#but it was the only one my local historical society had

[i-like-old-things]

Ferris Bueller who?

(Historic edition)

[larryfanfiction]

Historical Girl Direction

🎀 The Sweet Yoke by little_obelia @littleobelia (1k, T)

Harry prays to Mother Mary, Undoer of Knots, to send a healer to attend to the Order's ailing hens. Mother Superior consults the blessed yellow pages and finds Tomlinson, L., a local veterinarian.

🎀 Oh Valley Girl by LadyLondonderry @londonfoginacup (3k, G)

Out past the rolling hills and the churning sea sits a little fishing village, nestled in a valley where its residents are protected from the elements, as well as from the outside world as a whole. Harry lives in this little fishing village, and she loves nothing more than feeling the earth beneath her and seeing the sky above her and sometimes dreaming of adventure. Then one day a ship arrives.

🎀 Too Great a Temptation by QuickedWeen @becomeawendybird (5k, G)

Harry and Louis attend a fancy dress ball.

🎀 In a Little Bit of Trouble by QuickedWeen @becomeawendybird (5k, T)

Agent Louis Tomlinson is in hot water and finds help in the most unlikely of places: the sweet waitress at her local automat.

🎀 Hoist the Colours High by Kerasines @justlarried (5k, M)

They’re facing each other, closer now, so close, cut off from the world completely, or at least it feels that way. The blanket cages them in, blocks out the moonlight, dulls the sound of the wind, the sea, and the birds coming from outside. The air is hot and musky, but she thinks she could stay under this blanket forever. It’s their own little universe, in here, shared breath and shared heat and shared time. Or: A Girl Direction Pirates of the Caribbean AU featuring Harry as Will Turner, Louis as Elizabeth Swann, swords, and my obsession with girls in men's period clothing.

🎀 Only You (Blue Always Stays True) by BeautifulWisdom @justanotherghostblr (11k, M)

Regency AU. Lady Harriet falls for her sister's best friend the elusive Alpha Lady Louise who couldn't possibly return her tender feelings. Or could she?

🎀 Withdrawal Was the Weeping by QuickedWeen @becomeawendybird (11k, E)

Confined by life and society, Harry spends her Sunday afternoons walking aimlessly about the countryside as it's her only source of freedom. One Sunday she is aided by the most beautiful woman she has ever met, but not everything is as it seems. Was it a trick of the light? Was it Harry's own active imagination? There is nothing to do but try to find her again.

🎀 Harriet and Louise by Blaaake @newleafover (29k, E)

There’s nothing Harriet can do to alter the world, but she can make Louise laugh. A regency-era girl direction AU

🎀 The Changer and the Changed by homosociallyyours @homosociallyyours (59k, M)

It’s the spring of 1977 and Harry Styles has just moved to New York City after graduating college. She knows she’s a lesbian. She just needs to figure out how to meet other lesbians. Louis Tomlinson works at a popular women’s bookstore in the Lower East Side, Womon’s Direction, where she spends her days reading feminist literature, writing poetry, exchanging friendly barbs with her boss Niall, and dreaming of finding someone to love. When Harry and Louis meet, their connection is instantaneous. Slowly but surely, Louis welcomes Harry into her community of women. Stonewall veteran and old school butch Niall; Liam, a land dyke who’s moved to the city for love; and Zayn, a lesbian musician who’s been ostracized by a vocal part of women’s community for being trans, welcome Harry with open arms, ready to help her find her place in New York City’s bustling lesbian scene. It’s a time of growth for everyone involved.

🎀 into the great wide open by mixedfandomfics @ficshl (69k, T)

It only took a week or so for Harry to truly get into the routine of life on the road. They woke before dawn each morning, ate a small meal, packed up the tent and rounded up the livestock, all before setting out. On a good day, they could make it twenty miles. There hadn’t been many bad ones, but Louis confessed that on a previous trip there had been a solid week where they hadn’t made it more than five miles a day. Soon, Louis promised, animals would start going lame, and wheels would start breaking, and people would start going hungry. The beginning was the easiest, and the end was doable only because the hope of finishing the trek fueled everyone. It was the middle bit, with the tedious marching hundreds of miles from any settlement, that people succumbed to the journey.

🎀 Among Lavender Fields by homosociallyyours @homosociallyyours (70k, E)

At twenty-one, Louis Tomlinson is more than ready to shed the girl next door image that's been with her since her entry into film in her childhood, but with a mother and father steeped in Hollywood tradition it's felt impossible. Meanwhile, Harry Styles is a young, struggling musician new to London, friendless yet eager for the next phase of her life to begin. When French director Marie Coutard casts the two of them in her film, it's a chance for both to break away from the people they've been. Together, they struggle through an acting process that's new and unfamiliar for both of them, learning more than they could've imagined about themselves along the way. As they spend long days picking lavender and long nights sharing the things they've never been able to tell anyone else, their love blooms. Will the flower fade, or will the love they make among lavender fields be one they carry with them to the end?

[lsdoiphin]

Hares, as you may already know if you've been following my better half @broncoburro or @forevergoldgame (if you're following neither, you're missing huge amounts of context for the setting!), are nothing like the hares of the real world. They are massive leporids from Northern Vestur and one of the few meurian animals remaining after a historic event known as the Great Hunt where humans wiped out most of the planet's remaining meurian species in order to harvest their meur for relics about 350~ish years ago. They are obligate carnivores and known to hunt humans when the opportunity arises.

The baku is a large, lumbering omnivore with a similar ecological niche somewhere between a panda and a regular bear. They're a rare species, endemic to a single far-flung region of the world, having only just barely escaped extinction. See, while the Great Hunt was headed and funded by the Tri-Kingdom, its reach spanned the entire known world - but the further from Vestur it travelled, the less discriminatory the hunts became. The local peoples who were paid to hunt on the Tri-Kingdom's behalf had little idea of what meur was and what meurian animals were actually useful, leading to mass to mass culling of "useless" meur-touched animals like the baku, whose unusual sleep-inducing abilities cannot be wielded by humans. Regardless of their uselessness, the damage had been done to the species, and only the mundane offshoot survives - though rumors persist about meurian baku.

Sphinxes are scavengers that can be found across the deserts and savannas of the mainland. Unlike their meurian cousin, the manticore, they never evolved meurian flame breath, and their 'stinger' is no more than a vestigial sickle buried beneath the fur of their flowing tails. Instead, they specialized further into human mimicry, using their ability to copy human speech to hunt domesticated animals, naive children, and drunkards.

Now you might be thinking: "why would a teenage girl want to own any of these as pets? None of these sound like animals that should be pets." Well, first off: you'd be hard pressed to find a young girl that doesn't want a wolf or a tiger as a pet, that's just how they are, c'mon.

Second, there are three primary reasons Rhea thinks this is a more realistic idea than it is:

Exotic "pet" owners among the upper class: While exotic pet ownership isn't big in Vestur as a whole, it has a notable presence among the Southern upper class, both noble and common. Rhea is the duchess of the Southern Kingdom so she is well aware of every instance of somebody paying excessive amounts of guilder to import something they shouldn't and stick it in their courtyard. As I've mentioned before, this is a sin Ancha is guilty of, having gotten swept up in a past "teacup baku" craze/scam some 4 decades ago. Unlike her peers, however, she kept her baku, Fig, even after he outgrew his alleged "adult size" of 1'9" at the withers. Others culled theirs once they became large enough to cause mass property damage. Ancha knows Fig is a massive, terrifying wild animal and does not recommend anyone repeat her mistake, but being raised in captivity he cannot be returned to the wild and so she's committed to caring for him for as long of his estimated 70~ish year lifespan that she's here for.

Haretouched Northerners: The "haretouched" is a strange phenomenon that exists in the North. Now, we haven't posted a formal explanation of what exactly being haretouched means yet - I'll save that explanation for Dan to write at a later date. In the meantime, to very briefly summarize what it means: occasionally, a hare will bond with a specific human. Those who have bonded to a hare are said to be "haretouched" - or more bluntly, cursed. The haretouched are treated as pariahs by broader society, though they are begrudgingly tolerated in the North itself and destigmatized by Northern nomad clans. While Northern nobility has done its best to keep the haretouched out of their bloodlines (save for the Lord of the Nomads, who is seldom acknolwedged, much less counted), occasionally a fluke will occur regardless and you end up with someone like Quincy or Lamonte. Rhea, of course, is just a Southern bystander who thinks the idea of having a murder-bunny for a friend would kick ass.

Captive beasts performing in circuses: Self-explanatory. Sphinxes especially are a popular choice for exploitative entertainment because of their mimicry abilities, and are often trained to have "conversations" or "sing."

[barblaz-arts]

Seen your post about Israel/Palestine which is very good to care about, but I'm not sure everyone in the world are aware how fucked up the whole situation is. People think it's either this or that, but they should support the actual people, not Israel, not Hamas.

People from both sides got hurt, but the ones who were hurting longer in short term historical perspective, are Palestineans, if we take the long term (which only maniacs and fanatics actually care about) those are of course Jews, but it's more of a religion/ideology thing than some actual suffering.

The problem of this lack of knowledge, in my opinion, is that both sides, politically are shit bcs they use people and their feelings as pawns. Hamas has their military bases near civilian objects in Gaza, and at the same time Israel doesn't give more than two fucks about the civilian population, because they state that terrorists are hiding within the population, and Israel just makes attempts to swipe it under the rug a but by allegedly telling people to evacuate. If they wanted peace they should have started this whole bullshit conflict of interests half century ago. But I really have doubts that for them, being a very much newly established country, it was a fully uninfluenced decision. It was a way for the USA and Nato to weed their way into the Middle East and be able to control the situation. They have been getting ready for war for decades, hense females in regular military service, which isn't a thing in countries that don't really wait and want for any war happening, or have a stable way to enlist their immigrants into their military. But that's another topic. I made this example only as a means to explain why it was obvious Israel was getting ready for war. You can hide the actual point under the feminism and such, but it's not about feminism if it's not your right but your responsibility to serve the country. I don't really mind of course, but the militarization of society usually shows what is it going to be in the future. Especially if such militarization isn't sporadic, but been happening gradually over the years.

Back to history, The whole thing with Israel been festering previous decades, and first UK and after that USA allowed it to fester. It was the Osman empire region first (and I don't really like those slavers on principle, because they've been torturing my country with slave trader's raids on religious principle, for couple of centuries which prompted several huge wars to stop it from happening). After the dissolution of the Osman, as far as I remember, UK swooped in and basically did the colonising of sorts, they usually did, with no respect for local population and thinking they're the ruling caste while being unable assimilate the people into their culture because a) you can't make people want what they don't understand b) any more or less peaceful assimilation is when they actually want to be with you as allies and understand why exactly.

After that they synthetically made a country for jews, which is idiotic on its own merit and on everyone's merit. Like, their thing is that you had to be jew BY BLOOD to settle in the country, which is the beginnings of ultra nationalism, that's what I'm thinking. Not that many societies aren't nationalistic, but the sheer level of it is very odd. And the forefathers of the Israel aren't some lgbt activists who shine with rainbows and shit with butterflies, they are orthodox zionists. Which means, that their religion makes them free to kill people of other, opposing religion.

But it doesn't make the Hamas, as in the organisation, in any way clean and clear. They are terrorists, and they don't enjoy anything but sharia law, or their own charter, which states basically Jihad and jew killing. That is a very dangerous thing to support, because it's a very obvious thing - in this kind of tribalistic society that spurs from lack of education and all other good things in life, people with guns and moxie will rule the people who can actually make the whole thing better by promoting cooperation. You literally cannot negotiate with people who say that they will kill you if you're this or that, killing is bad, period. There's no way out of it, and I think we all need to step back and actually look at the reasons of conflict that go way back, not just the today's situation. It may lead us to the fact that, yes, Israel could've existed peacefully if it wasn't being militaristic, but only - only if they were no political powers in surrounding countries that made their goal the cleansing of Palestine from Jews. And why the Jews even started to get there? Not because they came on their own, no, it was a fucking plan by the actual colonisers, when they were more toothy and bold with their actions.

On a side note, that's partially why Russia/Ukraine situation is drastically different, they have deep ties to each other and speak the same language, had ability to talk to each other all these decades while being torn apart and pit against each other by lies about Russian colonisation of them, and lies of how it would be better if they join the EU. All the while, Ukraine was the best in agriculture in Europe before the whole EU and fracturing from the Russian orbit shebang, and now the industry was in shambles, even before the russian invasion. The same goes for their trading fleet - the whole Ussr built Ukraine the trading fleet and most of it was left there after the dissolution. What they did, they sold it out even if they couldve used it and by the 2018 they had about 5 big ships of their own. And that's how it was with all the economy - thieving it all out and then blaming it on Moscow.

In 2018 polls there were about 20 percent of Ukrainians who said they knew official Ukrainian, and 80 who spoke Russian and the eastern dialect mix of Ukrainian and Russian. You can make your own opinion out of this, ofc. That's not the same with Israel /Palestine situation, those nations are literally alien to each other in many things.

Yes, Ukraine was the synthetic country as well, but instead of being monogenous like both Israel and Palestine, they weren't, and had a very best economy in the Ussr, which made the whole notion of "Russia was is and will be bad" take lots of time in taking root in most of the people who weren't nationalistic, all the while Ukrainians were welcomed into Russia and not discriminated against in any way. Which is totally different to what was happening between Israel and Palestine, they had no actual ties, nothing except the USA military support for Israel so it stays on top, all the economic support to Gaza being settled in the pockets of all the middle men, and that's actually it.

But please, let's not forget, that the radical islamists are actually dangerous, and it's not a reaction to the USA involvement, or the reaction to anything at all but Quran. If there's someone who reads Quran and finds some Jihad mentions, there will be blood spilled over it. The whole, it's these guys fault or those guys fault doesn't really work when it's about politics, domestic or international. For things to work, there should be no radicals in the upper echelons of power. Which is not true in Israel / Palestine war from both sides. It's a very bad situation that may cause all kinds of tensions in all the world, because people aren't being well informed about the whole history of the conflict, without this or that side pushing their narrative.

At first, my knee jerk reaction was reading it as you thinking I support Hamas in any way. Which i dont. I must reiterate i DONT. I decided to revisit this later and calm down a bit and give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you're talking about other people, as I have myself seen say they support Hamas because history has often called rebellion groups of oppressed people terrorists and it's... Frankly terrifying to see.

Hamas specifically is a complicated situation that I have not yet dived deep enough into to talk about in detail, which is why I dont much talk much about them. I need to know more, I dont wanna talk outta my ass. But I do understand that radical Islamists are no good. I live in the Philippines. We have that too.

But the fact of the matter will always be that Hamas never mattered when it comes to what Israel is doing now and what they've been doing for decades. We must always remember this.

And while I'm on that topic, the "long term" suffering of Jews does not matter here either, because Palestinians didn't do that to them. A lot of zionists use it as an excuse and I am sick of it.

I'm not sure if you're saying one must be neutral about this. You're either hard to read, or I'm too sleep deprived and exhausted for reading comprehension. I think you are, but ai could be wrong. And I completely agree that it's the radicals in power that are to blame. In all my responses it is always the leaders I condemn most.

In any case, I'm just going to take this opportunity to say staying neutral isn't an option either because of the sheer power imbalance. Israel would be counting on the world looking away so they can erase all Palestinians. For this cycle of violence to be over on BOTH sides, Israel has to be the one to back off, as they are and always have been the ones with more power.

[former-leftist-jew]

i’m a little anxious to send this not on anon but i saw one of your posts where a comment mentioned jewish conversion and you seemed to support it. my boyfriend is jewish and i would like to convert to judaism but a lot of the research i’ve done says that you can’t convert, you have to be born into it since it’s an ethno-religion. i know everyone has different beliefs about this but i worry i won’t be accepted

Hello tyblackthornsheadphones, welcome!

"my boyfriend is jewish and i would like to convert to judaism"

Oooh! Mozel tov! I'm always so happy to meet new people who want to join the Jewish community! <3

"a lot of the research i’ve done says that you can’t convert, you have to be born into it since it’s an ethno-religion"

Oh dear, I'm so sorry to hear that! D: There's so much misinformation being passed around online. :( Thankfully, I'm happy to report that those sources are incorrect: It IS possible to convert to Judaism. ^_^

Like any group, though, how friendly any given Jew is to potential Jewish converts depends on the individual and/or the group they belong in. Just as there's elitism and gatekeeping in every group of people ever (like high school cliques and video game circles--"you're not a REAL gamer unless X"), unfortunately you'll also find some snobbery, elitism, and gatekeeping in Judaism. :(

Though I think Rabbi Friedman has a very loving and accepting view of Jews by conversion. ^_^

The way I see it, the differing experiences of a "Jew-by-birth vs a Jew-by-conversion" can be comparable to an American citizen who was just born on American soil vs an American immigrant who had to go through a long and rigorous bureaucratic process to become an American citizen--they have to learn everything there is to know about American history, presidents, laws, customs, the legal system; spend a "probational period" living in America to become a naturalized citizen, etc.

(The Jewish religion used to be very conversion friendly, but that came to an end when Christianity and Islam became huge world powers who outlawed the Jewish community "tempting" good Christians or Muslims away from the One True Faith.

Jewish identity also used to be passed down from father to children in ancient times--as you'll see in the Torah--but that was changed by Hillel the Elder during the tyrannical reign of King Herod--yes, THAT King Herod! Hillel did this partly to give the children of Jewish mothers who were abandoned by their non-Jewish fathers a place in Jewish society, and he did this partly as a big old political "fuck you!" to King Herod, whose father was only nominally Jewish and his mother was a foreign gentile woman.)

Chabad is an Orthodox Jewish organization.

And here's a link from a Reform Judaism POV. ^_^

In my experience, Reform Jewish synagogues and organizations tend to be more accepting of and friendly to Jewish converts. (Though it's not universal! Sadly, there are snobs everywhere. D:)

So if I were you, I would just start with checking out some books on Judaism from your local library, attend Friday night or Saturday morning Shabbat services with your boyfriend (that's usually a time when non-Jewish guests attend).

If your local college has a Hillel or Chabad Jewish student organization, I would visit that too! They usually host fun events that are free and open to to all, especially students who're just interested in connecting with other Jewish students, and learning about Jewish identity. ^_^

In the meantime, I'd just take time to study and learn about Jewish history and culture just for fun.

I think Sam Aranow's "Jewish History" Youtube series is a very entertaining way to learn about Jewish history, from ancient to modern.

Unfortunately I have to go to work now, but if you have ANY other questions, please reach out to me! I LOVE sharing knowledge and resources about Judaism, especially to potential converts who show a genuine interest and curiosity.

(Jewish culture can be, in my opinion, not as accepting and welcoming of potential Jewish converts as they should be, and I want to make up the difference. ^_^ )

[pub-lius]

RACHEL HAMILTON FACTS

Help I have a wax museum project for school and I’m doing her I cannot find anything about her

OKOKOK This ask is the reason I opened my inbox and discovered all my unanswered asks FSHSJKHFSKH mb. My source for this is Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton (because when isn't it) because exactly as you said, there is very little information about Rachel, and Ron walked so the rest of us could run. Here we go

Rachel was one of seven children

Five of Rachel's siblings died in childhood, leaving only our girl and her sister Ann. Ann went on to marry James Lytton after she fled Nevis (where they lived) due to an agricultural plague. Ann Lytton could not take in young Hamilton when he needed it, but she was the only blood relative on Rachel's side that he maintained contact with, and helped her out financially later on.

She was a child of divorce (basically)

Her parents had a very rocky relationship, and this possibly impacted her later relationships with men. Eventually, her parents separated, and she lived with her mother. She seems to have been very close with her mother, as they moved often together, or at least stayed close to one another.

She was previously married, and divorced

Before she met James Hamilton, she was married to man named Johann Lavien. Lavien was really horrible to her and financially and mentally abused her. When she ran away, Lavien sued for divorce, but long story short, Rachel didn't show up for court, and ended up being imprisoned for several years for adultery. The way divorce worked at the time was that a man could win a divorce case with just one accusation of adultery (especially if the woman didn't show up for court) but a woman needed several different, confirmed charges against the man to win. So, it would have been very hard for her to have won in the first place. Also, because of her no-show, she was forbidden from ever remarrying, hence why Hamilton was a bastard.

It is not incorrect to call her Rachel Hamilton and/or Rachel Faucette

While it is probably more respectful to use her maiden name, Faucette, there was a time where she lived as Rachel Hamilton, even though her marriage to James could not have been legally valid. While they lived in Nevis, James and Rachel lived with their two children as a married couple. However, it was when they moved to St. Croix that people recognized her as the former Mrs. Lavien, and tormented her and the boys with their illegitimacy.

She was a very independent woman

If Hamilton inherited anything from his mother, it was his quick thinking and independent mind. Rachel had her own income, and was able to provide for her two sons and tutor them after James left them. She was described by one of Hamilton's sons as "a woman of superior intellect, elevated sentiment, and unusual grace of person and manner. For her he was indebted for his genius." These are all words used to describe Hamilton later in life.

She supported other local women

In teaching her son in his earliest education, she chose a local Jewish woman to do so. Hamilton recalled being taught by her when he was small enough to sit on the table to read next to her. Towards her death, she was tended to by a woman named Ann McDonnell. In a society that was incredibly hostile to women, this was very important.

She died of an unknown illness next to her son, Alexander

She caught a fever in 1768, and was tended to by the aforementioned Ms. McDonnell and a man named Dr. Herring. She was given valerian, and bloodletting was used on Alexander (medicine of the 18th century is a whole other can of worms). Unfortunately, she did not recover, and died at nine o'clock on February 19, 1768.

Those are some of the most important and interesting facts, I believe, about Rachel Faucette. She is really one of my favorite historical figures, and I could talk about her and Maria Reynolds all day. I just love women who overcome the disadvantages they were given in life, I respect them so much. Hope this helps with your project!!!

[racefortheironthrone]

What are your thoughts on government intervention to end labor disputes in general? On one hand, forced settlements almost always favour management, and if management knows that the government will intervene, they have an incentive to stall negotiations and run out the clock, so to speak. On the other hand, some shutdowns will have far reaching negative effects on society as a whole, particularly if the strike involves the public service or things like railroads or ports.

In terms of my take on government intervention to end labor disputes, I'm fully in favor of procedural hypocrisy (or, as a philosophy PhD might put it, consequentialism) because the only question that really matters is whose side the government is intervening on behalf of. (This is where I'm going to make a massive plug on behalf of my colleague Erik Loomis' book A History of America in Ten Strikes, and in particular recommend his chapters on the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 and the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1937.)

As a labor historian, I would say that as a rule, the state almost always intervenes in labor disputes at some level, whether it's the local cops and local government, the state militia, the U.S Army, or the courts. For most of labor history, the state has intervened on behalf of capital, and was broadly succesful in using its police power to crush strikes and keep the trade union movement economically marginal.

Where the union movement has been most successful is not when the state is neutral (because capital versus labor is not historically a fair fight between opponents of equal weight), but when the state intevenes on behalf of labor. So yeah, government intervention in labor disputes is awesome - when it's Governor Frank Murphy sending in the National Guard to keep the cops and the strikebreakers out of the plants in the Flint Strike, or the "Madden Board" NLRB enforcing the Wagner Act through the work of the Economic Division and the Review Division, or the National War Labor Board ordering Little Steel to recognize SWOC and agree to the union's terms.

Specifically on the issue of forced settlements, whether they're a good thing or a bad thing depends entirely on whose terms the settlement is made, which in turn depends on how labor law is written and enforced (and staffed). The whole reason why the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 mandates that "neither party shall be under any duty to accept, in whole or in part, any proposal of settlement made by the [Federal Mediation] Service" is because one of capital's biggest grievances against the "Madden Board" NLRB was that the Board's orders and settlement proposals had systematically favored workers between 1935-1947.

I think the numbers tell the tale - when the state was at its most "neutral" at the turn of the 20th century, union density hit a ceiling of 10% of the workforce. The only time that the labor movement broke through that ceiling was during WWI and then the New Deal, when the state shifted to supporting unions. And then when the state began to shift back in the direction of capital and labor law increasingly favored management, the union movement began to shrink.

This is why I always tell my students that the state is like a great stationary engine, and the only thing that changes is where that engine's power is being sent to. If you refuse to engage in electoral politics and only rely on direct action, the engine doesn't go away - it just gets harnessed by the other side and the power is used against you.

[wof-reworked]

dragon religion is an idea i think that is rlly awesome. i hope tui goes over it in the guide, anyway. if u have any specific religion ideas / hcs for dragons.. would they have jobs ?? like dragon priests orrrr idk tbh. sorry if this question is annoying im obsessed w the idea of dragons having religion and religion-based jobs

Originally I had like. a whole "series" of like. ideas for each tribe's religion and mythology, but in the interest of actually replying I'll do like. quick bullet points here and I'll try to fill in more later on ^^;;.

I have like. a lot of abstract feelings n concepts because I've always found it interesting how,,, little religion there is in wof at all. There's barely even really "magic", with only really animuses. wof's characters are occasionally superstitious, but all their superstition is based in like- historical events, like Darkstalker or Queen Oasis's murder, and not like. magic. so I want to keep some of that true because I think it's really fitting for a setting of dragons (who have historically usually *been* the gods, rather than the worshippers !!!) and it's also a rare opportunity to like. get into society without religion (this is a hostile zone for the great ice dragon, I'm sorry I Do Not Care About You and your One Off Mention, God Bless)

ANYWAY. Posting this under the cut bc it's kind of massive, read at ur own risk lol (cw for talk of death/funeral rites but that's really it)

Skywings:

Skywings for me have always been the clearest as like. focusing on historic figures as "saints" (though ik that's a pretty christian concept and word, just hang in there I prommy it goes places)

Point being- I've written about it before here, but for Skywings, the sky is alive and holy in its own right. They view it as the foundation of life and believe themselves (and all dragons, though the other tribes abandoned their way of living) as children of it, originally like birds.

It has some slight. monarchist overtures to it with how the sky itself is like an omnipresent parent, and its moods and shifting currents can be seen as a reflection of Skywing culture. When the sky is angry and casting out its children, there is a lesson that needs to be learned, and it is the collective punishment of all Skywings until the problem is fixed.

But past that, Skywings who achieve remarkable things can be recognized as local guardians and figures of protection- when Skywings die, they return to the sky in the form of clouds. Some Skywings also believe birds to be reincarnated Skywings, especially the spirits of those who rebuke the sky and strike off on their own (which is not an inherently bad thing, but a symbol of independence in its most neutral)

Some Skywing patrons I was thinking of were: the patron of duty- the first Skywing soldier, the patron of children/joy- the first kitemaker, the patron of guardians/parents- the lamplighter, and the patron of Skywing excellence/patriotism- the stormchaser.

Miners who die in Skywing tunnels also achieve something akin to a martyr status- spirits of those who bravely sacrificed their time in the sky to keep the caverns safe and protect those who would follow them. Not one patron, but the collective protection of spirits trapped underneath the ground

Sandwings

Sandwings are similar, but different: where Skywings have patrons who have been given a certain holy power, Sandwings have two kinds of spirits: the family spirits and folk heroes

I swear to god I wrote a Sandwing headcanon post, but I genuinely can't find it at all I don't know where it went. FOUND IT WHILE LOOKING FOR MY ICEWINGS POSTS. READ IT HERE. anyway tho starting with house/family spirits: Sandwings tend towards multigenerational homes, moreso than many other tribes, and remembering your family becomes increasingly important when there's so many of you

Most Sandwing houses keep a small shrine or altar for their dead relatives and their family history- some households have patron animals or spirits that they invoke for a little extra boost of fortune but these aren't like family crests as much as your family's,,, collective mythos

The Sandwing creation myth involves the First Sandwing tricking each animal into giving them a piece of themselves- the stinger and venom from scorpions, the quickness and wit of jackals, the resilience and scales of the lizards, and finally just snatching the wings and size from dragonbite vipers who used to rule the desert, who were reduced to their small snake status and have hated every Sandwing since. So if you want to pay special homage to your family being intelligent, the jackal might be your patron

This creation myth varies WILDLY- it can include many different animals or different exact retellings on what the original Sandwing tricked the animals into giving them, so patrons can vary and can be very house-specific

(I have a little draft, somewhere, of Thorn teaching Qibli her family history post-adoption/rescue and it being one of the moments that Qibli really starts to view her as family and not just the next Cobra)

Sandwing folk heroes are also super varied- I subscribe to Sandwings having a heavy oral storytelling tradition and general,,, art culture, so I'm not gonna write every single possible story you could tell with Sandwing folk heroes, but most of them embody those original Sandwing virtues- resilience, intelligence, and quick adaptability to come out on top

Mudwings

Mudwings already have their own dedicated post !!! yippeeeeee !!!! you can read it right over here :>

Mudwings are also big big oral storytellers but unlike Sandwings the gods are a more active part of these stories and the focus is rarely on individual Mudwings as much as the dynamics of the gods' dynamic as a sibling troupe.

Rarely,,, "worshipped" in the way Skywings will venerate their patrons or Sandwings will maintain their shrines, but passively appealed to and celebrated as like. the broadest encapsulation of what it is to be a Mudwing- the way they're moved by the seasons and their families moreso than anything else

Icewings

I wrote more lists originally about Icewing superstitions, which are right here, and I stand by basically all of that. I don't really know how to incorporate gods into that but I think a lot of Icewing superstition is just. vague cultural paranoia about Things Out There

Icewings have the strongest death beliefs/rituals out of any of the tribes imo- Icewing bodies need to be properly buried or the souls don't get to return to the soil, and become stuck on the ice.

Icewing funerals depend on if you live inland or on the coast- burials at sea are common for Icewings on the coast to allow the body to be taken by the water and allowed to disperse that way (though only when the ice isn't frozen over, as otherwise it may become trapped), and Icewings inland prefer open-air/sky burials that allow the body to decompose in nature.

Winter deaths are seen as bad luck, and are given extra caution and work (which also ties into Winter's role as a black sheep in the family- it's a bit of a dark name to give your child, especially as the youngest/least wanted heir of the family)

Great Ice Dragon,,,, I have no ideas for, I imagine just the source of all Icewings and their father who ensures that, despite it all, they can survive.

Seawings

least religious lets goooooooo

Seawings are just. straight up vibing. They're the most down to earth about being alive in the sense they're just animals like everything else (though they still have their own mixed feelings about dolphins from canon)

Seawings do put a lot of stock into destiny and fate though- almost as much as Nightwings, and they have a healthy stargazing culture and track the changing of seasons and time through the stars more than anything else.

Some Seawings think of themselves as fallen stars- scales still glowing from their core of starlight. Seawings who die return to the sky and come back in the form of comets, it's especially good luck to be born under a meteor shower.

Another common superstition is a Seawing's personal star- this can be as serious as knowing exactly where it is in the sky, or as lax as pointing to one and declaring it yours. This is the star that determins your destiny and is your personal guardian, you can look to it for good luck (plus if you pick right it can be a neat way to teach your children how to navigate).

Seawings LOVE tall-tales though. Almost everyone has a story of the time they 10000% saw A Sea Monster or a dolphin spoke to them in riddles, etc etc. Half the words out of a Seawing sailor's mouth are lies, and the other half are exagerrated beyond all reason (except of course,,, for the ones that are true)

This drives other tribes insane btw, especially the more devout ones like Skywings and Icewings. How are you going to make that shit up every time pls be serious for one moment (never)

Nightwings

The other least religious, but this time for complicated cultural reasons of. well. volcano.

Nightwings love science until they don't, essentially. Everything has a reason except the things we don't understand which are mysteries from beyond the pale that we just have to hope will one day become clear.

TL;DR: SO MANY GHOSTS. EVERYTHING IS HAUNTED.

Nightwings are like the closest to a lot of real world agnosticism- it could be real, but we just don't know yet. Lots of ghost sightings though and subtle signals from the universe. It's a bit of a collective coping mechanism for the loss of their powers + the amount of dragons, like Fatespeaker, who were born under the full moons but without a clear sky and thus only left with confusing powers.

(slaps the side of the canon Nightwing art) These bad boys can fit so much victorian ghost fear in them <3

Mastermind has and 100% would again drink absinthe to perform a seance to Nightwing seers of the past, prove me wrong

I think in older Nightwing mythology, there would have been lots of smaller gods and domains- complicated webs of connected esoteric spirits who each vied for power over the material world through their domains and contact with dragons.

The heart of it all is the Moons though- the three sisters of chance/luck, destiny/death, and soul. Something akin to the three fates but each in collaboration with each other over life.

In ye really olden days, some sects thought these spirits worked through scavengers. These guys are pretty broadly considered a strange cult though, and the history is scant at best.

Clearsight and Darkstalker would've grown up aware of these gods but given special privilege due to their powers- mostly as people exempt from the gods due to their connection to the moons as something surpassing the petty whims of spirits. Priests and priestesses would be preferred as powerless, as a clear head is needed to communicate with the gods fully.

Rainwings

Souls !! lots of souls !! Rainwings believe everything has a beating pulse and could be slash is alive in their own unique way.

The Rainwing gods are serpents- wingless but capable of moving through the trees as though they were flying, their scales a constant mass of brilliant colors. Names and identities are a WIP for me, bear with me as I flesh out these guys ;U;

Rainwings are big storytellers as well, and tend to create their own ideas and religions, in a sense. Being a puppeteer and performer especially is the closest to being a priest that a Rainwing can get- by embodying other things you are essentially changing your soul to align with them

Rainwings also aren't. super religious as much as just committed each to their own truth over a collective myth or story. Each Rainwing builds their own unique sense of mythology from the rainforest.

No gods no masters only fruit >:3c

I have some wips for each of these, some of them fics, some of them elaborations and continued myths, but I hope y'all enjoy them !!! All feedback welcome, as always.

[imnotoverlyobsessive]

Don’t Blame My English Blood For This American Heartache

Info, author’s note, etc

AO3 info prologue one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve

All my work is 18.

Summary: Seraphine Malfoy had been raised in California by her Squib parents with no knowledge of her family's magical heritage, though she has received lessons from a local family. When she discovers she’s the sole heir to the Malfoy family, she leaves for England to step into that role. She can handle the balls and the responsibilities and her new family members. The only thing that throws her completely off is the appearance of Death Eater turned war hero Regulus Black, who, despite being ridiculously full of himself, is far too good looking, charming—and far too persistent—for her own good.

Author’s Note:

So you may or may not be aware of this already, but I’ve been working on this for awhile. It’s not done yet, I’m just posting it in honor of Sera’s birthday, which is today. I’m currently working on chapter nine, and I suspect I’ll need at least another three. I’ll be posting every other day, I figure. Also part of the fun of writing this for me was seeing how much stuff I could put in there that would piss off JKR. So the OC is Jewish (her parents converted prior to her birth), and if anybody @s me about how I wrote it incorrectly (I don’t think I did, though) please know that I’m writing her growing up Jewish based how I grew up. You don’t need any understanding of Judaism in order to read the fic, I don’t think. Her best friend is a trans woman, too, which is fun. The trans woman in question is based on my irl best friend, who worked closely with me on “her” character.

Other things to note:

I play it fast and loose with the lore; I change what I don’t like and treat canon as fic inspo. I have indeed read the books, I’ve done tons of research, and I have a family tree made for the fic, same as I always do. I also have every outfit I describe of Sera’s as well as 3D tours of most of the houses described.

Sera was raised entirely separate from Wizarding society, British or US. She has no knowledge of it. This means she’ll use different words for things and spells (relocate instead of apparate, blue animal instead of patronus, that kind of thing). If something seems a little bit odd to you, chances are I explain it later.

Sera does not use a wand. She is not necessarily more powerful than your average witch, it’s just that she learned without one. You may be aware that canonically, Native American witches and wizards (Sera learns from one such family) didn’t use wands, and supposedly their magic was less powerful. I think that’s stupid. If a wand is a lightning rod, that doesn’t mean the lightning isn’t powerful outside of it, it’s just not as concentrated. As a result, the way Sera learned was without a wand but with more force behind each spell. She also learned in Awaswas, the native language of the Uypi tribe (historically they were a tribe living in the Santa Cruz mountains of Northern California, but unfortunately they are extinct now. However, I figure there’s no reason that magical families wouldn’t have been just fine against the colonizers), but she uses nonverbal magic almost exclusively now.

I think that’s everything. If you have any questions, please lmk.

Tag list:

@ellamaianderson @shika1200 @blackqueenstarseed1 @gatoenlaciudad @esmaada @mariaelizabeth21-blog1 @softhecreator @timolaurence @timmymyluv @oddlyenoughiamweird @leecrunchybones @s-we-e-t-t-ea @almostg @leespparker @bubblebuttwade @glizzymcguirex @starberry-cake

To be added, please ask 💗

[shadysadie]

Papa Noceda meets Wittedad

A fanfic based on @emerald-entrails-hunter‘s Wittedad Timepool AU, which lives in my head rent free now, so thanks for that.

It had been a few months since Manny and Camila had moved to Gravesfield, and Manny was still unsure what he wanted to do with the abandoned cabin on the edge of their new property. He considered turning it into a workshop for making more advanced cosplay, the kind that required stuff like resin and needed days to dry. But Camila rightfully pointed out that until they had kids there was plenty of room for that kind of stuff in the basement, and the cabin didn’t have electricity, so it would make for a terrible workshop. Still, it felt wrong to continue to let the old cabin rot, it was as old as the town itself according to the real estate agent. Perhaps he could talk to someone at the Gravesfield Historical Society about fixing it up and turning it into a little museum for the colonial walking tours, there seemed to be a lot of those in this part of the country.

But any plans Manny had for the cabin were just that at the moment, plans. Right now he had his hands full settling down to his new job as an editor for a small book publisher. Camila started working for the local vet clinic. And as newly weds they had other things on their mind. So as things were, the most attention Manny could spare for the old cabin was his daily walk-through to chase off any possums or raccoons that were nesting in the walls, Camila was adamantly against the idea of setting up traps, even if they were no-kill. So as a result the pests would always come back immediately after Manny chased them off with a broom. He was pretty sure they were laughing at him behind his back, but if it kept Camila happy, Manny was happy (even if the whole thing did feel rather sisyphean).

He was just heading out for one of his sweeps when he heard something far different than the scratching of a raccoon. He paused, wondering if his ears were deceiving him. But they weren't. He could hear the distinct sound of a baby crying. Followed by someone shushing. Perhaps the rational response would have been to back away and contact the police, but his curiosity was stronger than his caution. He pushed open the door of the cabin.

Manny heard someone's breath catch in fear. The morning sun crept through the holes in the roof, but the corners of the room were still shadowed. It took Manny only a few moments to pinpoint the source of the crying. There was a man, huddled down in the corner, half hidden under a dark hooded cloak. He was desperately trying to soothe the wailing, wiggling bundle in his arms.

"This is private property." Manny announced, though it was difficult to harbor any anger towards the squatter once Manny got close enough to get a good look at him. The guy looked ragged, several large cuts marred his face, presumably more were hidden under dirty gauze. His skin was dirty and he had heavy bags under his eyes. He was dressed like a historical reenactor, but his clothes were in terrible condition. The baby didn’t seem to be in much better shape. His blanket looked more like a rag, and his little body was wrapped in bandages. “¡Dios mío! What have you been through, Buddy?”

The man looked too frightened to respond right away. He cowered away from Manny, curling himself protectively around the baby. Manny realized he was still holding the broom he used to chase possums, which must have seemed like a weapon. He put it aside and held up his hands.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Manny promised. “You look like you could use some help.”

The man looked uncertain for a moment. There was a chirp and he looked over at a small red cardinal perched nearby. The man must have decided that he didn’t have many options at this point other than to trust the person in front of him.

“He is hungry.” The man said, with a look of desperation, “But I have nothing to feed him. Do you perchance have a cow or goat that could spare some milk?”

“No goats, no. But there is a super market down the street, I could probably manage to find you some formula.”

“Formula?” He looked confused.

“You know, baby formula. Synthetic milk.”

“Such a thing exists? Then if you could aid me in acquiring some, good sir, I would be forever in your debt.”

Manny wondered if this guy could have possibly run away from an Amish or Mennonite community, that would explain his clothes.

“You wait here, I’ll be back."

Manny ran to the store, he picked up a few bottles, some formula, diapers, a first aid kit, and a deli sandwich. The man was still in the cabin when he got back.

"Here, try this." Manny handed him the bottle. The baby resisted it for a moment, but as soon as he realized there was food in it, he instantly calmed down and started suckling on it. The man let out an exhausted sigh of relief.

"Thank you, my friend. I know not how I can ever repay you.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m not about to let a baby starve if I can help it. My name’s Manuel Noceda, but you can call me Manny, everyone else does.”

“I am called Caleb Witte…er…Clawthorne, Caleb Clawthorne.” Manny raised an eyebrow but didn’t bring attention to the fact the man was clearly trying to hide his last name.

“Nice to meet you, Caleb. Does the little one have a name?”

“Hunter.”

Hunter was sucking down the milk so quickly he collapsed the nipple of the bottle. When he opened his mouth to cry in protest of the food stopping it refilled and he resumed drinking. Manny wondered how long it had been since the baby had gotten any food in him.  

"Here," Manny offered Caleb the Sandwich, "you look like you could use a bite to eat as well. I also got a first aid kit, when you're done eating you can clean and re-wrap your injuries."

"Thank you."

"So where are you from? How did you end up here?"

"I doubt you would believe me if I told you."

"I'll believe just about anything if it's a good enough story."

Caleb seemed to consider this. Hunter finished his bottle and fell asleep. The cardinal flew over down from its perch and settled on the sleeping baby. Manny had never seen a bird act that way before.

"I used to live here." Caleb said, "It was the only place I could think of to come back to."

"Here as in Gravesfield? Or Connecticut?"

"This house."

Manny blinked, "This house has been abandoned since the 40s."

Caleb looked shocked, "No one has lived here since the 1640s?"

"What? No, the 1940s."

"Surely you jest, have I really arrived in the 1900s?"

That was strange, Manny and Camila had visited Amish country during their honeymoon, and yes, they lived without modern technology, but they still knew the date. Maybe he wasn't Amish after all, maybe he escaped from a cult or something like that.

"Buddy, it's 2004."

"What?"

"See, look." Manny pulled the receipt from the bag. Printed neatly under the name MinuteMart was the date June 3, 2004.

Caleb shook his head, wide-eyed in disbelief, "400 years…"

Manny felt a pang of sympathy for the man. Definitely a cult survivor, he decided, some strange cult that must have convinced its members it was back in the 1600s for some Godforsaken reason.

"Listen, I don't know what you're going through, but I'm not using this old shack anyways, if you're willing to help me fix it up you can stay here until you figure out what you're going to do next."

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course, you seem like you’ll be less trouble than the raccoons.”

Caleb smiled with tears in his eyes. Manny wasn’t sure if letting a strange run away cult member live in his backyard was the wisest decision he ever made, but somehow, he knew he wouldn’t regret the decision.

[oldshrewsburyian]

hi, I have a question: for context, theres the tumblr blog "writingwithcolor" for giving advice on how to represent poc. They got an ask from someone wanting to write historical fiction with ppl from medieval Europe and the middle east interacting, asking how to include the negative opinions the cultures had of each other: the ME seeing Europe as "dirty and uncivilized " while Europe saw the ME as effeminate, so they asked how to include these opinions without demonizing either culture.

They asked: "They asked "Do you have any advice on including these views in a narrative without validating the idea of Europeans as the 'victims' or without unnecessarily juxtaposing the more-advanced middle east in the middle of a golden age with their less advanced European neighbors"

The reply they got was basically "actually, the Europeans were stinky barbarians". They stated "one of these regions thought diseases could be cured by blood-letting and huffing toilets while the other was inventing algebra It’s difficult to argue that Europe was doing well by any metric after the collapse of the Roman Empire. "

They gave examples of other cultures being "light years ahead" of Europe, such as the Moors "revitalizing Spanish and Sicilian civilization through agriculture, architecture, astronomy and restoration of Roman sanitation systems", king Mansa Musa giving out so much gold he destroyed the local economy and the giant junks of the majapahit empire as examples of non-european civilizations outdoing Europe. They implied that anyone objecting to Europe being portrayed badly has "white fragility".

What is your opinion on this response? Is it fair to Europe to portray them as inferior?

Oh, I've seen that question and response. I think I've even replied to it. It's bad. It's bad because, as a post I reblogged earlier today says, historical accuracy matters. Also, it seems to play the sort of zero-sum game that I see elsewhere on the internet, which wants to gleefully reverse old and oppressive narratives... only to create new narratives with new acceptable categories of exclusion. Do I think that more attention in secondary and post-secondary education should be given to premodern societies around the globe? of course! I teach premodern global history all the time! But here's my bigger problem with this sort of "Europe bad and backwards" sneering, even bigger than the "it's wrong" problem.

This sort of measurement of societies "outdoing" each other is based on Eurocentric categories which were and are used to uphold white supremacy, colonialism, classism, and ableism. I alluded to this in an earlier exchange with you. To say that a society (I'm deliberately avoiding the term civilization) is automatically "superior" or "more advanced" when it has certain kinds of technology, or certain kinds of social and political organization, or certain kinds/degrees of wealth, or certain kinds of literacy, or certain kinds of religious belief (or lack thereof)? That is an imperialist script! Because this is Tumblr, the Negative Reading Comprehension Site: I'm obviously not accusing people who are doing a lot of emotionally taxing and important work of deliberately reinforcing imperialist (etc.) scripts. But reiterating inaccurate stereotypes based on Vibes/Wishful Thinking is bad no matter who does it!

Please reflect on the narrative of "the replacement of a multi-continental empire with decentralized political and legal structures was obviously Terrible" and on why, exactly, that was easily accepted when Edward Gibbon was writing his Decline and Fall... in late 18th-century Britain. Yeah. Also, that "more advanced Middle East" narrative has a history that is Orientalist and othering in its own way (ooh, all that exotic learning! the baths! the gardens!) It assumes, for one thing, that there's no contact and exchange between the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates ("Moors" is a racist term, by the way) and their neighbors. If the representation you've given is accurate, it also follows old/outdated scholarship in representing Spain as somehow not quite European because of all the Muslims in it/ruling it, which... yikes. And, at the risk of pointing out the very obvious: ancient Rome, whose art and literature and 'civilization' were so long so admired in Europe, was a slave society. I'm not going to wring my hands about its disputed fall.

[avelera]

So do we think Hobs more obsessed with/excited about the modern grocery store or food delivery apps?

*Cracks knuckles* H'ok, Anon, I've been salivating to answer this question all evening so let us DO THIS.

To make your simple question needlessly complicated, I'm gonna divide your question up in two and address each example separately because historically speaking, these are two very different phenomenons and weirdly enough, the latter (food delivery apps) would, in my opinion, be less exciting to Hob than the former.

Modern Grocery Stores

I personally have a theory that every society benefit and ill can trace itself back to a desire held by previous generations. And nothing exemplifies this more than the modern grocery store. Obviously there have been markets before. But if you were to characterize the modern store as perpetually stocked shelves of food from around the world, kept fresh by electricity-powered cooling, and within price ranges available to even common folks, I cannot stress enough how much such a phenomenon we take for granted today was the literal paradise of our ancestors.

One of the fictional magical lands of the Middle Ages was Cockaigne a land of plenty whose description basically mirrors that of a modern grocery store.

My point is, there is plenty of historical evidence to draw from to say that Hob would be over the moon excited about grocery stores. Hell, one doesn't even need to go that far back in history to rationing in England after WWII for reasons a fully stocked grocery store would be a perpetual delight to him, never mind the 1600s or being born a peasant. I truly think the modern grocery store would be one of those wonders Hob would never get over.

Food Delivery Apps

Look, I'm gonna put this bluntly: servants have existed for a really fuckin' long time. If you had the means to have someone else cook for you, you had the means to pay for someone else to do the shopping and deliveries for you. In the days before refrigeration, when some fresh foods would need to be picked up daily if at all, a servant bringing a food delivery to your home would be a fairly common daily sight for the wealthy and even for those we'd think of as more middle class ("You have a servant or you are a servant," being the operating assumption of the day, basically). Porters absolutely existed, people who would run your shopping back to your house so you didn't have to carry everything with you.

Honestly, the more troubling thing as I personally see it about the "gig economy" culture is how much it is just a return to Victorian era levels of "You have a servant or you are a servant," dressed up in modern clothing.

From Hob's perspective, he wouldn't even need to be particularly wealthy in 1889 to have had a servant. 1589 and 1789 Hob absolutely had servants, plural. Someone running down to a local store to buy fresh food to cook at home, or bringing something prepared back to him would not be anything new to him at all, it's just the latest evolution of the service industry that has existed in some form or another for basically all of developed human history and possibly longer than that. The only newfangled aspect of it is being able to do it through an app instead of ringing a servants bell in his house.

[athingofvikings]

A Thing Of Vikings Chapter 47: Do You Hear Something?

Chapter 47: Do You Hear Something?

Pre-Viking Eirish society was, in technical terms, a sophisticated primitive society; it had formalized law, culture and social structures, but also lacked several elements associated with complex societies, specifically a written language, urban centers, and currency.  The social structure of the Eirish, in particular, was based on three axes, and where the individual Eirish person fell on them.

The primary axis was familial; an Eirish family was all of the related members living under one roof (a fine), and then extending out to one-degree extended family (sept), and there to blood-tied clan.  Related clans would come together to form a tribe (a tuath), related tribes would form a kingdom (dál), and geographically proximate kingdoms would form a province (coiced), of which there were classically five.

The second axis was occupational, and consisted of three groups: the warriors (láech / láecheanna), the craftsmen (cerd / cerdí), and the laborer farmers (aithech / aithecheanna).  The farmers produced the food required to survive, and were protected by the warriors.  The warriors protected the other two groups, but also ruled over them.  And the craftsmen produced the goods and services needed to keep the society running; this group included not only smiths, carpenters, masons and others, but also the lawkeepers, priests, musicians, scholars, monks, physicians and other such individuals.

The third axis was social class, consisting of five ranks. 

At the top were the rulers, the kings (ríthe), ranging from clan chief (rí) to tribal chief (rí tuaithe) to king of the kingdom (rí ruirí), to province king (rí ruírech), and then to High King (ard rí).

Second in rank were the privileged (flaith), essentially the aristocracy.  These individuals were the designated managers of the land, and controlled who settled where and did what.  While legally the land was held by the tribe as a whole and the privileged class merely managed it on their behalf, they still historically received the bulk of of the arable land, controlled who worked it, and worked the public resources for their private benefit. 

Third in rank were the non-noble freemen with property (aire), usually land or flocks.  There were two subclasses, both related to the occupations in the second axis—warriors and professionals, who engaged in privileged, trained crafts and skills, such as priest, law-keeper, physician, fili or other such skill.

Fourth in rank were the freemen without property (aithech); they were not privileged themselves and did not hold property, and worked the land or flocks granted by the upper ranks as tenants. 

Fifth in rank were the non-free.  There were three subdivisions of this category:sen-cleith, bothach & fuidir.  Bothach were essentially clanless individuals allowed to squat on tribal lands at the sufferance of the tribe.  Sen-Cleith were the personal servants and laborers of the Flaith classes, and the flaith members treated them as little better than the daer-fuidiri.  The fuidir was the lowest of the low, bound to the land and desires of their owning Flaith.  The daer-fuidiri being composed of debt-thralls, war-captives, and other human chattel, The daer-fuidiri were little more than property—indeed, female thralls, referred to as bondsmaids (cumhal), were a standard unit of currency against which other valuable items were measured in Eirish law. Finally, there were rare exceptions in the form of tribeless individuals, saer-fuidir, who were allowed to squat on unsettled land at the sufferance of the local Flaith, but otherwise had no rights before the law to speak of.

—A History Of The Isles, Oxford, England, 1591

AO3 Chapter Link

~~~

My Original Fiction | Original Fiction Patreon

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Apr 8, 2024

One of my shortest-lived jobs was as a teacher at a school for girls near Sloane Square in London. I resigned after just two weeks because the headmistress was a religious zealot who had objected to me teaching a text which featured a gay character. In my resignation letter, I explained that I wasn’t prepared to work at a school which fostered such antediluvian attitudes. I stayed on to finish the term, but was delighted when I eventually made my escape.

I had previously worked at a boys’ school, and I soon noticed that there were some broad differences that manifested in an all-female environment. One of the most concerning was that many of the girls were engaged in what can only be described as competitive starvation. During lunch duties, I was warned to keep an eye out for pupils who had taken just a single lettuce leaf from the salad bar. If I saw any girl doing so, I was told I must immediately intercept her and demand that she return and fill her plate.

My first teaching post had been at a co-ed school in which cutting one’s own skin was the fashion. We even had a visiting expert telling us how to encourage these pupils to hold ice cubes in their hands until they felt shooting pains as a substitute for the razor. I remember at the time thinking that this wasn’t the best advice, but I was too green to raise an objection. Besides, this speaker had spent a considerable part of the session reminiscing about a shepherd she had once counselled who had, over the course of many months on the hillside, used a sharp wire to whittle his penis so that it eventually became forked. To this day, I am none the wiser as to the purpose of this anecdote.

But the shift from cutting to starvation was striking. At the former school, pupils were not refraining from food, and at the latter there were very few who were injuring themselves with blades. It was almost as though only one form of self-harm could predominate at any given time. And when a small group started doing it, the trend spread with remarkable rapidity. I hadn’t seen an equivalent back when I was teaching boys.

I have since learned that social contagions are especially common among teenage girls, and that there are numerous historical precedents for this. I have written elsewhere about the Salem witch trials of 1692-93, in which a group of girls began seeing demons in the shadows and accusing members of their own community of being in league with the Devil. Then there were the various “dancing plagues” of the middle ages which seemed to impact young women in particular. In 1892, girls at a school in Germany began to involuntarily shake their hands whenever they performed writing exercises. And when I visited Sweden last year, I was told about a local village where, during the medieval period, the girls all inexplicably began to limp.

It's perfectly clear that the latest social contagion to take hold in the western world is that of girls identifying out of their femaleness, either through claims that they are trans or non-binary. Whereas in 2012, there were only 250 referrals (mostly boys) to the NHS’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), by 2021 the figure had risen to more than 5,000 (mostly female) patients. Gender activists like to claim that this is simply the consequence of more people “coming out” as society becomes more tolerant, and at the same time insist that it has never been a worse time to be trans. Consistency is not their strong suit.

Of course there are no easy answers as to the explosion of this latest fad, but surely the proliferation of social media has something to do with it. Platforms such as TikTok are replete with activists explaining to teenagers that their feelings of confusion are probably evidence that they have been “born in the wrong body”. For pubescent girls who are uncomfortable with their physiological changes, as well as sudden unwanted male sexual attention, the prospect of identifying out of womanhood makes complete sense. These online pedlars have some snake-oil to sell. And while a limping epidemic in a medieval village would be unlikely to spread very far, social contagions cannot be so confined in the digital age.

Much of this is reminiscent of the recovered memory hysteria of the late twentieth-century, when therapist cranks promoted the idea that most victims of sexual abuse had repressed their traumatic memories from childhood. It led to numerous cases of people imagining that they had been abused by parents and other family members, and many lives were ruined as a result. One of the key texts in this movement was The Courage to Heal (1988) by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, which made the astonishing and unevidenced claim that “if you are unable to remember any specific instances… but still have a feeling that something abusive happened to you, it probably did”.

A common feature of social contagions is that they depend upon the elevation of intuition over material reality. Just as innocent family members were accused of sexual abuse because of “feelings” teased out by unscrupulous therapists, many girls are now being urged by online influencers to trust the evidence of their emotions and accept a misalignment between their body and their gendered soul. We are not talking here about the handful of children who suffer from gender dysphoria, but rather healthy children who have been swept up in a temporary craze.

Activists have been quick to demonise the entire notion of “social contagion” as a “transphobic talking point”, but the evidence for it is now indisputable. The review into paediatric gender treatment by Dame Hilary Cass is due to be published this Wednesday, and is likely to include recommendations that schools stop the “social transitioning” of children. The interim review had already pointed out that enabling pupils to adopt alternative names, pronouns and dress codes was “not a neutral act”. And there is mounting evidence that such an approach consolidates a child’s psychological conceptualisation of herself as a member of the opposite sex. While social transitioning is seen as compassionate, in reality is causes long-term harm.

It would seem that teenage girls will always be prone to these social contagions, but some are more damaging than others. Whereas limping and dancing and trembling can be overcome, the lifelong impact of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery will not be so transient. Let’s hope this particular hysteria soon goes the way of all the others.

[mariacallous]

The spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have little of the drama of peace negotiations. They are often dominated by technical and technocratic questions concerning the intricacies of international finance. But for the poorest people in the world, the decisions made at these meetings are matters of life and death.

Since the 1990s, the World Bank has facilitated a dramatic decline in extreme poverty globally, from more than 1 in 3 people living in extreme poverty in 1990 to less than 1 in 10 today. But fragile and conflict-affected countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar, have seen the opposite trend: In those places, extreme poverty is growing, and by 2030, they will be home to an estimated 59 percent of all people living in extreme poverty. The convergence of conflict, climate change, and economic shocks has left more than 300 million people dependent on humanitarian aid to survive.

This week’s meetings in Washington offer an opportunity for the World Bank to bridge this gap by revamping its approach to extreme poverty. This will require more imagination than we have historically seen from the development and humanitarian communities. But if the bank can break with traditional development frameworks and improve its reach, scale, and sustainability, it will be able to better support those who need it the most.

In stable states, development economics now has a playbook beyond the Washington Consensus, marked by free market principles and deregulation; international financial institutions now support sustainable and inclusive growth models. But in crisis-affected states, where effective humanitarian action is the first step on the road to development, the World Bank’s policy agenda is much less well developed.

The World Bank itself has recognized this. The bank’s new evolution road map, led by its president, Ajay Banga, recognizes the urgent need to focus on fragility, conflict, and climate change—among other global challenges—to achieve its mission to eradicate poverty on a livable planet. But it still needs a concrete plan.

Historically, the World Bank has relied on robust government partnerships. Yet as the landscape of poverty changes, it will need to adopt a more flexible approach. The bank should expand delivery of its services through nongovernmental partners, which can often better access communities in need. This is particularly important in crisis settings where a government may not be able to reach parts of the country.

For example, my organization, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), has successfully partnered with Gavi, the global organization that seeks to improve access to vaccines, alongside African-led civil society groups in Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. As of February, our partnership has administered more than 1 million doses of lifesaving vaccines to children. Prior to the program, the IRC could access only 16 percent of targeted communities in the Horn of Africa. Now, we are able to reach 77 percent of those areas.

The World Bank also needs a plan to scale up its operations. This requires not just building up capacity but also reducing strains on national systems such as hospital networks, which are often stretched thin during a crisis. Humanitarian organizations such as the IRC have had success reducing acute malnutrition among children by partnering with community health workers to diagnose cases and administer treatment instead of adding to the caseload of hospitals.

It will be crucial for the bank to ensure that its programs can sustain any progress they make. This will require real, not rhetorical, localization: shifting power to local responders and building trust with them so that they can lead and deliver in aid efforts. One example of how localization can ensure that development efforts support a community’s long-term interests is the Building Resilient Communities in Somalia consortium. This program has collaborated with more than 450 communities over the past decade, and its work has been critical to avoiding famine.

Finally, the World Bank should launch a new model for its International Development Association (IDA), one of the largest sources of development finance for the world’s poorest countries. As the World Bank leadership and donors negotiate IDA replenishment this year, they should refine its finance mechanisms to be more responsive to countries’ risk, vulnerability, and accessibility to other sources of finance. For example, the IDA Crisis Response Window—which provides countries with additional resources to respond to climate, health, and economic shocks—could include better criteria to assess how fragility, conflict, and violence can compound these shocks.

More overall funding will be key to these efforts. In 2021, the last time the bank negotiated a financing package for the IDA, development partners agreed on a $93 billion package to support sustainable development in the world’s poorest countries. This year, donors should make even more ambitious pledging contributions that will put the IDA on track for tripling its size by 2030. Expanding nongovernmental partnerships will also help the bank improve disbursal and delivery of IDA funds.

The 1990s and 2000s saw one of the world’s great development success stories as hundreds of millions of people escaped extreme poverty. While the development and humanitarian communities agree on where the next success story needs to take place, that feat will not be built with the tools of the past. Luckily, we’ve already seen how humanitarian actors can drive scale, reach, and sustainability even in some of the most complex places in the world. That should be a guide for the World Bank as it seeks to chart its path for the future.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

I'm sorry if this is a bit too personal, but I'm interested in becoming an archivist myself! I was wondering what classes you took and how exactly you became an archivist. Right now I'm majoring in art history for my undergrad, but I'm worried that I chose wrong 😭

This is only going to be relevant for North America, most archivists in the old world have PhD's and 6 titles, I'm just a lowly peon by EU standards especially but I finished my undergrad after I got my job. I read/majored in history with historic preservation as a secondary study/minor. Then I'm in the process of finishing a master's degree in library science with two certs in archives and manuscripts. Art history isn't a bad choice! You can have a lot of different undergraduate backgrounds. History, Art History, English language. I've met people with degrees in everything from childhood education to microbiology become librarians and archivists. The degrees you get are kind of only technicalities? You need a master's degree and it has to be accredited by the ALA. Everything else is whatever. No one gives a shit I went to a really good school. To be an archivist we do have archives tracks but its still mostly the same degree. Most of the reason we have degrees at all is because the field of library science skews heavily as a female dominated job so having a master's kind of lets us have some fancy pieces of paper that let other's in higher ed and administration i.e. men take us more seriously.

Your degrees and grades are important, but what you really want is experience. Get a library job, volunteer, job shadow, whatever you want, just get your butt in a library and ideally an archive. 9/10 of the people I know are struggling to find positions despite their degrees and good grades can't because they were so academically inclined they didn't think about actual hands on experience. We're technically a kind of academic, but we're one of few types in the humanities where our education is rather secondary to what we actually have experience doing.

If your institution has courses in curation and exhibition, public history, architectural history, cemeteries, anything that takes you out of a classroom and actually doing history, take them. Most archivists work in communities. Whether they be state or local libraries, universities, local history associations, museums, corporate archives etc, etc, we're memory keepers who need really good organization skills. Yes a good piece of our job is filing paperwork but we file the paper work that makes up the bulk of the hippocampus of any given society.

I've been an archival assistant for 6 years and a full archivist for 2 and a charge archivist for 6 months and I don't have my masters degree yet. I got a library job in high school because I had to work off some discipline issues with volunteer hours and a while down the line when I was working three job in undergrad, I got a student position at a circulation desk where I did my first archival work. I didn't really have any intention of being an archivist, I went through a half dozen majors before my body decided it was going to do its best to die and then with a lot of those very exerting possibilities off the table, I landed a third job in a library. And I had a little bit of experience in archives so I rolled to a stop at rock bottom and looked around me and went "oh hey wait, I'm actually really good at this? And it's fun? am I insane or is this a good fit?" and my supervisor agreed and two years later here I am with a well packed resume and more work experience than education and a archivist's title.