'hai gynaikes' and 'be not afraid of greatness' liner notes

[wolffyluna]

Because I like Showing My WorkTM, I have some liner notes for hai gynaikes, tois idiois andrasin hos to kyrio and be not afraid of greatness

hai gynaikes, tois idiois andrasin hos to kyrio

This a combination royalty and historical AU, based on early Medieval Europe, and the way it could be about succession, religion, and women.

Specifically the Merovingians <3 They had some weird inheritance laws. Another fun Merovingian thing, that unfortunately I did not have room to include: Merovingian kings weren’t meant to have multiple lovers. The church Frowned On This. But because of specific dynamics around inheritance, it was advantageous for kings to have a) multiple heirs b) from different families and c) ideally these families would not be powerful. So they tended to have a queen from a powerful family, while constantly having sex with random servants and slaves. (Also on occaision nuns, too!)

She doubted Schlatt’s armsmen were behind her— what armsmen did he even have at this point, Fundy?

This is both a throwaway joke and important part of the dynamic: in medieval times, at the end of the day, the person who had the real power was whoever could throw the most swords at the problem. The fact Schlatt only has One Guy implies some serious mis-management.

The window of Saint Nicholas watched over him, wearing a cloak as red as one of Tommy’s.

Did I look up the patron saints of children for this? Yes, yes I did. (I was originally going to go for the patron saint of exiles, but both of them are early modern, and thus would not be period :pensive:)

Quackity stood in the transept.

Why yes, I did look at a diagram of a Catholic cathedral while writing this, for better pretending to be hearts.

It just made sense to keep your distance from men with swords at their hip, doubly so when you’d turned them down and gotten them exiled in the bargain as well.

Look. The way swords are power (and as a woman—barring being weird and being Queen Brunhilde— you could only wield them indirectly) is important to this fic.

The statue of the Blessed Virgin loomed behind her, making the back of her neck itch.

Mary is important in this fic, as the model of Idealised Womanhood, and how Quackity cannot live up to that. (The fact that Jesus is physically present in this scene, if in the form of bread, is also important. Something that bothers me in a lot of historical fiction is that [wiggle hands] people believed, and this is super important to how people think. The Englightenment isn’t for another 1000 years! Stop time travelling people from there!)

“Look, you know there’s been no heir. No one can prove anything. No one can call Leviticus on us if we get married. It’s a win-win.”

So, medieval Catholicism had a different definition of incest than we do now. To whit: in laws are your relatives, and the thing that makes an in law and in law is having sex with their relative. Leviticus is what is usually cited as the reasoning.

A rough translation is “there’s been no heir, so no one can prove I have had sex with Schlatt, and thus in the eyes of the law, I am not related to you.” (In the eyes of God, however…)

“Wil, Wilbur, I saw you fight for that throne. I saw how bad you wanted it. I saw you court me , and I know I’ve got vast tracts of land, but I know that’s not what you wanted—”
“I wanted your vast tracts of actual land,” Wilbur said.

Look, I was legally obligated to include an alted version of “fattest ass in the cabinet.”

He’s tearing down Domum Meretricum, after all the work we— All the work I— put into building it, to make another fucking hunting forest.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Like we need another one of those more than a defendable castle.”

Assuming I have not screwed up my Latin and made a “Romans they go the house,” this means “House of Harlots” and is a reference to Casa de Putas.

Also-: leisure and masculine pursuits being placed at the expense of useful shit like “being able to have somewhere for the dudes with swords to defend.”

“That may have ended with him choking on a distaff.” Still with the fleece on it, too. It’s what he deserved.

A distaff is a tool used for spinning, specifically storing prepared fibre for spinning yarn. Two things to note: they are intensely symbolic of women (which is why the female equivalent of something is often called “the distaff counterpart” as opposed to the male “spear counterpart.”) They are also a stick that is longer than it is wide, and covered with hair.

“I will bring judgment down on them, like God brought down judgment on Nineveh!”

So, uh. God never actually struck down Nineveh. That’s an important thing that didn’t happen. It was the city Jonah was sent to warn about being destroyed, and they followed Jonah’s warning, repented and didn’t get destroyed. Jonah was Upset About This.

I chose Nineveh because referencing Gomorrah would have been tonally wrong.

But I also chose Nineveh because it is telling fuck up for Wilbur to make.

“Why not a nunnery? They’d take you.”

Inconvenient Queens getting sent to nunneries was, like, a whole thing. Sometimes it was consensual, even!

The Blessed Virgin stared down at Quackity, infant savior at her hip. Most would say her gaze was filled with love, and wasn’t the sculptor so skilled to be able to bring that out.
Quackity knew what it really was. It was the kind of piercing judgement only a mother could dish out and still call love. “I’d make an awful nun, and Wilbur— you know it.”

~~the author has so many issues about the virgin Mary, let me show you them.~~ Again, a super big thing with this fic is how Quackity cannot fit the accepted ideal for women, whether that’s being virginal or obedient or “the sort of person who would give birth to the saviour and then watch them die without setting anything on fire about it.”

Not consecrated virginity, not vows and sacrifice and holiness and staying in one building for the rest of her life.

Fun fact: you could consecrate your virginity without actually being a virgin. Widowed women with children did it sometimes.

morning gift

A gift given to a women in exchange for getting married. Given after the wedding night. Prone to creating such inheritance bullshit when it was land.

Wilbur shook his head. “I can’t, not anymore. I’ve been planning this too long, I can’t turn back now. History will ring with the names of those foes I have slain, Manburg’s blood will pour out up to my horse’s knees—” “Paint your horse’s knees in Schlatt’s blood then! Be a legendary king! Bring Manburg back to its glory.”

Have you ever heard of Chekov’s Gun, Quackity? Also, have you ever heard of the way Arthuriana tended to consider violence heroic (while adultery was the worst) and how you might play with that if you are trying to pretend to be Grace?

(Swearing to kill till your horse’s knees are covered with blood is a historical reference, I just can’t remember to what, alas.)

be not afraid of greatness

Oh, and I could make a fun hadron collider melange of [historical time periods redacted for anonymity]

Mostly Ancient Rome and the Han Dynasty, with a touch of Ancient Greece and the early Byzantine Empire for Flavour:tm:

“'Be not afraid of greatness:' 'twas well writ. ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, And some have greatness thrust upon them.'” - Malvolio, Twelfth Night , William Shakespeare

This one of those Shakespeare lines where you can emphasis ‘greatness’ with a dramatic hip thrust. This is why I chose the line. (And yes, in my desperation to find a title about the patriarchy, this was nearly called “rule by men and horses.”

Quackity swung his axe with too much force.

This is mostly referencing minecraft, but war axes were a thing! And something you would give conscripts, to boot. Though I do think they were more late Medieval to Renaissance?

the ash and stubble ground

The implication here is that they have stolen the farmland from the locals, harvested all the crops they could, and then burnt the rest to deny it to the enemy.

He was a raw recruit, picked up by the levy.

Quackity has been forced into the army as a form of tax. This is a thing that happens.

He wasn’t putting all his eggs in one bastard.

I have a confession that I probably shouldn’t make.

I didn’t write this line.

Or rather, I didn’t do it consciously.

I meant to write basket! I could have sworn I wrote basket! I was kicking myself a little for the cliché line, but I couldn’t think of anything better.

I got rather jump scared when people start liveblogging and started referencing this line.

…I’m glad you all appreciate my subconscious.

Maybe someone else in this kingdom had a face like a coin, but literally no else wore purple trim on a battlefield. He wore a bronze breastplate over it, intricately beaten into the shape of pectorals and obliques.

Look, whenever I am given the opportunity, I need to reference a) textiles, and b) the Greek and Roman muscle armour.

not some blushing falsetto ingenue.

Is a reference to the thing Quackity does sometimes when he goes Falsetto for The Bit

The Emperor laughed, loud enough to scare the crows hanging out at the edge of the camp.

:musical_note: We don’t think about the dead people on this battlefield, no no no, we don’t think about the dead people—:musical_note:

It still had those stubborn soot marks from that time someone had tried to burn it down, and the old cherry wood had been replaced with obsidian.

Reference to Niki burning down the flag, and getting it replaced with obsidian. Obsidian was also an important trade good, though not as much as it was in the Neolithic.

His thighs and ass went tense against his own weight. For a minute, it didn’t hurt.

Please everyone say thanks to my gluteus maximus for the suffering I went through as I tried to work out from first principle if wall sits involve them. (Yes.)

Started singing a silly army tune — gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWgsdexkv18

He painted on orange to cover the bags. Schlatt liked paint, he just didn’t know it.

This is both because you know it in your hearts, Schlatt would be that Doesn’t Like Makeup Guy. But also, favourites wearing a lot of make up, and people complaining about it: totally a thing in the Han Dynasty!

If you were clever and lucky and wrapped people round your little finger, a favorite could outlive his Emperor.

Look, I love-love-love the bullshit power dynamics Emperor’s favourites get. They have the direct ear of the Emperor! But it’s also reliant on the Emperor not getting bored of them! And while nobles don’t have that direct ear, they have more :bug: resources and stability.

He kept smiling, like he could distract Schlatt with his teeth.

Your Author is Not Immune to Quackity Smile