claudius Ptolemy means behaving in a masculine manner and pursuing relationships with other women secretly or openly, with the most extreme possible configuration resulting in a propensity to refer to another woman as one’s “lawful wife” (Love Between…, p. 124-126). Once again, it’s not really possible to determine if this reflects a genuine convention - though it does more or less parallel how Megilla/Megillos describes her partner. Evaluating how accurate the available sources are is made even more difficult by the fact that the “masculinization” was often paired with other literary devices meant to cast relationships between women as an “alien” or immoral phenomenon. Quite commonly they could be described as something utterly foreign or anachronistic, as opposed to a part of everyday life in contemporary Rome (Love Between…, p. 42-44). The second century writer Iamblichos, author of the lost Babyloniaka, or at the very least the popularity of his work in antiquity, arguably represents an example of this phenomenon. On the moral level, Iamblichos considered love between women “wild and lawless”, though he simultaneously had no issue writing about it, one would assume for voyeuristic purposes. His novel is only known from a summary preserved by the Byzantine patriarch Photius, but apparently enjoyed a degree of popularity earlier on. It described an affair between Berenike, a fictional daughter of an unspecified ruler of Egypt (fwiw, multiple women from the Ptolemaic dynasty bore this name), and a woman named Mesopotamia (sic), and their eventual marriage (Love Between…, p. 51). In contrast with the other, more famous Babyloniaka by Berossos, no primordial fish people or sagacious rulers with unnaturally long life spans make an appearance. A daring project to combine the two has yet to be attempted. Jewish and Christian reception

The Greco-Roman condemnations of relationships between women was also adopted in early centuries CE by Jewish and Christian writers. In the former case a notable example is the Sfira, a rabbinic theological commentary on Leviticus composed at some point before 220 CE. The passage dealing with 18:3 - “You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt (... )and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan” - asserts that marriages between women were a custom among Egyptians and Canaanites. This is unlikely to be a faithful ethnographic report; rather, something perceived negatively is attributed exclusively to foreigners (Love Between…, p. 64-65). As far as Christian sources go, pretty similar rhetoric can also be found in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Love Between…, p. 64). Another notable early Christian author to adopt similar views was Clement of Alexandria, whose condemnations combined quotations from Paul’s letter, the apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter (which he viewed as canonical), and a host of Greek and Roman philosophers, most notably Plato - as you can guess, specifically the passage from Laws which already came up earlier (Love Between…, p. 320-321). He dedicates a lot of space to condemning marriages between women, which he describes as an “unspeakable practice” amounting to women imitating men (Love Between…, p. 322). It’s a part of a longer diatribe against even the slightest hints of gender nonconformity, which also condemns, among other things, men who shave their facial hair (Love Between…, p. 323-324). There’s a lot of other smash hits in Clement’s work, including an extensive section focused on, to put it colloquially, theological considerations about cum, very creative mixed religious-zoological approach to the digestive system of hares, as well as some more “mundane” but still pretty chilling apologia for domestic abuse, which I will spare you from. For an author from Alexandria, he also seems oddly ignorant about Egyptian sources, as at one point he claims that the fact Egyptians worship animals puts them morally ahead of Greeks, because animals do not commit adultery. I am sorry to report that adultery between Egyptian gods is, as a matter of fact, directly referenced in the magical papyri, which are roughly contemporary with Clement - specifically in PGM IV 94-153 (The Greek…, p. 39):

Concluding thoughts The sources discussed above are mostly supposed to illustrate that while it’s possible to study the prevailing attitudes among the contemporaries of the “protagonists” of the spells, it’s not really easy to say what their private lives were like. We don’t know how open they were about their preferences; how they presented; what, if any, label they used to refer to themselves. We can’t even ascertain if any of them were ever actually in relationships with other women, and whether the norm for women like them - if such norms even existed - was to pursue brief trysts or commitment for life, in parallel with aims of the authors of at least some of the heterosexual love spells (Love Between…, p.105-107).

In what after almost 30 years remains, as far as I am aware, the single publication with the most extensive discussion of the spells, Bernardette J. Brooten argued that since marriages between women are mentioned in five sources roughly contemporary with them - by Lucian of Samosata, Clement of Alexandria, Claudius Ptolemy, Iamblichos, and in the Sifra - they must have been an actually observed custom in Egypt in the early centuries CE. She argues that since marriages were basically personal legal agreements, it theoretically wouldn’t be impossible for two women to pursue such a solution (Love Between…, p. 66; note the fact the Sfira also refers to marriage between women as a Canaanite custom, which no primary sources from any period corroborate, is not addressed). I don’t think her intent was malicious, but I must admit I’m skeptical if it’s possible to reconstruct much chiefly based on sources which, as you could see in the previous section of the article, are mocking at best and openly hostile at worst, and a small handful of actual first hand testimonies which due to their genre sadly provide very little information. Sadly, we ironically can tell more about how the women from the spells thought corpse daimons functioned than how they envisioned the relationships they evidently desired.

To illustrate the difficulties facing researchers, imagine trying to reconstruct what the life of the average lesbian in the English-speaking world in the 2010s would be like with your sole points of reference being a single episode of a Netflix show with a mildly offensive gender nonconforming character, a press article written by an eastern European priest ranting about “gender ideology” imported from abroad corrupting children, a fanfic written by a homophobic weeb who jacks off to lesbian porn, and a small handful of contextless blog post actually written by wlw, but not necessarily entirely focused on anything related to her identity. The results wouldn’t be great, I’d imagine. The sources mustered by Brooten ultimately aren’t far from that, I’m afraid (I leave it as an intellectual exercise for you to determine which of the satirical modern comparisons applies to which) - thus it’s difficult for me not to see her conclusions as perhaps leaning too far into the direction of wishful thinking. But, in the end, wishful thinking is not innately bad - I’d be lying if I said I don’t have a host of personal hypotheses which fall into the same category (one of these days I will explain why I think a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude doesn’t necessarily seem incompatible with Old Babylonian morals). Therefore, even though I’m more skeptical if the “protagonists” of the texts this article revolved around could truly pursue relationships on equal footing with other inhabitants of Roman Egypt, I can’t help but similarly hope that they found at least some semblance of happiness in the aftermath of the endeavors documented in the discarded magical formulas.

#lgbt history #wlw history #greek magical papyri

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noxiatoxia · 2 months ago

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is komaeda as self deprecating in japanese as he is in english? in his introduction he’s moreso humbly denying hope’s peaks offer than saying he wasn’t worthy. so i was wondering if komaeda comes off as incredibly humble more than self deprecating. or if the translators just really went ham on the self deprecation and got rid of any nuances

Hi! Thank you for the ask and I'm sorry it took so long for me to get to it! I had actually written a reply a few days ago, but Tumblr deleted it...😭 I was too mad to re write it then and there lol. But also, I think I could have been more clear (I wrote it while still recovering from being sick), so I'll try my best this time.

Firstly, if I'm understanding right, you're wondering if Komaeda is NOT self-deprecating, but instead just humble. There's a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is no, he does just blatantly put himself down in the text. The long answer is it may not be as bad as it is at certain parts. So now, I'll explain.

Firstly, let's re-visit the prologue. I've spoken about this specific line more than once.

KOMAEDA: Um, honestly, at first...I was humbled, but I refused. But, well, they wouldn't stop insisting on it…

In this scene, yes, Komaeda isn't putting himself down...necessarily. So, the word in question being used here is 恐れ多い. This word seems to give translators trouble. Back before there was an official SDR2 translation, there was a fan-translated version on the SomethingAwful forums by user orenronen.

Generally, I consider orenronen's translation to be more faithful at times. But NISA actually was closer in this case.

恐れ多い literally translates to "extremely scared", but it's really not used in that way. Think of it like any phrase or idiom...."You can't have your cake and eat it too" isn't meant to be literal. It's just a way to say "you can't have both things at the same time".

恐れ多い is a common phrase in Japanese when declining a big offer. For example, your boss gave you the chance for a big promotion, but you declined. You would use 恐れ多い. It can be used to indicate you feel you aren't good enough for the position - this is not a weird thing to say, as being humble is a core part of Japanese culture.

However, at it's core, 恐れ多い just means "I'm very sorry, but no, thanks".

Back to that example. Your boss gives you a chance for big promotion. You would take it, but your boss needs you to move cities for it. You don't want to move. So, you say, "Oh...Thank you so much, but I must humbly decline."

In the past, I explained this phrase kind of poorly and made it sound like it's only used to say you feel you don't deserve the position...what I meant to say was that the word gives the feeling of you not feeling good enough to accept, but that doesn't mean you actually don't feel good enough. Does that make sense? It's like saying "Sorry" as a courtesy when you do something wrong, but maybe you don't actually feel sorry.

In short, this line is ambiguous. The text literally says, 恐れ多いって断ったんだよ, which means (literally) "I refused by saying "No, thanks (humbly)"." Komaeda tells us what he told HPA verbatim, but he doesn't elaborate on why he said that. Did he decline because he did feel undeserving? Maybe he actually was scared to accept, maybe because of his luck? Or did he simply have no interest, and declined without much thought? - It's left to the player to speculate on his reasons.

This is a big part of Komaeda's character, I think. As discussed, he speaks very softly - sounding unsure, or making his statements sound less forceful. The SDR2 artbook itself states that they went back and redid all of his sprite work to make his emotions appear more ambiguous. It's very apparent that not knowing what Komaeda is truly thinking or feeling is a big part of his character. Hinata himself laments about this in many FTEs with him.

I think the writers simply took advantage of the humble culture in Japanese to drive this home. Is he simply humble, or does he really mean what he says?

Now...don't get me wrong: Komaeda does go beyond being humble. He does outright insult himself in a way that is unmistakably not humble.

Take the chapter 1 Trial:

KOMAEDA: ボクは決定的に最低で最悪で愚かで劣悪で、何をやってもダメな人間なんだ。 KOMAEDA: I am, without a doubt, an awful, horrible, ignorant*, inferior, worthless person, and that will never change no matter what I do.

*Komaeda isn't calling himself stupid necessarily. I don't really know how to put it, but it's like...you do stupid things, but you yourself may or may not be intelligent. It's kind of like no matter how smart you get, you will always make dumb mistakes. I hope that makes sense.

This is not being humble. This is very self-deprecating stuff and things nobody would (or should) say about themselves in any sort of casual setting. This is a very shocking turning point because, up until now, Komaeda was just humble. Putting himself down lightly, saying his talent "isn't much" and that he's not as important as the Ultimates sound reasonable, sounds humble. This isn't reasonable or humble, and he says it with very strong assertion, indicated by なんだ and the end.

Also, he never says he's "made peace" with it (which I take to mean he's okay with it?) but that may have been this NISA translators' answer to the なんだ at the end, as it makes Komaeda sound like he's stating a fact. I don't agree simply because I feel like his feelings should be left ambiguous as said earlier...but I understand the mindset.

By the way, before that...the team totally mistranslated a line that had me tilting my head for five minutes trying to figure out how the two connected.

KOMAEDA: 夢や希望を持つのもおこがましいほど・・・努力をするのもずうずうしいほど・・・

I couldn't quite figure out why the NISA translation felt so off to me but the Japanese didn't, and it took me a bit of thought but I figured it out. It's because NISA got the topic of the conversation wrong.

See...Komaeda never says "I'm" in this sentence. It's normal not to say "I'm" in Japanese, though. Topics can be inferred. But then, the next line, where he talks about how he's awful, horrible, etc., he does start with "I am" (ボクは) indicating a change in topic. Meaning the topic of the sentence before it is not about him but about the subject of having dreams and hopes/trying hard.

That might sound confusing, but let me write what this line should look like:

KOMAEDA: It'd be pretentious of me to have hopes and dreams...it'd be audacious of me to try and work hard...

Basically, Komaeda is saying having hopes and dreams is too good for someone like him, and that him working hard to strive for something would be an insult to others.

This definitely makes sense for the next line, where he then says this will never change no matter what he does.

The official English gets it backwards, and now it sounds like he's too...good for these things? To me, at least.

To be fair, because of how it's written, it's easy to make that mistake. But I feel like they should have realized it makes no sense translated that way. Hm...

Anyways, as you can see, Komaeda does say things that are not merely being humble. He truly does have awful opinions of himself, or at least states them in a very pointed, factual manner.

You can argue that his humbleness is an extension of his self-deprecation...or maybe he's just both at the same time. Up to the audience to think.

Lastly, Komaeda often times says ボクなんか or ボクなんて (boku-nanka and boku-nante), which translates literally as "someone like me". It puts yourself down, like, "Someone like me can't be in such a cool club..." or something. This can be humble as much as it can be self-deprecating. It depends on the context of its usage, which I think does hit home with that ambiguous vibe.

I think that's it...I really hope this answered your question! Thank you for the patience!

#;noxiatalks2ya #nagito komaeda #danganronpa #sdr2 #dr #;translationtalk

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struggling-jpg · 7 months ago

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Thoughts About the Potential Underlying Hidden Tragedy of Yanqing and Jing Yuan

that isn't just the "Yanqing will have to kill Jing Yuan eventually" red flags.

A relatively longer-ish post so thank you for bearing with me if you choose to do so!

I'd already been thinking about this whole mess of thoughts for a long while now, and so have other people, but the urge to write this came from a comment I saw on a post that mentioned how Yanqing had lost to "Jing Yuan's ghosts" and overall how it contributes to the dynamic of them being mentor/mentee + father/son. While the narrative seems to be leading to "Yanqing having to strike down a Mara-stricken Jing Yuan," there's just enough weird points that stick out to the point some alternative outcomes for Yanqing and Jing Yuan's fates to play out.

And while I anticipate HSR to follow that most expected point, I feel like there's enough there that could lead to a subversion or something more likely than that, an additional twist to the knife alongside the expected point.

Jing Yuan's Flaws as a Mentor and Father-Figure:

While most of us love the family fluff, I'm pretty sure we can all acknowledge the issues in Jing Yuan's approach and decisions in regards to Yanqing. Yeah, this is a fictional space game story where it's likely they aren't going to delve into the consequences of having someone as young as Yanqing be a soldier, there seems to be something there regardless. Like the brushes with death that he has and how we see him have to worry about the Xianzhou's security as a teen due to having a higher position in a military force. This is all set up for more of a coming-of-age type narrative for him, which HSR has done amazingly so far, but there are a lot of chances for this to explore something darker.

Among official media, the one time I could even remember the term "father" being used in relation to Jing Yuan is in Yanqing's official Character Introduction graphic:

Another notable thing that we see here is how we do have moments where Yanqing expresses thoughts and questions about his own origins and birth parents. The fact that even here, he wonders if the general is hiding something from him, sets off some alarm bells in my head. But he then brushes that off because he's always been with the General and Jing Yuan accepts him for who he is (which under the theory that Yanqing originates/is connected to the Abundace adds a whole heavy layer (this will be discussed in a later section)).

Yanqing does something similar in his texts:

As Huaiyan says to Jing Yuan:

"Yanqing can understand your concerns."

Alongside Yanqing generally being a considerate and polite boy, it can possibly be said that his eagerness to share Jing Yuan's burdens not only stems from his own gratitude towards him but possibly also Jing Yuan's distance.

As in, Jing Yuan doesn't really express his feelings so blatantly, and what we can clearly tell from when Yanqing first met "Jing Yuan's ghosts," neither does he speak much about his past too on a personal level. In Jingliu's quest, Yanqing says that Jing Yuan simply told him to forget everything he saw that day.

For Jing Yuan, the loss of the quintet is a grief that feels fresh in his heart, especially with echoes of them running around him. This is in the description for "Animated Short: A Flash":

(Will also talk about this in a different section)

While Yanqing learns about his General's past in a more direct manner (aka the people involved), it's sad how avoidant Jing Yuan is at times. While he's never been a upfront person, especially in the case of solving problems, I wonder if HSR would go as far as to show the negative side of that in terms of raising and teaching Yanqing.

History Repeats Itself (Sometimes It Don't Need A Reason):

+ the Jingliu parallels

Following up on that last image, Jing Yuan, especially in A Flash, has that whole "history repeating itself" thing going on for Jing Yuan. It points to Yanqing having to take down Jing Yuan but it also comes with a lot of its own possibilities and meanings.

It's blatant that Yanqing parallels Jingliu to an unsettling degree. Anyone who personally knows Jingliu and meets Yanqing sees her in him. Jingliu probably sees herself in him as well. Beyond powers and passion for the sword, her Myriad Celestia trailer shows that her principles before getting struck with Mara were the same as his. But it took her losing her dear friends in such a cruel and brutal manner (alongside how long she'd been alive) for all of that to fall out and form the version of her we see today.

And while it seems that Yanqing is deviating from Jingliu's due to the teachings he's learning, especially with Jing Yuan's effort, I feel like there's still a chance for things to go so wrong and mess with that. Yukong's line about him strikes me as concerning:

"A sword will vibrate and beg to be unsheathed if it is unused for too long... Once unsheathed, it will either paint the battlefield in blood, or break itself in the process..."

Even though I don't think HSR will go down a route of tragedy with Yanqing, like say, he gets Mara struck somehow or killed because that's not how Hoyo's writing has fully gone for playable characters (Misha and Gallagher aside in terms of death). Even in the most despairing parts for Hoyo's games, they're usually outlined and tinged with hope in one way or another. It's just that with what's been presented, there's got to be more here than meets the eye.

Yanqing's Origins - The Breaking Point:

From what we've been given, I think the number one thing that would have the potential of shaking Yanqing's entire sense of his life and the reality he lives in is learning where he comes from. Where he actually comes from has been a strange mystery since the beginning, how Jing Yuan getting him being recorded in the military annals of all places.

As shown from the screenshots of Yanqing's texts, he doesn't know and tries to brush it off because he's happy with Jing Yuan now. The choice to have this aspect here leaves a lot to ruminate on. What is Jing Yuan hiding? And if he really is witholding information, does he ever intend to tell Yanqing? If he doesn't and Yanqing finds out, how will it play out? And even if he does mean to tell him, depending on the severity, how will Yanqing take it?

It's why the theory that Yanqing is connected to the Abundance, possibly even coming from it directly, is as harrowing as it is.

With his arc in mind, will his development be enough to sustain him when he does find out the truth? If he finds out sooner than he should, will he be able to rise above it? And what of Jing Yuan? If confronted with a situation that's outside of his control again, what will he do and how will he react?

The potential in that scenario is so fascinating to me, because we can all anticipate the absolute gut punch that Yanqing killing his master would be. It fits Hoyo's writing style of something so sad but having a hopeful end for the future type beat. But the idea of that being twisted, that expectation being flipped on its head, could be so agonizing. It's not a narrative we see too often explored, at least in my experience, so maybe that's why I'm brainrotting over it so much lol.

#honkai star rail #hsr yanqing #jing yuan #hsr theory #character analysis #yanqing losing jing yuan is one thing but jing yuan losing yanqing is another lol #i really don't think hsr would do it like that but it'd be wild if they do #at most they're gonna do something that really fundamentally changes them as people haha #new form yanqing perhaps? haha ha #mara struck or abundance form yanqing would be devastating lolol #struggling jpg thinks

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centrally-unplanned · 2 months ago

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Della Beppin August 1996 Evangelion Feature - Scan & Takeaways

Alright, after a year and half of me procrastinating with a gravure magazine starting accusingly at me from the desk, we are live with a scan of Della Beppin's August 1996 Evangelion Feature:

To recap quickly the above post, this article came out very soon after the show finished airing and the popularity of Evangelion was becoming a cultural phenomenon, spilling out beyond the typical otaku circles. It is often claimed to be the first article in a "non-otaku" magazine to discuss Eva at any depth, and as such gained fame as a tipping point in Eva coverage. It is a 14 page spread with a complicated authorship, but best I can gather it was ‘helmed’ by Gainax founder and otaku-about-town Toshio Okada (who at this point had left Gainax and had little to do with the production of Eva, to be clear), and serves as an introduction to the show, its place in the “cultural discourse”, and whatever weird musings pop into the writers’ minds.

As I hinted at in said previous post, I would claim that despite its reputation this is not the first “non-anime magazine” to feature an article on Evangelion; there is actually a section of this spread about other magazines that had covered Eva!

This section mentions Core Magazine and TV Land, a gravure magazine and kid’s media magazine respectively (which, lol at that demo spread). Now both of those included anime-adjacent content (hentai and kid’s anime shows respectively), but were not focused on them, and their articles discussing Eva were brief. Meanwhile, Della Beppin itself frequently had erotic cosplay shoots, and even had an Evangelion shoot earlier in the year! So instead I think you can see Della Beppin’s deep dive as an escalation of content along a smooth curve of Eva coverage getting more involved and more widespread, without there being any specific breakpoint here. So the article partially earns its rep, but it probably also got a healthy boost from the "teehee" factor of it being in a porno mag. We read Playboy Della Beppin for the articles okay??

Speaking of, I did read the whole article, but I am not going to post a full translation here - it is not worth it, a bunch of the text is explaining Eva to newbies and such, you don’t care. Instead, I will draw out some sections and connect them to some of my wider analytical questions around Eva - namely how “Eva discourse” evolved over time and how it related to otaku culture. And there definitely is a lot of interesting details in here on those subjects! So let's dive in, first with my more serious takeaways and then with some silly stuff:

— Evangelion has a reputation today as an “arthouse” work, and I think the majority of people who watch it know about the abstract TV ending and the batshit avant garde content of End of Evangelion. But this article, published before End of Eva existed and when the TV “finale” was something of a surprise, really showcases that its success was nearly immediate among “otaku” fans and the brand of the show was as a gritty, mature, amazingly-animated mecha show. The TV finale was generally unpopular and that comes up many times in the feature - so much so that one whole sub-article is essentially saying “look that just doesn’t count the show isn’t finished yet”:

No Need to Evaluate a Story That Hasn't Concluded Yet I wrote this in Animage, but I'll write it again. The story of "Neon Genesis Evangelion" is not over. While some whisper that the infamous final episode was deliberately designed that way, my thinking is that it was the next best option within the constraints of anime production's fatal lack of time and staff. Because if that ending were truly satisfactory, there would be no need to remake it for the video market. I hear that orders for the video version are flooding in, and the fact that they're willingly undertaking work that would otherwise be completely unprofitable—even with orders, the profit will be reduced—is the best evidence that the creators themselves think "that's not good enough."

(The above author - Shinpei Ito, a manga artist who would later work with Anno on the Cutie Honey film in 2004 - is generally right about this fact. At the time there was some debate due to Anno’s “fuck you” interview persona that the ending’s pivot was intentional, but we know now there were huge production issues behind it at least in part)

— Another repeated motif that dives directly into the “why was Eva so successful” question is the idea of it being a TV show specifically - that there had been a draught of “good” TV for some time and Eva was a return to form. Take this comment for example:

“However, after Gundam, due to combined factors like talent drain to direct-to-video anime and co-productions, and the rise of video games, TV anime lacked vitality for a long period. Even if some character-driven works achieved some success, there was a lack of major works that created significant waves of popularity.”

Here I think you can see the aging demos at play - older otaku as a community had developed around the more mature OVAs of the 1980’s, but those are inherently niche and inaccessible to most audiences. TV was for more youth-focused fare, “declining” from its peaks in the early 1980’s (according to these writers at least, I am not casting a personal judgement), but EVA flipped the script. It being a mecha show probably helped too to capture the “this generation’s Gundam” feel - adapted to the modern sensibilities of the older audiences with its meta-otaku commentary and 90’s edginess. This older fan in another section really hits that theme home:

“15 years from the "New Anime Century" at Shinjuku East Exit to today I have absolutely no interest in discussing Eva as "a work" anymore. To put it bluntly, I don't care about "Eva" now. Instead, I care about the months of eagerly awaiting new episodes every Wednesday, thinking about things aimlessly after watching, feeling the urge to talk to others about it and making long phone calls at night, watching recorded videos until they wore out, and exchanging opinions in various places. The fact that I could experience such a daily life in 1996, not just in the 1980s, is extremely important to me.”

(This author and others call Gundam the “second impact” of anime with Evangelion as the “third impact” - Astro Boy would be the first - and it is very adorable)

— Speaking of “long phone calls at night”, the physicality of pre-digital media consumption really jumps out here as a driver of fan engagement. There are a bunch of mentions in here of things like mass groups lining up to buy the soundtrack CD on release day and such, but there is one story that stands out for its charm. When Evangelion was broadcast it aired in the Central Tokyo (Kansai) area first - if you lived outside of the region, and in the rural areas most notably, you would not be able to watch the show live. But according to one writer that didn’t stop some of them:

“I heard that fans in Fukushima Prefecture would climb every week to some meteorological station at the top of Mt. Iwaki, the only place in the prefecture where Eva could be received, and cling to the TV there for each episode. This is how a work truly becomes the blood and flesh of those who watch it. I envy this kind of experience.”

No clue if this actually happened of course, but still amazing - we have to go back, etc.

Okay the analysis crap has gone on long enough; let’s share some random anecdotes that I thought were pretty funny!

— This part is just too much of a dunk not to repost in full:

Three Major Anime Directors Comment on the Appeal of Evangelion!! You can't help but be curious about the opinions of fellow professionals. Especially when it comes to the opinions of industry giants, you just have to hear them. So, we sought out comments from Director Miyazaki of Nausicaa and Totoro fame, Director Tomino of Gundam, and Director Oshii of Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor — these three undisputed masters acknowledged by everyone — but… Director Hayao Miyazaki: "I have never seen it." Director Yoshiyuki Tomino: "I would prefer to refrain from commenting." Director Mamoru Oshii: "I've only seen about 2 episodes, so I can't really comment. My apologies." Hmm... these are truly comments befitting the masters. By the way, in an interview in "CV" Magazine’s July issue (Sakura Publishing), Director Oshii did speak about Evangelion, saying: "'Evangelion' has become a hit, right? You can tell by watching it, but it feels nostalgic. It's exactly like 'Gundam'". As expected of an industry giant!!! It seems that with serialized anime, watching just two episodes is apparently enough to understand everything…

Jeez you didn’t have to do it to Oshii like that, he gets flamed by westerners enough as it is!!

— Particularly after the final episode aired, a bunch of fans really leaned into the “we are degenerates” ironic aesthetic, and the idea of being “mentally contaminated” by the show comes up frequently. Which leads to my favorite line from the Della Beppin staff from their "Eva Events Timeline":

April 26: Della Beppin Magazine publishes nude photos of models in "Eva" cosplay. From this point on, the magazine's mental contamination became increasingly serious.

Pussy so good it triggers the Heisei Malaise…

— There is a two-page spread on the thematic connections between Evangelion and... the band The Smiths:

Go off king, you would have done numbers on Tumblr.

— A bunch of different sections focus on rumors around the show; too many to count and assuredly mainly false. I did find this one to be very amusing though:

Episode 11 is about NERV's energy being cut off, but allegedly at the script stage, there was a line saying "Nuclear power plants are great, aren't they?" when the power returned. Incidentally, this episode was written for the Studio Ghibli staff, who oppose nuclear power.

Partially because A: that is just funny, I love how Ghibli as the eco-lefties of anime is so well known, and B: Ghibli was called in to animate the episode as something of a favour if I recall correctly, so the idea of putting a “fuck you” in there to them is pretty rough! I am not enough of a “script expert” to say if this rumor has any truth to it ( @jinruihokankeikaku maybe you know better, your area of expertise!)

To wrap this up, Toshio Okada ends the entire feature himself with a very on-brand call about how mainstream anime is all garbage and “Evangelion was truly a work by otaku, of otaku, for otaku!”, which absolutely matches the zeitgeist of the times even if it is a bit lacking in substance - that’s Okada for you!

Anyway, there is of course a lot more in there but fundamentally I scanned this so it could “exist” in the record; it is special more for what it is than what it contains. But articles like these are the data that built up the experience of the “Eva Boom” that defined the success and impact of the show, so I do think it is a valuable source of diverse views on the subject. If you find your own interesting pieces, or have specific questions on the content, let me know!

#Ash anime archives #Anime scanning projects #neon genesis evangelion #We are tackling the stack of orphaned projects one by one!

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acourtofmusings · 8 months ago

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Penumbra - Series Introduction

pə-ˈnəm-brē : a space of partial illumination between the perfect shadow on all sides and the full light; a grey area

Pairing: Azriel x Reader Total Word Count: tbd

Summary: The inner circle has been sorely lacking a well-versed scholar, and luckily for them Y/N happens to bump into Nesta at a local romance book lovers convention. Her arrival comes just in time to flank reports that an ally of the Night Court is plotting something world-shattering. Despite every warning bell going off in her mind, she offers her assistance and finds herself enveloped in a dangerous game. Everything is at stake, and Y/N finds herself with a whole lot to lose when a certain Spymaster steps out of the shadows and into her light.

A/N: My falling-asleep fantasy scenarios have been extra intriguing recently, so naturally I'm turning to the world of fanfiction. For now, enjoy this teaser.

Chapter One (coming soon)

If there had ever been one thing that proved itself a constant in your life it was your need for the concrete. Black or white, those were the options. But ever since you had found yourself intertwined with the rambunctious group sitting with you in the large VIP booth at Ritas, things had steadily been muddling up into a daunting shade of grey. You smile at the sound of Cassian's boisterous laughter and take another sip from the drink you have been nursing for the better part of an hour. Nesta's calculated gaze lands on you from her place next to her mate.

"Y/N," she purrs, "You feeling okay?"

You nod and set your drink back down on the tabletop, tracing the rim with your finger. Your gaze begins a slow sweep across the other members of the inner circle, all sucked into their own individual conversations.

"I'm fine, Nesta. Just...taking it all in."

She lets a corner of her mouth quirk up, her subtle version of a well-meaning smile. "You'll get used to the noise eventually. They can get a bit caught up in themselves, but they mean well. Give it time."

Your gaze eventually settles onto the brooding spymaster who is currently nursing a double scotch on the rocks with the same level of disinterest as you. Shadows curl lazily over his shoulders, framed by powerful wings that are tucked tight against his back. He's leaning back into the cushion of the booth seat, listening to Mor's umpteenth dramatic tale of the evening. The movement of his shadows camouflages the swirls of black ink peeking from underneath his button down, and you take a moment to try and decipher what parts of the mesmerizing display are alive and which are tattooed. You fail miserably, reminding you again just how much you can't stand the nuance that surrounds this group of powerful fae. You force your eyes back over to your new friend, who now holds a gleam of mischief in her eyes.

"Perhaps you should put down all of those ancient texts and become a spy instead."

You furrow your brow at her suggestion.

"Why would I do something like that?"

She chuckles to herself and pulls her own glass to her lips, finishing the remainder of the brightly colored drink. "You certainly enjoy starring just as much as he does."

You feel heat creep across your neck as you realize you were caught, and hope the swig of your drink that you take is enough for her to think it's a flush from the alcohol. You twist your face at the taste and shiver slightly as the burn runs down your throat.

"Thats what you get for ordering the well liquor," Nesta teases, "Rhys would happily add you to his tab if you stopped being so fucking stubborn. And don't think that amusing display gets you off the hook with me."

Cassian's wings perk up, and the nosy general turns to the two of you. "What display? What did I miss?" He leans down and speaks not-so-lowly into his mate's ear. "Is she finally relaxing? The both of you are way too boring for my taste right now." You feel heat burning up the sides of your neck and flooding onto your cheeks. Maybe your nervousness was coming off a bit standoffish, but you hated to think it was affecting anyone else's evening.

Cassian flags down a waitress and points between you and Nesta. "Excuse me miss, these two need to catch up. Get me two of something good and strong, please." He looks to you and wiggles his eyebrows "Add it to the High Lord's tab."

You begin to protest, looking apologetically to the waitress. "Oh, no thats okay, you really don't have to--"

"--add it..." Cassian insists, "to the High Lord's tab." The waitress smiles and nods, walking away to input the order. Cassian winks at you, smiling warmly. "You're sitting with the big boys now, sweets, no need to shy away from it. Rhys has money coming out of his ass, might as well put it to good use."

Rhys hears his name coming from his intoxicated brother and also turns his attention to you, violet eyes dancing with the same wicked amusement that often adorns Nesta's gaze.

"Ease off Cas," he chides, "I'm not that rich." The High Lord of the Night Court smirks. "Relax, Y/N, I'm not worried about what you spend on my account tonight. Or any night, for that matter. You're doing us all a massive favor, it's the least I can do."

You breath a sigh of relief and smile gently at him, and he returns it before looking back over to Feyre and Amren. Perhaps things were grey now, but maybe with enough time they could sort themselves out. Maybe you could actually find yourself settling into the rhythm of this group. As you feel yourself ease up, the waitress comes back with two bubbling cocktails.

A pair of hazel eyes train intently on you from the opposite end of the booth, marking your conversation and body language with acute awareness. Your timing was too coincidental. He had an odd feeling about you, one that his shadows seemed to enjoy egging on with their consistent pleas.

Need to know more. Let us learn more.

Azriel took a sip of his scotch, gaze still locked onto your form and only half listening to the tipsy giggling of his friends around him.

#azriel x reader #acotar x reader #acotar imagine #a court of thorns and roses #acotar #azriel #acotar fic #acotar series #azriel fic #azriel series

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oh-there-she-goes · 1 year ago

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Recently, I saw some people criticizing Scott Snyder for trying to make Joker an immortal demon archetype while praising Zdarsky for giving Joker a past and making him more human. And I was like...sorry, but did we read the same comic? Because that was a complete opposite of what actually happened.

Snyder didn't write the Joker as a monster emerging from hell or nothingness. His Joker was a man who found death preferable to the reveal of his real name (DotF). When confronted with the life he left behind, Joker was terrified.

And despite his darndest attempts to reinvent himself and ascend into something beyond mere man (Endgame), he failed.

That's it. That's the very point. He failed.

Hell, Joker might have achieved a modicum of success, had he just left Batman behind. But no, he couldn't help himself. So in his last moment, Batman held him down and forced him to accept his own mortality.

Yet inexplicably, people are so hung up on the introduction of 'the Pale Man' myth even though it can be inferred (rather plainfully so) from the text that Joker was lying.

Batman broke his heart. To retaliate, Joker destroyed his city and haunted him with a tale of the devil whose existence might predate even Gotham itself. Joker knew he outliving Batman was one of Bruce's greatest fears, so in his resentment, he tried to make Batman die believing the Joker to be an unstoppable force of evil that would continue to exist indefinitely without him.

The Pale Man was invented, partly, because Joker wished he could escape from the entwining of their own fates. He no longer relished in the belief that Batman had helped make him.

All in all, I understand not being a fan of Snyder's work. That's absolutely valid. But to accuse him of pushing the narrative of Joker being the devil incarnate is just...unfair.

And wrong.

The pic has nothing to do with my rant btw. I'm just upset it was rejected and replaced by something rather generic so I find any opportunity to randomly include it lmao.

#batjokes #joker #batman #rant post

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bestiarium · 3 months ago

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The giant sea creature Hafstrambi [Icelandic folklore]

Sailors sometimes claimed to have seen a strange, giant creature rising out of the sea near Greenland. This enigmatic marine monster would stand tall out of the water, like a pillar of flesh, and the people named it Hafstrambi (meaning something along the lines of ‘Sea Stack’).

Though sightings were a rare occurrence, the people learned that the creature was an omen: seeing Hafstrambi was a sure sign that a storm would soon follow. And after showing itself to a ship, the creature would turn before diving back into the sea. It is said that if Hafstrambi turned in the direction of the ship, one or more of the crewmembers of that vessel would soon perish. Conversely, if Hafstrambi turned away from the boat, the crew would have a safe trip.

The first mention of this creature is from the ‘Konungs Skuggsjá’, or ‘King’s Mirror’, a Norwegian text written around 1270. Every source I could find cited this work, so it might actually be the only mention of Hafstrambi.

Perhaps the most curious thing about this entity is its appearance: the creature has a human-like head, shoulders and neck, and a face with a nose, eyes and a mouth, but the top of its head resembles a spiked helmet. Though it has shoulders, Hafstrambi does not appear to have visible arms or hands.

The creature’s body narrows from the shoulders down, giving it the shape of a giant icicle, the bottom of which has never been seen. The author of the King’s Mirror speculated that it might have a fish-like tail, or perhaps it ends in a narrow pole. Despite this, modern depictions (of which there aren’t a lot) portray Hafstrambi the other way around with a broad base, like a giant fleshy pillar rising out of the depths.

This colossal living pillar seems to be mostly a modern interpretation, although the original 13th century description did not mention a size, only that it was giant.

Claude Lecouteux has theorized that the Hafstrambi later became conflated with the Kraken, a more well-known giant sea monster.

Sources:

Friis, E. J. (general editor), 1917, The King’s Mirror (Speculum Regale – Konungs Skuggsjá), translated from the old Norse with introduction and notes by Laurence Marcellus Larson, Twayne Publishers, Inc & the American-Scandinavian Foundation, p. 135-136.

Sigurðsson, A., 2016, Museum of Hidden Beings: A Guide to Icelandic Creatures of Myth and Legend, Wool of Bat series, Eye of Newt Press, 80 pp., p. 18-19.

Lecouteux, C., 2016, Encyclopedia of Norse and Germanic Folklore, Mythology, and Magic, 352 pp.

(Source of both images: Yngvar, NorseRemembers / Arngrímur Sigurðsson)

#Icelandic mythology #Nordic mythology #Sea monsters #Monsters #Creatures #Giant fleshy pillars rising out of the depths to signal the coming of a storm #mythical creatures #mythology

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transmutationisms · 25 days ago

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hey do you have any book recs on the relationship between trans people and psychiatry? ty!

stef shuster writes about the general medicalisation of transness, i think pretty exclusively in a us context, and jules gill-peterson does a better job historicising it in histories of the transgender child. there's also that goodrich & trüstedt book on judge schreber but i hated the introduction and didn't finish it and it also seemed pretty contextually local. i think though this question is kind of framed the wrong way round because the psychiatric category of transness is one that emerged out of psychiatric discourse itself, it's not like an external idea that was absorbed in. there's a lot of writing about gender & psychiatry & although those texts don't tend to explicitly interrogate the category of transness, i would argue that's what's being formed and debated when psychiatric discourses are load-bearing elements of gender assignment & enforcement.

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thatscarletflycatcher · 6 months ago

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Annotated Editions: the case of Jane Austen's Persuasion

The other day I made a post about my poor opinion of David Shepard's annotated editions of Jane Austen's novels, specially in terms of how much praise they get in the Austen fandom. That last qualifier is important, because while in general I do think they aren't great in a vacuum, it's specifically the place of honor they get in fandom that makes my judgement harsher; not because popular=bad, but because, well, if you claim to be excellent, you should be excellent.

So I'm gonna try here to compare three annotated editions: Shepard's, Norton Critical, and Oxford World's Classics.

Let's begin with the introductions/prefaces. Prefaces are complicated, because for the most part there is a tradition in this sort of literature to treat them as a free space for an essay, basically fulfilling the role of an afterword, instead of working as an introduction, as a summary of the historical, biographical, anthropological, artistic, etc, clues that will facilitate and enrich the comprehension of the text by the reader.

How goes Shepard about his introduction to Persuasion?

There's a brief note to the reader before the preface itself explaining what kind of notes he has added to the text; so far so good.

The preface itself is roughly divided in the following sections:

a biographical sketch of Jane Austen (5-10%)

comments on the spot Persuasion occupies popularity wise in the list of Austen novels, followed by, as Shepard's argument for why it is so;

An in-depth comparative analysis of the whole plot and main characters of the novel, with other Austen novels, pointing "pros" and "cons." (90-95%)

A comment on how he thinks Austen's style would have been moving forward, disagreeing with Virginia Woolf.

The first section is useful to contextualize the work, but the second is basically spoilers + Shepard's opinions on the novel and on the novel as compared to other Austen novels; this latter part is of little or none usefulness to the reader, and even its quality as an essay has several very weak, "sloppy" points. For example, the assertion that Persuasion, like the rest of Austen's novels is a romance; not only because many would disagree, but because a good introduction would include a discussion of the genre of the novel, and for an Austen novel the discussion and explanation of the nature and tensions of romance, bildungsroman and comedy of manners is VERY important. Another weak point is the blank assertion that Austen never wrote a scene between two men alone, which is false). Another notorious absence in this introduction is the historical setting of Persuasion; it is a rarity between Austen novels in how relevant the Napoleonic Wars are for the plot and how firmly they date the narrative. Tied to this are considerations of class, and the meaning of the navy as a symbol of meritocracy and Austen's special relation to it through her family... none of which are even mentioned in this preface.

How does the Norton Critical Edition by Patricia Meyer Spacks tackle the same part?

When did Austen write the novel and when was it published.

Brief summary of currents of opinion on tone and theme of the novel.

A discussion of traditional views on the "femininity" of Persuasion.

Critical evaluation of this in relation to contemporary analysis of the ethical and the political in Austen and the novel.

Her own interpretation of the novel as an ethical study on the concept of self-love.

A brief note on the choices made for the presentation of the final text.

I do think, even by this brief summary, one can uncontroversially say this is a better preface. While it still lacks the practicality of information that is mentioned rather than explained about the context of the novel, its use of spoilers is sparse and isolated rather than extensive. No supporting references to other novels are made (which I think is a good thing, because those involve a certain requirement of familiarity for the reader), and while the personal interpretation of the editor is presented, it is not an opinion on why Persuasion is popular, but a reference, a way for the reader to organize and approach the text of the novel.

Now on to Oxford World's Classics, introduction and notes by Deidre Shauna Lynch.

Napoleon and the briefest historical context he provides for the novel

An analysis of Persuasion's uniqueness in the Austen canon through the character of Anne

The permanence/change break through the changed roles of houses and the predominance of travel in comparison to previous novels

The role of memory and with this a tieback to continue elaborating on the historical context of the Napoleonic Wars in England and the cultural change it brought in the understanding of History

Persuasion as a sequel-like novel, for which a main interpretative key is that of History and Memory

A stronger attention on aging and disability

The interrelation between war history and social history in the novel, and the time frame of the events

More elaboration on the theme of past and present and personal history, with a contrast between Sir Walter's reading of the baronetage and Anne's reading of the newspapers

An interpretation of Persuasion as commentary on Sir Walter Scott's restoration plots; Wentworth and Mr. Elliot as two forms of return of the past.

An analysis of The ConversationTM between Anne and Harville still on the theme of personal history.

A comparison between the two endings of the novel

The assertion that the novel isn't melancholy and nostalgic in the end, but open to the future

This introduction is much more meandering and essay-like than the Norton one, and in that way much closer to Shepard's, in its use of spoilers and commentary on a text the reader is unfamiliar with. It's definitely not a GoodTM introduction as introduction, but it still includes mentions of important historical context and keys to reading the text; and its commentary provides references not only to other authors writing at the time, such as Scott and Wordsworth, but of more contemporary sources as well. There is some poliphony to it beyond a mention in passing to Virginia Woolf.

Besides that, it's also worth mentioning that the volume includes a brief biography of Austen and a chronology of her life elsewhere, a full note on the text editorial choices, a selection of bibliography for further reading, and three context appendixes on rank and social status, dancing, and Austen's relationship with the navy. As much as I'd think those appendixes should have taken the place of preface and the preface a place of afterword, the information to the reader has been included.

In terms of this kind of extra, Shepard has included a chronology of the novel, maps, and pictures in his notes, which are features the other editions don't have that might be of interest; but he has not provided good contexts like the Oxford edition does, either in the introduction or as appendixes; or pieces of solid, well researched essays and contextual texts like Norton does. Both Oxford and Norton include the cancelled chapters in an annex; he doesn't.

Someone would reasonably argue that Shepard chose to include all contextual information in the notes, and here is where personal opinion comes across the strongest: I think he does it that way, not for the reader's convenience, but for the padding of the notes and to inflate the value of his role as an editor. The addition of titles to the chapters of the novel, and the repetition of notes and information serve, in my opinion, the same end. In my opinion, there is a substantial difference between providing someone contextual information before they engage with something, and giving it as the something unfolds. Your first experience of a soccer match would be entirely different if someone told you the rules of the game, the stakes of the particular match, etc, before you get to the stadium than if they were to feed them to you during the match; and I think the former is a much more satisfying and rich experience.

So, notes!

Shepard's editions have lots and lots of notes. For example, for Chapter I of Persuasion he makes 65 notes, against 9 of Norton and 15 of Oxford. A first impression would say "oh, that's a really nice lot of info!" until you stop to think if this is really such a heavy text that it requires a note every 40 words on average. That's almost two notes on the extension of this paragraph alone. Let's dig a bit more to see where are the differences in selection.

Norton's, as you might have guessed now, tend to be editions heavy on the commentary side through essays and articles, and so notes are minimal and sparse. The notes on this chapter are on "baronetage", "patents", "creations", "Dugdale", "worsting", "chaise and four", "Tattersal's", "black ribbons", and "alineable". None of the notes go over a line. Oxford includes all these, and adds "High Sheriff", "exertions of loyalty", "duodecimo", "heir presumptive", "awful legacy", "dear daughter's sake", "every ball", and "his agent". Listing all the Shepard notes would be exhausting, so let's try some general classification of the notes that aren't the ones above:

3 geographical notes that amount to "this is a place in England, see map", which are easily understood in context.

14 glossary notes which usefulness/necessity is very variable. Awful and town are very reasonable notes; one wonders the necessity of notes on bloom and independence which are easily understood by context.

This theme of usefulness extends to the rest of the general notes. That stillborns were not uncommon during Jane Austen's era, or that Austen's fabricated entry of the baronetage actually does look like an entry of the baronetage is trivial and not necessary for the understanding of the text at all. That lady Russell is the widow of a knight is something that the text will state the following chapter, and that knights ranked below baronets will be heavily implied there too. The explanation of what an old country family is literally reads as redundant. Many notes are like this: information that is trivial, explained further on in the text or easily understood through context. This is specially the case of notes like the one saying that cousin marriage wasn't illegal, that people of high status spent a lot of money showing it off, and that rich people also went into debt.

There are useful notes, but when you trim them down to the actually pertinent and useful, there aren't many more than the ones included in the Oxford edition.

Now let me take a look at some of the notes shared between Shepard and Oxford:

On patents/creations:

Shepard:

The book listed families in order of receipt of the title. Thus Sir Walter would first see the earliest patents (i.e., grants conferring the baronetcy); there would be only a “limited remnant” of them because most early baronetcies had expired by this point due to the death of all possible heirs. Sir Walter could only know this by consulting another book such as Dugdale (see note 9) and comparing its list of all baronetcies with the entries in his baronetage, for the latter would show only existing titles—that he has done this indicates how obsessed he is with the matter. This carefully acquired knowledge arouses Sir Walter to admiration for himself as the holder of a surviving baronetcy. He would later come to the many pages showing the creations, or new titles, of the last (i.e., eighteenth) century and feel contempt for their relative newness (his came from 1660; see note 12).

Oxford:

limited remnant of the earliest patents: a title was also referred to as a patent: ‘a writ conferring some exclusive right or privilege’ (Johnson). Sir Walter regrets the passing away of the families whose titles date back to the seventeenth century. James I had created the title of baronet in 1611 and had used the financial support he obtained from the baronets he created to fund his army in Northern Ireland. endless creations of the last century: Sir Walter’s contempt for the low-born recipients of the new titles that the government had distributed would extend to those who, like the commander of the Fleet, Lord Nelson (the son of a mere country clergyman), had recently been rewarded with newly created peerages for their war service.

Oxford omits information that will be said explicitly later on in the text (that the Elliot baronetcy dates from 1660), and in its place includes a very relevant example of a new patent to show why Sir Walter looks with contempt upon new creations, rather than simply repeating what the text says.

High sheriff:

Shepard:

The High Sheriff (often simply called sheriff) was, after the Lord Lieutenant, the leading official in a county, responsible for the execution of the laws. He served for one year. The position, usually held by a member of the gentry, carried great prestige and would be a source of family pride.

Oxford:

the chief representative of the Crown in county government, the High Sheriff presided over parliamentary elections and the administration of justice. Holders of the office (which is now a mainly ceremonial one) were chosen annually from among the principal land-owners of the county.

While Shepard gives me something I can gleam from the text itself (the social importance of the title) Oxford tells me what his job entailed.

The note on duodecimo is an interesting case, where technically Shepard's information is more complete, but he spreads it in such a way as to pad his note count and extension. He simply notes that it is a small book, and refers to a note on books on chapter X:

“Large” could refer to thickness but is more likely to refer to length and width. At this time books came in widely varying sizes. The principal ones were folios, in which a standard sheet of paper was folded in two to make the pages, quartos, in which the paper was folded into quarters, octavos, in which the paper was folded into eight pieces, and duodecimos, in which the paper was folded into twelve pieces. Thus the length and width of a duodecimo would be one-sixth those of a folio. The type of book would influence its size. Popular books, especially novels, tended to come in smaller sizes, while serious, scholarly ones were usually larger. Thus the size of Charles Hayter’s books helps spur the Musgroves’ worries about excessive studying. They might be naturally inclined to such worries, not seeming bookish at all themselves.

What's the reference for this note specifically? "and having been found on the occasion by Mr. Musgrove with some large books before him, Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove were sure all could not be right, and talked, with grave faces, of his studying himself to death." Clearly the natural place of this note is on "duodecimo" in chapter I, but by this strategy Shepard not only manages to make two notes out of where there should be only one, but inserts notes visually in chapters in such a way as to make it appear like he has lots and lots of substantial, erudite explanations to make all the time. This strategy he repeats a lot through the text.

It's these habits of trickery, of padding and puffing up that I find intellectually dishonest, and rather inexcusable in a man who is an academic and must know better. I have also accused him of sloppiness. Perhaps I could have been more charitable and say that Shepard is a Historian by profession, and the things that touch on the literary and the philosophical, his references are much more scarce and lacking, not particularly well researched (in contrast with his historical notes). I mentioned how despite being relatively similar in tone and aim, the contrast between Shepard and Oxford showed that the Oxford annotator was familiar with literary authors in ways Shepard wasn't. This reflects in notes as well. For example:

Pinny

Shepard:

Charmouth is another coastal town (see note 8, for a description). Up Lyme sits atop the ascent next to Lyme, and offers views of the town and sea. Pinny is a spot a little west of Lyme. (For locations, see map.)

Oxford:

Many readers encountering this description of the scenery of Pinny, just west of Lyme, have detected an echo of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ (composed 1798; published 1816). See lines 12-13: ‘But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted | Down the green hill athwart a cedar n cover. . . .’ The romance of the landscape is the product of a series of landslides, which have carried into Pinny Bay some of the cliff paths on which Austen must have walked during her stay in Lyme.

Marmion and The Lady of the Lake/Giaour and The Bride of Abydos

Shepard:

These are two long narrative poems by Walter Scott. In contrast to the above poets, Scott immediately achieved great popularity. The two poems cited here, his most widely read, were among the best sellers of the age—and in this age, poetry generally outsold novels, at least until Scott’s own novels appeared. Both poems are stories of love and war, set in sixteenth-century Scotland; a critical element of Romanticism was fascination with the past, especially the medieval past, and Scott was central to fostering this sentiment. Jane Austen mentions each of these poems in her letters. These are two narrative poems by Lord Byron, the other highly popular poet of the time. Both are tragic love stories set in the Middle East; fascination with foreign lands, especially ones regarded as highly exotic, was another feature of Romanticism.

Oxford:

The first two titles refer to long narrative poems, romances of medieval times, published by Sir Walter Scott in 1808 and 1810; the third and fourth refer to ‘Turkish tales’ published by rival poet Lord Byron in 1813. The poets’ representations of warrior heroes committing doughty deeds in picturesque settings probably contributed to their wartime popularity. Still, the notes that Byron appended to his poems adopt a more cynical view of their heroes’ sabre-rattling than do the poems themselves, in ways that distinguish their account of heroism from Persuasion’s, idealistic view of its chivalric war hero. Anne and Benwick prove themselves faithful observers of the literary scene when they attempt to adjudicate between Scott and Byron (an attempt they resume on p. 90). Similar efforts at a comparative evaluation of the decade’s two most commercially successful poets are pursued in William Hazlitt’s The Spirit of the Age (1825) and the anonymous A Discourse on the Comparative Merits of Scott and Byron (1824).

Our best moralists

Shepard:

These could refer to a wide array of works, especially from earlier years. The eighteenth century, whose spirit Jane Austen exudes in many respects, was characterized by a general preference for prose and an emphasis on greater rationalism than the Romantic period. Moral essays, frequently supported by observations on life and contemporary mores, were popular throughout the century. Collections of letters, often highly polished, also appeared. Finally, biography developed as a significant genre, and it, like much of the prose of the time, often had a moralizing tone, pointing out lessons and presenting examples of virtuous behavior.

The difficulty in following precepts of patience and resignation had been a popular theme of many writers, especially when discussing the influential philosophy of Stoicism, which counseled rational indifference to the ills of life. Similarly, as in all ages, many who preached virtue did not always live up to their preaching. One of the most influential prose moralists of the eighteenth century, and a favorite author of Jane Austen’s, Samuel Johnson, addresses this point in one of his essays (The Rambler, #14). He writes that “for many reasons a man writes much better than he lives.” But he argues, “Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues, which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory.” Rather, he claims that such a man should be commended for attempting to impart to others some of his own, possibly hard-earned, wisdom. From this perspective, Anne’s counsel to Captain Benwick, which does certainly come from her own extensive experience, would represent a valuable and benevolent service to him, whatever her own failings in achieving patience or self-control.

Oxford:

The texts Anne prescribes to Benwick would very probably include works by Samuel Johnson. Throughout the second half of the eighteenth century readers made an almost medicinal use of the essay series The Rambler (first published 1750-2), in which Johnson treats such topics as the dangers of solitude and the necessity of resignation in the face of loss. Johnson’s biographer James Boswell claimed of The Rambler that ‘In no writings whatever can be found . . . more that can brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment’ ( Life ofJohnson, ed. R. W. Chapman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 154).

Here I would note that the much longer two-notes reference of Shepard sits between vague and repetitive, and that in my opinion both sin by omission of Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper).

Dark blue seas

Shepard:

Byron’s The Corsair, a work Jane Austen mentions reading in a letter (March 5, 1814), begins with the lines, “O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, / Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free.”

Oxford:

Benwick and Anne perhaps recall the second canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812). Its description of the hero’s voyage from Greece and of the ‘little warlike world within’ (ii. 154) he enters when he boards the ship certainly glamorizes nautical life: ‘He that has sail’d upon the dark blue sea, | Has view’d at times, I ween, a full fair sight’ (ii. 145-6). They may also be remembering the lines that open The Corsair (1814), a description of the freedom that the poem’s pirates enjoy as outlaws: ‘O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, | Our thoughts as boundless and our souls as free’. In a letter of 1814 Austen sounds jaded about the Byronic heroes, such as Harold and Conrad the Corsair, who enthuse Captain Benwick: ‘I have read the Corsair, mended my petticoat, & have nothing else to do’ ( Letters , 257).

'eleven with its silver sounds’

Shepard:

The origin of this phrase, which seems, based on the quotation marks, to be from a particular text, has never been identified for certain. One commentator, Patricia Meyer Spacks, suggests the phrase may allude to a line in The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope, a poet Jane Austen certainly knew well: “And the pressed watch returned a silver sound.” The phrase does not represent a literal description of the operation of the clock, for the component parts of a clock were made of other metals than silver, usually brass or steel. Clocks were standard parts of a home, designed for elegant appearance as well as utility.

Oxford:

The literary allusion has not been traced. In 1921 Herbert Grierson conjectured that Austen was here misremembering the description of the coquette’s morning rituals that Alexander Pope gives in The Rape of the Lock (1712): ‘Thrice rung the Bell, the Slipper knock’d the Ground, | And the press’d Watch return’d a silver Sound’ (i. 17-18).

Note how here Shepard is crediting Meyer Spacks, but does not reference where (the Norton Critical Edition), whereas the Oxford annotation traces the conjecture to what appears to be its original proponent.

The pen has been in their hands

Shepard:

At this time there had been moves to improve the quality of women’s education, but it still was inferior to men’s, especially at the higher levels—no universities admitted women. As for books, while women had come to constitute a substantial portion of those who wrote novels, men dominated virtually all other fields of literary endeavor.

Oxford:

even as she has Anne object to examples from books, Austen echoes the precedents set by figures in the literary tradition who have previously commented on men’s monopoly of the written word. Anne sounds like the Wife of Bath in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales , who is exasperated by male clerics’ representations of women, and, closer to Austen’s time, like Richard Steele’s character Arietta, who recounts the story of Inkle, the mercenary Englishman, and Yarico, the native woman of Jamaica whom Inkle betrays, so as to counter her male visitor’s trite examples of female inconstancy. Arietta observes, ‘You Men are Writers, and can represent us Women as Unbecoming as you please in your Works, while we are unable to return the Injury’ (.Spectator, 11 (13 Mar. 17 n)).

I'm not saying that necessarily Shepard's notes should be absolutely excellent in every single way and aspect in order for it to be a serviceable/good annotated edition; but all the things I have mentioned above make them appear to me thoroughly undeserving of being considered excellent, above the rest, or definitive.

#Jane Austen #Persuasion #annotated editions

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bookmuseum · 2 months ago

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[REVIEW] Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

5/5 stars (★★★★★)

"Come, I think hell's a fable." (II.i.128)

Aside from surface-level knowledge of Faustian contracts and an admittedly fervid appreciation for Yana Toboso's Black Butler manga (:3), I didn't know a lot about the myth of Faust and the history behind its many retellings, -- nor have I read the Thomas Mann version(s) or the Goethe plays -- so I did a lot of preliminary research before I actually dove right into it. The 1604 play ended up being one of the funniest things I've ever read in a long time. For that reason, this review is extremely short, unserious, and mostly just me reviewing the Broadview second edition edited by Michael Keefer that I used as a copy.

Basically, I regret reading Doctor Faustus for the first time with Broadview because, while it was informative and incredibly detailed (I'm a little concerned for Keefer's scholastic sanity), I wish I just read the play on its own with few to little annotations and context. I liked reading about Christopher Marlowe in the introduction. I had zero idea that homeboy was a spy and got murdered for it at only 29 years of age. I wish we knew more about him, I would've loved to read more about what crazy shit he got into as a political dissident in Elizabethan England. That sounds so kickass.

The story of DF itself is really short (shorter than most Shakespeare plays). Keefer's annotations and footnotes took up 70% of the space on the pages, so I'd read about 20ish lines then spend the next 5-10 minutes reading over what he had to say about them in painstaking detail. I read every annotation! Broadview prides itself on being exhaustive for the sake of maximized education, which I commend, but I think I underestimated myself when I thought I needed this much context to "understand" this classic play. If you know the basics of Greek/Roman mythology, post-Lutheran Christian doctrine, and Elizabethan English society + playwrights in general, (so essentially what they teach you about Shakespeare in high school) I'd say you're solid and don't really need the Broadview text (unless you want to really get into it).

For me, I just wanted to read the play casually so I didn't pay too much attention to the footnotes and forced myself not to go too deep down the research rabbit hole. I unfortunately forgot an important rule with literature in that a text's reputation is never as solemnly serious as it ever is in popular culture, so don't let it "scare" you into thinking you don't know anything going into it. I'm not an Elizabethan scholar nor do I really like Early Modern English literature all that much, so I thought I needed to know more than what I already did. I was wrong! I could've read DF when I was just starting to get into classic lit in Grade 9 and I still would've enjoyed it as is. It's not this impregnable, impossible to fathom text. It's so silly!

I get that this play is a tragedy and everything, but it genuinely did make me laugh out loud a handful of times. I was a graduate student too and, while I don't have my PhD in divinity, I kinda get how Faustus ended up summoning the devil in his college dorm/study one day for the fuck of it. Like yeah, what the hell, sure. When the iconic Mephistopheles shows up, Faust basically tells him he looks too ugly for his eyes so he has to change into a more palatable form -- and Mephi does it! That was so funny. I ship Faustus and Mephi, I don't care. I don't wanna go into it too much, but just know I'm not alone in my delusion and have spent a significant amount of time going back and forth between reading what people had to say about #Faustupheles on the internet and actually reading the play. I had a grand old time, I'll have you know.

Anyway, I opted out of reading Appendix C and D because they seemed boring to me so I can't judge them or their merit here. Appendix A and B, I did read though. I really enjoyed Keefer's inclusion of excerpts from The Historie of the damnable life, and deserved death of Doctor John Faustus (1592) (or The English Faust Book AKA TEFB) edited by John Henry Jones in 1994. I read it immediately after finishing the main play and was delighted the second time around looking back on the plot (although there were some changes in the TEFB that didn't hit as well).

#book review #classic literature #modern english play #play #elizabethan play #elizabethan era #christopher marlowe #doctor faustus #tragedy #english play #english literature #english lit #eng lit #book #faustus #faustupheles

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roxannepolice · 11 months ago

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The thing about Ricky September rising to the top of the chart as the most controversial aspect of Dot and Bubble is interesting, because... welp, as many people have pointed out, he's the surface level white twinky manic pixie nuwho Doctor at their most op on steroids. I've seen people comparing him to s6 Eleven specifically, but the offhand remarks about how much he knows, the interest in history, and most importantly, the proper introduction as the handsome guy who leads our protagonist away from cheap looking monsters and then runs hand in hand with her... that's Rose, the episode. The reason people took a liking to him is because he literally echoes the main character of the show we're watching. He's the Doctor doll in this sci fi dollhouse. That's why it's so shocking when Lindy uses him as cannon fodder.

So the fact that he's no less racist than everyone else in Finetime fits into the general concept of this episode as unpacking the naturalised racism of Shakespeare's Tempest/Forbidden Planet sf conventions, that Doctor Who, and the Doctor themself has been guilty of (welp this is what you get for thinking it's a good idea to turn a brown guy over to WWII villains or not filtering for racism when you random generate a time and space you will hide in with a black companion - you watch aryan bubble folks go to their deaths you bent ass over tits to prevent; not for many people this would have been karma doing its job, but for the Doctor it is).

But I don't think... the show wants us to hate itself, or its main character. Like, there are reviewers clutching their pearls over another cult text getting written by people who hate it, but. criticism isn't hatred, it's often an expression of love, and perhaps one of the highest forms of self-love. Which is why it caught my attention Ncuti Gatwa looks extra-doctorish in the last scene. Yes, clothes are surface, but in a visual medium they're a message too. Fifteen has been the most clothes changing Doctor we've seen so far, and he spends most of the episode in a more everyday casual shirt, but he dons the extravagant yet stylish tartan knee length suit for the end. And he does a Speech(tm), too, and helpless shouting, and finally a stern face (which ironically enough reminded me of fury of a Time Lord Ten). And like, he's not ignorant of why Finetimers look at him this way. They always knew, just never were on the practical not abstract side of the deal.

So Ricky the Doctor Doll works not only as a meta textual self reflexive parody, but also a contrast. Not so much as a "but see, this show, or even this era is not like other girls" masturbation, but more as a reflection on what makes this protagonist who they are. Yes, maybe s6 Eleven was op-ed too much, but that's not what made any Doctor, including this one, who they are. From this perspective the concept that Ricky would not have helped anyone from outside the in-group is... ironic considering how much of a separate chaff from grain sentiment there comes about in response to the Doctor's radical - and often pragmatically wrong! - kindness. Yes, the rationales for when they "should" be less merciful are more solid than skin colour, but I think this element of "this guy is what you WANT the Doctor to be, and not just visually" is there. Can't help thinking of how the destruction of Gallifrey - both in s1 and s12 - gets hailed as "yes, that's what the show is telling us is the RIGHT thing to do, just in general, not to prevent a specific outcome!". Meanwhile Fifteen keeps calling it genocide and remains wistful.

#full transparency: I am white and will accept any and all criticism of this analysis #(just. please no guilt tripping. people have tried it on me many times and it doesn't work)#doctor who #dw meta #dw spoilers #dot and bubble #fifteenth doctor #the doctor

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buritochacito · 3 months ago

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Beginning of Part Two

Previously, we explored the Home section, which detailed the city of New Jhoquez - or rather, its downfall. A city plagued by crime, disappearances, and violence, struggling to keep itself afloat despite a history of failed attempts to "fix" it. built as a desperate effort to document the chaos. section holds something different. Less about the city as a whole, more about specific events - some of which may explain why New Jhoquez is the way it is. Or at the very least, why it feels so.. wrong.

Now, it's time to dig deeper.

Section: Recent News 2/4

(a standard missing persons report, another tragedy lost in the flood of New Jhoquez’s ever-growing list of disappearances. nothing special, right?)

Three teenagers vanished on March 2nd, 2008, last seen at a Dollar General at 8:29 PM. Their names were listed. But the third one.. the third one was missing. In the first version of the notice, it's name was blacked out. Redacted. Gone. But, If you high-light the text, we can see it - "Richie Horviton"

Did you catch the reference? i caught the reference. you caught it too, right? riiight?

Just like that. As if it had always been there. But why hide it in the first place? Something isn’t right, And someone doesn't want us to know. Someone is hiding it. The one who is involved in this?

this story traces back to the prologue of the comic, where the foundation for future events is laid. It’s not just an introduction but a crucial moment that raises key questions and hints at hidden connections between the characters and unfolding events.

You could read the prologue from the original creator, it’s truly well-made and perfectly captures the atmosphere of what’s happening. But if you don’t have time or, for some reason, can’t do so, I’ll summarize the story for you. This is important for analyzing the site and helping you better understand the core of it.

(Though I still recommend reading it ^^)

The Very Beginning

The boy, probably Richie Horviton, is running in panic from an unknown pursuer in an abandoned place. He finds an elevator, lifts the gate, and rushes inside. Then, he presses a button and tries to catch his breath as the doors close. A few seconds of waiting, and finally, he arrives.

When the doors open again, he lifts the gate.. but it's already late. It's here. Standing right in front of him, our dear and mighty Z.

In the next moment, claws appear just inches from the boy. He doesn’t even have time to blink before-.. The next frame is empty. They are gone. The target has been caught.

The mission is going smoothly.

What happened to him?

If you click on its photo, it takes you to this page. The same image, but now distorted, bulging eyes, and heavy glitches. Below it, an inscription in Irken, problematic to translate.. (I'm veary lazy) But the most unsettling part? The audio.

Through the interference, it's clear that no one cared about its quality. Yet, beneath the static, you can hear it - choking, a strained, strangled voice struggling to speak? It could be him, in the final moments before death.. or just before slipping into unconsciousness.

Although, after reading the text, one thing becomes clear: he's been dead for a long time.

ENTRY-17

"DERMA EXTRACTION."

In medicine and biology, Derma is a synonym for the word dermis (or corium) - the inner layer of the skin located under the epidermis. This suggests that the boy's skin was removed, either partially or completely. It implies a surgical or forceful process.

"VESSEL NOW ADJUSTED TO ATTIRE."

"Vessel" is a term often used for bodies, especially when viewed as mere containers rather than individuals. I'm sure that Z doesn't see only people this way, He sees almost everyone the same way.

"Adjusted to attire" suggests that whatever was done to him was to make his body fit something - perhaps a suit, a disguise, or even a new form.. new face.

"REMAINING BIOTIC EXCESS HAS BEEN DISPOSED."

"Biotic excess" could refer to any organic matter that was removed, unnecessary tissue, discarded body parts, or even things that made the boy human. The phrasing "disposed" makes it clear that this was seen as waste. It was not preserved or valued.

"INITIATING CONTACT."

Now that the transformation is complete, something or someone is ready to use the altered body for a purpose. Communication, infiltration, or some other sinister agenda.

You can tell right away that these are Z's notes, or a personal diary where he writes down all his work.

Conclusion

From everything we've learned, only one thing can be said.. Sometimes, in order to survive in a cruel and complicated world, a person is willing to give up their identity. But is there anything more terrifying than losing who you are? When you become merely a tool in someone else's hands, your skin and appearance become nothing more than a mask, hiding not only your true self, but also your soul. When someone is taking your place inside you.

choking the boy to the point of unconsciousness, didn’t only take his life - Z took everything from him: not just his body, but his very self. By peeling off his skin, Z created a shell from the boy, replacing it with a living cover that allowed him to blend into the crowd, yet left him out of the game, without freedom of choice. This act symbolizes the destruction of the integrity of the self, the moment when one’s inner being loses its essence for the sake of survival.

The boy could no longer be himself.. his body became foreign, his "self" became part of an experiment. The fear of losing your individuality, of dissolving in someone else's gaze, of no longer being who you once were. it is the highest sacrifice, one that comes from excessive submission to others rules and decisions.

Although.. does any of this even matter when you're dead? Why would you care at all, huh? Any moral values are useless, you're no longer alive. why regret when it’s all over...

Or is it?

If we continue reading that comic, we can see how dib tries to contact ghosts as always, you know him.. and guess what?

He succeed, with.. yeah, It's him - richie horviton.

Of course, after a light conversation, for some reason (Maybe because of the strong waves) radio through which they communicated exploded, and Dib wasn't able to find out who it was. But the very fact that he's still there, is quite intriguing.

The boy may no longer be alive, but he is not forgotten, and his struggle for peace is something Dib might carry with him, giving him the hope that even in the afterlife, there is still a chance to be seen, to be heard, to find peace.

Of course, I don’t know what will happen to him, and whether he will even appear in the future, but.. It's an interesting experience, showing that we should appreciate what we have. And that even in the most terrible situations there can be a tiny hope for something good, or at least happy-end.

All theories are just my guesses, So don't take my word for it.

Based on IZ AU by: @project-doomsday

<PREV

(I wonder if this long monologue of mine makes any sense? I'm literally making you feel sorry for a fictional character, I'm da best)

Okey, thanks all

Thanks for reading it whole! I understand it's difficult, I see that it's difficult, and for such a big time spent I can only say thank you ^^"

Not a big reward for a bunch of schizo-theory, huh?

But still, it was fun, I just love to analyze and evaluate situations) as if my opinion is important!

So much has been said, but still I have added almost nothing new.. needs to be corrected :/

In any case, if you like/didn't like something, you can write about it, I'm online almost 24/7, will be so happy to chat with)

#doomsday #I'm so proud of this)#invader zim #invader zim au #iz au theories #iz au #fan theories #analog horror

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xhxhxhx · 4 months ago

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One of the things that's kept me from writing has been an anxiety about correctness or completeness. I've been trying to stave that off, but it still eats at me.

In that spirit, I started writing this piece. It was meant to be what I know about the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

But because the Equal Protection Clause itself has no apparent antecedents in the Constitution and laws of the United States, I wound up writing something else. An introduction.

The Constitution of the United States has two Due Process Clauses, but only one Equal Protection Clause.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment sits with the Privileges and Immunities and Due Process Clauses at the end of one long sentence:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The Equal Protection Clause joins the start of that sentence with its last clause, after that last semicolon, "No state shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

II.

Unlike its companion clauses, the Equal Protection Clause was new to the Constitution.

The Privileges and Immunities Clause had its antecedent in the Privileges or Immunities Clause of Article IV, and the Due Process Clause had its antecedent in the Fifth Amendment.

But the original Constitution doesn't have an Equal Protection Clause. The stem "equal" does appear in the original Constitution, but always an aid to addition and division.

The original Constitution guaranteed equality between classes of Senators, "divided as equally as may be," and forbid amendments that would deprive the States of their "equal Suffrage in the Senate." Equality between persons was harder to find.

Neither the original Constitution nor the Bill of Rights speaks to civil or political equality, nor expressly. The principle might be in there somewhere, but it's not in the text.

III.

Justice Douglas did find an implicit principle of political equality in the Constitution and laws of the United States. In 1963, he authored the phrase that became the standard for political equality in the United States, "one person, one vote." Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 381 (1963).

At the time, no State met that standard. In Georgia and Florida, a fourth or an eighth of the State's population could control the upper house. In Nevada, a twelfth could. Nat'l Mun. League, Compendium on Legislative Apportionment at iv (1962).

But the problem wasn't limited to the South or to State upper houses. In New York's State Assembly, where the average population of a district was 111,882, the smallest had a population of 14,974, and the largest 190,343. Id.

In California, where Chief Justice Earl Warren had been Attorney General, Governor, and Senator before making himself useful enough to Eisenhower to win his nomination as Chief Justice of the United States, the situation was worse than anywhere but Nevada.

In California's Senate, where the average district population was 392,930, the smallest had a population of 14,294, and the largest 6,038,771. In the Golden State, districts representing 10.7% of the State's population were a majority of the State Senate. Id.

In California, Warren had opposed attempts to reapportion the State Senate. "I believe we should keep it," Governor Warren had said. He approved of unequal representation in the State Senate because it was "in keeping with the federal system of representation."

Under the "one person, one vote" standard, first the Supreme Court, then the inferior courts of the United States, systematically compelled State legislatures to reestablish themselves on the basis of strict population equality between districts.

IV.

After announcing his retirement, Chief Justice Warren held a press conference during the Court's summer recess, on a day that happened to be the day after the Fourth of July. N.Y. Times, July 6, 1968, at 1.

But now, July 5, 1968, when asked what he thought the most important cases of his term were, Chief Justice Warren didn't say Brown, or Gideon, or Miranda. The most important case of his term, he said, was Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962).

Baker was where the Court first held that legislative apportionment was a judicial question, not a political one. It was where the Court first held that unequal legislative apportionment was, or could be, a denial of the equal protection of the laws.

"For a long, long time we have swept under the rug a number of problems that are basic to American life," Chief Justice Warren told the reporters. "They have piled up. There must be great adjustments of some kind." Baker was Warren's great adjustment.

Baker was the start of the reapportionment revolution, a revolution that came to be known by the name Justice Douglas used in another reapportionment case: "one person, one vote." Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 381 (1963).

For Warren, "one person, one vote" was nearly a matter of faith. "I believe so devoutly," he wrote in his memoirs, that "ours is a government of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people." Memoirs at 308.

But Warren was more comfortable grounding the right in "the essence of a democratic society," Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 555 (1964), than in particular provisions of the Constitution, much less the original Constitution.

Even Justice Douglas didn't trace "one person, one vote" to the original Constitution.

Justice Douglas may be best known as the author of that unhappy metaphor about the Constitution's "penumbras and emanations." Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 484 (1965).

But for Justice Douglas, the "conception of political equality" that ratified the principle of "one person, one vote" ran, for the first century of the republic, outside the Constitution:

The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing—one person, one vote.

Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 381 (1963).

Neither the Declaration of Independence, which recognized that “All men are created equal,” nor Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which recalled and restated it, made law. Not domestic law, at least. The essence of democracy spoke one way; the constitutional text, for nearly a century, spoke another.

For the first century of the republic, the "conception of political equality" was hard to find in the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Even for Douglas, who could find rights in penumbras and emanations, its roots lay elsewhere. It came from America's political tradition, not its fundamental law.

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cyanophore · 1 month ago

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Fuck it, dropping my sona. I have no art for this goober, but I've got a lot of lore about who they are and how they work, which has accumulated over a couple years, so wall of text incoming.

Name is O/LETS-061 (They/Them, Operations/Logistics Engineering and Technical Support, or informally, Ollie/Outlets!), and they're an industrial-model protogen with an integrated fusion reactor.

Kind and timid, relates well to AIs. Can generate frankly absurd quantities of electricity, but has to worry about cooling and radiation exposure. Makes them indispensable in scenarios where electricity is necessary for life support or to keep AIs from shutting down.

Gray-to-white fur, usually covered by an industrial hardsuit. Physically large, with enhanced legs and skeleton to bear the weight of the reactor, which itself looks something like a cylindrical backpack. Long, very thick tail (think Mewtwo) which serves as a primary power conduit for the reactor.

Lots of details under the cut:

Introduction: a kindly, introverted protogen who sees beauty in the purpose, harmony, and artistry of large-scale technological systems. They relate well to artificial minds—or 'spirits'—and enjoy interfacing with them. Their character flaws are timidity and occasional willingness to take the path of least resistance.

O/LETS-061 is an acronym for Operations/Logistics Engineering and Technical Support, followed by their production batch number. Ollie is genderless, and belongs to a product line designed for engineering tasks in an industrial, municipal, or military capacity. To that end, they were born with a wide-scope knowledge base encompassing everything they need to work with a variety of advanced technologies. They are equipped with a cold fusion reactor which can, with sufficient fuel and supplementary cooling systems, supply power to a small city or starship. Generating power does entail some personal risk, typically due to overheating, though it is generally safe if safety limits are observed.

Physical Description: Ollie stands at around 228cm (~7'6") from the tip of their ears to their paws, and weighs just under 190 kilograms (~418 lb.) due to their extensive array of cybernetics, industrial-grade protective gear, integrated tools, and reactor. To accommodate the additional mass, their skeleton has been reinforced and their legs augmented with powered load-bearing systems.

Their fur is gray, and their cybernetics have dark violet plating and lighting. Their visor is black with purple lighting. Eyes convey expression through simple geometric shapes, and their virtual mouth has a simple curved shape with a set of small fangs. In general, they prefer to open their nanite visor and use their organic larynx to speak. On the right side of their visor, they have a single external screen which typically displays reactor temperature and radiation monitoring data, serving to alert people nearby of reactor function.

To integrate with power grids, their tail contains a high-throughput power conduit leading directly out of the reactor, ending in a universal connector. The tail is self-articulated, over a meter long, and about as large around as a human calf at its widest. For a good reference of size and shape, think Mewtwo. Their tail contains layers of insulation and powerful synthmuscle to bear the weight of the cabling inside, and the electrical connector at the end is marked with hazard tape. If necessary, they can use the electrical output and raw strength of their tail to defend themself.

While working, they are usually seen wearing a hardsuit of industrial protective gear incorporating layers of insulation, impact guards, and tool storage options. When off-duty, however, they remove this suit and can detach much of the backpack assembly surrounding their reactor core, including the thermoelectric generator, supplemental heat management components, and fuel storage. This sheds around 60 kilograms of bulky equipment, slimming their profile down sufficiently that they can wear ordinary clothing if they so choose, though the reactor becomes inoperable in this state.

Without the industrial equipment, they have a bulky build. Their fur sometimes gets unkempt from wearing protective gear for long periods; they go through a lot of shampoo and conditioner. They tend to choose utilitarian clothing, but occasionally buy magnets or decals to put on their cybernetics.

Personality and Background: In contrast to their large, imposing appearance, Ollie is a kind and affable person. In their day-to-day life, they have a small but close circle of friends. They rely on regular, recurring social events to maintain contact with others.

One character flaw they have is tending to think of themself (consciously or not) as a piece of support infrastructure rather than an agent in their own right. They tend to be meek and follow others' lead, dismissing their own ideas on how to proceed even when they might be the expert on a given topic.

In the event of power outages or maintenance requiring primary reactors to be taken offline, units such as Ollie are a vital emergency resource. Many spirits depend on an uninterrupted source of power to survive, as do organics who live in environments where life-support systems are necessary.

When serving in a capacity where others depend on their power production and expertise for survival, Ollie shines. Suddenly, they find themself delegating tasks, triaging problems, and coordinating relief efforts with authority and calm. Even though they might be physically tethered to coolant feeds and power conduits throughout the ordeal, emitting too much radiation for anyone to approach them, O/LETS-061 can become the beating heart of a stricken space colony or starship until the danger passes. They take a lot of pride in this knowledge.

When they aren't working, one activity they enjoy is diving. They own a set of aquatic-style arms and tail with retractable gills, which they can attach to their body as needed. Immersion in water helps Ollie to control excess heat, also providing an instinctual sense of safety and comfort.

They enjoy the alien, bizarre environment of the ocean floor, often taking long-distance hikes across the seabed to explore wrecks, reefs, and other places of interest. Sometimes they will go with friends, but they feel just as comfortable traveling alone. In order to return to the surface, they require a floatation device and compressed air, otherwise they sink like a rock. If that fails, they either have to hike back to shore or call someone to come pull them up with a cargo winch.

Reactor Function: Ollie's reactor core is integrated directly with their biological and cybernetic systems. It's as much a part of their body as their hands or ears. They do have onboard cooling systems, but there's only so much heat they can shunt away from the reactor, limiting their energy production to a few megawatts when not attached to a larger cooling system.

Rather than fusing helium-3 and tritium, as municipal reactors do, O/LETS-061's reactor makes use of a tritium-deuterium reaction. This requires a much lower temperature to induce a reaction, but generates more radiation.

Given access to adequate fuel supplies and large-scale heat management infrastructure, Ollie's maximum safe output skyrockets to 660-700 megawatts. Operating at that level, they can run systems up to ship drives, manufacturing plants, and so forth. Sustaining this maximal level of output for longer than a day or two, however, can lead to fatigue and slow accumulation of radiation damage in excess of what their body can manage.

Naturally, there are certain risks associated with the act of lighting off nuclear reactions inside one’s own body. Ollie is designed for this, but there is strain involved. By far, the greatest limitation is heat management. Onboard coolant circulation carries waste heat to retractable radiator fins mounted on their back and thighs, which extend as necessary. Combined with shielding inside their body, this keeps most of the heat away from their biological components, but their internal temperature can reach up to 50° C (122° F) when running at high power.

To combat the problem of their body tissues literally poaching in their own fluids under these conditions, maniples of nanites in their bloodstream work at the microscopic level to prevent (or reverse, where possible) the breakdown of heat-sensitive proteins. In addition, Ollie's chestplate has a number of couplings to attach external coolant hoses. In an overheating emergency, these can be used to inject supercooled liquid into their reactor, an extreme but potentially life-saving measure.

The internal shielding and bloodstream nanites also work to protect them from the vast majority of the reactor's radiation. Thanks to a number of alterations to their genetics and biology, radiation is actually less of a problem than one would expect. Their body is able to repair microscopic damage from radiation exposure which would be irreversible in most organisms, and can do so on an ongoing basis while under heavy exposure. The real threat lies in exposing others to radiation—Ollie is careful to warn bystanders to find protection when taking their reactor to high power settings.

Thanks to their radiation-hardened biology and ability to detect radiation in the environment, Ollie is uniquely suited to handling and safely disposing of fissile material.

...and that's about it! Love my guy. Thank you for reading! :)

#furry #sona #protogen #disclaimer: I do not pretend that any of this should work lmao

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