#turks vs romans

[adventure-showdown]

What is the greatest Doctor Who story ever told?

Everything has been split into groups of 32 that I think are of similar levels of notoritiy, but likely not popularity. Seeding within the groups decides the matches. At the end of the round groups are paired up and mashed together to do it all again.

What that means right now is the order the matches below are listed in has no baring on what they'll be against in the next round

There will be 16 matches a day with Fridays off

Lastly, you can still submit propaganda for posts here

ROUND 1

ROUND 2

Day 16

The Metaphysical Engine or What Quill Did vs Alien Avatar

The Last Oak Tree vs Dead Man Walking

Black Hunger vs Dream-Eaters

From Out of the Rain vs Detained

A Day in the Death vs Nightvisiting

Fragments vs Taphony of the Time Loop

Lost Library of Ukko vs The Custodians

Sirens of Ceres vs Children of Earth

K9 and Company vs Regeneration/Liberation/The Korven

Mutant Copper vs Reset

For Tonight We Might Die vs The Lost

Miracle Day vs The Cambridge Spy

Mind Snap/Angel of the North/Last Precinct/Hound of the Korven/Eclipse of the Korven vs Fear Itself

Exit Wounds vs Something Borrowed

Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart/Brave-ish Heart vs Oroborus

The Fall of the House of Gryffen vs The Curse of Anubis

previous and future days under the cut - unfortunately i've had to get rid of the links because there were too many and the post broke, however they are all tagged #round 2

Day 1

The Mind Robber vs Galaxy 4

The Moonbase vs The Daleks' Master Plan

The Evil of the Daleks vs The Space Museum

The Gunfighters vs The Macra Terror

The Dalek Invasion of Earth vs The Celestial Toymaker

The Reign of Terror vs The Daleks

The Rescue vs The Ice Warriors TIE

The Ark vs the Romans

The Tenth Planet vs The Web Planet

An Unearthly Child vs The War Machines

The Invsion vs The Keys of Marinus

The Underwater Menace vs The Aztecs

The Edge of Destruction vs The Massacre

The Sensorites vs The Seeds of Death

The Chase vs Marco Polo

Planet of Giants vs The Time Meddler

Day 2

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances vs Love and Monsters

Human Nature/The Family of Blood vs The End of the World

The Waters of Mars vs The End of Time

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit vs Fires of Pompeii

Blink vs The Unquiet Dead

Boom Town vs Utopia

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday vs Father's Day

Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks vs Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways

Dalek vs New Earth

Rose vs Planet of the Ood

The Runaway Bride vs The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky

The Girl in the Fireplace vs Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead

Partners in Crime vs The Christmas Invasion

School Reunion vs The Stolen Earth/Journey's End

The Unicorn and the Wasp vs The Sound of Drums/Last of Time Lords

Tooth and Claw vs Midnight

Day 3

A Death in the Family vs The Eleven

Ship in a Bottle vs Blood of the Daleks

Albie's Angels vs Phobos

No More Lies vs UNIT Dating

Horror of Glam Rock vs Companion Piece

The Grey Man in the Mountain vs The Love Vampires

Human Resources vs The Widow's Assassin

The Company of Friends: Izzy's Story vs The Side of the Angels

Day of the Master vs The Crucible of Souls

1963: The Assassination Games vs The Red Lady

Stranded vs The Sonomancer TIE

The Doomsday Chronometer vs The Silver Turk

Absent Friends vs The Eighth Piece

Paradox of the Daleks vs Better Watch Out/Fairytale in Salzburg

Inside Every Warrior vs Robophobia

Stop the Clock vs To the Death

Day 4

The War Games vs The Abominable Snowmen

The Sea Devils vs The Time Warrior

The Time Monster vs Fury from the Deep

The Tomb of the Cybermen vs Terror of the Autons

The Three Doctors vs The Ambassadors of Death

The Highlanders vs The Power of the Daleks

Doctor Who and the Silurians vs Carnival of Monsters

The Faceless Ones vs The Daemons

The Enemy of the World vs The Monster of Peladon

The Mind of Evil vs Frontier in Space TIE

The Claws of Axos vs Inferno

Spearhead from Space vs The Ark in Space TIE

The Horns of Nimon vs The Seeds of Doom

Planet of the Spiders vs The Web of Fear

Colony in Space vs The Green Death

Invasion of the Dinosaurs vs The Curse of Peladon

Day 5

Vincent and the Doctor vs Closing Time

The Snowmen vs The Beast Below

The Doctor's Daughter vs The Rings of Akhaten

Vampires of Venice vs The Doctor's Wife

Gridlock vs A Town Called Mercy

The Wedding of River Song vs Amy's Choice

The Girl Who Waited vs Time of the Doctor

Hide vs Smith and Jones

The Eleventh Hour vs Curse of the Black Spot

A Christmas Carol vs The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone

A Good Man Goes to War vs Name of the Doctor

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship vs The God Complex

Day of the Doctor vs Asylum of the Daleks

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood vs The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon

Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel vs 42

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS vs Turn Left

Day 6

The Lumiat vs A Spoonful of Masters

Nightshade vs Rhys and Ianto's Excellent Barbecue

Solitaire vs Paradise 5

Serenity vs The Last Post

No Place vs The Hollow King

Warfare vs Square One

The Cars that Ate London! vs Out of Time

Iterations of I vs A Full Life

I am the Master vs Forever Fallen

The Creeping Death vs Expiry Dating

Peshka vs The Forgotten Village

First Days of Phaidon vs The Scorchies

Gallifrey IV vs The Queen of Time

Wink vs Death and the Queen

Too Many Masters vs Peri and the Piscon Paradox

The Concrete Cage vs The Fifth Citadel

Day 7

City of Death vs The Creature From the Pit

The Key to Time vs The Ribos Operation

The Keeper of Traken vs The Masque of Mandragora

Image of the Fendahl vs The Brain of Morbius

The Horror of Fang Rock vs The Armageddon Factor

Terror of the Zygons vs Mawdryn Undead

The Sunmakers vs The Androids of Tara

The Sontaran Experiment vs The Pirate Planet

Genesis of the Daleks vs Destiny of the Daleks

Warriors' Gate vs The Invasion of Time

The Stones of Blood vs The Hand of Fear

The Leisure Hive vs State of Decay

Logopolis vs Robot

Full Circle vs The Face of Evil

The Deadly Assassin vs Pyramids of Mars

Meglos vs The Robots of Death

Day 8

Heaven Sent vs Cold War

Under the Lake/Before the Flood vs The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion

Flatline vs The Return of Doctor Mysterio

The Angels Take Manhattan vs Dark Water/Death in Heaven

The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar vs Empress of Mars

Smile vs Extremis

Hell Bent vs Knock Knock

The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People vs The Husbands of River Song

Mummy on the Orient Express vs The Power of Three

Twice Upon a Time vs Listen

Face the Raven vs The Eaters of Light

Robot of Sherwood vs The Pilot

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang vs The Girl Who Died

The Pyramid at the End of the World vs Oxygen

Time Heist vs Deep Breath

The Lodger vs World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls

Day 9

The Bekdel Test vs The Blood Cell

Human Nature vs Doctor Who and Shada (fan novelisation)

The Book of the War vs The City of the Dead

The Adventuress of Henrietta Street vs The Stranger

Mad Dogs and Englishmen vs The Crooked World

Anachrophobia vs Alien Bodies

Harvest of Time vs Interference

The Blue Angel vs Vampire Science

Lungbarrow vs The Turing Test

Oh No It Isn't vs The Eleven Day Empire/The Shadow Play

Living Legend vs The Gallifrey Chronicles

Engines of War vs The Year of Intelligent Tigers

Scratchman vs The Scarlet Empress

Psychodrome vs Camera Obscura

This Town Will Never Let Us Go vs Unnatural History

The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50 vs A Photograph to Remember

Day 10

The Caves of Androzani vs Warriors of the Deep

Revelation of the Daleks vs Paradise Towers

Snakedance vs The Mysterious Planet

The Visitation vs Ghost Light

Survival vs The King's Demons

Black Orchid vs Battlefield

Planet of Fire vs Frontios

Attack of the Cybermen vs Enlightenment

The Curse of Fenric vs Mindwarp

Terror of the Vervoids vs The Mark of the Rani

Kinda vs Trial of a Time Lord

The Two Doctors vs Earthshock

The Five Doctors vs The Ultimate Foe

Terminus vs Vengeance on Varos

Castrovalva vs Ressurection of the Daleks

Delta and the Bannermen vs Remembrance of the Daleks

Day 11

Whatever Happened to Sarah-Jane? vs Kerblam!

Flux vs The Caretaker

Eve of the Daleks vs Revolution of the Daleks

Praxeus vs Last Christmas

Village of the Angels vs Revenge of the Slitheen

The Ghost Monument vs War of the Sontarans

Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror vs Resolution

The Tsuranga Conundrum vs The Haunting of Villa Diodati

Demons of the Punjab vs Eye of the Gorgon

The Halloween Apocalypse vs Rosa

The Woman Who Fell to Earth vs Once, Upon TIme

Ascension of the Cybermen/The Timeless Children vs Spyfall

The Power of the Doctor vs Can You Hear Me?

Invasion of the Bane vs Fugitive of the Judoon

It Takes You Away vs The Witchfinders

Arachnids in the UK vs Thin Ice

Day 12

Downtime vs Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor

Dalek Weetabix advert vs The Fallen

Divided Loyalties vs The Land of Happy Endings

Summoned by Shadows vs Space in Dimension Relative and Time

More than a Messiah vs Step Into the 80s/On Through the 80s

Famine Appeal vs The Devil of Winerborne

Unnatural Selection vs Lepidometry for Beginners

Ground Zero vs Merry Christmas Doctor Who

The Zero Imperative vs When to Die

Fear Itself vs 12 Doctors, 12 Stories

Zygon: When Being You Just Isn't Enough vs The Room With All the Doors

The Terror Game vs Eye of the Beholder

Old Friends vs In Memory Alone

Wall's Sky Ray lollies advert vs Nothing at the End of the Lane

Something Borrowed vs The Flood

The World Shapers vs The Star Beast

Day 13

The Chimes of Midnight vs Minuet in Hell

The Holy Terror vs Spare Parts

The Happiness Patrol vs The Company of Friends: Benny's Story

Dragonfire vs The Company of Friends: Fitz's Story

Doctor Who and the Pirates vs Singularity

The Condemned vs The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

The Girl Who Never Was vs Neverland

Other Lives vs Caerdroia

Scherzo vs The Company of Friends: Mary's Story

Jubilee vs The TV Movie

The Harvest vs Seasons of Fear

Terror Firma vs Storm Warning

Zagreus vs Arrangements of War

Master vs The Natural History of Fear

The Marian Conspiracy vs The Apocalyse Element

Loups-Garoux vs The Kingmaker

Day 14

Death of the Doctor vs The Gift

Lost in Time vs The Mark of the Berserker

Small Worlds vs Secrets of the Stars

Sleeper vs Everything Changes

Countrycide vs To the Last Man

They Keep Killing Suzie vs Out of Time

Cyberwoman vs The Nightmare Man

Combat vs The Temptation of Sarah-Jane Smith

The Wedding of Sarah-Jane Smith vs The Empty Planet

Random Shoes vs Adam

Goodbye, Sarah-Jane Smith vs The Mad Woman in the Attic

Prisoner of the Judoon vs Ghost Machine

The Curse of Clyde Langer vs The Lost Boy

The Last Sontaran vs Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Sky vs The Day of the Clown

Mona Lisa's Revenge vs Captain Jack Harkness

Day 15

Time Crash vs Tardisodes

Dreamland vs Dr Who and the Daleks

Shada (webcast with 8) vs The Battle of Demons Run: Two Days Later

Ronald Rat Continuity Announcement vs Pond Life

P.S. vs The Shrink

The Daleks' Invasion of Earth 2150AD vs Doctorin' the TARDIS

Farewell, Sarah-Jane vs The Infinite Quest

Shada (1992 version with linking narration) vs An Adventure in Space and Time

Night of the Doctor vs The Doctor's Meditiation

Real Time vs Dimensions in Time

Clara and the TARDIS vs The Great Detective

Rain Gods vs Scream of the Shalka

Doctor in Distress vs Space Time

Night and the Doctor vs The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot

Shada (2017 animated reconstruction) vs Born Again

Search Out Space vs The Curse of Fatal Death

[tma-entity-song-poll]

Battle of the Fear Bands B2R4: The Corruption

BlackBoxWarrior:

“A song about a man struggling with his health (be it mental or physical). The song makes the treatment seem inhumane and just as terrifying as the initial problem. It’s almost like he’s getting sicker and sicker but just won’t die.”

Thermodynamic Lawyer:

““Disease is her primary language” - every line of this is filled with rot and disease and bugs and it’s 100% corruption.”

Lyrics below the line!

BlackBoxWarrior - OKULTRA:

Well he collapsed with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome on the E.R. floor Panic attacked, anaphylactic and ataxic The way he spun his butterfly risked all six his phalanges Roman candles at both ends in his synapses And the method with which he recycled his humors Trojan Horse'd his Blood-Brain Barrier and raised the LD-50, yes, yes And through flight-or-fight revelation shame the Black Box Warrior He skipped this town and headed straight down history Shields himself from reason in a Kevlar baby-blue Tuxedo Quilted from the finest fibers, flesh, and fiberglass, and flowers His ego a mosquito, evil incarnate good incognito Pops placebos for libido, screaming, "Bless the torpedoes"

For what? For what? For what it's worth If it was going to kill you boy, it would have by now For what? For what? For what it's worth There's no more looking back, it's looking up or looking down

Well, he was wearing stolen rubber shoes and wrapped a poison ivy noose Around his Lotus jugular when they came Well, they found him with a map to every victim of his love And a tattoo of a blue jay on his face And they waited for his vital signs to lie and let a flatline cry A hymn out in Hungarian Harmonic But he cocked his noggin, through his stoma sang, "For auld lang syne" "Happy birthday to the succulents, I'll die your hydroponics" His rib cage was a hornet's nest, palpitations set the beat His vagus nerve a turk's head knot, an axel hitch, a carrick bend He wondered if Christ Consciousness would charge a cancellation fee Auf wiedersehn, au revoir, he gripped his wits right by their ends

For what? For what? For what it's worth If it was going to kill you boy, it would have by now For what? For what? For what it's worth There's no more looking back, it's looking up or looking down

Hello, welcome, why don't you take a seat? Get comfortable, relax, take a second if you need to Now what's bothering you? Well, why don't we start at the beginning Growing up, how was your relationship with the fundamentals of conscious existence? Did you have xenon orchid sinews spilling down the outer center of your Blooming Escher/Mandelbrot head? And how about claustrophilic tendrils clapping caskets closed on seven-knuckle thumbs Did you get along well with the Gideon Bugler pineal glands? Your projector eyes casting sci-fi's on your STR'd strands? Tell me about your nerve to steal nerves of steel from under Bacchus' bloody nose Did Namibian Himbas tie-dye you, your ears pierced with a Phineas Gage flagpole Did you die before your day? Thursday traction, Tuesday titration My hope is to assess through my objective report of Your subjective conjecture Whether this proprietary bled of expertise and seasoning works as well as this Transorbital ice pick Holistic ballistics, you got a better idea? It's about the best we could come up with, what, you think ideas spread because they're good? No, they spread because people like them So now here we are once again, holding As it were, a mirror up to your mirror I guess it's just something people do

A bloody knife to split your infrastructure, wine to rev your motor function Coital machinations of the dead Well, you mainline your animus, karate chop your abacus And learn to be an animal instead But I never did think you better than this, your modus operandi causes Nazi/Skoptzyism and suicide Why to thine own self be true when it is you who are the problem Not the things you do but something sick inside Lithium and Dialectics, boy you really is defective CBT don't seem effective for that Cluster B, accept it Offer up your innocence, please ignore the side effects You've lost your mind and almost lost your life before So you'll be fine

For what? For what? For what it's worth If it was going to kill you boy, it would have by now For what? For what? For what it's worth There's no more looking back, and why would you want to look back? I mean, it's no good looking back, so try to look forward now For what? For what? For what it's worth If they were going to get you boy, they would have by now For what? For what? For what it's worth There's no more looking back, it's looking up or looking down…

Thermodynamic Lawyer Esq, G.F.D:

(I hold myself in contempt) Tearing the hair off a black baboon's skull Here's a bitch with some four-thousand names Vomiting lies through her theremin throat As some businessmen pick at her brains Pulls back skinny lips to reveal a proboscis Seems Seth Brindle's at it again Tears pages from spines as she judges the cover And shamelessly spoils the end Blood vessels drying and curling inside are Unfurling from out of her wrists Well, she wrings out a snake and collects all its poison Intending to learn it to hiss Foams at the mouth with a head full of acid And giving some poor illness the blame Knocking the pieces the fuck off the chessboard Insisting that she's won the game So all that I see absolute entropy As the chemical bonds fall apart Well, it seems she broke me But I swear she could not break my heart She could not break my heart, oh lord Makes up excuses for throbbing black bruises And uses them to her advantage Never came down from her last trip, oh Jesus Disease is her primary language Garbled and gruesome, her words so absurd Like a herd of transmissions from Apollo 13 No apology, I request misery So no rest 'til I've twisted her chest round my knee So squeal like a trolley wheel, cry like a baby With autism strapped to a ceiling fan Soil your visage with mucus and twisting of features unable to stand Buckle your knees looking up at me And beg me to spare thee the back of my hand For the sake of humanity, die of your blight We're blessed, you're barren as Mojave sands So all that I see absolute entropy As the chemical bonds fall apart Well, it seems she broke me But I swear she could not break my heart, whoa Now all that I see absolute entropy As the chemical bonds fall apart Well, it seems she broke me But I swear, she can go fucking die (kill yourself) You can go fucking die (kill yourself) Go fucking die (kill yourself) Kill yourself and go die

[blackcharactertournament]

Black Character Tournament: Left Side!

adding a post break to make this more rebloggable

—

Chidi Anagonye | The Good Place vs Bow | She-Ra & the Princesses of Power

Marina Ida | Splatoon vs Youngblood Ra | Roleslaying with Roman

Barret Wallace | Final Fantasy VII vs Lunella Lafayette/Moon Girl | Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur

Lucas Sinclair | Stranger Things vs Gus Porte | The Owl House

Carole Stanley | Carole and Tuesday vs Garnet | Steven Universe

Aisha/Layla | Winx Club vs Carter Kane and Sadie Kane | The Kane Chronicles

Martha Jones | Doctor Who vs Death | Sandman (TV)

Finn | Star Wars vs Oluwande Boodhari | Our Flag Means Death

Leshawna | Total Drama vs Sonic the Hedgehog | Sonic the Hedgehog

Jodie Landon | Daria vs Helen Brand | Glass Onion

Wolf | Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts vs Benson | Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

Mike Hanlon | IT (Steven King) vs Burton Guster | Psych

Flow | Roleslaying With Roman vs Nasuada | Inheritance Cycle/Eragon Trilogy

Jordan Hennessey | Dreamer Trilogy vs Ava Coleman | Abbott Elementary

Duke Thomas | DC Comics vs Mel Medarda | Arcane

Molly Blyndeff | Epithet Erased vs Michael Burnham | Star Trek Discovery

Neena Thurman (Domino) | Marvel comics / Deadpool 2 vs Nyota Uhura | Star Trek The Original Series

Gregory Eddie | Abbott Elementary vs Kipo Oak | Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

Elena Amamiya | Star Twinkle Precure vs Simon Aumar | Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Karli Morgenthau | MCU: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier vs Enfys Nest | Star Wars: A Solo Story

Connor Hawke/Green Arrow | DC Comics vs Myla | One Last Stop

Winston Bishop | New Girl vs Khalil Harris | The Hate U Give

T'Challa | Black Panther vs Dr. Charlotte | Falsettos (Revival)

Gigi Thompson | Inside Job vs Isaiah | One Last Stop

Ivan Taylor | The Wilds vs Nathan Byrne | The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself

Miranda Bailey | Grey's Anatomy vs Essun | Broken Earth Trilogy

Agent 355 | Y : The Last Man vs Audacious Opportunity (A.O.) Rooke | Friends at the Table (Partizan)

OJ Haywood | Nope 2022 vs Nubia | Wonder Woman

Mr Nancy | American Gods vs Storm | X Men

Ambrose Spellman | Chilling Adventures of Sabrina vs Louis | The Walking Dead Game

Angela Moore | Boy Meets World vs Hilary Banks | The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Junko Saotome | Nana vs Wes Gibbins | How to Get Away with Murder

Turk | Scrubs vs Wallace Fennel | Veronica Mars

Frozone | The Incredibles vs Kendra Young | Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Joelle Brooks | Dear White People vs Sans | Undertale

Anissa Pierce/Thunder | Black Lightning vs Koriand'r/Starfire | Titans (DC TV show)

Andre Harris | Victorious vs Sara | Over the Garden Wall

Samol | Friends at the Table vs Taion | Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Emerald Haywood | Nope (2022) vs Genly Ai | The Left Hand of Darkness

Sarah Miller | The Last of Us (TV) vs Pinkie Pie | My Little Pony

Muhammed Avdol | Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure vs Dr Foreman | House MD

Efi Oladele | Overwatch vs Jason Hauer | We only find them when they are dead

Bram Greenfeld | Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda / Love, Simon vs Zélie Adebola | Children of Blood and Bone

Nick Fury | Marvel vs Sam Wilson | MCU

Uniqua | The Backyardigans vs Alexx Woods | CSI Miami

Rue | Euphoria vs Bill Potts | Doctor Who

Nadine Ross | Uncharted series vs Jalil Sherman | Everworld

Baal (Valentine) | The Wicked + the Divine vs Jamal Saturday | Locke and Key (comics)

[avispatr]

Random rant of a history major below

I don't like how the west has grown to view the crusades. There was plenty of wrong doing and evil conducted by crusaders certainly, but I hate how we've evolved to view the crusades as a proto form of colonization, putting our modern values and politics on the movement.

Christianity/the west was not the dominant power that it was now back then, it was largely colonization that shaped the reality we live in today...which started more then four centuries after the crusades. Back then the middle east was the center of civilization and where technology and sciences were becoming more and more advanced, with western Europe being viewed more as a backwater.

The Caliphate invaded the Roman Empire and Sassanid Persians in the 7th century, and the thing that prompted the first crusade was the expansion of the Seljuk Turks into Asia minor, land that belonged to the Roman Empire. The emperor asked for help from the pope and the pope organized the first crusade as a retaliation against the aggressive Seljuke expansion.

Many many evil things were done in the name of God and in the crusades. I am fine with the movement being criticized and actions being looked at with disgust. What bothers me though is the view they were this unprovoked movement to take land and money from the peaceful people living in the middle east nearly a thousand years ago. The world was a very different place back then, with different realities and issues. Its become a new pet peeve of mine and its not unique to the crusades!

We should not project our current issues onto the distant past and we shouldn't just consume the same primary and secondary sources to fuel research that is popular for the sole purpose of making a profit. Being a historian should not be about money! It should be honest work done out of love for history. The moment a historian tries to make history into what they personally want it to be vs what sources show it was they have failed at their job.

[brookston]

Holidays 10.19

Holidays

Change Your Life Day

Constitution Day (New Zealand, Niue)

Dress Like a Dork Day

Evaluate Your Life Day

Feast of the Wicked Scam

International Human Rights Day (Turks and Caicos Islands)

LGBT Center Awareness Day

Make A Scarecrow Day

Mother Theresa Day (Albania)

National Clean Your Virtual Desktop Day

National Kentucky Day

New Friends Day [also 1.19; 7.19]

Oxfordshire Day (UK)

Rainforest Day

Samora Machel Day (Mozambique)

World Pediatric Bone and Joint Day

Yabusame Festival (Koyama, Japan)

Yorktown Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Greasy Spoon Day

International Gin and Tonic Day

National Seafood Bisque Day

3rd Wednesday in October

Breast Reconstruction Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]

Day of National Concern About Young People and Gun Violence [3rd Wednesday]

Global Dignity Day [3rd Wednesday]

Hagfish Day [3rd Wednesday]

International Pronouns Day (a.k.a. Pronouns Day) [3rd Wednesday]

Love Your Body Day [3rd Wednesday]

Medical Assistants Recognition Day [3rd Wednesday]

Missouri Day [3rd Wednesday]

Support Your Local Chamber of Commerce Day [3rd Wednesday]

Thank Your Cleaner Day [3rd Wednesday]

Unity Day [Wednesday closest to 10.22]

Independence Days

Niue (1974)

Feast Days

Aaron (Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria)

Aquilinus of Évreux (Christian; Saint)

Armilustrium (Ancient Roman Festival of Mars)

Barbarella Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Bettara Ichi (Pickle Market a.k.a. Sticky-Sticky Fair; Ebisu Shrine, Tokyo, Japan)

Desiderius (Didier) of Auxerre (Christian; Saint)

Diderot (Positivist; Saint)

Ethbin (a.k.a. Egbin; Christian; Saint)

Frideswide (Christian; Saint)

Henry Martyn (Anglican Communion)

Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf, and Companions (Christian; Saints)

Jerzy Popiełuszko (Christian; Blessed)

Paul of the Cross (Christian; Saint)

Peter of Alcantara (Christian; Saint)

Prides (Christian; Saint)

Ptolemaeus and Lucius (Christian; Saint)

Rene Goupil (Christian; Saint)

Travel Poobah (Muppetism)

Try Not To Die Day (Pastafarian)

Varus (Christian; Saint)

Veranus of Cavaillon (Christian; Saint)

William Carey (Episcopal Church)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 48 of 60)

Premieres

Angels in the Outfield (Film; 1951)

Antipop, by Primus (Album; 1999)

A Chorus Line (Broadway Musical; 1975)

Clerks (Film; 1994)

Counterparts, by Rush (Album; 1993)

Damn the Torpedoes, by Tom Petty (Album; 1979)

I Second That Emotion, by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles (Song; 1967)

Le Belle Sauvage, by Philip Pullman (Novel; 2017) [The Book of Dust Trilogy #1]

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (Novel; 1953)

Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Film; 1977)

Mulholland Drive (Film; 2001)

Mylo Xyloto, by Coldplay (Album; 2011)

Pin Ups, by David Bowie (Album; 1973)

Prince, by Prince (Album; 1979)

Riding in Cars with Boys (Film; 2001)

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, recorded by Brenda Lee (Song; 1958)

Stop Making Sense, by Talking Heads (Film; 1984)

Take On Me, by A-ha (Song; 1985)

Tannhäuser, by Richard Wagner (Opera; 1845)

Vs., by Pearl Jam (Album; 1993)

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., by Simon & Garfunkel (Album; 1963)

Today’s Name Days

Frieda, Paul (Austria)

Ivan, Izak, Joel, Pavao (Croatia)

Michaela (Czech Republic)

Balthasar (Denmark)

Stella, Tähte, Tähti (Estonia)

Uljas (Finland)

Cléo, René (France)

Frieda, Frida, Isaak, Paul (Germany)

Cleopatra, Felix (Greece)

Nándor (Hungary)

Isaac, Laura (Italy)

Drosma, Drosme, Drosmis, Elīna, Valts (Latvia)

Geisvilas, Kantrimė, Kleopatra, Laura (Lithuania)

Tora, Tore (Norway)

Ferdynand, Fryda, Pelagia, Pelagiusz, Piotr, Siemowit, Skarbimir, Toma, Ziemowit (Poland)

Kristián (Slovakia)

Laura, Pablo, Pedro (Spain)

Tor, Tore (Sweden)

Cleo, Cleon, Cleopatra, Howard, Howie (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 292 of 2022; 73 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 42 of 2022

Celtic Tree Calendar: Gort (Ivy) [Day 19 of 28]

Chinese: Month 9 (Júyuè), Day 24 (Yi-Si)

Chinese Year of the: Tiger (until January 22, 2023)

Hebrew: 24 Tishri 5783

Islamic: 23 Rabi I 1444

J Cal: 22 Shù; Sunday [22 of 30]

Julian: 6 October 2022

Moon: 32%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 12 Descartes (11th Month) [Diderot]

Runic Half Month: Wyn (Joy) [Day 9 of 15]

Season: Autumn (Day 27 of 90)

Zodiac: Libra (Day 25 of 30)

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 10.19

Holidays

Change Your Life Day

Constitution Day (New Zealand, Niue)

Dress Like a Dork Day

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3rd Wednesday in October

Breast Reconstruction Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]

Day of National Concern About Young People and Gun Violence [3rd Wednesday]

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Hagfish Day [3rd Wednesday]

International Pronouns Day (a.k.a. Pronouns Day) [3rd Wednesday]

Love Your Body Day [3rd Wednesday]

Medical Assistants Recognition Day [3rd Wednesday]

Missouri Day [3rd Wednesday]

Support Your Local Chamber of Commerce Day [3rd Wednesday]

Thank Your Cleaner Day [3rd Wednesday]

Unity Day [Wednesday closest to 10.22]

Independence Days

Niue (1974)

Feast Days

Aaron (Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria)

Aquilinus of Évreux (Christian; Saint)

Armilustrium (Ancient Roman Festival of Mars)

Barbarella Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Bettara Ichi (Pickle Market a.k.a. Sticky-Sticky Fair; Ebisu Shrine, Tokyo, Japan)

Desiderius (Didier) of Auxerre (Christian; Saint)

Diderot (Positivist; Saint)

Ethbin (a.k.a. Egbin; Christian; Saint)

Frideswide (Christian; Saint)

Henry Martyn (Anglican Communion)

Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf, and Companions (Christian; Saints)

Jerzy Popiełuszko (Christian; Blessed)

Paul of the Cross (Christian; Saint)

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William Carey (Episcopal Church)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 48 of 60)

Premieres

Angels in the Outfield (Film; 1951)

Antipop, by Primus (Album; 1999)

A Chorus Line (Broadway Musical; 1975)

Clerks (Film; 1994)

Counterparts, by Rush (Album; 1993)

Damn the Torpedoes, by Tom Petty (Album; 1979)

I Second That Emotion, by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles (Song; 1967)

Le Belle Sauvage, by Philip Pullman (Novel; 2017) [The Book of Dust Trilogy #1]

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (Novel; 1953)

Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Film; 1977)

Mulholland Drive (Film; 2001)

Mylo Xyloto, by Coldplay (Album; 2011)

Pin Ups, by David Bowie (Album; 1973)

Prince, by Prince (Album; 1979)

Riding in Cars with Boys (Film; 2001)

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, recorded by Brenda Lee (Song; 1958)

Stop Making Sense, by Talking Heads (Film; 1984)

Take On Me, by A-ha (Song; 1985)

Tannhäuser, by Richard Wagner (Opera; 1845)

Vs., by Pearl Jam (Album; 1993)

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., by Simon & Garfunkel (Album; 1963)

Today’s Name Days

Frieda, Paul (Austria)

Ivan, Izak, Joel, Pavao (Croatia)

Michaela (Czech Republic)

Balthasar (Denmark)

Stella, Tähte, Tähti (Estonia)

Uljas (Finland)

Cléo, René (France)

Frieda, Frida, Isaak, Paul (Germany)

Cleopatra, Felix (Greece)

Nándor (Hungary)

Isaac, Laura (Italy)

Drosma, Drosme, Drosmis, Elīna, Valts (Latvia)

Geisvilas, Kantrimė, Kleopatra, Laura (Lithuania)

Tora, Tore (Norway)

Ferdynand, Fryda, Pelagia, Pelagiusz, Piotr, Siemowit, Skarbimir, Toma, Ziemowit (Poland)

Kristián (Slovakia)

Laura, Pablo, Pedro (Spain)

Tor, Tore (Sweden)

Cleo, Cleon, Cleopatra, Howard, Howie (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 292 of 2022; 73 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 42 of 2022

Celtic Tree Calendar: Gort (Ivy) [Day 19 of 28]

Chinese: Month 9 (Júyuè), Day 24 (Yi-Si)

Chinese Year of the: Tiger (until January 22, 2023)

Hebrew: 24 Tishri 5783

Islamic: 23 Rabi I 1444

J Cal: 22 Shù; Sunday [22 of 30]

Julian: 6 October 2022

Moon: 32%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 12 Descartes (11th Month) [Diderot]

Runic Half Month: Wyn (Joy) [Day 9 of 15]

Season: Autumn (Day 27 of 90)

Zodiac: Libra (Day 25 of 30)

[thereteller]

Turks and Romans around ~1000 - 1100 AD according to Byzantine Empire of the time. In the ages of Roman Empire and/or Eastern Roman Empire also known as Byzantine Empire or Byzantium, self-describing of Byzantine Greeks was “Romans (Romaioi)” instead of “Greeks (Ellines)”.

To the Romans and/or Eastern Romans (Byzantines), after diplomatically, commercially and militarily being in contact with the Khaganate of Tourkoi (Turks) who were formerly known as Skythikoi (Scythians), now known as Tourkoi (Turks, i.e. Turkish Khaganate, also Gök-Türk Khaganate or Turkic Khaganate), thus the ethnonym Skythikoi was used together with Tourkoi as cognates, and slowly replaced its usage completely to Tourkoi in time. Those Turkophone groups included tribes such as Huns, i.e. those who originally bore the ethnonym Hun, popularly and falsely known as “Hun elites”, should be called as “Huns” only, thus excluding their non-Hunnic allies who are Indo-European or Uralic speakers who cannot be counted as Hun and/or Hunnic or Hunnish. After the dissolution of the Khaganate of Tourkoi (Turkish or Turkic Khaganate), Turkophone tribes who arrived around boundaries of Byzantines and raided towards Europe and Iran (and/or Persia) and also directly towards the realm of the Byzantine Empire such as Anatolia and Balkans, continued to be called Tourkoi besides aging usage of Skythikoi. One of the examples that Romaioi used both Skythikoi and Tourkoi together commonly for collective Turkophone tribes is the name of a prominent unit they used in their military ranks called “Skythikon (Scythian)” which only made up of strong warlike cavalry of Turkophone tribes such as Pechenegs, Cumans, Bulgars etc. Prominent Turkophone tribes who remained around Europe after the dissolution of Hunnic Confederation without losing their identity such as Ogurs (Oghurs, Oğurs, Onogurs, Uturgurs, Kuturgurs, Saragurs, Altzikurs) and Agacheri (meaning in the language of Turks: “woodman, woodmen”; Akatziri in Huns, Agathyrsi in Scythians) were also called Tourkoi and their realm was called Tourkia. For example, the realm of Onogurs was called Western Tourkia even after the arrival and domination of Turk-identified Uralo-Turks called “Magyars” who were led by other Ogur Turks of Arpad together with the Turkophone Kabars who lost the Khazar Civil War, in the Ogur Turk ruling Confederation of Onoguria (Onoguria > Ungaria > Hungary) until around 1300s, thus the Kingdom of Hungary was always called “Tourkia (Turkey)”, or “Western Tourkia” in contrast to “Eastern Tourkia” also known as Khazaria, a khaganate established by an Oğur or Oğuz tribe called “Khazar” (the Turkish Khaganate called them “Sabar”, a Turkophone tribe which was also allied with Huns, also known as “Sabir”), which was established soon after the dissolution of the Turkish Khaganate. Before the arrival of Onogurs in the Pannonian plains and causing Byzantines to call their realm “Onoguria” or “Ungaria (Hungary)”; they were living around a region called Etelköz, probably north of the peninsula of Taurica around modern-day Kyiv (Kiev), the land they will arrive was ruled by the Avars, another Turkophone tribe that lost a great war against the Turkish Khaganate and fled into the Pannonian plains, defeating the Germanic Gepids. They had Turkish-named khagans like Bayan, and their realm was called “Avaria” by the Byzantines, and they were sometimes called “Varchonites” which is the unification of the ethnonyms Avar and Hun, thus Varchonites > Avarhuns, Byzantines also called them “descendants of Huns”. Khagan of Tourkia sent diplomats to demand the withdraw of the Eastern Roman recognition of Avar rule in the Pannonian plains and a joint Turkish-Byzantine offensive towards the realm of Avar tribe, self-described as “Avar Khaganate”.

Also other Turkish tribes such as Pechenegs, Oghuz (Oguz and Ogur tribes were the biggest and the main body of all Turkophone tribes, all other Turkophone tribes anciently split off from this great tribe in early times. Oguz or Ogur means “the tribes” or “the people”. The Tribe or “Oguz/Ogur” constitued the greatest and most populous tribes or tribal unions of the Turks in history), Cumans (or Kipchaks), and a prominent dynasty or clan from the Oghuz tribe called Selchuk who founded the Seljuk Empire, controlled and conquered nearly all of Anatolian peninsula after conquering Iran (Persia), and also other statelets of Oğuz Turk clans which was established in Anatolia after the arrival of populous Oguz Turks in Anatolia following the conquest of Anatolia by the Seljuk Turks, such as Saltuk, Danishment, Mengujeg, and the first Turkish sailor in history named Tzachas (Chaka or Çaka); were also called “Tourkoi” and their realm “Tourkia”. Tzachas was a captive from a battle between Tourkoi and Romaioi around Smyrna, and until Alexius Komnenus rule he lived in the Byzantine court and served for them, but when Komnenus forcefully kicked him from Constantinople, he fled to Smyrna and as a commander he defeated the Romaioi armies, he allied with Pecheneg Turks and made assaults against the Byzantines together, captured Smyrna and cities and towns around Smyrna and establishing an Smyrna-based independent Turkish state, and created the first navy of Turks in history and conquered Midilli, Sakız and Sisam islands around 1090s. From the other heavily populous mass migration of Oğuz and Cuman Turks who arrived in Anatolia (other than other destinations for them such as Hungary, Bulgaria, Iran, India, Egypt etc.) fleeing from the Great Mongol Invasion of Genghis, clans such as Jandar, Teke, Eretna, Germiyan, Ottoman etc. settled in Anatolia under the protection of Seljuk Tourkia which was later defeated by the invading Mongols just like Cuman Tourkia which was defeated by the Mongols; leaving the Mongol vassal-state Seljuk Tourkia and established independent beyliks to rebel and fight against the Mongols and their allies to end the Mongol dominion over Anatolia. After the dissolution of Seljuk Tourkia, Ottoman Empire rose up and the realm of Ottomans was also called “Tourkia”, thus since the ages of Seljuk Tourkia and Ottoman Tourkia, it’s still called the “Republic of Tourkia (Turkey)”.

[sixth-light]

The Crusades: A Fandom Primer

Like many of you, I am very excited to see a whole lot of fic about everybody’s favourite new Crusades-era Muslim/Christian immortal warrior husbands! However, a preliminary reading indicates that fandom is a bit hazy on what actually happened during the Crusades. Or where. Or why. They’re a much-mythologised piece of history so this isn’t surprising, but at popular request – ok like five people that counts – I’m here with a fandom-oriented Crusades primer.

Please bear in mind that I’m not a historian and this primer is largely based on my notes and recollections from several undergraduate history courses I took in the mid ‘00s. I expect the field has moved on somewhat, and I welcome corrections from people with more up-to-date knowledge! There’s also this very good post by someone who is a lot less lazy about links than I am.

Where did they take place?

The Crusades, broadly, describe a series of invasions of the Eastern Mediterranean (modern Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Beirut, Jordan, Cyprus, and parts of Turkey and Greece) by (mostly) Western European armies, religiously justified by their belief that the city of Jerusalem should be part of ‘Christendom’, i.e. ruled by a Christian monarch. In the first expression of European settler colonialism, nobles from the area of modern France and Germany founded four Crusader Kingdoms (aka ‘Outremer’, ‘overseas’) – the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and County of Tripoli.

  After a first unexpected wave of success in the First Crusade (1096-1099), which surprised everybody including the participants by conquering Jerusalem, the Crusaders were gradually driven and the last part of Outremer was lost to European control with the fall of the city of Acre in 1291. Crusades after that still nominally aimed to take Jerusalem but rarely got very far, with the Fourth Crusade famously sacking the city of Byzantium, their nominal Christian allies, in 1204. During this whole period activity that can be considered part of the ‘Crusades’ took place around the Eastern Mediterranean.

The most important thing to remember is that modern national boundaries didn’t exist in the same way; Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and the UK were not unified nations. Most of the southern Iberian peninsula (modern Spain) was ‘al-Andalus’, Muslim kingdoms ruled by nobility originally from North Africa. Sicily had been an Emirate up until very recently, when it had been conquered by Normans (Vikings with a one-century stopover in France). Italy and Germany in particular were a series of city-states and small duchies; Genoa, if you’re curious about it for some reason, ;), was a maritime power with more or less a distinct language, Genoese Ligurian (their dialect had enough of a navy to qualify). England had recently become part of the Anglo-Norman Empire, which ruled most of England (but not Wales or Scotland) and also large parts of modern France, particularly Normandy.

The Muslim world was similarly fragmented in ways that don’t correspond to modern national boundaries - there were multiple taifa states in Iberia, the Almoravid Caliphate in Morocco, the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt, and (nominally) the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, one of the great cities of the era, although the Seljuq Turks were the major power in Anatolia (modern Turkey) and what we describe as the ‘Middle East’. 

The largest Christian unified power in the wider European/Mediterranean region was the Byzantine Empire, centered on the city of Constantinople (modern Istanbul), which quite fairly considered itself the direct continuation of the Roman Empire, the capital having been moved there by the Emperor Constantine in 323. In fact, the really big political and religious question of the time for Christians was who got to be considered the centre of Christendom (there was no real concept of ‘Europe’ at this point) – the Orthodox Church, the Byzantine Emperor, and the Patriarch of Constantinople in Constantinople, or the Holy Roman Emperor (er…dude in nominal charge of a lot of German and Italian principalities) and the Roman Catholic Church led by the Pope in Rome. The Orthodox Church in Constantinople and the Roman Catholic Church had agreed to disagree in 1054 in the Great Schism, so in 1096 this issue was still what you’d call fresh.

Onto this stage of East-West disagreement and the heritage of Rome crashed the Seljuq Turks, a Muslim group from Central Asia who swept through Anatolia (modern Turkey), Byzantium’s richest province, culminating in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 which wiped out Byzantium as an independent military force. The southern provinces had fallen under Muslim rule long ago, during the era of the first Umayyad Caliphate – including Jerusalem, famous as the birthplace of Christianity and a holy site for Judaism and Islam as well, but also a fairly uninteresting provincial town. Until...

Until…what?

Here’s why all the geography matters: It is generally accepted that the First Crusade kicked off largely because Alexios I Comnenus, the then-current Byzantine Emperor, requested aid from Western Europe against the Muslim Seljuq Turks. Byzantium often recruited mercenaries from Western Europe; the Normans (aka the Vikings), who had settled Normandy and southern Italy in the past century were frequent hires. Hence those runes in the Hagia Sophia.

Meanwhile in Western Europe, the Pope – Urban II – was having difficulty with the current Emperor, and was eager to heal the Schism and establish the primacy of the Roman church. He declared that an expedition to aid the Byzantines would have the blessing of the church, and that a new kind of pilgrimage – an armed pilgrimage – was religiously acceptable, if aimed against the enemies of Christendom.

Pilgrimages (travelling to holy sites, such as churches that held saints’ relics) were a major part of European Christianity at the time and many people went on pilgrimage in their lives, so this was a familiar concept. Western Europe was also somewhat overpopulated with knights – don’t think plate armour, this is 1096, think very murderous rich men with good swords – who could always use forgiveness, on account of all the murder. The Roman Catholic church, unlike the Eastern Orthodox church, also subscribed to the concept of ‘just war’, that war could be acceptable for the right reasons. And so a whole lot of nobles from the area of modern France, Belgium, England, Germany, and Italy decided that this new Crusade thing was something they wanted in on – and they took several armies with them.

I’m going to skip over a bunch of stuff involving the People’s Crusade (a popular movement of poorer people, got literally slaughtered in Anatolia), the massacres of Jews in Eastern Europe, and a lot of battles, but the takeaway is this: Alexios probably thought he was getting mercenaries. He got a popular religious movement that, somewhat unfortunately, actually achieved its goal (Jerusalem), did next to nothing to solve his Anatolia problem, and gave a succession of Popes a convenient outlet for errant knights, nobles, and rulers: going on Crusade.  

How many were there?

Official Crusades that anybody cares about: Nine, technically. Crusade-like military events that immortal soldiers might have got involved with, plus local stoushes in Outremer: way more. WAY more.

The First Crusade (1096-1099): First and original, set a frankly (heh) terrible precedent, founded the Crusader States and captured Jerusalem. Only regarded as a clash of civilisations by the Western Christians involved. For the local Muslims it was just another day at the ‘Byzantium hires Frankish mercenaries to make our lives difficult’ office.

The Crusade of 1101: Everybody who peaced out on the First Crusade hurried to prove they were actually up for it, once the remaining First Crusaders took Jerusalem. Didn’t do much.

The Second Crusade (1147-1150): The County of Edessa falls, Eleanor of Aquitaine happens (my fave), the only winners are the people who semi-accidentally conquer Lisbon (in Portugal) (but from Muslim rulers so that…counts?).

The Third Crusade (1189-1192): You all know this one because it has RICHARD THE LIONHEART and SALADIN. Much Clash of Civilisations, very Noble, did enough to keep the remaining Crusader kingdoms going but access to Jerusalem for Christian pilgrims was obtained by treaty, not conquest. Indirectly responsible for the Robin Hood mythos when Richard gets banged up in prison on the way home and is away from England for ages.

The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204): Aims for Jerusalem, ends up sacking the Eastern Orthodox city of Constantinople, just not a great time for anybody, more or less the eventual cause of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453.  

The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221): Still going for Jerusalem, starts with Cairo instead, does not get anywhere it wants to even after allying with the Anatolian Sultanate of Rum, making the whole ‘Christians vs Muslims’ thing even murkier than it already was post the Fourth Crusade.

The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229): Somehow these things are still going. Nobody even does very much fighting. Access to Jerusalem is negotiated by treaty, yet again.

The Seventh, Eight, and Ninth Crusades: Seriously nobody cares anymore and also nobody is trying very hard. Kings have better things to do, mostly. People end up in Egypt a lot. We covered these in one lecture and I have forgotten all of it.

The Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229): Why take a three-year trip to the Holy Land to fight pagans when you can fight the ones in your own backyard (southern France), AND take their stuff? Famously the source of the probably apocryphal ‘Kill them all, God will know His own’ quote, regarding the massacre of most of a city harbouring Cathars (a Christian sect deemed heretical).

Can we circle back to that ‘massacres of Jews’ bit? WTF?

Crusades, historically, were Not A Good Time for Jewish communities in Europe; when Christians were riled up to go and Fight The Infidel, it was a lot quicker to massacre local Jews than travel to the Holy Land. Also, then you could take their stuff. I will note here that it is VERY TACKY to use historical pogroms as backdrops for your non-Jewish main characters so keep this in mind but, like, use with extreme caution in fanfic, okay? Generally life was a lot easier for Jewish communities in Muslim-ruled states in this period, which is why so many Hispanic Jews ended up in Turkey after they were expelled from Spain. 

What were they really about, then?

Historians still Have Opinions about this. Genuine religious fervour was absolutely a key motivator, especially of the First Crusade. The ability to wage war sanctioned by the Church, or to redeem your local sins by going and fighting against the pagans, was part of that, too. Control of key trade routes to the East was probably not not a part of it. The Crusader States were definitely Baby’s First Experiment With Settler Colonialism, and paved the theological and rhetorical ground for the colonisation of the Americas. But many individuals on the Christian side would absolutely have believed they were doing God’s work. The various Muslim rulers and certainly the local Christian, Jewish, and Muslim inhabitants of the Holy Land itself were mostly just getting invaded by Franks. As time wound on the Crusades became more and more political (frequently featuring intra-religious violence and inter-religious alliances) and less and less about their forever nominal goal, control of Jerusalem.

How’s Wikipedia on this?

Basically not too bad but I’m not totally confident on some of the bits about motivation (see: white supremacists love this period, ugh.)

Why did they stop?

The prospect of re-taking Jerusalem vanished entirely as the Ottoman Empire centralised and took a firm hold over most of the Levant (and made inroads into Europe, as far as Austria, taking Constantinople in 1453 and finally ending the continuous Roman Empire), the Spanish Reconquista and various intra-European conflicts (the Hundred Years’ War, for example) absorbed military attention, and then the Reformation happened and half of Europe stopped listening to the Pope and started stabbing each other over who was the right kind of Christian. But the concept lingered; white supremacists love the Crusades. Which is why it is a very good idea to be sparing with Crusader imagery around Niccolò in fanfic set in the modern era, and please for fuck’s sake stop with the ‘crugayders’ tag, Yusuf wasn’t a Crusader.  

What other fun facts should I keep in mind re: Nicky | Nicolò and Joe | Yusuf?

·        Genoa is not the same as Italy; Nicolò is Nicolò di Genova and would have spoken Genoese (Ligurian) and considered himself to be Genoese. Italian as a language didn’t really exist yet. The language he and Yusuf would most likely have had in common was the ‘lingua franca’ (Frankish language, literally) of the Mediterranean trading region, a pidgin based heavily on maritime Italian languages. Yusuf 300% would have thought of him as a ‘Frank’ (the generic term for Western Christians) and probably annoyed him by calling him that until at least 1200 or so.

·        Yusuf is apparently from ‘Maghrib’, which I assume means al-Maghrib/the Maghreb (as his actor is IIRC of Tunisian descent), i.e. North Africa. He could have had relatives in al-Andalus (southern modern Spain), he may have spoken languages other than Arabic natively (Mozarabic or Berber), his native area had universities before Europe did. Basically: this is as useful as saying he’s ‘from Europe’, do better backstory writers.

·        Taking the whole ‘Nicky used to be a priest’ backstory at face value: being a priest in 1096 looked pretty different to how it did even 200 years later. They were still working on the celibacy thing. The famous monastic orders were still forming. Some priests could and did hold lands and go to war (this wasn’t common but it happened, especially if they were nobles by birth). Nicolò di Genova would not necessarily have seen a conflict between going on Crusade and being a priest, is what I’m getting at. If he was ALSO trained as a knight, he was from a wealthy family; it took the equivalent several villages to support a knight.

·        ‘Period-typical homophobia’ is going to look very different for this period. They are NOT getting beaten up for holding hands. Or sharing a bed! Or even kissing, depending on the circumstances! I am not an expert on Islamic sexual mores of the era but Christian ones were heavily on the side of ‘unsanctioned sex is bad, sanctioned (marital) sex is slightly less bad’, and there was no concept of ‘being gay’. An interfaith relationship would be in some ways more of a problem for them than the same-sex one (and in some ways less difficult to navigate than a heterosexual interfaith relationship.) The past is another country.

·        Look just no more fanfics where Yusuf is trying to learn ‘Italian’ in the early twelfth century I am BEGGING you all

[with-my-murder-flute]

Initial sketch notes of my historical research on Islamic experiences of the Siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, posted August 6, 2020.  This is the long version of “Why might Yusuf al-Kaysani, who is from the Maghreb, have been fighting at Jerusalem in 1099?”

Trigger Warning: Graphic violence, slavery, and genocide

Notes taken from reading Paul M. Cobb’s The Race for Paradise: An Isamic History of the Crusades and supplemented by Dr. Google. I’m reading Cobb’s book partly because it’s on audiobook (though it is a fricking Audible Exclusive) and partly because it’s written for Western non-Muslim audiences, which helps get me up to speed.

The Old Guard Through History video says Joe and Nicky met during the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099, so I’ve focused most of my research on that.

Historians generally agree that in the 11th century the Islamic* world did not have a “Muslims vs Christians” worldview like the one Christians were beginning to develop. Their experience led them to expect Christians to be allies as often as enemies. Around the 1060s Christians began a new paradigm of religious war against Muslims, which Muslims didn’t really realize at the time--they responded to times when Christians would choose religious affiliation over clear strategic gain as shocking and bizarre, a departure from the status quo

(*Islamic: Society predominantly defined by Muslim rule and culture, but containing people of many different religions)

The Islamic response to the First Crusade was decentralized and diverse. There were a lot of different groups in the Levant*, many of whom had deep divisions, rivalries, and feuds. They mostly saw the Crusaders as a new factor that might affect their existing rivalries with other Islamic states, and were used to being able to broker deals or treaties with Christian groups to turn local warfare to their advantage.

(*Levant: A term used to describe countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, especially those with traditional religious significance to the Abrahamic religions - modern-day Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and parts of Egypt and Turkey. Comes from the French word for “rising”, in the sense of “where the sun rises”)

Additional term I’m going to be using a lot: “Frank”. It’s the Islamic term for, basically, “Western European” (of both the pagan and Roman Catholic varieties). It’s easier than saying “the Roman Catholics” or “The Crusaders” (which is putting a later cultural construct on people who didn’t call themselves that)

The biggest division of Islamic society in this area is, roughly, the Seljuq Turks and the Fatimid Caliphate. 

In the year 1000, the Fatimids were riding high: They ruled Egypt and North Africa stretching across to the Atlantic, much of the Levant, the island of Sicily, and bits of the Arabian Peninsula around the Red Sea. 

Then in the mid-11th century the Seljuqs came BLASTING OUTTA NOWHERE like holy shit calm your jets and conquered a lot of Fatimid and Byzantine territory (we’re talking the yellow parts of the map, they’ll destroy the Byzantines entirely later)

In addition to losing land to the Seljuqs, the Fatimids also lost Sicily to the Normans (who don’t even GO THERE but anyway), and North Africa through?? Independence movements?? Sheer carelessness??? I’m not quite certain.

The Seljuqs were Sunni, the Fatimids were Shi’ite, I... am not gonna try to explain that whole thing. Here’s a video.

(Small note for Yusuf character reasons: A big motivation behind the move of Ifriqiya [modern Tunisia and parts of Algieria and Libya] out of Fatimid control was that most of their populations were also Sunni)

So the Franks left Constantinople and travelled through what is now Turkey but was at the time the Byzantine Empire, and then moved into Seljuq lands. Most of the fighting in the First Crusade was against Seljuqs--mostly against tribes who fought for themselves, I think? Although in Damascus (which was a huge city the Franks just breezed by in favour of historically significant ghost towns) there was a general jihad preached like “Hey somebody should do something about all these Europeans”, so some of the people fighting were like... random people from Damascus.

While the Seljuqs were distracted, the Fatimids thought they could win some land back from THOSE UPSTARTS, so they snuck in and grabbed Jerusalem.  As Peter Konieczny reports, there are scholars who think the Fatimids thought, partly because they had a lot of experience ruling Egypt’s Coptic Christian population, that they could reach a mutually satisfactory alliance with the Franks, especially since it seemed like most of the Franks didn’t intend to settle in the area, but return to Europe once they ensured pilgrim access to Jerusalem, which had mostly been hindered by banditry in Seljuq-controlled areas. 

When I read stuff just generally about the Fatimid army, it’s described as being composed of two groups:

Berber tribesmen (Kutama and Sanhaja) (I’m struggling to find more info about them)

Mamluks, who are... a cross between slaves and mercenaries? Basically, they were captives from non-Muslim territory (in the Fatimids’ case, mostly Circassia in central Asia) who were brought to Muslim lands and trained as soldiers, but once active as soldiers, were paid and hired by different groups, able to achieve freedom, often gained important government posts, and occasionally toppled the government they served and ruled the roost.

This next bit is based on fairly standard histories of the Siege of Jerusalem that rely a lot on Western sources, like this article by Michael D. Hull and this article by Michael Cartwright. Which... have to be taken with a grain of salt, because medieval military histories don’t tend to line up super well with archaeology or plain logistics. Generally, it isn’t wise to take medieval European sources at their word when they say “the army had 10,000 people” or “they killed every last person”. They’re often written after the fact and with clear biases, and, when it comes to the Crusades, with an imperfect understanding of the culture they’re describing. I’d like to have better sources, but this is where I’m starting from, especially since I have limited access to academic sources during the summer.

So, the standard history says that Jerusalem was taken in 1098 by  Emir  al-Afdal Shahinshah, but by 1099, governor Iftikhar al-Daula was in command of the defenses. and that he had a “garrison of Arab cavalry and Sudanese archers.” Cartwright reports it as “perhaps several thousand infantry and an elite cavalry corps of 400 Egyptians.” I currently have no way of knowing which of these troops were Mamluks and which weren’t.

According to Hull, when the Fatimids in Jerusalem realized they would have to face a siege, they expelled all Christians of any denomination from the city, as well as all Jews “except for those of a sect for whom it was mandatory to reside in the Holy City”. Cartwright reports it as “...all Christians were kicked out if the city. In contrast, the Jewish population were allowed to stay”. Cartwright reports that Jerusalem’s population, 70,000 at the beginning of the year, was lowered to 30,000 by the expulsions (though some people were also coming into the city to take refuge from the oncoming Frankish army). Additional preparations included poisoning wells outside of Jerusalem to deny the Frankish army water, and emptying the land around the city of livestock and people. 

The Fatimids were also expecting the arrival of an army marching north from Egypt to help them out relatively soon, which explains why their strategy was mostly “hunker down and wait” with very limited attacks outside the city.

The Franks came southward down the coast to Jaffa, where they took the nearest port to Jerusalem, and then approached the city.

June 7, 1099: The Frankish army shows up at Jerusalem with about 15,000 people total and less than 1,500 armed knights. They split into two camps, one attacking from the south, one from the north. They were in rough shape and didn’t have any siege weapons, so the Fatimid defenders were able to sit up on the walls, taunt them, and shoot arrows. They enlivened the tedium by sending cavalry units outside the walls to harass Franks who were scavenging for food and water.

June 13, 1099: Some Franks on the north side of the city managed to scrabble together siege ladders and try to climb up and assault the walls; they were repelled pretty easily by the defenders.

June 17, 1099: English and Genoese ships land at Jaffa, carrying siege equipment and fresh supplies. Hull reports that the Fatimids dispatched troops, 400 Arabs and 200 Turks, to attack the supply chain between Jaffa and Jerusalem; Hull reports that the Franks only lost 5 of the force of maybe 150-200 knights, and “all of the archers” (about 50?)

It takes about three weeks to transport the supplies to Jerusalem and for the siege towers to be built; the Genoese played an especially large role in building the siege equipment, and their chief engineer is named as  William Embriaco.

On July 10 the siege engines were finished and wheeled to the walls. That night everyone inside the city and out sat over campfires, showing each other pictures of their families and trying to humanize themselves for the audience to make their impending deaths more impactful

(I kid)

(mostly)

June 13-15: Almost continuous fighting between the Franks, who are trying to move their siege engines close enough to make it onto the walls of Jerusalem, and the Fatimid defenders, who were trying to fight them off and burn their towers down. 

June 15: The Franks breach the walls and begin pouring inside, killing and looting its inhabitants. There is well-documented destruction of Muslim and Jewish holy places, where Muslims and Jews fled for refuge and were killed. This part is. Sickening. Tens of thousands of people dead; the streets running with blood. 

The Fatimid governor and various others (possibly the remainders of the army? Possibly important citizens? Some Jews appear to be in this group?) took refuge in the Tower of David, and were able to negotiate to leave Jerusalem safely. The Fatimid soldiers who left the city that way joined the advancing Fatimid army at Ascalon, southwest of Jerusalem.

It’s unclear who the survivors were--the sources mention people left aside being made into slaves, being allowed to leave the city, or being ransomed by rich relatives outside the city. The fact that we have Jewish and Muslim accounts of what happened during this time means there were survivors

But let’s face it: The survivors were the minority. The majority of people, thousands of them, were slaughtered by the Franks as they took over the city.

Epilogue: The Fatimids tried to take Jerusalem back a month later, and failed. Jerusalem was in Crusader hands.

It’s taken me three days to write this up and I’m ending it feeling really blah and drained by the enormity of this shit. I... 

The Race for Paradise has this bit that talks about two Western ways of talking about the Crusades: 

The Traditional paradigm, where this was a great moment for Christianity, whew we kicked those guys’ BUTTS!

The Lachrymose (Latin for “full of tears”) paradigm, coming to popularity since the Enlightenment, where this was horrific mass slaughter caused by religious zealotry and it was bad and everything was bad 

But the thing is, we can’t actually stop there. Or, that is: It’s not actually useful for our only narratives about the Crusades to be either “Christians kill everyone and it’s awesome” or “Christians kill everyone and it’s terrible”. It’s not true; it feeds into the overall false narrative of “European Christians only interacted with [Muslims/Middle Easterners/People of Colour] very rarely, and only when there was an atrocity happening.” It means we fail to acknowledge all the cross-cultural contacts that happened without an atrocity, and fail to realize that a lot of these atrocities came out of the context of incredibly warlike countries whose economies depended on warfare and conquest.

Another element is... during the 11th century, when all of this happened, the Normans also invaded England. Their conquest was absolutely brutal. England was ethnically and linguistically divided for centuries between a French-speaking colonial upper class, and the English-speaking peasantry. But over the centuries, these two groups came to live together peacefully and build a distinctly new society. Most peoples’ narratives of medieval England are not “a land of massacre, genocide, and ethnic strife”, even though those things definitely happened. We just have much stronger associations with medieval English art, literature, culture, fashion, and architecture than its slaughters.

So basically: The challenge for us in the 21st century is to develop a richer understanding of the past. We know a hell of a lot about battles and armies; we know way less about merchants and farmers, and about the long decades between battles and armies. Military history tells us about waging war, but if we can look past that, we can find out about waging peace.

Now I’m going to go collapse into my bed, and in a day or five I’ll write up a TL;DR version about what I think the likeliest backstories for Joe are (Briefly: probably a Fatimid cavalry soldier or an ordinary person who thought it was safe to be in Jerusalem at the time, and had to defend himself and his servants etc when the city fell)

[avelera]

I think my final weird historical ramble of the day As Brought to You By my research for Lights Out/Old Guard Nicky/Joe fic into the Crusades is how seeing Europeans as like a colonizing force during the Crusades or the Crusades as a “Clash of Civilizations”, East vs. West, Muslims vs. Christians, etc etc, the way many people view it in the US and indeed the way I was initially taught to view that conflict, is wrong because apparently it gives way too much credit for how haphazard, pathetic, and primitive the Europeans actually were.*

I mean, far from being some unstoppable European war machine of CONQUEST and EMPIRE, these hapless European, barely-more-than-barbarian-tribes, forces basically stumbled into establishing a Latin Christian presence in the Levant mostly because of internal political strife on the part of the defending Fatimid Caliphate + the Fatimid’s conflicts with the Seljuk Turks (both Muslims and often conflated by Westerners - basically, the players were Latin Christians and Byzantine Greek Christians, who were often infighting, Seljuk Turkish Muslims and Arabic Fatimid Caliphate Muslims, who were originally fighting but then later once the Europeans arrived were sometimes allied but also each of them respectively were sometimes allied with the Latin Christians once those forces got their feet under them and began to operate as just another political force in the region and ANYWAY THE POINT IS, this whole thing was a MESS and not a clash of two monoliths AT ALL at least not for the first HUNDRED YEARS of the conflict).* 

(*according to several lectures I have listened to, please do not consider this comprehensive knowledge, it’s a product of around 100 hours of research, not a PhD)

The thing is, the Europeans didn’t set out to “conquer” the Middle East when they answered Pope Clement II’s call to “liberate” Jerusalem (which was more of a favor that Clement was doing for the Emperor of Constantinople anyway and it backfired for that Emperor in so, so many ways). The Casus Belli really was just to “liberate” the Holy City from the “pagans” (no mentions of Islam as a faith that they were fighting but, interestingly, the Latin Christians, at least the Italians, may not have even really seen Islam as a separate faith as such in fact some may have seen it as a heretical Christian sect which is kind of wild but also, like, a little closer to the reality in that both faiths are Abrahamic as compared to incorrect interpretations that it’s just an entirely “pagan” religion??). So the Christian forces were mustered, it seems for the most part, by Clement inspiring them based on the incredibly devout faith of the Europeans who stepped up for the call, NOT as much by inspiring in them the the hopes of gaining money or territory, except for by a few minor princes who figured out that there was an opportunity to gain territory only AFTER they were there. So, to characterize this conflict as financially motivated on the part of the European Crusaders is to ascribe modern motives to an ancient, truly religiously-motivated conflict. 

Now, financially, fortunes WERE made in a very cynical way as a result of this conflict, but it was the CHURCH milking the Crusaders, not the Church expecting to gain any wealth from the Holy Land. They became a de facto bank lending money to Crusaders could buy equipment and horses in exchange for loaning or selling their lands and livestock to the Church (I’m sure Jesus would have LOVED that!) BUT the Crusaders all did so at a HUGE disadvantage because, uh, supply/demand kicked in because there was a TON of land suddenly up for sale and EVERYONE needed a horse (or 3) and weapons and armor and food so you see where this is going the Church made BANK and the Crusaders went BANKRUPT for this cause that they were pretty much doing JUST out of a desire to save their SOULS, NOT out of hope of plunder!

So they eventually get to the Holy Land, probably like 50% of the *knights* who set out to fight there die along the way, let’s not even get INTO the Peasants Crusade or the camp followers/civilians who tagged along. And really, the plan was to kick out the “pagans” from Jerusalem, in theory hand the territory back over to the Byzantine Christians in Constantinople and just... go home. Then a bunch of stuff happened and they stayed. 

BUT to go back to my original point, acting like it wasn’t a total haphazard mess that led to the conquest of Jerusalem, let alone holding it, that the Europeans had any idea what they were doing, that they were anything more than just ANOTHER band of smelly barbarians rolling through, setting up some short-lived fortresses and then fucking off again once any kind of serious local resistance gets organized, is to give the Europeans WAY too much credit. They’re not the sophisticated war machines of modern era Imperial Britain or France, these are barely more than Frankish clans and German feudal lords along with a bunch of whackadoodle Christian believers, getting tricked more or less by their religious leaders to go maraud to a random place on the other side of the world, bankrupting and/or killing way more than half of these hapless guys, for reasons that were largely baffling to the more sophisticated governments currently “in power” (for a certain value of “power” given internal divisions in the Fatimid Caliphate). 

TL;DR The Europeans were basically a barbarian hoard, who lacked the manpower to do more than cling to the edges of the coast for barely a century before being driven off again. If this was the Romans and the Gauls we’d consider this occupation a footnote, if not for the long-term ramifications that we continue to suffer from this event, but more from the PERCEPTION of this event more than the material reality of it, for the last 1,000 years. 

And anyway, as an Ancient Rome/Greece nerd primarily, this has been an interesting thing to learn!

[theothersarshi]

Seeing a lot of stuff about the EU vs. the US, racism, and all that. It reminds me that the cultural divide between the continents is pretty huge, and for some reason the US assumes that the EU is fairly similar, except maybe with champagne and pasta.

The within-continent divide of Europe is huge. Probably way greater than most Americans would expect.

Remember how Latin was the language of scholarship in Europe in the Middle Ages? Yeah, that was Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, it was Old Slavonic. This made sense, because there were a lot of Slavic people around (not exclusively, but enough to be a majority). 

Remember how England, France &co. went crusading in the Middle East? You might remember them fighting Arabs and Turks and other “heathens”. Except they went there supposedly to save their fellow Christians who lived in the Roman Empire. 

“What?” you say. “Wasn’t the Roman Empire dead and buried by the time of the Middle Ages?”

You’re thinking of the one with the capital in Rome. The capital moved to Constantinople in 330 AD, and the empire continued for another thousand years, though we generally refer to it as the Byzantine Empire. It also switched its official language to Greek. It was rich, it was cultured, it had some Really Important Church stuff going on. 

Anyway, the Westerners sacked allied Constantinople, thus weakening it for later Turkish attacks and hastening its eventual demise, while the Turks extended their influence further and further into Europe, so what was a fun stroll in the name of faith for the West was a pretty shitty input in a war for survival for the East.

Remember the Renaissance, when the Antiquity was rediscovered and all sorts of knowledge boomed? Yeah, Constantinople fell and the Christians there ran because Muslims had a tendency to occasionally genocide them. They went West and took their knowledge with them, kickstarting the Renaissance.

The West wrote its own history and that’s what often gets remembered; the Byzantine empire was, and then it was not, and behold how awesomely the West rediscovered the “lost” works of the Ancients. 

And so on, and so on.

[bastardsunlight]

//LONG-ass headcanon sesh for D, Alucard (Hellsing) and Adrian (CV’s Alucard) all kinda rolled into one.

So, since I don’t have radiantDecay anymore, I’ve sort of pulled back from the verse where Adrian BECOMES D. There was a lot of movement and timeline adjustment that had to happen for that one, and while it is in some way still possible, I’m not terribly interested in upkeeping a unique interpretation for a character that’s never really going to come into play. If you’re writing with D, it’s thousands of years after he was Adrian. If you’re writing with Adrian, it’s pre-1999 pretty much.

So, I have some documents someplace that I had written regarding D’s origins. The novels heavily imply that he’s somehow enhanced—y’know the movies hint at him just being super powerful Mary Sue turbo ultra dhampir simply because he is the son of “Our Sacred Ancestor” whomst we all pretty much know is Dracula himself right? Certain novels even hint that Mina Harker is his mother, if they don’t just outright state it. It might be the clunky translation (they really should have been more carefully transliterated because WOW some of those sentences just… don’t), but thus far it’s not been made CRYSTAL PERFECT CLEAR. However, I’m more than willing to run with that idea.

Dracula is, by the time Mina et. Al. come up against him, quite old, nigh ancient. I think that the Dracula of the Bram Stoker novel is or, rather, was the historical Vlad III Dracula Tepes (the impaler), born in the 1420s, “died” in the 1470s, iirc. Supposedly, the sultan at the time… Mehmed Fatih, kept his head in a box for a while before pinning him up on the walls of Constantinople, which the Turks controlled at the time. Ugly period in history for Eastern Europe… With Wallachia and Transylvania, in particular, two kingdoms in Romania, times were triple trouble. They were sandwiched between the Ottoman Empire to the east, then west was Eastern Orthodox Christendom—further west was Roman Catholicism and if you think THOSE guys didn’t fight, ding dong ur wrong!

BUT this period of violence produced one of the most well-known and controversial heroes (sometimes called a war criminal) of all time. Also he had a great ‘stache. Now when I write Hellsing’s Alucard, I roll with this same lore, so D and that Alucard could absolutely exist in the same ‘verse. It’s kind of a “darkest timeline” deal, a world in which the Belmont clan never existed. Before that even, Lisa never made Dracula’s acquaintance so the guy’s motivations are a little different. In addition, he is NOT Mathias Cronqvist, a tactician during the first crusades in 1090 AD. In that case, he would have revamped (PUN) his whole personality and integrated himself into one of the other great houses of Wallachia/Transylvania and re-emerged four hundred years later as Vlad the Impaler. That could work fine—not like he hasn’t got time—and that would have been around the time he met, and lost, Lisa. Now whether THAT part of history looks the same is dubious, since Vlad’s exploits during the period of his reign/deposition/reign/deposition/beheading are pretty decently documented. In this case, I’m going to say the Belmonts’ existence is in a timeline where those conflicts also may have played out differently. As these are all fictional worlds, I guess this’s up to ME atm. Nice.

So this is part “how I write D” and part “how I’d be inclined to write Alucard (Hellsing) in interactions that take place BEFORE the manga—like WAY before”. Since Adrian would have been a major contributing factor to the Belmonts’ strength from Trevor onward (so in the games idk if folks know this, but Adrian is Trevor’s father, with Sonia Belmont being his mom), that would also have contributed, at least in part, to the ability of the Belmonts to stomp Dracula and his minions.

With D, there is no need to include Mathias and his ebony/crimson stone conundrum, which does tend to throw a small monkey wrench in the ol’ gears (but not big enough I can’t adapt, trust me). The difference, aside from lack of Belmonts, is the origin of vampires. Clearly, they’re a magical construct or a spell-woven form of sentient life in Castlevania. In Vampire Hunter D, it’s heavily implied (once again, not outright stated) that the Nobility, some of them anyway, are simply a mutation of humanity (Dark Gene vs Light Gene, Lina’s whole deal, among other passages here and there), who also happen to be allergic to garlic, crucifixes, running water, and basic-ass Bram Stoker weaknesses. They’ve even got labs full o’ Nobles tryin’a conquer the sun issue.

So to know D, we gotta know his dad first. At the beginning, Vlad III is born to (big surprise) Vlad II. He and his brother are sent to Edirne as part of the Ottoman Empire’s “tribute” of however many young  boys from noble houses, to be trained in the ways of Islam and Turkish mannerisms, etc. This is more for pacification of that region of Europe, which is still Eastern Orthodox, than it is for real “peace”. It’s “peace because you guys are a good buffer zone between us and the rest of Eastern Orthodox-dom”, anyway. Every _voivode_ of Wallachia has to swear allegiance to either the Ottoman Empire or to the Eastern Orthodox church. While most of that area is EO, it’s in their best interest to swear to the Ottoman Empire. They’re bigger and closer. Vlad’s dad has done some underhanded shit, but he’s also a member of the Order of the Dragon and has propelled it to new heights within the EO and that’s where Vlad gets his name: Dracula, which is Son of the Dragon. So Vlad II’s immediate family are known as the Draculesti, which is fucking cool—it’s like “children of the dragon” and that’s not even his like, NAME name—it’s a frickin’ nickname, or sobriquet, as is Tepes.

In the world of Vampire Hunter D, vampirism appears to be a genetic phenomenon—ironically, a mutation. No Noble is going to admit that, OBVIOUSLY. And while it’s true, they were probably born that way, they’re still a mutant human derivative. Rather than mutating due to radiation or whatevermstthefuck like the actual mutants in VHD, they’re just born that way. So what I’m rolling with is Vlad III was born with that particular mutation and, kind of like my OC Toby, who is also a genetic vampire, it takes a violent or unnatural death to trigger the actual symptoms, else you’re just a normal-ass person. In fact, in this interpretation, I’m going to say that maybe quite a few people are BORN with that mutation, but if they live to a ripe old age and die, it never triggers. Most likely, the body is too enfeebled to handle it, maybe it dies after menopause/andropause? Either way, the body has broken down too much and there’s no material to work with.

That might also go a long way to explain the animosity many old vampires have toward humanity. Sometimes it’s straight up contempt, of course, but every single time, it seems to be a removal. Carmilla is a good example. Most of the time, her backstory involves a vicious assault that might very well have killed her. Imagine dying that way and waking back up to find that you had to KEEP living in the world that did this to you, that death is FAR far off. I can understand being VERY PERTURBED, to put it mildly. By the same token, what about war? How many folks die in war? Thousands? Millions? Of all those, how many have the mutation? Probably quite a few. Some folks might not figure out what’s going on and stay where they are, buried for decades, before just wasting away without sustenance—Vampires DO require blood, after all, to keep doin’ their thing. Plenty more are probably just torched in the sun. Since they were KIA, it might be rough finding their bodies in the first place…

So Vlad is beheaded—now this part intersects VERY well with Hellsing’s Alucard in my portrayal—and Mehmed Fatih keeps his head close at hand for a bit, probably talking to it. What happens when it starts talking back? We know Dracula has some SERIOUSLY kickass abilities and putting himself back together would definitely be one of ‘em, in my humble opinion. Mehmed dies not long after he achieves “victory” over Vlad the Impaler and no one knows where Vlad’s remains are. Maybe they up and walked the fuck away, hm? Maybe it was HE who ensured Mehmed’s destruction. How poetic would THAT be? Spoiler alert ||very||.

Now imagine going through everything he did—the guy had a tumultuous life. He might be one of the few, lucky ones who figure out that sunlight is a no-go, hide himself away, eventually go back to haunt his castle in the mountains between Transylvania and Wallachia. Now fast forward to the 1800s, MODERN TIMES (heehee okay) and one very ambitious realtor who wants to sell a creepy old abbey to some weird foreigner. Seems legit. Anyway by now we can see that Dracula’s gotten kinda nutty? He has three scary “wives” but he doesn’t seem to care much for ‘em. They’re obviously vampires, too, though I cannot recall if they’re turned by him or if they’re LIKE him—anyone who’s read it recently, do feel free to refresh me.

He’s kinda senile and while he’s crafty, he’s outsmarted by a dandy, an ancient-ass doctor, a dude who cannot stop fainting, a man named Quincey (my husbando), and Jack Seward—nuff said. He has some kind of congress with Mina, though ofc it’s the Victorian age so the only penetration is that of his li’l toofers on her poor neck. Nom. I don’t think Dracula banged Mina Harker. I think that, in THIS world, a dhampir is a nigh-impossibility, because at this point (and their cool-ass vampire science might’ve changed this), vampires are The Undead™ and therefore cannot CREATE LIFE. Not even if they have a raging turboner (that’s a turbo boner, for those of u not in the know). So he bit Mina, but before he did that, Mina married Jonathan—like as soon as he got home. They were married and living together and doing the frickle frackle, presumably, before Drac shows up in London to mess up their day.

In this case and for the sake of sanity, to create a dhampir, the vampire must chew on a pregnant lady. The curse lifts from her when the master is killed, but his blood has already entered and changed the child; the process is much longer and more involved for an adult human, who has an immune system and much more ground to cover. If the smol bean was in embryo stage or even fetal, it had no defense and mom’s body provided it with everything, Dracula’s blood, included. The final set of letters in Dracula mentiones a young boy, Jonathan and Mina’s son, Quincey, named after their fallen friend. So little Quincey is a dhampir!

Now, a bitten vampire cannot, in this universe, turn anyone else. They can feed and create thralls, but they can’t make VAMPIRES. In Hellsing lore, if a vamp bites you and you’re a virgin, you become one—if not, you become a ghoul/zambolio thingamajigger. Integra narrates this for us pretty early on. But it’s not Alucard’s venom doing this. It’s the vicar of Cheddar Village, who is a manufactured vampire. He’s not a true vampire, not like Alucard. Now, Alucard DOES ask Seras if she’s a virgin ‘fore he kills and bites her, which makes sense… IF HE LOVED MINA.

Hear me out. So, he saw this strong-ass bitch and thought “goddamn I’m sick of my whiny, vicious wives UGH I need me a woman like that”. So he’s gunna turn her. It probably takes longer since he hasn’t been powered up by Hellsing and their dark science-magic shit, or whatever it was… OR as he chomps on ‘er, he realizes “well fuck me she’s preggo, so even if she changes, I can’t have her”. Pregnant blood has GOTTA taste different, all those hormones and shit, even early on. I think he did have some weird admiration-affection for her. His arrogance and greed, however, has taken him over, so perhaps he decides to change her slow, to make the fellas suffer. They’ve fucked with him so he’s gunna fuck with them, but I think it pains him a little to do so, because lbr Mina’s the woman of his dreams.

So when Quincey is born, he’s perfect, healthy, rosy-cheeked, and by god only Mina knows something’s amiss. Damned if she’s going to say shit to Jonathan, who’s liable to faint, the absolute fucking walnut. They live fairly well, having taken over the real-estate business from their wonderful, generous, dead benefactor. 

Much like Carmilla’s weirdo ghost, however, Dracula’s spirit absolutely lives on.

TL; DR D was born Quincey Harker. 

[tma-entity-song-poll]

Battle of the Fear Bands B2R3: The Corruption

Entomologists:

BlackBoxWarrior:

“A song about a man struggling with his health (be it mental or physical). The song makes the treatment seem inhumane and just as terrifying as the initial problem. It’s almost like he’s getting sicker and sicker but just won’t die.”

Lyrics below the line!

Entomologists:

I hear, humming Buzzing, buzzing Today marks one long dream Burrowed deep inside Sallowing faces Leaving me behind They talk about me, see? I can hear them They call their friends Entomologists Knock on wood, but I'd rather stay alone And isolate intuition from unknown You've bent my world, now, I'll never figure out What it means, when I see, infestations in my dreams Today marks two long dreams Festering away Sallowing bodies Crawling on all fours They talk about me They get in real close They call themselves Metamorphosis Knock on wood, but I'd rather stay alone And isolate intuition from unknown You've bent my world, now, I'll never figure out What it means, when I see, infestations in my dreams

BlackBoxWarrior - OKULTRA:

Well he collapsed with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome on the E.R. floor Panic attacked, anaphylactic and ataxic The way he spun his butterfly risked all six his phalanges Roman candles at both ends in his synapses And the method with which he recycled his humors Trojan Horse'd his Blood-Brain Barrier and raised the LD-50, yes, yes And through flight-or-fight revelation shame the Black Box Warrior He skipped this town and headed straight down history Shields himself from reason in a Kevlar baby-blue Tuxedo Quilted from the finest fibers, flesh, and fiberglass, and flowers His ego a mosquito, evil incarnate good incognito Pops placebos for libido, screaming, "Bless the torpedoes"

For what? For what? For what it's worth If it was going to kill you boy, it would have by now For what? For what? For what it's worth There's no more looking back, it's looking up or looking down

Well, he was wearing stolen rubber shoes and wrapped a poison ivy noose Around his Lotus jugular when they came Well, they found him with a map to every victim of his love And a tattoo of a blue jay on his face And they waited for his vital signs to lie and let a flatline cry A hymn out in Hungarian Harmonic But he cocked his noggin, through his stoma sang, "For auld lang syne" "Happy birthday to the succulents, I'll die your hydroponics" His rib cage was a hornet's nest, palpitations set the beat His vagus nerve a turk's head knot, an axel hitch, a carrick bend He wondered if Christ Consciousness would charge a cancellation fee Auf wiedersehn, au revoir, he gripped his wits right by their ends

For what? For what? For what it's worth If it was going to kill you boy, it would have by now For what? For what? For what it's worth There's no more looking back, it's looking up or looking down

Hello, welcome, why don't you take a seat? Get comfortable, relax, take a second if you need to Now what's bothering you? Well, why don't we start at the beginning Growing up, how was your relationship with the fundamentals of conscious existence? Did you have xenon orchid sinews spilling down the outer center of your Blooming Escher/Mandelbrot head? And how about claustrophilic tendrils clapping caskets closed on seven-knuckle thumbs Did you get along well with the Gideon Bugler pineal glands? Your projector eyes casting sci-fi's on your STR'd strands? Tell me about your nerve to steal nerves of steel from under Bacchus' bloody nose Did Namibian Himbas tie-dye you, your ears pierced with a Phineas Gage flagpole Did you die before your day? Thursday traction, Tuesday titration My hope is to assess through my objective report of Your subjective conjecture Whether this proprietary bled of expertise and seasoning works as well as this Transorbital ice pick Holistic ballistics, you got a better idea? It's about the best we could come up with, what, you think ideas spread because they're good? No, they spread because people like them So now here we are once again, holding As it were, a mirror up to your mirror I guess it's just something people do

A bloody knife to split your infrastructure, wine to rev your motor function Coital machinations of the dead Well, you mainline your animus, karate chop your abacus And learn to be an animal instead But I never did think you better than this, your modus operandi causes Nazi/Skoptzyism and suicide Why to thine own self be true when it is you who are the problem Not the things you do but something sick inside Lithium and Dialectics, boy you really is defective CBT don't seem effective for that Cluster B, accept it Offer up your innocence, please ignore the side effects You've lost your mind and almost lost your life before So you'll be fine For what? For what? For what it's worth If it was going to kill you boy, it would have by now For what? For what? For what it's worth There's no more looking back, and why would you want to look back? I mean, it's no good looking back, so try to look forward now For what? For what? For what it's worth If they were going to get you boy, they would have by now For what? For what? For what it's worth There's no more looking back, it's looking up or looking down…

[urfavmurtad]

What do you think about the signs of the end of the world ?apparently there will be a Muslim massacre or something like that

Hey anon. Yeah, various terrible things are supposed to happen in the end-times. Mohammed based the whole concept on the Christian version of events (like the Book of Revelation) and then made it even dumber than it already was. You got the general decay of society a la the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you got the Antichrist (called the Dajjal) running around causing chaos, you got war, you got massacres. I think the one you’re thinking of is this one:

The last Hour will not come until the two parties (of Muslims) confront each other and there is a large-scale massacre amongst them.

I mean… the apocalypse should have happened in the 600s AD going by that lol…! That link has a whole bunch of fun ahadith about the end times, by the way, including classics like the dumb Jew tree and the cursed golden mountain. You’ll always find people pointing to some vague hadith about how the end will come when [general bad thing] happens and [general bad thing] is happening now!!!! The end is coming!!!!!!!!!!

However, one awkward Fun Fact About The Apocalypse is that, uhh, Mohammed was coming up with all of this shit in the early 600s AD in Arabia. Meaning the most prominent empire he knew of was Byzantium. And many of his prophecies about the end of the world involve the Byzantines, who have… not existed in hundreds of years! Whoops!

For example, the end times will not come until most people on earth are Byzantines (or “Romans” as Arabs called them, because that’s how they were known, the Eastern Roman Empire). So… before the end times, somebody gotta re-establish Byzantium, OR if you really wanna stretch the definition, at least some form of the Roman Empire. And then they have to conquer the majority of the world’s population.

More pressingly, the end of the world will not come until Muslims conquer Constantinople and overtake the city’s non-Muslim inhabitants. Arabs tried and failed to do just that in the 600s, by the way, evidently very eager to bring on the end of the world.

Constantinople was, admittedly, one of the world’s best-defended cities. It stood a long damn time, outlasting the fall of other Byzantine cities to Muslim forces, and in Mohammed’s era it must have seemed invincible. So saying “the end of the world won’t come until Muslims take Constantinople” seemed like a safe bet at the time, probably. However, as we know, today it is

and the city is almost entirely Muslim thanks to the handiwork of the Turks. HOWEVER, in a plot twist, we are told (problematically!):

The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Turks; people with small eyes, red faces, and flat noses. Their faces will look like shields coated with leather. The Hour will not be established till you fight with people whose shoes are made of hair

He meant the Asian people of the Turkic Khaganate, not the repackaged Balkans/Caucasian genetic soup of today’s Turkey, obviously. Mohammed evidently didn’t envision them converting to Islam en masse. But we still have a problem here. Arabs (the “you” in question, one assumes) have to fight Turks to bring about the Day of Judgement. Arabs/Muslims also have to conquer Constantinople, which has to be non-Muslim, in order to bring about this day.

So…. uh…. we got a few options here.

1) Some Christian force (presumably the reborn Roman/Byzantine Empire) will re-conquer Istanbul, turn it back into Constantinople, and make the city Christian again, THEN Muslim Arabs will attack the city and claim it for Islam while also attacking some poor Turkic group somewhere in Asia for unknown reasons, or

2) Turkey will not be conquered by anyone but will somehow convert itself to Christianity or some other non-Islamic faith, giving rise to a new Byzantium, which Arabs will then destroy, taking care of the Turk prophecy and the Constantinople one together, or

3) The apocalypse in fact occurred at some point in the 1400s AD, which saw both Arab vs Turk fighting and the Muslim conquest of Constantinople, and we have lived in hell since then.

The third option explains a lot tbh……….!

[breitzbachbea]

(p1) okei, what i think I can gather about you from your art/writing,(bare in mind i haven't read your long fics/most drabbles yet tho). Your 200+ OC's of different nationalities show you want to live in a thousand cultures, have a thousand lives and live in every part of history, but as you cannot, you have 200 OCs which is almost like containing 1000 souls (very relatable tho).... But 200+ OCs and your longest AU's are massive, show yeah 👀👀 And you enjoy ships that bicker... cos....

(pt2) cos the intimacy needed for that is HUGE. You love the 'i love you, i hate you, but i cannot escape from you' -> bonus points if it's history, language or culture that ties your ship together. Additionally: -completed devoted to the one they love (and would suffer for them) is a dynamic that interests you -u think the italian language is hot af -i get the feeling that michele is either how u want to be loved (idyllic love), or michele is how you love, cos that's your comfort ship (sic/ire)

1. That's pretty accurate! I have this fear that I'll never have enough time on this earth to do what I want (but I've been working on getting rid of that fear. There's enough time). I'm so fascinated by the world that we're living in, what used to be and how it relates to what is. The endless multiplicities of identity that a group can contain or even an individual.

So indeed, I make OCs based on what I learn about the world and in turn the OCs give me a good way to interact safely with the knowledge I find. It's a perpetuum mobile of creativity and knowledge.

And history is just the entirety of human experience on this planet, so trying to breathe some more life into it via Historical AUs is one of my favourite ways to engage with it. I love writing term papers as much as trying to apply the scientific findings to actual people. (I think one of my favourite things may be Sexuality in the res publica AUs, the do's & don't's that aren't the same as they are now. I freed Michele & Lovino from their catholic guilt, only to immediately constrain them with the class & gender expectations of the Roman Republic lmao).

2. I never thought about it like that, but yes! I enjoy bickering because it's an admission of closeness! You can't have friendly bickering if you're not close! (Which is why Hugo & Alois Are Like That. I enjoy them constantly mocking each other greatly, but it's never friendly and it always ends in a mess).

My family had and has its shares of problems, but I know that we love each other. Immensely. We're also that kind of family to constantly poke fun at each others, so I think that's why I instinctively resort to this kind of dynamic, with any kind of close relationships. It's not the ONLY one, because that would be boring, there are so many more ways to express love and it naturally doesn't suit every kind of character.

(I just remembered when we were at the lunch table and my dad spotted a magpie on the stable roof.

Mom: " ... why are my curtains pulled back again?"

Dad: "So that I can watch magpies.")

Here are some more non-romantic examples from my work/with my characters:

AA(The last one was a response to a tiktok that was basically "Asking your nice friends for fashion advice vs asking your mean/honest friends for advice")

3. I DO love the "i love you, i hate you, but i cannot escape from you". Maybe also for personal reasons, we're not getting that private on here. It's one of the inherent tragic aspects of Hetalia that has fascinated me for a long time: They're human and they feel like humans, but they lack part of their free will. They somehow have to survive entire lifetimes, loving and hating and remembeand worse, they have to bear decisions they themselves don't necessarily make. The relationships they form with the only other people like them, whether it'd be bonds of platonic, familiar or romantic love, the only solace and stability might have, may be snatched away from them. It can turn to hate or grow cold or another nation can disappear afterall and there is nothing they as individual people could have done about it. It's a double-edged sword - You tie yourself to someone who could be your raft as well as sink you to the bottom of the ocean.

I inevitably ended up keeping this kind of relationship in my "Like Father Like Son" Universe. Now, quick disclaimer - I am not saying they are solely the victim of their circumstances. They're all criminals in my AU and I have zero patience for making excuses for the Organized Crime. I worry greatly about the problematic aspects of my work and am well aware of them. The last thing I ever want to do is actively romanticize the Mafia. I want to add for the following part, too, that I draw as much on the real world as possible, but the structures of the organized crime in LFLS are a little more reminiscent of Monarchy or Aristocrazy.

With that out of the way however, the worldbuilding in LFLS mirrors their existence in Hetalia. Escaping their position would come with great dangers, even though their existence as is will never allow them true happiness. They're different from the people around them and there is a special connection between the Hetalia characters as bosses here - All of them inherited this position. They all basically suffer under the same yoke, they all are faced with the same difficulties. And, like in Hetalia, some of their decisions are out of their control. Business overrides their private life. They have to look out for their own people and families, for their own survival, so they may hurt the ones they love. And yet, and yet, they cling to one another. Try to make it as functional as possible. Take the pain for the relief. It's not pretty, but it's fascinating as an onlooker and fictional tragedies are also a great outlet for one's own emotions.

4. That also kind of ties in with "completed devoted to the one they love (and would suffer for them) is a dynamic that interests you". Hells yeah it does, because two people losing themselves is beautiful. Yes, it can be toxic, yes one should take care of oneself and have boundaries. But unconditional love is something I believe we all yearn for and I hope I one day get to devote myself to someone else again, as much as is healthy.

Again, it's also not just perfect for lovers, but for siblings and guardian figures. Paddy would lay his life down for Harry, Charlie & Soph. ("There's no pain that I won't go through/Even if I have to die for you" - Starset; "I love my children more than anything in this life! I will chose their happiness over mine, every time!" - Slightly changed version of Congratulations from the Hamilton Mixtape).

Gilbert who's so eager to be here for Ludwig and to protect him; to take anything off his brothers shoulder that he can.

And on the romantic side, is there anything better than two people simping head over heels for each other??? Or when a character wants to kiss/fuck another one so bad that it makes him look stupid??? I also love more quiet, more serene relationships, but to appreciate their calm, you have to make a storm to compare them to. All storm or all calm only gets you bored and exhausted.

5. Hell yeah do I think the Italian language is hot af, who'd disagree with me? It also unlocks emotions that were previously unavailable when I listen to Italian music. (German does the same. There is just something to each language that it can express certain feelings in a way like no other). YOU tell me that you listen to Shimmy Shimmy by Takagi & Ketra and aren't hypnotized by Giusy's voice. No other soundtrack for my Sicilians, Greeks and Turks fooling around on a beach and being highly erotic with each other.

6. Hm, this may be tying in with 2 again. I think I'm more of a Harry, personally, to be honest! (Nerdy, got aggression problems, cheeky, hothead, can't really cook). I think SicIre is my comfort ship because it's the type of love my parents had. It's what I am most accustomed to and there's also just a beauty in not caring what the rest of the world has to say and doing your own thing. And Harry isn't the prettiest bloke on the block and will probably never think of himself as beautiful, but that is fine because Michele looks at him like a sky full of stars. And the entire world can tell him Michele's a bastard, Harry won't listen to them. From a hetalia standpoint, these two are islands who had to suffer a lot from foreign occupation and being regarded as backwards & weird. Sicily tries to keep the autonomy it has and makes sure that others know they aren't like the mainland and Ireland fought hard for its independence from the British empire. From a LFLS standpoint, Harry embraces Michele with all of his past baggage and jagged pieces. Harry is the first person Michele never fell out of love with, the only one, and he's here to reassure Harry that he is worth caring for every step of the way.

[savedfromsalvation]

How many people have died in the name of Christ, Christianity and Catholicism?

VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

by Kelsos

"WONDERFUL EVENTS THAT TESTIFY TO GOD'S DIVINE GLORY"

Listed are only events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete)

Ancient Pagans

As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.

Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.

Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.

Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]

Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]

Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469] According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."

In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.

In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]

The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415. [DO19-25]

Mission

Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]

Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]

Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]

15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]

16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde". Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]

Crusades (1095-1291)

First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]

Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]

9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]

Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]

after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35] Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents—save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]

Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]

Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40] (In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")

The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]

Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]

Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]

Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]

Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]

Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.

Heretics

Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]

Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]

Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29] The Albigensians...viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC] Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]

Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]

subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]

After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]

Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]

Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).

Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]

John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]

University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]

Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.

Witches

from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand.

in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV]

incomplete list of documented cases: The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Religious Wars

15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]

1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]

1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]

1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]

17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]

17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]

17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Jews

Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.

In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]

17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]

The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]

First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]

Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]

Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]

Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]

1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]

1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]

1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]

1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]

1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]

1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]

1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.

1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]

1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43]

(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.

Native Peoples

Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.

Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200] While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]

On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]

Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]

In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238]

On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]

The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.

As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]

The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70]

What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness: "The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72] Or, on another occasion: "The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83]

The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75]

"And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75]

Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).

"When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95]

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka.

Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]

In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem). "Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105]

On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.

When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked. Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages. The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114]

So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111].

Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow: "Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20)

Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114]

Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time) In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]

The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115]

Other tribes were to follow the same path.

Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!" "Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA]

Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106]

In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]

In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115]

To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.

All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.

A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.

In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Glorious events in US history

Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241]

Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed. From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131] More gory details.

By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]

20th Century Church Atrocities

Catholic extermination camps Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli, a practising Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children! In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdient der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]

Catholic terror in Vietnam In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters - the Viet Minh - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff] Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism. The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:

"Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."

Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - mostly in street riots - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89]. To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life....

Rwanda Massacres In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.

Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated:

"Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix. According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.

In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]

As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end....