rachel's study blog

oh wow the glass-tower office buildings we constructed when we thought air conditioning and central heating would never have downsides...have downsides?

and we're still building them?

while the Victorian house museum where I work, with thick walls and small windows and big wooden shutters stays ~10 degrees above (winter) or below (summer) the outside temperature for days on end with no help at all?

uh. okay then

DO YOU KNOW WHAT REAL STEPPE NOMADS FUCKING WORE???

HERE'S THE FUCKING REFERENCES I CREATED FOR A XIONGNU-INSPIRED DND CHARACTER COMMISSION. AND THAT WAS SOMEHOW MORE RESEARCH THAN GRR MARTIN AND HBO COULD BE PISSED DOING.

vs

LOOK AT THE FUCKING ARTESTY. THE CRAFTSMANSHIP. THE EMBROIDERY.

One thing I don't see discussed enough about game of thrones is the blatant orientialism. hey quick question, why are the real cultures you were "inspired by" portrayed as basically human-orcs? 1) why are nomadic societies automatically portrayed as being incapable of valuing or producing sophisticated clothes, and why is that costuming directly linked to their "bloodthirsty" and "warlike" natures? did you know their IRL counterparts the xiongnu/jurchens/mongols/hu people LOVED the fancy silks produced by the han chinese. not only was this a key part of diplomacy between the two nations. (surprise! they were not constantly at war, because steppe nomads were not bloodthristy monsters who loved death, but real people engaged in resource competition and territory control). it was also part of the internal politics of steppe culture, e.g., who was favoured by the leader and how valuable gifts were distributed among the nobility. but noooo that would mean thinking of them as real people motivated by complicated things like politics, status and culture within their tribes! and who would watch a show about people doing that? -_- 2) why do their societies revolve around killing and conquest, and have no love for intellectual or artistic pursuits? historically, genghis khan, kublai khan, ect, valued scholars and did everything they could to patronise/kidnap/poach huge numbers of them, and this was key to their tactical success! han chinese engineers were captured, and used to build siege engines to take down the great wall! that portrait of kublai khan you see up there was drawn by the nepalese artist araniko, a child prodigy who was part of the khan's court. does khal drogo have a flock of artists following him around, propagandising his greatness to the world, so everyone knows that he is a man of culture and his rule has legitimacy? no, he burns down villages for fun? cool. cool cool.

3) why are the dothraki portrayed as lawless brigands who are incapable of governing their captured territory, when the mongol-led yuan dynasty managed to conquer and rule over china, and genghis khan was responsible for expanding the silk road, and enforcing such effective law and order over it that it resulted in the pax mongolica, and increased trade between the east and west? is it because they "don't wanna?"' why? are they a monolith? why would they throw away the advantages of all that trade control? are they just "intrinsically incapable of it?" would you care to expand on that?

picture references:

clothing of a Xiongnu chief, 2nd century BCE-1st century CE. Reconstruction by archaeologist A.N. Podushkin, in the Central State Museum of Kazakhstan.[77][78]

Noin-Ula carpet, animal style. 1st century CE.[236]

Xiongnu Leather Robe, Han period, Henan Provincial Museum, Zhengzhou

Belt buckle with animal combat scene, 2nd-1st century BCE, made in North China for the Xiongnu.[267][157]

My favourite part of Little Ida’s Flowers is when Andersen not only goes out of his way to explain how his self insert in the story is VERY cool, but also decided to brag about his paper cutout art

Detail of life-sized skeletal artist model / mannequin. France, circa 1860-1880.

Bedtime stories

My favourite part of the local Roman Britain musuem I visited for my birthday was a ~2000 year old tile ruined by a dog. You can even see a rock lodged in as if the workers tried to scare it off.

The best part is that this isn't a rare find. They had a whole wall of tiles ruined by pets. Imagine how many there were for us to find so many ~2000 years later...

Why don’t they make beautifully illustrated manuscripts like these anymore??😭

There’s a theory that early Europeans started saying “brown one” or “honey-eater” instead of “bear” to avoid summoning them, and similarly my friend has started calling Alexa “the faceless woman” because saying her true name awakens her from her slumber

English has an avoidance register used in the presence of certain respected animals, which sounds fancy until you realize it’s spelling out w-a-l-k and t-r-e-a-t in front of the dog.

All evil whales are, well, evil. So evil that if you speak their name at sea, they will hear it and home in on you. So instead you use all sorts of euphemisms for their names. Also if you try to cook their meat it literally disappears from the pot. That’s right, they’re so evil, you can’t even eat them.

They include such types as the hrosshvalur (horsewhale), with big eyes and a red mane and tail. This is probably the best known and most feared of the lot.

The raudkembingur (redcomb) is especially cruel and bloodthirsty even by illhveli standards. If you manage to escape it, it will die of frustration.

Good luck escaping the mushveli (mousewhale) though, it has legs! And will clamber onto the beach in pursuit!

Or what about death from above? The stökkull (jumper) leaps high into the air and pile-drives boats to pieces.

Meanwhile the skeljungur (shellwhale) sits in the path of boats and lets them get wrecked on its shelly hide…

… while the sverdhvalur (swordwhale) slices through boats with its dorsal fin.

The katthveli (catwhale) is relatively harmless though. It meows.

The same can’t be said of the lyngbakur (heatherback), a classic island fish that lets sailors get on its back and then dives, taking them to a watery grave.

The nauthveli (oxwhale) on the other hand specially targets cattle, attracting them into the sea with its bellow before tearing them apart.

How can you avoid all these murderous whales, like the taumafiskur (bridlefish) here? Any of a number of ways, including getting a steypireydur to help. There are substances, ranging from angelica to sheep dung and chopped fox testicles, that they find abhorrent. And you can distract them with loud noises and barrels.

For more, I assure you this link will answer all your questions.

https://abookofcreatures.com/category/illhveli/