She/Her. Historical Weirdo. Queer.

Hi friends! Let’s pin a post! I’m your local queer historical fiction nerd! I write Thasmin fics - have some links!

In This World of Strangers, I Belong to Someone: aka Edwardian AU, in which law student Yaz encounters eccentric clockmaker Johanna, and a pamphlet written by someone called the Doctor. (And yes! There’s art! It’s amazing!)

falling down the stairs (of your love): aka the Doctor hits her head and lets herself have Feelings, and then panics a lot about said feelings (Yaz helps, also there’s a stained glass space station).

Flying Lessons: aka a series of vignettes in which Yaz learns to fly the TARDIS between Revolution of the Daleks and The Power of the Doctor and is the most incredible person in the universe.

we never said our love was evergreen: aka immediately after Legend of the Sea Devils, Yaz, Dan, and the Doctor take a trip to Paris for the Exposition Universelle in 1889… and get stranded when someone shoots the Doctor and steals the TARDIS.

The Meaning of Love: aka Yaz finds the Doctor’s hologram for the first time in 1901.

A Friend In Need: aka Yaz needs someone to talk to after the Doctor’s confession on the beach… so she calls Ryan. At 4am.

And adding a couple more 12/31/23 because why not…

Don’t You Dare Let Go: aka Yaz is the most patient person in the universe… but even she has a limit when it comes to the Doctor.

Fleur-de-lis: aka the Doctor and Yaz accidentally end up in jail during the French Revolution, and the Doctor encounters a painful parallel of the Timeless Child.

to know how it ends and still begin to sing it again (as if it might turn out this time): cowritten with @eriadu-in-the-wildwood!! Aka the Doctor and Yaz are trapped in a time loop… can they finally confront their feelings as the loops close around them?

Meow of the Universe: aka the extremely silly modern Thasmin AU… with cats… 

Things to expect in 2024: probably more cats! Definitely a Dan pov story! And quite possibly a new AU, this time murder mystery flavored… :)

And a bunch more on Ao3! If you are in the mood for some soft stories, feelings about the nature of time travel and human history, and complex explanations of historical pockets, I’m your girl. Hope you enjoy! :)

vaspider:

belovedbright:

vaspider:

darker-than-disco:

vaspider:

Listen to me. Listen very carefully:

They are trying to wear you out.

They are trying to wear you out, and they own most major social media now, along with many major media outlets. The disinformation machine is cranking along. You are going to have to slow the fuck down and read things before you help them wear out other people, too.

So you just saw a post about a real scary bill, hunh? Republicans want to make it a capital offense to pet dogs and repeal The Sky Is Blue Act of 1793, declaring the new official color of the sky to be squant? Damn, that sounds scary.

Let’s go look up this fictitious “Make The Sky Squant Again Act” on GovTracker* & on the official legislative tracker on congress.gov!

GovTrack.us
Tracking legislation and votes in the United States Congress.
GovTrack.us


Congress.gov | Library of Congress
U.S. Congress legislation, Congressional Record debates, Members of Congress, legislative process educational resources presented by the Lib
congress.gov

Well, let’s see… GovTracker estimates it has a 1% chance of even getting out of committee and a 0% chance of being enacted, while congress.gov says this bill has 2 cosponsors who have been in the House and combined total of less than a month. The bill doesn’t have any actual text, and it was referred to 5 different committees.

That fictitious bill and a hundred others like it are quite literally not worth your time, and more than that, continuing to wring your hands about it and tell other people about the scary scary squant sky bill only does their work for them. It scares people, it makes them spend time and energy on it, and it wears them out. It is a legislative Gish Gallop, meant to throw so many things at people that we can’t keep up.

Even calling or messaging your Rep in this case means their staffer has to waste time responding to you and letting you know that Representative Buttzonheads definitely won’t support making petting dogs a capital offense, a thing that will never, ever happen regardless.

Staying engaged in this environment is going to require protecting your heart and protecting your energy, yes, but also protecting the energy of others. This is why WWII propaganda posters also included ones taking people to task for spreading panicky rumors and undermining morale.

Do you know why most observant Jews don’t eat chicken and dairy together, even though the ban is on red meat and dairy together bc you’re not supposed to cook the calf in the milk of its mother?** It’s not because we think that chicken might secretly lactate or Just Because. It’s because the rabbis decided that if I’m sitting out in public and eating turkey and cheese together, someone might glance at the turkey and mistake it for red meat and think, “oh, well, I know that Spider is a good Jew, there must have been a change, or maybe I can just justify it to myself that if Spider does it, it must be permissible to bend the rules just that much.” And I would then be accidentally leading my fellow Jew astray. We are responsible for being even more careful for the sake of others than we are for ourselves.

It’s the same principle here. We need to really be careful about the information we are spreading and check things past reading a news site. Is it true? Is it relevant? Is it meaningful? Is the news site one I recognize? Can I find meaningful independent corroboration on another site, which is to say, if I find an article about it on a second site, is it just quoting or rephrasing this site?

Yeah, that is a lot. But that’s how we keep them from using us to lead our fellows astray.

*GovTracker is an independent site. They explain their methodology in their About section.

**I cannot say enough how I am not at this time interested in going on a Jewish Side Quest About Dietary Laws on this post. Usually, I love it, but hold off this time, please, y"all. Let’s stay on target this once.

I’m pretty sure that’s the main reason for most of Trump’s Executive Orders on day 1. A lot of them are unenforceable, others are blatantly illegal or even unconstitutional, but people will be distracted in the courts trying to shut them down, and it’s splitting everyone’s focus away from the few that are genuinely dangerous. Splitting people’s focus is the one thing that Trump is genuinely good at, distracting the public while the Republicans are doing more subtle awful things in the background.

Yeah. Though taking those apart in court is more necessary than dealing with these nothingburger bills.

Relatedly, if you want to keep up with everything, because that’s responsible, but it’s crushing because it’s horrific?

Try “What the Fuck Just Happened Today?”

Political News for Normal People.
Your essential guide to the shock and awe in national politics. A sane, once-a-day newsletter helping normal people make sense of the news.
What The Fuck Just Happened Today?

It’s a news digest with sources. You can stay informed without completely losing your mind.


Also, our legacy media have proven to be cowards at best & complicit at worst. As a librarian, while I will consider some articles on some topics from CNN, NYT, WaPo, etc., they’ve sadly shown we cannot trust them. This is the problem with 1. Never paying for news, and 2. Monopolies


So where do you look? (And support!)

1. The Guardian. Independent news that’s not behind a paywall & is in the UK. They’re more trustworthy while still being traditional.

2. ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Their work has won Pulitzer Prizes.

Where else?

1. Seth Abramson is an independent journalist (among other things). He’s done deep dives into both Trump, Musk, and Jan6. Those deep dives were extensive “meta journalism,” pulling on many fragmented sources to get to a full picture.

2. Mother Jones : Another nonprofit news organization. Traditionally a bit leftist for sure, but fact-based. they’ll be the counterbalance to the propaganda we’re facing.

3. Any other non-US news sources that are fairly reputable. Getting perspectives from outside of our country will be hugely beneficial in the coming years.

These are good resources! I also like 404 Media for tech news and Assigned Media & Erin Reed for trans news. Jessica Valenti’s “Abortion, Every Day” is a good source for reproductive health care news, too.

the-merry-otter:

josephus-miller:

sca-nerd:

the-merry-otter:

the-merry-otter:

the-merry-otter:

the-merry-otter:

Tunic embroidered with old Norse runes around the bottom that read “I joined the SCA and all I got was this stupid t-tunic”

The sleeve cuffs are also embroidered with runes, one side reading “women want me” and the other side “the britons fear me”

My friend has suggested that the neckline read “Briton women feel conflicted on the matter”

Everyone reblogging this with some variation of “if you don’t do it, I will”, consider: we can all do this. There are not a finite number of silly embroidered tunics in this world. I only ask that you send me pics if you do :P

This is my SCA

image

Literally me but I went with the classic ‘women want me fish fear me’ in old Irish.

Omg amazing