#but THAT's an unhinged post for another day

[tyrantisterror]

Things I learned during day two of this Medieval Studies Congress - in a fun coincidence given that Wolf Man post of mine that's blowing up, Marie de France's lais Bisclavret is the primary subject of most of these:

So, as if the universe heard my desire for more evidence for the distinction between Garwolfs and Bisclavrets, one of the speakers actually articulated how they're distinct in Bisclavret specifically. In the introduction of the lais, Marie de France says to her audience, "You may have heard of the bisclavret, which the Normans call the garwolf," suggesting at firs the two are linked. However, as she goes on to briefly describe the more stereotypical malevolent werewolves, when she does so she ONLY calls them garwolves, while the rest of poem, which details a far more reluctant and benevolent werewolf, exclusively uses bisclavret. This is something that the English translation of the poem I have in my collection does not make clear, so I'm pretty thankful for it.

More importantly, the words themselves have different meanings when you analyze their parts. Bisclavret is a combination of Bleiz, which means wolf, and Claffet, which means illness, which makes Bleizclaffet/bisclavret mean "wolf sickness," which is by far a more fun way to refer to werewolfism than lycanthropy. Garwolf, on the other hand, is rooted in the word lupus (made more obvious in its French spelling of "gaurauf," which is close to "garou," as in "loup garou," another term for werwolves), which means wolf but ALSO is itself derived from a word that means madness in both senses (anger and insanity) and has connotations with rabidity. OR, TO PUT IT MORE SUCCINCTLY, bisclavret = person with wolf sickness, garwolf = man who becomes a violent and unhinged wolf.

In Bisclavret, the most accurate translation of the French grammar of the poem when the knight with wolf sickness explains his condition to his wife is "Lady, I become bisclavret." This explicitly frames his condition as an affliction rather than a purposeful and controlled transformation, further establishing that the werewolf of this lais is very different than the garwolfs Marie's audience would be more familiar with.

Bisclavret is a Breton word for werewolf, Garwolf is a Norman word

The word "berserker" may have some connections to the way Marie's werewolf transformations work, i.e. clothes being key to them. "Serker" means, roughly, "shirt," while "Ber" has two equally likely meanings: both bear as in the animal, and bare as in, well, lacking clothes. Thus Berserker can mean either "Bear Shirt" or "No Shirt," which in turn means berserkers either acted savage because they were wearing bear skins to act like bears, or were doing so because they were fighting buckass nude. The bisclavret, of course, transforms by slipping out of his human clothes and getting buckass nude, and transforms back only when he can slip into his human clothes again (a Manserker if you will).

The Saga of the Volsungs contains a passage where some guys find a bunch of wolfskins which, when they wear them, 1. won't come off right away and 2. make the guys act like vicious, flesh-hungry wolves against their will, which is fucking terrifying and absolutely something I'm going to use

Marie de France's version of Bisclavret is the only take on the story where the wife's nose is bitten off by the werewolf and all of her female descendants inherit noseless faces as a result - the other takes on the story by different poets go for different punishments. This is notable because of the connotations that removing someone's nose had as a punishment in the middle ages - namely, it was specifically a punishment reserved for women, only being used on men when the person punishing them wanted to emasculate them specifically. The reason this was a gendered punishment was tied to the meaning behind removing the nose specifically - it was to mark the woman as either an adulterer or a prostitute, and specifically to make her undesirable to men thereafter. It was sometimes self-inflicted by women, particularly nuns and other women of faith, as a way to keep men from desiring them sexually. So the werewolf's choice of punishment for his wife in Marie's version is pretty damn apt.

Funny coincidence re: Wizard School Mysteries: though Marie de France hailed from France and wrote all her poetry in French (well, Middle French, but still), she actually wrote those poems while living in Wales, which might be why so many of them adaptations of British folklore. I say this is funny because Margot d'Francane in WSM, whose name is partially derived from Marie de France, falls in love with James Chaucer, whose home kingdom, Galfridius, is specifically based on the parts of British folklore that intersect with Celtic mythology, which is primarily the domain of Welsh folklore specifically. So the wizard I named (in part) after Marie de France is in love with the wizard whose homeland is based on Welsh folklore, and Marie de France wrote a lot about Welsh folklore because she spent a good chunk of her life in Wales. Just funny how that accidentally lined up is all.

A Morturium is a big ass medieval building used to house a shitload of corpses, like a Super Crypt.

[astrhae]

some important and underrated lines in the books, related to wylan van eck (aka gold that i found again while writing the character study fic):

Wylan took a deep breath as if sucking in courage and sputtered, “You won’t throw me overboard. You need me.”

--- Six of Crows, Chapter 13. when i say wylan is unhinged, i mean he had the audacity to lie to kaz brekker (who doesn't know yet that wylan isn't the best hostage) AND use that lie to go against kaz AND actually win. jesper only notices wylan lying to kaz in the second book, but despite being wide-eyed as matthias describes, wylan's been lying to kaz from the very beginning. throughout the books, wylan gets better and better at using people's assumptions of him as a weapon/tool, and he admits as much when jesper says: "i'm going to stop underestimating you", and wylan replies: "then you're going to be a lot harder to surprise."

While Kaz explained and Jesper used the laundry shears to portion out pieces of rope, Wylan helped Inej and Nina prepare. To pass as members of the Menagerie, they would need tattoos.

--- Six of Crows, Chapter 28. wylan is CANONICALLY a tattoo artist. demolitionist. poisons expert. musician. and tattoo artist. do with that what you will

“I don’t like the idea of killing people, either. I don’t even like chemistry.”

--- Six of Crows, Chapter 32. HE LIKES NUMBERS. and music. and jesper. there's just something about wylan being forced into chemistry when he doesn't truly enjoy it, vs. everything his father's forced him to do when he doesn't truly enjoy it. he says this right after the we could wake him up line, and him mentioning that he doesn't even like what he's been doing all along underscores how much wylan's ruthlessness comes from a place where he doesn't want to be cruel. he's just. had to do a lot of things to survive. and he does want to survive

Gunfire sounded from above. Apparently, Wylan had found the controls. ... Wylan had scratches from the glass all over his cheeks and neck. He was beaming.

--- Six of Crows, Chapter 39. wylan is unhinged. truly. and i love him, really. he was really the first to figure out how to fire the tank. him, not jesper, which was a choice i very much approve of

He should be making a plan, maybe even plotting revenge, trying to gather his wits and his resources. And what was he doing? Wishing he could ring for tea... Whatever it took to survive the Barrel, Wylan knew he didn’t have it.

--- Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 23. first, wylan wishing he could ring for tea, vs. the parallel in the show where he offers the crows tea. second, wylan being painfully honest with himself. but third, he ends the chapter being able to navigate the streets of the barrel himself without knowing how to read the signs, which really reflects his amazingly good memory and skill for thinking along three axes, like the lockpick kaz compared him to

“Yes,” Wylan said, that one word imbued with a whole world of hope. “But I don’t have anything to bargain with.”

--- Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 28. wylan's spent so long bargaining for his life that by the time he meets genya, he doesn't believe he has anything left to bargain with. but wylan still tries, AND when he succeeds, he still has the audacity to get genya to make him look better

in conclusion, wylan might be shy but that doesn't mean he isn't scheming something, but that doesn't mean he wants to scheme, but that doesn't mean he isn't good at scheming. he's excellent at it, he's just an unhinged ball of contradictions, and wylan would, could, and should beat kaz in a chess match

[frogayyyy]

“I am not, the hell, a man. Nor am I from the so-called sunshine state” florida man stated in an exclusive interview.

[piningprecussionist]

Oh! Fucking. Duh. Obvious Roxie post I can make today: here's an emote I made for the sp:te server! (With variants of different degrees of completion...)

I was gonna go back and shade the comic colors Roxie but. Just ended up going w the colors picked off the screenshot. This screenshot, specifically!

[ehlnofay]

Many cults dedicated to Namira are known to practice an alchemical variant of corpse medicine, providing treatments that are intense but effective. Though this Daedric Prince and her devotees are largely reviled by wider society, some find their cures unmatched in their usefulness in managing chronic conditions - as long as they don't ask where they came from. Some cults charge a high price for their medicines, while others view it almost as a method of proselytising, considering the satisfaction of bringing outsiders that bit into the fold as payment enough.

[dailyharuka]

Day 22

Screenshots from Kyu-kurarin and teammate i NEED to analyze tkyu-kurarin now (i keep saying that but i probably wont until very far into the future)

that mv was PACKED with symbolism

if only i could understand japanese <//3 but im assuming it has to do with depression and other ideations if you know what i mean

cuz that bit where all of their faces would be cut off unless they were the one singing??? AND THEN THE PERSON GOT OUT OF BED?? AND THEN WHEN THE DRAWINGS JUST BECAME DARKER??

also airis jacket stripe is shizuku blue

also i might tier for immiscible discord... ik i said i wouldnt tier but i love immiscible discord.. I NEED SAMSA OUT ON EN RIGHT NOW!!! I CANT WAIT UNTIL THE 28TH!!!! THATS TOO LONG OF A TIME!!!

as of march 22, 03:18 est

and i said i wouldnt tier

[crossbackpoke-check]

a doc of omega yamo being a nuisance, you say?

well…

[icharchivist]

oh no oh no hold on oh no 

sorry i’m back on my gbfxa3 bullshit

i saw that in Moon Traveler some people are translating the setting of the play as “Moon Dwellers” and it really took /that/ for my eyes to snap open about how. holy shit. Yeah of fucking course. With Chikage being so enamored with the moon and having dreamt of being an astronaut and explore it. in the “gbfxa3 collab i want more than anything in the world” that lives rentfree in my mind, it means i absolutely need Chikage to meet Cassius. The Original “Man From the Moon, called Moon Dweller, who talks about the wonders of the moon all the time”. This is so obvious i can’t believe i didn’t think about it before.

do you see the vision.

[scattered-winter]

this might be controversial but uh. as much as I love the shooting arc it has caused INCURABLE brainrot in this fandom

[msmacabre310]

Would you like to know who just wrote more than 4,000 words of grammar and fish jokes for Encanto Sushi Day? Me. It was me.

Summary:

As with many unfortunate incidents in Bruno's life, this one started with a dead fish.

Or, rather, dead fish. Plural.

This is an important distinction to note, because it will come up repeatedly and without warning, rather like the smell of dead fish themselves.

[mildlylesbian]

At this point I refuse to touch any sort of online discourse with a 10ft pole because the landscape has become so toxic that people are more focused on fighting one another rather than the issue at hand, which leads to nothing happening ever.

However, scrolling through a screaming match between two people at 2am where niether of them makes any impact on the actual contriversy cause they're too busy fighting one another is so so so irratating but also so cathartic.

[deus-ex-mona]

q: how unhinged are you?

a: Y E S .

[hobgoblinns]

owning the haters by not killing myself

[thedeadthree]

‘twas the 2 and a half hours before polina velichkova’s birthday! 😌💀🦉♟🔪🗡🤎

[piningprecussionist]

literally my favorite blog on tumblr. Ur perfect at being Kim Pine and I love the little notes it the tags :3

(^ this is me at you rn)

Thank you so much <333 it seriously means the world to me that people love/like my Kim stuff. AND to know that some of yall actually read my silly little notes

I try to keep her as in character as I can, and I feel I have been largely successful, for the most part. I feel like she comes fairly naturally to me- I only occasionally hit snags,, but usually that's just because I'm high or something and am overcome with the desire to Maximize The Silly shfgkjshjld She's so serious though, usually. I love her <3 I love getting to be her for The People

[teeto-peteto]

a dude broke my entire trust and also said that the only thing i do IS sexualizing Pyke. Of course he doesnt know about the day i want to a concert and cried my eyes out during the song that reminds me of him and my whole experience in liking a character. You know nothing about me.