Also, sorry for disappearing, if you’ve messaged me I’ll get back to you, I’m just overwhelmed with things and needed a break.
SFF writer and essayist you’ve never heard of. SocDem/progressive. Tolkien nerd. Armchair medievalist. She/her. Header by beloved.moe. Website: arobertswrites.com Newsletter: buttondown.email/arobertswrites
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Also, sorry for disappearing, if you’ve messaged me I’ll get back to you, I’m just overwhelmed with things and needed a break.
Went to a rally last night (supporting the county’s decision to stand up for trans rights) and saw more backbone from county and school board members than I have from some state/federal electeds.
I’m not the biggest DnD fan but that is roughly how it works.
That said, most “magic,” loosely defined, as practiced by people who genuinely believe they have some kind of supernatural ability, is taught. Because it’s cultural knowledge. Of course it is.
Anthropologists make a distinction between witchcraft (abilities believed to be inherent) and sorcery (abilities believed to be learned) so the concept of inherited magic is widespread enough to get its own cross-cultural category.
This is about me. I’m sorry.
It’s gone now too, although I do wish if you wanted to have words, you would have had them with me directly.
Not the right connotations.
I was being flippant.
Sorry
[writing the constitution] Benjamin Franklin: Write down "no dumb fucks as president" Alexander Hamilton: Stop saying that Benjamin Franklin: I'm tellin' you. You're gonna regret not writing that down
I think Shakespeare would approve of that tho.
Don’t tempt me.
Hhhh been there.
Very tired rn.
Anyways I did some drafting tonight.
I don’t try to write in Irish English either, for which I think the whole nation of Ireland is grateful, but overt American English feels odd.
What about habby
If it were secondary world fantasy I would say “fuck it we ball” but historical fiction feels different.
Baby longboi
It is time to be Abby again.
Haha is it too American to describe people “hollering” in my story where realistically everyone would be speaking Old Irish and not English at all.
A longboi
I legitimately didn’t realize a bellows was so big.
Again. Real happy about California Redistricting fight. But I would rather vote for the Northern Virginia public school districts for prez
it's me, i'm the goat
The stomach problems kinda suck tho.
I too successfully filled my apartment with smoke this evening.
Things are too much.
In my defense tho the stuff I was reading at work today was so incomprehensible that I had to consider every possible meaning.
Yes obviously it would be that and not a dangerous ocean current.
My weather app just gave a notification that “rip current threat looms” and my brain is so addled that I parsed it as “RIP, current threat looms” (“rest in peace, presently existing looms used for weaving threats”)
There might be a problem but it’s probably not the ending, if you’re getting feedback like that.
Keep it the way it was I guess?
In some versions of the legendarium there are continents across the sea to the west that are analogous to the Americas. The Numenoreans could have sailed there and brought potatoes back. Or they came across the continent from the east. JRRT never explained, so the sky’s the limit.
It’s really funny that in Paladin’s Faith they’re in a quest to save the world’s economy.
Happy weekend~! It's cold here so I'm gonna go have some ramen. #art #cuteart #pokemon
It’s like, you know, That Thing.
I struggle with this a lot, and then the neurodivergence kicks in and I start gesturing in an animated but incomprehensible fashion.
Look if I cared about trends I would not be reading books about the early medieval economy so that I could write a story about an asexual monk.
No, I don’t monitor trends when I read or write.
Or maybe his culture called them something else. Idk.
Maybe he went into the cave before potatoes were brought to Middle-earth.
Yeah the carton usually has a lid like that, which snaps into place.
I filled this out. It’s important we express ourselves while the decision is being made.
I’m so frustrated with [personal things].
Sorry to everyone who has posts.
Work was too hard. Now I can’t read.
UChicago ebooks 75% off! Perfect time to get their (unnecessarily expensive, sorry!!) e-book of “Inventing the Renaissance”!
Signal boosting for a family friend. The goal is modest, so if you can spare a bit from the kitty for the kitty …
TY to everyone who has commissioned me - or donated!! We have enough to get some tummy-friendly food for Mr Underfluff, and he’s doing much better! 😭🩷💕 I’ll be working on these this weekend after work. Still two slots available! :0
Listen, my thing is actually I am totally fine with you being a heretic. That's chill!!! But if you are gonna say Jesus died for glory and not to save people you need to at least admit you are a heretic. There would be more honour in it.
Hey artist! Quote one art to promote yourself!
Just me in the comments of every social network lately.
At least that’s what I would call the plastic boxes that strawberries usually come in here.
Cartons?
If you need good news: five public school districts in Northern Virginia are committing to protecting their trans students in defiance of the Department of Education.
Today is Nonidi the 29th of Thermidor in the year 233. Thermidor is the month of heat. Today we celebrate cotton. #JacobinDay More information on cotton
Horrifying: I had to go to work today.
effinbirds.com/post/7788329...
New life goal unlocked.
Me: “I could get so much more done if my brain-hamsters were on a wheel powering the generators instead of roaming free” The brain hamsters:
Yeah he’s being a weirdo.
Mother Fedelm: if you’re saying I play favorites, you’re wrong. I love all my clerics equally. *earlier that day* Mother Fedelm: I don’t care for Niall.
My primary motivation for finishing monk WIP is so I can draw my characters as outdated memes.
Guys sharing the fascist propaganda to dunk on it is still spreading the fascist propaganda We’ve been over this Repeatedly
I have not needed to calculate the arc of a parabola in my daily life.
Idk why there’s a hyphen in west end but pretend there isn’t.
SIR PERCIVALE IS SWALLOWED BY A DRAGON AND LEARNS THE TRUTH OF GOD is here! It's got all the good stuff: a medieval knight having a crisis of faith, an androgynous they/them angel with secrets, a queerplatonic relationship, and, of course, a dragon. Free to read, or get it in paperback!
“We got him! Yeah, the west-end sandwich thrower.”
Inca society kept records by encoding information into knotted cords called khipu. A new analysis of hair woven into these cords suggests this record-keeping was practiced by commoners as well as elites.
Having woken up a bit now, my main rec is Fergus Kelly’s Early Irish Farming, which discusses all aspects of food production in early medieval Ireland, including trade. I also thought “surely Aidan O’Sullivan has done something related to trade” and indeed he has in this UCD report:
It would still be fash shit to post videos of the SEALS assassinating an actual terrorist but the fact that it’s a random guy whose crime is throwing a sandwich raises it to the level of farce.
a lot of y'all have deep blind spots around people who you're friendly with who did things like "as an expat from a swing state, talk openly about how you wouldn't bother to vote, thus making it harder for trans people to travel internationally like you did by getting our gender markers reverted"
If you openly said you weren’t voting for Harris, literally no action you have ever taken in the name of “antifascism” is sincere or real. You have accomplished literally nothing with your life, and every pretense to the contrary is a lie
and I am so fucking tired of the "both parties are the same" BULLSHIT. I know people who've been kicked out of the army for being LGBT, who've lost medicare, whose company closed because of tariffs, who are on DACA, but you expect me to believe Harris would have done any of this shit too? fuck you.
Friday again
Ben and I got reckt in a ruined monastery for you, the least you can do is say thanks?????
Don’t answer this. I know why.
Not to continue beating this horse but why is the WH posting videos about cops in riot gear arresting a former DOJ employee who got a little drunk and threw a sandwich like they were taking out a terrorist
Maybe?
I got recs! I’ll get back to this in a sec.
shockingly big. large enough that it is difficult to comprehend the scope of how much society depends on ritual to operate. fascinating stuff.
People talk about “mask-off moments” but I wish people would put the mask on again because that at least implies they have a sense of shame.
Symbolism and performance are far from all that makes society function but they’re a surprisingly big part of it.
Same for Cuomo with his nasty little swipes at Mamdani! Grow up!
Leadership is performance! Start performing it! The Romans figured this much out!
Again I know that this isn’t even the worst thing he’s done, I just feel oddly offended that I don’t even receive the courtesy of intelligent villains.
Like if you’re an authority figure the word “cuck” should not appear in any official communication. You should be calm and reasonable and in control of yourself or at least lucid enough to pretend that you are. Gavin.
National Guard does not have the authority to make arrests. This isn’t about crime. It’s about terrorizing a majority Black city & making sure y’all know they will do it to you too.
It’s a fur(row) long!
Also, the Roman mile didn’t get much use in Ireland, interestingly.
There were a lot of shared Latin origins but also a few Irish words that more or less corresponded to English measurements.
Or like an English acre was the area of land that a farmer with a team of oxen could plow in a day. Irish oxen weren’t stronger or weaker than English ones so it was about the same amount of land.
I think about Daniel Craig shouting “it’s just dumb!” 40 times per day. I feel like my brain is leaking out of my ears. They couldn’t even put in the effort to be smart evil people.
I want to believe that my government is not run by foolish and unserious people with the emotional restraint of poorly socialized teenagers.
I know that Republicans and sometimes Democrats were shitty and mean before 2016 too, don’t lecture me, the 4chanification of political discourse is still a thing and I hate it.
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission 
Senecio del Toro 