#january of the calendar council

[thedeafprophet]

Next up on my 'easing into drawing again outfit doodles' is January. I took some inspiration from her in game portrait for her design but i've always had a pretty solid feel for Jan as a character. She's one of my favourites, if my past rambling isn't obvious.

To me she's someone who tends to less saturated colours, fully capturing the vibes of the season her namesake is from. And certainly in part just gives off university professor vibes, even if she's no longer the dean.

Also she's a cane user because I say so. <3

[the-dye-stained-socialite]

last day of January January, so! I didn't do much for her, but here's a full page of doodles!!!

inspired by @thedeafprophet 's Calander Council Art Challenge!

[freefromlightandlaw]

💜🗓

My favorite NPCs:

5. The Blind Pianist. Her storyline is so interesting, and a genuinely principled revolutionary from actual, literal Hell is just a delicious concept.

4. The Manager of the Royal Bethlehem Hotel. He's an immortal Mesopotamian king who hates capitalism and has spent eons trying to be reunited with his husband. Also, he runs an eldritch horrorterror hotel and controls your dreams. What a concept! What a character! Truly emblematic of FL's over-the-top, so-weird-it's-awesome lore.

3. The Jovial Contrarian. He just rolls around arguing with everyone about everything, and everyone is too busy yelling at him to notice that he's slowly dismantling the police system. Iconic behavior.

2. The Moon-Miser Hybrid. My baby. My child. My glowing chitinous son.

1. January of the Calendar Council. Jewish revolutionary historian who wants to personally fight everything unjust in the world, up to and including the laws of nature. It's like they tailor-made a character for me personally.

When did I start playing? Honestly, I can't remember. 2020, I think.

[jane-d-ankh-veos]

I wonder if January in charge of this city of nightmares feels like the Mayor of Halloween Town 😁

(By the way, an alliance of January and May sounds so poetic... the middle of winter + the bloom of spring...)

[sparingiscaring]

Rev Appreciation Day 4 - Time, Stars, Chess

I may be lacking my normal drawing setup, but life finds a way! January has always been a fascinating enigma to me, and I don't believe I've ever interacted with her, aside from the "get advice" portion of the GHR... but, man did she leave an impression!

Done for @fl-revs-appreciation!

[the-perspicacious-mercenary]

Just know that if I weren't asexual I would be spinning a delicious sexually-charged rivalry between Tetra and January.

'80% of your life philosophy is bullshit and I am fucking furious that the remaining 20% is somwthing I wholeheartedly respect' is such a cool relationship dynamic.

[incorrectfallenlondonquotes]

September: You called a secret meeting? January: Yes. Close the door. September: (Closes the door) January, from inside: September. Get in here. And *then* close the door.

[house-of-mirrors]

OUGH y'all got me thinking about January and June again

I want to write an Irem potential future style thing of some sort of dramatic confrontation at the machine. Winter and summer, January facing whatever June has become. Pursuing each other along the rings. Dark vs light, law vs no law, cancelling each other out and all the energy released with that. I think they should have swords too

June gripping Jan's chin at some point 😳 classic "join me" scene. Despite what the admiralty is doing, June is still revolutionary, can't they cooperate? Revolution can be about joy instead of pain, wouldn't it be so nice to give in

I just think June having godlike powers and being inseparable from the false god she created would be hot ok. More milfs and scary women

I could even style it like a storyline... the player follows January and can encourage her throughout the story to either be loyal to the dark or loyal to June

[still-searching-for-something]

Today was Yom HaShoah, the day that Jews remember the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the industrialized genocide of the European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941-1945.

This is a really simple opening statement, but bear with me--I think it gets a lot more... 'yeah, buts' than most people may realize. And I think a good way of illuminating that is to break down the difference between how gentiles and Jews commemorate and remember it.

In my experience, gentiles seem to view the Holocaust as the ultimate example of mankind's barbarity to mankind. Like, the distillation of evil, the most obvious example of dehumanization and bigotry brought to its horrifying and extreme conclusion. They emphasize Nazi Germany's responsibility, elevate the instances of non-Jewish Frenchmen and Poles and Germans who made efforts to save Jewish lives, and generally view Nazi oppression as a catastrophe of whom Jews were one of many victims. And they emphasize the Allied Powers' role in ending it by liberating the camps and invading Germany. Hence why International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on January 27th, the day Auschwitz was liberated.

But Jews have a different perspective.

We view the Holocaust as the most extreme manifestation of--but far from the conclusion to--mankind's barbarity to Jews. Not to his fellow man, per se, not to some universalized insert minority here slot, but to Jews, particularly and deliberately. The Nazis could never have accomplished their genocide were it not for the two millennia of anti-Jewish hatreds and dehumanization embedded deep in the institutions and political structures of European society. They didn't have to persuade Europe that the Jews were incurably evil, the Europeans already believed that. The Nazis had 99% of their work done before they'd even come to power, work that was done by the the Russian Empire, the Romans, Martin Luther, Christian Passion Plays, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the centuries of blood libels, the Fourth Lateran Council, the New Testament, the Spanish Empire, and on and on and on and on. It's as if some people think Hitler just woke up one day, out of the blue, with a total hatred of Jews and managed to use propaganda to convince the previously 100% tolerant Germans to hate Jews, too. Antisemitism did not begin or end with the Holocaust.

The sole responsibility of Nazi Germany in the Holocaust is also just... not true. Vichy France rounded up 13,152 Jews in the Vel' d'Hiv roundup, with not a single German participant, and sent them off to be murdered in Auschwitz. Vichy passed antisemitic legislation without any outside coercion--French Jews were hiding as much from the French police as they were from the Gestapo. France, of course, was the home of the Dreyfus Affair--antisemitism was and is a deep part of French society. And it isn't just France. Ukrainian nationalists participated in the Lviv pogroms, killing maybe around 8,000 Jews, Poles perpetrated the Jedwabne pogrom, and that doesn't even bring in that countries like the US, Switzerland and Ireland and Britain blocked Jewish emigrants, and I could just keep going on, but I think you get the point. Quite simply, six million Jews interspersed throughout Europe don't get murdered if it isn't without the collaboration of--or at minimum, silent assent and indifference--of all of their neighbors. The Nazis were the primary perpetrators of the Holocaust, of course, but almost all of Europe collaborated on some level, too. And this is a history that gets wiped away in favor of the comforting narrative of the Allied Powers bursting into Auschwitz, killing Nazis, and being horrified by what they've found, and then the poor people in the surrounding towns having NO IDEA about what had been going on. I think this narrative is why gentiles have International Holocaust Remembrance Day when Auschwitz was liberated--when they 'came to the rescue'--and why we have Yom HaShoah on the day in the Jewish calendar that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began--when we died on our own terms in spite of our murderers.

Think of the tiny, unwritten, centuries old minhagim of small Jewish shetls and towns like Trochenbrod, which were entirely annihilated. The end of the burgeoning Yiddish cinema. Yiddish going from 13 million speakers to 600,000 today. See how many entries in this list of shetls end with "town/city survived, but all/most Jews exterminated." Imagine for a moment, the potential rabbis and scholars and actors and scientists and artists who could have lived, had they survived or been born of Jews did. Three and a half million Polish Jews, to around 15,000 to 20,000 Polish Jews today. Imagine if Thessaloniki were still a majority Jewish city. How many Jews worldwide would be alive today had the Holocaust never happened? I've heard estimations of 32 million, compared to the real life 16 million. To kill such a massive number of people from an already tiny minority group--that has real consequences. The cultural loss for the Jewish people is staggering and beyond human comprehension.

And yet, the Nazis deliberate targeting of us is, in many ways, being pushed aside. Magnus Hirschfeld was gay, yes, and advanced the Institute of Sexology way ahead of its time and yeah, the Nazis were homophobic. But they were homophobic for antisemitic reasons. They viewed his work as Jewish perversions BECAUSE Dr. Hirschfeld was Jewish. In fact, they viewed homosexuality as a creation of the Jews. But so many progressive queer people, especially those who run in antizionist circles, seem to be trying to co-opt the Holocaust as being their trauma, downplaying Hirschfeld's Jewishness and holding the Institute up as proof that queer people were the 'real' victims of the Holocaust, entirely shutting out the millions of Jews, Sinti, Roma, and Slavs who were murdered. You can also see this in anti-mask conservatives comparing masking mandates during the pandemic to anti-Jewish legislation in the Holocaust, or the comparisons of the ongoing war against Hamas as being a 'modern day Holocaust.'

This phenomenon, Holocaust universalization, gets so much pushback from Jews for a reason--it downplays the anti-Jewish character of the Holocaust. It's softcore Holocaust denial. And it's so ridiculous we even have to say that, as the whole point of the Holocaust was to be anti-Jewish, to be the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." It's 'All Lives Mattering' the Holocaust. Holocaust universalization, and Holocaust inversion--the phenomenon of talking about Jews, Zionists, or Israelis as perpetrating a 'new Holocaust'--minimizes and trivializes the astounding damage and traumas and death and destruction wrought by the Holocaust. It's a polemical lie, so incendiary and so insulting--imagine telling a sexual assault survivor that they're morally no better than their rapist--that the only thing it can be is antisemitic. It is beyond reprehensible to talk like that, but it's so mainstream and acceptable to do it. Activists who say these things need to examine their own rhetoric, because it's dangerous, antisemitic, and adjacent to Holocaust denial. Not a place I think anyone should want to be.

The Holocaust is not a lesson Jews should have learned, an educational seminar, a 'card' Jews play, a choose your own adventure novel, a philosophical meditation on the nature of mankind's evils, or an empty slate upon which to project modern politics, warfare, or your ideology onto.

The Holocaust is, quite simply, the industrialized genocide of the European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941-1945. And today was Yom HaShoah, the day we remember that.

[satureja13]

Saiwa was just about to get Ji Ho ready for his first Therapy Game session, when Noxee called!

Noxee: "BABIES!" Saiwa: "Noxee?!" Noxee: "Have you forgotten what day it is? We have a surprise! Send Ji Ho home, the others are waiting!" Saiwa: "Eh - ok? ö.Ö' " Noxee: "Oh! Greg is awake, see you!" Saiwa: "Noxee?" Jack: "Omg these two! I'm so going to marry her ingame and make her forget that this Greg ever existed!"

And so Ji Ho went home to meet the others. He really misses Jeb.

Noxee ordered Ji Ho and Vlad to port her and Greg over to the Otherworld. Rubyn built something new to try out! Last time they used Rubyn's OTDs (Otherworld Transport Devices) was in January. And only to transport the Boys to the Otherworld. Not to bring someone else here. Lets hope it works!

Of course it worked, since Noxee and Greg helped a bit. They are able to travel to the Otherworld under special circumstances. For example when they helped Jack and Saiwa to find their horses. Here they are! Haha and Kiyoshi is still so excited when Noxee and Greg kiss. Just the opposite of Jack ^^'

They still have no clue what their visit is all about. Noxee: "Boys - seriously? It's Beltane!"

Vlad checks the calendar on his phone. She's right. They totally forgot it over all the crazy stuff that happened lately...

Noxee told them Rubyn invented something new for them so they can travel around in the Otherworld! That was about time! They are stuck here in Otherworld's Tomarang for a few months now since the Council is still after them... They went over to the garage.

Noxee: "Greg and Jeb are going to connect Rubyn's device with the vehicle and then you should be able to travel to other destinations in the Otherworld!" Ji Ho: "That would be awesome! What kind of device is it? And which vehicle?" Noxee: "It's right before your eyes!" Vlad: "The ancient, broken TukTuk?" Jeb: "And an old telephone?" Noxee: "Sure, why not? Why build something new when we can repurpose perfectly fine stuff we already have?" Jeb: "And what's in the bread box?" Greg: "That's for the crystals and the meteorites of course." Jeb: "Of course."

After Greg and Jeb put the crystals and the meteorites in the box and installed the device, they moved the Tuk Tuk out of the garage and Jeb, Kiyoshi, Vlad and Greg climbed inside.

That's one of the cutest things I've ever seen! Poor Vlad in the middle of the two tallest and broadest ^^' Reminds me when Saiwa was cramped up in the middle between Jeb and Barfolomew in Rita's truck when they drove to San Myshuno :3

Noxee: "See you soon! We'll call Sai and Jack and meet you there!" And then they vanished.

To be continued...

From the Beginning  ~  Underwater Love ~  Latest 🕹️ 'Therapy Game' from the beginning ▶️ here 📚 Previous Chapters: Chapters: 1-6 ~ 7-12 ~ 13-16 ~ 17-22 ~ 23-28

[asleepinawell]

it is objectively hilarious that you can have four members of the calendar council on your railway board at the same time (five with fate) and no one notices? let's say the jovial contrarian's cover is solid, and september is overlooked because of the castellan thing, and they all use fake names. you've still got april who can't get through a meeting without suggesting we blow something up (valid) and january who doesn't have any real reason to have been considered? does the efficient commisioner really have no questions about any of this? does mr fires? can we get june in here too? she certainly knows a lot about building 'things' with questionable science. what could go wrong

[thedeafprophet]

'We do not have to complete the work, but we may not set it aside." being in part the quote from the Talmud, being used by January really brings an interesting view point in when it comes to her view on the LoN in general.

There is, as always, multiple interpretations of the quote. But for my takes, to me its always meant about how you shouldnt put the expectation of righting all wrong in the world on your back - that you are not going to complete everything nor are you obligated to. However just because you are not personally able to solve everything, doesn't mean you shouldnt try at all - you still have to work on making changes. Its about the balance of it all. You still have an obligation to people, but you must be realistic in what you do.

In my view with the Liberation, to me its always about an Eventual Goal, the end goal. rather then some perspective about bringing the darkness immediatly, this presents more as something thats being Worked Towards, rather then something that going to be complete.

All that is to say, this can imply within her own views, that January herself is working towards The Great Work, and that she must continue to work, and help with that, but does not view it in a way that she must be the one to complete it. That she has realistic goals within her efforts, but still believes in working towards the end goal.

[dapurinthos]

the facts were these (/pushing daisies narrator man i miss pushing daisies):

jedi facts: in this nebulous '5th quarter', a skirmish broke out on felucia, sifo was assigned to negotiate peace talks. peace talks ‘failed’, he was ‘killed’. there was a 2nd jedi present when he ‘died’. sifo’s body was cremated.

valorum’s facts: it was a senate committee working on the syndicate matter but shame shame drugs shame valorum himself contacted sifo to ‘stabilize’ things sifo AND silman were killed on felucia no bodies

pyke facts: we know nothing masters jedi sirs. honest. okay we saw him but we didn’t see anyone else. okay okay we saw him AND the advisor. we shot ‘em both down over our moon because we made an alliance with this guy calling himself tyranus. we retrieved the jedi’s body and snatched up the advisor, didn’t tell tyranus. u want him? u can have him.

silman’s facts: they TRICKED US precious the pykes killed sifo because tyranus wanted to use his identity

dooku's facts: sifo-dyas understood he saw the future that is why he helped me

the floating timeline of sifo goes like this:

tan divo & the coruscant police’s racist investigations (prior) unhelpful; investigations into hutts go slightly better (35BBY)

other syndicates threatening a full-out gang war in the coruscant underworld due to the pykes’ almost complete control over the production of raw spice (kessel, etc.)

senate committee goes uh-oh

valorum goes uh-oh, calls sifo for a meeting

sifo departs coruscant w/ silman, in a jedi t-6 shuttle

sifo & silman (the delegation) arrive on oba-diah

council messages with orders to attend to flare up on felucia

sifo leaves oba diah with silman, reaches distance of oba diah moon before being shot down by the pykes. silman is taken by the pykes.

dooku arrives at jedi temple (to delete kamino data), talks with jocasta, qui-gon, yaddle

battle of theed (45.04.19 hurrah an actual date)

at least one night passes; news of qui-gon’s death percolates.

dooku goes to confront sidious, has already ‘dealt’ with sifo-dyas, precise dates of 'dealing with' unknown.

what the fuck is a fifth quarter? it’s the time of year between black friday or christmas and the end of january in the us apparently. it’s a fiscal term. or, legally, the three full calendar months of the thirteenth calendar month from the final closing date. whatever the fuck THAT means in this gffa. HOWEVER we know there is calendric fuckery because this is star wars there is ALWAYS calendric fuckery. judicial uses the 10 month calendar. coruscant reckoning uses a (supposedly) 365 day calendar (i make this work by saying there are 3 uncounted days, the way the 10-month calendar is both 350 days AND 368 days).

possibilities: ‘the fifth quarter’ refers to those days in the 10-month calendar that aren’t counted; it’s the time between the festival of stars and new year (both one-week holidays). HOWEVER HOWEVER they also totally screwed up how the dates go by putting the battle of yavin too late in the coruscant reckoning year that it necessitates the phantom menace taking place in 33BBY so that’s what i think of THAT calendar (i did figure out the equalisation tho because i am like that. the crc has to start on 11.33 of the 10-month calendar). it can ALSO be the summer if you're talking in terms of school. ffs.

or, since the crc was done BASED ON VIBES we can go based on MY vibes (which are objectively correct) and place sifo-dyas's death date on 04.04 because:

four is death

it's before all of naboo, which puts it in line w/ tales of the jedi

it's recent enough that dooku's still doing to be a complete scribble over it

it works with disney AND legends in that it takes place post-perlemian gathering/kamino-informing and before naboo

the nitty-gritty (but not the nitty-nitty gritty) timeline (brackets are my own personal timeline, the / dates are how far through the year they are, counting down, so 32.9BBY is the 2nd month of 33BBY):

42.??.??, 35BBY: tan divo’s investigations into pyke spice trafficking begins. he fucks this up by giving into racism and believing all pykes are involved in this spice trafficking. 33BBY/32.8 (44.05.26): yinchorri attack on jedi temple; two killed; proposed point at which sifo leaves the council (final attempt at getting council to believe in his vision of the necessity of an army in the wake of the yinchorri incident, in the wake of the yam’rii incident) 32.5 (08.26): eriadu trade conference; assassination of trade fed. leadership 32.4 (09.23): passing of prop 31-814D, taxing free trade zones ???: trip to kwenn (unknown date, only that sifo is not on council) 32.4 (09.31): finis valorum under investigation for corruption 32.4: mas amedda appointed vice chancellor; valorum’s powers limited (10.01): valorum appears before court to answer corruption charges 32.3/10.05: election day, standard day each year; amidala elected queen 32BBY (45.03.23): chommell sector summit announcement 32 (03.35): gathering on perlemian orbital facility (plagueis drops the anvil about kamino to sifo-dyas) (04.02): valorum calls meeting with sifo, he and silman depart later that day (04.03): arrival on oba diah (04.04): message from council, re: felucia; departure from oba diah; shot down (04.05): blockade of naboo begins; 1 week since perlemian gathering

31.9BBY/04.14: the phantom menace begins.

04.18: arrival on coruscant; dooku & qui-gon speak during the day after the first high council meeting, before qui-gon goes to collect anakin from palpatine’s residence; departure for naboo that night; flight takes overnight. 04.19: v. early morning on coruscant is ~ mid-afternoon naboo time; occurrence of deaths: plagueis (early CR) > qui-gon (aft NB) > maul (aft NB); naboo is about 12+ hours ahead of coruscant in terms of time; result of no-confidence vote daytime on coruscant (evening naboo) 04.20: swearing-in of chancellor palpatine (coruscant day), jedi ready to leave for naboo in afternoon (early morning 21st naboo > arrival late 21st naboo). dooku confronts sidious at the limerge building in the works just before sunset. kills yaddle. there’s probably a sloppy attempt at sex here because dooku just wants out of his own head sorry not sorry 04.21: sidious departs for naboo, early coruscant morning 04.22 naboo: funeral of qui-gon jinn held 3 days post-battle of theed in naboo evening (coruscant morning)

[freefromlightandlaw]

My (belated) work for @fl-revs-appreciation!

For Dream and Reflection, who better than October, our nightmarish councilor?

Doubles and Ice made me think of January, with her two-faced mask and her study of the Discordance. I hc her as Mexican, so I took a little inspiration from calavera designs when drawing her mask. And that isn't a Discordance sigil on her forehead. >;)

Fear made me think of our dear Merry Gentleman and how most people would react to his habit of lurking behind their mirrors.

For Time, I chose December's pocket-watches. Important things tend to come in twelves, don't they? Twelve hours on a clock face, twelve months in the Calendar, twelve Masters of the Bazaar...

[scotianostra]

Did you know that up until 1599 that Scotland celebrated Christmas day on December 17th.

So Happy Christmas Day folks, Old style!!

King James VI, via an act of his Privy Council, decided that Scotland should come into line with other “well governit commonwealths.” but generally well governed France, the date for New Year's Day was changed from the 25th of March and imposed as the 1st of January.

So the day after the 31st of December, 1599, became the 1st of January, 1600. Insular England didn't make the 1st of January the official start of the year until 1752. For more facts about New Year check this link out here.

Most folks, if asked, will say that New Year's Day falls on the 1st of January each year. It was not always so, either in the United Kingdom in general or in Scotland, in particular. Come to think of it, it still isn't so in many parts of the world. New Year's Day is generally accepted as being the day that marks the beginning of a new calendar year and also the day on which the year count is incremented, but neither was that always so and still isn't so in the Jewish calendar. The 1st of January is certainly the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar and it was also the first day of the year on the ancient Julian calendar as used in Rome. Despite that apparent synchronisation, January the 1st on the Julian calendar currently corresponds to January the 14th on the Gregorian calendar.

In terms of other cultures, the Hijri or Islamic New Year begins on the first day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar. In 2011, it fell on the Gregorian 26th of November. However, the Islamic year is 11 to 12 days shorter than the Gregorian year, so there's also a perennially shifting differential between the two calendars. The Hindu New Year falls according to the time and date the Sun enters Aries on the Hindu calendar, which normally means the 13th of 14th of April, depending on the Leap year. The Jewish New Year is celebrated on Rosh Hashanah, which takes place between sunset on the evening before the first day of Tishrei and nightfall on the second day of Tishrei. Strange to say, Tishrei is the seventh, rather than the first, month of the Hebrew calendar. In terms of the Gregorian calendar, Rosh Hashanah will fall between September the 5th and October the 5th. The Chinese, on the other hand, celebrate New Year's Day as the first day of the lunar calendar, corrected every three years, for solar deviations. The date normally falls between the 20th of January and the 20th of February.

Until 1599 in Scotland, the New Year began on the 25th of March, which was in line with England. However, on the 17th of December, 1599, King James VI, via an act of his Privy Council, decided that Scotland should come into line with other “well governit commonwealths.” As a result of Jamie Saxt looking over his shoulder at the likes of 'well governed' France, the date for New Year's Day was changed from the 25th of March and imposed as the 1st of January. So the day after the 31st of December, 1599, became the 1st of January, 1600. Insular England didn't make the 1st of January the official start of the year until 1752, the year it adopted the Gregorian calendar and way after James VI became James I of England.

According to the 'Register of the Privy Council', “The Kingis majestie and Lordis of his Secreit Counsall undirstanding that in all utheris weill governit commouns welthis and cuntreyis the first day of the yeir begynis yeirlie upoun the first day of Januare, commounlie callit new yeiris day, and that this realme onlie is different fra all utheris in the compt and reckning of the yeiris ...his Majestie with the advise of the Lordis of his Secreit Counsall statutis and ordanis that in all tyme cuming the first day of the yeir sal begin yeirlie upoun the first day of Januare...”

Jamie's Privy Council was a powerful legislative and administrative body, which was very useful to him. The King had much more influence over the Privy Council than he ever did over the more independently minded Scottish Parliament. The Privy Council act of the 17th December, 1599, went on to command royal officials, clerks, judges, notaries, &c., “in all tyme heireftir” to date all “thair decreittis infeftmentis charteris seasings letteris and writtis quhatsumeuir according to this p[rese]nt ordinance.” They also seemed to have had a shortage of commas in those days.

Scotland has had a chequered past regarding Christmas, perhaps that is why New Year has always been a wee bit mair special to us than the Yuletide season. Why was this? Well you can trace it back to an act of the Scottish Parliament in 1640 that made the celebration of Yule illegal.

Things had started going sour when those spoilsport Calvinist began to get a foothold, the earliest origins of the church falling out with Santa was actually some years previous, when in 1583, Glasgow Kirk at St Mungo’s Cathedral threatened those those who celebrated Yule with excommunication, this was serious in those god fearing days and would have condemned your eternal soul to hell, a fate worse than the death that would precede this!

Why was this? Well there are no celebrations of Christmas, after the Nativity itself recorded in the Bible. Therefore there should be none in Scotland, even singing a Christmas carol was considered a serious crime. After almost 60 years of build-up they eventually passed it into law. They also looked to the old testament for there religion, more or less ignoring the "papist" new one, as for the Virgin Mary, what was she but a heathen goddess dressed up in Roman garb? So she was dropped, along with all the other saints to whom benighted Papists addressed their prayers.

The law was officially repealed in 1712, but it was still generally frowned upon.

Punishments for celebrating Yule were harsh, and there was no public holiday for the Scottish people on Christmas Day.

This next part might surprise many of you, after centuries of not having, what the Yanks call "The Holiday season" Scotland eventually began to shake off it's bad relationship with Christmas, when in 1958 it became an official holiday!

January 2nd has for years been our additional festive season holiday, it wasn't until 1971 that Boxing Day officially became a holiday

After centuries of social, religious and political change, Christmas in Scotland has become a very unique celebration.

And as in times long past, we treat this time of year as a holiday season, rather than a single day. Christmas flows into Hogmanay in a glow of family, friends, fun and feasts – and that’s about as traditional as you can get, so raise your glass, turn to your loved ones today and wish them a Happy Christmas.

The first pic shows a full extract from the Scottish National Archives, the third is what is thought to be the first officially printed Gregorian Calender the basis for most calendars in the Western World.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Toontown Rewritten Recap: January 2003 (Word of the Day)

Okay so, before I forget, I figured I’d mention this: With the exception of the post announcing the start of the Knock-Knock Joke contest, every single news blog post up to this point has been posted at 2:00 PM. Regardless, as 2014 began in the real world, Toontown Rewritten’s calendar was still in 2003.

January 1, 2003

Sir Max woke up to find that there was no update, as everyone had slept in too late.

He also noticed that the past three blog posts had all had “New Year” in the title, and thus got a word of the day calendar to try and avoid a repeat of that.

The word of the day was “Batrachomyomachy” (to make a mountain out of a mole hill). He hoped that the Toons wouldn’t have batrachomyomachy over the lack of an update, and then continued to try and work the word into as many sentences as possible for the rest of the blog post.

Sir Max is excited, however. As they’ve gotten more done in the past year than they have in the past five years of construction, he’s certain that everything will work out fine. ESPECIALLY with his word of the day calendar to keep things interesting!

The Toon Council President Election was coming, after all, AND they were planning on opening Toontown to the public that year as well!

Things were looking bright!

January 2, 2003

The word of the day was “floccinaucinihilipilification” (the action or habit of estimating something as worthless). Sir Max declared that no one would ever floccinaucinihilipilificate his posts ever again! (Also, that’s ACTUALLY part of Microsoft Word’s whitelist, unlike January 1st’s word of the day).

Also, Tammy the Tailor, a cream-colored rabbit, had decided to start selling clothing. As did the clothing shops in all of the other Playgrounds around town. As all of the Toons around town were stuck wearing the same clothes every day, this was met with much rejoicing.

Sir Max boasted that the Toons can drop by those shops for new habiliment, and then added that habiliment wasn’t even in the word of the day calendar.

The original plan for the clothing shops was for toons to have to complete Toon Tasks to get clothing tickets that they could redeem for new outfits, but one of the scientists at Loony Labs pointed out that toons would probably prefer to have the option of spending their own jellybeans. As such, clothing tickets will function more like coupons, while new outfits will instead cost 150 jellybeans.

And there was much rejoicing!

(Seriously, I don’t think anyone liked Toontown Online’s Clothing Ticket system. I think just about every server has made it possible to just buy clothes with jellybeans.)

January 3, 2003

It was Fat McStink’s birthday! Ever since the previous Wednesday, he’d been peeling apples and cutting apples for all of the apple pies he needed for his birthday.

If you’ll remember, however, Toontown had been trapped in a magically-enhanced winter, so the apples he had spent so much time preparing just turned sour. So all of his guests would have to share a single apple pie.

Thankfully, that wasn’t an issue, because nobody showed up to his birthday party!

Once he was done crying into his pie, he was able to finish it, but now he has a bunch of pies. He lacked both friends to share them with and enemies to throw them at.

So, he sadly wandered the streets of Toontown alone, until he bumped into Muddy Paws: someone whom had just recently joined the TTR Team. The two hit it off, and Muddy Paws was able to find a use for all the apple pies: building an Apple Launcher that alpha testers can download on the “Play” page of the website.

Don’t think about it too hard.

January 4, 2003

Sir Max announced that the TTR Team would be going for a soothing nature walk.

Hawkheart had gone up to the North Pole for Christmas, Too Many Secrets ate too much and had been in a food coma since New Years, and Shockley was busy assembling some kind of machine out of his Christmas gifts.

Point is, work was piling up, development was behind schedule, and they’d all hit a brick wall.

Thus, Sir Max decided the best thing they could do was to take a brief hiatus to go on a soothing, mind-clearing nature walk.

It might not have been the big Saturday update Toons were expecting, but even obsessive hobbyists need to take breaks every now and again.

January 11, 2003

Sir Max and friends just BARELY made it back to Toontown in one piece. They all had fun, by which Sir Max means they all nearly died several times, and his entire worldview has been forever altered by the things he has witnessed.

Basically, things were going well at first: Shockley only threatened to throw Too Many Secrets off a cliff twice, some nice, masked people took all their supplies, and then Sir Max fished up a Jellybean while trying to catch food.

Unfortunately, the Jellybean was actually a malevolent artifact forged by an eldritch evil, forcing  Sir Max and friends to go on a perilous journey to throw it into a volcano down the corridor from where they started. In order to ensure the Jellybean’s destruction, they needed to forge a Fellowship, or Friendship, of the Bean.

Goshi used the power of friendship and convenience store cosplay to become the Gandalf of the team.

Plus, the Toon TAGS that Loony Labs developed worked in conjunction with the portable hole system to allow them to teleport to each other. In Sir Max’s own words: “So yeah, the Jellybean might have been evil and driven us all against each other with greed and power, but we were driven against each other together. If that isn’t friendship, I don’t know what is.”

In the end, Sir Max and McQuack were able to destroy the Jellybean forever (after fighting their way past all the monsters guarding the volcano), and Goshi came in with a firehose to put out all the lava and let the duo escape safely.

They weren’t able to build anything while fighting for their lives against the forces of darkness, but they did bring back “tidings of Friendship”, which Loony Labs were MORE than happy to implement into the Toon TAGS system, allowing Toons to send friend requests to each other, in order to fill out their new Friends Lists!

Additionally, Toons could now teleport and whisper to their friends, regardless of location*. (Note: you can only teleport to a friend when they are in a location you have previously been to.) Additionally, you’ll receive whispers when friends are coming online or logging off.

Whispering was still SpeedChat only, though.

Additionally, the 50 friend cap from the Toontown Online days was removed, with the caveat being that a NEW limit would be placed upon the game entering beta.

January 12, 2003

Shockley had been gone for a while, and came back just in time for the nature walk, only to get separated from everyone before they encountered the Jellybean, so he had NO IDEA why everyone was just staring off into space (or what Sir Max’s Bean-related mumbling was all about).

Anyway, he explained that he was the city planner at the Toon Council meetings. He designed all the buildings and attractions in the town, based off of feedback from the toons, of course. He alluded to one Scientoon from Loony Labs having some PARTICULARLY good ideas, including one that’d be implemented in the then-near future.

Shockley recommended that everyone start filling out their friends lists, because they had quite the surprise planned…

January 13, 2003

Muddy Paws had fixed up the Apple Launcher so it could launch apples better. He used some new glue from Sticky Lou’s shop, plus sprayed it down thoroughly with bug spray from Fat McStink (apparently, the wood for the Apple Launcher came from the same woods where the Catching Game is played) in order to try and get all the bugs out of the launcher.

The Apple Launcher still couldn’t launch through Windows, but apparently they were experimenting with that.

January 14, 2003

Sir Max realized that he’d “lollygagged” (To move slowly, fall behind) on his word of the day calendar for the past 10 days, and thus has to make up for lost time.

In addition to the above word, he had to work in the words “Troglodyte”, “Anencephalous”, “Discombobulate”, Gobbledygook”, “Flibbertigibbet”, “Hemidemisemiquaver”, “Slangwhanger”, and “Pettifogger” (not to be confused with the Cog from Toontown: Corporate Clash. This predates THAT by roughly half a decade).

He also decides to burn the word of the day calendar, considering it more trouble than it’s worth (possibly due to the writer getting sick of the joke).

To see how he worked all those words into the blog post, click here.

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THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE BEAN