It's that time again for political posts in America and I have some thoughts. Ignore if you want.

Sometimes I really feel like people get so caught up in fucking white knight political ideology that the ensuing inaction causing the creeping rise of fascism or conservative assholery is seen as an inevitable instead of as a direct result of internet leftists sitting with their thumb up their asses because there's no ideologically pure candidate they can throw their weight behind. When the flood comes they'll be so smug as they drown because they saw this coming, especially because the person who was trying to stem the flood was using outdated tools so obviously this was inevitable.

Complacency and plans for BIG GRAND SWEEPING GESTURES that will rework the system in one fell swoop are always going to fail, and beyond that it's always going to cause more harm. Always. Your leftist utopia isn't going to suddenly appear one day if you post enough hot takes, things aren't going to change if you decide you don't like that someone has a differing opinion on high-speed rail systems than you and therefore they're basically a fascist and cannot be supported. Black and white doesn't exist in politics.

Elections are not just the president. It does suck that we get a choice of only two, and it's a bummer that the Democrat option is Joe Biden! I don't agree with everything he does, and I am certainly not in agreement with a good deal of what he does, but that does not change the fact that I'm going to vote for him, because the alternative is unfathomable, and quite frankly, there is a good list of what he's done that I approve of.

"Voting doesn't matter!" Respectfully you are stupid. Elections are not just for president. Do you know what senate seats are up for grabs this term? What's on your local ballots? Do any amount of cursory research and then join the conversation. People wouldn't try to keep you from voting if it didn't matter.

"Biden is too old!" Yes, I'd love a younger candidate, too, but what is sitting this election out going to do to fix it? Are you just going to hope a younger candidate appears out of nowhere? Or are you going to do the work to support candidates you do like?

"Biden is a centrist!" I cannot overstate how behind we are politically that Biden is literally the most left-leaning president we've ever had and it's only by participating in politics that we can keep pushing it even further. Democrats are historically more open to changing their minds than Republicans; I watched Obama move from not supporting marriage equality to signing it into fucking law in real time. How much work are you doing to help push our politics left beyond just angrily posting about how shit it all is?

"Two-party system sucks!" Big agree! How will not participating in it change it? Are there any smaller candidates, like reps, who agree with you? Can you support them to get us closer to a multi-party system?

"Palestine matters!" Could not agree more! Absolutely agree with you that the atrocities in Palestine need to end. Biden has a shaky stance on this at best, with a weird position of still supporting Israel as an ally and also condemning what they're doing, but he is not the first president to have a weird, fucked-up foreign policy and he's likely not going to be the last. But how well do you think Palestine will fare under Trump? Al Jazeera reported that Biden at least views that Palestine should be self-governed and supports a two-state solution, meanwhile, Trump unequivocally supports Benjamin Netanyahu, and said through his nepotism mouthpiece Jared Kushner that Palestine doesn't deserve statehood. What hope would Palestine have under another term of Trump?

"Trump and Biden (or) Democrats and Republicans are all the same anyway" if you actually believe this, and I mean truly believe this, then public education was absolutely and thoroughly wasted on you and I want you to personally repay the taxes that paid for it. Four years of Trump saw the overturn of Roe v. Wade by cramming unqualified conservative stooges into the Supreme Court, the reduction of the assistance provided by food stamps, the mishandling of a global pandemic that killed many thousands in the US alone, the US stepping away from climate action, and actual problems of exposing state secrets. Less than four of Biden have seen the enactment of the massive infrastructure bill, approval of an OTC birth control pill, a reworking of redlining laws that expands protections for home loan borrowers, cracking down on predatory overdraft fees from banks, incentivizing farmers to reduce carbon emissions, and enacting stronger punishments for companies that interfere with union votes and enacting more union protections. I'd say those are pretty big fuckin differences.

---

Look.

I get it. This shit seems rough because we're going through it and we're tired. But refusing to be involved is a little like deciding to protest your quarterback being an asshole by standing still on the football field. Because the thing about that is that the other team's quarterback is ALSO an asshole, a huge fucking asshole, and even though he's not on the field right now, his line is still coming for you, and they're going to tackle you, despite you claiming you're not playing anymore. You're on the field whether like it or not. You might as well fight until you can convince your team to find a new quarterback.

You can't give in to despair. Anyone claiming Biden and Trump are the same are lying to you. A better future is possible, but only if you keep pushing. Stack the house and the senate with people that have the best policies and uplift them. Get involved in your community. Change starts at the smallest level, and it is enacted by you.

Remember how many states the Republicans lost that it took them gerrymandering to get back. We can do it.

But you can't think of it in black and white. You have to keep marching towards the horizon. Do not stop, ever. Keep pushing, and drag the people you can forward.

hi! i played the demo today and i absolutely loved it! i'm super into the story and in love with your writing and your characters (especially my child! 🥺), the main group seems to be so tight and affectionate, it really feels like a family ❤ i can already tell this is gonna be one of my favorite IFs :) question: i'm from south america and i'm not super familiar w/ english history (outside period dramas lol), so i'm not sure When old england is supposed to be! is it like medieval times? (1)

(2) what type of technological advances did they have available to them? is there any historical fashion style that you think of when you write the characters? and what about naming conventions, do you use a specific time period for the characters? lol i'm sorry for bombarding you with questions! i genuinely love the setting so far and wanna know more to develop my mc(s) accordingly 🤭❤️ thank you for taking the time to answer! i wish you all the best 💕💕

---

Ooooo! A history query! 😄

I love a history query!

Brace youself...

Alright, I had originally thought to set the story in a specific period during the reign of the Stuarts kings (and queen), but that didn’t quite match my mental image of the tech, also the early Stuart period is the most prolific period of witchcraft trials and puritanism, sooooo... no.

I’m trying to avoid pinning it down to a specific set of dates, as such a move will bring the pedants out in force, and it does kind of restrict my flexibility in the story a lot.

We’re really aiming at an amalgamation of later Stuart enlightenment (Queen Anne), Gothic revival architecture with remnants of Tudor and Stuart housing very much prevalent in the smaller settlements, and a hodge podge of  historical fashion eras though mostly drawing from the late Georgian, because I mean frock coats are a thing that should have never declined!

Though I can happily live without the muslin white dresses that’s for sure. And NO POWDERED WIGS. I just refuse. And the cast is all well below the aristocracy so no silly hoity toity bustles or wigs!

Beyond the fashion and architecture, real early firearms boil down to flintlock and shot, and they’re incredibly expensive so not a society wide occurrence. Hunting wise most of the peasantry still use the more traditional tools of bows and arrows, or a crossbow if they’re lucky, far cheaper to maintain and restock.

No electric or gas lights. There are no streetlamps as we would understand them, but each resident who owns a property on a public street must hang a lantern outside every night of the autumn and winter period or get fined a shilling (which was a real law in England between 1716 and the introduction of the public system).

Legal code is very decentralised for settlements like Aldmirham, in all but cases of the most serious crimes. These are handled by the local assizes in the nearest cities, for Aldmirham that’s Eadoccaburg.

Because this is my world my rules, gender equality is more in tune with our modern conceptions, so by no means perfect but better than the contemporary would be, and LGBTQIA+ issues are widely accepted in line with liberal modern standards. There are still arses throughout but they are the outlying minority, the MC will also never be put in a position where their identity is unsupported, and I will not have any dead naming or ‘outing’ in the story. I mean, we read these stories to get a break from reality don’t we?

Last thing, naming conventions. So East Anglia (the region I’m setting the story in) has huge linguistic ties to the Norse settlers from the Viking era, and before that the Angli (as Bede the bard calls them in his 730 writings) as in Anglo-Saxons, and despite the passing of many centuries a lot of place and people names still reflect these links. A great example comes from a brilliant article on Norfolk Place names I came across while researching:

Hevingham: Hev (taken from a family name) ing (from the Old English for ‘the people of’) ham (Old English again denoting a farm or village belonging to a family unit)

 Ergo “The homestead of the family of Hefa”

So for names I’m falling back on old English, old Norse, and a smattering of modern linguistic mutations where appropriate.

Well, I could go on, but I think Tumblr might start shouting at me about post length soon. So I hope that gave you some groundwork for the world and historical context.