#ie the interpretation function

[rippledawn]

Had a fun time this afternoon

Was hanging out with some of my friends who are also mathematicians, and as mathematicians do we of course started spontaneously talking about deep philosophical topics like what is information, and does mathematics exist independently from intelligent life to interpret it

Could not find a nerdier conversation topic, but we had a fucking blast

God I love being a mathematician

[bloodblanks]

do homicipher characters experience arousal?

i want to preface this by saying that i am not in any way, shape, or form criticizing other homicipher writers and/or their headcanons. i absolutely adore the work i’ve seen from everyone and am grateful to be able to read it! this is simply my personal thoughts on this topic so i hope it doesn’t come across like i’m trying to demean anyone else’s work.

additional note: i write reader insert so i will be referring to us as the reader rather than mc, but my post should work for both interpretations ^^

this is something i’ve been thinking about a lot since i’m working on some nsfw homicipher headcanons myself. from what i’ve read, a lot of homicipher work headcanon the characters as not really experiencing and/or knowing what arousal is, at least until they meet the reader (which is extremely endearing and flattering, i love the concept, and there’s nothing wrong with it!) but i personally came to the conclusion that homicipher characters do experience arousal, and have experienced it before meeting the reader. however, i believe their perception of arousal differs from ours.

to start, the reason i think they experience arousal to begin with, is because arousal isn’t just an emotional or mental response, but also a physiological function. similar to other physical needs (ie: food, sleep, water)—which i think they also require though that’s for another post—arousal doesn’t necessarily require conscious thought or emotional processes. arousal can be merely a response to touch or certain sensory inputs, something that happens regardless of how we think or feel.

while i think arousal is a natural function for them, i don’t believe they are likely to have had sex with other homicipher characters. the reason for that is also why i say they experience arousal differently—they don’t understand attraction. this is based on both my personal bias of wanting them to ourselves, but also the in game interactions with mr. hood and mr. silvair, where they fail to grasp the concept of ‘liking’ an individual.

since they don’t experience attraction (yet!), i imagine their perception of arousal would be a mechanical or instinctual one; just something their bodies respond to. much like thoughtlessly scratching an itch, they likely address it more as a physical need to take care of, rather than associating it with any deeper desires or having it directed/related to another person.

my silly little reader insert loving self does insist that they feel some sort of attraction towards us, though, which i believe will be a newfound feeling for them that can change how they experience arousal. with them able to feel attraction towards us, their once neutral and unassuming need can become something more intimate, romantic, or even obsessive depending on the character.

tl;dr homicipher characters have always experienced arousal but only as a bodily function, as they don’t understand attraction until meeting and developing interest in the reader, which changes their perception of arousal to something more complex and intimate.

thank you everyone for reading my silly little shower thoughts. i hope this was coherent enough and made sense! (>^ω^<)

feel free to leave any of your thoughts below if you have any comments on this! and feel free to argue with me if you think i’m yapping nonsense... (･･;)

[deltasgod]

Q is very competent (fact), and is generally regarded as one of the cleverest people in the local area (at least Bond thinks so), and so when he says/ does something, people do it. he's a leader, right?

so when he goes up to Bond as is just like "we're going here" or "we're doing this" or "you should do this", he listens (outside of missions, of course). he doesn't even know what's going on- and he doesn't want to, because surely Q knows what hes doing. like, yeah, I'll follow you to the end of the earth, because youd be going for a good reason, and youd know how to get back.

i just think that outside of missions Q would be doing stuff and Bond would just follow along like a little baby duck, because where else is he going? and he of course would trust Q to drag him around, Q's the one who knows everything (ie how to function as a normal person) so yeah, he's in good hands.

is this- somewhat accidental- top Q propaganda? you interpret that

I'll tell you what this has become accidental propaganda for: Bond's massive abandonment issues. hes been abandoned by basically everyone at some point, so hes definitely like ' hi (: hello (: will you let me stay within 6ft of you forever (:' and Q at first might be a bit wary of being tailed in his own workplace, but is soon all like, ' come along lets do this, lets do that.' aaaaaaaaaaand now they're codependent, aren't they? oopsie

TLDR: Q is mumma duck, Bond is baby duck. this may cause problems, but it is 00q.

[serpentface]

What does medical theory look like in Wardi areas? There's a concept of diseases caused by dabi, but what about other causes? And what does becoming a doctor or healer look like?

Dagi are specifically evil spirits that are explanatory for ailments with clear or presumed external cause, and that are known to spread (either through the body or between people). They are thus considered the source of most infections and contagious diseases. They are sort of a proto-proto germ theory in that they are conceptualized as being tiny and/or invisible and entering the body through wounds and orifices, though this is conceptualized more along the lines of miasma theory (they are usually spread in the form of Bad Air). They're a pretty small part of the medical model as a whole, being a direct Cause of the disease but not what Enables it.

The broader medical model revolves around these core concepts:

-Blood is the living spirit. Every person has two souls, with living spirit being the one that animates and maintains the body. A body's healthy function is dependent upon blood flow being normal and uninhibited, and the blood not being polluted.

-All matter in the world is composed of a mix of essential properties of Sea (female/cold/wet/malleable) and Sky (male/hot/dry/transformative). In medical contexts, these essences are usually referred to as Hot or Cold as proper nouns. This does not usually refer to literal temperature, and rather describes an object's presumed interactive qualities.

-All non-human/animal matter in the world is also God's body and carries the flow of God's living spirit, with each discrete form of matter being imbued with an Essence that is a fundamental nature that defines its being. In the context of medicine, Essences are influenced by their Hot/Cold properties, and are the mechanism for medicinal effects ascribed to any given object. This is rooted in Wardi animism, and the concept of Essence is basically interchangeable with the notion that all natural objects have an interactive Spirit. The explicitness of this element and how much this Spirit is ascribed internal agency/personhood is more variable.

-The body/living spirit is metaphysically vulnerable to spiritual pollution. Forms of spiritual pollution first weaken the living spirit, thus becoming an avenue for ailments to develop. Curses can similarly weaken the body, as can attachment/inhabitation by evil spirits. An already weakened body is more vulnerable to this sort of outside harm by dagi/other evil spirits/curses, so the effects can be compounded.

-The totality of your wellbeing is dependent upon your connection to God, maintained on an individual day to day level by prayer and offerings, and by avoiding spiritual pollution. God's body and living spirit, while great on scales beyond imagining, is still a body, still susceptible to its natural flows being blocked or severed. Proper orthopraxy maintains your connection, which is the ultimate foundation for a good life, good fortune, and good health.

-The worldview in general doesn't distinguish a 'mundane' dimension from a 'spiritual' dimension. Most things are spiritual and mundane at the same time. Everyday ablution is cleansing yourself of spiritual pollution and it's also just washing your hands because they have dirt on them. There is no fundamental difference between physical health and spiritual health, even wholly physical injuries (ie a broken arm) affect the living spirit, even wholly spiritual injuries (ie a curse) affect the physical body.

---

So pretty much every possible ailment can be interpreted through this model. Contagious flu is dagi entering the body through orifices and spreading into the blood, causing the blood to become polluted and obstructing its proper flow, thus resulting in the flu's physical effects. Infection is dagi entering the body through wounds, obstructing the blood from healing the wound and causing inflammation and rot. A migraine is an excess of blood flow to the head that becomes too Hot, potentially caused by blockage of blood flow in other parts of the body. Erectile dysfunction might be because the testes or penis are too Cold and/or have obstructed blood flow and/or have localized polluted blood and/or you could be cursed, buddy. Intestinal parasites are small bugs that get inside your body and feed on blood (yeah), causing blockages and disruption of bloodflow to the affected parts and harming your health.

The medical system is built upon this model and attempts to address every dimension of these concerns.

At the most abstract end of things, heartbeat drums are used in healing contexts as a matter of belief they can influence the flow of living spirit. In almost all cases, this is supplemental, encouraging the blood to move in the necessary capacity while more direct treatments go to work. IE- your wounds have been cleaned and you've been given medicine, the healing is already in process but further encouraged via the healer drumming the medicine through your body. Their use is most critical in life-or-death circumstances- a midwife overseeing a childbirth will have an assistant to drum throughout as a matter of keeping both parties alive and strengthening their blood flow.

'Medicine' refers to any objects that encourage health or healing via their direct interaction with the physical body. Medicines that are Consumed or topically applied usually intend to be active treatments, medicines that are Worn usually intend to be preventative.

Every discrete object is believed to have a Hot or Cold property, and a more nuanced Essence. The former describes how it interacts with other matter on a fundamental level, the latter ascribes its actual effects. Everything that exists Could potentially be medicinal and the grand totality of Wardi medicinal knowledge includes plants, minerals, and animal parts, though the majority of common medicine is based around herbalism. This medicine system is built on centuries of accumulated knowledge and some more historically recent scholarly investigation. Some of it is ultimately Vibes Based (astoundingly, antlers/horns and animal penises/testes tend to be ascribed positive effects for virility and male fertility), some is actively damaging (lead is sometimes consumed medicinally), but a lot of the most central medicines have Become central for having very strong correlation with positive results.

For example, wounds are usually cleaned with vinegar (the acetic acid of which has actual antimicrobial functions). Some contraceptives definitely Reduce the chance of pregnancy via properties that actually block the cervix, reduce sperm motility, make vaginal PH more hostile to sperm, or contain spermicidal chemicals (ie inserting bandage soaked in a ground mix of olive oil, honey, and acacia- the latter is spermicidal, the liquids reduce motility, and blocking the cervix via a barrier is just intuitive). Honey and garlic figure heavily into a lot of medicines in general, largely due to their actual antimicrobial properties. Cumin is already central to the diet, and is the preeminent treatment for internal parasites (and has some positive effect). Etc.

Ailments are also in part addressed by general dietary changes. Everything you eat has Hot or Cold properties as well as more nuanced individual Essences, so your everyday diet can address some dimensions of health and be a supplement for more directed medical treatment.

Bloodletting is a response to more severe or resistant ailments, usually when the cause is regarded as polluted blood in a specific body part and/or evil spirits in the body. It attempts to treat ailments by removing polluted blood at the sources of pollution, allowing the body's natural defenses to replace it with clean blood. Bloodletting is not performed willy-nilly and is generally not the first resort- this is your living spirit, the soul that animates your body, and you should only intentionally shed it with great purpose.

Given the lack of distinction between physical and spiritual health, all these forms of medicine are supplemented with everyday religious practice. Your connection with God is also a source of maintaining your health, and most priesthoods can assist you with more complex physical-spiritual matters via blessings and sacrifices in your name.

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DOCTORS:

There are two main bodies of physicians who receive formal educations and work as physicians. Both of them are connected to the priesthood of Ganmache (largely due to that priesthood having become heavily interwoven with educational institutions in general) and receive their basic education from them, as spiritual knowledge is considered a fundamental necessity for medical care. These are the Hittlatlamii and Nacouy.

Hittlatlamii are predominantly midwives, but are also general physicians specializing in women's care. This role is Technically open regardless of gender, but male Hittlatlamii are uncommon and often subject to mockery as having failed at being Nacouy or possibly being some kind of pervert. The order is mostly composed of women and akoshos, and they are uniquely condoned to remain unmarried and given significant freedom of movement due to the necessities of their work. Most of their patients are women who may not necessarily leave the home as much as men, so Hittlatlami often have to travel to their patient's homes and may sometimes live there temporarily. Most Hittlatlamii are members of the commoner class, and usually inherit the position from a relative via recommendation (who will often become their mentor).

They are formally educated in the priesthood of Ganmache's schools from the age of ~7-10 to 15, and work in a close mentor-mentee relationship with a senior Hittlatlamii until the age of 30. In this process, they will have learned to read and write, have access to a broad base of recorded medical knowledge, and will have had extensive hands-on experience as physicians and midwives. Their specialty is women's health re: fertility and pregnancy and 'female anatomy', but they are also equipped to treat non-gendered common ailments and will sometimes attend to men as needed. They are also a cult to Anmir-Ganmache (God as the hearth/domestic sphere)- their work itself is a matter of this devotion, and they are considered equipped to provide blessings and attend to domestic spiritual issues (though are not full priests and thus not permitted to perform sacrifices).

Nacouy are the other group, with the word 'nacouy' being functionally translatable as just 'physician'. This role is exclusive to men. Most are commoners, but being a Nacouy is a fairly common 'youngest son of 6 brothers in a noble family that doesn't really have anything else to do' career path. They are general purpose doctors who will have been extensively educated, and will know/have access to the breadth of recorded medical knowledge. They are educated in the priesthood of Ganmache's schools from ~7-10 into their early 20s, and from there will work with a mentor until the latter dies or retires. They usually receive patients as visitors instead of coming to their homes (unless the patient is bed-bound or any travel would otherwise harm them), with full Nacouy usually sending their mentees to handle the majority of house calls. Highly esteemed nacouy are sometimes hired to become permanent doctors for royal families.

They are considered the backbone of medical practice and knowledge in Imperial Wardin, working life-long as healers while also extensively recording their knowledge and findings in the process. They are expected to be highly literate and good writers, though usually hire servant scribes as assistants for this matter. After retirement (usually around 50) they generally spend the remainders of their lives as teachers in their former schools.

There are plenty of people in this society who work as healers without being a member of these orders. These are mostly people living in small villages who work as doctors for their community, usually having inherited this position from their parents. They are very unlikely to have a formal education or to be literate in written Wardi, but will have learned a broad variety of medical lore via oral transmission and cooperation with other healers. This role tends to double as a local spiritual authority in places that are distant from priestly centers, as spiritual knowledge is a requirement for being a good healer.

[9w1ft]

so i was thinking about how the song chloe or sam or sophia or marcus is low key evoking “years of tearing down our banners” with the line “if you want to tear my world apart”

but first, here’s a link to a post of my thoughts on why cssm feels to me like a karlie perspective song. and this post plays off of this interpretation so please read this.

also ive written before (i think! but i cannot immediately locate!) about some of the parallels between ttpd (the titular track) and ccsm and how i think ttpd and ccsm are linked and encompass the time at karlie’s garden gate apartment, maybe with a focus on 2015, and with ccsm culminating perhaps with when she sold it in 2019.

okay so back to the idea that the line “if you want to tear my world apart” is related to the “years of tearing down our banners” motif of wcs and tgw. my thought started with, maybe the line is describing, from karlie’s perspective, an image of taylor wondering out loud, in karlie’s presence, about all the different things she might need to do to bury a path (to publicly reuniting) that they had been working towards up til the point of the song (maybe that’s the best laid plan?), and maybe the melancholy lyrics of ccsm stem from karlie feeling dissonance over the whole matter, as she is on the receiving end, carrying the majority of the weight of all these rewrites. so like maybe “your hologram stumbled into my apartment” is supposed to evoke any number of simulations taylor might be running, on ways of muddying the narrative by adding in lore connecting to any number of random ass people. so we have the imagery of a not-real scenario (or several) playing out in karlie’s real apartment. and maybe the line “so if i sell my apartment and you have some kids with an internet starlet will that make your memory fade from this scarlet maroon like it never happened?” functions similarly, it could be like karlie exclaiming, to what extend would you need to create all these alternate narratives (plot twists and dynamite!) to actually stop people from being able to notice our true story? would you need to go as far as covering it up with some fling and kids? to rewind just a bit, we can easily connect these lines to maroon: “will that make your memory fade from this scarlet maroon like it never happened?” —it’s like saying, could you even do anything to cover up that legendary history? like in dbatc’s “trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch,” insert the formidable and classic interpretation of dbatc as being a song about boarding up their public narrative and how it felt like death by a thousand cuts. (and just a sidenote, while i’m at it, that ccsm and maroon both include the saw/bones imagery).

she goes on to wonder, “could it be enough to just float in your orbit?” ie karlie in recent years annually coming in close public proximity to taylor but never fully publicly meeting her. would that amount of kaylor be enough to keep the lore alive? “can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses? cooler in theory, but not if you force it to be, it just didn't happen” also evokes the idea of trying to reimagine memories for the narrative in a new light which maybe sounds like a cool idea on paper but maybe not in practice. the loml “dancing phantoms on the terrace are they secondhand embarrassed” of it all

the image of karlie taking new forms of goddesses villains and fools or absorbing new narratives that knock out old lore, observing new rules and changed plans. being turned into an idea of sorts (the picasso of it all!) all to outrun each of these new narratives being killed off, and karlie just sitting there and watching it happen. maybe… she’s sitting and watching taylor… because she is the muse being painted and trying to sit still??

pardon me as i allow myself a moment to be lost in the sauce, as it were.

okay so now for the sequential aspect of my thought. after cssm, we have how did it end? and it made me think that it is (as i have noted before anyway) a song that really evokes for me fandom speculation over different ways that kaylor ended over the years and how everyone loves to make/receive/spread all these rumors and discuss it but how we (the two of them included) can’t pretend to understand how it ended because they never really make full sense (because they aren’t true). this all, i feel, is what’s meant by the “something counterfeit’s dead” of loml. a version of the truth (which was legendary).

and then the next track after how did it end is so high school and i had the thought of like, what if how did it end is a placeholder representing a tearing down of a banner at one point, and then so high school is the embodiment of the sudden appearance and reimagining of the next banner (next new narrative/new path to a public reunion). and i had the thought that perhaps (because of the theming of the song), how did it end could represent the ending of the 2013 kaylor start date narrative (following 2016? following 2019? i haven’t nailed that part down but maybe 2019?), but basically my idea is that so high school could be the resurgence in the fandom of thoughts surrounding early kaylor (what i sometimes call prequel kaylor). it had me reflecting on how, starting sometime around folklore era, i felt a loosening of the guidance being placed upon any of us (or maybe it was just all group think 🤪 hows one to know) in terms of observing the 2013 kaylor start date narrative. i’m not going to go into explaining that right now because i only know of it tangentially but maybe some og’s remember or understand what im talking about here. of course, the opening up of pre-2013 stuff is just as easily the product of taylor leaving tumblr and the diversification of platforms where people talk about kaylor and the various messengers of kaylor… migrating to different places as well, but i digress, upon listening to ccsm and then hdie in this new light, there was something suddenly glaring about the overloaded joyousness of so high school that felt almost jarring. partially because of the track placement (happy song after sad song), but upon reflection i think it kind of fits the theming of kaylor being suddenly reconceptualized. perhaps, “are you gonna marry kiss or kill me?” is a way of almost sarcastically saying (not unlike with imgonnagetyouback) so what’s gonna happen with the narrative this time? (am i gonna be your wife or is my bike getting smashed up again) and “bittersweet sixteen suddenly” is a reflection of how now, out of nowhere, kaylor can be seen as an unrequited love from way in the past. please note that i don’t think the ages or the term ‘high school’ should be taken entirely literally but i did want to note that these ages and high school imagery come up in a lot of thematic songs like maathp, ithk, betty, etcetera, and evoke the idea of a far off and more naive or idillic past all the same. also, and im not sure how to articulate it but under this new framework, so high school almost listens to me like those opening musical scenes from the barbie movie. where like… there’s metacommentary going on with the lyrics of the hey barbie song playing and also in the emotions that barbie is experiencing in the dance party scene (the part where she’s dancing and then all of a sudden has an existential crisis over her mortality)— just the idea of like, so high school is joyous (and i am a big big so high school stan!) but maybe we can all agree that it is a bit saccharine, where this version of events is being sung with true delight while at the same time there is this undercurrent of… knowingness?? as if the person singing it is also singing to the fourth wall?? like the increase in volume (of sound, of words) towards the end where she’s listing off more and more examples of feeling so high school, there’s just this insistence? that feels very meta to me?? idk if i’m making sense??? but that’s the epiphany i had 😂 and it felt really cool.

oh and so! i thought all this, and then wondered if maybe the lines “if the glint in my eye traced the depths of your sigh, down that passage in time back to the moment i crashed into you, like so many wrecks do too impaired by my youth to know what to do” are referring to just this. with glint in the eye being the blink of crinkling eye and the depths of your sigh being the im trying to stifle my sighs of it all. it’s her telling taylor, if you want to break my heart and tear my world apart, tell me you wonder if we can’t get to a public reunion by retelling things from a point further back in the past (just like i’d always hoped for in the first place). so tracks 20-22 is like, conceptualizing of the end of a narrative, its end, and its replacement with a new emerging narrative.

this all also connects to my thoughts on the alchemy that i had recently, an attempt to explain the vertigo that the song makes me feel… where it’s like, maybe it’s a song about august 2023 being a failed relaunch or maybe it was by design a singular event in a currently progressing line of events in the current narrative… but (and i think of it as a karlie perspective song) it’s like karlie is singing about planning to storm eras tour and win taylor back while at the same time being aware (through the football imagery of the song!) that actually travvy is about to enter the picture, and so there’s like, it’s not a hopeful song? it’s hard to explain. it’s like the song is almost perfectly positioned as a story about karlie going to eras tour becoming an essential event, but one that is intended to not fix things, which makes the whole thing feel fatal to karlie, and idk, this vibe is complemented by this sort of drudgery or echoey feeling to the acoustics of the song… whew, okay. so yeah. i hope there are still some people reading 😂

subsequent songs im not thinking too much about them being in chronological order with the above three. but i had some other thoughts about other tracks so here they are:

given the framework i have laid out above, what if thank you aimee is also in some part about kimye after all, where the consequences of snapchatgate pushed taylor into introducing the 2017 kaylor feud narrative, which ultimately led to a series of events that led her to abandoning the aforementioned 2013 kaylor start date narrative, and eventually landing upon reopening pre-kaylor speculation (the idea that they had pined for one another much earlier), which, if we assume is a narrative that is closer to the truth, may have ironically been healing in a way (ie, “but i can’t forget the way you made me heal”), getting the chance to turn the dial all the way back to their youth, which aimee (a high school classmate) is representative of as a sort of time demarcation.

also, maybe then cassandra is connected to this framework, with the lines “i was in my new house placing daydreams, patching up the cracks along the wall” refers to taylor crafting the 2013 kaylor start date narrative (a daydream) with “cause that’s where i was when i got the call” being the call from kanye / the beginnings of what would become snapchatgate, and “i was in my tower weaving nightmares” refers to her crafting the 2017 feud narrative and the line “they say what doesn’t kill you makes you aware, what happens if it becomes who you are?” works not just as a play on the lyrics from the kanye song stronger, but it also maybe connects to a realization on a part of taylor of the damage she has done. thematically, i am reminded of the song “my tears ricochet” and the lines “you turned into your worst fears” and “crossing out the good years”…and the black dog lines “that was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming” and “tragic fabric of our dreaming” — not that im saying these songs are taylor singing about herself but that contemporarily these are similar themes she has worked with when writing. personally i’ve thought of both mtr and tbd as songs about scott b and i still hold on to those interpretations but there’s something about the themes that clicks for me in this narrative as well, if anybody feels like entertaining double meanings.

so tldr.. my basic thought is that tracks 20-22 could be cssm: karlie watching taylor brainstorm ways to destroy a failed kaylor narrative (my guess is the 2013 kaylor start narrative but it could be any one of a number of kaylor narratives), →how did it end: the destruction of the 2013 kaylor start date narrative (/ the tearing down of kaylor banners in general), →so high school: the introduction of a new narrative which is early kaylor inclusive. plus various other ideas about related songs on the album. thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far!!

[softantlers]

Did you see the parallel lottienathive pointed out of Lottie getting beat up under a moose skull while Nat gets pushed around under a deer skull when moose has always been associated with Nat and deer with Lottie

ahh i hadn't seen that! that's a really interesting detail!

tbh i am pretty hesitant to give the writers flowers on stuff like this because i do sometimes interpret them to be flukes, but i also think there's something to be said about what the show does on its own, ie: the natural symbolisms that come up in scenes (potentially unintended) without having to make a case that they were put there deliberately. as in, we can have fun with the sort of serendipity of this parallel simply because it exists. (sorry for the overexplanation on this but i see so many people suggesting others are "reaching" and dismissing us when we analyze these kinda shots & it's like no shit!! that's what makes literary analysis so fucking cool.)

with regard to the moose skull vs the deer skull in the different scenes, i think it's rich to consider them as foils!

so the moose is hanging over lottie in this scene. what's fascinating to me is that moose are solitary creatures that don't form herds. this is absolutely oppositional to everything we understand about lottie-- her whole arc in s2 is her desperate plea to bring the girls together & use the power of a proto intentional society for survival in the wilderness. girl wants a herd BAD.

but it doesn't really matter at the end of the day because the more she tries to bring everyone together, they either deify her (like most of JV) or resist her (like shauna & nat), which doesn't allow her to be part of her own herd. instead, it elevates her. the dynamic puts the crushing responsibility of leadership (and its associated resistance) on her shoulders.

in a way, lottie almost becomes the moose even though she wants to be the deer. when shauna beats the hell out of her, the isolation furthers & she is kept even more separate from the girls. she's not even part of the decision that leads to the queen hunt. also, her "herd" lets the violence happen to her in the beatup scene. she's very alone in this moment.

to an extent, lottie gets to experience the world as nat & the moose toward the end of s2. nat is quite solitary in this season as well; as the hunter, she is frequently alone in the wilderness & as the leading skeptic, she's also isolated.

we got the deer hanging over nat in this scene, and i think a contrasting experience is happening. natalie actually doesn't want to be part of the herd. this season is about her desire to run rogue for her own sanity when the choices & tide of the yellowjackets conflict with her own morals (hiding ben & later killing him; working toward repairing and using the transponder, etc).

what's interesting to me about this is while nat wants to break free from the herd, she's actually very embedded--much more so than lottie. by the end of the season, it's revealed that she's essentially the people's queen. despite being dethroned, folks are still following her & undermining shauna. tbh even "people's queen" is a bit of an oversimplification. nat is simply one of the yellowjackets--she's on their level, reflecting their own feelings back to them, in a way that neither shauna nor lottie can be. and so, there is a lot of love for natalie among the team that stays consistent despite this scene.

unlike lottie, natalie isn't actually deified as a leader. she is kept down to earth, able to connect with the JV in their acts of resistance because she is relatable--she is of them. in a sense, then, natalie actualizes the herd that lottie could never really be a part of. nat's functionally a deer this season.

it's kind of funny because when lottie saves nat by crowning shauna, she is essentially using her power as the moose, which i would say is part of this "ethereal wisdom" she gives off that allows her such influence over the yellowjackets (whether she actually even has it; moreso people place that expectation on her). but it's a solitary & lonely position.

anyways, these are just some random thoughts but i kinda vibe with the idea of what @lottienathive said about them blurring & part of that maybe could be that these seemingly clear-cut "deer" and "moose" roles are reversing and blurring as well.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Do you think Riddle is so short because of what his mom made him eat ?

Like only making him get the perfect amount of calories like in his overblot backstory

Maybe it is because his mom is also short? Anyways she doesn't seem tall, also where is his dad.

***PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT speaking as a dietician or a doctor; the information and interpretations presented here are based my own scientific knowledge and research, and apply ONLY to the analysis of a fictional character. This post is NOT meant to be taken as any sort of medical or dietary advice.*** Personally, I'm not of the belief that Riddle is short due to his controlled dietary intake. In very simple terms, calories can be thought of as the fuel you burn to get through activities. While a caloric deficit can contribute to stunting of growth, I don't think this applies to Riddle since he lives a relatively sedentary lifestyle (sitting and studying) and is provided an adequate amount of calories per meal. I want to take a quick moment to dispel the commonly held belief that Mrs. Rosehearts underfeeds Riddle. This seems to sprout from a misinterpretation of a line in 1-25 when she is serving Riddle a birthday meal. Here, she states the exact amount that Riddle must have in order to not overshoot 600 kilocalories. This is led some fans to think that Mrs. Rosehearts restricts Riddle to 600 kilocalories a day, which is just not true. From the dialogue, it is clear that Riddle is granted 600 kilocalories per meal. Assuming 3 meals a day, that means 1800 kilocalories per day, which is very close to the recommended 1745 kilocalories for the average 8-year old boy (not accounting for fluctuations from individual child to individual child). This is a perfectly normal intake, but is appears strange at first glance because very few parents actively calorie count what their child eats to this extent.

Back to the original topic, nutrient intake also contributes to height. (Think of nutrients as the building blocks to a building called your body, and the calories as workers or the 'energy' that assembles the building/your body.) However, that doesn't mean that I think Riddle didn't get enough nutrients; it is possible to have low calorie meals which are nutritious. (For example, athletes may have to follow specialized diets in order to attune their bodies to whatever sport or activity they do. Similarly, Vil crafts a diet for the VDC/SDC squad in book 5 which cuts out junk food, is overall lower in calories, and still provides the group with the energy they need for practice.) Mrs. Rosehearts has dialogue where she describes the nutritional content of the meals she has prepared, which seem to be tailored for brain function. I'm going to assume that those meals also adequately provided for Riddle's other nutritional needs. I don't have reason to believe Mrs. Rosehearts, a doctor and mother who is detail-oriented and hellbent on her child's success, would knowingly and intentionally sabotage his health.

It’s canon that maintaining physical wellbeing makes for a good mage (which is why NRC makes its students take P.E.). Additionally, eating well is said to be one way a mage can make a recovery from blot accumulation. If Riddle were eating poorly and/or was of poor health, that would only mean struggles with concentration and his magic suffering the consequences—and that’s very much counterintuitive to the success that Mrs. Rosehearts envisions for her son.

You don’t need an abundance of calories or nutrients for growth and development. The excess will get stored as adipose tissue/fat or (depending on the nutrient) exit the body as waste. It’s important for a child to be fed well in order to grow properly, but generally if they aren’t malnourished (ie getting less than what they need) then they wouldn’t be stunted.

By in large, genetics is the major deciding factor in height. I believe current studies suggest as much as 60-80% of one's height is predetermined by DNA sequences (although those DNA sequences can be altered by the environment and outside other factors). It could very well be that Riddle is just short because his ancestors had the "short" gene. Looking back at manga images of Riddle's mom from the manga, she doesn't seem that short to me. Even when Mrs. Clover is bowing her head to her, both moms appear to be about the same height (if Mrs. Clover were standing). Maybe Mrs. Clover is a little taller (it's hard to say just staring at the image), but not by a lot. If I had to guess, they seem to be about average height for women. That doesn't mean anything in terms of genetics though, you could be any height and still carry the "short" gene to pass onto your children (the shortness trait just isn't always expressed outwardly.)

If I had to guess, I’d say Riddle is just “naturally” short or drew a bad lot in terms of genetics (since his height seems to be a sore spot for him). He’s about that age where most men will stop growing too (although some do grow well into their late teens and even early twenties).

Regarding Mr. Rosehearts, we haven't seen him yet but he's definitely mentioned a few times! He is said to be a medical mage like his wife and is implied to not have a happy marriage with her (according to Riddle). That's about all we know of him now. Some parental figures just get less focus than the other, and that’s the case for Mr. Rosehearts as well as many others (Mrs. Trappola, Mr. Spade, Mrs. Asim, etc.).

It’s possible that the short gene came from Mr. Rosehearts, but we don’t know for sure since we’ve never gotten so much as a silhouette for him. Again though, he could be tall or average but have an unexpressed short gene. I believe many fans headcanon him as short though, as the King of Hearts in the source material is smaller and meeker than his wife.

[utilitycaster]

You who are wise in the way of Exandria (helps run the readable wiki), maybe you could tell me or point me in the right direction. There's been several statements that the Pantheon gets their power from their followers, that feed on their faith/worship/prayers. One of the Vanguard says something to this effect, and Deanna seems to subscribe to this belief as well, and I think I sort of thought this as well pre-Downfall. But is there any actual evidence for this?

Hey anon, thank you!

The short answer: it's really unclear even from the text precisely what's going on, likely because this is foundational lore of Exandria that's existed since pre-stream and it's changed over time as different players and GMs have brought in new perspectives. The most I would say is that the gods of the pantheon do not require worship as a condition of their existence.

The longer answer:

The gods appear to be independently powerful, which would make sense, since they are effectively extra-terrestrial or extra-planar entities of possibility solidified into specific embodiments of concepts, ie, when in physical form on the material plane they are just creatures with their own power. We see that the Everlight's power during Downfall, for example, does not seem diminished even though nearly all of her worshipers were killed by Asmodeus.

However, we also see that when in mortal form, the avatars do gain power from worship and specifically from being in places where they are worshiped. We also know that while he's not of the pantheon, the reason Artagan has the ability to grant divine power as though he were a god is because he is worshiped as one by Jester.

My personal interpretation, and I want to stress this paragraph is very much only an interpretation and not canon, is that while the gods are in mortal form, they need worship to access those truly divine abilities, but while in full godly form they do not - ie, the pantheon doesn't seem to need to be worshiped to have the powers of a god, since that is simply what they are as beings, but should they limit their forms or should an entity who is not of that same classification of being (ie, Tengarian, mortal who has used the Rites of Ascension, or whatever the fuck the Chained Oblivion is) wish to have the powers of a god, they do need worship.

Now: the above relates to entities who are on the material plane. This isn't the case with the divine gate. Because the gods of the pantheon now must act through mortals, it is functionally true that unless they have worshipers within the world, their ability to influence anything in the world is greatly limited if they don't have worshipers. The wiki source on The Everlight's influence being weakened/diminished is a Reddit post from Matt 8 years ago and again, that's influence, not raw ability. When we encounter her in Campaign 1, The Everlight is still able to do everything any other god can do; she just isn't as well-known within Exandria.

The Vanguard member who says mortals are food for the gods is Tuldus in episode 44 and he does not explain how this is. Obviously he's not going to be an objective source here, as a cult member under interrogation with valid resentment towards whatever religious institution under which he was brought up, but we have not seen evidence of the gods needing mortal prayer or worship other than again, to act within the Prime Material Plane from the other side of the Divine Gate. FRIDA says that they believe their worship "charges" the gods (episode 52) but also doesn't provide evidence; it's just their belief.

So this is a long way to say that the gods do ask things of their followers, particularly those followers who gain powers from them, but that seems to be strictly for the purposes of acting within the world from behind the Divine Gate. Any feeding off of mortal worship when in full god form and not a mortal avatar form is purely speculative, and such worship of their mortal forms as we saw in Downfall was freely, if in SILAHA's case unknowingly given, and did not seem to drain his followers in any way nor even require them to know it was worship. In terms of having power as present physical entities either pre-Divergence or in their realms post-Divergence, we don't know if they require anything. At minimum they can go a very, very long time without major worship with no loss of power.

[ghoooooooooooooooost]

my re-review(?)/opinion rewrite of bsky now that it's been a lil while since i got on it

basically: still has a long way to go b4 i like it :l

(edit - some functions i complained abt not having are slowly being changed ie: the video length is now 3mins instead of the original 60secs)

for negatives:

still missing basic twitter features like gif support n bookmarks (unless you do some work arounds), saving drafts, privs, n vids longer than 60 seconds.

blocking someone does not remove them from your follower count n you cannot softblock or remove them yourself either! why!!

most of the artists i follow on twitter barely use or straight up don't use bsky even if they set up accts.

staff there continues to suck. not banning jesse singal despite him breaking tos + they're still censoring posts of ppl in need of donations by slapping vague no context "content warnings" on them. recently i heard they're mass deleting those accts as well. someone got mass reported for doing daily mutual aid threads too.

you can get your posts auto hit w a content warning if anything that a bot can interpret as sexual is in there (it's not consistent either???)

i never use blocklists anymore bc malicious n false lists made for harassing ppl keep popping up, some of which i've been added to before. i also keep getting added to "fandom fascists" n "bad vibes" ones right next to terfs n rightwingers bc pr*sh*ppers don't like me. you technically can just never check what lists you're on so you don't have to know, but for me personally, not knowing adds a whole can of paranoia bc i'm aware other ppl still praise + use these lists...

^ blocks are public which can lead to the people you block finding out n adding you to bad faith lists out of spite too. plus there's list spam (adding the same person to tons of them at once)

there's follow farmers: ppl/bots who spam follow thousands to 100k+ random users just to get them to follow back (bc theres also a weird thing where some ppl just instantly follow back everyone no matter what - n call u weird for not doing the same thing).

fake accts (not sex bots) follow often just in general; i got spam followed by "sa offender awareness" accts once.

lots of bsky users constantly complain abt having to see politics. any kind of world news at all. which ig it has in common w tumblr

^ my drawing of harry got autoflagged as sexually suggestive; you can see the caption/text but the image is completely hidden until you click 'show'.

*later edit: i eventually found out that "sexually suggestive (cartoon)" is on a separate page from "sexually suggestive" so i could change how the post appears to me; making part of what i said b4 wrong... but then it leads to 2 different problems (other than being annoying):

you currently can't use the (cartoon) label yourself - only 4 labels are available to users rn n they don't include the ones only in advanced settings. meaning you can still get forcefully labeled by the mod bot, which could make ppl think you were "too lazy" to do it yourself n then block you

having your moderation settings on "show" instead of "warn" will make the labels on ppl's posts entirely invisible to you all together. the only reason that i could still see the ones on my self-labeled posts w "show" was bc they were my own ig? which can lead to ppl seeing you unknowingly rting unlabeled posts n blocking you

^ a whole profile that has been flagged with just "content warning". entire posts are completely hidden. this was someone asking for donations

for remaining positives:

hashtags work; links don't suppress

you can get rid of the discover tab

you can add warning labels to your posts (though there's not enough options)

muting words is still pretty nice

ig it'll cut down your socmed time?

some ppl like the fact that there's no algo

there's no elon or grok

all in all i feel like ppl who praise this site a lot just miss twitter but don't wanna stay there. which is totally fair? though some of them will call anyone who still has twitter a n*zi now. also, i think more users who crosspost between both sites would be willing to make a complete move if bsky had privs

its a lil funny that i've been facing way more bullying attempts on bsky than twit oh well

[generalluxun]

Apparently OP and I aren't on speaking terms but that vampire post was interesting and I wanted to share two other spins I have on vampires:

One I did for an original fantasy setting inspired by the outcasts from Wednesday, so basically Urban Fantasy where the 'monsters' are meant to be fairly sympathetic if a bit fae like.

But in it, there was strong emphasis on innate magics tied to flesh and blood for vampires and werewolves who were close culturally as both are 'shifters' and rooted in an extreme extrapolations of family.

IE, Vampires can low key sense every member of their clan and kind of lose it if isolated; while werewolves wither and die if left without the wider pack structure but are strengthened by these bonds.

A separate, separate spin on vampirism is cannibalism:

I've been trending towards treating is as functionally cannibalisms and parasitism in some different recent works. A core difference here being that vampires in the above idea are basically a sub species, while in this they are a more human than anything else.

Basically rather than being dead, a vampire is 'alive' but they can only stay alive by devouring other people. They cannot substitute people's blood with animals, it has to be the essence of their own kind.

Its rooted in a discussion I had with a theologian regarding the nature of sacrifices in religion and how sacrifices done for one's self rather than for a god or divine purpose are just murders for selfish gain and that societies cannot function when people see each other as prey which is why vampires are innately separate from human society.

Your second interpretation is very much in line with the classic vibes for the creatures. The first is interesting, definitely, but still involves creatures who must drain the life out of others to live. It's one of the parts those who try to tweak vampires struggle to get around.

If you make it so vampires don't need to drain others to live... Are they even Vampires?

There's an anime that does this. 'Interviews with Monster Girls' is set in modern day where various 'monsters' throughout history exist, but in a more mundane(albeit extremely rare) fashion. 'Vampires' in that are much closer to humans with a condition. They don't die without blood, but they feel anemic. They have a cold body temperature and photosensitivity. They have keen senses from being nocturnal(hence an aversion to garlic and other strong smells) but no magical powers to speak of. Oh, they do die with a stake through the heart!(Who doesn't?)

It's a fun exploration because they trace how the various legends are exaggerations of reality. They aren't vampires in the classic literary sense, but that is the point.

It's very different from works that try to assure us X vampires are 'The Good Ones' which miss the fact that it's like having a 'good' billionaire. The existence is inherently parasitic and it is merely whim that makes them appear benevolent through the glamour of wealth.

[crimeronan]

Oh I am having, so so many thoughts about the Hunter yeeted to the human realm AU of the princess AU (Good Lord this Au has so many AUs which is why we love it) Assuming this happens as like, a part of the year of hell and near the end of it (like, just prior to mainline aus patricide) Hunter is just going to be, a complete wreck, especially depending on what Belos tells him about why he was sent (which if it makes Luz look bad he won't believe but might nonetheless fuck with him) and one, dealing with being locked in Camila's basement.

Things would probably end up very very murder the Emperor very quickly (ie once he's satisfied he has her sufficiently 'under control' and the second Luz gets the oportunity )... so this might end up being a very short lived situation. But... Belos being the inconsiderate jerk he is used some fancy spell where if he dies it blows up idk he wouldn't want it being used after his death though that's for sure) so Luz is stuck being The Empress (assuming things go well) without her Hunter there for her. Maybe like in some other AUs she would have Amity's (maybe dragging her in on the patricide plan) but that's it... the poor baby.

Amity (depending on her situation) might be trying to help in the same way Hunter does but is failing miserably for all of the reasons whilst being slowly driven insane. I can see Luz going to Darius and Raine for help if for no other reason than that she has nobody else.

But I'm imagining, after several months of barely getting through the day... with the adults around her barely keeping her functional, with Amity having fallen into the role of "be in the room when she has nightmares and try not to panic about anything" Hunter returns with Camila (and maybe Vee depending on how things go in the human realm) in tow.

"Heyy... sorry about being in another dimension for the past few months not not successfully killing Belos on the spot so I could be with you I will consider this a personal failing for the rest of my life.... But i did just bring back a wayyy better parental figure who... by sheer coincidence, is your actual Mom."- Hunter probably

from this concept

it's been a couple days since you sent this but i'm still thinking about all of this. trying to imagine what belos tells hunter.... my main thought is it paralleling what he tells luz in TTT. "thank you so much for all your help, hunter. but i don't need you anymore. and Neither Does She"

coming off the year of hell and all of luz's secrecy, hunter would For Sure interpret this as "belos has started physically abusing luz and has no intention of stopping." to say he'd be frantic is. An Understatement. in the main timeline canon he assumes belos killed luz without any provocation... having Actual Proof that belos has cruel intentions toward her would make him. well.

Very Upset! to say the least!

i'm not sure if he'd actually end up locked in camila's basement here, though. he clearly can't GO anywhere else. and he's in a Damn State. after her initial panic, once she'd calmed down and gotten up to speed on the situation, vee would be.... perhaps not Fully understanding, but at least less afraid. like. i think she'd lock her own door and she'd carry around a weapon whenever she went downstairs for snacks, but i dunno if they'd go the full imprisonment route.

unless hunter offered. which.... now that i'm thinking about it, he Absolutely would. hunter being like i know humans hate witches and you especially have reason to hate me but if you can get me back to the isles then you can do whatever you want to me. i won't fight i Promise

meanwhile luz is frantically trying to get to the human realm because belos is so confident that there are still witch hunters there & she does Not remember enough about modern human society to dispute it. amity For Sure clocks that luz killed belos, the same way she does in the main timeline. and she ALSO has a vested interest in getting hunter back (because he is her best friend) because she needs a rival who can best her in combat. AND she's trying to keep lilith together, which means she's often in proximity to luz anyway. so there's a lot of opportunity for her to be like. luz. are you okay?? you Have to pull it together

i think raine would insert themself politically even if luz didn't ask, because she CANNOT focus on policy right now. and it is sort of important for her to focus on policy while she's trying to govern. darius meanwhile has a similar interest to amity in getting to the human realm because what do you MEAN belos tossed his kid the little shit into hostile territory and abandoned him???

man. the sheer amount of relief luz would experience when hunter comes back. Unparalleled. girls who are going to throw themselves on him and burst into tears in the middle of the throne room.....

[sodachalice]

once you learn that psychiatrists interpret metaphor as delusion you start to understand why 1) no one thinks youre as crazy as youre psyche does and 2) why it seems like people were crazier in the past than they are now. anyways does anyone ever think about how kinning is just the modern day equivalent of thinking you're a reincarnation of the virgin mary or jesus christ, and how it's just not seen as a "valid" delusion due to the fact that mainstream modern fiction is not seen as literal as the bible and therefor isn't a "valid" delusion? claiming your jesus is blasphemous and CLEARLY schizophrenic, where as claiming you're john egbert is seen as tumblrina attention seeking, despite all the metaphors and symbolism being the exact same. the delusion literally serves the same exact purpose in day to day life, it communicates the same ideas. this is why everyone is cringe and no one is disabled in the eyes of society right now. not to mention the actual jesus kinnies have flipped the script and convinced everyone that trump saying he speaks to god is normal, where as if someone says they speak to komaeda every day it's. kind of seen as nothing. that's sort of the response i see now. its a nothing delusion. your functional so why should it matter? i think this is applicable to most forms of mental illness, the modern equivelents of historical symptoms are "lesser" than people expect because they've been so fictionalized in the past (ie: joan of arc) that when people actually meet the people who have these delusions, they're shocked and let down by the fact that it's just like. a special needs adult with brown hair and glasses wearing a graphic t from walmart and denim jeans and slip on sneakers.

[cherryblossom-heart]

i'm firmly on the side of "these men aren't shit and don't deserve anything happy in their lives", however some of these justifications for certain jjk men having a happy ending fascinate me. most namely, sukuna.

HE KILLED THE OTHER WOMAN instead of just making her leave?? now, maybe it's because he's the king of curses, so of course he's not going to be as rational as the rest of them, but this man still KILLED someone. he says that she spoke ill of y/n, and that was why she was killed, but i don't believe he would've said shit if y/n wasn't mad at him. he already replaced her - what would it matter if the woman he replaced her with had some snarky things to say?

that wasn't a repentant act; it was out of desperate stupidity to prove that he didn't 'value' anyone the way he 'valued' y/n - which is not a good sign! just like y/n said, killing the other woman doesn't solve any of their problems, or even guarantee that something like this wouldn't happen again.

it's entirely one thing, in the case of the other jjk men, for the other woman to be fired or transferred to a different workplace. sukuna's (and by extension, toji's) case are just mad. however there is a general gist to be understood with them all - if your relationship can't progress/stay healthy with the intervening party being around you, y'all have bigger problems to address. ie, they shouldn't have to be fired/transferred/dead, for y'all to keep things together.

thank you for coming to my tedtalk. i'm so sorry that this is so long; i got very heated at one point. 😅😅

Amazing Ted talk 👏🏻 enjoyed it from beginning to end!

I will say that with Sukuna particularly, I never try to show a “functional” relationship between them. He is a curse and, in my interpretation of him, that’s why he will never be able to fully love reader but he tries to somehow show it to them. Now, like you said, if one person can destroy your whole relationship there was definitely some issues there, as I think it is with all of them.

I will say that in my mind when Rina “spoke ill” of reader Sukunas reaction was like an anger response along with a side of “FUCK! She was right 🙄” it’s like a “we can be arguing or hate each other or whatever but I won’t let anyone say shit about you” which is as high he could go in the love spectrum.

All this to explain more his reaction, no to defend him or anything btw haha

[luxlightly]

Reading comprehension and literary analysis 101: Interpretation vs Intent vs Readings

So, after making my post about the two headed calf poem, there's been pretty extensive argument in the notes about whether or not "all interpretations are valid". The main issue causing the argument is that what we're taught (at least in the American school system, which is what I have the most knowledge of) about "interpretations" is extremely lacking if not outright false. Here, I'm going to break down what an interpretation is and how it differs from author intent, opinion, and "readings".

The first and most important thing to remember about discussion of basically any field of study is that it is meant to have a use. We learn things in the American school system to answer questions on tests, not to utilize the knowledge.

It's a bit like learning how to hold a screwdriver but never being explained that you can use it to tighten screws. You use tools for a purpose, be they physical tools or intellectual. Sure, you could use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail, but it's not going to be as effective and may even hinder your progress.

Literary analysis is also a tool. We use it to extract meaning from works and to expand our understanding of topics, of other people, of ourselves, and of the world around us. An analysis that gives a false impression of these things is, like the screwdriver being used as a hammer, not helpful and even actively hindering.

Understanding that, we should understand these facets of literary analysis, using the short example story.

"Steve eats 10 apples every day. Bob hates Steve."

1: The text

This is the exact words as they appear. Many times, the only thing we are presented with when we read a piece of literature is the text itself. This can limit our understanding significantly.

2: Context

The physical, cultural, emotional, and historical circumstances in which the work was written

3: Intent

What the author, at the time of writing, intended for the audience to understand the piece to mean

4: Interpretation

A deduction about what the piece means, what can be gathered from it, and what significance it has, based on evidence from the text.

5: Reading

A reading is an interpretation of the text through a certain cultural lens (ie: a queer reading, a feminist reading).

6: Opinion

A purely subjective judgement of the quality of a work based on individual preference

So the text of our piece is "Steve eats 10 apples every day. Bob hates Steve."

From only that, we can make any number of interpretations, supported in varying degrees by the text.

Interpretation 1: "Bob doesn't like that Steve eats so many apples." While the text does not directly tell us that Steve's enjoyment of apples is related to Bob's dislike, it's a reasonable jump of logic to make since his eating of apples is mentioned just before the statement about Bob's dislike for him.

Interpretation 2: "Bob hates apples". This is more of a jump from the text than the first, but could still be defended. We know Bob hates Steve and we know Steve eats apples. It could be argued that it's the apples Bob really hates.

Interpretation 3: "Bob likes oranges". This interpretation isn't supported by the text at all. It doesn't help us better understand the text. As a tool, it serves no purpose. Is it "valid" in the sense that you're allowed to believe it's true? Sure. But it doesn't function as the tool it's intended to be and therefore isn't useful to discussion of the piece.

Which brings us to Context.

Let's say this piece was written during the Great Apple Famine where only the very richest people could afford apples and we know the author grew up very poor during this period of time.

This changes how we understand the piece. It would be understood instantly by those reading the piece at the time of writing that Steve must be very rich to afford so many apples. It would not have needed to be stated outright in the text because the context in which it was written was the same in which it was being read.

Knowing that now, it changes what our interpretations may be. Bob may hate Steve because he is wealthy. Bob may hate Steve because he is jealous of his wealth or of the apples themselves. It could be a statement on greed. Or it could still just be about apples. But our toolbox for understanding and gaining meaning from the work has expanded significantly.

Intent:

We rarely get to know exactly what an author's intent for a work is, especially an older work where the author is no longer alive. Many interpretations, therefore, are attempts to understand the author's intent. However, they don't need to be and, in fact, can often be more useful when they are not.

For example, there's an interesting message in our example story about how the excessive displays of wealth of the rich leads to resentment from the less wealthy and how scarcity is a constructed state. These interesting interpretations help us better understand the world and other people.

But let's consider, then, that, shockingly, the author's actual intended message was "Bob likes oranges", something we've established is not evident in the text or particularly useful to discussion of the work. The author is just not good at writing.

In this case, we actually come away with something more meaningful and useful to us when we do not focus on the author's intent. Intent gives us more context for the piece, but is not the end goal of literary discussion.

A reading often entirely and purposefully discards author intent and instead identifies and recontextualizes the text through a specific lens.

For example, let's do a quick religious reading of the text.

"Apples are symbols of original sin in the Christian Bible. We can therefore read Steve as representing one who frequently engages in sinful activity and Bob as being distainful of him for his sinfulness."

It's important to remember that readings like this often are fully aware they are not the intended original meaning of the work. They're just another tool. For example, this reading might help us understand how, even without meaning to, the author may associate apples with sin or negativity. What does that say about the use of that symbolism in our society and how inescapable it is? Or maybe it wouldn't help with that. But the point is that, whether or not it succeeds, it's a tool for better understanding or world and the people in it.

As for opinions, they can't be wrong or right because they are subjective. They aren't judged on any real metric. They can be somewhat helpful in judging a work but ultimately are just a personal feeling. They, unlike interpretation and readings, are not tools for understanding.

So what does this all mean in relation to the two headed cow poem?

If the author's intent is to show how life is precious, even if it's fleeting, does interpreting it as "mankind is cruel to things that are different" really help us in understanding the work and the world around us? If the interpretation contradicts the intent so completely that it's entirely lost, then this new message is what we have to judge and does "mankind is cruel" really tell us anything true about the world or the piece? Or is it just needless pessimism? What does "valid" even mean or matter in the context of literary analysis?

At some point, certain interpretations become counter productive to discussion of the piece. No one can stop you from interpreting something a certain way, but at some point you're using a screwdriver as a hammer and you're just putting holes in the wall.

[rametarin]

On the subject of genocide by Putin's Russia in Ukraine

Oriignally this was going to be a response to a reblog, but I thought better of shitting up their post to just make my own.

we've been saying in the west for over a decade and a half now that western Leftists see white people, all white people, as capital O Oppressors, not based on anything they did as individuals, but based on their existence as white people (political demographic). In a principle sense, and in an ideological sense. With an ideology that declares, broad brush, "Oppressors cannot be oppressed" and, "White people are oppressors."

And here we see the problems that ideology gives birth to, refusing to acknowledge textbook definitions of things such as genocide and racism, because the textbook definitions do not conform to their ideological textbooks definitions, or interpretations. And those interpretations include making exceptions to the definition of racism, to exclude groups that, "aren't a real race." (IE, white people. Europeans. Non-Asian, non-Black, non-Indigenous American or Island people.) By their suggested definitions, you cannot genocide a people that do not, politically, "legitimately exist."

Any time this was done, the people saying it were misinterpreted as just advocating for white supremacism, crypto fascism, or as if they were trying to deplatform any attempts at anti-bigotry at all, and reacted to with dismissal or hostility. And, in the cases of actual white supremacists or Nazi, crypto or not, that was the right course of action; except, when it wasn't, because ordinary people criticizing the beliefs spoke up too, and were called, "tiki torch bearing, butthurt white supremacist apologists," roundly mocked, blocked and socially ostracized.

They refuse to see what's happening to Ukraine, or any other country with a historical and aboriginal basis in white people or nationhood, as genocide. Because, they think and say, to entertain such notions puts them, "dangerously close," to the people that unironically talk about immigration to Europe by non-white groups as, "contributing to European genocide." They adopt broadbrush principles that argue, "it's impossible to genocide a European culture or community, because those don't actually exist. :^) There's no such thing as a 'white' culture. There are no indigenous communities of European to disrupt or genocide, because they do not exist."

An entire continent, and the only groups of people they can find there are landless, non-European ethnic groups, with European countries considered separate from the aboriginal strain of people that founded them or comprise them. And they have to, because if they consider it possible to genocide whites, then they'd have to acknowledge that you can be racist to whites- whom they argue, are not a race and thus do not qualify for discourse about racism against white people, or protection from racism. They'd have to acknowledge you can genocide a European community, as easily as any other, and they do not want to do that.

This is the invisible ceiling which Ukrainians are bumping up against, experiencing firsthand the problems. And it's not caused by or the result of Americans that are, "just ignorant of history and genetics and geography and what culture is," as these ideological broadbrush views that refuse to make exception or distinction for what's happening in Europe or could conceptually happen, are FEATURES, not BUGS. To adopt their language and views at all, is also to adopt these disgusting, unworkable ideas. It's functioning the way intended, in saying Ukrainians aren't being genocided, because they don't believe you can genocide white people.

"We don't count as western white people, though! Slavs are an entirely different group and not guilty of the same things Western Europeans did! We/they actually have culture and ethnic identity!"

They. don't. care. how. you. define. yourselves. They don't care that they're wrong. To them, if you aren't noticeably Semitic or Desi or non-European, you are European, you are white, and thus, you are a cultureless, communityless, illegitimate, meaningless, tiki-torch bearing white nationalist/supremacist, no different from a Nazi, or you're an unorganized citizen of a bureuacratically defined, cookie cutter nation, and nothing more. No community, no organization, no identity beyond the political country. They don't care about white ethnic identities, as they see none having any legitimate basis in white people specifically, anywhere. As far as they're concerned, 'Ukraine' is just a name for a modular concept called a country. Under these very unforgiving criteria for legitimacy, no Europeans fit the bill for it- they can only be illegitimate, problematic, hostile hate groups. This is not an accident or oversight, it's deliberate and working as intended.

They would immediately think otherwise if it came to Native American nationalism, Aboriginal Australian nationalism, Black African nationalism, or any Asian nationalism. But they do not view whites as anything- not in their own separate ethnic groups, not singularly as white people. They disallow any thoughts of distinction or cohesion as anything but white supremacism.

This is how you can get non-Putin supporting, antifascist, antiracist, anti-Nazi people that refuse to support Ukraine. Because a strain of Marxism, a revolutionary ideology and philosophy and culture transplanted here and exacerbated by revolutionary Russians in the 1900s, evolved as its own form of disruptive social propaganda. It didn't have to overtly and explicitly support Russia or Putin, it just had to enable and abed and even cheer as Europeans killed one another, celebrating European death while mourning the deaths in non-Europeans.

They successfully wrapped up this noxious way of seeing things and aggressively marketed it as "anti-racism, anti-fascism." Not unlike the way a bigoted policeman applies their bigotry to their occupation under the pretenses of, "securing law and order," that just so happens to single out their favorite whipping demographic as disruptive to law and order.

And until this can be unpackaged and trimmed away from the way we speak about racial bigotry and genocide, and who gets to be considered a group and why, and thus suffer attempted genocide, and acknowledge you can include not just white people as a group, but multiple different kinds of European into the discourse, they'll refer to this massively truncated, "all whites are to be unorganized, or they're to be perceived as plotting ethnonationalism and thus conspiracy to genocide non-whites by default upon insisting on their community's existence" point of view, and refuse to acknowledge the ongoing genocides made of European people, even by other Europeans, inside OR outside of Europe. Acknowledging the ethnic or cultural communities of non-whites, inside or outside Europe and the need to protect their culture and identity and insularity, are perfectly good and okay, actually. For some reason.

Because if you follow the language of books like White Fragility and textbooks that insist, "you cannot be racist to white people," then no, white people cannot be genocided, because they don't "exist." Not legitimately.

You don't need to be a Fascist, Putinist or Russosupremacist to abed genocide in Ukraine. You just need to abide to the letter to that malicious, predatory mimic of a thing in academia passing itself off as pop "antiracism" across the Hard Left.

And the fact you can't talk about this without presumed cheerleading for white supremacists, is in fact part of the problem. But until we address it, it will continue to happen. More leftists will cheer as Russia ethnically cleanses Europe, seeing it as, "a win for diversity." They'll cheer for a different reason than the right-wing delusional shits that think Russia is on their side (they aren't,) but they'll both be cheering, confident that these events are good for Their Side.

[faith-of-the-wheel]

Greetings, friends. How are you?

I too am well. This blog is gonna consist primarily of my personal interpretations of reconstructed Proto-Indo-European deities via comparative linguistics and mythology, and attempts to flesh them out in the name of detailed religious practice with possible syncretism (not at all uncommon for IE culture).

There will also definitely be some talk of other deities because I am deeply interested in reconstructing poorly understood deities and their roles, and I believe doing so can help us better reconstruct PIE deities.

The primary sources I use for establishing what deities to reconstruct(and how to do so) are the Senowera/Sénā Swedhā́ document, Arya Akasha, and Ceisiwr Serith's blog. The Senowera/Sénā Swedhā́ document has the widest selection of PIE deities, so it is often my jumping off point, although I do not agree with all of it reconstructions(for example, I find the evidence for Mawortes essentially non-existent. That doesn't wholly invalidate praxis, because of the PIE's clear deification of abstractions, but it's certainly not historical). I highly recommend checking out the Looking At the Deiwos blog here on tumblr. It's a great intro to the deities, uses most of the resources I've mentioned above, and is an all-around great resource. I often feel their entries on the gods are a bit lacking in detail but I am a nerd who obsesses over minutiae and my desire to explore some more complex and theoretical ideas about the gods is why I'm starting this blog.

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DISCLAIMER: I'm not an academic or a scholar, just a nerd. I rarely sight my sources and typically do so improperly because, frankly, that's tedious. I'm not trying to reconstruct the historic PIE gods entirely accurately, others who are far more qualified than I have done that to my satisfaction. I'm trying to, primarily, flesh out the underdeveloped deities with some more speculative reconstruction for current religious purposes.

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I also recommend Ceisiwr Serith's book on the subject, Deep Ancestors: Practicing the Religion of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It adds a lot of detail to PIE theology, cosmology, and above all else it is an invaluable resource on ritual and it's extremely important structure. Incredible read for those of us who prefer a detailed and ordered look a such a religion. We are definitely gonna get into a lot of other things, as one of the main ideas behind my creating this blog is to expand upon the foundational resources by fleshing out the deities, albeit very theoretically and by potentially engaging in a little syncretism rather than focusing purely on what is reconstructable. We should remember that like most pagan paths, we will enver fully understand and reconstruct the historic practice and our modern one, however much do and should base it on the ancient ways, is still a modern practice. This applies doubly so when talking about Swedhu/PIE religion, as we do not actually have physical evidence of this pantheon even existing, it's pure reconstruction.

My reasoning for this approach is such:

1 - We cannot and never will gain as clear a picture of PIE deities, their characterization, and their function as we have for almost any of their descendant cultures. However, I consider this kind of understanding to be important, if only in a UPG sense.

2 - One of the main appeals to Swedhu to me, and I imagine many others, is its almost all-encompassing pagan nature, with the remarkable diversity of the many descendant traditions. A lot of pagans connect with the spiritual traditions of their ancestors but many also acknowledge a remarkable diversity of ancestry and consequently the many beautiful traditions, especially those of us in the US, whose ancestors can often be from all over world. Swedhu being the common ancestor of so many traditions has a certain appeal to it by encompassing, and sort of reverse syncretising them together if you will.

3 - Syncretism was extremely common among IE religions and seeing as recreating any of them perfectly is both near impossible if not entirely in a practical sense, not to mention the issue of compatibility with modern society, certain alterations are simply a fact of reconstruction. And we can use this to our advantage in the creation of a more detailed theology.

Let's get into it!

Proto-Indo-European Deities:

Rudlós

Part 1: Introduction and Cognates

Part 2: Comparison of Cognates

Part 2.5: Additional Possible Cognates

Part 3: Leudheros, Aspect or Son?

Part 4: Worunos, King of the Night Sky

Part 5: Who is Welnos?

Part 6: Character of a God

Ṛ́tkonā

Part 1: Introduction and Cognates

Part 2: Comparison of Cognates

Part 3: Character of a Goddess

Paxuson

Part 1: Introduction and Comparison of Cognates

Part 2: Welnos

Part 3: Character of a God

Leudhero & Leudhera

Part 1: Leudheros, Aspect or Son?

Part 2: Character and Worship

Proto-Indo-European Rituals:

A Place to Start: Introduction to Hearth, Gods, and Ancestors

Skuda(Scythian) Deities:

The Scythian "Ares"/Pṛta

The Scythian "Ares": Arms for the Arm God

Ossetian Deities:

Uastyrdzhi

Right hand of God

Tutyr

Of the Caucasus or the Steppe?

Hellenic(Greco-Roman) Deities:

Ares

Ares/Thracian "Dionysos", A cognate of Rudlos?

Raetic(Etruscan) Deities:

Intro to Etruscan Religion

Śuri

Part 1: The Black, Forgotten King of the Manes

Part 2: Indo-European God of fire