hoeratius

[hoeratius]

just got to this part of the Queen of attolia… WHAT???!????!! HELLO!?!!?? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME!??!??

#irenides #there is so much angst in this ship #tqt

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Ludwig von Hagn (German, 1819-1898)

In the Garden of the Palazzo Colonna in Rome, 1867

#god i wish that were me #roma is where the amor is #art #mood

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Ralph Fiennes The Return

#o-oh?? #Odyssey #the return #ralph fiennes

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I am Moniquill, Goddess of the time I was going to be in the office. Fear me because I was going to be there at work and I didn't want to.

#i am Hoeratius. goddess of the most important. bringer of the year. fear me because I have a lot of work to do with my parents.

[hoeratius]

not queer baiting. not burying my gays. but a secret third thing (whatever tf misha collins is doing)

#spn #i dont even go here #misha collins

[hoeratius]

snail and strawberries

book of hours, Bruges ca. 1510-1525

Rouen, bibliothèque municipale, ms. 3028, fol. 58v

#snail and strawberries it must be spring #effervescent

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Declaring war on an enemy polycule to distract from domestic turmoil

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Unknown Photographer. Snowy pier, venice, veneto, Italy. 1920s

#Venice #venezia

[hoeratius]

Your boner adds nothing to the broader artistic milieu

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the anglo mind cannot comprehend binnenpretje

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‘third wheel other sibling to brother-sister incest’ funniest trope in the world. pouring one out for tyrion lannister and juan borgia

#got #the borgias

[hoeratius]

What are your biggest turn-offs when reading/watching historical fiction or retellings of myths?

this is really complicated - i can put it in two boxes, both of which are packed very full.

disconnection from the material reality of the past

when characters display a very specifically modern mindset (about social issues especially, but other stuff too)

(I also get bothered by some kinds of modern language - I don't mind it when, idk, an author uses "sensible" with the modern connotation of "practical" and not the 18th century "emotional" or "empathetic", but "yeah" or "okay," or even, as i found out when someone used it in medieval fantasy, "holy shit" will get on my nerves.)

there are modern things where (made up example!) a character who's supposed to be a cook will talk about making caprese salad for a fancy restaurant in December, and someone snarking on the book will say "yeah, right, they should know better than to make something that depends on a fresh summer vegetable!" and even with greenhouses, that's pretty fair. and that's even more extreme in the past. it's 1650 in Verona, it's December, you cannot obtain fresh tomatoes. i don't think this means that people in the past were, necessarily, more emotionally or spiritually in tune with the cycle of the year, or the labor it took to get clothes, or furniture, or any other material item, and of course wealth can insulate people from some of that difficulty, but it does mean that the seasons had more direct impact on people's lives. It's possible to, for example, buy clothes ready-made, but for anything fancy, it's more likely that it'll be made to fit if it's new, or altered extensively and painstakingly if it's not. that means that tearing or staining a fancy dress isn't just an issue of looking bad - you can't just replace it, and you probably won't throw it out - you figure out how to reuse it. those concerns of access to material goods are just a lot closer to the surface of the world than they often are now.

my objections to modern attitudes about the world are not that people in the past 100% accepted the views of their contemporaries - there were always people who didn't, and it makes sense that a protagonist would be one of them. but people wouldn't phrase those objections in the same way that modern people would - say your main character doesn't want a woman accused of being a witch burned. "God's power is such that the Devil cannot give this woman the ability to sour milk" is most likely going to be more persuasive to the crowd than "witches aren't real." and sometimes that's rough - it's not super fun to read about a Roman with Roman attitudes about provincial wars, or slavery in the city, but I put something down because a Roman character said (in internal dialogue) that he was disgusted to see that a man had been tortured because "Romans simply didn't do that." Historical Romans did do that, routinely - a slave could not testify in a law court unless they had been tortured. Even with distasteful things like that, I'd much rather it just be glossed over than to have them say the "correct" modern thing. It just makes it feel too much like the theme park version of the culture.

Both of these are because of specific things I come to historical fiction for - I want that sense of alienation, the gulf of experience. I hate that most historical fiction (and fantasy set in semi-recognizable periods) characters don't really care about Honor, except as a joke, because I love when characters organize their lives around arcane rules and systems that cause tiny things to escalate into blood feud. I just think they're neat! I like it when people's worldviews are shaped by their lack of scientific certainty about what causes crops to fail! If I wanted to read about people who thought and acted like me, and had lives that were mostly similar to mine, only cooler, I'd just read contemporary fiction.

#writing #that said I don't mind people saying 'yeah' at all #it's so obviously a more casual or less committed version of 'yes' to me #The same with 'okay' - it's a v functional word and imo a perfectly fine way to translate say the Latin 'ita' #so why not have Romans say 'okay' in an anglophone version of their story? #but I suspect I'm a minority in that regard lol #language

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how long have I been out

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yeah see this is my problem with DuckDuckGo

#help #the internet

[hoeratius]

Too tired to draw but I still need everyone to be aware of this bizarre interaction I had at work this morning

#actually related to my job somehow

[hoeratius]

Whatever the case, feel free to write long-winded explanations in the tags, I WILL read them!

#Yes we do but it's independence from the nazis #liberation day is a more litt translation

[hoeratius]

#looks like someone hasn't read the silmarillion #lotr