gailyinthedark

[gailyinthedark]

Not all construction work is equally enjoyable. For example, enlarging a drilled hole is boring, but fastening pieces of metal together is riveting.

[gailyinthedark]

Why does basil smell so fucking amazing

#medieval weirdness

[gailyinthedark]

Aaaaah no this is actually so exciting because! I'm in Two Gentlemen of Verona right now and one of the other characters uses this expression and I've been puzzling over it because what?? but did not expect to find the answer randomly on tumblr. This is the highlight of my day.

was just once again delighted by a Middle English man being described as "fish-hole" (= fish-whole; healthy as a fish), and I think we need to bring this turn of phrase back. "Look at that guy over there, flopping and wriggling around and gasping for air. Fit as a fish!!" Do you understand my vision

#middle english #shakespeare #two gentlemen of verona #fish

[gailyinthedark]

my favorite personal dragon headcanon is that like birds they also can't see glass, but it just isn't an issue for them

#the best part of this post is all the welsh people going feral in the notes

[gailyinthedark]

What always gets me about learning about settler colonialism is how once you learn about it you cannot unsee the violence to the land itself. My home state was previously nearly 100% wetlands, apart of the wider Ohio river valley whose biodiversity supported such large populations of hundreds of different species that many contemporary source from settlers describe it as like the garden of Eden.

The Indigenous people who farmed and hunted here (and still farm and hunt in what land they have been able to keep and reclaim) were able to grow miles of upon miles of crops with multiple harvests a year, encouraging this biodiversity by creating forest gardens with incredible amounts of food from staples like corn and squash to local fruits like pawpaws to European imports like apples alongside controlled burns which allowed fields and buffalo ranges to expand.

Nowadays my state is known almost exclusively for its fields of nothing but corn and soy beans. Driving through in between the comparatively small cities you'll see nothing but fields where the plethora of different trees and plants were chopped down mile by mile, the remaining wetlands drained and flattened, and the rich black soils robbed of their nutrients through decades upon decades of monocrop agriculture now preserved through the life blood of petrochemical fertilizers which destroy the surrounding environment.

This process was done mile by mile as the tens of thousands of Indigenous people were killed and displaced by settlers and the US army, the land measured and sold acre by acre to white settlers who raped the land as described, filling the pockets of wealthy land speculators (like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) who bought the land directly from the government in schemes so corrupt historians have dedicated entire careers to mapping out their dramas.

It's like learning about commodity fetishism and suddenly seeing hundreds of strangers in the products that surround you. Once you learn how the land was destroyed for profit you'll never look at the miles of fields or the cracks in the concrete of buildings built on wetlands or the stench of now obsolete canals built solely for a once boat-dependent economy with no care for the environment the same.

[gailyinthedark]

your boyfriend looks easy as fuck to parry

[gailyinthedark]

Also I'm continually surprised at how often life does in fact happen that way?

People do act incredibly stupidly and dig themselves into plotholes, things do break down at the most hilarious moment possible, crucial miscommunication happens all the time, real injuries and illnesses often just straight-up ignore the textbook, weather and backdrops just happen to sync perfectly or ironically with events, and sometimes someone even breaks into song in the middle of a very real street (because I know this is partly about musicals).

The aesthetic thing is absolutely true. And real life is way less realistic than we often assume.

"why doesn't this thing in a movie/book/tv show happen exactly like it would in real life" is the most brain dead criticism the internet has to offer, and yet I see it EVERYWHERE.

[gailyinthedark]

My FB feed is pretty good tonight

#scripture

[gailyinthedark]

one thing about me is that i'm an avid kay defender. my man did nothing wrong other than be written by a french guy who preferred his own ocs to an hrb original and i stand by that

#arthuriana #kay

[gailyinthedark]

I figured the Jolene loving site needed to see this

#welsh #jolene #perfection

[gailyinthedark]

enough of pronouns. what are your adverbs

#gaily?

[gailyinthedark]

pharmacology is basically magic tho. we have these potions pills. they can bring about great blessings, but also inflict great curses. maybe they can cure your suffering, but at a Cost (co-pay + assorted side effects). most people prefer not to delve into the dark realm of medication, but sometimes it's the only way to deal with the Afflictions. they seem to favor a Chosen Few, no one knows why. yes humans summoned them into being from baser elements. yes we frequently have no idea how they work. yes you must obey the rules of the prescription contract or risk your life and sanity (and liver health). yes there is fine print involved, read it carefully.

what lays beyond this dark chemistry? demons from hell? bargains with the fae? clinical trials alchemical rituals toying with flesh and blood and body and soul???? no idea but come back in 6 weeks we'll fiddle with the dosage

#magic #brain stuff

[gailyinthedark]

More and more, the words love and marriage were used in the same sentence, and the outright idealization of adultery that had marked the courtly love poetry and popular literature of the Middle Ages became rarer. Whereas medieval religious writers had used the word love to describe the relationship between man and Jesus or the feelings that neighbors should have toward one another, in the sixteenth century sermons began to emphasize love between husband and wife. By the seventeenth century preachers were condemning husbands who governed by fear alone, without an equal measure of love. The English Puritan Robert Cleaver said that a husband should not command his wife like a servant but exert his authority in a way that would “rejoice and content her.” Catholic writers expressed similar sentiments. And the growing number of middle-class households in the expanding commercial economy created a large pool of families that were especially receptive to these ideas.

#can't stop thinking about this #do we owe the modern emphasis on love in marriage #in part to the model of courtly love? #an effort to combat glorified adultery by showing what romance can be had within marriage? #history #medieval literature #musings #marriage

[gailyinthedark]

some Luci Shaw for the carpenter-Jesus-encounters-the-cross enjoyers

#poetry

[gailyinthedark]

It's just. It's all translation, you know? Every interaction with another human. Someone's face or hand moves and you're parsing it for meaning, running it through your dictionaries of humanity in general and this one human in particular, consulting grammar-books of gesticulation and tone and pause until--aha!--some shining pieces coalesce and you understand, not fully, but enough to carry on a stilted conversation, laughing at your own mistakes with every breath. And it's beautiful. It's beautiful.

#language #translation

[gailyinthedark]

interesting fact i have titanium in my spine

#ego fui #illum vero possedi #spiritus abbatis medii aevi latenter sum #(shh)

[gailyinthedark]

I'm thinking, for some reason, about the motives and attitudes of all the grail knights. Percival is a holy fool, and can achieve the holy grail when he asks questions and shows simple, straightforward compassion. Lancelot wants the grail and cannot reach it, no matter how much he wants to be good enough. Gawain is usually shown as failing, and only achieves it in Diu Krone, the text where he doesn't want to go on the quest and only does it so people will stop asking him to. Galahad succeeds, but it's a kind of success that most people would see as death. Bors is like Ishmael, clinging to the shipwreck, the only one to tell the tale.

I can't remember where I read it or who said it, but I remember reading that if Frodo had been eager to carry the ring to Mordor, it would have been a tragedy of hubris.

#arthuriana #lotr