#it just doesn't warrant the use of all the old english.... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

50cal-fullauto-astarion · 2 months

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Keziah Niamh. Ffhjjd. This got so fucking out of hand. I LOVE YOU TY DARLING. 💖💖

König x f!OC (Rivka) / 1.8k words / NSFW

AU where for some reason, there's been a concerted effort to imprison skilled operators in the Gulag. König is used to kill whomever the guards point at--he does not question why. His reward is a visit to a solitary cell, where a woman holds his vile heart in her fist like a benison.

TW: descriptions of extreme violence and gore, machine-translated Russian.

When König’s shackled by wrist and ankle, with a chain running up to around his waist, he knows he’s one sin against his fellow man away from getting his little prize. If he were a rat, violence was a lever, and getting dragged up to solitary was a pellet, he’d stomp that fucking lever into the ground every fucking time.

No one had ever accused him of being smart, apart from one person, but there was not a person alive who had suffered the work of his awful hands that would not hesitate to call him brutal.

He’d been such a fucking problem when he was jumped and dragged to the Gulag all those months ago that he warrants a cadre of six guards in their full tactical gear to escort him down the halls to the boiler room. They like a good little show with a nasty atmosphere. It makes them think of home.

Once there, he’s aimed like a gun at another face that doesn’t matter to him.

Older guy, beard, body hair like a werewolf. He’s got scars across his face that’ve taken one of his eyes, and when he snarls, he’s got no teeth across the bottom. Without his shirt on, König can make out eyes tattooed around his hips. Eh. Poor fuck, unlucky enough to get tagged for liking dick, it seems. Doesn’t matter. Not much of this does.

No one in the room speaks German, and he doesn’t speak Russian, and they won’t answer in English, so he just gestures for whatever weapon they want him to use on the raging asshole that’s about to become his victim. Sometimes, they get creative—hand him a pair of tongue and groove pliers or wire strippers, once even the broken wheel of an angle grinder.

They don't give him bladed weapons, or anything that can be used like one. He kills too fast to get their rocks off like that.

Today, it's simple. A claw hammer. His opponent is given an old skinning knife. It's not quite even odds, and König can remember a few fights that had been easier.

When it starts, König is fast and ugly in nature and action. He's got reach, a hammer, and a lever to break off the fucking hinges.

The bastard gets a few good slices in trying to go for his neck—a blood-groove carved over his cheekbone, a valley on his bicep that damn near splits the veins in his elbow. But König lands that first blow, and it's all over but the death rattle.

The claws fit perfectly under the windpipe. Can't rip it all the way out, but he can absolutely mutilate it.

He's the perfection of violence with every arc of his arm drawing the hammer back—cracking it forward, pulverizing the joint on one side, ramming the claws between skull and cartilage on the other. The blood boils in his fucking veins, finally seeing the world in color, iron flooding his sinuses, thick on the soft palette, heavy on his tongue.

The old man staggers, slurring, eyes unfocused. Trips on his own feet, goes down hard on his ass, looking around in confusion like a toddler. The guards howl like baboons showing red ass; they close in, smother, wanting a look at the damage.

König doesn't feel pity. That human feeling had been demo'ed and ripped out of him decades ago.

Slams a canvas basketball shoed foot on the gushing throat, crushes him back in a crouch with all his weight bearing down, and beats.

And beats. And fucking beats.

Might be the animal rage of being locked in a cage. Never loved a cage that he was forced into. Might be that he's named with his name, never called by his callsign. Might be that he's on an island in the middle of the Baltic Sea, and anything short of an Armageddon-sized riot would be a death sentence when eyeballing escape. Might be he just can't choose how he kills.

Might fucking be that his unit is dead, and the only thing he's got left is in the hole, and the only thing he's got left is the only reason he'd ever capitulate to these filter-faced fucks instead of killing as many of them as fast as he can, dying, but dying in defiance.

His chest is heaving, he bleeds from the wounds cut into him, and he sits on the corpse's ribcage. He doesn't ask what the man did—wouldn't get an answer, fucker probably didn't do anything, and König doesn't care.

Their tones change, and the tasers come out once gore streaks up across the floor and the near wall, hammer striking concrete when there's no more bone to crush.

Fuck—the meat, and blood, and bone chips are hot splattered on his legs, up the wifebeater on his chest exposed by his rolled-down jumpsuit. It burns on his exposed neck and face, and he can even detect it on the numb tissue of his warped burn scars.

“Odinokiy. Seychas.” His voice rasps, throat hot and dry, wanting water, but he grates out the only Russian he knows, throwing the hammer away.

Solitary. Now.

Rivka had been dumped in the hole five months ago for influencing the guards and other prisoners. For a woman with a subatomic amount of charisma, she was spilling poison in ears across a dozen languages.

The only word he recognizes as he's paraded with his chains dragging and hobbling him through the corridors on the far side of the facility is Zabludowicz. It's the only one that matters.

Her eyes never went back to normal—that scope glass gray he'd know in his dreams and mania now gone forever—and she still couldn't read, but she could still run her engines in the red, burning spite and ugly, fester-fuck rage for fuel.

No one needed a reason to pack her off to proverbial Siberia. They just did. And when they dragged her out of the showers, they beat her. It—broke something. In her head.

The first time König had seen her after, both her eyes were dilated black, and she slurred her words together. Told him in the halting sentences of a child that she couldn't read the Cyrillic on the labels of the guards’ gear. Couldn't read anything in the Latin alphabet, either.

König throws his hideous, hyena-pitch cackle when the guards slam him against the cast iron door casket-lidding her miserable cell, grating out, “Rivki—Schatzi—it's me,” in a gout of German that sends the guards cursing, twisting his cuffs tighter, cutting into his raw skin.

Death is death is death, and it still stands in the place of a gift in this shithole, but they find a purgatory in leverage levied.

It's on purpose. It's all on purpose, and it all hurts, and the worst things they can do to him, they won't.

Pain upon Rivka is his punishment, and they won't kill her until they reap all the connections they can from her head. Pain upon him is her pound of flesh; they know she stops speaking when he bleeds too much, and they know she'd send him to his death with silence, even if his delivery was torture in all its many natures.

There's coarse Russian yelling, orders and threats spat, and König is wrenched away from the door, his limbs freed and howling just as it slides open with a bang that should burst his ear drums.

He's shoved in with all the force of an aircraft carrier launched out of dry dock on bad water, and there are thousands upon thousands of fucks he can't give, because there's Rivka, against the far wall.

Her eyes are black, and they keep shaving her head without even the guise of delousing, just degradation. Stupid shit to think they could ever degrade her.

Not sure which one jumps first after that microsecond of recognition—the space at the bottom of lungs between breaths, where dying eventually finds its way, where the lungs prepare to intake the scent of home—but the crash is painful, and Rivka is the shrapnel edges of broken glass with her starvation-raised bones digging into his bruised muscle.

Here, in hell, is his health.

Her hands find his wounds, and her voice is a sharper cut than the knife used against him, “The fuck are they giving out now? Scalpels? You-you-you need glue t-to close-close-close.”

Her words are precious now, so he does not interrupt, but Rivka wouldn't know the difference between a limb severe by saw and a neck slit with a straight razor, and the love König carries for her would crush him to death the moment he stopped asking it to.

“I missed you,” he says in place of a reply, feeling the quarks in his atoms want to break apart in the face of his relief and full-body shaking, “fuck, I missed you.”

Her eyes snap back to him, and her expression crumples. Her features—austere, alien, fae—animate as her humanity bubbles back up through the cracks, too strong facing him to remain trapped even with her ruthless burial.

“Missed you bad,” she says, nose wrinkled snarl-like at her recovering vocabulary. Where she lacks in words, she masters in movement, arms around his neck, pulling body against body. She grabs the strap of his wifebeater, warping it, yanking him close, and he doesn't care. He listens. She's the hand on his collar, he'll always arrive when she signals him.

She gropes for hair at his temples that has long been buzzed away. She searches for silver that exists only in stubble. She kisses him like she'll take the soul from his body, devour it bloody, and carry it for safekeeping.

He gathers her up like there's still some chance in hell that he can protect her, dropping on her miserable bare cot of a bed, dragging her onto his chest, and between his legs, and under his arms. All he can do is wait for her vengeful brain to heal, then there will come a plan, and he will faithfully (faithfully, faithfully, faithfully—as blinded by loving obedience as Abraham on the mountain, with wood for the pyre meant for his sacrificial son) be the finger on her trigger. He will be her executioner. He will carry out her will.

Her body is too tired and worn for fucking, and he wouldn't ask or accept it anyway. If it was a matter of too many eyes, they possibly could swing it from sheer savagery, but it's not. He can't make himself ask her to expend the energy. She has so far to go still.

But her razor-slide lips are a refrain. We'll make it through, we'll make it through, we'll make it through.

Rivka is the only higher power König believes in.

#konig #könig #call of duty #cod mw2 #mw2 #konig mw2 #konig call of duty #konig x oc #my work #oc: rivka

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thatlittleegyptologist · 1 year

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For the Tjetji post, how can you tell that something's actually a mistake, instead of just colloquial grammar/idiosyncratic spelling? Like I hate to use the p-word but I assume ancient Egyptians did have regional dialects just like modern languages do, and it seems prescriptivist to just toss nonstandard grammar/spelling into the 'mistake' bin just because they differ from the widely-accepted standard. Even English didn't have standardized spelling until pretty recently, iirc, and lots of people use grammar that would be out of place in a formal setting, but that doesn't mean the way they talk is 'bad' or 'wrong'. (I'm asking in good faith, I'm not calling you prescriptivist, I just want to know what led you to that conclusion, like is there a contemporary text saying 'wow, that Tjetji guy's grammar sure is awful' or something?)

Okay, so, I acknowledge you're asking in good faith. However, the best way to not insult someone with the use of the word 'prescriptivist' is to not use it at all. Especially on a topic you don't have much familiarity with (i.e. how Middle Egyptian functions), to a person who has a lot of experience with the subject (16 years!) and about a post that was a shitpost about how that text was just a nightmare to translate when I did my undergraduate. At this point it feels like people are taking it very seriously when it doesn't warrant it.

(Just as an aside: I don't know what version of the post you've seen either. There are several where I explain things, so I'm working on the basis that since you follow me you've likely seen the one where I explain in detail several spelling and grammatical errors in the text.)

Anyway, the reason I can tell that these are mistakes is because of the language it's written in, the type of text it is, and who the text is about. That's the basic gist of it. But let's look a bit harder.

You're right about there likely being regional dialects in the spoken language across Ancient Egypt, however, there are a number of problems with assuming that this would directly translate into the written language. One is that we have absolutely no evidence of there being regional dialects, or how they would differ from a standard dialect at this point in Egyptian history. Thus we cannot treat it as such without deciding that all spelling and grammar mistakes might be 'colloquialisms' that we just don't know yet. That would be a really weird thing to do without evidence. Two is that we're dealing with a population of people where only 2% of people could read and write, so what we have written down is what's recorded by people who are specifically taught to do spelling and grammar in a specific way. This means that the people learning how to read and write are being taught 'standard Middle Egyptian' and thus any official document or inscription will be using standard Middle Egyptian.

The only time we get a reflection of the spoken language in the written one, is when Middle Egyptian ceases to be the language used in handwritten documents (around the end of the Amarna period) and it moves into the stage of the language called Late Egyptian. Late Egyptian has a lot of changes in grammar from the softening of consonants (R softens to an L sound in some cases) and the change to frontal exposition, alongside the use of a lot of semitic loan words. Late Egyptian is so vastly different to Middle Egyptian you pretty much have to learn Coptic first in order to understand the grammar and orthography. However, with regards to the orthography, the spelling of words, when not semitic loan words, or words used solely in LEg, remains constant. The spelling of words, with the exception of some condensing of determinatives that in the very early stages of the language were written longer (doesn't affect the consonantal value of the signs within the word, this is simply an aesthetic choice), remains the same from the advent of Old Egyptian in the Old Kingdom to the use of Late Egyptian in the New Kingdom. That's a couple of millennia of standardised spelling, where we can very clearly see that it does not change. The Egyptians made a very deliberate choice to keep it this way, just like they did with their art. In fact, when the handwritten form of the language changed to Late Egyptian it didn't change everywhere. Middle Egyptian was still used on Monumental/Tomb/Stele inscriptions despite it no longer being how the Egyptians used their language on a day to day basis. The two do not overlap, because they're different forms of the language for different purposes. You can see this in modern day usage when, and I'm going to make fun of my own country here, the Queen died and all the proclamations were in a very formal, very stiff, version of English that simply isn't used anymore, but it is for this specific thing. So if someone misspelled a word or used incorrect grammar within the framework of that form of the language you'd notice it immediately. It's not supposed to be there. The same holds true for the Egyptian.

In fact, we know when they're deliberately making certain incorrect grammatical choices because they do this in literary texts. P.Westcar has a nice example where the character of Khufu (fictionally in this instance) is characterised by the 'slightly wrong' grammar choices made in speech. It's to set his personality apart from the other characters featured, and only occurs in the text in parts relating to him. In this way, we can tell it's a deliberate choice of the author to give Khufu this characterisation through the 'poor' grammatical choices he (Khufu) makes.

This brings us to Tjetji and his stele. Tjetji is a high official. He is close to the king, and has the power and resources to commission a stele for himself that reflects this status. A stele like this is known as a Biographical text, and as such these texts are known to do several things grammatically and stylistically. One of these things is to have 'formulaic phrases' used. Tjetji calls himself 'sole companion' and talks about the treasury being 'under my control and under my seal'. These phrases, with treasury switched out for a different job, are the most common formulaic assertions that Egyptian nobles make either on stele or in their tombs. We see them time and time again in the same format, with the same spelling and grammar. This is standardised Middle Egyptian at work. The fact that the grammar of this sentence in Tjetji's stele is in the present passive tense rather than the past passive tense should immediately red flag to anyone reading it. No one colloquially uses the present tense on a text that should use the past passive. That's not a deliberate choice, especially on a text that's supposed to be a monument to what you did in your life. The text is supposed to be past tense, but parts of it are present tense. Ergo, we know this is an error.

The word for 'to bring' (in) is spelt with two n's as inn. Throughout the course of Egyptian history, the spelling of 'in' (to bring) remains the same. Even in Late Egyptian, the spelling remains as 'in'. It's also what's known as a 'strong verb', meaning that the consonant at the end (in this case 'n') is not considered a 'weak ending' (this is usually the case with verbs ending in 'i' like rdi 'to give/place') and thus does not do what we call 'geminating' where it gets a double consonant on certain verb forms. Not only is 'in' not a weak verb, but neither the grammatical form being used (present passive) or the one that should have been used (past passive) cause weak verbs geminate. To put it simply, there is no grammatical reason for there to be two n's in the spelling of 'in'. Even colloquialisms, while deviating from the standard grammar, do still follow certain rules and it can be determined which standard rule has been 'flouted'. Here it simply cannot make any grammatical sense, both within the context of a biographical text and following the standard grammar of a biographical text. Therefore, it has to be a mistake.

Other mistakes, like the omission of signs or pronouns, I've already said are aesthetic choices. Any stage of the Egyptian language does this. Hieroglyphs are an art form as well as a written script and sometimes they will deliberately leave signs out because it looks prettier that way. Old Egyptian simply omits the first person pronoun all the time, as well as the marker for the past tense, because it's just like that in that stage of the language. Tjetji's text being in Middle Egyptian means it shouldn't do this, and is long past the time where it would have been done too. That'd be like me using the 'long s' that's so characteristic of Middle English. People would be asking why I'm doing that and assuming it's a mistake because it's very far out of common usage and is archaic.

The writing of the 'ms' sign is quite straightforward. It's not supposed to be like that. It has never looked like that. That is a mistake plain and simple, and was likely done by a stonemason who was illiterate. In fact, Tjejti and the scribe he commissioned to write the text might have produced a completely flawless bit of work, but when an illiterate stonemason carved it he made some mistakes and that's what we're left with. Simple human error.

With Egyptian, unlike with English, we do have to factor into things that much of what we see carved was done by men who were illiterate. They are going to make mistakes. They are going to make a lot of them. That's going to be a much much higher probability than 'a colloquialism or idiosyncrasy we cannot even hope to define' has slipped into a stone carved text. Egyptian is not like English. It formed, and the written control of it was in the hands of those who were in power and were literate. What you're talking about how English spelling was standardised happened in Egypt a millennia before Tjejti even commissioned his text. I don't really know how to explain to you that what you're looking at is a stage of the language wherein all the stuff about 'standardisation' is already ancient history to the Egyptians by the time of Tjejti. They've already gone through it. It's done. It's finalised. They are a fully fledged civilisation with a standardised language and writing system. That's how we know.

So, in summary: Egyptian actually has standardised spelling and grammar, and maintains it for thousands of years. The text is of a specific genre, which has very set phrases and grammar (another thing which the Egyptians maintain for centuries). When it deviates from standard grammar we look for the reasons why it might do that, and 99% of the time the answer to that is Human Error.

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whenthegoldrays · 3 months

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hiii elly <3

kinda bored lately and wanted to watch something so came here for recs :) could be of any kind btw like movies, tv shows (any language)

also maybe not something from your top ten kdramas post lol i've already watched most of the shows on there

also how're you doing?

hope you're doing well <33

Hey girl hey! Thank you for asking, I'm doing well! Terribly busy, but on the whole things are good. How about you?

Oooh okay this is quite a thing to ask me, I'm going to get decision paralysis dhdvdvdg but let me think of some less-common things I can recommend!

Available on Prime Video.

The Surprise (2015). Also available on Tubi. After inking their own death warrants, an eccentric millionaire and distraught woman fall in love and find voiding their contracts isn't an option. Romance! Dark humor! The k-drama truck of doom, except it's a Dutch movie! (Disclaimer: I do not recommend watching this film if one is suicidal)

From Prada to Nada (2011). A modern Mexican-American adaptation of Sense and Sensibility that surprisingly really works?? The title is woeful but the movie is pretty darn good.

The Lady Vanishes (2013). Iris Carr is traveling across Europe by train when she befriends Miss Froy, an elderly English woman. But when she wakes up from a few hours' sleep, Miss Froy has vanished. As fellow passengers claim the lady never existed, Iris fights to discover the fate of Miss Froy - and prove that she's not going mad.

Love and Friendship (2016). Adaptation of Jane Austen's Lady Susan, starring Kate Beckinsdale. The main character is the definition of gaslight gatekeep girlboss, and the supporting characters are all just. so funny.

To Tell The Truth (1961). If you just want something to distract you that doesn't take a lot of thinking, old game shows are ideal. In this one, a celebrity panel tries to guess which of three strangers is the person they claim to be.

Masterpiece/PBS Passport Shows.

All Creatures Great and Small (since 2020). Season 4 currently airing. A feel-good (but unafraid to get real and sad) show about the misadventures of a country vet practice in Yorkshire.

Miss Scarlet and the Duke (since 2020). Season 4 currently airing. In 1880s London, the daughter of a private investigator decides to take over his detective business after his untimely death. Mystery series that also has just about the BEST opening titles ever.

Available on Tubi (which is free!)

Forever Young (1992). The movie where I realized that Mel Gibson was cute, actually. In 1939, a heartbroken Army pilot volunteers for a cryogenics experiment and wakes up in 1992, where he gets a second shot at love.

The Space Between Us (2017). On his first visit to Earth, a man born and raised on Mars bonds with a street-smart young woman while unraveling the mysteries of how he came to be. To quote my mutual Chris: "wanna cry? 🥰"

The Dick Van Dyke Show (1960s). Some of the stuff hasn't aged well, but this is still one my top favorite old sitcoms. All the characters are so fun and endearing. You probably won't want to sift through all five seasons, so my top episode recommendations are "The Curious Thing About Women" (s1 e16), "The Two Faces of Rob" (s2 e2), "That's My Boy??" (s3 e1), "Big Max Calvada" (s3 e9), "October Eve" (s3 e28), "My Mother Can Beat Up My Father" (s4 e1), "4 1/2" (s4 e7), "The Impractical Joke" (s4 e16), and "Coast to Coast Big Mouth" (s5 e1).

(I got a little too excited with those episode recs, oopsie 🤭)

The Surprise, like I mentioned.

I just found out that they have some episodes of The Flintstones and Tom and Jerry on Tubi, if you want some good nostalgic laughs.

Available on Netflix.

Love At First Sight (2023). Cute romance about taking a chance on a good feeling.

The Adam Project (2022). You've probably seen it, but I will mention it anyway! Time travel. Annoying and precocious 12-year-old child. Ryan Reynolds and Zoe Saldaña. Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo! FIVE STARS.

Trevor Noah: I Wish You Would (2022). The best Trevor Noah special, in my opinion. The curry story??? Iconic forever and ever.

The Full-Time Wife Escapist (2018). A woman takes a job as a housekeeper, but in order to stay in it, she and her boss agree to a contract marriage. If you've ever seen the k-drama Because This Is My First Life... This is the better version of that show, imo. The ML is suchhh a sweetheart.

Indian Matchmaking (since 2020). I never watch reality TV, so I don't know how I started seeing this show, but it's SO good and super bingeable.

Omg the Jurassic Park movies are on Netflix right now

Available on Hulu.

Wild Mountain Thyme (2020). It's a love story, and it's so silly and enjoyable. The resolution is just shdhfhshshsg

The Giver (2014). Jonas learns the secrets of the past, and the utopia he's grown up in begins to look more and more dystopian. Also, Taylor Swift is there for some reason.

Flamin' Hot (2023). It wasn't until I watched this that I realized how much I need movies about Mexican success stories in my life. File this under ✨inspirational✨

If you haven't yet watched The Artful Dodger (2023), you absolutely should. Come for the romance, stay for the absolutely bonkers, insane hijinks.

I barely started watching Timeless (2016), but it looks really fun and good. It's about time travel, unsurprisingly for me 🤭

Available on Disney+

Baby's Day Out (1994). A childhood CLASSIC of mine. The cuteness is just. so much. The humor is standard slapstick, but really fun, and the mom has some of the most gorgeous 90s outfits omggg

Hidden Figures (2016). I love this movie endlesslyyy. Awesome intelligent Black women overcoming the odds, space race setting, and even a side of cute romance.

The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019). Dare I say, best dog movie I've seen?

The Call of the Wild (2020). Another dog movie, with Harrison Ford. I don't remember much of it but I remember really enjoying it.

Milo Murphy's Law (2017–2018). Have you seen this follow-up to Phineas and Ferb? If you haven't, you need to. The comedy is so gold tier and the music slaps.

Delicacies Destiny (2022). I kind of stopped watching this c-drama about 1/3 of the way through, but I totally should pick it up again, and it's worth watching even if just for all the gorgeous food scenes.

And of course, anything from my top ten k-dramas that you haven't seen yet is an automatic recommendation 😌

This got. so long. I hope you find something here that you like and thank you for asking @milkteawithrusk!! This was so fun to put together! 🫶🏼

#ask elly #milkteawithrusk #movie recs #show recs #long post #tw suicide

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booksandria · 2 months

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the song of fury - thoughts on Homer's Iliad

spoiler alert!

"I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before – I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son." | "Priam at the feet of Achilles", Jérôme-Martin Langlois.

After a month, I finally finished reading the Iliad. What a book, everyone! Although it's quite a tiring read, it's very obvious why it's a classic. It's a little funny to do a spoiler alert of a 3000+ old book, but beware anyways lol.

(btw i'm once again writing this in portuguese and translating it to english, sorry for any weird wording and grammar mistakes)

The tale of this piece on time of the ninth year of the Trojan War, which opens with the beginning of Achilles' fury until the moment when it is appeased, is heartbreaking, mainly because it is such a vivid portrayal of the horrors of war. How many were the victims of that war in the 24 books of the Iliad, and how many in all the other years that the poem leaves out? It's moving in every sense, and becomes even more impactful considering the context we're living in, with two wars going on in the world.

It's necessary to point out that a large part of the reason it's such a tiring book to read is because it has such a different formula from what we're used to: because it has an oral presentation context, there are many repetitive and formulaic parts that can be hard to swallow at times. Honestly, at every battle book I had the impression that I was reading the same thing over and over within 500 pages. Interestingly, despite this, I still felt quite involved in the battles, especially those that take place after book 9. You can feel the desperation on both sides of the war emanating from the pages, as if you were there in the middle of the battle. It's an intensity that can't be explained.

Of course, you can't talk about the Iliad without mentioning its most important character: Hector. There's no greater tragedy than reading this man in battle giving his all, convinced that he was going to win the war and be able to protect his city and his family, while we know exactly what's going to happen and that there's no escaping it. There's no other way the war can go, even if we want it to. It was inevitable that Patroclus would return to battle after seeing his companions massacred and that, manipulated by the divine will, he would go after the Trojans and sign his own death warrant. It was inevitable that Hector would kill Patroclus the first chance he got, doing literally the only thing that would make Achilles return to battle and also signing his own death warrant. And of course, it's inevitable that Achilles would kill Hector after everything and that, being who he is, that wouldn't be enough to calm his anger and ease his grief. Achilles' fury was simply inevitable. You can't escape the fate given by the gods, no matter what you do.

By the way, it's worth persevering through the fatigue that can take you up to book 15 precisely because, from book 16 onwards, it's simply impossible to stop reading. The battle around Sarpedon's body, then the chase to Troy, Patroclus' battle with Hector, the battle around Patroclus' body. Girl, you can't put the book down, I swear! From that point on, I just couldn't stop reading or crying. It was much worse to read Achilles' reaction to learning of his companion's death than it was to read Patroclus' death itself. The rage is suddenly not just rage, but the pain so deep and so suffocating of losing the person you love most in the world. Achilles knows he's going to die after killing Hector, but it doesn't matter anymore. The only thing that matters is avenging Patroclus, whatever the cost.

The sad thing is that Hector doesn't know what fate has in store for him. Hector doesn't know that he has just planted the seed of his own death. It's horrible to read the chase around Troy, it's horrible to read Athena deceiving Hector. Imagine you're about to die in battle because you know you can't face the storm that is the guy who wants to kill you, and then you have a quick hope that you'll survive because your brother has come to your rescue. Except he didn't, it was a goddess making you believe he did so that her will would be done. Absolutely horrible! I don't even know if I need to comment that all I could think about was the scene in book 6 where he meets his wife and little boy. Literally the last time they see each other, and neither of them knows it.

The thing is, Iliad is a sad book. It's refreshing and funny and exciting, but above all it's a sad book. And that's what interesting about it's ending, because it is still sad, even if in nature its hopeful. Priam goes to beg Achilles for his son's body and Achilles, deeply moved by him, agrees. The fury meets its end and merciless Achilles finds in himself to have mercy of this old man who could have been his father, because it will be his father right in the next year, grieving the child lost in battle. Hector can finally rest, an ending to all that death and all that pain we read for 24 books.

Except it isn't. Troy will still fall, fathers will still lose their lives, wives and kids will either meet their death or be forced into slavery. Priam's city will be lost forever, we just don't see it here. So, just like the trojans, we're allowed this brief moment of peace, though we both know it will end soon.

After a month digesting this book, I can't say anything other than how marvellous it is, the kind of book everyone should read at least once in their lives. I have to say, though, that there's still a bitter taste left in my mouth after reading this one because, as I said before, its harder to read it while we're living two major wars in the world right now. I just hope that this book story remains just a book story and we can see a different outcome in real life. We have to. Unlike in Iliad where fate is woven by gods, this is a man-made horror. We can put an end to it.

#books of 2024 #gia reads #feb 2024 #homers iliad #the iliad #bookblr #readerblr #readers of tumblr #books and reading #classic books

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beautifulpersonpeach · 2 years

Text

On BTS's Success Being Inorganic (Repost)

Anonymous: Hi BPP, Apologies in advance for a controversial topic but hopefully we can buckle in and have a civilized discussion.

What are your thoughts on 'organic' success? As a Dope Old Person, I am finding myself a bit nostalgic for a time when high charting singles appeared to represent current popular music. I say 'appeared' because we know payola has always been there. In the real world, though, you actually heard the song a lot, probably knew people who liked or owned it, etc. A Billboard Top 10 hit was part of the US zeitgeist and essentially 'organic'. With the advent of technology over the past 20 years, people now have the opportunity to flood the streaming and purchasing channels with numbers to support their favorites. If you can amass a decent online following, you can essentially guarantee a hit, regardless of how many people actually like the music. (Aside: What is the point of a chart? To gauge popularity and trends as of old? Or to see how fanatic a fan base is? Just count $?). BTS have made incredible music and ARMY's desire to get them noticed is warranted. It speaks volumes that they have managed #1 hits in both English and Korean (only the 23rd most spoken language). And while the music is great and the messages behind it inspiring, we should consider that some portion of that success is actually excess. People streaming 24/7 and buying multiple physical copies drive up numbers and takes away from the 'organic' growth. (Aside again: ugh the environmental wastefulness of physical sales and the shipping of the multiple copies.) As the excess has finally started to pay off over the last few years with #1s, real media coverage, and rapidly expanding fandom, I think we should start to think about easing up to let the organic growth return. I love the exposure of the #1 or another record getting smashed but if it doesn't have staying power because it is due to this excess, it doesn't feel as good. I'm not saying this retreat needs to happen immediately given the likelihood of a mainly Korean album will once again need some targeted support. But someday, I'd like to know they've grown enough to enable us to get back to casual enjoyment and watch the locals everywhere bop along to their new favorite BTS tune that they discovered organically.

***

Hi Anon,

I found your ask very interesting, because you start by acknowledging “…...'appeared' because we know payola has always been there…” but then you end your ask like this, “I think we should start to think about easing up to let the organic growth return”. You start your ask by questioning the ‘organic’ distinction even back then, but then you end your ask longing for an 'organic’ success you weren’t sure even existed to begin with.

I’ve actually written about this tangentially before in a reblog on the recent change to BB’s rules, linked here - it’s a bit longwinded but I also link in some articles that offer more insight with facts and figures if that’s something you’re interested in. But I’ll summarize my views here again and directly refer to a few statements you make in your ask.

I’m generally uneasy when people try to apply the 'organic’ or 'inorganic’ labels to minority artists. Generally speaking. Because we all know the barriers to entry are just not the same for them compared to their White/Western counterparts, in a system that has never been organic.

The way I see it, the charts and the system that creates those charts has never been ‘organic’, at least not in the last two decades (which you admit to), but what was different is that the people who determined what was popular were the ‘middle men’ i.e. record labels, radio DJs, streaming platform playlisters, etc, through their own version of ‘excess’ i.e. payola, ‘auxiliary promotions’ on radio, and opaque playlisting criteria for playlists that artists have said they sometimes need to pay money to be added on (at least in the case of Spotify). You mention how “In the real world, though, you actually heard the song a lot,” but the reason you heard the song a lot is because it was always played on radio, an industry notoriously plagued by payola, which would then boost the song or artist’s reach, and lead to people you know liking it and buying that music.

What has changed in the last two decades is that it is no longer the Middle Men who have total control over what is determined to be popular. It is now fans, the people who actually listen to the music, who have found ways to make their streams and purchases (or demand) show, to become too big to ignore, to give artists they view as having ‘organic’ demand, a real chance to actually show up on charts that are supposed to measure sales equivalent units.

Because that’s what those charts are actually supposed to measure: sales as a proxy for popularity, and as I’ve said before, outside of concert ticket sales, direct music sales are the most transparent way to actually support an artist and to determine demand or popularity of an artist. Streaming and radio are too opaque as mechanisms to weigh the most in that equation, but they’ve been given more weight by the industry because otherwise those mechanisms will be less profitable to the Middle Men. Al that's changed recently is that the demand from fans now partly determines what shows up in charts. And doesn’t it follow that it is whoever has more fans for a piece of music, not whoever has a bigger/stronger music label, that should show up on a chart that’s supposed to measure sales?

Let’s look at two different artists and I’ll speak very generally about them here: Bad Bunny and Olivia Rodrigo. One artist is American, the other is Puerto Rican and has mostly a Latam fanbase. Both artists have ‘amassed a decent online following’, and both artists have had their songs dominate on the charts. Do you know what happened when Olivia was first announced to have a concert (with several other ‘big’ artists) for iheartsradio last year? After several weeks of near constant promoting (I was seeing ads at least twice a day), there was so little demand that iheartsradio started offering free tickets to people who wanted to bring a plus one. Think about that. They were essentially paying for people to come see an artist whose songs were consistently in the Top 5 songs on the Hot 100 for roughly a year. Bad Bunny on the other hand, doesn’t struggle to sell out concerts (though of venues smaller than for BTS). He has a somewhat grassroots fanbase and in the last year I’ve become good friends with some people in his fb, to know they’re totally grassroots, but organized (and able to get away with some illegal methods that ARMYs are under too much scrutiny to try, and most ARMYs aren’t interested in those methods anyway tbh). Perhaps contrary to Olivia’s case, for Bad Bunny it’s not a record label that’s inflating his demand, it’s actual fans who will show up to see him live, to hear that music, that are maybe multiplying their purchasing power by 2 or 4 times to beat the ‘excess’ from the other artist’s record label. Because excess is something you’ll see on the charts in any case.

Why is it more tolerable for middle-men (record labels) to control the way music is consumed and ultimately valued, rather than consumers (fans and supporters)? As I’ve said before, fans buying music is really not the end of the world though BB and other industry gate-keepers act like it is. Every artist hopes an ever increasing number of people buy their music, and BTS happens to have an ever expanding fanbase.

Personally, I use concert showings as a good rule of thumb to determine how ‘organic’ an artist’s demand or popularity is, and it’s a fact that no artist on the planet right now is doing as well as BTS in that area. Literally the only person in recent history who has done better than BTS’s recent concerts has been Bruce Springsteen, and even then he’s only above BTS because he had a longer tour period than BTS’s four-night shows. And you can recall how back then, you’d hear Springsteen‘s music all over. Heck he’s now hailed as belonging to the canon of classic American pop/rock. BTS should technically have as much if not more recognition today, and in a sense they do (I sometimes hear BTS's songs in the gym, cafe, random spots all over my small Western city), but BTS sing primarily in Korean, not English and not Spanish (that American radio tolerates more), but in Korean, and the charts ding them significantly for it.

As I said, I use concert showings as a sort of rule of thumb or litmus test, so the day I see BTS concerts lose demand, is the day I’ll start to think maybe ARMYs should ‘retreat’ a little, as you say. Because I suspect the reason you’re sending me this ask in the first place is because you’re concerned people buying/streaming the way you think they do, is unsustainable, and that people will burn out in some way. And if this is true, it would necessitate a “retreat”, as you’ve put it. You’re not wrong. If people were indeed putting in labour to levels you seem to imply, it would be extremely unsustainable and tiresome. My issue with this point is that people have been saying this about BTS and ARMY since 2017… and the fandom has only grown, the boys’ reach only further expanded… the complete opposite of any signs of burn out or unsustainable consumption of music and art. And maybe it’s only coincidence that BTS’s concert showings have only increased as well, more than tripled in fact, all the things that would happen if their popularity, demand, and success was actually… wait for it…

Organic.

Even with all this said, many of the the things you mentioned as indicative of 'organic’ success (“you actually heard the song a lot, probably knew people who liked or owned it, etc. A Billboard Top 10 hit was part of the US zeitgeist and essentially “organic.””), actually apply more to BTS than to many Western artists and certainly more than to any k-pop group, period. Whatever we think about the Pandemic English Trilogy, what it certainly accomplished for BTS was that it did exactly that - I heard Butter in my gym yesterday almost a year after its release, My Universe still gets ridiculous airplay in Germany, France, and Japan according to the radio charts, and I’ve seen more than one reactor mention how they’ve heard Dynamite before without knowing it was a k-pop song. BTS is now at least as mainstream (or part of the US zeitgeist) as Bad Bunny is, if not more. BTS is now more of a household name in more countries in the world than any k-pop group ever, and in some cases are even more known (and loved) than some Western artists even in the US. BTS is now the reason most people have even heard of something called k-pop.

Payola in all its forms, is excess. But the only excess being obsessively hunted down and punished by the industry, is the excess generated by fans or the people actually consuming the music. And the reality is that though ARMYs aren’t doing anything other fandoms aren’t, there’s disproportionate scrutiny on ARMYs because a lot of people (k-pop fans, Western music fans, k-pop record labels and agencies, Western music producers and labels, etc) are sick and tired of seeing BTS on the charts even though concerts and sales show there is at least as much demand for BTS as there is for Bruce Springsteen and Drake. And these other parties think it is in their best interest for BTS and ARMYs to be rendered obsolete. That’s not meant to sound alarmist, it’s just what it is. So even if ARMYs continue playing by the rules, people will continue to characterize ARMYs and BTS’s efforts and success using the most uncharitable language, selectively applying the rules, and basically the industry will give ARMYs a hard time this particular comeback, and probably many more comebacks in the future. It doesn’t matter that the ‘mass’ applied to ARMYs is more a consequence of huge absolute numbers of fans sharing, listening to, and buying music, than relative effort per fan in streaming/buying a shit tonne of music, as it is for most k-pop fans. And it’s not like BigHit is paying a huge amount for payola either when compared to agencies that boost MV views with paid ads/playlisting and mediaplay, which continues to place BTS at a disadvantage compared to labels that have been under investigation for payola in an industry notorious for its practice.

The core of the fanbase will probably always support BTS, regardless of the medium. They have adapted to changing rules over the last six years and will try to keep adapting, despite a changing music landscape for BTS and a new influx of fans who might not really understand why ARMYs support BTS nor see the need to. I don’t know how successful the fandom will continue to be in this regard, but I think for most fans, the placement on the charts hasn’t ever been the primary goal. The main goal for ARMYs has always been to make the artists they love feel seen and supported by the people they make music for.

Originally posted: May 8th, 2022 7:33am

#bts and media #kpop industry #music industry #music asks #bts #bts fandom #bts army #fandom behavior #repost #chart

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sunieepo · 4 months

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If bad localization interests you, have you read how several recent Fire Emblem localizations try to "Christianize" fictional religions.

Like a recent artbook, Legacy of Archanea, completely altered and removed the polytheism, Naga being genderly ambiguous, and Naga being a minor god among many in favor of making everyone worship only Naga with no other gods, changing the male or gender neutral dialogue to refer to Naga to instead being solely female, and making Naga an absolute god.

Sorry for the late response - I was away from my PC for most of this weekend!

I haven't actually heard much about this, but in fairness to me I've kind of checked out of Fire Emblem series lore after FE14/16/17 LOL

The thing is, like, Fire Emblem localizations have famously changed a lot about the games. Like, way more than almost any other series I've played, down to altering the difficulties (ex: the infamous FE10/11 difficulty renaming/modifying switcheroo) or updating entire gameplay mechanics (ex: FE10's class change requirements were changed to no longer need Master Crowns in the English version, and the English version also doesn't use forging points).

The newer FE games (AKA FE13 and later) don't make gameplay changes like that anymore, but the number of translation changes they make are still extremely gratuitous. In very few instances, I can see why it's warranted - like the stuff with Soleil or FE17!Anna - but in other cases it feels like holdovers of old-fashioned Nintendo localization.

FE as a franchise in general is in a very confused spot, IMO. Like, look at FEH (or don't, actually). Nintendo, which has staked its entire brand on family-friendly entertainment, has FEH as one of their flagship mobile games, and it's literally about as scummy as FGO in terms of gratuitous fanservice and sexualization of girls. The newest FE games in general are just dripping with weird otaku fanservice and creepy anime tropes, and yet Nintendo still tries to damage control their English versions by stripping as much of the creep factor as possible.

This strategy might have worked before the age of the Internet, but nowadays everyone can tell how much they've changed, and not only that, but FE has now attracted a huge audience of horny weebs who scream and cry whenever you censor a single vagina bone, so they don't take ANY kind of censorship well. I wish Nintendo would just like... stop trying to change their shit depending on the audience and just maybe not make weird creep shit in general? LOL but who am I say.

Anyways I rambled way too much, all this to say, no I wasn't aware of all of this specifically - I did know that Naga has always has their "genderfluidity" censored and is always referred to as female in the English versions, but I haven't really seen much about the removal of the polytheism as that might be artbook-specific. In the FE games I've played, it's pretty clear Naga is only one of the gods, particularly in FE15, where the main god of the plot is Mila. But it also doesn't really surprise me, because it's Nintendo and they love to censor the shit out of their own material.

#thanks for the ask!#sunie answers #anon #anonymous

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ltwilliammowett · 3 years

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How the fouled anchor became the symbol of all navies

Who doesn't know the symbol of a navy - the fouled anchor? But how did it become a symbol that can be found in every navy?

Badge commemorating the Battle of the Glorious First of June, 1794 (x)

The anchor began its triumphal march as early as 1515 with the Scottish Admiralty and was used there, albeit still unfouled. It was not until 46 years later, under the reign of Queen Mary, that it was also used by the English. Even here, it was only used in conjunction with official Admiralty papers. The fouled anchor was used for the first time in 1601 by the Earl of Nottingham who was Lord High Admiral and he used it in his Admiralty papers as the fouled anchor was also in his coat of arms. However, the symbol did not get any further at first. The events with the Dutch and some unpleasant defeats, such as the raid on Medway in 1667, did not shed much light on the navy. On the contrary, they lost faith in their own men. Even when Samuel Pepyes changed the entire structure of the navy, the men were seen as base, coarse and unrefined. Nothing to be proud of.

But that changed from the 1700s onwards when there were some very successful victories. One of these was in 1744 when Commodore George Anson returned home with a Spanish treasure galleon. This not only earned him a high prize money but opened the way to the Admiralty. This led to him becoming Admiral of Blue in 1748 and introducing the uniform to commissioned officers.

A Naval Expositor, 1st edition, 1750, by Thomas Riley Blanckley (x)

This led to the officers being seen as belonging to the Navy. The first time the fouled anchor was used outside the Navy was in 1750 on the Naval Expositer which was a dictionary: Shewing and Explaining the Words and Terms of Art Belonging to the Parts, Qualities and Proportions of Building, Rigging, Furnishing, & Fitting a Ship for Sea by Thomas Riley Blanckley and in 1758 it was also used on the buttons of the uniforms. At first, there was great scepticism and it took a long time before everyone actually adopted these buttons. But with an article in The Hampshire Chronicle in 1774, this changed enormously: We are informed that the Captains uniform of the navy is going to be altered [...] the old coat is to have the addition of a row of lace around the pockets and sleeves, with anchor buttons; and the undress frock is to be lapelled with blue, with button-hole, worked with gold thread, anchor buttons, plain white waistcoat and breeches.

Royal Naval captains uniform of 1774, sleeve detail (x)

The new uniforms were such a success that the Warrant Officers were also issued with them in 1787. This was so successful that they now had carefully dressed men who all wore the same emblem, like a club emblem, the fouled anchor on their uniforms, which were uniformly coloured. In fact, it was so successful that the French also adopted this system. And what symbol was incorporated next to the Fleur de Lys ? precisely the anchor.

Detail of an Admirals uniform, late 18th century

With the Revolutinary Wars and the resulting victories of the British, especially after the Battle of the Nile, the anchor became popular and women proudly wore a golden anchor around their neck or as a brooch on their collar to show their solidarity. Men acquired walking sticks, watches and snuff boxes with naval battle scenes and anchors.

Princess Charlotte Augusta Mathilde probably by William Beechey, 1790s and a Fouled Anchor Pendant, 1798 (x)

Nelson's successes fuelled the hype even further, and by the late 18th and early 19th century the anchor was no longer just a symbol of the Navy but of success and glory. This continued even after 1857, when ordinary sailors were allowed to wear the anchor on their uniforms. By then, however, the fouled anchor had become such a symbol of the navy that every navy adopted it, and it has remained so to this day.

But why a fouled anchor and not a simple one ? In the Christian faith , the simple anchor is associated with hope. As on many brooches of the 18th and 19th century an anchor with a personified hope appears, later it is mostly the combination of anchor heart and cross (hope, love and faith). The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea 1707-1901 p.8 describes the fouled anchor as follows : [...] an abomination to seamen when it occurs in practice, as the seal of the highest office of maritime administration is purely on the grounds of its decorative effect, the rope cable around the shank of the anchor giving a pleasing finish to the stark design of an anchor of its owen. This may be because the anchor was considered particularly decorative, but rather the fouled anchor is a symbol representing strength and security. And that is what the Navy was once supposed to convey and still does today.

One of the sources is Lily Style as well es others

#naval history #symbol #16th -today #age of sail #age of steam #fouled anchor

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askaphjamaica1962 · 3 years

Text

Hello, I've had this character for awhile but just got around to it.

Quote:

"Ha take that you fucking Russian loser commie. It must be so embarrassing, losing a winter game against a tropical country."

-Jamaica 1994 Winter Olympics after the team beat Russia.

HUMAN NAME:

Gabrielle Amancia Sharpe-Gordon

Gabrielle is the most popular name in Jamaica, the middle name, Amancia is a name of Jamaican origin and the two last names are after two of our national heroes, Samuel Sharpe and George William Gordon.

Born: Discovery Bay/Bahia del descubrimiento (it was the first place the Tainos settled and the first place Christopher Colombus docked.)

GOVERNMENT:

Unitary Parliamentary and Constitutional Monarchy.

FOUNDING DATE:

The island was ‘discoverd’ by Christopher Colombus on the 5th of May, 1494.

INDEPENDENCE DATE:

Was granted independence from England on the 6th of August, 1962.

MOST SPOKEN LANGUAGES:

NATIONAL: Jamaican Patois

OFFICIAL: Jamaican Standard English

She can also speak Spanish (since you know first colonizer), French and Dutch (from the Caribbean), Portuguese (Brazil), Russian (because of the close relations) and the language of her native people, the Arawaks.

Age: Appears to be 20 (did this because I saw a suggestion that countries that were colonised earlier, would be older), in term of Independence 58 and in terms of colonisation, 526 years old or between 1121 and 1111 since to me she was born soon after the Tainos settled which was sometime between 800 and 900 AD.

BIRTHDAY: August 6

HOROSCOPE: Leo

GENDER: Female (I did this because in modern and historical times, women have always had an important role in Jamaica)

ASSOCIATIONS:

CARICOM (Caribbean Community, was one of the four founding members, along with Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, in 1973.)

The United Nations (since 1962)

The Commonwealth (since 1962)

G-15

G-33

G-77

UN Security Council (temporarily in 1992 and 2001 was president in July 2000 and November 2001)

The organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS)

Food and Agricultural Organisation

International Atomic Energy Agency

Non-Aligned Movement

Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL)

The organisation of American States

World Health Organisation

World Trade Organisation, etc.

APPEARANCE

Mixed. Quite a lot of her features are reminiscent of the Africans with some European and a small amount of Asian features.

HEIGHT: 5’5 or 165.09cm which is the average height for women in the country.

WEIGHT: 110lbs, or 49kg.

HAIR LENGTH: Mid-back

HAIR COLOUR: Medium brown

HAIR TYPE: Very curly hair, messy and frizzy. She always spends at least two hours, fixing it.

EYEBROWS: Quiet thick eyebrows.

EYE COLOUR: Medium brown

SKIN COLOUR: Medium brown

EYE TYPE: Wide almond-shaped eyes, averagely spaced.

FACIAL FEATURES: A very round face, high cheekbones, medium-sized pink lips and a wide, short nose. She also has a very flat forehead, reminiscent of the Tainos who used to flatten the foreheads of babies as they thought it would make them more beautiful, mouth corner dimples.

BODY TYPE: Lithe, bottom hourglass shape, C cup breasts, and a large bottom..

OTHER FEATURES:

Has an aheago on the right side of her head, shaped like what was left of Port Royal after the 1692 earthquake.

Has many scars all over her body from natural disasters and battles over the years.

Has very scarred hands, from slavery, one of the reasons why she always wears gloves.

Has small freckles on her knuckles from being in the sun a lot.

Has a long burn mark on her entire thigh, from the 1907 earthquake that destroyed the entire capital, Kingston City

Has a long scar from her right hip to her left shoulder, from the 1692 Port Royal earthquake

CLOTHES:

GLASSES: Wears half-framed black glasses representing Kingston Parish and the tendency of Jamaicans to only look at the short-term effects and not focus on the long term effects.

ACCESSORIES: Wears a small braided bracelet with the colours of her flag.

Tattoos: Has a large tattoo on her back of a map of Port Royal as a memorial.

PIERCINGS: Her left ear has full piercings (but she hardly wears them and they are the most recent ones. She was experimenting which is being done more in the country with piercings and tattoos.) and her right ear has two earlobe piercings and one in the inside of her ear. Also has a navel piercing. (It is one of the most common piercings in the country.) A nose piercing which is also quite common.

MILITARY OUTFIT:

FOR COMBAT: Full camouflage pants and long or short sleeves, steel-tipped, black combat boots, black wrist length gloves small, gold knob earrings, and either a beret (black or white), or a green sunhat or various other military caps.

FOR CEREMONIES: Black military cover, no earrings, red jacket with gold piping and gold buttons and a white belt with a leather and gold belt buckle, white wrist-length gloves, black skirt with one red stripe on the sides and black dress shoes.

THE WORLD WARS: As a colony of Britain during the time of the wars, she would have worn the same uniform. During both, she served in the Royal Air Force (RAF)

MILITARY RANK: Enlisted in the Air Wing, she is a Warrant Officer Class 1, which is the highest in the enlisted ranks.

In all of these outfits, her hair is in a tight bun.

CASUAL CLOTHING: Green spaghetti-strapped blouse, black short shorts, black sponge slippers, brown gloves, small cross earrings in her earlobes and a small stud in her upper ear. Hair is in a low, loose ponytail. Most of the piercings are in. She wears a gold nose ring

NORMAL CLOTHING: A green off the shoulder blouse, yellow knee-length flowy skirt, black flats, black gloves, small gold hoops and a small stud in her upper ear and two rings in her upper left ear. Her hair will normally be in a loose side ponytail, tied with a black ribbon.

MEETING CLOTHING: A green, knee-length tunic, with a yellow dress shirt underneath, black sandals with a small heel, drop earrings with a circular wooden piece. Her hair will normally be either down and loose or pushed back with a bandeau.

Or for more formal meetings:

A black pants suit with gold accents with a yellow dress shirt underneath and a pale green vest. Normally wears black wedge heeled shoes. Only small gold earrings are in of her earlobes, a gold watch and her hair is normally in a low ponytail with a black ribbon.

FORMAL CLOTHING: A dress, one inch above the knee, large, octagonal gold hoops and a small gold star in her upper ear, black wedge heeled shoes and black, wrist length gloves. Her hair will normally be braided with black and yellow beads.

PERSONALITY:

She is normally a very loud, kind and helpful person. Though, as a former pirate, she has quite a short temper and when angered, she will normally refrain from using violence unless you're Trinidad or got her really pissed. Unless it is something very important, she'll be angry for the most, a week, doesn't easily keep grudges. She is normally someone who prefers to stay out of international conflicts but will stick her nose into peoples’ business and involves herself in everything (stereotype). She is very good at lying, which is a stereotype, very athletic, competitive (will do anything to win, once it’s not illegal), a tardy person when it comes on to social gatherings, but will be at least two hours early to anything important, independent and very extroverted, confident, go getter, ambitious, Always wakes up at the latest 8 o’clock and spends at least one-hour jogging or walking, curses like a sailor, very petty.

HOBBIES:

Gardening/Farming

Swimming

Running

Writing Poems

Pottery or just arts and crafts in general

Playing music (her favourites are the drums and the guitar)

Practicing magic

Playing sports

FLAWS:

Stubborn and won’t listen to anyone. (this is from how Jamaicans refuse to ask for help, especially directions.)

Blunt

Judgemental, especially with sexuality and class

Nosy

Can be quite hypocritical

RELATIONSHIPS/FAMILY:

MOTHER: Arawak, the original settlers of the Greater Antilles

FATHER: She sees England as her father figure

SIBLINGS:

Cuba

The Dominican Republic

Haiti

Puerto Rico

I made these four countries siblings because they were settled by the same people

Ex-Husband: Belize. When she was a colony, Belize was joined together from 1749 to 1884.

The Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos (kind of like adopted brothers since now they are considered a part of the Greater Antilles)

Friends:

Russia

Germany

Italy

The Caribbean

Canada

America

Italy

The Netherlands

Brazil

Spain

(those are the main ones. Is friends with the world.)

CHILDREN: Kingston City and Montego Bay City

LOVE INTEREST: Brazil (in recent years, they've grown much closer and she eventually developed a crush.)

RIVALS: Trinidad and Tobago (they are rivals in basically everything.)

OTHER: Has had a strained relationship with Grenada ever since the 1983 invasion.

In recent years, her relationship with America has faced a downturn because of disagreements regarding trade and climate change.

The relationship with China has also not been the best in terms of jobs and trade.

STATS:

INTELLIGENCE: 7/10

WISDOM: 7/10

STRENGTH: 6/10

WEAKNESSES: 5/10

CONFIDENCE: 6/10

WEAPONS:

A handgun

Sub-machine gun

A cutlass/machete

NATION INFO:

FULL NATIONAL NAME: The Commonwealth of Jamaica

NATIONALITY: Jamaican

CAPITAL CITY: Kingston City

WORLD LEADER/PRIME MINISTER: The Most Honourable Andrew Holness

HUMAN POPULATION: 2,969,736

LAND AREA: 10,991km2

FLAG COLOURS: Black, meaning the strength and creativity of the people which has allowed them to overcome hardships, gold represents the wealth of the country and the golden sunshine and green represents the lush vegetation of the island, as well as hope.

ALSO CALLED: The Isle of the West Indies

The isle of the Caribbean

NATIONAL ANTHEM:

Jamaica’s national anthem is a prayer, calling on God to bless and guard our country, and bless our leaders with divine wisdom. The playing or singing of the anthem always fills us with pride, whether it is at a school devotion, a national event or on a global stage, such as the Olympics, when we celebrate the excellence of our athletes.

There are also two other, not national, Jamaica Land of Beauty and I Pledge My Heart/ the School Song.

NATIONAL PLEDGE:

Before God and All mankind.

I pledge the love and loyalty of my heart

The wisdom and courage of my mind,

The strength and vigour of my body

in the service of my fellow citizens.

I promise to stand up for justice,

Brotherhood and Peace, to work diligently and creatively,

To think generously and honestly, so that,

Jamaica may, under God, increase in beauty, fellowship

and prosperity, and play her part in advancing the welfare

of the whole human race.

RELIGION:

68.9% Christianity

64.8% Protestantism

4.1% Other Christian

21.3% No religion

1.1% Rastafarianism

6.5% Others

2.3% Not stated

ETHNIC GROUPS:

92.1% Afro-Jamaicans

(incl. 25% mixed Irish Jamaican)

6.1% Mixed

0.8% Indian

0.4% Other

0.7% Unspecified

LIKES:

Sports (is freakishly good at them and is a fast learner)

Being with friends and family

Drinking alcohol

Food with flavour

Pottery

Brazil

DISLIKES:

France (because of what he did to Haiti, nothing perverted)

People making weed jokes at her.

Being bossed around

Dry and tasteless food

Line skippers (even though she’s one)

Anywhere colder than 13 degrees Celius

QUIRKS:

She is the only one who can hear the narrator

She also has the ghost of her former boss and famous pirate, Henry Morgan following her around.

Also has magical creatures around her that she talks to, mostly ghosts tbh.

FEARS:

Natural disasters. Even though they are quite common, she still fears the damage, loss of lives and pain that it will bring.

She fears getting to such a state where she has to be dependent on another nation too much as she is a very independent nation.

Most creepy crawlies

Green lizards

SHE IS A HEAVY DRINKER.

STRENGTHS:

She is a very creative person in both the arts and in general

Integrity

Persistence

WEAKNESSES:

Is legally blind without her glasses

Has no patience

Nosey

TALENTS:

Very good potter

Good at playing the Guitar and Drums

Good poet

Occupation:

#hetalia aph #jamaica #original art #original character

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