i haven't been on tunglr for a good lil while and haven't been on it on mobile at all and I just. Tried to reblog smth. And it didn't let me add tags it just yeeted it directly onto my blog. What. And it just took me so long to figure out how to write this. I am a pathetic being (said adoringly to myself) ((it turns out I don't remember what I tagged anything with anyway so my blog will simply be a place of absolute and unending chaos))(((or I will forget Tumblr exists for another several months. Much more likely tbqh)))
In honor of the season, what are holidays like in the spirit world? Have they been infected by Christmas yet? I imagine they inherit some popular ones from the world of the living, but also the unique holidays of the afterlife must be wild.
You come to me, on the eve of the High Holiday of Halloween, and ask me about Christmas??
I'm kidding, you're asking about holidays in general but my unsuspecting Agnostic Ass just got jumpscared by Mariah Carey, and I'm sensitive. It's not the season. Not for another 48 hours at least. Do Not Violate The Sacred Treaty.
.
..
...
Anyway, this ended up in my drafts for a few days, so: Christianity has not really gotten a foothold in soul society, but via cultural osmosis "Xmas" has. Nobody in a Shinto afterlife believes in monotheism, but they love a holiday and a Saint is practically a Kami anyway, but.... It's "Xmas" because the holiday in no way remotely resembles Christmas as practiced in the living world.
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Scene: 4th Division hospital, a few days after Rukia is rescued and Aizen departed for Las Noches:
"-CHAD!!" Ichigo bellows, almost falling in through the doorway of the hospital room, wheezing.
"I am very sure you are not supposed to be out of bed." Chad frowned, looking up from the copy of the history of soul society Captain Komamura had lent him to read while he recovered.
It was strange, to be in the care of the very people he had thought to be senseless killers not two weeks ago, but he was finding the Shinigami a generally agreeable lot. Even if the captain that controlled the hospital reminded him unpleasantly of a nun with her chaste dress, soft voice and understated but constant threat of violence.
"YOU NEED YO HEAR THIS-! He- hee-" Ichigo stumbled over to his bed and curled up on his side overcome with giggles.
"... I'm beginning to think I am incorrect." Sighed the pale-haired man at the door, frowning down at Ichigo.
"Jushiro Ukitake, I don't think I've had the pleasure of your acquaintance yet, Mr.-?" The man introduced himself and offered Chad a hand.
"Uh. Yasutora. Sado Yasutora. But everyone calls me Chad." He mumbled, cautiously shaking hands with the stranger. "You're um. You're Miss Rukia 's boss, right?"
"Yes! I believe you are her friend with the pet parakeet and good throwing arm, yes?" Ukitake beamed at him and Chad was suddenly struck by the idea that he'd seen Ukitake at a family reunion before - Impossible, obviously, but the man had the intense aura of a distant uncle. "Good show that, she loves being hurled at an opponent!"
"Oh. Thank you." Chad mumbled, Ichigo finally catching his breath. "...What are you incorrect about?"
"Christmas, apparently." Ukitake frowned, and Ichigo dissolved into snickering again. "He says you're something of an expert on the actual mythology, I only have third-hand accounts, you see-"
"No!" Gasped Ichigo, reaching over to tug at Mr. Ukitake's sleeve. "You gotta tell him!"
"I am Catholic, yes." Chad nodded. "-go on. It can't be less accurate than the version Dr. Kurosaki- Uh, Ichigo's dad- gave me last year."
"Yeah it can-" Ichigo wheezed.
"Well, ah- Christmas is a birthday celebration for an important religious figure, right?" Ukitake tried.
"Yep!" Chad nodded, giving Ukitake a thumbs up.
"The birth of Rudolph, the Star-nosed reindeer?" Ukitake tried.
Chad stared at him blankly for a moment, before his thumbs-up slowly wilted into a thumbs down and Ichigo vibrated silently with hysterics. Chad opened and closed his mouth a few times, hand waving, then covered his mouth, searching for words. Eventually he reached out and gently put his hand on the captain's shoulder to explain as delicately as possible-
"...No." Said Chad.
Ichigo rolled off the bed with a dull thud.
"-I am, however, fascinated." Chad elaborated. "Please continue."
"...I'm really sorry that I am this ignorant of your religious dogma." Ukitake winced.
"It's- don't worry about it. Tell me what you think happens on Rudolph's birthday." Chad said, sitting back and pressing his hands together.
"Well- oh, how does it start? Right- there's the Monks- Saints? that give out presents to well-behaved children during the winter holidays- Saint Claus, Saint Nicolas and Saint Kringle. And they're all very old men, and with good judgement about who does and does not deserve presents, so they're called the three wise men!"
Ichigo made a noise like a teakettle from the floor.
"Oh. Oh no." Chad giggled.
"And they travel the entire world giving out presents, but that's A Lot of houses and it was taking them longer and longer so they prayed to... I forget the name Catholics have for Amaterasu. Guadalupe?"
Chad made a noise not unlike a violently squeezing a rubber duck, and started to shake.
"-So they pray for some help getting all the presents to the children, and Whoever She Is says they're doing good deeds, but she wants to see if they're REALLY worthy of that kind of miracle, so she sends them on a journey to recover some lost holy treasures, and on the way each of the holy men wrestles with and tames a demon representing some vice or another-"
"-I. I think you've gotten the Star of Bethlehem mixed up with The Journey West." Chad realized, hands pressed together in front of his face.
"Yes that's right! She marks the direction they're supposed to be going with a bright star! So they go West, following the star!
"-Ok the three wise men traveling from the east following a star part is, in fact, accurate. What's this about demons?"
"It's some sort of allegory about how all the Saints are virtues so the demons represent the vices people fall into around the holiday- Being punitive or penurious and ruining good things for others. They all had weird names-" Ukitake frowned.
"What's going on?" Captain Kyorauku asked, sticking his head in the door.
"You'll know!" Ukitake chirped with excitement. "-What are the three demons the saints conquer in the Christmas myth?"
"Krampus the Child-beater, Scrooge the Miser, and... Ah fuck I always mispronounce the last one. He's green and he sucks? The Goonch?" Shunsui frowned.
"THE GOONCH?" Ichigo shrieked from the floor.
"I. I think you mean The Grinch." Chad said, experiencing a brand new combination of horror, delight and fascination that felt like the emotional equivalent of a shrimp color.
"That's him! Oscar The Grinch!" Shunsui nodded. "Why, its only August? Also, what's Kurosaki doing on the floor?
"We are apparently very misninformed about the mythlogical origins of Christmas. This amuses Kurosaki to the point of hysterics." Ukitake explained, lightly nudging Ichigo aside with his foot and sitting on the foot of Chad's bed.
"Your version is so much better." Chad said, vibrating with excitement. "What are these treasures they're supposed to get?"
"Oh you had to ask- Shunsui love, you were the one that heard it all from Captain Kuchiki when he did his tour in the living world."
"Oh for fuckssake of course it's Byakuya-" Ichigo groaned from the floor, and Ukitake gently kicked him in the ribs to shush him.
"Uhhhh... Let's see-" Shunsui scratched at his beard."There's Eight Lost Treasures, they're all magical bells that give anyone who rings them supernatural abilities- there's the Bell of Speed, Bell of Grace, Bell of Balance, Bell of Cunning, Bell of... ah fuck. I always forget the two in the middle... -Oh! Bell of destination- not like fate, like, always being able to find your way to where you're going. Bell of Affection, Bell that gives power over wind and Bell that gives power over lighting!"
Chad blinked at him, then slowly crumpled into a ball.
"...Mr. Yasutora?" Ukitake asked, gently touching his shoulder.
"This is amazing. I love it. I'm going to die." he whimpered, voice high and tight as he struggled to breathe from laughing.
"We may have already lost Mr. Kurosaki." Shunsui muttered, poking Ichigo's shoulder with his toe.
"Anyway, they conquer the demons, get all the magical bells and make it to the distant city, aand Amaterasu says 'Great job!" Ukitake continued, enthusiastic as they approached his favorite part.
"-But she says 'Here's your final test: I'm going to give a special gift to one of these creatures, you tell me which is the most deserving of my favor.' and then she turns them loose in some kind of farm with talking animals. They're all good and noble animals that have done many brave deeds- dogs saved children from drowning, horse that ran across a battlefield to deliver a message that stopped a war and so on- eventually the saints find a brand new baby fawn with a bright red nose. Since it was born just that morning, it's never done anything of note, and the other animals don't really like it because it's red nose means its kind of sickly and it cant see well so they don't want to play with it."
"YES!" Chad cheered, making the connection.
"Oh, that part is right?" Ukitake perked up.
"Not even remotely, but it's amazing. They pick the fawn right?
"That's right! The saints tell Amaterasu that the Baby deer Rudolph is the one that deserves her blessing, because while all the animals here are noble and good, no good deed is better than another, and of all the animals, the sickly little deer is the one that really needs her help."
"Oh no." Ichigo whimpered from the floor. "That's actually like. genuinely heartwarming."
"Amaterasu applauds them, because they've made the right choice, and she gives the power of the star to the baby deer so it very literally glows like a headlight, and She turns the eight magical bells into a herd of deer that all have the powers the bells they were made from had, so Rudolph has a family and the three wise men have a team of nine magical deer to pull the flying sleigh she gives them, and then they are able to deliver all the presents to all the children of the world in one night, and they do it every year on Rudolph's birthday, because he was the first one to receive a proper Christmas present!" Ukitake finished, giving Chad an excitable two thumbs up.
Chad, slowly tipped forward, faintly hissing with silent laughter, then rolled off the bed to join Ichigo on the floor. Ukitake peered after him with concern, until chad slowly raised a weak, shaking hand up to give Ukitake a thumbs up back.
"-What I can't figure is how the bucket of fried chicken fits into all that?" Shunsui pondered, and the boys shrieked with laughter.
Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”
Rosie: "This is my husband Sam, and that's his husband, Frodo. Frodo is my husband-in-law. I'm not into him, he's he's a bit too 'elfy' for my taste, but Sam likes him, and that's fine with me. As far as I know, Frodo can't give Sam children, but Frodo looks after ours all the same, so I don't mind sharing Sam if it means another pair of eyes on the wee ones. In all honesty, our family tree is right simple compared to some hobbits. Yes, I'm referrin' to you Lobelia, over there pretendin' you ain't eavesdroppin'. Still bitter you ain't got either of my boys or their house, eh?"
Tbh it's canon that Frodo invited Sam and Rosie to move in to Bag End after their wedding and they all lived there for a couple of years until Frodo went to Valinor, so yeah. Running with it.
And once Rosie dies, Sam says his goodbyes and disappears after him.
what’s funny is people assuming that rosie would somehow be too dim or naive to KNOW that sam loved frodo, instead of looking at a guy who would loyally follow a beloved friend to hell and then help carry him home again, and not be like ‘oh i can’t not fuck that.’
Polyamory, specifically polyandry, would be an interesting solution to the oddball population of the Shire.
The Shire is excellent farming country, with consistently good weather, and only one tough winter in living memory; hobbits like to produce large families; they’re resistant to disease, rarely violent, and encounter few dangers. It is usual for hobbits to produce many children, so that (for example) Bilbo and Frodo are unusual in both being only children, with no siblings, and not having children of their own. All of this should point to a population that increases every generation if not doubling outright. Young people (and their ideologies!) should rapidly outnumber the old with an ever-increasing effect and impact on society. However, the Shire has a surprisingly stable history; it never seems to increase or decrease greatly in population, and the bell curve of age seems… demographically balanced? There certainly isn’t a conflict from rising young bloods challenging the middle-aged reactionaries; there’s no unemployment; there are no housing crises or waves of emigration, or even a tendency for young people leaving home to marry. Meanwhile, not only does the Shire not suffer from internal pressures, but it remains obscure and hardly noticed in global politics.
What makes sense here is that adult hobbits form a loose group. Four parents in a polycule, between them all, may produce four children. All four parents claim to have four children. An outsider would assume this meant the adults had eight children.
Hobbits therefore are not especially fertile or fecund. They simply have large families. Much of their interest in genealogy is due to the complex relationships of blood-kin, hearth-kin, love-kin and pledge-kin, who must all be carefully tracked and measured - not just because you need to make sure that you don’t climb into bed with an un-permitted degree of blood-kin, but to track family alliances and carefully quantify the precise level of thoughtfulness to put into the proper present to gift your father’s lover’s lover (too much implies a degree of intimacy that might upset the polycule.)
Thus, while a hobbit matron may tell a startled dwarf that she has seven sons, she might only have borne five of them herself, and have one hearth-son by her wife, and a pledge-son of her first husband’s. There are between three and four fathers involved at various stages of production, from conception to pledge-duty, but there is debate about the precise number of fathers, as one child was festival-conceived and therefore provisionally pledged to the Brandybucks until more distinctive paternal traits should materialise. It’s expected that four of the sons will be uninterested in women, and their contribution to family life will be in raising hearth-children and pledge-duty. However, this level of detail is normally negotiated later in conversation, as a mutual overture of friendship. So she’s just clear and simple: yes, certainly, she has seven sons. Yes, they’re all hers. Yes, that’s fairly normal - yes, hobbits like big families. How big? That’s really hard to say! Well, about thirteen hobbits live in her house… er, she has forty-three nieces and nephews. Yes! She has nine siblings, that’s correct, but some of them are still babies themselves..
In this way, a bewildered dwarf might assume that hobbits are absurdly fertile, producing an average of seven children per couple, at an absurd pace.
When in fact, with about half of hobbits never bearing biological children, the population of hobbits is pretty much always the same.
Tl:dr, hobbit population works perfectly well, both internally and in the perceptions of outsiders, if the majority of the Shire is gay, they’re all polyamorous, and they all firmly claim to be parents of high numbers of children. Of course Frodo fathered Sam’s kids - he named them! They were pledge-kin but not hearth-kin, as Frodo needed a lot of quiet and stability in the home.
No outsider ever parses hobbit genealogy well enough to understand this except for Gandalf, who never explains anything either.
Okay, reblogged this too quickly out of enthusiasm.
This makes so much sense in the worldbuilding, actually???
Like, consider: Elves don't understand hobbit families, but hobbits are also baffled by elf families. You have exactly one partner ever? And it's considered wildly inappropriate to take another even if that partner straight up dies? And they only raise their own children, usually three maximum? Most hobbits would be convinced that elves were cold, unfeeling and anti-social.
Bilbo is percieved as oddly elf-ish when he comes back from his adventure at least in part because he only takes on one hearth-child, and even then quite late in his life. Like sure dude, you don't have to have romantic or sexual partners but no children????? Very strange. Here. Take a Frodo. Maybe he'll fix whatever is wrong with your brain.
And this also explains why hobbits get on better with Elrond than most other elves. Because Elrond has a weird af family by elf standards and takes in foster children all the time. He seems much warmer by comparison. Basically, when Bilbo comes to stay at the Last Homely House and he's doing his writing Elrond would be thrown by how comfortable Bilbo is with his family.
Elrond: My apologies, I know this must be quite confusing for you.
Bilbo: No no I understand perfectly. You have two blood-parents (Elwing and Earendil), two hearth-parents (Maglor and Maedhros), one blood-brother (Elros), and one pledge-brother (Gil-galad). Certainly a bit unconventional due to the kinslaying and all, and a bit on the small side, but other than that...
Elrond, who has never in his life had his family called 'small': ...
a whole bunch of ienagas from twitter, ft historical fashion (1860, 1900, 1910) and edwardian-style hair, plus a WIP of a charm that i’ll have for sale in the near future. i love one immoral/(immortal?) goth grandma!!!
the default way for things to taste is good. we know this because "tasty" means something tastes good. conversely, from the words "smelly" and "noisy" we can conclude that the default way for things to smell and sound is bad. interestingly there are no corresponding adjectives for the senses of sight and touch. the inescapable conclusion is that the most ordinary object possible is invisible and intangible, produces a hideous cacophony, smells terrible, but tastes delicious. and yet this description matches no object or phenomenon known to science or human experience. so what the fuck
i personally believe that maximus was the former captain of the guard who was cursed into horse form pretty recently, and everyone’s having trouble adjusting to it.
like, he’s entitled to sick leave, he really ought to take a couple months to break the curse and come to terms with whatever the fuck just happened to him, but instead of embarking on a journey of self-discovery and healing he just keeps showing up to work. no one can get captain maximus to go on his fucking voyage of self actualization and fix the curse because he’s obsessed with catching flinn ryder. everyone really fucking hopes that when he finally catches this guy the curse might be broken anyway, but it isn’t.
he just keeps showing up to work. he glares at the stablehands until they saddle him up. everyone’s gone over the regulations a dozen times but there’s nothing there saying you’re not allowed to saddle and ride the captain of the guard if he makes you do it. his former second in command rides him around like ‘sir i really don’t know about this’ and he’s just like ‘are we going to catch some criminals or what.’
you can see in the movie that everyone in the royal guard defers to this horse. it’s absolutely because that’s their boss. and secondarily because now he’s two thousand pounds of percheron.
there is no evidence against this theory and you cannot prove me wrong.
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