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dwellordream · 3 years

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“…Now, if people are taught anything at all about medieval history it often is English medieval history. People with absolutely no other frame of reference can often tell you when the Norman Conquest of England took place, or the date of the signing of Magna Carta even if they don’t know exactly why these things are important. (TBH Magna Carta isn’t important unless you were a very rich dude at the time, sooooo.) If you ask people to name a medieval book they’ll probably say Beowulf even if they’ve never read it.

Here’s the thing though – England was a total backwater in terms of the way medieval people thought and was not particularly important at the time. How much of a backwater? Well, when Anne of Bohemia, daughter of my man Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (RIP, mate. Mourn ya til I join ya.) married King Richard II of England in the fourteenth century there was uproar in Prague. How could a Bohemian imperial princess be sent to London? How would she survive in the hinterlands? The answer was she was sent along with an entire cadre of Bohemian ladies in waiting to give her people with whom she could have a sophisticated conversation.

This ended up completely changing fashion in England. Anne is the girl who introduced those sweet horned headdresses you think of when you think of medieval ladies, riding side-saddle, and the word “coach” to England, (from the Hungairan Kocs, where the cart she arrived at court the first time came from). Sweetening her transition to English life was the fact that she didn’t have to pay a dowry to get married. Instead, the English were allowed to trade freely with Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire and allowed to be around a Czech lady. That was reward enough as far as the Empire was concerned. That’s how much England was not a thing. (The English took this insult very badly, and hated Anne at first, but since she was a G they got over it. Don’t worry.)

If England was unimportant why do we know about English medieval history and nothing else? Same reason you’re reading this blog in English right now, homes. I’m not sure if you know this, but in the modern period, the English got super super good at going around the world an enslaving anyone they met. When you’re busy not thinking about German imperial atrocities in the nineteenth century it’s because you’re busy thinking about British imperial atrocities, you feel me? So we all speak English now and if we harken back to historical things it gives us a grandiose idea of English history.

Say, then, you are trying to establish a curriculum for schools that bigs up English history, as is our want. Ask yourself – are you gonna want to dwell on an era where England was so unimportant that Czechs were flexing on it? Answer: no. You gonna gloss right over that and skip to the early modern era and the Tudors who I am absolutely sure you know all the fuck about. The second colonial-imperialist reason for not learning about medieval history is that medieval history doesn’t exactly aggrandise the colonial-imperialist system.

Yes, there are empires in medieval Europe. In addition to the Holy Roman Empire there’s the Eastern Roman Empire, aka the Byzantine Empire, whose downfall is often pointed to as one of several possible bookends to the medieval period. You also have opportunists like the Venetians who set up colonies around the Adriatic and Mediterranean, or the Normans who defo jump in boats and take over, well, anything they could get their hands on.

Notably, when these dudes got where they were going, they didn’t end up enslaving a bunch of people, committing genocide, and then funnelling all resources back to a theoretical homeland. The Normans settled down where they were eventually creating distinctive court cultures, and the Venetian colonies enjoyed a seriously high level of trade and quality of life without major disruption to local customs. Force was certainly used to take over at the outset, but it wasn’t something that resulted in the complete subjugation and deaths of millions halfway around the world from where the aggressors started.

No, the European middle ages are a lot more about local areas muddling along with smaller systems of rule. That’s why you have distinctive areas like say, Burgundy or Sicily calling their own shots and developing their own styles and fashions. Hell, even within imperial systems like the Holy Roman Empire Bavarians or Bohemians saw themselves as very much distinct peoples within an imperial system, not necessarily imperial subjects first and foremost.

You know where you would go to find some history that justifies huge imperial systems that require constant conquest and an army of slaves to keep them afloat? Ancient Rome. Remember how you got taught how great Rome was? How it was a democracy? How they had wonderful technology and underfloor heating, and oh isn’t that temple beautiful? Yeah, that’s because you were being inculcated to think that the ends of imperial violence justifies mass enslavement and disenfranchisement.

In reality, Rome wasn’t some sort of grand free democracy. Only a tiny percentage of Romans could actually vote. Women of any station certainly could not, and even men who were lucky enough to be free weren’t necessarily Roman citizens. Freedom here is particularly important because by the 1 century BCE 35 – 40% of the population of the Italian peninsula were slaves. Woo yeah democracy. I love it. And that’s not even taking into account all those times when an Emperor would suspend voting altogether.

Those slaves were busy building all the grand buildings your high school history teacher was dry jacking it about, stuffing the dormice that the rich people were reclining to eat, and basically keeping the joint running. Those slaves also necessitated the ridiculously huge army that Rome kept going because you had to get slaves from somewhere after all, so warfare had to be continuous. How uplifting.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that this Roman nonsense is pretty much exactly what was going on during the modern colonial imperial age. You can say whatever the fuck you want about how free and revolutionary America was, for example. That doesn’t change the fact that only a handful of white property owning men could vote, and that the entire project required the mass enslavement of Africans and the genocide of Native Americans. That’s why you’ve been taught Rome is great. It helps you sleep well at night on stolen land because, really, haven’t all great societies done this? I mean without a forever war against anyone you can find, how will you keep a society going?

Our imperialist ideas about history lead to some weird historical takes. People love to tell you that no one bathed in the medieval period when medieval people had pretty much exactly the same sort of bathing culture as Romans. People laugh at medieval people believing in medical humoral theory despite the fact that Romans believed exactly the same thing and get a total pass on that front. The Roman ban on dissection is often taught as a medieval ban, shifting Roman superstition onto the shoulders of medieval people.

On-going Roman warfare is reported in glowing terms with emphasis on the “brilliance” of Roman military technique, while inter-kingdom warfare in the medieval period is portrayed as barbaric and ignorant. The Roman people who were encouraged to worship emperors as literal gods are used as an example of theoretical religion-free logical thinking, while medieval Christians are cast as ignorant for believing in God even when they are studiously working on the same philosophical queries as their predecessors. None of this makes any fucking sense.

But here’s the thing – it doesn’t need to. In a colonial imperialist society we have positioned Rome as a guiding light no matter what it’s actual practices and that’s not a mistake. It’s a design that helps to justify our own society. Further, this mindset requires us to castigate the medieval period when rule was more localised and systems of slavery had taken a precipitous dive. If only there had been more slavery, you know? Things might have been so much better.

Historical narratives and who controls them are always in flux. That old adage “history is written by the winners” comes to mind here, but that’s not exactly true. What the winners do is decide which histories are promoted, taught, and broadcasted. You can write all the history you want and if no one reads it, then it doesn’t really matter. That’s the gap that medieval history has fallen into. Colonial imperialism hasn’t figured out how to weaponise it yet, so it’s ignored. You could write this off as a “so what”, of course. Sure, maybe teaching the Roman Empire as a goal is a negative, but is ignoring medieval history really that bad a thing? You will be unsurprised to learn that I definitely think it is a bad thing, yes.

Ignorance about the medieval period is one of the things that is allowing the current swelling ranks of fascists to claim medieval Europe as some sort of “pure” white ideal. Spoiler: it was not. However, if you don’t know anything about medieval society how are you gonna argue with some chinless douche with a fake viking rune tattoo?History is always political. We use it to understand our world, but more than that we also use it to justify our world. Ignoring it helps us prop up our worst impulses, so let’s not.”

- Eleanor Janega, “On colonialism, imperialism, and ignoring medieval history.”

#colonialism #imperialism #history #medieval #eleanor janega

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poorlilbeans · 7 years

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Keep FightinG (pARt Sicks!) (see what i did there?)

this fic. is so long. why am i doing this. anywho this part has a whole lot of talking... WE FINALLY HAVE A DIAGNOSIS, Y’ALL. WHOOP WHOOP! but yeah there’s also some fluff in there bc i am hardcore victuuri trash sooooo... yeah i hope you have as much fun reading it as i am having writing it :)

When Victor woke up, Yuuri had still been asleep, and that was weird in itself. Normally, not only did Yuuri suffer from insomnia, but he was an incredibly light sleeper. Someone could sneeze two cities over and somehow, some way, it would wake him up. Today, however, he didn’t stir when Victor got out of the bed and fixed the covers around him, untangling the IV chord that had somehow wrapped around his blanket during the night.

Victor needed to get out of that hospital room. He needed to be doing something other than worrying. It was 6:30 in the morning. He figured he could get about an hour of practice in before the nurses would be waking Yuuri. It was better than nothing.

Yet again, skating proved easier said than done. He was distracted, constantly wondering if Yuuri was awake yet. The English-speaking nurse probably wouldn’t be in for her shift yet, so he’d be alone, unable to understand anyone, missing Victor...

No. He wasn’t awake yet. Obviously. Victor barely stopped for breath for the entire hour, skating as hard as he could through the fog of worry that engulfed him. On the way out, around 8:00, he ran into Yurio.

“What are you doing here?” Yuri asked, like it was completely inconceivable for a professional figure skater to be at an ice rink.

“Skating,” he answered slowly, tentatively. “I was just heading back to the hospital.” Yuri regarded him with an uncharacteristic look of unmasked concern.

“Tell Katsudon I said hi,” he whispered, pushing past Victor.

By the time he got back to the hospital, the male nurse from yesterday had roused Yuuri and appeared to be having language-barrier issues with him.

“You drink water,” the nurse was carefully saying, to a very pale and very confused Yuuri. It was a simple request, but he didn’t seem to understand, and the nurse didn’t have enough English to rephrase. Victor entered, and Yuuri immediately seemed to forget about the nurse, letting out a low whine and reaching out towards him. Taking his hand, Victor turned to the nurse and asked, in Russian,

“Is everything alright?”

“We’re a little feverish right now,” the nurse answered. “He seems to have forgotten that he can’t drink water without moving the oxygen mask, but he won’t let me touch him to move it for him.” Victor turned back to Yuuri, who was gazing at him with bright, unfocused eyes.

“Are you thirsty, love?” Victor said softly, rubbing his knuckles.

“No. Hurts to move.” That made sense. The nurse had removed the blanket and the long pajama pants to keep Yuuri from overheating any more, and it revealed that his elbows, knees, wrists and ankles were flushed red and disturbingly swollen. He lay stiffly, awkwardly, making it clear that his joints were not tolerating any movement.

“That’s okay,” Victor whispered, doing his best to mask his concern. “I’ll do all the moving for you, alright?” Yuuri hummed, either too delirious or too sore to nod, and Victor gently removed the oxygen mask and brought the cup of water to his lips.

Yuuri managed a few sips of water before whining in protest, punctuating it with a little hiccup. Alright then, no more water. Victor put the mask back in place, hoping it would be enough incentive for the delirious man to try and avoid throwing up. Once they were settled, the nurse spoke again.

“We got his results back from the blood lab. They didn’t find any evidence of disease, except that he’s producing auto-antibodies.”

“Which means?”

“Which means it’s safe to assume that whatever’s making him so ill is some kind of autoimmune disorder. His combination of symptoms is pretty unique, but individually, they’re all symptoms of various autoimmune disorders. So that means we don’t have a name for the disease, but we are able to start treating it.” Victor didn’t really understand, but he nodded anyway, squeezing Yuuri’s hand protectively. “For the moment, however,” the nurse continued, “we need to focus on getting that fever down.”

It took hours. Thankfully, Yuuri didn’t seem too uncomfortable, save for his inability to move without aggravating the painful inflammation in his joints. Victor climbed into bed with him again, whispering reassurances in his ear. The sensation of Victor’s breath on his neck tickled, and Yuuri giggled deliriously for several minutes. The nurse elevated his broken ankle, and covered his arms and legs in ice packs to try and bring the swelling down. Every time he added a pack, Yuuri yelped, cursing in Japanese at the cold. Victor just held him, trying not to despair at how... different he looked. How ill. He was so pale. He’d visibly lost weight, too- weight he definitely didn’t need to lose- but the Prednisone being pumped through his IV (to reduce inflammation, ironically enough) caused his face to swell up, so he somehow looked gaunt and puffy at the same time. The worst part, though, was his eyes. Normally, Victor could stare at Yuuri’s eyes for hours and not get bored. They were so expressive; they sparkled, shifted around, widened and narrowed- he could portray emotions with his eyes better than he could with any words. Now, though, they were dull and confused. Victor couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact for more than a few moments, because those weren’t Yuuri’s eyes.

It felt like hours before his temperature began to go down, and when it did, it seemed like a miracle- until Victor looked into Yuuri’s wonderful, expressive eyes, and saw nothing but pain and fear.

“When are they going to let me go home?” he whispered. Victor almost missed the delirium; at least then, Yuuri hadn’t been quite so aware of how miserable he felt.

“I- I don’t know, my love. But they know what’s wrong now. They’re going to make you better.”

A little while later, the English-speaking nurse arrived with Yuuri’s first dose of immunosuppressants.

“You’re going to be on both for a while,” she told him. “Once you go home you can take the Prednisone orally, and you can wean off of it slowly until you’re just on the immunosuppressants.”

“For how long?” was Yuuri’s fearful response.

“Well... forever. You’ll be on the immunosuppressants forever.” Yuuri was visibly holding back tears as he obediently swallowed the pill. The nurse offered him another inhaler, which he took wordlessly. “Since we know the source of your breathing troubles, we’re starting you on a preventative inhaler for a while. Hopefully, once the drugs start working, you won’t need it any more. I thought you could try a few minutes without being on oxygen, and see if your breathing is any better.” Yuuri just nodded, cuddling sadly into Victor’s side. “Do you understand why you’re taking these medications?” He shook his head; Victor felt silent tears soaking his T-shirt. “An autoimmune disease,” the nurse told him, “is when you have an overactive immune system. In most cases, it attacks another part of the body; the digestive system, the skin... but for you, it has attacked multiple parts. It seems to have affected your digestive system, your respiratory system, your nervous system... it’s likely your fever is a defense mechanism; your body is under the attack of your body.” Yuuri didn’t answer, so the nurse kept talking. “Chances are, you were born with the disease, but it was inactive until now. The goal is to make it inactive again with medication, but most people have the occasional flare-up after diagnosis. Usually it’s random, but environmental factors do sometimes play a role in it. Some people have flare-ups after switching to a new medication or eating a new food. Extreme stress is also known to cause flare-ups.” Then, after so much prolonged silence, Yuuri laughed. Hard.

“What’s so funny?” Victor and the nurse asked in unison.

“I am stress,” Yuuri cackled. “I am the human manifestation of stress.”

“It’s entirely possible that’s what brought it out in the first place. Were you particularly stressed out before you got sick?”

“Yeah,” he answered, still giggling. “It was right before a competition. I had panic attacks three days in a row.”

“Panic attacks? Have you been to a doctor about those?”

“Yeah, I’m on medication. The doctor here knows about it.”

“Alright. You have to be diligent about managing that. Autoimmune disorders can be tricky enough without a mental illness to set them off.” Yuuri nodded, but it was clear to Victor that he still found the irony of the situation absolutely hilarious.

Yuuri was cleared to leave two days later. He certainly wasn’t healthy; he had to be taken down to the parking lot in a wheelchair, and Victor carried him to the car, trying not to flinch at how light he had gotten. The instructions were clear and strict: Keep him on the medication. Make sure he drinks water. Don’t touch him when he has seizures, unless he’s at risk of choking. Call the doctor with any questions. Take him back for weekly checkups. If it gets out of control, call an ambulance.

They drove in silence for a while, Yuuri clutching a plastic garbage bag just in case. He’d started solid food that morning, and his stomach didn’t seem too happy about it. Eventually, at a red light, he spoke.

“I’m sorry.” Victor blinked in surprise.

“What for?”

“Just... all of this. For scaring you. For being sick. You didn’t... you... you deserve better.”

“No, don’t do that. I love you. I wish more than anything I could take the pain away from you, but I can’t, so I’m more than happy to be here for you instead.” He held up his hand, the gold engagement ring glinting in the late afternoon sun. “In sickness and in health, remember?” Yuuri’s ears tinted pink.

“I’ll never understand what god I pleased to bring you into my life.”

“Maybe,” Victor breathed, “you were wonderful all by yourself. Maybe you didn’t need to please a god to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Maybe even when you’re sickly and sweaty and swollen you’re still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Maybe, without divine intervention, I am still more in love with you than I ever imagined was possible. Maybe we’re in love just because we’re in love. Ever think of that?” Yuuri ducked his head, grinning bashfully.

“We should really get around to getting married.”

“Maybe when you can walk again.”

AHHH this fic is already way too long but i keep having ideas >.< w h y am i like this eurgh

regardless, i hope you’re enjoying it so far :)

#yoi #yuri on ice #sick!yuuri #sickfic #illness #autoimmine disease #yuuri katsuki #victor nikiforov #victuuri #this fic is way too long #but it just keeps going #oh well #i try

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