strix_alba | Entries tagged with rock facts

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sidhebeingbrand:

holmesianpose:

annicron:

henryiiofficial:

glitteringgoldie:

if u ever get disheartened just remember people in the 19th Century were painting hot Napoleon/Tsar Alexander boyfriend yowz before our great-grandparents were even conceived

annicron I thought of you

THANK YOU i had been thinking of this post and how to find it again

OMG IS THIS REAL????

Oh hey this one may be right up your alley? When it comes to history I am a Filthy Casual, but I do know sort of why Napoleon and Tsar Alexander’s relationship was a thing in the public collective?

So Alexander was still in his ‘young sexy aristocratic-but-liberal’ phase in the early 1800s. He runs hot and cold on Napoleon until ‘04 Napoleon straight up execute the Duke of Enghien on shoestring evidence, horrifies Europe (again), and Alexander decides to Fight this French Shit-Starting Shit-Starter with all he has.

Meanwhile Napoleon would still really, really like Russia on his side, since sweeping reform is his jam and Russia is a pain in the ass to fight let alone try to annex, so he stays as friendly to Alexander as he possibly can while fighting a war against him. He opens negotiations, gets knocked down, gets up again, etc.

Alexander is having none of it, decides it’s his divine whatever to fight Napoleon, ignores everyone who tells him ‘Yo the French might be about to kick our asses, maybe neutrality?’ To which he answers ‘no, the Prussians and I will never get our asses kicked because God and the peace of Europe and I am young dumb and invincible.’

Then Alexander does indeed get his ENTIRE ass handed to him at the Battle of Friedland (aka the rout of Friedland), and sort of sheepishly decides to make peace. Napoleon soaks Prussia for all the territory they’re worth, but he’s still got his eye on a Russian alliance and he knows that Alexander is still young (30, at the time) and has big dreams. So: instead of twisting Russia’s arm he shows up with flowers and a box of chocolates and says ‘I know we’ve had our differences but I never forgot, let’s be allies’

Which brings us to 1807 and the treaty of Tilsit, conducted on a raft in the middle of a river.

IN SUMMARY:

Young firebrand hotty

His best frenemy Napoleon, they had a Thing but Alexander tearfully swears it’s over

Alexander SOMEHOW DEFEATED? UNPOSSIBLE

Napoleon gracious in his victory

Alexander welcomed into his arms, the exes reuniting

If you’re picturing a scene in a manga I promise you so were the French propagandists. This whole making-peace-on-a-raft caught the public imagination and illustrators got very invested in the idea of this classical romantic male friendship™ between Alexander and Napoleon. Partially this was because the French really hoped that the alliance would stick because fighting in Russia -sucks- and part of it I’m pretty sure was just that people have always, always, in all of the history of mankind, been into celebrity gossip and celebrity romances.

This is why during the period you get illustrations of it ranging from ‘intense eye contact over a treaty’ to ‘passionate continental kissing’. The word ‘brotherhood’ probably got thrown around a lot. Mentions of the intense friendship pop up in a Tale of Two Cities and Lord Hornblower (written 50 and 130 years later respectively) and that’s just the books I know? The narrative stuck, is what I’m saying.

But CONTEMPORARILY:

I don’t have a lock on the French or Russian mores in the early 19th century, and I can’t tell you how many of these artists privately sketched some naked followup illustrations and how many were thinking about sanitized non!gay Greek shenanigans. My gut tells me that if collective RPF fandom had been a Thing, the super popular tropes would be ‘Napoleon saves Alexander from peril’ and ‘Napoleon nurses Alexander back to health’ with a smattering of ‘Napoleon and Alexander United take over the world and everything is perfect’ and ‘they break up but UNITE AGAIN on another raft’.

I’m also imagining an 100K epic adventure h/c fic where maybe there was a lion (yes in the middle of a Russian forest shut up guys don’t like don’t read) that kills Alexander’s horse and Napoleon singlehandedly kills it and together they make their way back to civilization while IDK being captured by a cyclops and having other unlikely adventures. 1 million hits, 60K kudos, lots of fanart.

In conclusion though: yes, for a few years there Alexander and Napoleon being bosom companions was very much a thing, though it would take a less cazh historian (POSSIBLY YOU?!) to figure whether the popular notion was SanitizedGreeks or SodomyGreeks or whether the difference particularly mattered to people at the time.

(And in the end It all kind of fell apart. Alas. #it all ends on elba, #never forgotten, #angst.)

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ihamtmus:

ekjohnston:

cogito-ergo-dumb:

sourwolf-loki-destiel-221b:

iridescentoracle:

animate-mush:

malibujojo:

pippin4242:

lulasseth:

imsorryimovedtoaidanturnerspants:

hash-tag-whatever:

Merry: confused awe

Frodo: confused awe

Sam: confused awe

Pippin: finally i’m getting the respect i deserve from these peasants

so accurate i am choking on my carrot. this is making me giggle harder than it should. I love Pippin so much.

I don’t think there will come time when I’m not reblogging this. Sorry guys.

no no no you guys don’t understand, Pippin is someone really important in the Shire! The books don’t talk about it a lot, and the movies won’t touch that stuff with a bargepole, but Pippin will be inheriting land rights to about a quarter of the Shire. He’s second in line to becoming military leader of all Hobbits. His dad is currently in charge of that stuff, but he’s completely aware of it, and educated for it, and that’s why he’s such an over privileged little shit in the books.

I thought it was a shame the movies didn’t talk about class differences in the Shire. Also puts M&P stealing food in an uglier light.

To be fair, at the time of the Party, Pippin would have been 12, which puts it back into a more acceptable light. And they’re stealing food from Bilbo, a wealthy and eccentric family member, which again makes things a bit different.

But yes, when they call Pippin Ernil i Perrianath - Prince of the Halflings - they are actually completely spot on.

And when Pippin tells Bergil “my father farms the land around Tuckborough” he’s deliberately downplaying his class so that he can greet the boy as an equal rather than a superior. It’s Pippin’s most adult moment in the series. Bergil is engaging in a status contest which Pippin can totally win - but instead chooses not to compete. Pippin is a gilded and spoiled lordling in the Shire, but he becomes a Man of Gondor.

Yeah, to add a bit of unnecessary trivia/level of preciseness, Frodo is the oldest of the four; he was born in 2968, was (obviously) 33 at the time of the Party, and so he’s 51 here. Sam’s second-oldest; born in 2980, he was 21 when Bilbo left and is 39 at this point. Merry’s two years younger than Sam, making him 18 or 19 in 3001, when the Party took place, and Pippin was born in 2990, so he was actually 10 or 11 during the Party, and during this scene they’re ~37 and ~29, respectively.

So yeah, Pippin’s the youngest by a lot. Plus, taking hobbit aging into account, he really is still in the equivalent of his teens; remember the Party was half to celebrate Frodo’s coming-of-age at 33, and Pippin’s around twenty years younger than Frodo.

This fucked me up. I didn’t read the books and in the movie it was shown like Frodo took off with the ring like 2 days after Bilbo’s gone away, but it was 17 years after that. OMFG.

i’m not sure if it’s ever been explicitly stated but the movie and book follow different timelines

in the books, bilbo leaves the shire 60 years after his first adventure, giving frodo the ring. seventeen years pass before frodo sets out on his quest

in the movies, seventeen years cannot have passed while gandalf goes all nancy drew in denethor’s basement - for one, pippin is obviously not 10 in the party scene - but the story does allow us some wiggle room - maybe a few months, even a year or two? (I DUNNO DID JACKSON EVER SPECIFY GIMMIE NUMBERS)

this also accouts for a lot of the confusion re. aragorns age following thranduils advice to legolas at the end of BOFA - in the books, aragorn is about ten during the events of the hobbit, but in the contracted movie timeline, he tells eowyn he’s eighty seven, putting him somewhere around 27+ when legolas goes off to find him

also i think i heard some messing around was done with thorins age? i dunno BASICALLY THE MOVIE TIMELINE IS CONTRACTED AND FUDGED AROUND WITH AS MUCH AS THE MOVIE MAPS dont even get me started on those

BUT BACK TO PIPPIN

so pippin does indeed become the thain, merry also become the head of his ginormous family - the master of buckland, in fact

but you know whats best of all

SAM BECOMES MAYOR OF THE SHIRE

SAMWISE GAMGEE BECOMES ELECTED MAYOR OF THE SHIRE SEVEN TIMES

k so to understand the importance of this you gotta remember that sam is poor

he comes from a poor family - so poor, in fact, that i’m fairly certain that sam was the only one of them who could read - and only because bilbo taught him. in the very first scene of FOTR, the Gaffer (sam’s dad) says

“But my lad Sam will know more about [Bilbo’s treasure]. He’s in and out of Bag End. Crazy about stories of the old days he is, and he listens to all Mr.Bilbo’s tales. Mr. Bilbo has learned him his letters - meaning no harm, mark you,and I hope no harm will come of it.

“Elves and Dragons’ I says to him. ‘Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you. Don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you’ll land in trouble too big for you,”I says to him. And I might say it to others,” he added with a look at the stranger and the miller.”

firstly im super fascinated by class divides in the shire - and there is a huge gap between the workers and the landed gentry- but not the bitter feud between proletariat and bourgeoisie of the industrial england that tolkien so despised. the poor of the shire are the poor of an idealised rustic england. there are no slums in the shire, and i imagine that the homeless vagrants (if they exist) are more akin to Wordsworth’s Old Cumberland Beggar IM SO SORRY TO BRING WORDSWORTH INTO THIS, I REALLY AM but yeah does anyone wanna talk pre industrial revolution englands social structures and how they relates to the shire cause im pretty sure thats what tolkiens aiming for here

SORRY im off topic im talking about how hella rad it is that sam becomes mayor of the shire and pippin becomes the thain and merry becomes master of buckland and between the three of them they lead the shire into a golden age of prosperity and happiness and good external relations with gondor and arnor and rohan

ALSO SAMS DAUGHTER AND PIPPINS SON GET MARRIED HA HA IM GONNA GO HIDE FOR A WHILE ITS TOO CUTE

Basically the Shire operates Perfectly (with a few notable exceptions, like Ted Sandyman and the Sackville-Bagginses), unless it is being meddled with. So while Gandalf sets up the Rangers to protect the borders (not meddling), Saruman introduces trade the Shire can’t support, imports Men and industry, and unseats those in charge (Will Whitfoot, the Mayor, is the only Hobbit who has been in the Lockholes longer than Lobelia, and during the Scouring, the first military thing Pippin does is go to Tuckborough with some Hobbiton lads and break the siege on the Great Smial so that the Tooks can help roust Sharky.

So, Hobbits have rank, but they don’t care much about it. What you do is way more important, and social mobility isn’t unheard of. The only person who ever talks down to Sam is his own father. Pippin and Merry recruit him on purpose, and Rosie (whose father is a landowner, which the Gaffer is not), is not even a BIT reluctant to marry him before he does anything heroic, just because he’s a great person.

HOBBITS, I TELL YOU. HOBBITS.

Yes, Sam’s daughter and Pippin’s son get married. And do you know what’s the name of Pippin’s son? FARAMIR.

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skunkbear:

A very furry story from the history of the space race! Khrushchev’s move strikes me as brilliant: half, “we may be engaged in a cold war, but we’re still human!” and half, “the dogs we sent to space are already having babies. How’s NASA coming along?”

Apparently, Pushinka (which means “fluffy" in Russian) was examined before arriving at the White House to check for listening devices.

Images: Daniel Mogford/Flickr, Ralphdj/Wikimedia Commons, The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library,

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fozmeadows:

hollowedskin:

derinthemadscientist:

languageoclock:

deflare:

penfairy:

Throwback to the time my poor German teacher had to explain the concept of formal and informal pronouns to a class full of Australians and everyone was scandalised and loudly complained “why can’t I treat everyone the same?” “I don’t want to be a Sie!” “but being friendly is respectful!” “wouldn’t using ‘du’ just show I like them?” until one guy conceded “I suppose maybe I’d use Sie with someone like the prime minister, if he weren’t such a cunt” and my teacher ended up with her head in her hands saying “you are all banned from using du until I can trust you”

God help Japanese teachers in Australia.

if this isnt an accurate representation of australia idk what is

Australia’s reverse-formality respect culture is fascinating. We don’t even really think about it until we try to communicate or learn about another culture and the rules that are pretty standard for most of the world just feel so wrong. I went to America this one time and I kept automatically thinking that strangers using ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ were sassing me.

Australians could not be trusted with a language with ingrained tiers of formal address. The most formal forms would immediately become synonyms for ‘go fuck yourself’ and if you weren’t using the most informal version possible within three sentences of meeting someone they’d take it to mean you hated them.

100% true.

the difference between “‘scuse me” and “excuse me” is a fistfight

See also: the Australian habit of insulting people by way of showing affection, which other English-speakers also do, but not in a context where deescalating the spoken invective actively increases the degree of offence intended, particularly if you’ve just been affectionately-insulting with someone else.

By which I mean: if you’ve just called your best mate an absolute dickhead, you can’t then call a hated politician something that’s (technically) worse, like a total fuckwit, because that would imply either that you were really insulting your mate or that you like the politician. Instead, you have to use a milder epithet, like bastard, to convey your seething hatred for the second person. But if your opening conversational gambit is slagging someone off, then it’s acceptable to go big (”The PM’s a total cockstain!”) at the outset.

Also note that different modifiers radically change the meaning of particular insults. Case in point: calling someone a fuckin’ cunt is a deadly insult, calling someone a mad cunt is a compliment, and calling someone a fuckin’ mad cunt means you’re literally in awe of them. Because STRAYA.

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copperbadge:

hotbully:

The only map that matters

True facts, I had a Distant Aunt who lived in Rough & Ready, California. It’s a quirky little town whose major claim to fame is that it once seceded from the Union for a year to avoid paying federal mining taxes.

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transtalk:

We have learned of the higher risks of cancer if a hysterectomy is not completed after five years of being on testosterone.

This is important. Read it. Especially if you have been on T for over or close to 5 years. I have felt these pains. Even just today. I have been on T for over 5 years.

Something I have learned and have tried to be less of afraid of as a trans person is that you need to put your physical health above your feelings of shame. If you’re having a serious medical concern you need to find a doctor you are comfortable with and talk to them. It’s not fun, it’s not easy to do, but it’s important for your health.