#and that depends on how much he remembers bc if I recall correctly

[dire-kumori]

Oh and i had a question about, like, logistics of the reaper au!

Assuming there's a possible ending where reaper Mike dies and young Mike manages to live... do you think it would change things? Would it matter, in the end?

Or is Evan still fated to die at Mike’s hands, is Liz still fated to die, too? Is young Mike still fated to grow up and get scooped before ultimately dying while trying to kill his younger self? (Which is just... very, very sad and horrific in so many ways)

Because if none of these things happen, it could create a paradox; where would reaper Mike have come from if Evan and Liz never die, and Mike never gets scooped?

...Very good question.

Okay, so I like to think that Reaper Mike's mission is ultimately doomed to fail. Obviously he's never going to successfully erase his past self. But after a while, it's stopped being about 'making things right' and 'protecting Evan' and more about 'hurting (kid) Mike as much as possible,' so that doesn't really matter to him. At a certain point he just kind of stops being 'Michael Afton' and just becomes 'the Reaper.'

But Reaper Mike isn't the only one who's changed by the repeated loops. Even with the memories fragmented, young Mike is living out... weeks? Months? Hell, maybe even years in this loop. He's growing up, essentially, but without aging. I mean, of course his emotional and mental maturity is skewed because - [vague gesture at the blood-soaked death parade he's trapped in] - but after a certain number of loops he isn't quite the same person who would have thoughtlessly shoved his brother's head into moving machine parts. Especially not when he still has the broken images of Evan sobbing hysterically and begging the somebody to stop hurting his brother (the Reaper turning its fury onto Evan for daring to get between him and his target, past Mike throwing himself over Evan's little body in a vain attempt to at the very least save Evan's life, if not his own) floating around in his brain.

Can you tell I'm just word vomiting at this point? I kind of lost track of the original question.

I'm not 100% what this would mean for the Reaper Mike because with past Mike growing and changing, the Reaper would inevitably change as well. I like throwing characters up against forces or circumstances beyond their control, but I don't like saying things are just fated to happen. If things play out the same way again, it's because factors leading to those events are still the same. It might actually be that so long as Reaper Mike is stuck outside of his own time, he's largely unaffected by changes made to his past aside from some ripples in his memories. He was pretty shocked when his past self made choices he was certain he never would have made, such as seeking vengeance for Evan's sake after the loop where the Reaper killed them both. So scratch what I said above, past Mike is growing, while Reaper Mike stagnates, wallowing in his self-loathing.

[imagionationstation]

So I was watching Knights of the Zodiacs and idk it made me think what if the turtles were like…reincarnation of gods? Idk

Anyways, this is what I’d personally assign -

Leo - Athena. Raph - Ares. Donnie - Apollo (god of knowledge and all that) or Hephaestus. Mikey - Hermes.

I also spun a wheel to let it decide. So much funnier and more interesting.

Leo - Hermes. Raph - Aphrodite (did you know Aphrodite was also a war goddess?). Donnie - Artemis. Mikey - Demeter.

I think it’s fun, you don’t have to respond lol

I play with Greek/Roman history sometimes so I know enough to recognize the gods and their tempers/hobbies/interests.

If they were recarnations, how much of them would remain? Or would they still have the turtles personalities? Would they still have their powers or some variations of them…?

Never seen Knights of the Zodiacs so I have zero frame of reference for the thoughts that you are having. It’s making my train of thought stop at multiple stations despite its desire to chug on.

(Edited due to minor confusion)

Lemme see…

Athena: Goddess of the wisdom and warefar, a leader and very into tatics and strategies, strong views and she was very big about honor, truth, and justice.

Sounds like Leo. Checks out.

Ares: The god of war, very into all kinds of violence. It gives him a bad reputation bc, yk, obvious reasons. He can also be considered the god of courage depending on where you look. He’s not necessarily on anyone’s side as long as violence happens.

He and Athena are often depicted as frenemies, with them fighting often, probably because he likes war for the sake of war and she fights in wars with purpose.

Interesting take on Raph. I can work with that.

Apollo: The god of quite a few things. I remember prophecy and archery in that lineup. Music and poetry was in there too. He also emulates Athena’s beliefs in justice and peace. If I’m recalling correctly, he could also be passionate/emotional and tended to have some jealous streaks.

Yeppers. Sounds like the boy but with a musical flare <3

Hermes: The god of speed and travel/luck. He’s a tricky, mischievous boy with the best intentions. He’s bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and only lives to do as he pleases. He’s very fast, very annoying (to the other gods), and very sneaky. I think he’s also a protector of travelers/wandering souls. He’s genuinely a good, silly guy.

Mikey in a nutshell right there. I think we’re on the same page here.

Other than the fact that I, again, have not seen Knights of the Zodiacs. Sincere apologies.

There’s a whole lot that goes into them being gods, tho.

Do they keep all their powers? ‘Cause mythological gods tend to be overpowerful creatures and overpowerful creatures are no fun.

I want to beat the turtles up. Make them suffer and bond. How do I do that when they have few weaknesses??

What if- they have powers, but they have mutant forms now. So they have the weakness that come with mortal bodies. It’s harder to unlock and use their powers. And it’s really annoying because they have to shift between struggling to use the powers and randomly unlocking them mid-battle, only to find them locked later.

#The Struggle Is Real

I wish I could draw. I have some images on the brain that I’d love to share but sadly my talents do not extend so far.

[your--isgayrights]

Outside of Lee Seolhwa and Lee Sookyung, do you have plans for any other character outside of Kim Dokja’s primary companions (like Gong Pildu or Han Doonghoon) for your soulmate fanfiction? Constellations like Persephone or Uriel or Sun Wukong probably wouldn’t make sense to exist in real life but maybe characters such as Han Myungoh/Han Dareum or Jang Hayoung could fit? If I recall correctly, Jang Hayoung in particular is the one responsible for the title of the fanfiction, right? I feel like she alongside the Unidentifiable Wall and the Fourth Wall would be so thematically appropriate but I couldn’t imagine how you would do it if at all. I also want to say that I’m impressed how you managed to seamlessly incorporate so many references to the original ORV into your work. It must have required you to reread and recheck the wiki.

Yess, I'm glad you asked this anon bc literally I just threw in a little reference to Han Doonghoon and Lee Sungkook in the 4.4 update and got worried people would think they had to remember the characters well to understand the surrounding plot point better than Kim Dokja does. But I think I should trust the reader a bit more lol.

Unfortunately my inclusion of Aileen and Jang Hayoung isn't going to be as big as the other kdjco members, but they're sort of already set up in the fic and have a role in chap 5. I think JHY doesn't appear directly bc to me the relationship between her and KDJ is harder to make 'real,' though I have some ideas depending on how much I decide to include in chap 5. In my plans 5 will have a gaming tourney featured, so other big 'wos players' may be referenced further there as well.

Of course like you mention the fic title and many of the chapter titles are coming directly from the mouth of Jang Hayoung, so in that way she is constantly being referenced, haha.

Han Myungoh and his daughter are referenced earlier in Chapter 4. It's sort of a drive by.

I do make use of the wiki (bless the editorsn🙏), though mostly just to check dates, numbers, and spellings of names. I like to think of myself as someone with a pretty decent memory tho, so a lot of the more specific story references are definitely just me pulling in stuff I remember from my novel read throughs. Like I might have to look at the wiki to remember Han Dareum's name, but I'll never forget Han Myungoh's entire Male Pregnancy that he had like that was a crazy random W to me on my first ORV read through I was like hello??? Also that being around when JHY was being confirmed trans haha. I think I was only out for like a year or so before reading orv so the little gender fucky moments really stuck out to me.

Sometimes rereading my old work I also remember things I forgot happened in ORV. I think part of the reason I'm struggling so much with chap 4 and onward is that now that the wall fic characters have sort of developed to where they are some of the scenes I had in mind are less 1 to 1 with the OG. For instance, I'm trying to rewrite a scene I have of YJH and KDJ having a rooftop chat that like parallels the one back before the seoul's strongest incarnation arc in the novel, but it's a bit difficult. At first I wanted to include a lot more of KDJ interacting with the rest of YJH's team, but the rooftop Scene makes more sense to put a cap on the themes explored in chap 4. But when I first wrote this scene it was less specifically addressing that theme, because it was in the outline of like right after I wrote chapter 1, so it was kind of just the OG ORV scene with the flavoring of my AU on top. A lot of the little things they do and say in the OG novel would have to be quite finagled to fit anymore, so reworking it is the big task rn.

Anyway I'm really appreciative of people like you who take note of these small details <3. it's kind of helping me remember and appreciate a lot of the parts of me that were behind a lot of Wall fic originally if that makes sense? I am like reintroducing myself to him and giving him a hug instead of running away cringing just because it's me lol.

[a-forbidden-detective]

hi there! :3 if i may ask, how differently do you think of the ron and toto in manga vs the anime? i found the series through the anime first and read the manga second, so i feel like my perspective might be different from someone like you who'd been following the manga for a long time. is it the individual characterization of ron and toto you find different or the way ron and toto's relationship is presented to us?

for me, reading the manga pretty much convinced me of how close ron and toto's relationship becomes as the story goes on. but i also know from rereading/rewatching and some of your posts as well that the anime has made little changes that really favours the rontoto agenda.

from the top of my head i recall this scene:

and this one (a personal favourite!):

if i remember correctly, the execution and dialogue in both of these scenes are much less personal in the manga compared to the anime.

do you prefer how these scenes plays out in the manga or the anime? i don't know if i can choose personally. i like both versions.

so many questions in one, i know! i'm just curious to know your thoughts :'3 have a nice day!

Whoah! Thank you for this ask. Somewhere in my drafts folder is a post about the differences between the manga and anime for the whole season one. It means I have to get back to it and post it before the second season starts. Ack. I should do it now.

Anyway, I find RonToto happened in anime much faster than the RonToto in manga. Thing I love both versions, I also find that both RonTotos move both in a different yet similar directions.

Moreover, the Ron in anime is much warmer, kinder, more dependent on Toto anime. The Ron in manga takes a few more chapters before he has reached that same level in anime.

Maybe, it is the localisation editor’s fault, the English translation in anime. But that particular 11th episode where Ron “welcomed” Spitz as his first official client both the Japanese and English translation had the same meaning. Whereas the German translation, which I am watching right now is loyal to the manga. It followed the same route word for word. (I’ll probably post a separate analysis on this to continue my watching in German language session bc it is amazing how they also change some things.)

Anyway, i don’t think I can choose between the two. Like what I’ve said, though anime RonToto’s characterisation is a different beast for me, I like the way the anime series composition writer played it out but at the same time I cannot deny that Akira’s storytelling first moved me, maybe she could tell us more about Toto’s background. That would be wonderful. But all in all, it is difficult for me to make a decision.

[cxncrie-a]

Anonymous asked: I ─ Infidelity. Has any of them ever cheated on their partner ?  Whom have they cheated with ?  If not, is it something they could do ?  If yes, have they told them or has the other found out ?  Could they forgive and forget ? (All / Muses of your choice)

🍎 ｡:*• ─ SEXY ABC.    ›  || Accepting Today Only

Hrm. Alr lemme try to answer this best I can, but it should be fairly easy.

Nimue ;; While Nimue has never had a partner, if she did, considering how extremely loyal she can be, she would never cheat on her partner. However, if someone cheated on her, there would be no forgiveness, she'd cut them out of her life completely in a heartbeat. While she'd think she deserved it or something, she would not give it a chance to happen again. She takes love very seriously.

Daisuke ;; Much like his sister, he'd never cheat on his partner, he's far too loyal for it. However, he's also more forgiving and willing to give second chances if it had happened to him.

Ratih ;; Oh, she's absolutely cheated and she really doesn't care either way. Oh you cheated on her? That's okay she's already found someone " better "

Alastor ;; While I believe he's aroace, I do think he was married in life due to the time period he was in. I don't recall much and I'm a little too lazy to look things up but if i remember correctly, if you weren't married at a certain point it was considered suspicious. That said, he's never cheated, thought about cheating, and honestly probably wouldn't even care if it happened to him. He doesn't have to worry about that now bc he's not married anymore and he doesn't plan on finding a new relationship bc there's no point.

Sir Pentious ;; Personally I don't think he would've if he had one, nor would he ever. I think he could forgive if it happened to him, but never really forgets.

Charlie ;; Good god she would NEVER. I don't think she has it in her heart to do that. But she'd also forgive and forget but while that is the case, I do think she wouldn't go back to the person who cheated on her.

Lute ;; Also aroace BUT if she was to date, i'd say she wouldn't, ever, because it'd be viewed as sinful. Also she'd probably beat the shit out of whoever cheated on her so there's absolutely no forgiving or forgetting.

Velvette ;; Hm, not really sure with her. I don't think she'd care enough to? She's got Vox and Valentino and she's perfectly content with those two, though I don't really know if it'd be different with others. Probably depends. But she also knows this is hell so if they cheat or whatever she could probably care less?? 

Damien && Satan ;; Both are Aroace, both don't really care and would probably cheat / not keep a steady relationship, nor would they care if their partners do the same.

[beaulesbian]

some thoughts about time and march days in stranger things s4 vol. 1  - long post

firstly,

i still think the date on the camera being will’s birthday was on purpose

(the camera with the date appeared twice for like 3 seconds, i doubt they would miss that importance of that day, and left it on display for this long without knowing, even after editing).

and even if duffer brothers mentioned ‘apologizing’ for ‘forgetting’ it was will’s birthday, that could simply be they’re not able to tell more about it. i feel it could be something about this day/event appearing again the vol 2.

hopefully with flashbacks why everyone (read: mostly mike) was acting weird™  on that day. 👀

(will we get more parallels about how this was a special day for will vs a special day for el?) 

if i remember correctly from rewatching the series, i can’t recall anyone else’s birthday was being brought up as this much important reminder to the audience, with the whole speech joyce gave to will in s2, and they would suddenly ‘forgot’ about it now.

(this is mostly my take on it, bc i’ve seen too many posts being upset about it, and taking duffer brothers words as guarantee they forgot, when technically the whole season isn’t out yet, and it could be potential spoiler so something later on. so its best not to take the interviews/hype too seriously.)

secondly,

it’s interesting how much this season speaks about time. going back in time, being stuck in time, etc. the clock that appears as the vision of vecna’s victims, the date upside down is stuck on being the day will went missing (6th of november, 1983), and so on.

as well as El opening the 1st episode with voiceover of the letter to mike, mentioning how time flies, and how its funny how it slows down or speeds down, depending on emotions.

so we know this show is happening the week around 21march

another thing i noticed about a different march day, was in the newspapers about the creel house - a part that robin didnt read out loud (and i cant remember if anyone else said it out loud later in the show):

and the newspaper being published on 26th of march 1959

which coincidentally is the week s4 is taking place in march.

which made me wonder about vecna and some villain type of characteristics,

Vecna (it’s in 5e, but still could be relatable to the story), god of evil secrets, neutral evil, knowledge, hand with eye in the palm.

and while just looking about game structure and story line (about villains), this caught my attention

- anniversary of important event (the creel house tragedy)

- athletic event (the basketball game - it all began on that night  (while hellfire club were playing dnd about defeating vecna - and the 1st out of 2 last dice rolls - the one that failed - fell on number 11 👀 (the second roll being nat20, a critical hit... 👀) )

- birthday of an important NPC - could be will 👀 👀

it could be a series of events leading up to something big, similar to 25th march, just like in the past? - repeating of history, sort o thing. turning back the clock.

i dont know exactly where im going with this time theory/thoughts, but im curious if i will be pleasantly surprised if something like this connects in s4 vol. 2 or not.

either way, what im trying to say - Will is still very much important to the upside down plot, at least, i choose to hope its true. even though it feels like hes still being sidelined, i hope we will get to see him being the main focus again, and i cant wait to see how its all gonna go down once hes in hawkins again.

[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Does Archaeology - Part 4

(As before, if you’re only seeing this part 4, the rest of them have the tag KyidylCL)

THE ARTEFACTS

Ok, so I’ve talked about the site and what we’ve been digging in and such, but I’m gonna be honest with you guys: I like lab work exponentially more than field work.  So I am the one who has been processing the vast majority of the finds and ergo have lots of stuff.  That’s why I sometimes make jokes about the stuff in my basement - I’m storing the majority of it here in my basement.  I’ve gotten the question before about ownership, so here is how that works.  The dig is on private land so anything we get technically belongs to the owner of the land.  Now, as far as I know, he has no interest in keeping any of it so it’ll likely end up in the hands of the arch society, who will basically just be custodians of it but not owners.  It might end up in a museum, too.  I don’t really know, but that determination won’t be made until we’re finished, and not by me.  

So every site has its own sort of categories of stuff that you find depending on who lived there (although for ease, archaeologists often categorize this stuff based on location and time - more on that later.).  For our site the majority of it falls into these categories: animal bone, shell, lithics, pottery, charcoal, modern contaminants, and artefacts.  And, to lend a bit of clarity here...lithics are anything made of rock.  So they include fire cracked rocks, flakes from stone tool making, material that was used in construction, material that was crushed to make temper for pottery paste (more on that later, too.), etc.  If it came from a rock it’s a lithic.  

And imma tell you a secret: I hate lithics.  Everyone has their thing, their category of human refuse that they simply do not like.  A prof of mine hated teeth and pottery.  That’s just how it is, and mine is lithics.  I think they’re boring, I can’t tell a flake from a blade, I don’t give a single fuck what material they are, I don’t care about the style or craftsmanship...I just don’t care.  I call them all rocks, and I do it so much that everyone on the site has started accidentally calling them rocks, too, which amuses me.  Rocks, to an archaeologist, means “stone that wasn’t altered or used by people”.  They’re worthless.  Not that I think lithics are worthless - far from it - I just really hate them and this site has so.  goddamned.  many.  Lucky for me, we have a Rock Guy aka someone who really loves lithics and actually has gotten pretty good at flint knapping and just, y’know, is really into rocks.  

And to clarify about artefacts.  When you’re out in the field everything you find is either an artefact or a find.  The collection of these things is called an assemblage.  When you’re doing lab work and sorting through it all later on an artefact is, well...like a thing.  I’m explaining this poorly....it’s a complete object with a specific function.  So, a whole pot = artefact, broken pieces = sherds (not shards, sherds.). Complete arrowhead = artefact, flakes or a broken one = lithic.  Artefacts also tend to be somewhat unique, or at least something you don’t have a lot of.  They don’t always have to be complete, anything that is a specific object can go in here.  Like, for example, this piece of pipe we found: 

To recap, we’ve got pottery, charcoal, lithics, shell, bone (animal - we haven’t found human. But I’m just gonna say bone.), and artefacts.  If you are sensitive to things like that, this is your warning that this post is going to have pictures of animal bone and you should scroll quickly.  

Now, for reference, this is what it all looks like before I clean it and after it’s been dying out for a day or two (the ground has natural moisture, so I basically just open the bags and let them air out.): 

And, yes....I am cleaning them off on an actual antique blotter with real silver edges that my mom gave me for this express purpose.  A factoid I’m only sharing because it amuses me in that sort of “bet they never envisioned this use for this thing” sort of way.  Normally, if I was in a real lab, you’d do this over a metal tray.  When you’re working with an assemblage you never hold it over empty space, you always hold it over the bench and preferably over whatever your work surface is.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t dropped my fair share of stuff anyway, but most of it just lands on the work surface and not the floor, which is why you hold it over a work surface.  But anyway, as you can see, it just looks like a brown, dirty mess.  I usually do a quick sort of the stuff I know for sure what it is and then I wash it with a soft toothbrush and some water.  The rocks I just submerge and swoosh around because they’re rocks and I can’t really damage them and there’s SO FRIKKIN MANY that I refuse to clean them individually.  

So now that you’ve gotten through that long-winded but necessary explanation of terms, where are we at? Since I’m a bioarchaeologist and I prefer things that were once alive to the general detritus of human society, we’re gonna start with the bone.  Specifically, we’re gonna start with how I know those two pits from yesterday’s post are one pit.  This is how: 

This is a deer bone.  Don’t ask me which one bc I’m really not good at ID’ing species and animal anatomy, but it’s a leg bone of some kind.  See how it’s broken? One piece was found in one hole and the other piece was in the other.  Clearly it’s the same animal, ergo the pits are related to each other.  The vast majority of what came out of that particular feature was bone, with the rest being charcoal and the occasional pot sherd.  This means it was probably used for cooking and not as a garbage pit. Also there was food in it, if you recall the cooking accident from yesterday.  but sometimes y’know, stuff falls into the fire pit or it’s put in there as a way of disposing of it.  

But wait, I have more cool animal bones!! 

Ok, so there’s this one: 

This bone has a special place in my heart. IDK what species it is (I *think* it’s a fragment of deer long bone.), but that’s not why it’s cool.  This single bone is strong evidence for the presence of dogs.  =D See that circular mark on the right? That is the impression of a canine tooth from a carnivore.  Human teeth can’t make those marks in bones - our teeth aren’t strong enough to do significant damage to bone, and anyway we tend to crack bones open with rocks (a form of damage called percussion marks.) and not with our teeth.  Those other longer scratch marks are also likely from chewing, not butchery, because they’re in the right places and they’re the right shape.  Now we know this was a settlement, and this bone was found smack in the middle surrounded by human detritus and not on the fringes or outskirts.  There were no domesticated felines in the Americas at the time BC this is from the lower pre-contact level, so what’s really the only carnivore that would be wandering around a human settlement? Dogs.  I love this kinda stuff because it’s so easy see them chilling around the fire pit, talking and eating, teasing whomever it was that spilled dinner, and then tossing the bones to their dogs to gnaw on after dinner.  It’s just such a people kind of thing, you know? All from one small, circular mark.  I actually found more on later bones that came out of other places, so it’s pretty safe to say there were dogs living here with their people even though we have found neither people nor dogs.  

So here’s another cool bone: 

Again, no idea what species it is bc I’m not a zooarch (yes, there are archaeologists that specialize in animals and wooooo boy can they tell you a LOT about migration and eating habits of people.). It’s about the size of half my thumb, IE, not large.  This one is cool, and it’s the only one I have like this, because of that notch you can see vertically in the image on the right hand side.  I don’t know what it was for, but I DO know that it was an intentionally made modification to the bone.  Those striations aren’t natural - natural bone is smooth or has a very specific texture and this isn’t that.  It’s probably not damage done to the bone after it was deposited in the archaeological record.  It has the same patina as the majority of the rest of the bone, which you can compare to the lighter area there on the right hand end of the bone.  That lighter area does not have the patina of age that the rest of the bone does, and is the result of damage in a much more recent time - probably as we were taking it out of the ground.  Small bones are fragile.  So someone gouged this channel intentionally in this bone, either because they were going to use it as decoration or it served some purpose as a tool.  I’m not really sure what though.  Hell, they could have just been bored and fidgeting after eating.  Either way, it’s a human modification to this bone that has nothing to do with cooking or consumption (damage from human consumption is cracks and breaks, not scrapes.).  It could also be a butchery mark, although it’s a bit deep for that.  Butchery marks are there from separation of meat from bone - they’re usually just shallow scrapes.  

Ok, last cool bone I’m gonna show you.  Well, bones, plural.  

Ok so this is part of the same assemblage as the ones above, and if I remember correctly these were the ones that came out of that pit.  You can see the same bone with the canine tooth mark there in the center.  There’s also some interesting things like some pottery on the left and a couple teeth off to the right (one is a deer and I *think* that curved on is a squirrel.), but the really interesting thing is the series of 3 shiny bones that are in the center.  There’s a lot of ways to cook meat, and they all do different things to bones.  You will often find the dry, brown looking ones like you can see here in the non-shiny bones. That’s like...your basic “this bone had meat on it when it was cooked”. Then you’ll see ones that are black, and that’s “this bone probably didn’t have meat when it was cooked, or someone tossed it back in the fire when they were done”. Lastly, you’ll see white bone, and that’s a bone that has been burned at a high temperature for a long time.  Usually it’s done on purpose (you can use burned, powdered bone to make stuff.).  

But the shiny ones were in a soup.  And the reason I know that is *because* they’re shiny.  Bones, especially old ones, aren’t shiny.  I mean...you can see that.  You have to do stuff to ‘em.  And bones are porous, but those weren’t.  They felt like hard plastic. And they get that way by being boiled.  The shiny patina is what we call pot polish - they were stirred in the soup while it was cooking and rubbed against the side of the pot and each other, and it gives them a smoother texture.  

All of these collections of bones tell us what and how they ate things.  I know from what I can ID here (which isn’t everything, trust me.) that they ate a lot of deer and wild turkey (we have an entire almost completely intact turkey long bone.). There is also, I believe, squirrel (I found a portion of a skull and jaw that I’m pretty sure belong to a squirrel), and an assortment of other small rodents and birds.  Lots of birds.  Bird bone is really distinctive, it’s light and the spongy bone has a distinct texture.  A zooarchaeologist can look at bones like this and ID species and age, and from there tell you what time year something was probably killed.  Societies that hunted a lot tended to do it seasonally so that they wouldn’t damage the populations.  Plus especially with fish and stuff they have very specific growing cycles and short lifespans, so they can also tell you a lot about where the people were hunting and when.  Like certain fish will only spawn in certain places, so it’s really informative.  Zooarchs are so important and there just aren’t enough of them.  

Anyway, there are other cool things in the bones but I’m trying to strike a balance here between too much and not enough and I really love bone so I’m going to stop here for today.  Tomorrow is going to be other artefacts (yeah, sadly, even lithics, lol), and what they tell us about the site and the people who lived there.   As an aside: if anyone has any like just general “how do they know this?” sort of questions about history and archaeology those would be fun to answer.  I love to tell people how we do things but I don’t just wanna infodump.  I DO want to explain procedure in what I hope is a readable way because I think understanding how we make the sausage will help people have more trust in science.  So if you have any questions, please, send asks.  If I don’t know the answer I’ll research it or pass it on to someone who does.  

[abri-chan]

Do you have a favorite album and/or song from H.I.M.? 👀 (I'm just discovering him tbh)

All of them. >_> (Long answer ahead, sorry)

The good, but actually bad news, is that they’re disbanded so they’re not going to release new albums anymore. But the long answer is that it depends. (They also make good covers of other songs: Wicked Game was a cover and it made them famous)

If the teenage in me is speaking, I would say their oldest albums, such as Greatest Love Songs and Razorblade Kiss. I think their oldest albums defined the “love metal” genre they were came to be known for (I think they may even have invented it. Fun fact, they have an album titled Love Metal). However, bear in mind this is the teenage me, and I’ve read somewhere our taste for music becomes locked in teen years. I don’t know if that’s true, bc I used to listen to house music at some point, and now not so much, but I do believe if something really impressed us in young years it says with us. Ville Valo was-IS-my intellectual crush, in that way. So I’m biased, and have to admit while the vibe is what I loved of their older works, they do suffer from “edginess”. The very name HIM stands for His Infernal Majesty and there’s references to 666 bc maybe they wanted to shock adults by making Lucifer references. I cannot speak for their times as young men, bc Valo is now 44 and way way older than me. But I can guess there were some edgy moments in the beginning bc the band was young.

(Sidenote: I use Ville Valo and HIM interchangeably bc he’s the darling of HIM. To his credit, he is a vocalist and does write the songs. But it’s also bc many--mostly women, women love this band--found him attractive, and in a way he looked very feminine and the long hair we sported even confused his first producer he was a woman lol. So you had a singer, writer, charming man, who also never took himself seriously in interviews--he acted like many people would think he acted in day to day life--and that added to his charm for many.)

Lyricwise and in terms of the maturity of the vocalist, their latest works are best. Ville has always had a knack for writing good lyrics, and I would say Venus Doom is their best work in how the whole album tells as story, so it’s not just random love songs here and there like their previous works. With time, the band experimented more, the lyrics, which a lot of times read like poems, started getting more ambitious, and even the structure of songs and albums as ways to tell a story in music, not just convey a simple emotion in songs. The downside, is that many times these albums came off as “needing more refinement”, and I mean in the technicalities of whatever post-production goes into music. Could be it was on purpose bc it was them experimenting. Could be that studios work differently with bands that don’t publish all the time (the current market is artists churning songs all the time, while HIM never did that--you can count their albums that is to say.). It could also be Ville’s personal life getting in the way, and things feeling rushed or unfinished. 

So, HIM’s darling is actually an ex-alcoholic; he’s been to rehab many times. He’s open about it, bc that’s how he’s always been: never taking himself too seriously or highly, and acting like there never was a wall between him and fans. I really loved the modulations his voice could do, but I can’t say the alcohol didn’t damage his voice to some extent. There’s the physical aspect too. I remember this girl in my class bringing a magazine with an interview of HIM post-rehab (many fans guessed he had a drinking problem long before it became known he was seeking help--possibly bc that was the time HIM got famous overseas, not just Europe), and she comments that he “looks like a man now.” Lost in translation, but it was a shock to fans to see the prettyboy and feminine Ville now looking more masculine. Nothing wrong with being masculine or feminine looking, but I do think the stress probably made him look older than he should have. And I suppose that also affected how he could handle music production, especially in between rehab and fighting an addiction. 

I have yet to form an opinion on the band’s last albums: Screamworks, Tears on Tape. I have listen bits here and there, but not sat down to listen to the whole thing. They do come after Venus Doom, so you kinda have to deal with the band telling a story, even though you can enjoy the songs individually.

My favorite song is random though, and not sure if a cover or original, and it feels very unplugged: Borellus. It’s just Ville being all over in place with his voice, but I really like his voice modulations so I like the song. And it’s very mystic? He likes to add religious symbolism all over the place, and that’s constant with all their songs.

(although I think Dark Light may be their most famous album? I think a lot of people that haven’t heard of HIM they have heard of Killing Loneliness... Interesting music video too)

(edit bc i forgot to say there are songs that have been used in movies, one of which was an animated movie, if I recall correctly)

[icharchivist]

In Road's Dreamworld, there's these words: "Be careful Neah. We are being used by "them". "Allen" is dangerous". I don't know if these words are said by Cross or Road, but the "Allen" here refers to past!Allen, right? The one with the glasses and long hair? Like, they are telling Neah that he's giving his memories to the wrong person. That "Allen" did not mean to help him but to use his memories for some purpose

Arf that’s where my search system is shamble bc i think we discussed it with a nonny in more depth but i can’t recall what we said and i can’t find it back orz i’m sorry, i’m going to try to piece it back together.

I think (?) the sentence is supposed to be by Cross if i recall correctly (at least i’ve seen people be sure of this, my guess would be that the pronoums used in Japanese are those Cross uses instead of Road’s?)

It seems to be about Past!Allen in my opinion - when “Allen” is written with “” it generally refers to Allen as his role rather than as his person, whenever it’s the destructor of time or anything. (This is also why there is so many theories about “Allen” being Bookman’s previous apprentice, since this is the most “your name is your role” we have seen and the only other name that gets into “” is Lavi’s when his loyalty to his duty is questioned in his dreamworld). 

Which leads me to believe that this might be a memory of the past, of when Cross met Past!Allen and saw him as a threat toward Nea, as someone who might use him. 

I think i mostly disuccsed this line in a Bookman!Allen perspective as in therefore we could question the “them”’s need to care for Nea and it could be the Bookman. 

But that is if we believe it refers to the past, which i do believe it does but...

I think Cross might be worried by how much Allen might disocver from his past. He’s being sent at the Campbell mansion now (where Bookman is at while we’re at it) by Cross himself, so it feels like if Allen ends up discovering more about his past he might become a danger to Nea depending on how those discoveries might overcome him. Like there is no garentee Allen’s memories of his past life wouldn’t be overwhelming him, so that’s where “Allen” as a duty becomes dangerous - if this duty overwhelms the person Allen had been so far, then Nea would be in danger, then he would have entrusted his memories to the wrong person. 

Which works both in a sense of “it’s a memory from how Cross saw Past!Allen in the past” and how Cross might see the situation go wrong in the Present if Allen ends up remembering being “Allen”.

If that makes any sense?

I really don’t manage to see this sentence from Road’s perspective though or at least trying to make sense of it. Cross is part of the 3rd Secret Side Nea is part of. If Road had any involvement in them this would be new and we don’t have much ground for that per se.

So yeah I hope it makes sense? 

[glove23]

im gonna be evil and say ALL ODDS

1: what is ur first fanfic and could you stand to reread itPERCY'S AWKWARD CONFESSIONS on ffnet under my old name pjohohglove if u feel the need to read the awful stuff I used to write and I can read like? The first chapter? But after that it gets REAL CRINGEY3: in your opinion what's your best fic?I really like the style of They Crinkle When You Smile but I think quality wise it's probably Meeting Your Maker (Literally) bc I've had the most time to work and improve on it5: is there any fic that makes you super happy to reread and remember you wrote?Any of my soulmate aus I love that shit so much7: what's the fic you most want to continue? (Unfinished or not)MEETING YOUR MAKER (LITERALLY) I love that fic so much it contains my heart and soul9: have you ever written for a fandom without watching/reading/playing the source material?No I generally only write fic for things I know inside and out bc then I don't have to reach for references as much, I just already know11: have you ever written a fic for a concept you know someone else has written before? How did it impact your writing process and feelings after posting?I have. I tried to stay away from tropes I had seen used in a lot of that type of fic unless it's like a truly GREAT trope that I couldn't live without bc I didn't want people to just be reading the same thing over and over and I want people to be interested. I'm pretty sure I've accomplished that so far so it's a Good Feeling13: what's the biggest change between your style when you started in fandom and today?I actually know how to use paragraphs now??? And how to write a chapter longer than 100 words?? And how to make things ACTUALLY interesting good lord I look back on my starting fics and I don't know how ppl said I was good I love u all who said that but HOW15: have you ever purposefully written one fandom/fic idea over another bc you knew it'd be more popular? Not that I can recall at the moment nope17: in your opinion what's your most over rated fic?Oh god do I have overrated fic that's like #Goals right there I want to be SO FANDOM FAMOUS that everyone has this one fav fic and then I'm just Over It but honestly I doubt I will ever be Over ppl loving my work19: if you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick?Prolly Mark Me, Save Me. It's just. Real good. Tugs at every heart string. I love it so much21: if someone starts kudosing and commenting your fics in a spree and had a few works of their own, would you go look through theirs?OF COURSE!! That's a great way to make new friends and find Great Fic23: what's the nicest review you've ever gotten?😭😭 oh man I don't know every review?? Honestly every single one makes me so happy they're all so great I love you all25: what constructive criticism, however well meaning, always makes you feel bad when you see it in a review?Ohhh man I don't know lowkey all constructive criticism makes me feel bad 27: if you could only write crossovers or single fandom fics ever again, which would you pick?Crossovers. I wanna get ALL THE SHIT IN IN EVERY SINGLE FIC I say as I haven't ever written a crossover actually no I take that back I only want to write single fandom fics Taking The East Road29: does the division of your writing across fandoms line up with your reading? What's the biggest discrepancy?I don't even know what this is asking me? Is it is my writing different for different fandoms bc??? Idfk man31: who is the one character you've never managed to get perfectly right?Annabeth Chase. I feel like I never can capture her correctly and it bothers me All The Time33:is there any character whose scenes always end up being longer/more frequent than you expected? Does the quality hold up?Harry Freakin Potter u don't understand he's a LEGAND MAN. Uhhh the quality is kind of all over the place tbh35: have u ever written a ship into a fic without meaning to?All Ships In My Fic Are Intentional I love throwing ppl into shit37: have u ever purposefully bashed a character/ship in a fic?I don't know how to respond to this one bc like? Obviously there are characters I don't like but I'm not abt purposefully bashing ppl if they don't deserve it I guess? Idk man I spent a good 20 minutes thinking of how to answer this39: do you consider yourself to have a readership?I don't even know what that means uhh if I have to guess I'd say yes? Sort of? There's a few of u who have commented more than once at least :)41:if you cross post your fics on certain sites....There was more to the question but I don't cross post I only use ao3 bc I'm l a z y 😂😂😂43: how many views does your least popular fic have? (I'm gonna do the popular one too bc I feel like it) Least: 70 Most:5938Both hp but complete opposite ends of the spectrum 45: if you had to call yourself an author of a single genre (besides fanfic) what label would you give yourself?Oh man uhh I guess kind of scifi/fantasy kinda thing? Bc time travel is scifi but dragons are fantasy so it's a strange mixture of both.47: if someone you know in real life who isn't involved in fandoms asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?Yeah I think I'd let them? Depending really on who is asking is which fic id let them read first. My parents probably one of the fluffy Percabeth soulmate aus. Literally anyone else, meeting your maker. 49: has anyone in your life ever read your fanfic just bc you wrote it?Uhh not that I'm aware of? I've actually had to ask friends to read it and then they just never did 😂😂 Rie ur evil this took me forever also I'm sorry it took forever God this is long