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scotianostra · 1 year

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On June 23rd 1314 Robert I, King of Scots, killed a young English Knight called Henry de Bohun, it marked the beginning of a two day fight, The Battle of Bannockburn.

I'll cover the battle more in depth tomorrow, today I'm going to cheat a bit by taking the description of the encounter between Sir Henry de Bohun and King Robert directly from John Barbour's epic poem The Brus. The poem is written in ancient Scots, but don't worry I will post a translation too!

Bohun, in full armour, had noticed King Robert out in front of his troops, the king riding on a smaller horse in light armour. The little crown on his helmet clearly identified him. Thinking that he could strike the critical blow by killing the Scottish king, Bohun charged towards him with lance lowered. But King Robert swerved at the crucial moment, stood in his stirrups, and brought his battle axe down through the head of Bohun, killing him instantly.

And quhen the king sua apertly

Saw him cum forouth all his feris

In hy till him the hors he steris.

And quhen Schyr Henry saw the king

Cum on foroutyn abaysing

Till him he raid in full gret hy,

He thocht that he suld weill lychtly

Wyn him and haf him at his will

Sen he him horsyt saw sa ill.

Sprent thai samyn intill a ling,

Schyr Hanry myssit the noble king

And he that in his sterapys stud

With the ax that wes hard and gud

With sua gret mayne raucht him a dynt

That nother hat na helm mycht stynt

The hevy dusche that he him gave

That ner the heid till the harnys clave.

The hand-ax schaft fruschit in twa,

And he doune to the erd gan ga

And flatlynys for him faillit mycht.

That wes perfornyst douchtely,

And quhen the kingis men sa stoutly

Saw him rycht at the first meting

Foroutyn dout or abaysing

Have slayne a knycht sua at a strak

Sic hardyment tharat gan thai tak

That thai come on rycht hardely.

Quhen Inglismen saw thaim sa stoutly

Cum on thai had gret abaysing

And specially for that the king

Sa smartly that gud knycht has slayne

That thai withdrew thaim everilkane

And durst nocht ane abid to fycht

Sa dred thai for the kingis mycht.

And quhen the kingis men thaim saw

Sua in hale bataill thaim withdraw

A gret schout till thaim gan thai mak

And thai in hy tuk all the bak,

And thai that folowit thaim has slane

Sum off thaim that thai haf ourtane

Bot thai war few forsuth to say

Thar hors fete had ner all away.

Bot how-sa quhoyne deyt thar

Rebutyt foulily thai war

And raid thar gait with weill mar schame

Be full fer than thai come fra hame.

This translation largely follows the version rendered by b A.A.M. Duncan (The Bruce, Canongate, 1997) but with some variation intended to represent more modern turns of phrase.

And when the king saw him (Bohun) Moving towards him in sight of his comrades He hastily turned his horse towards him And when Sir Henry saw the king Come on quite unabashed He rode at him full speed He thought to beat him easily And have him at the disadvantage Because the king was lightly horsed So they closed on one another Sir Henry missed the noble king And he (the king) stood in his stirrups With an axe both hard and good Struck him such a great blow That neither hat or helmet could stop The heavy clout he gave So he cleaved the head to the brains The hand-axe shaft broke in two And he (Bohun) fell to the ground Dead and devoid of all strength now This was the first blow of the battle And was done mightily too And when the king’s men saw this At the first encounter Done without any hesitation or fear Kill a knight with a single blow They were so encouraged That they advanced boldly forward When the Englishmen saw them stoutly advance They were left downcast Especially because the king Had so quickly slain such a good knight So they now all of them withdrew And not one dared to fight For fear of the king’s might And when the king’s men saw The (English) formation withdraw The (Scots) made a great shout at them

#scotland #scottish #king robert #robert the bruce #the battle of bannockburn #the first war of scottish independence #history #england #english

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venicepearl · 2 years

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The Battle of Stirling Bridge (Scottish Gaelic: Blàr Drochaid Shruighlea) was a battle of the First War of Scottish Independence. On 11 September 1297, the forces of Andrew Moray and William Wallace defeated the combined English forces of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey, and Hugh de Cressingham near Stirling, on the River Forth.

#Battle of Stirling Bridge #Blàr Drochaid Shruighlea #First War of Scottish Independence #scottish history #british history #William Wallace #Adrew Moray #John de Werenne #Hugh de Cressingham #XIII century #Illustration #engraving #art #arte

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ethereal-night-fairy · 4 months

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This dark vampire poly!141 x hostage!reader idea is based off a comment I got on one of my works on Ao3 I would love to tag them if they were on Tumblr but I don't think they are.

Comment : Oh I'd love a vampire au! An idea for it if you are open to consideration: the 141 have been around for centuries, John pretty much turned all of them starting with Simon, then with Johnny, and then with Gaz being the youngest (although Gaz is still over a century old). Reader, of course, is human, moving to a new town to start over completely and ends up running into one of them. And they just know that reader is the missing piece that they had been looking for--the one that is the last to be bound to them. Because for an immortal creature it only makes sense that they would, in even just the name of species preservation, have multiple mates dictated by fate, instinct, or what have you :)

This sounds like a great premise for a vampire au. Also what if Knight price was turned in the medieval ages by a vampire lord he was tasked to kill and ended up being turned as he killed the last of the vampire kin for the English king. He fled obviously when he realised what happened letting his knights think he was killed in battle.

Time passes and he doesn't age, he watched his loved ones from a distance growing old and having children before ultimately passing away. It pains him that he lives like an animal hunting for blood in the forest unable to live a normal life.

But he still wishes to do good, to be good . So as his powers build and the sun doesn't scorch his skin anymore. He joins the army century after century to regain some sense of humanity. (That's a horrible way to regain humanity if I'm honest, though in his defence he fell for the propaganda and thought he was doing a good thing.) But the bloodlust becomes so much worse the more he kills. The more blood stains his hands the more he longs for the chaos and violence.

He gathers companions along the way. Men like him that were on the brink of death but had so much to live for. He couldn't let them die he just couldn't! By the 21st century he had his little taskforce. His boys, his lovers, his family but someting was missing. What could it be? They lived comfortably with the wealth they had accumulated. They had their buffet layed out for them on the battlefield. What more could they want?

But something was out of place. Even with his lovers, life was becoming bleak when all they saw was violence and bloodshed. That was until they found a delicate little hostage in their capture or kill mission. Scared little thing you were tucked away in the corner of a bedroom, chained to the wall. You'd do nicely as their pet. They bet your blood tastes just as sweet as your tears.

Their reply: Oh I love it! Johnny being a warrior that at the Battle of Culloden, fighting for Scottish independence from the British, happens to die while fighting an infuriating man. Said infuriating man, dying by the Scottsmans hand, just so happens to be lieutenant Simon. Price having already planned to watch over Simon (he said he wouldn't get attached) yet he can't help but to turn Johnny too. Neither are happy at first, they have their differences, but they can't deny the bond and love that forms. Then the three of them meet Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick in world war ii. So bright and full of life, passionate about fighting for his country and ending Nazi regime. The man runs right into a fight, saving dozens upon dozens of men, and the three know they can't let him remain dead when the inevitable comes. And Gaz, well, he keeps that light within him because at least now he can make sure that the war to end all wars wasn't done in vain.

I just wanted to show off their ideas too since it's what inspired my little snippet. I not sure if I'll turn this into a actual thing though.

Dividers by @cafekitsune

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auspicioustidings · 7 months

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Bannockburn

Summary: Your boyfriend Johnny has come home in a strange mood, and you are about to get your shit rocked at Bannockburn.

Technically, if you squint, a sequel to Savage set just over 700 years later. Like I will perhaps write a proper sequel at some point, but you can blame Bunny for this one.

Words: 3.6k

CW: CNC, smut, implied character death

You were getting nervous. You were getting really nervous. There were two Johnny’s and you never knew what one you were getting when he came home from a mission. Most of the time you got your Johnny, sweet and loving and tackling you to the bed with a laugh while he showed you how much he missed you. But sometimes whatever happened out on mission got his blood up. Whatever he usually did to get himself settled and out of war mode didn’t take. Sometimes you got the Savage Johnny, the one who heard your English accent and became more animal than man. The one who went into such thick Scots that you hardly understood what he was growling into your ear as he took you.

Usually you knew what Johnny you had the moment he walked through the door. Not this time. This time he seemed like he was boiling with energy under the surface, but he kissed you nonetheless and ate dinner with you and held you as you slept. When he got you both up and packed into the car the next morning for a trip you had the sense to at least be a little worried. Now, hand held in his as you listened to the guide, you had some inkling that you might be in for it.

“Now King Edward the second invaded as a result of Bruce’s demand to his people to recognise him as their King. He summoned 25,000 infantry and 2000 horses, the largest ever army to invade Scotland. Bruce only had command of 6000 men.”

You could feel the blood draining from your face as the guide went further into the background of the battle. Around about the time she briefly mentioned how Wallace had been hanged, drawn and quartered, limbs displayed in different cities, just shy of ten years before the Battle of Bannockburn, you absolutely knew what Johnny you had on your hands. And this Johnny? There was nothing you could do to save yourself from this Johnny. This Johnny was taking in every word, ready to punish you for your ancestors' transgressions against his.

You were trying to pay attention, but your eyes were darting around trying to pinpoint any little nooks that might spell danger if he got you in them. Only that was dangerous in itself, because the first time you felt your attention drift from what was being said Johnny had let go of your hand and moved to instead hold you firm by the back of the neck, fingers massaging a little too hard in warning. That got you to pay rapt attention to all of it, to the whole history of the Scottish wars of Independence as it related to Bannockburn.

It was strange sometimes, you and Johnny. There were times like now when you would be learning about the history of your countries and it felt like some long forgotten memory. There were times when you met his Lieutenant and swore you knew him from somewhere. Like there was some ancient part of you that trusted them when they fought together to watch each other's backs. No matter what Johnny you got, you held such a deep love for him that it scared you sometimes. Your heart twisted as they described what the battle would have been like for the soldiers, the sights and sounds and weapons. It must have been awful.

You were stuck on it. Stuck on the image of a Johnny with a sword on the battlefield. That was your mistake, zoning out and just following along when he led you out to the grounds. Only when you had been walking for a while did you realise how far you were getting from the safety of a building full of people.

“Where are we going?”

“Dinae pay any attention at all did ye? Must naw have been interesting tae ye learning about how my people battered yours when they tried tae grind us intae nothing.”

“No, I was paying attention. Of course I was” you said, trying to be meek and quell some of his building fury.

“Couldnae even hunt a bunny without some English noble claiming it wisnae our right. Punishing us” he ranted before turning to you with a feral look in his eye. “Cannae stop me from hunting one right now though can they? Ye going tae run for me wee bunny?”

Fuck. He looked ready to tear into your throat with his teeth. You felt every bit a prey animal, eyes darting around to find a way out of this. The woods. There were woods here. That was where he had been leading you while you had been busy getting stuck on the idea of him as some ancient warrior fighting to the death. Gillies Hill. The guide had told you about it, how the Scottish had made their camp here. It was where they had attacked from.

And it was where you found yourself sprinting through, heart pounding. Your logical mind knew it was a mistake, you running only meant he could chase. You should have just stayed where you were, tried to talk him down. You were stumbling and tripping, trying to get your bearings as the woods became dense around you. Every snap of a twig or sway of a branch sent you darting away in the other direction until you were shaking from exhaustion and no small amount of mounting terror.

You had never been hunted like this. Johnny had been rough with you before in the warmth of your own home, had fucked you into the bed like he was trying to mould you permanently to him. But this was a different creature entirely. This was the monster under the surface that you only caught glimpses of, that you never thought you would meet face to face. The woods were silent of another human, had you managed to escape him?

“Yer naw even trying little bunny, ye want me tae catch ye is that it? Slut.”

His breath was hot on your ear and you choked on any response you had tried to come up with. How had he gotten right behind you without a sound? You were running again, tripping and scraping your knees but clawing your way back to your feet to keep going. The little summer dress was not suited for this, but at least you were wearing boots. At least Johnny had told you to wear boots this morning.

It was with a sickening dread that you realised he had planned this. He knew you would be running from him, knew he wanted you in a dress for easy access but boots for fleeing into the woods. At least you knew that your Johnny was still in there somewhere, enough to care about you not breaking an ankle. Not enough to care about breaking you in other ways.

“Aww wee English princess got her knees all scraped up? All yer kinfolk are going tae ken how ye love getting on them for good Scottish cock when they see the marks. Wee whore down in the dirt fucking gagging on it, crying over how much ye love it.”

You couldn’t properly tell what direction his voice was even coming from. The shame of his words was flooding you with a sickly humiliation that only increased when your body reacted differently to how it should have. When you throbbed with need for him.

“I’m not! That isn’t what’s happening!”

You were flustered and scared and needy and felt like you were yelling at nothing as you kept catching sight of him on your periphery only to turn and find nobody there.

“Naw? Slick is practically running down yer plush fucking thighs princess, bet yer clenching down on nothin’. Dinnae even have tae catch ye dae I? Could just wait until ye come crawling tae me, begging me tae claim ye. Fucking pleading for it right here, right where my army celebrated before decimating yours.”

His words sent a shiver up your spine. Out here felt removed from time, it really did feel like you were betraying something by finding yourself drawn to this savage. By imagining that his prediction would prove true, that you’d beg for him. You couldn’t, it would be too much, too shameful. So you kept stumbling through the woods even when the deep tenor of his voice rang through in a mocking little song.

God he had translated this for you once. Told you that brose and butter was a euphemism, that it was about fucking a girl full of cum. It had made you blush and laugh at the time when he playfully sang it over to you now that you understood the meaning, but now? Fuck now it just scared the hell out of you with how the words were tinged with a promise. This was hardly playful, he really meant to hold you down and shove himself inside you out here in the woods where anyone could walk by.

“We can’t! John please, not here” you pleaded, pausing to try and find where he was. “I… you were gone for months, I’ve not…”

He had made you promise before he left that you’d save yourself for him, wouldn’t even put your own fingers inside yourself while he was gone. And you hadn’t. Fuck you would be so tight now, not ready for him to take you hard. Had he known even then that this was the plan?

“Maiden are ye? Scared it’s going tae hurt, princess? It will, did they naw teach ye that we’re animals? We dinnae treat wee English lassies the way yer own men would. Ye’ll get treated the way ye should, like a fucking whore. And ye’ll take it won’t ye? Ye’ll take it wherever I want tae give it tae ye.”

Fuck, you were starting to slip away to whereever he was. You were starting to feel less like yourself and more like the poor English maiden being hunted by the enemy. The bunny being hunted by the hound. Starting to drift away into pure animal instinct, pure fear and arousal. You could hardly breathe now, feeling tears prick at your eyes.

“Please…” you sobbed quietly, not even sure what you were begging for.

And then he was there, towering over you and wrapping a hand around your throat, thumb beneath your chin to tilt your head and force you to look at him.

“Wonder whit they’d think of ye begging so pretty for the enemy. Cannae help yerself can ye?” he said, as if fascinated by you, slipping his other hand up your dress and under your panties. “Fucking English slut. Y’er dripping.”

Your reaction to those words was violent and unexplainable. It made your legs shake and your pussy clench painfully hard. It was confusing how much it affected you, causing such a flood of wetness that Johnny noticed, his pupils dilating as he squeezed at your throat and laughed when that made you whimper and claw at his hand. He only kept on squeezing until you were starting to see stars.

“Dinnae fucking move princess.”

The pressure of his hands was gone in an instant and the flood of oxygen made you dizzy. There was no time for you to recover before he was on his knees in the dirt, treating your pussy like it was a mouth and sloppily kissing it over your panties. The press of his tongue was insistent and overwhelming, like he was trying to bully it past the fabric. When he ripped at your waistband with his teeth the lace tore.

He continued his attack like he truly was a wolf sinking his teeth into a fresh meal, completely ruining your underwear until the mangled scraps fell to the floor and left you bare. Your hands were woven into his mohawk and you tried to pull him away, earning a growl that reverberated into your bones and a heavy handed smack to your ass before he assaulted your clit with tongue and teeth and spit.

You felt yourself clench so hard that you almost felt nauseous. Fuck. You were trying to keep some sense of self, trying to remember that you were out in public and he was some feral version of the man you loved who was saying horrible things to you and promising he was going to hurt you. But there was a creeping haze taking over, turning you dumb for him.

It wasn’t even something you had been aware was happening when you came on his tongue. It was just sensation, just the desperate need for more. The primal desperation to be fuller even as he pushed his tongue into your over sensitive hole while your walls fluttered through the pleasure of that high.

“Please, need you.”

“Aye, that right? Needy wee slut.”

You were too far gone to notice that while he was rough in getting you onto your back in the dirt, one hand was gentle in cradling your head to make sure it landed softly.

“Use those pretty wee words. Ask me for it the way ye’d ask a good English man.”

Ask me for it the way ye’d ask Simon.

When all you could do was wriggle underneath him and whine he grabbed the neckline of your dress and yanked it down to let your breasts spill out, slapping hard at one and making you howl.

“They naw teach ye how tae talk proper ye wee slut? Ask fucking nicely.”

“Please, please I want you inside me.”

“Aye, can tell that princess. Whit else?”

“Want you to cum inside me.”

“Good fucking girl, wisnae so hard now was it?”

He didn’t take any of his clothes off, just fished his hard cock from his jeans, hooked your knees on his shoulders and pressed into your wet heat in one fluid motion. You both groaned as he bottomed out. It had been so long, you were so fucking tight around him.

“M’so full, thank you thank you ,m’yours, need you. Fuck, ah. Made for you, it’s so much” you rambled, incoherent in your bliss.

“There she is, needed this naw? Needed my cock deep in this tight wee English cunt. Cannae be a person without it, it’s whit ye were made for. Fucking built tae be on yer back with yer legs open for me.”

He stayed like that for what felt like forever, the fullness pushing any coherent thought out of your head. Fuck he was so deep like this, with you nearly folded in half. It felt like you were choking on his dick. You were clawing at the dirt by your sides so hard that you thought your fingers might bleed, but he grabbed your wrists and pinned them above your head before they could.

You were so cock drunk that you were only distantly aware of the look in his eyes now, the almost obsessive adoration as he took in how you looked pressed into the earth like this, dress rucked up from the bottom and pulled down from the top, palm print visible from where he had slapped at you, knees by your ears, hands pinned over your head and yet despite it all so blissed out you were salivating and babbling at him how you needed him.

When he pulled all the way out to the tip and then slammed back home you choked on the wind being knocked right out of you. It only encouraged him as he started to fuck you hard and deep, taking him time to make sure every thrust settled him so incredibly deep inside of you that you were floating.

“Braw wee creature aren’t ye? Feart of me and gagin’ fer it anyway. Dinnae fash bonnie, gettin’ yer hole proper.”

You knew vaguely that he was close because you could hardly understand what he was saying. You were so unable to do anything in this position, no leverage on your arms and legs that you could use to pull him closer.

“Inside, need it inside. Please, please ah!” you cried, no shame left in so as you begged like a bitch in heat for him to cum inside you.

He shifted and sped his pace, nailing that spongy spot inside you that was making your vision black out with every thrust. You’d have marks on you from the buttons and zipper of his jeans. You’d have marks on your throat and your wrists, on your tits. He needed more, he needed anyone to take one look at you and know who you belonged to.

“‘at’s it, take it. Fuck. Good lass” he groaned as he sunk his teeth into your throat and your eyes rolled into the back of your head as you came, clamping down on his cock.

He jackhammered into you, forcing his way in while your pussy tried to force him out. The tight heat of it was too much and he growled and stilled after one more brutal thrust had him cumming deep inside you. He collapsed on top of you, the painful stretch from being folded as you were a delicious burn with the extra pressure forcing you to stretch further.

You stayed like that for a while, both panting. Only when you were slowly coming back to your senses did you feel a sharp pain in your back from what must have been a particularly jagged stone. Ah, you thought you were probably bleeding on it, feeling something sticky.

“Bannockburn” you breathed out softly.

The pressure was off of you almost immediately and he let go of your wrists and kneeled up, pulling out with a soft sigh leaving both of you at the feeling. He was quick to tuck himself in before his hands were back on you, gentle this time, fixing your dress and rubbing at all the spots he had marked.

“C’mere bonnie, ye did so well. Hurting anywhere I need tae look at?”

He looked at your back when you told him, laying soft kisses of apology on you as he cleaned it up. You used to tease Johnny for the little first aid kit he always had strapped to the back of his jeans whenever you went out, but it was coming in incredibly handy. Your panties were toast and he sheepishly tucked the remnants of them into his pocket before getting you to unsteady feet.

“Creeping Jesus, I’ve made a right mess out of ye” he said with a bashful sort of grin, doing his best to try and fix your hair.

“Hmm, s’ok” you replied, still a little hazy.

He kissed you soundly and then gave you an absolute squeeze of a cuddle before scooping you into his arms in a princess carry.

“Let’s get ye all tucked up in the car then we can have a bath and dinner when we’re home eh?”

You nodded and nuzzled into his chest to get comfortable. He would take care of you, he always did.

–

John MacTavish didn’t know how he got so lucky. Not any woman would be softly dozing off in his arms after what he had just put you through. Fuck you were beautiful all of the time, but when you were like this? Fucked out and marked up but achingly soft for him in the afterglow? Jesus, he loved you. He would love you forever, through lifetimes.

He’d explain obviously, he should really have warned you how hard he was going to go, that should have been pre-negotiated. But he had been so wound up. Fucking Simon Riley and his little comments about you, winding him up by putting thoughts in his head about how demure an English man could get you. It should have just made him laugh and shove at him, instead it made his blood boil and his cock hard and he had taken it out on you. You had let him, you always did until either of you thought it wasn’t safe.

He paused on his way out of the woods with you, considering waking you so you could see the little glade he had come upon. It was pretty as anything, almost felt like hallowed ground with a giant stone right in the middle. Something about it called to an ancient longing within him. Fuck. He wanted to marry you out here. Was that ridiculous? Maybe just post orgasm stupidity.

Still as he settled you in the car and took you home so he could love you properly, he thought maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

–

“Fuck, Johnny.”

Simon Riley was an Englishman through and through. Everytime he stepped into battle it was to strike down those who would oppose his King and country. Yet he had left the battlefield. He had tracked into the woods, to where he knew MacTavish had crawled off to die. He found him leant against the stone that sat in the centre of a glade. Of course this is where he would want to die. Not on the battlefield, but here. The place he had married you. The place they both had.

“Ye come tae watch it for yerself Si?” Johnny said with a laugh that turned to a hacking cough.

“Course. Been trying to kill you for years, not about to miss it.”

Simon sat next to him, both of them looking at the sunlight filtering through the trees. It was peaceful here. Maybe in another lifetime they would not have been enemies. Maybe in another lifetime they could have been brothers.

“Ye’ll look after her until I can find her again?”

“Always.”

#mhairiwrites #cod #cod au #fanfic #john soap mactavish x reader #soap x reader #john mactavish x reader #look I am very much implying that Simon is going to get in on this action #I used all my smut braincells on Savage so the smut is not really hitting as good #had to let some of the angst braincells out for a bit or it wasn't going to get written #personally I think having Bannockburn as a safeword was sick and twisted of me <3

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homomenhommes · 2 days

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … June 4

1464 – Spain: King Henry IV, half brother of Queen Isabel, is called a “puto” (male slut) at his symbolic public dethronement in effigy. This ceremony became known by its detractors as the farce of Ávila and has been recorded as such in history.

1738 – King George III of Great Britain, born (d. 1820); The first English-born Hanoverian king and the reigning monarch during the American War of Independence, George III was the subject of much gossip during his youth. The gossip is interesting in that the young king actually walked into a preexisting rumour. George’s father, Frederick, the Prince of Wales, had been much taken with the charming Earl of Bute, whom he found an agreeable whist companion. When Frederick died, Bute, who had constantly risen in court ranks, stayed on, presumably as the lover of Frederick’s widow.

The adolescent George, at eighteen, was very much the opposite of Hamlet. Rumour had it that he not only did not want to drive the usurper from his mother’s bed, but that he wanted to be there in her place. Bute’s elevation to secretary of state under George only heightened court gossip. How much of this is true, no one knows. That mother and son were both taken with the handsome Bute is true, but the rest is speculation.

1955 – Born: Prolific Scottish mystery writer Val McDermid has three very successful series of novels and has been the recipient of numerous awards for crime fiction. Several of her works have been adapted for television. Val McDermid comes from Fife in the coal-mining region of eastern Scotland.

She was born on June 4, 1955, in the town of Kirkcaldy and grew up there. An only child, she was frequently in the company of adults or off on her own, sometimes spending whole days abroad in the countryside with only her dog for company. Her parents were of the working class, but they realized the value of a good education and also strongly encouraged their daughter to read as much as possible. Because of her love of books McDermid "developed a secret life of the imagination" at an early age. McDermid recalls feeling "different" as a child but at first attributed the sentiment to her desire to become a writer, which indeed was a far cry from the typical occupations in her small hometown.

Eventually she came to understand her sexual orientation, and her relatives proved supportive when she came out to them. "When I realized I was gay, no one stopped speaking to me," she said. "I wasn't cast adrift for bringing disgrace and shame upon the family."

The school system in Fife saw McDermid as different in another way--as a student of exceptional promise. She was selected for the "1E" program, in which one or two outstanding pupils per year were advanced a grade and taught in a special class. McDermid found this beneficial in that it gave her "a lifelong habit of hard work and the expectation of success," but because the "1E" children were set apart from their peers, it also "left her with an abiding sense of being an outsider."

Because of her academic success, McDermid was accepted by Oxford University at sixteen, one of the youngest students ever admitted. She studied at St. Hilda's College there, earning a bachelor's degree in English in 1975. After graduation, she embarked on a career in journalism.

McDermid quit her job as a journalist in 1991, but by that time she was already a published novelist. Of her first novel, which she wrote at twenty-one, McDermid, with characteristic humour, would later remark that "the best thing I can say about it is that I actually finished it."

She began writing her first crime novel in 1984. McDermid chose to make her lesbian sleuth Lindsay Gordon a reporter because, she said, "I had no idea how police investigate a murder, but I knew how journalists do their job." The response to Report for Murder upon its publication in 1987 was, in McDermid's wry words, "a resounding silence." Undeterred, she brought Gordon back in her next two books. There are at present five mysteries in the Lindsay Gordon series, but McDermid realized that she "was never going to make a living out of lesbian crime fiction."

She introduced her second detective, heterosexual private investigator Kate Brannigan, in Dead Beat in 1992 and has written five more novels in that series.

McDermid's third series features the crime-solving team of psychologist and profiler Dr. Tony Hill and police detective Carol Jordan. The debut novel for the pair, The Mermaids Singing (1995), was a great success and earned McDermid the prestigious Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award. Mermaids and its sequel, The Wire in the Blood (1997), served as the basis for a six-part BBC television series also entitled The Wire in the Blood in 2002.

Though out and proud, McDermid put a gay sexual predator in her 2004 novel The Torment of Others, drawing criticism from some LGBTQ readers. "There's good and bad in every community," she commented. "To pretend otherwise only gives ammunition to your enemies."

In 2000 McDermid added a new line to her résumé, that of "mum," which has brought great joy to her life. Her then partner, a solicitor, conceived their son, Cameron, through artificial insemination, and immediately after his birth, McDermid obtained joint parenting rights through a court order. The couple eventually broke up, and Cameron now divides his time between his two mothers' homes. McDermid calls the arrangement "civilized" and emphasizes that the parents put their son's welfare first. McDermid's new partner is an American publisher.

1947 – Hans Martin Hirschi is an author, writer and training executive and LGBT rights activist based in Sweden.He is also co-founder and president of Yaree, an independent publisher and consultancy firm.

Hirschi was born and raised in Samedan, Switzerland. He learned seven languages before graduating high school and five Scandinavian languages in college. Hirschi studied literature at the University of Gothenburg.

Hirschi began writing Greek mythology as a teenager. He wrote a book about e-learning pedagogy and another about his management philosophies during his corporate career.

After his son was born, Hirschi wrote fictional works. He has self-published a poetry book and a short story. He has also published four novels and an e-book documenting his experience with parenting in India.

Hirschi is a member of the Swedish Writers' Union and the Writers' Center in Sweden.

In 2015, Hirschi released his first science fiction novel, Willem of the Tafel. Hirschi's novels try to tell positive, hopeful stories for the LGBT community, without shying away from difficult topics, and often center around families and relationships.

In 2018 Hirschi ventured into writing for a much younger audience with his first children's book and his youth fantasy series The Golden One which tackles the environmental challenges facing Earth but also the gap between those growing up and the adults.

Hirschi lives on an island off the coast of Sweden with his husband Alex and their son Sascha.

1971 – Peter Jöback, born in Stockholm, Sweden, is a Swedish singer,actor and musical artist.

Peter Jöback got his big breakthrough his collaboration with ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. In their musical Kristina från Duvemåla (The Emigrants) at Malmö Opera and Music Theatre, Jöback created the role of Robert and his theme song, "Guldet blev till sand", broke every record in the Swedish charts. The musical was seen by over one million Swedes and the original cast CD-box became a triple-platinum album and received several Swedish Grammy awards. Jöback received his first Golden Mask for his role as Robert.

Cameron Mackintosh discovered Peter Jöback's talent and offered him the lead as Chris in Miss Saigon at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London's West End in 1997. Three years later at the same theatre, Jöback created the role of Michael in Macintosh's original production of The Witches of Eastwick.

Peter had a brief foray into films when he voiced the lead role in the Swedish language version of the smash animated hit – Aladdin. He continued this arrangement in the film's sequel as well as the Aladdin TV series.

In 2004, Peter made the news when he came out as gay on Swedish television in an interview with popular host Kristian Luuk. Reactions to this revelation were generally very positive and supportive.Peter Jöback entered Melodifestivalen 2010 the Swedish Pre-selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. He received a wildcard from SVT. His song, "Hollow", reached the final of the competition, ultimately finishing in 9th position.

1978 – Robin Lord Taylor is an American film and television actor and director, known for Accepted (2006), Another Earth (2011) and Would You Rather (2012). He stars in the television drama series Gotham as Oswald Cobblepot, The Penguin.

A native of Shueyville, Iowa, Taylor attended Solon High School and Northwestern University. Since 2000, he has lived in New York, where Gotham is filmed.

In a November 2014 Glamour Magazine interview, Taylor was asked, "I notice you are wearing a wedding ring on your ring finger. Are you married?" Without revealing his spouse's gender, he responded, "I am married! I like to keep it private, but I've been married for over three years, and we've been together for 10 1/2. No kids. No kids yet!"

In a March 2015, Slate Magazine noted Taylor as "openly gay" in an article discussing the typecasting of gay actors. Taylor, himself, added: "I feel like the landscape has totally changed. Regardless of sexual preference, it’s more that as a character actor, the less I reveal about myself, the better. My favourite actors are the ones I know least about."

Taylor has appeared in several acclaimed television series, such as The Walking Dead, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Good Wife and Person of Interest.

1992 – Earvin "EJ" Johnson is an American television personality and socialite.

Earvin Johnson III was born in Beverly Hills, California, to Magic Johnson and Earlitha Kelly. He has an older brother, Andre, and a younger sister, Elisa. He was raised in the Pentecostal Christian faith. Johnson attended New York University, studying hospitality with a focus on event planning and design. Johnson came out as homosexual to his family at the age of 17 and came out publicly in 2013 after a report by TMZ published pictures of him holding hands with a male friend. He was supported by his family in his decision to come out publicly. After coming out, Johnson left the West Angeles Church of God in Christ, the church he grew up in, due to their views on homosexuality.

Johnson joined the cast of the E! reality television series Rich Kids of Beverly Hills in 2014 as a recurring cast member in the first season. He became a main cast member for the next three seasons.[10] The show was cancelled after four seasons. Johnson then starred in his own spin-off reality series EJNYC, one of the first reality series to profile a young LGBTQ person of colour. In 2014 Johnson joined E! News as a news personality and commentator, covering shows for New York Fashion Week as well as having a recurring commentary role on Fashion Police.[13] He also appeared as a guest commentator on Hello Ross in 2014. He was a guest star during season 4 of Real Husbands of Hollywood. In 2016 Johnson was featured in an It Got Better short documentary produced by L/Studio. In 2017 Johnson moderated a panel at BeautyCon called The Gender Revolution. In 2017 Johnson was a guest host on The Real. In an ESPN interview with Kelley L. Carter, Johnson discussed his television experiences and plans to pursue a career in fashion.Johnson has been noted for his feminine and androgynous fashion style. He revealed that after Caitlyn Jenner's coming out as a transgender woman, he thought about transitioning, but decided against it.

Johnson is close friends with Gaïa Jacquet-Matisse, Kyra Kennedy, Ezra J. William, Andrew Warren, and Tiffany Trump. The group has been nicknamed the "Rich Kids of Instagram" by the New York Post and the "Snap Pack" by The New York Times and New York Magazine.

2009 – On this date it was announced that the ACLU had successfully forced the Tennessee public school system to stop blocking educational LGBT websites. This just over two weeks after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against two Tennessee school districts for unconstitutionally blocking student access to such sites.

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alpaca-clouds · 11 months

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Styria sisters headcanons

After talking about this with @autumnmobile12 about this yesterday, I thought I might as well share some of my headcanons for the Styria sisters. Some of them are closely based in what we learn in the canon. Others is stuff that I just made up. After all we have very, very little canonical information about them.

Let's start with Carmilla. Who is probably the one, we do know the most about. We know she got turned by a vampire, who was a "cruel old man" and whom she killed. This makes it quite likely that she in fact does originate from Styria - something that obviously also fits with her novel counterpart.

Part of my headcanon for her as a human is, that even back then she was struggling with the expectations society put on women. Her mother died, when she was young, so first her father and when her father died her older brother put those expectations on her. She fled her first abusive marriage by becoming a nun, but when she was in the monastery her sire saw her and wanted her. At the beginning she came willingly, because she wanted the power he promised. But of course he was just another abuser.

After she killed him, his followers wanted to kill her. But it was Morana, who saved her life. And it was with the help of Morana and Striga that she took over the castle. At the time Morana had her fledgling with her - Laura. Who obviously became her romantic partner.

Oh, and I put Carmilla's birth date into the year 1029.

I wrote about my headcanon for Lenore before. A lot of my headcanon for her comes from this one bit of dialogue we get for her: (Paraphrasing) "I grew up in a castle just like this two hundred years ago. I was five years old when English soldiers came climbing up the toilet chutes with knives between their teeth."

Now, this tells us she is just around two hundred years old and the place she came from had a violent conflict with England at the time. Around two hundred years before the show, so in the late 13th century, England had two wars happening shortly after the other. First another war with France (I mean, it is England and France, what do you expect?) and then the first war of Scottish Independence.

Given her name (that was actually pretty popular in 13th century Scottland) and her red hair, it would make sense for her to be Scottish.

Now, based on her design, she was also fairly young when she got turned. Probably in her late teens. She clearly looks a lot younger from how her face is drawn compared to everyone else.

Something else that makes a lot of sense, as we know her parents got killed, is that she might well have been taken as a hostage, which was something the English did to Scottish gentry.

From this comes my headcanon: She was born in 1287, making her five years old, when war started. She got taken as a hostage by the English, living in luxury, but very much inside a golden cage. Also suffering quite a bit of abuse. She was made to marry at age 15, got pregnant at age 16, had complications and died during child birth age 17. But she was "lucky" that a vampire was nearby, who took pity on her and turned her. That vampire being Laura, aka Carmilla's girlfriend and Morana's fledgling. The two tried to return to Styria from there, but on the way back Laura got killed by English soldiers.

Lenore did somehow manage to make her way to Styria, though she arrived there as a ferral vamp.

We see in the series quite a bit of tension between Carmilla and Lenore. And this is my headcanon reason for it: Lenore came to Styria without Laura.

Morana is kinda in an odd position for me. Katie Silva, who designed her, said, she immagines Morana to be from Ancient Sumer. Buuuut... Ancient Sumer as a civilisation ended around 1500BC. Though it included, obviously, Ancient Babylon. And there is kinda my issue. I set Babylon as the origin of vampires. And if there were vampires left from the time, the knowledge about where vampires came from, would not have been lost.

So... I decided she was from Ancient Persia. Specifically from the North of the Ancient Persian empire, though she was living there at a time the empire was already expiring. Though at the same time, vampires were still part of normal society and ruled together with humans.

But of course Ancient Persia was another empire, that ended. So, in the end, her home was turned to dust. And when she became adrift, she was originally with some other vampires from her home. But bit by bit all of them died. Some of them got killed, others chose the sun. Leaving in the end only Morana. She drifted for a bit, but the Romans did not make Europe a hospital place to be at the time - especially as a vampire - so she drifted further east, spending almost five hundred years in Asia. Part of this she spent in Japan together with Cho. But when Cho went off the deep end, she left, returning to Europe in the end.

Something, that she learned over the time, was that cooperation with humans was not possible.

During the middle of the 11th century she ended up with this sick girl, that would not leave her side. Which is Laura. And who was very, very insistent on being turned. So, when Morana looked for a safe place for Laura to spend her fledgling years, she went for one of the vampire kingdoms - Styria. Arriving there just days after Carmilla killed her sire.

It is also, when she meets Striga.

Lastly we have Striga. My favorite sister. :D Love this wonderful big woman. (All I wanna do, is see you turn into, a giant woman xD)

Now, we do know very little about her, outside of her admittance of not being able to forget an implied to be bad past. She also has an Eastern European accent, though - again - langauge is another messy topic in Castlevania.

I looked into it and her voice actress is from Croatian heritage, so I decided that Striga is from that area. Which would make her of mixed Slavic origin, as before the slavs got to Croatia some Arabian people were living there. It might explain her hair, too.

I am meanwhile fully in agreement with @g-vlssz here, making Striga a trans woman. I just think her design really well fits this interpretation.

My backstory for her is, that she was a human mercenary to feed her family - that is her younger siblings - hunting bandits and monsters. But at some point she got sent after a group of vampires ravaging the country side. This was Lazarus and his men - a vampire stemming from Ancient Rome. When she fought him and managed to hold her own for a bit, leading him to turn her.

Now, just like Carmilla's sire, he was a cruel old man, being abusive towards the men (and the one woman, though Striga was not out at the time) following him. When he learned about Striga's human siblings, he went out of his way to kil them. Striga was with him a good while, until the troop made their way to Styria this one winter as well - just after Carmilla had killed her sire. And when Lazarus tried to take the place over, Striga managed to kill him.

I put Striga's birthday right at the beginning of that millenium. Into the year of 1004.

And, yeah... That is basically my headcanons for the four sisters.

I really adore those four and their sad, sad stories. :D

#castlevania #castlevania netflix #council of sisters #styria #styrian sisters #headcanon #carmilla castlevania #carmilla #lenore castlevania #morana castlevania #striga castlevania

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forestdeath1 · 22 days

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Here’s a thought on why the Black’s motto is in french - the tapestry was a gift (wedding or political favour, who knows) from another pure-blood family (I guess of Norman origin), and of course the Blacks would display it proudly, as it shows their lineage and their influence.

I think it's possible. A tapestry with a French motto could have been a "gift" from another noble family as a sign of an important political alliance.

And considering that the main language of the court, aristocracy, and administration from the time of the Norman Conquest until the 14th century was Insular French and that literature and many official documents were written in it, it is also likely that the Blacks had to adapt to the new ruling power (the tapestry was made in the 13th century tho.)

Actually, their motto is not weird at all. Even the United Kingdom's coat of arms has two mottos in French. Dieu et mon droit is the British monarch’s motto (was first used by Richard I). And Honi soit qui mal y pense is the motto of the Order of the Garter, one of the oldest knightly orders, founded by Edward III in the 14th century.

But in my two fanfics, I don't even use the pure Anglo-Saxon headcanon for the Blacks. I use there another hc – the Blacks originally came from southern Scotland (the surname Black existed in Scotland) and their ancestors often married Anglo-Saxons. Then, the branches split, one lived in Scotland, the other in England, where they assimilated with Anglo-Saxon nobility and continued to marry Anglo-Saxon families. Despite the split, both branches kept in touch through marriages, which helped them share family traditions. This also helped both branches strengthen their positions and influence in different parts of the British Isles.

After the Normans took over the Anglo-Saxons, the Blacks resisted and took part in rebellions, especially in the north (Scotland remained independent from the invasion, the Scottish branch and Scotland itself supported these uprisings). The Normans, of course, were stronger (they also had wizards helping them, the first ancestor of the Malfoys :D), plus, considering that William didn't deal kindly with rebels, everyone eventually had to submit. I hc that they didn't want to give up their influence in England, so they didn't flee to Scotland, but stayed on their "own land." "Scotland" also sometimes made dynastic marriages with "England" after the Norman invasion, despite the strained relations.

This might be a bit naive, but I think the Blacks kept their motto in Old English up until the 13th century, which might have caused discontent among the Norman nobility and wizards, even though they all comfortably spoke Insular French by then. And during the First War of Scottish Independence Scotland made the Auld Alliance with France in the late 13th century specifically to fight against England.

Long story short, I hc that their Scottish branch disappeared at the end of the 13th century during the First War. I mean, they ended up with no heirs, several died in the war, some went missing, some were poisoned, etc. And it was at this point that the Blacks decided to make their motto in French – first, as a realisation of their defeat, but at the same time as one last "jab" at the Normans. The Normans would think that the Blacks did it because they had finally totally assimilated, but the Blacks would know it was because France had been ally in the fight against the Normans who destroyed their family in Scotland.

I just like the idea of giving the Blacks a Scottish heritage, and adding a double rebellious and independent spirit to their blood. :D

#the noble and most ancient house of black

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46ten · 2 months

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Rethinking the narrative of Hamilton as a poor child held back by illegitimacy

We’ve outgrown a number of the myths that Chernow invents or embellishes from Flexner and Miranda ran with, but AH as a humble child in the West Indies, struggling with poverty and the stigma of illegitimacy seems to persist, no matter the lack of initial evidence for that narrative and the excellent scholarship over the past 10 years or so that flips it on its head.

AH’s maternal grandfather was very wealthy; Rachel Faucette’s inherited wealth was what supposedly attracted John Lavien.

James Hamilton (b 1725 or so) was notably not wealthy. Though a “gentleman” from a respected Scottish family, as a younger son he went to make his way as a merchant at the Caribbean, and pretty much failed at every business venture, as far as we know. In 1765, he was hired to settle a matter in St. Croix, and at some point Rachel and their two kids, James and Alexander, either joined him or made their way there independently. It’s not at all clear that James “abandoned” the family or what happened - it seems just as likely that Rachel, perhaps realizing that their sons’ best options were getting involved in trade, decided to stay where she had an extended wealthy family who could also support her as a merchant/shopkeeper. AH started working really young (he’s 9 if you believe the 1757 birthdate), which was a pretty fantastic way to gain knowledge and experience, especially if his parents realized - and they likely did - that he was intellectually gifted.

Upon the death of his mother, who owned 5 enslaved persons, had silverware and leather chairs and a decent collection of books - definitely middle-class-ish - AH initially goes to live with his uncle and cousin, who were the two wealthiest people on St. Croix. As mentioned above, he was also already working as a clerk, ascending to what can best be described as the business manager by the time he leaves for NY, earning a pretty tidy sum as a single-man - he was likely upper-middle class. [A brief note: at no point does Edward Stevens or Thomas Yard, his brother-in-law, state that AH or his brother ever lived with the Stevens family. That conjecture comes more than a century later sourced to a census of the Stevens family that they had two male servants around the ages AH and his brother would have been. But I think if AH lived with the Stevens family, that would have come up well before the 1920s.] His first cousin provides him with what Newton calculates as 196 pounds sterling at that time, when the average British and American worker made somewhere between 10-15 pounds sterling PER YEAR. AH arrives in the colonies and lives with either the comfortably middle-class (Mulligan) or the wealthy elite (Elias Boudinot and William Livingston) before beginning his studies at King’s/Columbia College. There’s also no note about any difficulty in him getting into Elizabethtown Academy or King’s - no one was holding it over his head that he was a bastard.

So the facts of AH’s life 1768-1779 don’t really seem to be what’s shaping the narrative. Instead, it seems to me that two things are interfering with the interpretation:

1. AH’s 1769 letter to Edward Stevens in which he gripes “I contemn the grov’ling and condition of a Clerk or the like” which makes him seem somehow downtrodden in poverty. But there’s no evidence that that was the case, or that AH wasn’t just annoyed by being a clerk and thought a different job - or a war - would better employ his talents/allow for greater study for him to become a leisurely gentleman.

AH may have started working for Beekman and Cruger as early as 1766, at the age of 9-12 years old, perhaps having previously worked in his mother’s store. JCH writes:

The little leisure which he could command from his mercantile duties was devoted to study; his knowledge of mathematics was enlarged; he became fond of chemistry; and although his proficiency in it was small, he often urged it as a pursuit well adapted to excite curiosity and create new combination of thought.

Among the books to which he had access, he preferred those which treat of some branch of ethic. His favorite authors were Pope and Plutarch....

He often also, at this time, exercised himself in composition on moral topics, to which he afterwards occasionally resorted as a relaxation from the arduous labours of his professional life; and thus, by his varied studies, his mind became rich in materials awaiting his call. The Life of Alexander Hamilton

Although AH wrote to Edward Stevens in 1769 that "I contemn the grov’ling and condition of a Clerk or the like,” and Nathaniel Pendleton would later write that Hamilton “conceived so strong an aversion to [clerkship] as to be induced to abandon altogether the pursuits of commerce”, according to JCH, his father also felt his time as a clerk was very important:

This occupation was the source of great and lasting benefit to him; he felt himself amply rewarded for his labours by the method and facility which it imparted to him; and amid his various engagements in after years adverted to it as the most useful part of his education. The Life of Alexander Hamilton, my emphasis.

Other biographers have speculated that AH’s time as a clerk was probably critical for his understanding of commerce and finance and to the development of both his leadership and writing skills.

JCH also writes:

With a strong propensity to literature, he early became a lover of books, and the time which other youth employ in classical learning, was by him devoted to miscellaneous reading, happily directed by the advice of Doctor Knox, a respectable Presbyterian divine, who, delighted with the unfolding of his mind, took a deep interest in his welfare. The Life of Alexander Hamilton

This role for Knox is doubtful; Rev. Hugh Knox first visited St. Croix Sept/Oct 1771, and did not come to reside there until May 1772, only a few months before AH would leave for NY.

2. AH, in 1779-1780, certainly is sensitive to his lack of advancement in the army while others with less ability/experience advance thanks to nepotism. He doesn’t have the family connections, true, but he’s far from the only person frustrated by the way appointments are handed out - James Monroe also left the army because he couldn’t get a command.

And at no point does AH’s illegitimacy ever seem to hold him back - in fact, up until he made a number of political enemies, no one seemed to care. Illegitimacy was not at all uncommon, particularly in the West Indies; Newton offers up another example of a couple pretending to be married. There’s no record whatsoever that AH was ever taunted about being a bastard as a child, adolescent, or young man (the first recorded innuendos about it actually date from the late 1780s - he’s 30 or older). Likewise with the loss of his mother - a lot of children were orphans. These were just not life details that put him outside any veneer of respectability.

He’s able to rise to the level of aide-de-camp for Washington and married into a wealthy Dutch-American patrician family with, based on the lack of comments on his birth, not even a shrug. JCH does note that marrying into the Schuyler family was one of the most important events of his father’s life, but one never gets the impression from AH’s own writing that he thought they were inherently superior to him - no, this was the class of people whom he had always belonged with and rubbed shoulders with.

And perhaps other than the times he was in school, I’m 90% comfortable stating he almost always had servants - while living with his parents, his mother alone, his cousin, as a clerk, in the colonial American households, and then perhaps with a brief break while studying, he also had at least one servant in the colonial Army and for the rest of his life.

Hamilton’s St Croix education

More about Hamilton’s Faucett relations with links to Newton’s discussions

A summary of the amounts Anne Mitchell (and Peter Lavien) provided to AH.

#Hamilton was not like us and I wish that narrative would die #For many reasons #he's not relatable

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exaltedandpure · 2 months

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Marlena Caya Hvitserksdóttir

The wild, unpredictable Norse Queen of Scots.

"I may live in Scotland but I have the heart of a Norse."

"You're beautiful and clever and unpredictable. Like your mother, you know how to use your beauty and could have the whole world at your feet. You are aware of it, but you don't use it because other people are more important to you than you are. You are like your mother, a whirlwind but with a heart of gold. There's this fire inside of you that's the same as your mother's. You're a warrior, you know how to fight, but you prefer to use your wits to win wars. That's what makes you who you are, what makes you special." Hvitserk to his daughter.

Marlena Caya Hvitserksdóttir - daughter of Hvitserk and Caya, sister of Illian, granddaughter of the two great men Ragnar and Flóki the boatbuilder, niece of the King and Queen of Kattegat, Ivar the boneless and Xenia Princess of Rus and the cousin of Vidar, Edda and Cailan. Passionate and balanced is what best describes Marlena, but she is also an idiosyncratic woman. She proves to be a formidable enemy for anyone who stands in her way. She is also a great ally as she always puts other people before herself. As a child, Marlena was described as very talkative and free with words, but in her youth she became stronger to stand up for what she believes in. She has grown into an independent woman who will do anything to protect the people she loves and her country. She is a warrior but she is also the romantic, both in equal parts. Many describe her as a truly remarkable woman, very witty, charming, adventurous, wild and full of passion. Taking after her mother, she has an unbridled fire, an unbreakable will and is often unpredictable, but like her mother, she is also an extremely intelligent young woman. She speaks different languages, she rides horses and she is good at hunting. Marlena has a close relationship with her brother, her cousin and her cousins because she grew up with them. Family always comes first for her, which she would not hesitate to defend and protect with her own life at any time. Her father is her great hero, whom she loves more than anything else. Marlena also has a very close relationship with her grandfather, her uncle and her aunt and loves them unconditionally. She is a real whirlwind with the heart of a Norse, strong belief in the gods and the destiny given by them. Because of a planned alliance between Norway and Scotland, she was sent to Scotland together with her brother, her cousin, her cousins and her confidant Marcellus to meet and marry the Scottish king. On the day of her marriage, she was crowned Queen of Scots. Shortly after their marriage, the king died, making her the sole ruler of Scotland. Even though she is a kind queen who loves her people and always does everything she can to protect the people of Scotland, Marlena or her power and influence should not be underestimated.

#Marlena Caya Hvitserksdóttir #Viking woman #Wire: bornasawarrior #The Norse Queen of Scots.

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scullymurphy · 5 months

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I'm a HUGE fan of your Bending Light series because it painfully tugs my heart in the most satisfying way 💛

You've compared Bending Light to Italian Summer and Falling Dark to Scottish Winter. Can you explain what led to such different tones within the same series? I'm so curious about what inspired this choice. What do the two opposing tones mean to you, and how do they apply to the message you want to convey?

Thanks :))

Aww, thank you and I love this question! How lovely of you to come find me on tumblr and ask. 🥹

And I would say that the overall difference came from the idea of how going through a war would affect these characters. The lightness before contrasted with the darkness after. I love a good character arc, so I couldn't resist the idea of taking them through it and seeing how they changed.

When we first meet the group in Bending Light, they've been through some stuff, but nothing like what's to come. No torture or death, no real loss, no pain or deprivation. And they're teenagers -- delightfully self-focused and oblivious to what's going on around them. I loved that for them and wanted to enhance it, which is why I dropped them in their own little world in a tucked-away place. No adults or structure, a lot of independence and novelty. I wanted to convey a sense of being wrapped up in the wonder of daily life. When you're that age and having those kinds of intense experiences, every day is like a week and a month is a season. It really can't be replicated later. I was very inspired by the film Call Me By Your Name, which does this beautifully and in a similar setting.

And then about halfway through writing BL, I started thinking about how the characters would change based on what the war did to them. How would the trauma affect their personalities and actions and make them grow up? If it drove Draco and Hermione apart, how would they deal with that -- and how would other characters (especially Theo) come into play? I've always loved 8th year stories and it was obvious that I wasn't ready to be done with these characters. And then I also happen to be very familiar with the part of Scotland where Hogwarts is supposed to be located. Which, although incredibly beautiful, can be quite dreary and dark during the autumn and winter. So the dichotomy presented itself to me quite clearly with Falling Dark. The warm Italian summer before the war, the dark Scottish winter after.

Anyway, I hope this is illuminating! It was really fun for me to think about and write it out. Thanks again for asking. xoxo ~Scully

#i love asks #i love my readers #this is just lovely #falling dark #bending light #dramione

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scotianostra · 1 year

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May 18th 1313 saw Robert the Bruce invade the Isle of Man.

Dates differ a wee bit on this, but they all say it was mid May when Robert the Bruce landed at Ramsey on the Isle of Man "with a multitude of ships."

Some of you may be thinking, why was Scotland invading "Man" but the island was a Celtic nation, other Scottish monarchs had taken interest there, notably King Alexander III who in 1267, was compelled to send an expedition against " the rebels " of Man. Edward I "Longshanks took Man while Scotland was in turmoil during the great cause, in July, 1291, " the Noble Lady Maria, Queen of Man" a member of the Scandinavian royal family of Man, paid homage to Edward at Perth, two years later Edward granted Man to his Puppet King of Scotland, John Balliol.

After Balliol entered into an alliance with Norway and France, Longshanks promptly marched north to Scotland, stripping Balliol of the Scottish crown and treated the country as a forfeited fief, Man is thought to have been retaken around the same time, and so it remained until 1313.

According to a contemporary account " In the year 1313, on the 18th of May, Lord Robert [Bruce], King of Scotland, put in at Ramsay with a large number of ships, and on the following Sunday went to the nunnery at Douglas, where he spent the night, and on Monday laid siege to the Castle of Rushen, which was defended by the Lord Dungali Mac Dowyle against the said Lord King until the Tuesday after the Feast of St. Barnabas the Apostle (June 21), on which day the said Lord King took the Castle."

Bruce granted the Isle of Man to Randolph, Earl of Moray. One of the conditions was that Moray had to annually provide ‘six ships of twenty six oars’ - perhaps an indication of Bruce’s growing maritime ambitions.

This invasion was a bold move by The Bruce, you have to remember it was over a year before the decisive Battle of Bannockburn.

The English retook the Island in 1315, probably in response to the Scots invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce.

The pic is Castle Rushen on Man.

#scotland #scottish #isle of man #robert the bruce #the first war of scottish independence #history

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spann-stann · 3 months

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Setting Blurb: Hoppe City

Nestled snugly in the Hanami Planum, Hoppe City is the largest human settlement on the dwarf planet Ceres, and the de facto capital of free market civilization. Everywhere you go, after stepping off the Rags to Riches interplanetary spaceport (and casino resort) the planet's rich mineral wealth rewards those that were the first to claim it. From the many facilities for mining and refining what lies below Ceres' crust to the luxury estates and skyscrapers of those that made it big (never mind the slums in Refoogietown), Hoppe City and Ceres as a whole would reward those that would work for it.

As the inner solar system was being colonized by the three human powers in the late 2300s, ambitious eyes turned towards the asteroid belt and saw only opportunity. It was only a matter of time before the many construction projects in the inner system created a demand for resources that only the Belt could supply. The first ones to seize the Belt would reap the rewards. CorpEmp and the W.C.O.F. would dispatch a few expeditions to the Belt, and a swarm of independent miners would stake their claim in the untapped riches floating between Mars and Jupiter. The largest contributor to the Belt Rush would be the United Markets, and the largest of the U.M. settlers came from the Hoppean subculture.

The U.M. back on Earth was growing too corpocratic and libertine for the more socially conservative Hoppeans, and what available real estate there was was either too crowded for their tastes or would become so at an uncomfortable taste. Several thousand Hoppeans began to pool resources and capital together in the 2350s to settle, mine, and develop a plot of the Cerean surface, with the first families given stewardship over plots purchased by a secondary wave of Hoppeans staying behind to continue financing the colony back on Earth. Each family would be responsible for either mining their plot, providing a service for the other settlers, or develop for future use. Everyone also had to pitch in to buy military equipment for security. No freeloaders, no market failures, and definitely no Imps or Commies. Reserves could join the settlement proper, or pay triple to hitch a ride and disappear into the icy crevices to stead all their lonesome. C.P.C. gangsters were shot on sight.

The 2,500 families of the first and second waves (also known as the First Steaders) ratified the Covenant Charter on September 2nd 2355 in a rented Las Vegas convention center, affirming all families' adherence to the Non-Aggression Principle and describing in great detail what is and isn't Aggression. To help retain a united sense of identity, the founding families would model their colony's culture and memetics after the New England Puritans and the Scottish Covenanters of the 16th and 17th centuries, mixed with the stylings of their own brand of anarcho-capitalism. Three years later the first transport craft would land on the site of what would become Hoppe City.

For the next 500 years, the denizens of Hoppe City laid low mining and developing their part of Ceres and keeping an eye on newcomers to their neck of the Belt. The Hoppeans' large volunteer militia kept their colony and the rest of Ceres out of the Belt Wars in the 2600s. Likeminded groups from the U.M. would arrive and establish communities of their own, eventually adopting the Covenanter model of anarchist society. The rest of the U.M.'s subfactions would arrive to stake their own claims of the dwarf planet, with the Hoppeans giving them a wide berth, and wildly divergent Marketeers (NEVER bring up the incident with the Church of Randian Satanism) were treated like they didn't exist. Most individual miners would try their luck in the mines of Hoppe City, tripling the population just in time for the Human-Crystalline War (2801-2885).

As the Crystalline Aliens had a nasty habit of attacking any significant human presence, Ceres' population evacuated to the many underground mining complexes and rode out the war. Hoppe City's private militias remained on-planet in the event of an attack, but a few volunteered to join the rest of U.M. security forces to drive the aliens out of the Solar System. The aliens never touched Ceres, and because of that refugees would flock to the dwarf planet, tripling the population yet again. Most of the refugee population would be moved to the aforementioned mining complexes, they could either wait until it was safe to be relocated (especially CorpEmp and W.C.O.F. populations, and especially after fighting between the two groups), or try their hand at joining the planet's population. This refugee problem, and the threat of alien invasion, would lead to the expansion of the private security industry on Ceres. Many famous firms today had their beginnings in many volunteers that fought the Human-Crystalline War (against alien or refugee gang). The one group the Hoppeans were really wary of were the execs of the megacorps (MicroBucks, Morgan Industries, etc.) from the U.M. core.

Although they were sequestered in their own territories on Ceres, the Hoppeans didn't want the megacorps to start thinking they could run the dwarf planet like the rest of their assets. The descendants of the Founding Steaders (and a few Founding Steaders themselves who used life extension technologies) met with the megacorp execs, and stated that on no certain terms would Ceres be run like the old FVMEs on Earth. Pre-emptive strikes against acts of aggression were perfectly legal according to Covenant Charter, and it would be a shame if the execs did anything that would be considered aggressive. A few execs got the memo and drank the Hoppean kool-aid, or quickly relocated. Sympathetic megacorp employees would also subvert their employers' memetics with that of the Covenanters, bringing them more in line ideologically with the Hoppeans. By the beginning of the 2900s, Ceres and especially Hoppe City, would become the industrial and economic capital of the United Markets.

With the alien threat removed and their competition suborned, the Hoppeans and Ceres did what they did best: minding their own business and mining. As human settlement expanded into the outer solar system, a few expert miners from Hoppe City went to try their hand at establishing daughter colonies in the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. An even smaller few went out to stake their claims in the Extrasolar Territories. The Transhuman Wars were the only conflicts of the 31st century that the Hoppeans would get involved due to --DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BRING UP THE TRANSHUMAN WARS OR THE ACTIONS OF HOPPE HEDONICS IN HOPPE CITY - NEVER BRING UP THE TRANSHUMAN WARS - THERE WERE NO CATGIRLS - HOPPE HEDONICS NEVER PRODUCED CATGIRLS - UNDER THE REVISED COVENANT CHARTER OF 3106 ANY MENTION OF CATGIRLS CONSTITUTES AN ACT OF AGGRESSION-- in what would become know as Refoogie Town in the first layer of exhausted mining complexes below the city proper.

By the rise of CorpEmp's 5th ruling Dynasty, Hoppe City is an icy jewel that seems to only shine brighter. Most of Ceres by this point is "governed" (a dirty word in the U.M.) in covenants similar to Hoppe City, and Hoppean Scots has become the lingua franca of the myriad communites in the Asteroid Belt. Ceres has also emerged as the Mecca for developments in brine mining technology. Thousands of fortunes are made, lost, and won back daily in Hoppe City. In spite of all their history and achievements, however, there is one thing. One little frustrating thing that comes to most non-Cereans' minds first when asked to think about Hoppe City...

#my setting #setting #worldbuilding #United Markets #Hoppe City

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