#With historical context and stuff

[starcurtain]

I don't have time to give this thought the full discussion it deserves, but lord help me, I'm begging people to be able to grasp the concept of context when engaging with takes they find in the wilds of fandom spaces.

Just had to block someone I followed for a long time on twitter because I was forced to see "Yaoi can never be heteronormative because it's always two men" on my timeline, and honestly this is such a perfect encapsulation of fandom spaces' complete inability to handle nuance and keep issues inside their actual contexts that it just triggered my fight or flight response. 😂

"Masculinity [itself nothing more than a social construct] isn't inherently required for queer men or mlm relationships" and "Yaoi developed as a genre catering primarily to heterosexual women's fantasies, thus has a long history of projecting heteronormative expectations onto queer men's relationships" are both statements that can and should coexist, just like statements such as "Dismissing female characters as nothing more than fanservice undermines their narrative contributions" can and should coexist with "The designs of female characters rarely allow women the freedom to exist outside of sexual appeal to men."

If you can't consider an issue from within the full scope of its social context, you're not ready to participate in the discourse!

Please... be quiet...

[shedidntevenswear]

I enjoy discourse around pretty much everything Taylor does here in this space because I can trust that everyone involved actually knows what they're talking about and has some level of investment in the fandom, but going on more algorithm-driven sites and having to see every human who ever lived spout their opinion about every breath she takes with wild amounts of unearned confidence that they know enough to be speaking is SO EXHAUSTING like truly too many people in our family business

[saints-who-never-existed]

Y'know, one thing I really appreciated about the Scott Polar Research Institute was the emphasis placed on Inuit culture and knowledge.

There's a large section of the space devoted to Inuit artworks and artefacts, and it's the very first one you see as you enter the building proper. You can't miss it!

They also currently have an exhibition called 'Hidden Histories' which comprises additional labelling throughout the museum focusing on the skills and contributions of specific members of the wider Inuit community, as well as female figures in polar history and notable individuals like Matthew Henson.

I do think this could and should be expanded upon and pushed further in future - in some places it provides fascinating additional context for the items on display, but in others comes off a wee bit more like an afterthought.

Nevertheless, it's a fantastic start that I noted and very much appreciated!

[curioushabitforarivergod]

Pre wwii what would conditions in the orphanage Tom grew up in hsve been like? (Ie in the 1926-37 period)

Honestly, conditions would've been pretty shit. Firstly disease was rife, especially as the East End (where Wool's presumably is) was a slum throughout the Industrial Revolution and into the 20th century (with it only really changing post WWII). Tom would be familiar with stuff like mumps and whooping cough, even if he never got sick himself due to magic protecting him (as we see with Harry). But they'd also be other diseases like tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, rickets, polio and even the flu. It's likely multiple children at the orphanage would have physical disabilities due to polio maybe even with callipers (a permanent kind of splint to help people who'd suffered from polio walk). While children would often be isolated with most illnesses, it would be incredibly difficult for an orphanage to do so, and it's probable that children died as bouts of sickness and disease spread through the orphanage. Kids who were one day at dinner are gone the next.

The first legal precedent for adopting children occurs with the Adoption of Children Act in 1926, so legal adoption how we understand it today, was fairly new. Children were lined up on Sundays, washed and in their best clothes (after attending church!) for rich people to adopt, but it tended to be a way for getting free labour rather than out of an actual desire to have children to love and care for.

I'm not sure what JKR was basing her orphanage off (likely something modern), but Tom probably wouldn't have gotten his own room, even if he was considered 'insane'. There simply wasn't enough room. Children shared a dormitory, one that could be overstuffed and cramped, sometimes even with several children to a bed. Food was similar — it was a cramped long hall (almost like a smaller, horrible version of the great hall) with rows of tables and children waiting their turn for a meal. They were probably only given one or two a day; likely gruel in the morning and bread with a stew in the evening. Tom's diet would've been vegetarian because meat was insanely expensive, although he may have had meat on Christmas and potentially Sundays if the orphanage could afford it.

On that note, Tom and the other orphans would've been Christian, most likely CoE. Although Catholic orphanages did exist, Wool's is not named after a Saint and so was more likely Protestant. Tom would've gone to church every Sunday, perhaps in a chapel on Wool's grounds, although if not, it would've been at the local church. He also would've been expected to pray. He'd go to Sunday School alongside normal school (which would've been at the local public school or perhaps, if Wool's was especially large, which I don't think it was, there would've been one of the staff who could teach or they'd bring someone in). For Christmas itself, Tom would likely get an orange which was incredibly special due to his diet likely not including fruit.

Tom would've shared everything, including clothes. He probably didn't even have underwear, and may sometimes have had to wear dresses/frocks, especially when he was younger, due to a lack of clothes. These clothes would've been stiff and itchy, potentially with lice. They would've been washed once a week, as with the orphans themselves (in large buckets!), and been hung out to dry on huge lines. Depending on how many clothes there were to go round, Tom would've spent this time in underwear (although sometimes orphans didn't even have this) or in another pair of clothes that had been worn by other children hundreds of times before. It's no wonder Tom stole — he literally had nothing, not even his own clothes (and perhaps not even underwear either).

Tom would've been expected to care for children younger than him, including babies, from a very young age. Even if he didn't enjoy it, Tom would've been good with young children and it's no wonder he was able to make Head Boy at Hogwarts because of it.

The Great Depression would've made these conditions worse. Although some of the conditions would've improved over the years, the Great Depression meant that everything was more expensive. Meals were probably downsized, if not cut entirely to one a day. The amount of kids at the orphanage probably rose during this time due to parents having to abandon children, which would've been especially prevalent in the East End which, as I've mentioned previously, was just slums and dockyard. Meat probably disappeared completely from Tom's diet, even at Christmas.

All in all, Tom's early life and conditions at the orphanage were grim. Kids died around him, conditions were cramped with diseases, illness and lice, he'd not even have his own clothes, meals would be limited, he'd spend his free time looking after kids younger than him and he'd fear being adopted. The roaring twenties were shit and the thirties shitter still. Hogwarts would've been the best thing that ever happened to Tom — it's no wonder he called it his home.

[immediatebreakfast]

We shall at the first board that ship; then, when we have identified the box, we shall place a branch of the wild rose on it.

It really tells how impactful the novel Dracula was to the gothic genre which then fell down into what we call the literary vampire canon when it codified which objects, or methods a hunter needs to use to trap and kill a vampire.

So far we have:

Flowers like the wild rose, the mountain ash, the wild garlic to repell or trap.

Holy christian (catholic or orthodox) objects like the crucifix, the rosary, and the Eucharist to protect the victims.

The stake through the heart (still kept through literature), then cut off the head to kill the vampires.

Now, it's not a surprise that many of these are based on cultural rituals, or cultural folklore since Bram Stoker got the idea for writing Dracula from Emily Gerard's book on Transylvanian folklore titled "Transylvanian Superstitions".

What is reflected, and noted in this book is how despite the xenophobia baked in the narrative these methods have never failed, not even once. In a novel that is so modern for the era in which it was written, it would have been so tempting to "prove" how the ancient romanian methods to stop the supernatural were actually silly superstitions, and that whatever new method the main british characters came up with was actually the "true" method to kill them. Yet, it never happened.

It holds up the context with fortitude, and even tells that there are some things that rational science can't solve, nor explain; to tell that it's not only correct, but also responsible to refer to the cultural methods, no matter how "weird" they look while used because they do work, and have been working for centuries.

[gingermintpepper]

google, how do I get tumblr dot com to stop giving me posts about the iliad and the odyssey without blocking the tag so I can still see my very curated list of moots and follows who post about the iliad and the odyssey

[boyjoan]

special editions are usually evil imo. if you love a book you should have a yellowed, battered, crumpled second-hand copy that you hunch over with a ruler and pen

[caterpillarinacave]

Hey guys wouldn’t it be silly and funny if the museum had an exhibit on art history and part of it was a painting of Ahkmenrah’s death that would, of course, come to life with the museum. Wouldn’t that be so silly and funny?

[aph-japan]

“‘Come out, English soldier; come out here to us.’ For some little time we were cautious, and did not even answer. Officers, fearing treachery, ordered the men to be silent. But up and down our line one heard the men answering that Christmas greeting from the enemy. How could we resist wishing each other Merry Christmas, even though we might be at each other’s throats immediately afterwards? So we kept up a running conversation with the Germans, all the while our hands ready on our rifles. Blood and peace, enmity and fraternity - war’s most amazing paradox. The night wore on to dawn - a night made easier by songs from the German trenches, the pipings of piccolos and from our broad lines laughter and Christmas carols. Not a shot was fired." -Peace on the Western Front: Goodwill in No-man's Land - The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce {Smithsonian Magazine}

Hetalia ~ Episode 100 ~ Japanese Version + Germany & England

Gifs by @aph-japan {Do Not Repost or Reproduce without my Permission} {Do Not Remove Caption} {DO NOT Use my Posts for overly negative commentary} [Positive or Respectful is OK!] (Please ASK to Use)

During the first eight weeks of World War I, French and British troops stopped the German attack through Belgium into France outside Paris at the First Battle of the Marne in early September 1914. The Germans fell back to the Aisne valley, where they dug in. In the First Battle of the Aisne, the Franco–British attacks were repulsed and both sides began digging trenches to economise on manpower and use the surplus to outflank, to the north, their opponents. In the Race to the Sea, the two sides made reciprocal outflanking manoeuvres and after several weeks, during which the British forces were withdrawn from the Aisne and sent north to Flanders, both sides ran out of room. By November, armies had built continuous lines of trenches running from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier.

The Christmas truce (German: Weihnachtsfrieden; French: Trêve de Noël; Dutch: Kerstbestand) was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of the First World War around Christmas 1914. The truce occurred five months after hostilities had begun. Lulls occurred in the fighting as armies ran out of men and munitions and commanders reconsidered their strategies following the stalemate of the Race to the Sea and the indecisive result of the First Battle of Ypres. In the week leading up to 25 December, French, German and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal greetings and talk. In some areas, men from both sides ventured into no man's land on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs. There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps, while several meetings ended in carolling. Men played games of football with one another, creating one of the most memorable images of the truce. Hostilities continued in some sectors, while in others the sides settled on little more than arrangements to recover bodies. The following year, a few units arranged ceasefires but the truces were not nearly as widespread as in 1914; this was, in part, due to strongly worded orders from commanders, prohibiting truces. Soldiers were no longer amenable to truce by 1916; the war had become increasingly bitter after the human losses suffered during the battles of 1915.

The truces were not unique to the Christmas period and reflected a mood of "live and let live", where infantry close together would stop fighting and fraternise, engaging in conversation. In some sectors, there were occasional ceasefires to allow soldiers to go between the lines and recover wounded or dead comrades; in others, there was a tacit agreement not to shoot while men rested, exercised or worked in view of the enemy. The Christmas truces were particularly significant due to the number of men involved and the level of their participation—even in quiet sectors, dozens of men openly congregating in daylight was remarkable—and are often seen as a symbolic moment of peace and humanity amidst one of the most violent conflicts in human history.

-from Wikipedia's article; "Christmas truce"

"Having a gunfight on {a Holy night/timeframe} wouldn't be right." -Germany

Say what you will about "Hetalia", but this sequence was semi-based on real historical events - Real events that should be much more well known.

[sewi-li-suwi]

was talking to an older northern woman today and she said look as /luːk/ (long oo) before correcting herself to /lʊk/ (to rhyme with book) and going "oh haha that's very northern" and. :(. she was speaking with a relatively northern accent anyways and i'm just wondering how much she was watering it down due to being in her job and talking to me (a southerner)

idk. there's not a moral here, it just sucks to me that ppl (have to) change their accents so deliberately like that for professionalism, jobs, talking to others, etc. having to hide your roots for social acceptance.

and i would've loved to hear her accent at its strongest.

[redladydeath]

...You wanna see something silly?

[fathermulcahyofficial]

So guess who just learned about The Ministry of Time a couple hours ago because I received a copy 👀

[yardsards]

just read this part of the adventurer's bible and

do you think toshiro was originally attracted to falin (whilst still being irritated by many of her same traits in laios) because he thought his father would find her interesting???

[m87gallium]

A little Scooby Doo “fanart” thing heavily based off the following pic of Alaska y los pegamoides (a New Wave group from the early 80’s in Spain 😁😁😁). Retrospectively the staring at the camera reminded me of the intro shot in the original scooby doo where Velma is reading a book and is at the centre. :-)

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

writing about historical events in my dissertation but not being allowed to talk about them in depth because i do a social science now and it's ''"not relevant""

[cramenjoyer]

so crazy that medieval occult manuscripts are, like, hard to read