#andy meta

[psychotrauma]

we all laugh at horse girl andy but she is genuinely nearly a thousand years older than the the earliest archaeological evidence of domestication (in the botai culture in kazakhstan in 3500 BCE) because she is at least 6,500 years old and tracing back to the botai  and other kazakhstani sites, it would leave 1,000+ year gap. she definitely had a formative hand in the domestication of the horse especially as a nomadic steppe individual. she also likely would have come from a sredny stog (circa. 4,500 to 3,500 BCE), dnieper-donets (circa. 4-5th millennium BCE) or khvalynsk cultures (circa. 5,000 to 3,500 BCE), to be realistic, as they are found to be europoid (and thus most likely to be close to what we would consider the same facial features and skin tone as Charlize Theron).

however, the sredny-stog culture has the earliest archaeological evidence of phase 2 (around 4,000 to 3,500 BCE) of horse domestication in the form of cheek pieces but no explicit horse riding at this time. it’s possible she grew up with horses as mainly for use to transport foods but there’s also the possibility she could have been some of the first people to actually ride a horse. who’s to say! but i do know she’s the OG horse girl and writing he as such isn’t far fetched because quite a lot of steppe and nomadic cultures were heavily involved in horses in the rituals and their cultures, to the point that they had explicitly horse based names, as seen with a lot of Greek names. 

TL;DR: write andy with horse experience she has nearly 6,000 years of it and her life would have been revolving around horses for a very, very long time. 

[psychotrauma]

on a serious note though :’) horses as a love language that existed between andy and yusuf due to their upbringing with (for yusuf with a lot of maghrebi families and tribes being the progenitors and keepers of the arabian horses) and extreme proximity to (for andy, due to being ~1000 years old around the beginning of the move of the Eurasian nomads to domesticate plains horses) them. nicky doesn’t much care for them but sebastien always enjoyed them during his upbringing on a farm and even in Napoleon’s Grand Armies. Sebastien is a bit clumsy with them for the first 300 years of his life but following his exile, Yusuf makes the effort to take him with him for a trip to Maghreb and to immerse in some horse culture. 

Horses become a love language of andy to yusuf to sebastien once she’s gone. they always make a trek on horse back across what would have been some of the routes the nomads would have taken every 15 or 20 years and remember her in a way that she would have liked to have been remembered. on horseback and with the expanse of asia and europe ahead. 

[psychotrauma]

Hi, I was pointed in your direction for help with the question, "If Andromache of Scythia had a favorite horse breed--circa 12th century AD in the Mediterranean--what would that horse breed be?" Any research sources that you can point be at would be much appreciated, thank you in advance. (I did a quick skim of your blog but didn't see any posts right away that would answer this question, apologies if I missed it.)

That’s absolutely no problem! I have some information for you!

if you’re looking to have her in west asian countries, your best bet for a favourite horse breed would be the Mongolian Horse, which is a hardy mountain pony/horse that has been acclimatized and bred for the steppes and mountains of Mongolia. it has remained unchanged since around the era of Genghis Khan, and as such is always a reliable and sturdy stock carrying companion and ridden equine. they are also believed to be a founding stock for many european, asian and north african-middle eastern breeds. these animals specifically were used by the mongols for their campaigns against western europe.

now if you’re thinking about a more european based breed i would choose the Yakutian horse. they’re a native russian breed found in the yakutia area/siberian sakha republic and they’re a similar horse to that of the Mongolian horse (they likely descend from originally Mongolian horses) but they have specifically been bred to survive harsh winters (of recorded -70 degrees celsius without shelter) and have developed the ability to graze under heavy snow fall which is always handy when moving through the Little Ice Age as what you’re writing about!

now a MENA based breed around that time would be the Barb horse which is a horse breed that has been kept and bred by the Amazigh peoples of the Maghreb, specifically for the use in desert and heavily sanded areas of north africa. they’re hard, can collect well (which means they can carry more weight easier) and are a desert acclimatized breed, which is useful when moving through the MENA and up into Central Asia. There’s also a high likelihood of Joe having experiences with these horses too, especially as a trader during that era which is a fun fact! They’re also bigger than the previous two breeds, ranging from 14.2 hands to 15.2 hands, where as the Yakutian averages 13.2 and 14 hands for mares and stallions respectively and the Mongolian ranges from 12 to 14 hands. 

(Horses in the pictures for Barb horses are seen in racing fantasia gear)

[psychotrauma]

i simply think about how andy and booker just have this relationship and it’s like the epitome of the “teach a man to fish and he’ll feed his whole community” saying. awaken andy out of nihilism and despair and it has a positive trophic cascade through to booker and in turn to joe and nicky and nile and so on. she takes the self awareness she gains, canonically, and passes the technique on to booker, in however little she did but she did. the guard are an ecosystem and andy and booker are fig trees being smothered by strangler vines, which is nihilism and grief and depression and addiction, and no longer producing figs but nile and the copley boards are a person who has come and poisoned the strangler vines. they dont die and drop off immediately but their vice like grip is loosening, they’re no longer taking away vitality and life. the trees are recovering. 

the figs are growing again, even if there’s no one there to see them. there’s still life to be had.

[psychotrauma]

I want you to know that I followed you for your high quality gilgamesh enemies-to-lovers shitposts and also your insightful analysis of what Andy's proto-indo-european name should be

basically, i’m writing a little horse magic au because i’m a clown like that and a lot of Proto-Indo-European personal names were heavily horse based and were the origin of a lot of Greek naming tendencies (i.e. names like Hipponikos (which means literally “horse victory” but one can assume it would mean “victory with/on horses”) and Hippocrates (which means “horse power”)) and as such i’ve gone with a pretty basic, but straight to the point compound name for Andy which is: H₁éḱwos-*Ḱléwos. 

this is means basically “horse fame”, which in turn can be extrapolated to “(whose) horses bring fame” which lines up with my headcanon/fic canon that andy’s mother’s family/tribe paid a bride dowry and it was of good quality work horses prior to her death. Proto-Indo-European societies were heavily based around horses and even the societies that andy could chronologically be attributed to, horses were heavily involved in their society, their culture, their religion and their daily life through pack animal working, animal sacrifice and likely milking prior to their full domestication and use for horseback riding. 

nomadic tribes especially would be reliant on their horses for movement, trade, food and status symbology, especially with regards to their religious (*déiwos worship) equine sacrifice. if one did not have horses, one could not exact the kinship connection and would thus lose their connection to their broader family and culture. 

anyways, this dragged on way too long sorry about that but yeah. it’s not the most intelligent but it serves the purpose for my fic and i wouldn’t hesitate to use it for canon stuff either, as andy (at least in the comics) was directly related to the chieftain of her tribe and as such would be heavily involved with the social and cultural aspect of keeping bands of horses. 

[psychotrauma]

Andy early in life identify fighting with masculinity and being a man and subconsciously found a way to fight the gender dysphoria and that’s why she never seems to stop fighting, not for 6700 years

[psychotrauma]

my favourite thing is thinking about how joe would have been a horse rider prior to his first death and would have known a lot pre-dissemination horse riding moves especially for cultural reasons (i.e. fantasia) and was riding barb horses that were 14.2 to 15.2 hands high as seen here in fantasia garb 

and then there’s andy who’s spent thousands of years on the steppes and plains playing buzkashi and riding 12-14 hand high mongolian horses seen here even as a tall lady 

so the massive difference is ALWAYS hilarious to me 

[psychotrauma]

andy is a trans man [crowd boos] andy is a trans man and comes to terms with being gay [crowd boos louder] trans man andy choosing to transition as much as he can through modern medical means, with the guard researching ways to help solidify transitional changes with the healing not reversing them [crowd pelts me with rotten tomatoes, callout posts are made]