#i.e. sanguine

[mikareo]

⌗ sanguine ₊ ˖ ་. suguru geto x fem reader (1.0k)

genre . . hanahaki au, reader loves someone else, angst, geto is delulu for u u, rejection, almost kiss, implied death, sad summary . . gojo satoru has everything geto suguru has ever wanted, including you. note . . a quick rewrite of an old hanahaki hq fic from 2021. gojo will never love u on my blog sorry

Ethereal. Something almost too perfect for this world. A gem that can’t be found even in the deepest of pits, cascading to the bottom of the ocean with nothing but a gleaming sparkle to mark its beauty— beneath mossy ravines and treacherous tunnels, lost in a sea of mystery and unresolved feelings. Feelings that are the single driving force for everything he lives for. Feelings that make his heart skip two beats faster, creating a love song that he wishes he could sing out loud. They’re everything he could ever wish for and want in a partner…in a soulmate. 

That’s what Suguru considers you to be. His soulmate. 

You’re an absolutely, breathtakingly, physical embodiment of perfection in his mind. The most perfect woman in the world is nothing but dust in comparison as there’s simply no one else like you. No one that even so much as nears the level of adoration that he holds you at in his heart; which is all the more reason for the throbbing pain the organ feels. With his blood pumping and heart racing, he’s dying.

“I’m so sorry, Suguru.” He wishes you’d stop biting your lip so hard. He knows apologies are difficult, practically impossible, but your lips are bleeding from how hard you’re holding back tears. “I wish I could love you. I want to love you, but I just can’t.” 

With a shaky voice, you confirm his worst fears. “I’ll always love Satoru most.”

Oh, Satoru. There's just one person in the world that Suguru has never been able to surpass and it's his best friend. His closest confidant who's outgoing, handsome, charismatic, and everything the lesser man wishes he could be. Yes, they haven't spoken in months— not since their infamous stand off outside of their former lunch spot— but Satoru is the only person who knows about Suguru's condition. Hanahaki.

He was diagnosed with the disease when he was fifteen years old...the day after he met you.

The first sign was an innocent red petal, resembling that of a spider lily. Thin and scarlet with an enigmatic beauty that reminded him so much of you. He wanted to cherish the flower, encase it in resin to freeze that beautiful moment in time so he could give it to you, and show you just how much he values you. However, that moment wasn't beautiful. It was the start of the end of his life. A life filled with resentment and jealously that would only grow into a field of flowers settling in the pit of his stomach— with thorns and weeds he can feel but not see.

Yes. Technically you're the one to blame for his fatal condition, but Geto can't acknowledge that. To him, you can do no wrong. You're perfect just as you are, flaws and all. He believes he knows you best out of anyone in the world, and he can't understand why you'd choose Satoru over him. Satoru doesn't care about you! He's never cared about you! Why can't you see what's right in front of you? Geto is right here. He's here and he wants to hug you and make everything better; yet he can't...because while he's crying over you, you're crying over Gojo.

"I can make you happy, I promise!" He's desperate, now. "I know I'm not him, but I can be better!"

You shake your head, coughing briefly before smiling at him with blood-stained teeth. What? "We're too similar, Suguru." Why are you bleeding? What's going on? "Neither of us want to give up."

Slowly, your fingers release the fist you've been holding for the past few minutes, revealing a pile of small blue petals. A shade of blue that Geto is all too familiar with, having stared at the color for a majority of his teenage years in his best friend's eyes. It's a color that most associate with hope and prosperity— not knowing that it's also directly associated with your inevitable death.

Gojo Satoru is the most powerful man in the world; and you're the most powerless woman for loving him.

He feels himself crawling towards you, ignoring the piles of bloodied petals decaying on your bedroom floor, and ever-so-gently touches your cheek. Geto wishes he could wipe your tears and never see you cry again. Someone so beautiful shouldn't feel sadness. It isn't right.

"I love you." he whispers, gaze settled on your scarlet lips.

Say it back.

"Please." he leans in closer.

Just let him show you how perfect you are.

"I would never hurt you."

Your lips are almost on his...

...and suddenly they're gone.

"This isn't what I want!" His heart breaks in two at the sound of your cry. It isn't Gojo that's making you miserable, right now it's him. Geto, himself, is the cause of your pain and if he could he'd rip his own mouth off to get him to stop talking he would. "Suguru, I don't want you. Please understand!"

You continue sobbing and Geto can't stop the flow of tears no matter how hard he tries. "I wish I loved you, I want to so badly, but it's always going to be Satoru!"

His stare is so focused that he can see the budding blossoms at the back of your throat, threatening to grow and shrivel up your heart with their thorns. The pain that you feel every day is likely unbearable, as if your entire body is being ripped in two due to the utter devastation of pure heartbreak. Geto would know. He feels it every day, too. He's felt it every day for the last two years of knowing you and he's surprised that he hasn't succumbed to the garden already. Just wither and die. Please just go away! His pleas are so loud, overtaking his every thought, that he doesn't know if he's wishing away the spider lilies or himself.

"If it's always him," his chest feels heavy; it's almost an all-consuming fire using his blood as oil, "then we both know what's going to happen to us."

You nod, whimpering slightly as you bite back your tears.

He can't believe this is how it's all ending.

Somehow, his head finds its resting place against yours.

He was so confident you'd be able to feel the same.

The vines crawl to his tongue, attempting to snare and take hold of his ability to speak— but not before he can utter his last words.

It shouldn't have been this way.

"I love you."

⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⊹₊｡ reblogs are greatly appreciated! ˚₊⊹

#i remember when this was posted on yt without my permission asjkl #୧ ‧₊˚ 🎐 ⋅ my writing #i.e. sanguine #geto suguru #suguru geto #jjk x reader #jjk ff #jjk angst #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #geto x reader #geto x you #geto ff #geto fanfiction #geto fanfic #geto fanfics #geto hc #geto hcs #geto fluff #geto angst #geto smut #geto blurb #geto oneshot #geto x y/n #geto suguru x reader #geto suguru x you #suguru x reader #suguru x you #geto suguru ff #geto suguru angst

[thevoidguider]

Does Sanguine have an accent compared to UT Paps? Sorry if you've mentioned this before.

Good question! I'd say he's a lot more soft-spoken than Classic, only slipping back into the range of Loud when he's ranting/being pretentious. So probably just softer/quieter voice, and overall less emotive :]

#sanguine doesn't. need to talk much? #most of his interactions are either killing people or like. gaster. who he can talk in sign language with #so he doesn't get the chance to talk very much #interactions with traveling characters are the most he would hold a conversation with #i.e. scour. i think thats literally the only person he talks with regularly #(regularly meaning like once a week) #in any case this man is lonely get him friends #undertale #au papyrus #papyrus #undertale au #sanguine #papyrus au #the voidguider #voidguider #ask

[callmearcturus]

Also if you want a taste of why Order vs Chaos is 1000000% superior to every Good vs Evil dichotomy in any video game

I got a sidequest. The humans tell me "Hey there is this demon, Tlazolteotl, who is guarding a horde of food from us, but we can't defeat her, help us?"

And you find out on your way to her that the humans are super mad because like she doesn't even eat the food herself, she only eats human corpses, so it feels like a slap in the face to the humans.

So you go and fight Tlazolteotl and defeat her and she's p sanguine about it and is like "okay have at the food hoard" which is weird.

then another demon, Dis, steps out like "She is happy to be slain. She was a goddess of the Harvest, but the Christian God (who is trying to kill off all of humanity) barred her from her work."

She was eating corpses to remove disease from the land in the only way she was still allowed to assist humans.

Her goal was to hoard food until she was so well-known in the land as someone keeping a vital resource from her people that someone (i.e. the player) would show up to kill her.

THIS IS AN EASILY-SKIPPED SIDEQUEST.

god SMT4 is just the GOAT it really fucking is.

#smt iv #smt iv spoilers #arc plays games

[kairologia]

Planets in Hellenistic Astrology — Part 2 : the personal & social planets.

Mercury ☿

Mercury represents the exchange and transfer of all things, which includes :

— communication and transferring one’s thoughts to others through speaking or writing.

— mental processes

— money & trade

— traveling

— intelligence

— sleight of hand

— psychopomp

— thievery

↳ trivia :

— Domicile: Gemini, Virgo

— Exaltation: Virgo

— Detriment: Sagittarius, Pisces

— Fall: Pisces

— Mercury is never more than one sign away from the sun (previous and next). For example, an Aries sun person can only have Mercury in Aries, Pisces or Taurus.

— Quality: Cold and Dry (Melancholic).

— Neutral disposition, i.e. neither feminine nor masculine.

— Slightly Diurnal.

— Colors: patterns, multicolour, mixed colors, shades of gray.

— Places: Markets, shops, money-related places, schools.

— Day of the Week: Wednesday.

— Professions: messengers, agents, dealers, astrologers, clerks, accountants, scribes, media, physicians, researchers, scientists, lawyers, orators, musicians, bankers.

— Body Parts: Tongue, brain, arms, hands, fingers, auditory system, shoulders.

— Animals: small or clever animals, animals capable of “speech” (such as parrots).

— Minerals & Stones: Copper, brass, quicksilver.

Venus ♀

Venus represents relationships and social connections of all kinds, not just romantic. She also lords over the arts, beauty, harmony, peace, pleasure, diplomacy, fashion, hygiene & desire.

↳ trivia :

— Domicile: Taurus, Libra

— Exaltation: Pisces

— Detriment: Aries, Scorpio

— Fall: Virgo

— How her nature was perceived varied based on whether she appeared as Morning Star Venus (Phosphorus) or as the Evening Star (Hesperus).

— Quality : Cold and Moist (phlegmatic).

— Nocturnal.

— Feminine.

— Places: places that gives pleasure and entertainment, places depicting arts, fashion halls, gardens.

— Day of the Week: Friday.

— Body Parts: Kidney, smell, neck, hips, genitals.

— Colors: White, Green, Pink, Red.

— Professions: Musicians, artists, players, jewellers, actors, designers, perfumers, inventors, diplomats, cosmetologists.

— Minerals & stones: Copper & Emerald

— Animals: doves, soft & cuddly animals, swans

Mars ♂

Mars is a malefic, and thus represents things that are not pleasant, but usually necessary such as cutting, burning, (literal and metaphorical) severing. It also encompasses anger, aggression, the assertion of will, fire, danger, combat, war, violence, & power.

↳ trivia :

— Domicile: Aries, Scorpio

— Exaltation: Capricorn

— Detriment: Taurus, Libra

— Fall: Cancer

— Quality : Dry and Hot (choleric).

— Nocturnal.

— Masculine.

— Places: smithies, furnaces, slaughterhouses, sources of fire/burning, places of combat, hospitals, places related to the military.

— Colors: Red, vermillion, fiery colors.

— Parts: Head, gallbladder, genitals.

— Professions: professions that involve fire, butchers, conquerors, military professions, blacksmiths, surgeons, physicians, medical workers, chemists, pharmacists & herbalists.

— Day of the Week: Tuesday

— Minerals & stones: iron, sulfur, heliotrope

— Animals: dogs, foxes, canines, panther, tigers, animals that bite or sting

Jupiter ♃

Among its general significations we can list: dignity, abundance, knowledge, justice, high mindedness, expansion, generosity, prosperity, good fortune, and miracles. Jupiter also governs religion & long distance travel (as opposed to Moon & Mercury which rule over short-distance travel).

↳ trivia :

— Domicile: Sagittarius, Pisces

— Exaltation: Cancer

— Detriment: Gemini, Virgo

— Fall: Capricorn

— Quality : Warm and Moist (sanguine).

— Diurnal.

— Masculine.

— Colors: Blue, blue-greens, purple, light gray.

— Profession: Judges, professions relating to government, profession relating to religion (i.e. priests), lawyers, professors, teachers, gurus.

— Places: courts, colleges & universities, observatories, religious sites & places of prayer, altars, places that gathers large group of people.

— Day of the Week: Thursday.

— Minerals & Stones: sapphire, citrine, amethyst.

— Body Parts: Thighs, feet, liver, blood, semen.

— Animals: stag, ox, bees, eagle, dolphin, whale, sheep, deer.

Saturn ♄

Saturn embodies a sense of restriction, solitude, decay, and the passage of time. It brings with it a mix of constructive (or not) challenges and somber reflections. It's a planet that evokes emotions of sorrow, misery, and grief, and is thus often associated with death. Symbolically linked to the land and the elderly, it represents things that are enduring and long-lasting. It's also associated with locks, suggesting a sense of confinement or constraint.

↳ trivia :

— Domicile: Capricorn, Aquarius

— Exaltation: Libra

— Detriment: Cancer, Leo

— Fall: Aries

— Quality: Cold and Dry (melancholic).

— Diurnal.

— Colors: dark colors, shades of brown, nudes.

— Profession: farmers, laborers, miners, professions of construction, professions related to the dead.

— Places: deserts, prisons, ruins, graveyards, fields, abandoned places, mines, anything underground,

— Day of the Week: Saturday

— Body Parts: Bones, teeth, skin, joints

— Animals: Cats, scavengers, adders, asps, serpents, and cockatrices

— Minerals & stones: metal, lead, lapis lazuli.

PART 1 : sun/moon/rising.

#astrology #astro notes #hellenistic astrology #astrology basics #astro basics series #mercury #venus #mars #jupiter #saturn #planetary significations #astro observations

[pristmaticrosevein]

Prismatic Rose AU (RWBY)

The poll chain is getting a little long and convoluted, so I created a new blog to hold everything.

The polls won't be a single answer. Instead I'll try to work all of the answers together, based off the number of votes each answer gets. If I can, of course.

Aura is present, but is more like DBZ power levels than how it functions in RWBY. A shot to the heart will be as fatal to a Human Huntsman as it would be to anyone else.

Firearms are regular firearms. Dust is instead used to craft weapons, like is alluded to by Ironwood, but never actually seen in the story.

Conclusions:

Jaune Arc

Humble Everydude

Jaune picks up a Broken Sword, his power repairs his sword, can generate a shield, and armour.

When depressed or in a deep fury his sword stays broken, and his armour is rusted. He is nearly invincible, but lacks any real control.

When happy, he literally glows from the light he emits.

Later learns to use and even combine both.

Ruby Rose

Werewolf: She learns to control her Human / Wolf forms.

Eventually unlocks a middle Wolfen form.

Silver Eyes: Her silver eyes are part of her Werewolf curse, from her connection to the moon. Eventually allows her to dispel darkness and inflict Lunacy.

Strongly dislikes bright sunlight, finding it oppressive. Will hide under her red hood in bright daylight.

Dislikes sitting around and doing nothing. As she learns to open up to her friends, hanging with them counts as doing something.

Dame Sister of the Order of the Sanguine Rose. Still a Novice, (no oath), but she was a Squire, and got her Accolade because of being a natural when fighting the forces of darkness.

Werewolves are normally turned over to the Church. Faith in God is the best way to gain control of their powers. Others can do so by living with wolf packs in the wilds, though they are rarely trusted.

Regeneration: Turned off with Silver, Fire, and direct sunlight. Indirect sunlight dims it. She's mostly fine in her cloak and hood, but better a night.

Extremely high metabolism. She can get blood thirsty if she doesn't eat, but sugar works extremely well. I.e. cookies are MANDATORY.

Pain causes her rage to ignite.

Shield of Faith and Miracle Die: 40K SoB reference. I'll explain if anyone asks.

Powered armour powered by prismatic energies. Summoned with transformation sequence.

Her scythe, moonfallen, is made with a steel edge, and an iron blade inlaid with mythril and quicksilver. This allows her to defeat most dark foes without calling upon her moonfallen abilities.

Her Bolt Pistol uses custom made rounds, (made a lot easier with Dust forging equipment). She owns rounds customized to fight most dark things.

Pyrrha Nikos

A literal angel.

Angels are forbidden from most direct interventions. The exception is for the Creatures of Grimm, or other nefarious beings.

Angels can only whisper into your ear. Devils have the same restriction, but are not known for being good at following rules.

Often the intervention of angels will be perceived, (by the imperceptive), as luck. Others might see them in dreams.

Angels can only directly interact with people who have enough spiritual strength to fully perceive them.

She brought Ruby to save Jaune.

Weiss Schnee

Boreal Elf

Went to Thule University.

Major in Spellcrafting, the most difficult discipline that actually crafts new spells.

Minors in Fey summoning and economics.

Magic affinities are Water, Wind, and Light.

Equipped with the mystical rapier Myrtenaster.

Creatures of Grimm

Creatures of shadow and enmity.

As enmity builds in an area, a Grimm Fragment is created. This is not visible to those without Shadowsight.

If enough enmity is unleashed at the same time, a Grimm Fragment can be boosted into a full-fledged Grimm.

More commonly, nefarious beings use the Fragments to create Creatures of Grimm to do their bidding, (hopefully).

Some less than ethnical magic users can try to use this as a power source. It can work, or it can create a Creature of Grimm.

When a Creature of Grimm is spotted, it triggers an investigation.

Huntsmen and Huntresses

Those licensed to hunt Creatures of Grimm.

Some are lone vagabonds, others join fraternities or orders-militant.

While fraternities and orders normally have their own rules of conduct, without them Huntsmen are defacto, and often dejure, immune to all by the most heinous of laws.

This is both out of privilege, and out of practicality. On one hand, you want the Huntsman hunting. On the other, trying to bring a Huntsman to trial, unwillingly, is a harrowing ordeal for everyone involved. The Church's Inquisition typically handles rogue Huntsmen.

Because of this, disreputable Huntsmen will often be shunned by most of society.

#rwby #prismatic rose au #jaune arc #ruby rose #pyrrha nikos

[bangtanwritershq]

BangtanWritersHQ Presents: "Big Boys” Masterlist

In celebration of Namjoon's and Jungkook's birthdays, we hosted an event that centers around them in the form of flash fiction!

🍂 Flash fiction: It’s considered to be much lower in word count than a traditional short story with a maximum of around ~1,500 words. For instance, it focuses more on movement i.e. a scene or a particular moment.

This collection includes single, one-shot style drabbles and interconnected drabbles that paint a bigger picture. We hope you enjoy!

KEY:

🔞 - nsfw (mature themes)

✅ - sfw (no warnings)

💖 - smut

⚠️ - other warnings

SET UP - emojis: Title (if link is to another platform) | Author [parts] pairings, genre/aus, rating, word count

🔞⚠️ Kaleidoscope - Red | @colormepurplex2 [1/6] Pairing: Musician!Namjoon x Artist!f.Reader AU Type: Neighbors, Mutual Pining | fluff, adult thoughts Rating: MA WC: 873

🔞⚠️ Kaleidoscope - Orange | @colormepurplex2 [2/6] Pairing: Musician!Namjoon x Artist!f.Reader AU Type: Neighbors, Mutual Pining | fluff, eventual smut Rating: MA WC: 793

🔞⚠️ Kaleidoscope - Yellow | @colormepurplex2 [3/6] Pairing: Musician!Namjoon x Artist!f.Reader AU Type: Neighbors, Mutual Pining | fluff, eventual smut Rating: MA WC: 1,550

🔞⚠️ Kaleidoscope - Green | @colormepurplex2 [4/6] Pairing: Musician!Namjoon x Artist!f.Reader AU Type: Neighbors, Mutual Pining | fluff, eventual smut Rating: MA WC: 1,393

🔞⚠️ Kaleidoscope - Blue | @colormepurplex2 [5/6] Pairing: Musician!Namjoon x Artist!f.Reader AU Type: Neighbors, Mutual Pining | fluff, eventual smut Rating: MA WC: 1,100

🔞💖⚠️ Kaleidoscope - Purple | @colormepurplex2 [6/6] Pairing: Musician!Namjoon x Artist!f.Reader AU Type: Neighbors, Mutual Pining | fluff, smut Rating: MA WC: 834

🔞💖⚠️ In Good Hands | @hisunshiine [1/1] Pairing: streamer!jungkook x female!reader AU Type: Camboy | smut Rating: MA WC: 1,500

🔞💖⚠️ Code Name : Gummy Bear | @moonleeai [1/1] Pairing: Asset!Namjoon x Agent!Reader AU Type: Agent/Asset | soft smut Rating: MA WC: 1,262

🔞💖 Weighted Desires | @downbad4yoongi [1/1] Pairing: Namjoon x Jungkook AU/Type: Non-idol, S2L | gym smut Rating: MA WC: 1,427

🔞💖⚠️ Sanguine (Ao3) | sunkissedwriter [1/1] Pairing: Jungkook x Reader AU/Type: Vampire Rating: MA WC: 1,561

All stories copywritten of the specified author. The authors provided consent for their stories to the network to be shared by submitting their stories. Stories posted in the order of submission to the event.

#BWHQ #BWHQ Writing Event #BWHQ Writing Events #BWHQ Network #bangtanwhq #bangtan writers hq #bangtan writers hq network #bts imagines #bts #bts reactions #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts scenarios #bts x reader #bts smut #bts au #bts angst #bts fluff

[josefavomjaaga]

Larrey about the Russian campaign and the effects of the cold

A book with letters from the Russian campaign 1812, citing and commenting on one by Larrey to his wife, has brought me back to Larrey’s memoirs. The passage below, as far as I can tell, demonstrates very well how medical knowledge of the time was still deeply stuck in medieval ideas and views and how hard it must have been for doctors to overcome that and to even question what had been assumed to be true for, like, ever.

Larrey in this passage from volume 4 of his memoirs briefly summarizes the effects the cold – in his opinion! - had on different soldiers, in particular on soldiers from different regions, and the supposed causes for that:

I noticed that dark-haired subjects with a bilioso-sanguine temperament, almost all from the southern regions of Europe, were more resistant than blond-haired subjects with a phlegmatic temperament, almost all from northern countries, to the effects of these rigorous cold temperatures, which is contrary to the generally accepted opinion.

Well, I can imagine that the generally accepted opinion indeed was different, because if blonds really were more susceptible to cold, Scandinavia and Russia should have been depopulated. But let’s hear him out:

The blood circulation of the former [i.e., the dark-haired type] is undoubtedly more active; the vital forces have more energy; it is also probable that their blood preserves much better, even under the influence of the most intense cold, the essence of animal heat identified with its coloration. By the same cause, their moral strength is more robust; their courage does not desert them; and, through a well-understood care for their own preservation, they are better able to avoid hazards than the generally apathetic inhabitants of cold and damp climates.

Larrey’s arguments here seem to come straight from medieval humoralism (humoral theory, or, in German, Vier-Säfte-Lehre, "Four-juices-theory" 😁). I understand the idea goes back to Hippocrates, was put into its final form by Galen in the second century and stood as written in stone until first doubts started to arise in the 17th century. But even then there only were slight changes and adaptions until it was finally openly called bullshit in the mid-19th century, with the discovery of cells and germs. Larrey in any case still seems to be firmly stuck in it.

Most people will have heard of this in one way or another as it’s still making its round in several esoteric systems. The general idea is: There are four different body fluids that determine the state of a human body’s health, connected to four colours and four human temperaments.

Blood – red – sanguine temper – hot/wet

Yellow bile – yellow – choleric temper - hot/dry

Black bile – black – melancholic - cold/wet

Phlegm (mucus) – green (?) - cold/dry

In order to be healthy, these four fluids needed to be in balance. If somebody was sick, the balance had been disturbed and needed to be reinstated. Which explains why conventional medicine for centuries consisted mainly of bloodletting, clysters and emetics - it's all about the fluids, after all.

This is what Larrey means when he associates the "brun", i.e. rather dark phenotypes from the south with a temper he calls "bilio-sanguine", i.e., dominated by the influence of bile and blood, whereas the blond types from the north are dominated by bile and phlegm. As "blood" is associated with "heat" and vivacity, whereas "phlegm" relates to "cold" and melancholy, from Larrey’s perspective it seems utterly plausible that soldiers from southern France would have a natural superiority in the Russian climate both physically and mentally.

And he has the (anecdotal) evidence to back it up:

Thus we saw the Dutch of the 3rd regiment of grenadiers of the guard, made up of 1787 men, both officers and soldiers, almost all perish without exception [...]; whereas the other two regiments of grenadiers, made up of men almost all born in the southern provinces of France, kept a fairly large proportion of their soldiers: it is also very true that, proportionally, the Germans lost many more people than the French.

I do not have any data to back that up but I am inclined to believe it, at least many German historians said the same. Though they tended to see the cause differently. Mostly they blamed French commanders putting their German auxiliary troops first when it came to sending somebody into enemy fire, while preserving the French, and putting them last when it came to the distribution of food and resources… Be that as it may, I would assume that the German vassal states, usually bordering on the edge of bankruptcy, simply did not have the military budget of France and that thus both military equipment and, most importantly, military training were of worse quality, resultuing in a worse physical condition of German conscripts, who were not very motivated to begin with when it came to fighting this stupid war for the gain of these stupid Frenchmen.

Several of our doctors, who had remained in Wilna, assured me that the cold had claimed more members of the coalition, in proportion, than of the French, as I have already said, although the former had far more means of protecting themselves from the effects of this destructive element than our unfortunate compatriots, who, stripped by the cossacks of their clothing, and forced to pass from one place to another in a state of more or less complete nudity, nevertheless for the most part resisted the insults of the icy air, and managed, by dint of courage and industry, to protect themselves from being completely frozen.

And here I’m actually getting angry. I’ll even ignore the racist tendencies in ascribing a natural superiority to a certain human phenotype; that’s just the thinking of the era, Larrey cannot help being part of that. But he is – and I can only assume: deliberately – being dishonest here. The Rhinebund troops having "far more means to protect themselves" whereas the French were "forced from one place to another" by the cossacks implies that the former stayed behind in warm and cozy Vilna, whereas the French had to go out and fight both the Russians and the cold, and denies that a good number of troops who marched to and from Moscow indeed were Dutch and Germans.

As to Larrey’s assumption that the dark phenotype was more prone to surviving the cold – he might have checked himself if he had taken the Italians (also southerners) into the equation: It is estimated that among the troops of the Kingdom of Italy only one out of 24-25 men came back home. Or as their viceroy put it:

Les Italiens meurent comme les mouches. - The Italians are dying like flies.

#napoleonic era #dominique larrey #russian campaign #russia 1812 #russian retreat #medicine

[astarab1aze]

Was Mausza's promise to Furie, that when he finds the sanguine star he will know peace and purpose , metaphorical? As in the act of carrying out Mausza's will gives him that purpose - and through that purpose he will find his peace , or does Furie believe it to be something he will experience in itself ? That the guilt he feels for Yules death will literally be wiped clean from him ?

i would say - yes, perhaps it is metaphorical after all. that it is his service and his faith that will bring him peace and healing. but i would also say that her words are entirely false. her promises are untrue and cannot be relied upon, because, in effect, it is she who took yule from him and she'd no intention of doing anything but enslaving his immortal soul. it's she who forced him to become her voice, curious about him since he'd been born a possessor of the creation root (the primordial form of original magic) and could be lied to, could be gaslit, could be manipulated where others could not be (i.e. loux). she was drawn to the innocence and purity of his heart almost especially, the inherent malleability of it. he is too good and righteous to go against her and always was in truth, viewing her as a demanding god but no less worthy of his worship no matter how unforgiving she was.

truthfully, there is no out for him. he is forever locked into his service to her, tricked by a goddess of fate into killing who she needs killed, destroying what she needs destroyed, procuring what she needs procured. for all eternity. she banks on him doing nothing to fight back and, well, has he? no. if she told him to kill himself, he would. if she told him to sever all ties with everyone he knows and cares for, he would. if she told him to eat babies, well, guess who's eating babies? and the worst part about this is the reason he still answers her call, even after she took yule from him - he has nothing to live for without mausza. where he was originally just a cleric, just a cleric, due to be wed at 19, this wasn't enough for her. she needed his complete devotion, no distractions, so she robbed him of the one reason he had to continue living outside of his faith. she took his future from him, the wife and many children he'd have had with her - the memories, the fullest of lives he'd have lived. free and ignorant to his potential, to the existence of the sanguine star, to loux and sortia and their foolish, idiotic plans--

she promises him an opportunity at best, but it's still only a carrot on a stick. she uses his guilt as a weapon against him, his sadness, his grief, cuts him off from other people, preying on him in so fragile a state of mind and being. what once would've been a blessing is now an unbearable curse and only the prolonged influence of another god can dampen her influence over him, unshackle him.

on the flipside, he now knows how petty and vain the goddesses of fate truly are. they are neither wise nor just, but impulsive and cruel pretenders. playing games with their pawns to pass the time in cosmic eternity. he doubts them. he criticizes them. he scorns and blasphemes them even though it literally burns his tongue. but he cannot defy them, cannot defy her, as doing so would mean his friends and allies would be killed in some serendipitously horrific manner - perhaps in much the same why yule was killed. it doesn't matter how much knowledge they possess, how many people they possess and who worship them, nor their power - they do not have his faith. this angers them, though especially mausza, so he sufffers and will continue to suffer until he carries out their chosen task for him. and even then, the suffering may never end.

#☿ || Asks. #➥ Furie. #long / #/ if any of that makes sense? #/ fuu's so- #/ fucked #/ he's entirely fucked from every angle #/ all the guy wants is to live the most boring life possible #/ and it's literally unattainable

[tyrantisterror]

Can you tell me about the magic system in your Midgaheim setting? What are some limits, things magic can't do? I've been trying to develop a magic system for my own fantasy world, and it feels hard to do so without ripping off some other media.

The Midgaheim Bestiary has an introduction chapter that explains magic in more detail than I'm going to here, so read there if you're interested.

My basic approach is that magic is imagination made real - i.e. if you can fantasize something, magic can make it happen, though the cost may be more than you can bear. Most magical creatures are only subconsciously, and thus magic affects them based on their basic desires - i.e to be stronger, hardier, smarter. It's why you get so many big bad wolves and eerily smart cats and things running around. Some creatures attune stronger than others, and get stranger adaptations - dragons in particular are highly attuned to magic, which is why most of them look way different than their monitor lizard ancestors.

Humans can attune to magic subconsciously, in which case they become paragons - stronger, more durable, more long-lived, etc. - or they can attune consciously to magic, in which case they become wizards, and can create complicated spells.

It is generally accepted by civilized species that magic has four elements, though the names and definitions of those elements have changed over time. They are Fire/Choleric/Destruction magic, Water/Phlegmatic/Creation magic, Wind/Sanguine/Chaos magic, and Earth/Melancholic/Structure magic. Thinking about magic this way is helpful to wizards, as it allows them to figure out what they're doing when they're casting spells - but there's also an argument to be made that the "four elements of magic" is less inherent to magic itself and more something that humans made up while trying to understand magic, and magic conformed to because magic is imagination, and if you imagine it has rules, it makes those imaginary rules real.

Which is, really, the only rule magic sticks to hard and fast: magic makes imagination real. Elements, conscious or subconscious attunement, that's all just bullshit mortals have made up and magic has decided to roll with because it sounds fun. Ultimately, magic does what sounds interesting, what's fanciful and impossible and impressive, anything that makes the world vibrant and new. Magic abhors the status quo, loves an underdog, and wishes for nothing more than to upend what is and replace it with what could be, or better yet, what couldn't be.

[t00thpasteface]

Out of curiosity, in that comic you made recently about Martin’s past, what did Martin scam Lucien out of?

the original goal, i.e. what lucien was sent there to arrange, was to establish a standard sort of peace treaty between the kvatch sanctuary and the budding sanguine cult, where the cult would give the brotherhood any necessary information on contract targets (most of them were highly observant regulars in the local nightlife hotspots), and in exchange, the brotherhood would basically act deaf towards contracts on members of the cult and give them a cut of the payment for any contract they helped with.

first off, martin completely cleared out lucien's entire inventory of basically everything small and valuable while he was sleeping, and the poor guy was way too hungover to care or even fully notice. lucien kept coming back for extra servings and got relieved of his jewelry and pocket change every time. lucien also (repeatedly) got blitzed and/or zooted enough to blab about the usual haunts and routines of his dark brothers and sisters, thereby giving the sanguinites an easy-in to seduce and fleece any other lonely and malleable assassins. he might also maybe possibly have let slip the password to their door. this is how the cult got so many defectors to join their ranks. no one ever wanted to leave the party once they got invited...

lucien was also naive enough to bring the paperwork with him for the agreement, so all martin had to do was tack on a few extra conditions himself, and then lucien basically signed a big shiny "get into the sanctuary free" card. pretty standard tampering: a higher cut of the pay, plus interest for a certain amount of time between giving and using the info; steep discounts on their own contracts; immunity to being killed on sight if any of them might accidentally wander into the top secret sanctuary; etc... i assume daedric cults and/or the brotherhood notarize their contracts in like blood or dark magic so it's legally and magically binding, so the brotherhood couldn't just say "fuck you we're nullifying this". the sanguine cult was basically a big horny thorn in the side of the kvatch sanctuary. on an individual level, no one sanguinite did anything too egregious, but it definitely added up after a while.

with all this in mind... whether you want to interpret the cult collapse as having actually been staged by the pissed-off speaker of the kvatch sanctuary is up to you...

#oblivionyourasshurtdone.jpg #shebbz shoutz #tes #marcien #ask

[albaitross]

AU / Genshin — Excerpt:

Name: Mei Li

Age: 21 (physically); 6000+ (reality)

Species: Nephilim (i.e. half-human, half-angel)

Affiliation: Wangsheng Funeral Parlor

.

Abilities: Astral projection, dream-walking, divination

Vision: None / Pyro / Hydro / ???

Weapon: Fans (Catalyst)

Constellation: N/A

Appearance:

A young woman with Liyuen features. Has long black hair that is tied up with delicate swaying ornaments, and is often seen dressed in the muted uniform of the nation's premier funeral parlor, or otherwise in a simple black qipao accented with gold, white and red. Has a tendency to carry a small fan patterned with yellow flowers.

Up to that point, she looks like a perfectly normal citizen of the harbor. Beyond this, however, she has one distinctly unusual feature - a pair of bright red eyes, pupils slightly narrowed in a way that it seems almost snake-like or even starry, diamond-shaped... almost. It still mostly resembles a normal pair of eyes, ignoring the very not-human sanguine hue.

Additionally, despite her very obvious demonstrations of elemental manipulation, she does not carry any visible Vision (real or fake) on her person.

Personality:

A woman of seemingly calm poise, with an expression that only sways between perpetually neutral and perpetually bemused. But that's a facade as thin and sure as the surface of a lake - easy to ripple, easy to crack into wide grins and sharp, harpy-like laughter.

Her words may be spoken with a certain leveled smoothness, but her exact choice of wording is always firm, dramatic, and can have a wild tendency to be caustic depending on the actual subject at hand. In that sense, she is always honest in speech - whether one sees it as bluntness or harshness, is the sole fault of the audience.

But even as she always speaks the truth, her demeanor doesn't truly match. Even the maniac laughter and open expressions are but the higher reaches of the lake water - there is something far more solemn and resigned, sunken down into the quiet bedrock of the lake. Though, it would still be a foolish decision to think that the heart of her personality is a quiet and simple one—as they say, anger and karma and disaster are best left as sleeping things, correct?

Background:

A mysterious woman on the payroll of the Wangsheng Funreral Parlor as an undertaker. Mysterious for the fact that she’s been on their payroll for decades - which, along with her red eyes and not-quite modern stories for memories, has led to the rumor that she’s an adepti who simply isn’t bothering to pretend she’s all that human as she looks.

And, well. That isn't wrong per say - but an adepti? A divine being? With any potential connection to Rex Lapis? Ummmmm. Kind of insulting actually, if her first reaction isn’t to laugh at how stupid and funny that sounds out of people’s mouths.

In truth, Mei Li is one of two products from what Celestia would call a very unholy matrimony - a defected enforcer of the Heavenly Principles and a man from an ancient civilization that has since been annihilated for their advancements. Truly, a curious, cursed, ‘condemned to immediate death on sight’ kind of existence.

All the more reason to allow the stories to float around the harbor, while she enjoys blending into a somewhat-human life.

Anyway, it won’t be very long, she knows, before the next Calamity. Or perhaps, the next chapter will be something less divine. Who knows. All she’s going to do is watch how things unfold with a cup of tea and an unreadable smile.

#au | genshin ; #ooc ;

[cheeseandstrawberrytartlover]

TLDR of my Sheogorath/Sheo!Ben from my fics if you do not want to read all my works

There is a difference between Sheo!Ben and my Sheogorath. My Sheogorath appears to be same as in all of the games although a bit different by minimal variety.

- My Sheogorath has mantled many mortals over the years and it reflects. If you have been keeping up with my art you know a few. Including Errile and my HoK, Ben.

- My Sheogorath has been keeping a theme of being androgynous even before mantling Ben. They also have numerous disguises for each occasion as seen in my fic "The Banquet" where he disguises himself as an altmer woman with alternating pronouns. (That one was fun to write btw)

Onto Sheo!Ben

- Sheo!Ben's appearance is keeping the theme of androgyny and like before their mantling with Ben. White to Silver hair, thin/lanky build with a bigger lower body (i.e. bigger hips and thighs than the rest of anything else on his body), more human-like, gold cat eyes, looking mostly human... their limbs end in black with long, claw-like hands, often seen wearing makeup and highly fashionable ofc

- Sheo!Ben is autistic-coded, or rather- just straight up autistic. There is a reason that they have the rule of every mortal bathing every two days. They do not like loud things. She often has meltdowns and is not ashamed of them... at all. They have a soft spot for mortals of any kind and would burn down the empire for them if they really took a liking to someone.

- Onto the queer part: Sheogorath is genderfluid, uses any pronouns, is omniromantic and aceflux as well as polyamorous. A mouthful, I know, but I like it. You cannot tell me that none of the Daedric Princes have weird, funky (affectionate) genders or/and sexualities.

- Sheogorath's relationships are... interesting. They hate Molag Bal, Mehrunes Dagon and Clavicus Vile. They are neutral towards the rest of the Daedric Princes. He had a momentary sexual relationship with Sanguine, but that soon disappeared. They do have many sexual relationships, but no romantic ones... except with Haskill. Their romantic relationship with Haskill is the most stable of them all. Haskill is the only one that can calm her down and for Sheogorath, he is the father of Sereyna.

- Onto Sereyna. She was born after Ben had already mantled Sheogorath and was slowly descending into the life of a Daedric Prince. After Sereyna had been born, Sheogorath and Ben finally unified into one being. Through this deadric influence, she is a demiprince...... And because she is the last septim, she is also the last dragonborn. Congrats, babygirl.

-

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them in reblogs, replies or in my ask box. I love talking about my stuff as you probably know by now.

#my sheogorath #sheo!ben #oc: ben (hok) #my ocs #my oc stuff #oc: sereyna (ldb) #my art

[qqueenofhades]

Can you say a little bit about congenital disorders in royal lines? I know some of the fun ones, like the tendency towards hemophilia in the Romanov line, but I’m curious how much we can blame on cousin marriages and the like

You may already know this, but the ultimate poster children for "Jesus Christ, Don't Marry Your Relatives" were the Spanish Habsburgs. Their systemic practice of inbreeding, usually by marrying uncles and nieces or aunts and nephews, culminated in Charles II of Spain (r. 1665-1701), who had one of the more horrifying family trees imaginable and a litany of severe physical and mental disabilities. The phenomenon of rulers marrying their close relatives was also more of an early modern practice, rather than medieval. Indeed, medieval people were subject to the laws of "consanguinity," which prohibited them from marrying relatives within a certain extent of kinship. Complicated rules of blood, marriage, and even godparent-hood dictated who was related to who and whether it was permissible to marry them. This was often politically manipulated, as kings often claimed a heretofore-undiscovered degree of relation when trying to get out of an inconvenient marriage (for example, this was the rationale used in Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine's divorce in the mid-twelfth century, even though they both quickly remarried to spouses to whom they were more closely related). If you were a king and wanted to marry someone within the prohibited degree, you had to apply for a dispensation from the papal court in Rome, and a lot of politics (i.e. whether the pope liked you or the potential implications of your marriage) went into deciding whether you got one.

In the Spanish context, this began to change in the late 15th century, as the so-called "reconquista," or "reclamation" of Spain by Catholic Christians, by expelling or outlawing the Muslims and Jews who had lived there for centuries, reached its culmination in 1492. This was supported by a set of restrictive new social, religious, and legal frameworks, such as (Nobody Expects The) Spanish Inquisition and the rule of limpieza de sangre, or literally "purity of blood." (Yikes.) Spanish Catholics were forbidden from marrying often-forcibly-converted Jews (conversos) or Muslims (Moriscos), in order to, you guessed it, preserve the "purity" of their superior Christian blood. The Hapsburgs were also influenced by this premodern eugenics principle, and began to marry their close relatives in order to maintain their "pure" royal blood and to make sure a direct descendant of the Hapsburg line was always on the throne. (After Charles II's death, there was the War of Spanish Succession, so... that did not entirely work out for them. As well as, y'know, the deformities.)

If you want to read more about this:

Burk, Rachel L. 'Salus erat in sanguine: Limpieza de sangre and Other Discourses of Blood in Early Modern Spain' (University of Pennsylvania, unpublished PhD thesis, 2010)

Dillion, Megan. 'Consanguinity on the Canvas: Studying Inbreeding

in the Habsburg Dynasty through Portraits', UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity (2018)

Kaplan, Gregory B. 'The Inception of Limpieza de Sangre (Purity of Blood) and its Impact in Medieval and Golden Age Spain', in Marginal Voices: Studies in Converso Literature of Medieval and Golden Age Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 19-41.

Nirenberg, David, María Elena Martínez, and Max-Sebastián Hering Torres, eds. Race and Blood in the Iberian World (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2012)

#erynalasse #ask #history #medieval history #early modern history #spanish history #history of racism

[thevoidguider]

His scarf changes colours according to his mood! Red is the default, but yellow means amused, green is relaxed/happy, purple means afraid, neon/bright red means Anger, pink is thoughtful, dark blue means he's upset/in pain, light blue means he's on the verge of tears, and cyan means alarm/caution.

it's like a mood ring but it's a scarf. he also has mild shapeshifting abilities, but he can't change his clothes at will; i.e. it normally means he can take the appearance of, say, fell, but fell in a cool coat instead of the standard outfit

~

In response to an ask I got: Fanart is fully allowed for Sanguine! Go crazy go stupid, shipping is... allowed, I guess? He's probably gay and/or aroace. If you're unsure about shipping him with a character, my DMs and asks are always open ;D

#this man is unhinged #sanguine #skeleton #the voidguider #voidguider #undertale #undertale au #au papyrus #papyrus #papyrus au

[francesbeau]

The Nicomachean Ethics

Book 1. The Human Good. 

- ‘For pleasure is a state of soul and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant.’ (pp.13)

- ‘Whether happiness is to be acquired by learning or habituation. If there are any gifts from the God’s to men, it is reasonable that happiness is God given. Happiness seems, even if it’s not God-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning or training.’ (pp.15)

- ‘Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue.’ (pp.15)

Book 2. Moral Virtue.

- ‘Moral virtue comes as a result of habit.’ 

- ‘It is harder to fight against pleasure than anger, but both art and virtue are always concerned with what is harder; for even the good is better when it’s harder.’ (pp.27) 

Definition of Moral Virtue. (pp.28) 

- ‘Since things that are found in the soul are of three kinds - passions, capacities, states of character - virtue must be one of them.’ 

Passions - appetite, confidence, joy, envy. etc

Capacities - ‘the things in virtu of which we are said to be capable of feeling these. eg. being pained or feeling pity.’

States of Character - ‘the things in virtue of which we stand well or badly with reference to the passions, eg, with reference to anger we stand badly.’ 

- ‘Neither the virtues nor the vices are passions because we are not called good or bad on the ground for our passions. We are neither praised nor blamed for our passions. Fo these reasons they are also not capacities; we are neither called good or bad for the simple capacities of feelings the passion.’ Thus, they must be states of character.’ 

- ‘Virtue, then is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean. eg. the mean relative to us. this being determined by reason, and by that reason by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. It is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect.’ 

So it’s kind of just this idea that a virtue lies in between two different vices. 

Book 3. Moral Virtue

Courage - ‘that is a mean with regard to feelings of fear and confidence has already been made evident.’ (pp.49)

‘Brave men would not see to be concerned even in matters of death in all circumstances. / Now such deaths are those in battle; for these take place in the greatest and noblest danger.’ (pp.49)

‘These people seem bravest among whom cowards are held in dishonor and bravery in honor. this is the kind of courage that Homer depicts. / This kind of courage is most like to that which we dissected earlier, because it is due to virtue; for it is due to shame and to desire of a noble object (i.e honor) and avoidance of disgrace, which is ignoble.’ (pp.52)

- Page 53 -

‘Passion is also sometimes reckoned as courage; those who act from passion, like wild beasts rushing at those who have wounded them are thought to be brae, because brave men also are passionate; for passion above all things is eager to rush into danger.’ 

‘Brave men ac for the sake of the noble, but passion aids them; whilst wild beasts act under the influence of pain, for they attack for they have been wounded or because they are afraid.’ 

‘Men, then, as well as beats suffer pain when they are angry and are pleased when they exact their revenge; those who fight for these reasons, however, are pugnacious but not brave; for they do not act for the sake of the noble nor as reason directs but from strength of feeling, they have, however, something akin to courage.’ 

‘Nor are sanguine people brave; for they are confident in danger only because they have conquered often and against many foes. yet they closely resemble brave men because both are confident, but these men are confident because they think they are the strongest and can suffer nothing.’ 

Book 4. Moral Virtue. 

(If you are ever writing an essay on morals and virtues in social intercourse, go read over book 4 as it examines many different types of virtues, anger, truthfulness, temperance....)

‘The man is thought to be proud who thinks himself worthy of great things and is worthy of them.’ (pp.67)

‘He who thinks himself worthy of great things, being unworthy of them; is vain.’ (Difference between Pride and Vanity.) 

‘The man who thinks himself worthy of less than he is really worthy of is unduly humble.’ 

Both. (pp68)

‘Pride then seems to be a sort of crown of virtues. fir it makes them greater, and it i s not found without them. Therefore, it is hard to truly be proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character.’ (pp.69) Perfect to put into every analysis of every proud character ever haha. 

Shame: ‘It is denied at any rate, as a kind of fear of dishonor. it produces an effect similar to that produced by fear of danger; for people who feel disgraced blush, and those who fear death turn pale. both, therefore, seem to be in a sense, bodily conditions, which is thought the be characteristic of passion rather than a state of character.’ (pp.79)

Book 5. Justice.

Skipping this because I HATE reading about Justice. 

Book 6. Intellectual Virtue. 

‘We divided the virtues of the soul and said that some are moral virtues and others virtue of intellect.’ 102. 

‘Scientific Knowledge is judgement about things that are universal and necessary.’ (pp.107) Kind of obvious just think this is a good quote to add into an intro on meta-ethics or something like that. 

Book 7. Continence and Incontinence. 

Massive section on pleasure in here that is way too long to type up here but really useful. 

‘There are some who are apt to abide by their opinion, who are called obstinate, namely those who are hard to persuade in the first instance and are not easily persuaded to change; some likeness to the continent man.’ (pp.133)

‘There is a sort of man who is carried away as a result of passion and contrary to correct reason - a man whom passion masters is that he does not act according to correct reason but does not master to the extent of making him ready to believe that he should pursue such pleasures without reserve. this is the incontinent man.’ (pp.132)

Book 8. Friendship 

If you are into ethical theory this would be really great to compare with Aquinas!

‘Without friends no one would choose to live. For what is the use of prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence. Or how can prosperity be guarded and preserved without friends?’ (pp.142)

‘In poverty and in misfortunes men think friends are the only refuge. If helps the young, too, keep from error.’ (pp.142)

Whole thing around friendship of pleasure versus friendship of utility is good to compare with Plato’s Republic as well actually. 

‘Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good and alike in virtue. for those wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.; (pp.145)

‘Those who love because of utility love because of what is good for themselves. Those who love because of pleasure love because of what is pleasant for themselves, and not because of who the loved person is but in so far as he is useful or pleasant.’ / ‘Such friendships, then, are easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like themselves; for if the one party is no longer pleasant or useful the other ceases to love him.’ (pp.144)

Book 9. Friendship

‘Goodwill is a characteristic of friendship but not identical to friendship. For one may have goodwill both towards people whom one does not know and without their knowing it, but not friendship. But goodwill is not even a friendly feeling. For it does not involve intensity or desire.’ (pp.170) 

‘Goodwill seems, then, to be a beginning of friendship as the pleasure of the eye is the beginning of love. For no one loves if he has not first been delighted by the form of the beloved.’ (pp.170)

‘He who wishes someone to prosper because he hopes for enrichment through him seems ot have goodwill not to him but rather to himself, just as a man is not a friend to another if he cherishes him for the sake of some use to be made. In general goodwill arises on account of some excellence and worth, when one man seems to another beautiful or brave or something of the sort, as we pointed out in the case of competitors in a contest.’ (pp171)

Book 10. Pleasure and Happiness 

‘When educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain.’ (pp183)

I’ve read over this book a couple different times for Essays & Classes and I never enjoy Aristotle. I’m not too sure why as Plato, Stoics, His contemporaries are all fine, but I always feel disheartened when I realize I have to study him. This is the most I’ve ever gotten out of the book but I’m sure there were tons of things my brain chose to skim over. 

#books #aristotle #classics #philosophy #study guide #student #ancient greek literature #dark academia #academia

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: The Diamond Age

Author: Neal Stephenson

Rating: urrrrrrrrrrrr

Diamond Age is perhaps the densest, most difficult book Stephenson has written, but that difficulty is for the most part in the service of an interesting plot -- I thought I had Adventure figured out and then I guess I didn't. As a result of this density and difficulty, Diamond Age is also in my opinion one of his best, but I can see why others might disagree. In particular I am not sure what the range of opinions is -- in my subjective experience, most people's response to this book, unlike with Dhalgren or Armored Saint, is all or nothing. Either they liked it or didn't like it, without much in between.

Without spoiling anything too much, I'll try to sketch out the plot. It begins with a 14-year-old orphan, Nell, who lives in a strange future America where the Elites use technology to microengineer virtually everything, so that all material goods are small and cheap (though they still need to be rare to maintain social status). Nell goes to work in a Subspace, a large luxury private home where three of the residents -- a man and his two children -- take an interest in her and train her in the art of Sanguine Hugh Macy, the so-called "braille for the eyes" which can be encoded in a medium of nanoparticles that will disperse on contact. Macy is actually an extremely complicated system of forensic analysis (originally developed by another character in this book) which allows the user to recall past events with extreme fidelity. All of the major players in the book are essentially forensic detectives, and this is one of the many ways in which it is like Sherlock Holmes.

In fact, quite a bit of the plot has to do with the fact that if someone learns how to use Macy, they are likely to soon get involved in a forensic investigation . . . one involving their own past, no less. This puts everyone at odds, because remember: everything about the future is cringe. Too many people know things about you, and they all have access to your past. I thought it was quite interesting how this plot element kept giving us glimpses into people's pasts, and how any individual glimpse (which the reader may not understand immediately) seemed "plausible" in the sense that most of these characters were driven by the fact that their past was getting in the way of their careers.

I like the fact that each major character is driven by different things, that each is in some sense a detective, and that the situations in which their talents come into play differ widely in nature. Nell is a fairly prototypical detective -- she's gotten herself into scary situations that were the fault of others, and now she wants justice. Equally heroic but in a more antisocial way is the young man who is her love interest, Gansey, whom I will call Hugh (for reasons involving the title of the book I'll get to in a minute). Hugh is the character most closely modeled on Sherlock Holmes -- his father is a famous expert at deduction, and his skill is in "particulars," i.e. quickly learning enough facts about a new situation to make clever, detailed, quantitative deductions about it.

The third character, Reynie, is a figure of two minds: he's an illusionist who can give himself two conflicting personalities with two sets of memories. In the Subspace, he works with his mother, Mrs. Fletcher, who is basically a forensic detective of emotions. In one of these two personalities, Reynie remembers that he was a prisoner (though he did not know this to be the case until Nell stole a message from his brain); while he has no memories of the other personality, it's actually a later version of himself, transported to the past, where he can remember that he was a prisoner. Reynie, Hugh, and Nell are not a great team, and they never quite fit together.

Finally there's Mrs. Fletcher herself, and a handful of other characters. These characters all have their own plausible, interesting motivations for getting involved, and so it is possible to construct plausible stories that might motivate them to get involved in a given plot. But in the end we get the sense that Mrs. Fletcher and her friends are basically involved in a specific plot, just because it's in the book.

The title of the book refers to a gem known as a "phoenixclaw," whose power is the ability to manufacture a specific material. In this world, everything is manufactured according to the demands of customers in need of the right material, and so the power to manufacture is effectively a power to influence the world through supply and demand. In the past, this was an exercise of complete power over the world, because the Phoenixclaw produced the diamond, a material from which all materials can be produced. Nowadays, diamond is useless, and the power of a Phoenixclaw has been reduced to enabling it to produce other materials, which in turn leads to control over a smaller and smaller slice of the world -- but just about every plot relevant character gets their hands on a Phoenixclaw toward the end of the book, so everything really depends on who has control over which diamond and which nanoparticle at any given point. There are multiple groups in the book vying for power, but I'm not sure if this power is exactly what Stephenson has in mind -- the world doesn't seem all that great, and is in fact very cringe.

To all this I can add that Stephenson is a writer who's great at establishing plausible cultures. Each character has their own way of life, which is explained in rich detail and which has many interesting facets; and the way of life is often related to the given character's viewpoint and preoccupations. In this respect, Diamond Age is much like Snow Crash, and (in my opinion) shows that Stephenson can move beyond his early work, which was crisp but shallow, into more mature, less singular, more memorable worlds.

Some other things I liked in this book: Little Big is another interesting Stephenson novel about a plot to alter the fate of the world. Like Diamond Age, it draws on extremely diverse influences: it's part cyberpunk, part big book, part Sherlock Holmes pastiche, part Greek myth. And also like Diamond Age, it contained a certain strain of Romanticism I'd not seen in Stephenson before. All this I appreciated.

Another book I'd like to mention here, just for a few sentences, is Hotel New Hampshire. This is the book that most reminded me of Diamond Age, as far as the environment of the writer's mind is concerned -- it is populated by eccentric characters in a cringe-free environment. As far as the plot goes, it is a fairly linear book, and many of the events that occur feel like predictable foreshadowing; but the characters are very memorable, and the milieu is distinctive and quite charming. A lot of people find this book very difficult to read, but not because it is poorly written, but rather because the narrator is a child -- he's 9 years old, and explains things in the ways you would expect a 9-year-old to explain them.