
Discoholic 🪩

⁂
wallacepolsom
$LAYYYTER
i don't do bad sauce passes

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
we're not kids anymore.
Sade Olutola
Show & Tell

tannertan36
KIROKAZE

PR's Tumblrdome
h
Cosmic Funnies
No title available
Three Goblin Art
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

izzy's playlists!
YOU ARE THE REASON
seen from United States

seen from Australia
seen from United States

seen from Italy

seen from Malaysia

seen from United States
seen from Canada

seen from Netherlands
seen from Spain
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom

seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States

seen from Germany
seen from Türkiye

seen from Malaysia
seen from Italy
seen from Poland
seen from United States
@recommissioned
the best thing about pacific rim is that it's a film about the power of love in all its forms and how humanity's ability to work together and communicate with each other is our greatest strength, but it's also a film about a giant robot beating the shit out of a sea monster with a laser cannon, a boat, knuckledusters made from cargo containers and a chainsaw sword to the sexiest bass lines ever used in cinema
my ancient greek history professor is making us post memes weekly. i swear to god
heres one for you
my time has come for hyperspecific classics memes
I…I need context. I’m gonna research all this shit one day.. If I remember after work
I understand most of these!
My brother has to submit memes about ancient rome to his class so I’m definitely going to give suggestions.
@spiritspodcast 🤩🤣
I needed that second pic
Fantasy Guide to Employment: Household of a Castle
The castle does not run itself. The castle would remain a pile of stones without servants to keep it running. The guide below focuses on the private household of the lord himself, anybody who worked inside the main keep of the castle. I will be expanding outside the walls in a future post.
The Steward/Seneschal
This person was the head of the household staff. They would have the task of running things on the Lord’s estate. They are the managers, so it is up to them to keep the staff in line. The steward would keep the castle accounts and keep the lord informed of all of the goings on of the lands and tenants. They would have to be educated needing to do accounts and write letters. Though the castle’s Lady would be expected to do all these things, the steward served as a backup and assistant in all the tasks even representing the lord and lady when they were unavailable.
The Chamberlain
The chamberlain is the servant employed to look after the Lord’s bedchamber. He would look after the Lord’s clothes as well and keep track of the other servants’ liveries, the official uniforms of the guards, pages and squires. This was not always the case, some larger households had a separate office but most medium seized manors and castles lumped them together. The chamberlain’s main task was ensuring the lord was kept happy. He would even be the last servant a lord would see at night before he went to bed at night. They would be educated.
The Marshal
A Marshal was in charge of the stables as well as the military presence in the castle. They would oversee the household’s horses, carts, wagons, and containers. He oversaw blacksmiths, horse grooms and stableboys. He also oversaw the transporting of goods. The Marshal was sometimes in charge of disciplining servants. They would likely come from a middle class background as well as having military experience and education.
The Page
A page was a young noble boy about seven years old who would be sent to serve a Lord. He would be in charge of tidying up after the lord, carrying messages to other servants and occupants of the castle and serving him at meals. Unlike others on the list, the page would not be paid. His experience was his payment as he would learn the running of a castle and manners of a lord.
The Lady’s Maid
The lady’s maid is be the female body attendant of the castle’s noble women. She would be in charge of caring for the lady’s chamber and her things. She would dress the lady and attend her wherever she would. (The lady’s maid would basically do all the work a chamberlain would but you know the wage gap…)
Maidservant
A housemaid/maidservant works to clean the castle. She would be among the first to awaken every morning. Her first task would be sweeping the floors. The thing with mediaeval floors a that they were often covered with a thin layer of rushes, a kind of grass. Weekly if not daily, a maidservant would be expected to change out the rushes and scatter new ones. If it really needed it, she would scrub the stone floors which would be done with a soap called lye, made from ashes and lard. The maidservant would also be expected to go into the bedchambers when the occupants awoke. She would empty the chamberpots if need be. She would get rid of the ashes from the fire and ready the fire for later. She would make up the bed or strip it for the laundresses. She would wash anything that needed washing including furniture and ornaments.
Laundress
The laundress was responsible for the cleaning of anything made of fabric in the household. The laundress would have to fetch their own water either from the castle well or from a nearby river. They would heat the water in large vats and add lye soap (the most popular of the cleaning agents). The constant exposure to soap and hot water was physically tough on the hands of the laundresses and their backs. When the detergents were added to the water, the laundress would dump them into the vat and stir that shit like soup. To dry it they would pin it out on lines or beat the water from it. The laundress might make money by selling secrets. Since they are handling unmentionables, they knew what happened behind closed bedchamber doors or what didn’t.
Nursemaid
The nursemaid was in charge of the castle’s children. They would ensure the child was fed, washed and generally kept alive while the parents would either be away at court or busy with the lands. The nursemaid would be a common woman from the surrounding lands who would come in to care for a noble child in the stead of the mother who would be expected to get on with other jobs. The nursemaid would be an underlying of the noble governess, a sort of hands-off nanny.
Cook
The cook was one of the most important servants in the castle. They would have the task of overseeing the running of the kitchens and keeping supplies in order. They would likely be on call at all times. Henry VIII’s cook was often woken in the night because his royal master wanted a midnight snack. The cook was a valued member of the household and would have been highly sought after if they were a very skilled cook. Cooks would have been paid a handsome wage.
Scullion
The scullion was the lowest member of staff. They would be responsible for scrubbing and cleaning the servants quarters and the kitchens. They would scrub floors with lye, scour pots with sand, sweep put the fireplace and clean up after the other servants. They were the first to rise in a castle and tasked to light all the fires in the kitchens.
Payment & Lifestyle
Within the mediaeval household, payment came from the hand of the steward. As the Lord’s manager of accounts, he was in charge of paying staff.
The grander jobs in the castle such as the marshal, the chamberlain, nursemaid and lady’s maid would pay better. They would have certain privileges including better bedchambers.
A nursemaid who was breastfeeding the Lord’s children would be a valued member of staff. She would be fed better than the other servants.
The page would sleep in a chamber off the lord’s bedchamber or sometimes at the foot of the bed. A page would wear the Lord’s livery so he would be dressed on the Lord’s coin.
The chamberlain would have rooms close to the lord and lady, just in case they were needed by the master in any kind of emergency.
The cook would sleep near the kitchens so they were close enough just in case they are needed in the night.
The other household servants would all sleep in chambers together. The women would sleep in one and the men would sleep in another. Nightly dalliances were frowned upon massively.
Most servants came from the surrounding lands of the castle. When the lord and his family were away at court or somewhere else, there would be a drop in employment. Everything would be cut down ex. Instead of three laundry maids, only one might stay on after the lord goes. The steward, the marshal, the chamberlain, the page, the cook, the nursemaid and the lady’s maid were all important staff so their job would be permanent.
Not listed but worth noting: squire or esquire - the stage between page and knight; castellan - the governor of a castle and its domain; a chatelaine is a female castellan (one is the Norman word, the other is the Old French word, I don’t know why; maybe for clarity).
A chatelaine was also a piece of functional jewellery popular from the 1700s through to the turn of the 20th century: it was an ornamental belt / waistband-clasp with keys, a knife, a needle-and-thread case, scissors etc. hung from it.
The medieval version looked like this; those keys would have included the stillroom (where tinctures and liqueurs were made) and the spice-cupboard whose contents might match gold in value. Beside the lady of the manor, the most senior and trusted female servants would have worn one as well.
The drawstring purse is obvious; the dark stick-thing less so - it’s actually a personal eating-knife. There might also be an eating-pick sheathed behind it, the medieval equivalent of a fork, because table manners in the Middle Ages were a lot better and more elaborate than “grab meat with the hands, chuck bones over the shoulder.” (An image for which we must again thank Victorian pop history…)
Here’s a set in period art, and as a reproduction.
I have questions about this: “ Though the castle’s Lady would be expected to do all these things, the steward served as a backup and assistant “
Does this mean that one of the tasks of the Lady was accounting and managing? Together with the steward or on her own? When would she do that? Was she consulted by the Lord about it?
I’ll mark op @inky-duchess in case she knows but if anyone knows, please tell me.
@motsimages yes, the lady would work closely with the steward ensuring the household was run cost-effectively and that certain items were ordered and bought for the family. The Lord would likely leave that business up to her.
Fantasy Guide to Employment: Within and Without the Castle Walls
No I am not repeating myself. Let us move beyond the keep of the castle and to the outer region of the castle.
Blacksmith
The blacksmith was the heart of the castle or the town. Blacksmiths were the most important of the trades which is why there are so many people with the surname Smith. The blacksmith worked at the forge and would have had a team of people working for him. The blacksmith would be paid a high sum by the castle's lord especially if he was skilled at making weapons or armour. A specialist armourer would have been extremely expensive to employ. The blacksmith could be employed within the castle walls or outside them. He would likely be provided with a house near the forge or sleep in a chamber off from it with his apprentices.
Porter
The porters were the gatekeepers of a Castle. You would not be able to go through the gates and the main entrances to a castle. The porter was responsible for making sure nobody came or went from the castle without proof of leave. The porter would be fed and housed with the castle barracks.
Groom
The groom or the stableboy/hand is employed at the stables to care for the horses. They would muck out the stalls, care for the horses, feed the horses, brush the horses, keep the tack clean and ready the horses when needed. The grooms would have to have some knowledge of the horses and likely a strong sense of smell. Grooms often slept in the stables or would have lived in the town as a tenant.
Bailiff
The bailiff was hired by the lord to act as his representative. The bailiff would act as an overseer, making sure the lands were in order. He would also be collect fines and rents from the tenants. The bailiff was nearly always somebody brought from another town or place from the kingdom so he could be impartial and fair. The bailiff would have been provided a small cottage near the castle if he had a family or a small chamber within the castle walls.
Watchmen
The watchman or guard was responsible for security in the castle. They were tasked to patrol the battlements and corridors of the castle, including guarding the most important places of the castle such as the treasury room. The watchman would be kitted out on the Lord's coin, trained as part of the garrison and wear the livery of the lord. Watchmen would have slept in the barracks, been fed by the castle kitchens and would have had to report to their captain or the Constable for orders.
Gamekeeper
The gamekeeper was hired to keep an eye on the populations of the animals on the Lord's lands and ensure that the wildlife was protected and keep safe from poachers (so the lord and his hunstmen could kill them themselves). They would likely have a cabin in the parkland and have certain privileges such as being able to take game for himself. He would have to have knowledge of animals.
The terminator but he's made of clay and hatred
mama tetra
core classes as undead :)
I don't mean this in any jokey or disrespectful way; is there any truth to the alchemy in say, the Full Metal Alchemist anime? The symbols or transmutation circles?
Actually the author of FMA did a ton of research into historical western alchemy. The whole law of equivalent exchange is a real alchemical concept from hermetica, and one that sir Issac Newton expounded into the law of thermodynamics.
The elrics dad, Van Hoenhiem, is based on a real alchemist named Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hoenhiem. At one point Pride even references the real alchemists name.
Basically everything about alchemy in FMA is taken from primary sources, down to the symbology of transmutation circles to the color scheme of Edwards design.
The way alchemy works in FMA doesn’t resemble the way real-life alchemy is or was supposed to work, however, FMA is still packed full of references to real-life alchemy. The most obvious one is Hohenheim’s name, but there are plenty more! (Ed and Al also share their names with real-life famous occultists, Edward Kelly and Alphonse Constant (Eliphas Levi), but this might be a coincidence.)
It is probably no accident that Ed’s color scheme is black, white, and red. The three main stages of alchemy are names the nigredo, the albedo, and the rubedo. Nigredo, the black stage, is when the matter of the Stone “dies” and putrefies, representing spiritual death. Albedo, the white stage, is when the matter of the Stone is washed, boiled, and turns to vapor, which condenses back into water, and the cycle repeats. This represents spiritual ascension and unification with the divine. Finally, during the rubedo, this “volatile” matter becomes “fixed,” crystallizing into the Philosopher’s Stone. Ed also has gold hair and eyes, which is fairly self-explanatory. Gold is a metaphor for the state of spiritual perfection.
The “Flamel” symbol of a serpent nailed to a cross that’s on the back of Ed’s coat, painted on Al’s pauldron, and tattooed on Izumi’s chest is the “crucified serpent,” which actually does come from Nicolas Flamel. It represents the completion of the Great Work, the union of the fixed and volatile, the mercurial serpent physically nailed down to the cross with its four arms representing the Four Elements (with Quintessence in the center) and the reconciliation of polarities. It also demonstrates the death and mortification of the old body that is necessary for the Philosopher’s Stone to be reborn:
The wings at the top of FMA’s “Flamel” is probably meant to represent Mercury’s Caduceus, and maybe also the resurrection of the snake. The crown references the “King” that is a metaphor for the Philosopher’s Stone. The Flamel symbol also bears resemblance to the Staff of Asclepius, which represents medicine in the real world.
Another example is the “Green Lion” on the flag of Amestris that acts a symbol of the military and is referenced a few other times:
In real alchemy, the “Green Lion” is a symbol of antimony ore and represents the Philosopher’s Stone in its “imperfect” state, before it’s been purified. The Green Lion eats the Sun (representing perfection and Gold), causing a solar eclipse, representing the nigredo (death), the first stage of the Great Work. Amestris was created for almost exactly that reason, and it is far from “purified,” with corruption running deep into its core.
The image of the lion eating the sun appears in the show, when Ed and Ling are in Gluttony’s stomach:
There’s also the transmutation circle itself, which looks so realistic, I actually thought it was real when I first saw it online:
Here’s a real magic circle:
Real magic circles are from ceremonial magic, not alchemy, but the text around the outside of the Human Transmutation Circle does reference alchemy. The “peacock’s feathers,” the spotted panther and the green lion (as previously mentioned), the progression of black, gray, white, and red, all are metaphors for chemical reactions that are supposed to take place in an ideal alchemical procedure.
Some of the more complicated transmutation circles that appear throughout the show are also based on real designs from manuscripts. There’s this design on the wall of the Fifth Laboratory:
Here we see the Sun and Moon (more on that in a minute) and three symbols of Mercury, which represent their unification. This looked very realistic, so I did some searching and this is what I found:
It’s not exactly the same, but it’s clearly an image from an alchemical manuscript, and it’s very similar.
The designs on Ed and Al’s doors are real. The design on Ed’s door is the Kabbalistic Tree of Life as depicted by Robert Fludd in his seventeenth-century book Utriusque Cosmi:
The design on Al’s door comes from an alchemical manuscript called The Marrow of Alchemy by George Ripley (as in, the Ripley Scroll). It depicts the alchemical process:
I haven’t managed to find where the design on Mustang’s gate comes from, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that one was real, too.
One more thing I want to draw attention to is this dialogue between child-Ed and child-Al in ”He Who Would Swallow God.”
Edward: “The Sun is male, representing masculinity.” Alphonse: “The Moon is female, representing femininity.” Edward: “When the Sun and the Moon overlap, then the two genders become one.” Alphonse: “In other words, the union represents a perfect being.”
The Sun and Moon are kind of a big deal in alchemy, and they are associated with maleness and femaleness respectively. Their role in real alchemy is as the metaphorical “parents” of the androgynous Philosopher’s Stone, the perfect being:
The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.
—The Emerald Tablet
Through the “chemical wedding” of the Sun and Moon (sulfur and mercury), the Philosopher’s Stone is produced. I actually didn’t consider that a solar eclipse might be a symbol of the chemical wedding, until Ed and Al explicitly pointed it out in that episode. That’s not what an eclipse traditionally represents in alchemy (that’s the Green Lion swallowing the sun, the nigredo and dark night of the soul that follows the first chemical wedding), but I still think it makes sense.
(An image of the Chemical Wedding itself actually appears on the door to the exam room in the 2003 anime.)
Alchemy in FMA mostly doesn’t resemble real alchemy beyond those references. Real alchemy isn’t equivalent exchange — changing something into something else of equal value — but rather, metamorphosing something into a more improved version of itself. Theoretically, this would be turning “lead” into “gold,” the most base form of metal into the most perfect form of metal (as was believed). But real alchemy isn’t about chemicals, and it never really was. Real alchemy is a spiritual process, meant to transmute the soul from its “base” human state into a “perfect” spiritual state. The way to do this is to separate out the “subtle” from the “gross,” i.e. the higher spiritual self from the mundane and earthly human self, and then joining them back together so that the spiritual self purifies the mundane self. This is summarized by the Latin phrase “solve et coagula,” to dissolve and to congeal, or alternately, to separate and to bring together. FMA parallels this with its two parts of alchemy being deconstruction (solve) and reconstruction (coagula). Therefore, the character whose goals and motivations come the closest to those of real alchemists is… believe it or not… Father.
What Father wants, or at least what he says he wants, is knowledge. He wants all the knowledge in the universe. That’s what most occultists want, actually. Most occultists want to either merge with or become alike to God, although they all have different theories and methods of doing that. In FMA, the Philosopher’s Stone is an alchemical catalyst powered by human souls, but in real life, the Philosopher’s Stone is (long story short) a metaphor for the perfect being that Father wants to become. The real Philosopher’s Stone is a being that is a perfect balance of male and female, sun and moon, dark and light, human and divine. It is therefore whole and complete. As I understand it, a person who has become the Philosopher’s Stone can, theoretically, have the power and knowledge of a god whilst still being able to live on earth as a human.
By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing. So was the world created.
—The Emerald Tablet
Father’s “perfect” form is a perverse version of this ideal.
(This form gives me some very confusing emotions.)
“As above, so below” is the Hermetic Principle of Correspondence, the closest thing to a real Law of Equivalent Exchange — it is the idea that the Macrocosm (God, the Universe, Truth) reflects the microcosm (humanity), and that by affecting one, you affect the other. The goal of the alchemist is to become the Philosopher’s Stone, the place where Human and Divine meet and become one thing.
I can’t believe it took me until now to see “As above, so below” represented here. Even the episode’s title makes that obvious! But despite that blatant symbolism, there is no healthy convergence of divine and human here. Many occultists believe in something called “ego death,” which I used to think meant losing one’s individuality, which sounded a lot like being trapped in a homunculus with a torrent of other screaming souls. Only now, after watching this show, do I understand what “ego death” really means. This scene is pure ego on Father’s part:
HEAR ME GOD! I DEMAND YOU ANSWER THE CRY OF MY SOUL! COME TO ME! JOIN ME! YES, I WILL NO LONGER BE BOUND TO YOU OR YOUR CONSEQUENCES! I’LL FORCE YOU DOWN TO THIS EARTH AND INTO MY BOWELS! YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO BE ABSORBED!
—”Eye of Heaven, Gateway of Earth.”
This isn’t a genuine attempt to understand God, this is just an inferiority-superiority complex. Father doesn’t care to understand anything about God. All he cares about is himself, and acquiring power for himself. Power is all he’s after, to assuage his inferiority complex. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting power (e.g. Mustang), but godlike power to command the universe is a byproduct of having properly completed the alchemical process and become the Philosopher’s Stone. It is not the end in and of itself. “Ego” isn’t having a sense of self, it’s the inability to understand the spiritual. It’s viewing everything in a mundane lens, having all your motivations be ultimately small and petty, no matter how grand the spectacle. It’s wanting power or glory or whatnot just to make yourself feel better, but not having the self-awareness to actually admit that. The first stage of the alchemical process is nigredo, death — watching your old self die away so that it can be reborn as a better version of itself. Father never understands this, and The Truth says as much.
The Truth is a personification of the Hermetic Principle of Mentalism:
Who am I? One name you might have for me is The World. Or you might call me The Universe. Or perhaps “God.” Or perhaps “The Truth.” I am All, and I am One. So of course, this also means that I am you.
That’s basically it right there. God is All. All is God.
The reason why the Homunculus never grew beyond his days in the flask is because, despite wanting to acquire knowledge, he never actually learned anything. Trying to drag God down to Earth is sheer hubris, not because Earth is too far beneath it, but for the opposite reason — it can come down to Earth whenever it likes. It is everywhere and everything. And the Homunculus never did any of the introspective work needed to find God within himself. He tried to separate out (solve) his perceived “flaws” (the Seven Deadly Sins, i.e. the other homunculi) but did not reintegrate them back into himself (coagula), thus only completing half the alchemical process. He is neither human, nor divine, he only steals Hohenheim’s human shape and Truth’s divine power. He never broadened his thinking or improved himself mentally/spiritually, and thus can’t become alike to God. He never became more than what he is, the dwarf in the flask, and thus his Gate is blank.
Edward, by contrast, loses almost everything in attempting human transmutation (nigredo), and then accepts his own humanity at the gate of Truth (albedo), losing the ability to perform alchemy but becoming a better version of himself (rubedo) — thus, completing the alchemical process. In the end, he’s free, which is all Father wanted to be. He acknowledges that you don’t have to use alchemy or whatnot to become more than you are, because who you are is enough.
Thus, Edward becomes the best version of himself, which is what real alchemists aspired to be. He’s completed the Great Work, and therefore has no need for alchemy anymore. “That is the correct answer, alchemist!”
to all my people who dm/gm their own campaigns, remember that you're allowed to say this:
Love it when the internet seizes on something like this
listening to phil collins
I hope that all internet content is obliterated except for this video
obsessed w this. the fact that brennan is quite literally speechless.
This is the funniest addition to this post
I’m pleased to inform you that after this clip ends, Brennan immediately goes off script trying to estimate how long this took.
I CAN'T BREATHE
Maybe if Star Wars had songs by Fleetwood Mac on the soundtracks it would be better
I think about “The Chain” playing over Order 66 all the time.
Is this good?
Holy shit this edit fucks so hard oh my god-
only real 90′s parasites will remember this