#Pseudo-irish

[la-belle-histoire]

Guinevere and Iseult: Cartoon for Stained Glass, William Morris. 1862.

[trans-cuchulainn]

trying to read a new book i bought but every time the characters swear by danu i experience a violent but imperceptible-to-outsiders full body flinch so i haven't got very far through it, it's like they're trying to hurt me personally

[scalpelsister]

I want to talk more about my oc x shadowheart but I simply do not know how to put any of my feelings into words. instead i can offer a playlist that makes me extremely mentally unwell <3

[ofcowardiceandkings]

nother tangent with a ridiculous source and conclusion

i hadnt thought of TP Link having an Ordonian accent for a long time (its been literal years since i last played TP) but it got me thinking like, if Link in BotW was actually from Hateno would he have a bumpkin/provincial accent too fbsjd

i jusy brought this up with a pal and we agreed that yes and bumpkin Link is superior in all its forms, but since i really got kickstarted back into Zelda content & community as a whole through an Irish youtuber and streamer, i literally cannot hear BotW Link's dialogue as anything but slightly put-out Irish lad now lol

im not mad about it either

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[mochinomnoms]

Bruh if Jade does manage to knock Yuu up with Irish twins after normal ones how done do you think Ace and Deuce will be. "Oh yeah sure we'll watch the kids this weekend for you!"

"I swear to the seven if you come back with any more."

-Yuri

Yuriiii, your brain is so big omgggg

First off, major kudos to Deuce and Ace if they have their lives together enough that Yuu and Jade trust them to babysit, lmao. Those boys are a train wreck, but we love them anyways!

They're happy for Yuu during their first pregnancy, all their friends are, and they're not surprised that they got twins on the first try. As Yuu's closest friends, Ace is a fun uncle and Deuce rather doting, and both become the twins' godparents shortly after their birth. Jade does ask that Ace please stop from making “The Godfather” jokes, they're not funny.

It's three weeks after the twins are born that Ace and Deuce come by to the shared cottage to watch the kiddos, while Jade takes Yuu out to a nice hot spring to relax and recuperate. At least, that was the original plan; but Jade suddenly remembered the little promise they made him before they first got pregnant, and the two have a little more fun at the springs for a few hours before returning home. But the two uncles are never the wiser and head off. So imagine their, and everyone else's surprise, when Yuu and Jade announce two weeks later that they're expecting. Again. Already.

Yuu deals with a few angry phone calls from their pseudo parents, Crewel and the school nurse, yelling at them about using protection. Crewel very specifically compared them both to rabbits, and begged that you don't let Jade touch you again for at least 3 months after this next birth. No one is surprised when you have another set of twins, just mildly concerned. Same as last time, Yuu gives birth to their twins (miraculously) with no major issues. The doctors do have them stay on bedrest for an extra week, just to keep an eye out for any complications. Jade's beaming with happiness, the now 10-month-old twins babbling happily over their new siblings.

Once Yuu and the twins are able to go home, Jade's parents asked for a quick visit with the new babies. Good uncles/godparents they are, Ace and Deuce babysit the older twins again.

As Yuu is leaving the house with Jade, each carrying one of the newborns, Ace is grabbing them by the arm and giving them a stern glare.

“Please, for the love of the Red Queen, do NOT get frisky with him. You do not, I repeat, do NOT need another set of twins for at least another year. I cannot mentally handle babysitting two pairs of babies. The D cannot be that good, man.”

Yuu laughed as Ace whispered that last part to them, waving him off as they promised to not have any more surprises. Jade hears, of course. So is it a surprise when he very much uses his parents as an excuse to take them away and see if they can try for triplets this time.

(For Yuu's sake, and Crewel's mental sanity, let's hope that it doesn't take this time… or do! Maybe Yuu's into that, hehe~)

[handweavers]

reading about english poet robert graves and the crazy sex cult polycule built around him and his wife sexually worshipping his american jewish mistress laura riding as a pseudo-religion and how he threatened to kill their fourth (some irish guy) when he tried to run away. and their fourth came back but would only fuck graves' wife so laura riding tried to kill herself by jumping out a window and graves jumped out after her (???) and then they ran away to spain together for a decade. also i think it's kind of funny that he was like exclusively gay until he served in world war 1 and got shell shock and he found out his boyfriend was cheating on him when said boyfriend got arrested for trying to fuck a canadian soldier on the western front and had a mental breakdown, then postwar started sleeping with masculine women and became obsessed with them and there's no mention of him sleeping with men again. all of that stuff reads as an entertaining level of psychosexual dysfunction until the part where he cheated on his 2nd wife with a 17 yr old girl when he was in his 50s as which point his 'sexuality' wikipedia subheading stops being intriguingly insane and just becomes gross. what the hell did i just read

[esteemed-excellency]

ohh I'm very curious, i *think* i know what a folly tower is, but I'm not certain! would you mind explaining please? (and maybe how this thies in witb hiram specifically?)

Of course! A folly in architecture is a building constructed for decorative purposes, there's not a precise definition in terms of scale or design, even if by modern standards the buildings are usually small, they can be gloriettes, fake ruins, artificial grottos, towers, etc. They became a trend in english and french landscape gardens during the 18th century and the term began as "a popular name for any costly structure considered to have shown folly in the builder" (quoting the Oxford English Dictionary's definition from wikipedia).

Overall they're very fun and interesting ornaments but towers in particular have their own value as landmarks, viewpoints, or historical constructions (like the irish "famine follies"). I personally like the liminal aesthetic they convey, given that they were often placed in the middle of nowhere, and the convoluted effect of some bigger constructions.

[Hadlow Tower (Kent) / Broadway Tower (Worcestershire) / Pontypool Folly Tower (Wales) / Scrabo Tower (Northern Ireland) / La Scarzuola (Italy) / The Swallow's Nest Castle (Crimea)]

In Fallen London, the Edict of Towers is an abandoned location between Hell and Parabola (reachable via Marigold Station), described as a maze of mirrors, walls, towers, turrets, and parapets. It was an ancient defence of Hell but it's empty now, and people risk getting lost between the Is and the Is-Not trying to navigate it. So, because i'm a huge sucker for cursed escherian labyrinths, i decided that it would be the perfect place for Hiram's parabolan base.

The halls of mirrors tie in with some descriptions of Is Someone There?, and the battlements fit the theme of A Game of Chess, which are Hiram's main dreams and nightmares. They're also perfectly on brand with the pseudo-medieval aesthetic of the Red Court.

Also, the vibe reminds me of a mix between surrealist/metaphysical paintings and the XII century italian tower craze:

[Almayer's Folly - René Magritte / The Red Tower - Giorgio De Chirico / reconstruction of Bologna during the 1200s / a depiction of San Giminiano during the 1200s/1300s by Taddeo di Bartolo]

[lyinginbedmon]

Over the years I've gotten pretty cosy with the idea that I'm some kind of fae creature living in human society, and it's the rampant colonisation and industrialisation and wildlife devastation that has left me with So many problems and shortcomings.

But I don't think just being in nature would "fix" me. No "cottagecore" lifestyle is going to make my life any better, if anything it'd actually be even worse (see: cottagecore as incredibly ableist and classist and at least occasionally even colonialist and white nationalist).

This is because my limits aren't set by just "not being in nature", they're the result of the very foundations of human society. They're the result of failings in accessibility, equality, and economic structure. And as a fae creature, interaction w/ humans is where I absolutely thrive, being that bridge between the realms mundane and fantastic. Fae have always been a pseudo-reflection of humans spawned from the wild nature just beyond their territory, so of course we're more in the middle than on either side.

So if I'm to be "fixed", society has to be reconstructed.

Modern society needs to recognise its hubris, it needs to recognise that disability is one bad misfortune (or many small ones) away from any single person, regardless of station. It needs to care for one-another more. As an Irish (heritage) fae, it's my duty to be their teacher, to remind them of their flaws.

And if it does that, I probably still won't be "fixed", my medical and neurological issues won't go away, they just won't be a problem I need to worry about anymore.

And nor will any human with them either.

The bridge will just be accessible.

[a-roguish-gambit]

I am OBSESSED with your turn of the century AU. OBSESSED. Foaming at the mouth. Any fun Hank stuff from the AU? Does he ever gaslight people about being Bigfoot like he did in that one episode of Evo?

Thank you!!!

Hank has a degree in medicine and chemistry. He kinda left the greater scientific community disillusioned though because of the focus being placed on pseudo scientific thought and disregard burgeoning discoveries due to who they were coming from. This was before he had his full furry awakening thankfully.

He traveled the world for a while with some anthropologists to study medicine in other areas of the world and test what worked and what was placebo. As a result he's become quite the aficionado for different kinds of teas and herbal drinks, as well as foreign translated works. Jubilee enjoys hanging out with him because he has a few records in her mother's native mandarin to listen too when she's feeling home sick for California.

Speaking of he has a large collection of wax records he's slowly trying to get transferred into disc records to preserve them. In the early days of records you could make your own at home out of wax cylinders. When he was traveling he made a lot of people singing in their native language as souvenirs. They are fragile so he doesn't play them much unless forge is helping get them transfered. He had the ones in students native tongues transfered first so they could listen to them and not have to worry about damage from repeated playback.

He still keeps in touch with a few of his contemporaries but doesn't go to events anymore for obvious reasons. Curie is a good friend of his, as was Booker T Washington, though not a scientist. He also personally met Mark Twain which is something he brags about.

He doesn't pretend to be bigfoot, he does pretend to have been a yeti when he was in tibet.

Also due to the time period he is a first generation Irish immigrant. He has a little bit of an accent.

[cthulhusstepmom]

As promised here's a quick guide to the Fae lore I'm using in my Fae!Soap au, most of it is based on some folklore somewhere but there are parts that are exclusively my invention which I'll specify.

The fae are essentially immortal creatures that can split their time between our world and the Other World.

Things that repel fairies: wearing an article of clothing inside out, salt circles, some talismans, horseshoes(if the fae is of the Unseelie Court or has ill intent to your person), tying knots in your hair, etc

Some things depend on the type of Fae(regional differences, what court of Fae they are, where they stand in the hierarchy): most fae are repelled by bread but Scottish fairies love the stuff and accept it as preferred offerings, bells will chase off members of the Unseelie court as well as any Fae that harbors ill intentions towards you (Seelie fae will sometimes wear bells), compliments and gifts have a 50/50 chance of being an effective repellent.

They are beholden to the laws of hospitality, names, invitations etc

Never ever accept a gift from a fae as it is an invitation into your space and they will take full advantage of it.

Iron, specifically in a shape of significance, will protect you from the powers of the Fae and will repel their touch.

Unless I specifically strike it down it's pretty much all folklore accurate

From here down is all my own lore that I've made.

Now gifts in this universe, this little bit is entirely my own thing. (I didn't find much folklore about people wanting to bone the Good Neighbors beyond the occasional pretty boy stolen by a fairie queen). Gifts can be taken by the fae in question one of these ways: they'll find offense in it and leave you alone, they'll accept it as an offering and stick around(mostly in actual folklore this applies to Brownies in Scottish and Irish tradition), or (in specifically Soap's case because I don't think any other member of the Fae would ever allow a human to court them and homeboy is down bad) they'll take it as a courting gesture.

Fae courting is a rather understated affair, a gift is given and amiably received and then they're officially an item. It is highly unusual for most of the Fae to be monogamous and they'll usually drift from partner to partner during their long lives. It is somewhat more common for stricter monogamy to be observed among royalty and they'll more often choose one partner for life.

When Fae mate they essentially have a ton of sex and release magical energy into the world at large, this magic will latch onto a plant and develop the plant spirit into an autonomous fae spirit over time in a pseudo-gestational period. When the spirit of the new fae has fully matured, the magical energy that has been stored within the plant converts into their body and they are born as a functioning, if like basically a baby in most ways, adult. These new fae are sheltered in the Otherworld for the first several hundred years of their existence.

While they don't really die of old age or sickness there are a few things that can kill and injure them. Direct contact with Iron, severe physical wounds(getting shot in vital areas or having limbs removed), Bleach and some other chemicals, etc.

They are omnivores however they cannot process grains, preservatives, or cooked meat very well. They are immune to natural toxins though there are a few herbs that they find distasteful and avoid.

These are some of the major tenets and mainly just my specific lore, there's definitely more and if anyone has specific questions just shoot me an ask or a comment and I'll get you.

@cr4shposts

The reason the subtext is weird is because I completely made that part up lol

[eowynstwin]

would y’all hate it if the reader character for the soap fic was a little more defined, details-wise? I have in the draft that her blushing is visible—which I know can take readers with darker skin tones out of immersion—but I really want to keep that detail in for my own gratification, since this fic is more intensely self-indulgent than the other stuff I’ve written.

I’ve been treating this reader as a pseudo-OC in conversations with friends so it’s a little harder for me to reduce certain characterizing details, too. If I made a note in the chapter headings about the reader’s traits, would that be a good compromise for y’all? I don’t plan to describe her exact skin, hair, or eye colors, mind you. All I really have are that this reader is very blushy, Irish, has enough hair to grab, and is thick leaning towards fat.

Thoughts?

[hazelcephalopod]

Liam: I will be using an Irish accent. Many in fact!

also. Is Serenity Isle Faireworldian Ireland or just got a lot of pseudo-Irish settlers?

[irelandseyeonmythology]

I have been trying to find an answer online but I can't quite find what I'm looking for, if you don't mind can you help provide some insight?

Basically my question is did the medival people of Ireland honest to god believe in pseudo historical texts like the Book of invasions and related traditions. Like they believed in 6 waves of people coming to ireland under Christian cosmology.

Or was this more of a literary tradition for generally understood to be fictional or not quite accurate stories?

So it's been. Months. But if it's any consolation, this DID thoroughly haunt me!

I also cleared it with a colleague of mine who does work on like. Medieval Irish conceptions of history, so it's been vetted by Someone Who Is Not Me, at least the rough outline (I am NOT showing them my Tumblr, god forbid.)

And...for the most part? Yeah. They did. They sometimes argued FIERCELY over little details, like the Tuatha Dé coming in a cloud of mist or whether or not they burned their ships, or whether they were doing it to get away from Lugh. They cited texts that they thought were particularly authoritative, like the Holiest of the Holies, the now-lost Cín Domma Snechtai, they refuted other scribe's suggestions, sometimes very aggressively. I mean, you have scholars into the 20th century believing in this, at least to some extent or another, like Eoin MacNeill in his Phases of Irish History (1919) or T.F. O'Rahilly in his Early Irish History and Mythology (1946). Obviously not in terms of like. The Tuatha Dé as a supernatural race of people, but in the sense of what might best be described as extreme euhemerization, using these medieval texts as a way of trying to unveil a lost Irish pre-history. (It goes without saying this is NOT my approach and not how most of us approach the field, but it was quite common decades ago.)

Geoffrey Keating, in the 17th century, would write his History of Ireland, which used LGE as one of its key pieces of evidence in his attempt to hit back against less than savory accounts by anglophone scholars, of Irish history. "LOOK at our history, LOOK at our glorious past, LOOK at what we can do." It's imminently sympathetic, honestly. (Though Geoffrey shouldn't be taken to be credulous -- he explicitly says that Cath Fínntragha, for example, was not to be taken as a true historical account.) There's a bit, perhaps slightly amusing by modern standards, in his prologue where he says, "Cambrensis [Gerald of Wales], who undertook to give a correct account of everything, appears to have received a medley of fables from some dunce or blind man, for he has said nothing of the conquest of the Tuatha-De-Dananns, who possessed Ireland one hundred and ninety-seven years, during which time nine kings of their nation rules the island."

This is a man who does, firmly, believe in what he's saying and in the veracity of the sources that he has. We also see LGE and the pseudohistorical scheme in general being adopted by Keating's contemporaries, such as Dubhaltach mac Fhirbhisigh (Leabhar na nGenealach) and Roderic O'Flaherty (Ogygia), some of the best scholars of their day and men who...this is my bias speaking, but I trust them. Especially Dubhaltach. I don't have my copy to hand, but the way he speaks about his sources, the way that he's willing to argue with them even as he includes them in his work...I believe him. Or. Let me rephrase that. I believe that HE believed in what he was saying, and I believe in his integrity as a scholar. They're men who absolutely have an angle! But they're men who are using the sources that they have to defend their country from some truly awful slander using the best materials they have at the time, as methodically as possible.

Charles O'Conor, one of the, in my opinion, crucially overlooked scholars of the 18th century, a man who the field owes a massive debt to for his activism and his large collection of manuscripts (some of which, through a story I'll tell sometime if anyone's interested, become the Stowe Collection), was skeptical, saying that Keating's work, "Is a most injudicious Collection; the historical part is degraded by the fabulous, with which it abounds. Keating was one of those laborious Readers, who, in making Extracts, do it without Selection or Discernment; and suchWorks (as the judicious Mac-Firbis observes -- ought never to be published." Personally, while I appreciate boosting Dubhaltach and his work, I think he's too harsh on Keating. It's very easy to judge someone's scholarship when you're living a century ahead of them. He is much more skeptical than Keating, trying to compare native sources up against other contemporary histories of Europe, but he DOES still use LGE as a vital source -- he doesn't discount it or its invasion scheme entirely. He is still very much treating it as a historical document, albeit one that he doesn't fully believe in. (Especially since he's kind of fighting with James MacPherson, of Ossian fame. Because apparently getting into massive public debates with people whose work is enjoying a lot of popularity and that we think involves shoddy research is a time honored tradition in the field.)

But there is a reason why it gets picked up, even into the 20th century, because when you've had your history continually belittled and marginalized, when your language has been driven to the point of near extinction, when you are constantly told that you don't HAVE anything worth being proud of, not compared to the Grand History of England or the classical tradition, that you're a nation of barbarians and beggars...of course you want to believe in it. Of course you want to believe that you can salvage SOMETHING. Especially since these are your ancestors saying it. Your ancestors, reaching across this seemingly insurmountable chasm of time, telling you "look, this is your history." Do I think everyone in medieval Ireland agreed with it? Probably not. There was probably at least one person who was like "well...do we KNOW, though?" In the same way as there were very likely people who thought "King Arthur...did he exist?" Or those oddballs in the modern day who claim the Roman Empire didn't exist. There are always going to be people who are a little skeptical, even of what are the generally accepted truths of a certain time period, but I would say that in general? The trend we see is broad belief, because this is the best historical source that people had for centuries -- they had no reason to strongly doubt it, even if they argued over the details.

[marieisnothere12]

the mythology pipeline is real i was like in 5th grade and read pjo ans then kane chronicles and then magnus chase and then song of achilies and then circe and them the illiad and them the odyssey and for some reason i know about the ulster cycle i should read the aeneid maybe thr biblotheca (pseudo-apollodorus) i might try the achilleid or little illiad. Atp im just gonna read the entire epic cycle and some others. Where do i read on more irish mythology???

[thejoyofseax]

Taking on a Protégée

I have now been a Pelican for slightly over a year. Apart from the polling on who else should be elevated, pretty much everything about being a peer is a matter of tradition and local expectation - very little is set down in writing. But one of the things that most peers do (and which I feel is most of if not the whole point of peerages) is take on specific students. For Pelicans, these are conventionally called protégé(e)s.

On November 18, AS 58 (2023 CE), at Ilchomórtas Coróineád Insulae Draconis, the Principality Crown Tourney, I took on Gabrielle of Dun in Mara as a dependent. We had a ceremony between court and feast, which was well attended by noble witnesses.

The image above shows the text of her indenture, which is derived directly from my own indenture with Genevieve la flechiere. The hand is my own pseudo-calligraphic scrawl, based on the cló gaelach - it's not authentically medieval, but for a working document in English which represents the Irish persona, it'll do. This was cut in two along a jagged line in the gap in the middle, and we each have one part. The seals on it already are marked with the House of Green ivy, and we'll add some Pelican seals in due course. The ceremony also included a reading of the lineage, which stretches back several generations to Merowald Sylveaston, knighted in AS VI.

Gabrielle and myself listening gravely to Master Agnes reading the lineage.

And the actual homage bit.

Gabrielle now has the yellow belt I wore for years, and once she has settled on her own arms, she'll add those above mine, Genevieve's, and the chequey pattern that represents Brand, Genevieve's pelican. I'm still not used to wearing a different belt, so seeing her now wearing "mine" is a bit strange. I reckon it'll settle in after a bit, though.

Gabrielle has already stepped up as Chatelaine for Dun in Mara, so her career is off to a good start. I'm extremely pleased with her.