#cw: slavery

[hoboblaidd]

The Evanuris' Rule

How did they come to be remembered as gods? Slowly. It started with a war. War breeds fear. Fear breeds a desire for simplicity. Good and evil, right and wrong, chains of command. After the war ended, generals became respected elders, then kings, then finally gods. The Evanuris.

I want to talk about the devolution of Elvhenan after the war with the Titans from a loose system of warlords to the worst sort of feudal theocracy. I'm not going into Solas' rebellion apart from pointing out that the people under the Evanuris' rule did try to fight back, and they were brutally crushed until the rebellion became centralized.

This is an incredibly long post that may be a bit rambling. I've tried to organize it. This is Elvhenan, so there will be discussions of slavery. It's the essential throughline - it's easy to talk about gods and their politics in an almost ASOIAF way. It's high fantasy drama and fun to dissect how immortal god-emperors think. But it's more important to talk about the people who suffered under those politics, and how they fought back.

First, note that this is pure headcanon territory based on the lore we have from DAI and DATV, and my own historical research. I am not an expert. It has been a long time since I studied European and Japanese history. I'm not making any findings or stating opinions on the real world, just using these as an analogue to Elvhenan.

Feudalism in Elvhenan

Think of Elvhenan as a feudal world - warlords ruled their slice of land, and dictated how all the people on it lived. As their power grew, so too did their tyranny. It devolved from governing food and trade to controlling how their people would live, what they would do, how they should act, etc. Warlords took their shares of all commerce from their subjects, a tithe or a tax that grew more oppressive as they grew in strength and their land grabs turned to infighting. 

Each Evanuris governed their lands and their people differently. As with their archdemons, their governing style reflected them. Elgar'nan would rule his lands differently than say, Sylaise. But they all lusted for greater power.

Even before they declared themselves gods, the people under their rule fell more and more from serfs to slaves. The warlords came to control everything about their lives. The people were marked by vallaslin. I think this was proclaimed as a mark of "protection", when of course, it was a mark of ownership. "Those who bear the mark of Dirthamen are protected as his people from the dangers of the other kings." The grip of ownership tightened beyond that. Along with the more real world analogues like food, commerce, tax, etc., Elvhenan had greater ways of subduing their people. Travel was restricted by the eluvians - June built them so only those with the keystone could activate it. Leaving the relative safety of their villages was dangerous - Andruil hunted her own people and Ghilan'nain's creations became more and more twisted. The people became wholly dependent on their respective warlords to just survive.

Elgar'nan and Mythal's Central Government

Elgar'nan consolidated these warring factions under his umbrella, a more centralized governing system as opposed to dozens of fiefdoms fighting each other. He could mediate disagreements, but his temperament was not suited for peace. He wanted above all else to rule over everything. But Solas also tells us that he raised like minded people up as dictators in their own right. He wasn't building a senate so much as creating new fiefdoms that were fiercely loyal to him. It's a land game - the more land an Evanuris had, the more control they could exert. But his style of governance, that of an iron fist, was bound to incite the other warlords to chafe under his imposed rule.

Mythal became the actual arbiter of feudal Elvhenan struggles. She dispensed justice when Elgar'nan's vengeance could be avoided. It was she to whom the other warlords came to settle disputes. She played the precursor to the Game well enough that Elgar'nan allowed it. Her power was great enough that she was almost his equal. Almost. The mural of the Evanuris' apotheosis is a telling one. Though Elgar'nan and Mythal stand side by side, she is a little lower than him. Again, he allowed it. In his mind, this still makes the final word his own.

Despite Mythal's stabilizing influence, the infighting continued. Perhaps not all out war except when things got too extreme - Falon'din's bloody civil war that she rallied the gods to subdue, or Andruil's mad rampage when she was infected by the Blight. But they still sought to seize more and more power. With that comes a tightening of the chokehold on their people, and a propaganda war that sowed the seeds of their claimed divinity - "Falon'din will protect you from Andruil's bow;" "Pray that Andruil strikes swift and true against Falon'din's encroachment onto our land." That sort of thing.

Apotheosis

Solas suggests that all elves had magical abilities, which I tend to agree with. But the Evanuris' powers outstripped his and certainly all of the rest of the peoples'. They could control minds, twist forms, create new "life." To see your king move the sun becomes something otherworldly. Divine, even. 

Elgar'nan's leap from king to god-emperor is not a big one. They'd already gained total control over their land and people. The next logical step for creatures voracious for more power can only be godhood.

By the time the Evanuris declared themselves gods, they had total control over their people. It is not just protection that keeps the people humbled - it is fear. Andruil's people prayed that she would not hunt them. Whole villages were twisted by Ghilan'nain for nothing more than the pursuit of her creative ambition. Thousands were sacrificed to build monuments and "wonders." These people lived on the knife's edge and at the whim of capricious, all powerful assholes.

If you step out of line, the gods make a crater of your entire city. If you dare to think differently, your mind is broken. But their control was not just this almost divine power. It was also terribly mundane: propaganda, societal brainwashing, restrictive education, etc. etc. All the stuff we've see play out in the real world. It's just as effective.

Again, each Evanuris' power was different, and so their rule over their people would be too. Elgar'nan dominated his followers' minds to force them to joyfully obey their 'Father.' Mythal placed her most 'loyal' servants under a compulsion, sapping their will to replace it with her own. Sylaise created a wonder that was fueled by the blood sacrifice of hundreds or thousands of slaves. 

Nixe quoted that damning "sermon" from Veilguard called The Trials of the Gods the other day. I'm going to copy a portion of that here:

How does one serve a god? For the poor souls still in thrall to the Evanuris, that question has been answered for them. Service is no longer willingly given: it must be wrested, and it must entertain.

This is the lot of the people under their gods. Their very will stolen, broken, to the point that they can only mindlessly obey to fulfill the wishes and whims of their ruler. The loss of free will is terrible in and of itself, but that their forced servility was also intended to entertain? It's pure decadent Rome with the unrestricted, supernatural power to dominate. And why? because these beings are all powerful, and since there is no way to go higher than a god, they grow bored. Their people are their playthings.

Mythal as an Illustration

We have bits and pieces of damning lore about how the people under the Evanuris' rule lived, both from Felassan and scraps of firsthand accounts. But our greatest analogue for how those people lived is in how we dealt with the god who is most familiar to us: Mythal.

Mythal's admonishment in the Trial of the Gods sermon is both a glimpse into what the other Evanuris were doing and to her own cruelty: 

Shall you kneel in terror, work mindlessly, parrot my virtues, and think it the greatest of compliments to me? Do not merely follow the wise. Seek the wisdom they sought.

How can those under a compulsion, those so accustomed to subjugation that they lose their freedom of thought and will, be expected to "seek the wisdom of the wise"? This is not Benevolence. This is an impossible game. It is not nurturing free will, it is setting pieces on a board and watching how it plays out. It is entertainment. And what is their reward? That they learn how to better serve their god.

Is this not the same as Flemythal's "a soul is not forced on the unwilling", when her life has been spent trying to break Morrigan's will to the point that she would agree to the acceptance of the soul (which she did in Veilguard)?

Mythal's help to us the player character always came at a price - forcing us to petition as her subjects did when we need her help against Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain; her 'aid' of the Hero of Ferelden being a mask to conquer Morrigan; helping Hawke's family escape the Blight as long as they secreted her away; only helping against Corypheus when either the Inquisitor or Morrigan were under her direct, physical control. She demanded the same from her slaves that she called 'chosen'. 

This sermon is one of praise to Mythal. It mourns those under the thrall of the Evanuris while Mythal delivers a sermon of seeming benevolence. They are also under the thrall of an Evanuris, but her manipulation is so great that they don't even see it.

Rebellion

I'm not going into Solas' rebellion, except to say this: Imagine Mythal's cruelty tripled compared to someone like Elgar'nan, and the people's hopeless situation becomes unbearably clear. How can anyone hope to fight back against that? But they did. They tried. And they were crushed. Their freedom was not something that a protest could cure - Andruil decimated a village for protesting. Their freedom was not something they could gain by running away - the gods could always travel faster than the people could hope to.

Their only viable salvation was to upturn the entire system through violent revolution. That can't be accomplished by isolated pockets of resistance. As shown above, those were all brutally crushed. It's just like Shartan. It requires the same centralization that Elgar'nan pulled on the Evanuris. It requires something to rally behind that has the force of will to withstand the constant assaults. It needs a "Dread Wolf."

[metamatar]

napoleon's role in haiti and his reinstitution of slavery in the carribean is so often elided over. 22000 of his 35000 strong force was lost. his general charles leclerc (also his brother in law) advocated for mass genocide as they retreated. leclerc dies of yellow fever eventually.

We must destroy all the blacks of the mountains – men and women – and spare only children under 12 years of age. We must destroy half of those in the plains and must not leave a single colored person in the colony who has worn an epaulette.

[avirael]

FFxivWrite 2024

Day 03 - Tempest

(Content warning for slavery and violence)

It was the sound of the pouring rain that brought A'viloh back to his senses in the middle of the night.

Even down here, lying on the dirty old floorboards of the crew‘s quarters, he could hear the heavy raindrops drumming against the hull of the ship.

For some reason the slavers hadn’t locked him up again with the others as they usually did when they were done with torturing one of them. Vaguely he remembered how he had gotten here and immediately wished the rain hadn’t awoken him from his stupor.

He pressed his eyes shut hoping to go back to that hazy numbness, that somtimes graciously spirited his mind away when the monsters returned to fetch him from the cell. He didn’t want to be here and if he couldn’t change physically being here, he at least wanted to be elsewhere mentally.

He was so tired. So exhausted. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep, not here. Sometimes he thought he would never be able to sleep again at all.

In the distance he heard the creaking of a wooden door and with it not only footsteps appeared but also the noise of howling wind outside. Heavy boots made the floor tremble right beside his head and he prayed to remain unnoticed, as if a naked Miqo'te with long tangled fire-red hair sprawled all over the floor was something that could just turn invisible. Maybe if he prentended good enough though they would think he was dead and throw him overboard or at least leave him alone for a while.

The man who had entered the room however didn’t pay any attention to him. Nonetheless his angry deep voice startled A‘viloh as the man began to shout.

„Get yer asses o‘ hammock ‘n onto deck! The Seven Hells be breakin‘ loose up thar! The cap‘n wants all o‘ ye ugly bilge rats t‘ muck in!“

A few ill-humoured groans echoed through the room and after another impatient yell by the first mate the remaining crew members reluctantly crawled out of their hammocks and up the stairs leading to the deck of the ship.

One of them stumbled over A'viloh in his drunken half-sleep but luckily just got up again with a string of profanities on his lips but without really taking notice of him.

Then the Miqo'te was left alone in the dark stuffy room and finally dared to breath again. And as the thunder outside began to growl and everything turned silent apart from the muffled sound of the storm, he allowed himself to cry. For a long while his pained bitter sobs where all he could hear until with a deafening crash another lightning struck down from the sky and made the whole ship tremble.

Alarmed A'viloh shrieked and stared up to the ceiling with his arms raised in defense. This sound had been too loud, too close, and the yells on deck got louder and more nervous too. For a moment he just lay there and listened, trying to understand what was going on.

Something was wrong.

This is your chance!, a voice whispered in his head but he knew better than to listen to it. The first time he had tried to flee - or whatever you would call the only way to escape from a ship in the middle of the ocean - he had been caught quickly. Immediately they had noticed him running over the deck and before he could even get one leg over the railing they had grabbed him. Their punishment had been severe and the black and blue bruises all over his body still reminded him never to misbehave again.

But what if you all break out at once?, the voice whispered. Now they are distracted. There won’t be a better opportunity.

Weakly A'viloh tried to sit up but every single part of his body protested. He hadn’t eaten anything in days except for a few crumbs of moldy hard bread they had thrown to their captives. Neither did all the bruises covering his body help, nothing dangerous that wouldn’t heal but it hurt nonetheless. He remembered the captain ordering his crew not to damage his cargo beyond repair, after all he still planned to sell them all. And yet A'viloh was quite sure one of them had broken his tail earlier that evening and apart from this he also felt pretty much beyond repair too.

Suddenly something upstairs creaked dangerously, followed by a loud crash and more shouting. Whatever was going on there, seemed to be more than a small problem. Maybe no one would see him distracted by the turmoil…

With his eyes always fixed on the doorway he wrapped himself in the tattered rugs he had been given instead of his clothes and slowly crawled towards the stairs. He used the doorframe as support to get onto his feet but his legs felt so wobbly he more stumbled up the staircase than walked. However when he saw the chaos unfolding outside he froze in his his steps.

One of the two masts had broken and fallen sideways, maybe struck by the lightning A'viloh had heard earlier, causing a great amount of damage to the ship. There was fire, bright and hot, greedily spreading itself over the deck of the ship and everyone seemed to run around without coordination, trying to put out the flames or pulling on some ropes, to at least keep the rest of the ship working. For a moment A'viloh just stared in disbelief before one realisation flared up clearly in his mind.

The ship is going to sink.

He whirled around in panic and ran down the first and also the second pair of stairs as fast as he could, down to the cargo hold of the ship. Weakly he threw himself against the heavy wooden door and rattled at the handle. A face appeared behind the little barred window. He couldn’t recognise it in the dark but the voice sounded familiar.

„A'viloh? You are back! What is going on? Are you alright?“

He didn’t answer the question and instead kept pulling on the doorhandle with as much energy as he still possessed. Of course it didn’t open.

„It is locked“, he croaked and noticed how thin and hoarse and miserable his own voice sounded to him. Disheartened he added, „I think the ship is going down…“

Wasn’t that what he had wished for? For these monsters to get their rightful punishment? Hadn’t he been willing to welcome death gratefully if it meant for him to get away from here?

Why did he still feel so terrified then?

„Do you know where the key is?“, the voice on the other side of the door asked. Nervously A'viloh searched the room in front of the door for any clues but could only shake his head.

„I think the guy with that ugly scar on his face has it.“, another voice called from inside the cell. „You have to get it, A‘viloh! You have to get us out of here!“

Horrified he stared into the darkness of the cell. He would never be able to steal the key from one of these men, especially not if he had to search for him in that chaos upstairs first. And what if they caught him?

„Please!“, one of the Ala Mhigan girls cried in fear but to A'viloh it felt like a slap through his face.

They were all going to die unless he did something. So he nodded and turned around, running up the stairs again. He at least had to try.

When he arrived on the deck wind and rain greeted him, but despite the rain the fire had already gotten worse. Hesitantly he stayed hidden in the half-dark of the doorframe and tried to find the pirate the woman had spoken about but with smoke and chaos everywhere this wasn’t an easy task.

After a few moments that felt like an eternity his eyes finally landed on a man at the front of the ship, pulling with all his power on a rope attached to the front mast. A'viloh thought he recognized his hair and his clothes even without seeing his face and indeed he spotted a key ring fixed at the side of his belt.

As quickly as he could he sneaked along the side of the ship, trying to stay unseen and avoid running into any of the pirates. But they had different things to worry about anyway…

Carefully he climbed the handful of steps leading up to the front deck, not that anyone would have heard the boards creak through the noise of this tempest.

There right in front of him the man stood with his back turned to him, focused on his work, and at his belt the wanted key ring.

Slowly he stretched out his hand.

Just a little more.

Then another loud crash split the air.

For a second A'viloh thought he had lost his hearing but then he heard the man in front of him scream.

Panicked he jumped backwards in fear but the scream hadn’t been directed towards him. Instead the man retreated while he stared up to the mast, which had apparently been struck by another lightning. Slowly the material cracked and the mast started to tilt. A'viloh could see the thoughts racing on the man‘s face, as he quickly dropped the rope and tried to run away. He wasn't fast enough though. In a slow but unstoppable movement the mast fell towards the back of the ship burying some of the crew beneath it. The weight of the impact tore a gaping hole into the deck and made huge chunks of broken wood fly in all directions.

For a moment most of the screams apart from the wails of wounded had gone silent. Then through the noise of thunder, wind and rain the ship started to groan. A deep, ominous sound that made A'viloh shudder.

Luckily he had remained unharmed by the accident and briefly he wondered if he could reach for the keys still at the belt of the man who lay buried beneath the front mast a few yalms away from him.

But then with another ugly crunching sound the hull of the ship, weakened by the fire and the damage, broke apart.

The whole vessel tilted dangerously sideways.

For A'viloh on his shaky legs it seemed impossible to remain standing.

With a yelp he fell to the floor and began to roll over the wet planks of the more and more tilting ship.

He tried to hold on to something but before he could find anything his back painfully hit the railing of the ship.

For the tiniest moment he was flying.

Then he hit the water.

Shocked he gasped for air but instead swallowed a mouthful of sea water. The ocean felt cold but the salty water burned. In his eyes, in the scratches all over his body, in his lungs. He had never learned how to swim, not that he would have had the power to do so now. Instead he helpless struggled against the waves and tried to reach for a piece of wood that swam in the water beside him.

But the slippery surface escaped his fingers and another wave of angry water hit him, almost pushing him under. Gasping and coughing he thrashed around, trying to stay afloat.

Then finally he got a grip on the broken piece of the ship’s hull. With the last bit of his energy he pulled his body onto the lifesaving piece of the wreckage, before he fainted.

[sealz888]

Fallout headcanons for Vulpes 🥺

I'm trash I know

Thank you for your ask! I didn't realised I had this many thoughts on him compiled. I hope you enjoy these.

Heads up! Content warnings for Domestic Abuse, Domestic Violence, Misogyny, Slavery and general legion stuff. Triggering content is below the cut.

He has Oculotaneous Albinism, specifically Type 1b, explaining his white hair and light eyes, but his tan face. For the unaware and if I may cringe for a few moments, there are multiple types of Albinism, each with different effects and caused by different genes.

Doesn't actually know what a fox is, only donned the moniker after an older soldier nicknamed him. It's actually a coyote head.

He has to dye his hair often and use contacts as his OCA made him stick out like a sore thumb, especially in the Mojave, making it hard for him to infiltrate and spy. Keeps it short for the same reason.

His father actually joined the legion out of his own volition. His father grew up in a misogynistic society and resented his wife and Vulpes' Mother. However, for reasons below the cut, they were actually booted.

His mother gave birth to 3 girls after him.

Due to his abusive family life, he became extremely sneaky, carrying on his legion life. They noticed this and instead of punishing him, they doubled down, training him into a frumentarii.

When he was 7 his family assimilated into the legion, and his mother was pregnant with his third sister. After her birth she ""disappeared under mysterious circumstances"" and Vulpes' never saw her again. (see below cut)

Told his sisters stories to '''help''' them sleep, these stories were actually just him describing what monsters would brutally kill and eat them if they didn't sleep.

A year or two later, his father died in battle. Vulpes' never really cared for his family or bonded with his sister, considering he was dragged out of their lives for training. He was ecstatic when his father carked it, hated the fucker.

Actually managed to get his sisters to be given as wives, not really slaves somehow. I guess because he was related to him by blood and they were slaves, I guess, he was a slave too by proxy.

Had to keep it under wraps, however, considering his cold-hearted rep.

TRIGGERING CONTENT BELOW THE CUT! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

He would often beat her and abuse her in displays of power in front of a young Vulpes' whose name at the time was Michael. Much of his mother's horror and father's admiration, he also began abusing his mother.

He would somewhat tolerate her before she gave birth to Vulpes, appalled that she birthed a '''""ghoul with skin""" and that she couldn't give birth to a normal child. It only got worse and worse as his sisters were born. Vulpes' was also abused for this, but stood proud of his appearance.

His father actually drowned his mother after she gave birth, he had a sneaking suspicion he killed her based on how much disdain he had for her, but doesn't know if it's confirmed.

[theemmtropy]

Thinking about how Anakin's interest in politics is seen by other Jedi as something to be indulged/taken advantage of. Instead of them taking it seriously. Bc Anakin takes it seriously, of course he does, politicians are the only ones who can legally get rid of slavery on their planets, and influence other politicians to do so as well. As a Jedi, his hands are somewhat tied, we see this with an Obiwan episode in TCW. But as an active constituent, as a concerned citizen, as a friend-advisor to politicians, he can have a hand in change. It's not just that he's friends with Palpatine. It's that he's seen the priorities and the rules of the Jedi, and found them lacking.

[victoriansecret]

Indentured Servitude, Convict Servitude, and Slavery

Before I start, I want to be extremely clear that this is focused on 18th century Britain and British America. Other cultures, and other time periods, have different forms of all of these, but this is my primary period and place of study. I am going to break each section into its own post because I've had issues with long posts, I ask that you reblog the last post so the whole thread is accessible. Content warning for slavery, abuse, rape I am writing this because it is a subject I have focused much of my own research on, and in my career I have discovered that many people are confused about what these are all in general, and particularly how they differ from one another. That is the main thing I am attempting to explain, while giving general brief overviews of each. I don't generally do "heavy history" stuff here, and I didn't go out of my way to do specific research for this: it's based on my preexisting knowledge, and it's not heavily footnoted, though I did look up a few specific things to cite. Feel free to ask questions or add insight of your own!

Indentured Service The biggest thing that differentiates indentured servitude from the other forms I will discuss is in the name itself: “indenture” means contract. The person being indentured would sign a contract, which could be purchased by somebody to own their labour for a period of time. This is vital, because at least ostensibly it was entered into willingly. This is not to say that it was not rife with abuse: it was. Even setting aside times people were outright coerced or fooled into indenturing themselves, it was often done by people who were desperate. Still, it provided more agency than the other two forms. But perhaps even more importantly, the indenture gave them legal protection in the eyes of the law. If their master was not abiding by the contract, they could be sued at court, and while I have no doubt that servants had the odds against them, I can document many cases of them successfully winning their suits and being paid out hefty sums in damages. The opposite is true as well, of course - generally, if a servant runs away and is returned, they can be brought to court by their master, and typically the punishment is to have time added to their contract (usually, the time they were away plus additional time). And for what it's worth, I have even seen servants go to court to extend their own contract, or sign a new one, because they were unable to support themselves on their own. This is exceedingly rare, but I have seen it.

In the broadest sense, people who entered an indenture typically did so to pay off some kind of debt. This might be a preexisting debt, or it might be one that they incurred in the process of signing the indenture itself: for many Europeans, the possibilities promised in America were alluring enough (or their present lives difficult enough) that many were willing to indenture themselves explicitly to have their passage to America paid, and then spend years working off that debt in hopes of establishing themselves new lives in America. It's important to note that Britain, and much of Europe, was already rather densely populated at this time. And because it had been so urbanized there was in many places little land to be found, and what there was tended to be owned by the wealthy elite already. In America, the exact opposite was true: there was seemingly endless land, and relatively few people. For some frame of reference, in the 1770s the most populated city in North America is Philadelphia, with somewhere around 30-40 thousand people living there. By contrast, London at the same time had well over a million people. So the hope that many people had was that they could come to America, acquire land of their own, and at the very least subsist off of their own work, and ideally maybe even succeed well enough to improve their lives. And not merely monetarily, but also in status: owning land conferred benefits in society such as being able to vote, hold office, etc.

This was, of course, part of the much broader issue of Europeans encroaching on lands held by Native people and the displacement and genocide perpetrated against them. And especially in colonies where tobacco was the primary cash crop, it had a devastating effect on the land itself: unless done with proper and careful crop rotation, tobacco ruins the soil it's planted in within a few years, and you are unable to plant anything there for upwards of 20 years. Generally, the Europeans in America were practicing what we might call "slash and burn" planting, where they cared only about quick profits and would raze the ground, constantly wanting to replace the lands they had spoiled and stealing increasingly more and more land from Native nations and tribes in their avarice. And while this was exponentially more of an issue with the wealthiest of planters - people like the Washingtons, who had hundreds of thousands if not millions of acres of land and were always looking for more - the sheer number of small farms still had a cumulative effect.

Anyway, the point being this was an alluring prospect for many poor labourers and tradespeople in Europe who were in hyper-competitive job markets where they could expect extremely exploitative, low wages for exceptionally high quality, production, and specialized labour. Even tradespeople in America made much higher wages on average (often for poorer quality work) than England, for example, although many people who performed trades in their homeland were keen to drop their tools and pick up a hoe in America. This was in fact sometimes such a big problem that there are instances of colonial governments essentially subsidizing tradespeople, paying them to continue doing their trade so that they have people doing that sort of work. Over time this became less common, especially as the number of enslaved labourers outpaced indentured servants: with so much of the field work being done by enslaved people, it became more common for indentured servants to be put to work at their trade, although it was still common for them to cease their trade and acquire land of their own at the conclusion of their contract. As for the contracts themselves, there were standard forms that could be used, but there was flexibility in the some of the language, and especially the length of the contract. One of the more common misconceptions I hear and see about indentures is that they typically lasted seven years, and I will explain in a moment why I think that misunderstanding happens. When I have looked at indentures, most often they're for somewhere between 3-5 years, although they can be longer or shorter as well. It's not particularly uncommon to see even 1-2 years, I've even seen some that are just for months at a time. There are also occasionally some interesting clauses written into contracts. Sometimes it will stipulate what role or duties the servant will perform: whether it's to keep performing their skilled trade, or to act as a domestic servant, for example, because the default is so often, at least in America, that they are going to be working in the fields. A somewhat common turn of phrase you see is "will not be put to work at the plow", i.e. that they will not be doing farm work. Which, having done some 18th century farm work in the Virginia summer, I can wholly understand.

As an aside, if you want to read a diary of an indentured servant, the account of John Harrower is interesting. He was a Scottish man who indentured himself for America in the early 1770s. He’s kind of an exceptional case, because it appears he had been a somewhat successful merchant who had fallen on hard times: he is clearly more educated than most, and he is hired specifically to be a schoolteacher for his wealthy master’s children (and eventually, for other children in the nearby plantations, for which his master charged fees and paid Harrower a portion of them). Still, there’s some fascinating details in there, particularly about the ship journey over, but also just every day life in Virginia. I think the most fascinating passage in the whole thing is also the most harrowing (no pun intended), where he describes how he and the other servants are to be sold:

You can read his journal here: https://archive.org/details/jstor-1834690

[niennawept]

How long did it take to dig from Orodruin (Mount Doom) to Tirharad?

This post contains spoilers for Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Content warning for mentions of enslaved labor.

Let's do some calculations!

According to WWI trench digging statistics, it takes 450 men about 6 hours to dig 250m. Tirharad is approximately 145km from Orodruin.

Assuming that they work 24 hours a day and make four shifts:

Two 7-hour shifts of captive Southlanders would cover the entire period of daylight in summer reasonably far south (although summer/winter periods of daylight are questionable on a flat Middle-earth). Based on the very scientific method of eyeballing pictures of trenches in WWI and pictures of the trenches in Rings of Power, I think that they could reach 275m of full-width tunnel/day.

Two 5-hour shifts of uruks during the night. Uruks are stronger and have better stamina than humans and are used to tunneling through solid rock. I estimate that they could go double the distance and tunnel 500m of full-width tunnel/day.

Every day, about 775m of tunnel is created.

So we solve for days:

145,000m / 775m/day = about 187days, or about 6.23 months.

Important Caveats:

I don't think there are that many Southlanders! This would require 900 Southlanders to keep up this schedule. There are a couple of ways to address this:

The conditions appear to be very bad for the humans. We clearly hear them crying out and see at least one whip. The uruks are abusing them horribly to make their quota for the day. Even if there are fewer humans, they are likely producing more work than they should be.

There are more humans than we are shown. Perhaps, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the scale is off? Almost everywhere in the show feels a little sparsely populated.

What about the minor tunnels (under towns)?

I think that these don't require as much man/uruk power to create and seem to be primarily used for spying or taking humans by surprise.

Personally, I think a lot of them are taking advantage of some naturally occurring phenomena like rabbit warrens. We do know that rabbits lived in Ithilien in the Third Age, I don't think it's a stretch to say they live in the Southlands in the Second Age.

Natural land formations and tunnel width:

There could be natural formations that help OR hinder this progress. Consider a ravine that roughly follows the path they want for a 15 kilometers - now we've shaved off roughly half a month. Or perhaps the bedrock is higher in places and they have to either break it or tunnel wider to accommodate the amount of water needed. That might slow them down.

The water does seem to be pressurized, at least slightly. It would be too convenient for the entire path between Tirharad and Orodruin to be downhill, so it's likely that there is some engineering happening to force the water to flow relatively quickly to Mount Doom. It could be that some sections are wider and others narrower to help keep up this pressure.

I'm gonna say with all these caveats, you could argue that the actual timeline is anywhere between 5 months and 8 months.

[squarebracket-trickster]

Hi, and happy blorbo blursday! (as usual I am @writeblr-of-my-own). Kind of a specific question, but imagine your OC's are suddenly teleported into our world. How would they react? What would make them the most surprised/scared? Would they adapt or try to go back?

If your OC's already live in this world, then imagine they are teleported into an high fantasy type of universe!

Hi morbo, thanks for the ask!!

hmmm... which OCs... which OCs...

you know what, I'm gonna do Sarius this time (aka. Sylah and Darius).

Oh, I should add a Content Warning for discussion of slavery and implied sexual slavery, and brief mentions of racism and sexism.

Sylah and Darius would both be ecstatic to be teleported to our world, a timeline where Sylah's ancestors (humanoids genetically engineered to be "perfect" slaves) have not been created. Everyone who sees Sylah would just assume she is a very conventionally attractive human wearing a nice perfume. She could move about freely, without needing to prove she had permission from an enslaver, and people would assume she and Darius were a couple instead of them thinking Darius was her "master". The kind of discrimination Sylah endures in her world would not exist in ours. To us, she'd just be a pretty "white" girl with an accent.

I put "white" in quotes because "whiteness" as a privileged racial category also exists in Sylah's world, but even though Sylah would be "white" in our world, her distinct set of just-slightly-too-perfect physical features would immediately distinguish her as being something other than "a white human" to others in her world. The category that Sylah is there does not exist for us on Earth. But she does not have access to the white privilege that humans in her world do. In her world she is not even considered human. Sylah is not meant to be analogous to POC in our world; her ancestors were created in a lab in the far future. She is more a commentary on White patriarchal sexual fantasies than anything else.

They wouldn't stay forever. They'd want to get back to their families and to the rebellion they are part of back in their world, but they might put off going back for a few months: a nice vacation.

People might make comments on Darius's weird eye colour. He has blue eyes, but a much darker, rich royal blue than what most blue eyes on Earth look like. But Darius wouldn't mind.

[random-thought-depository]

I've decided my Blindsight elsewhere fic is going to be set in the seventh or eighth millennium BCE after all. Notes on how I'll portray the humans, focusing on how I'll approach the question of war and socio-economic inequality in early Neolithic Anatolia (the setting of my fic):

Inland agriculturalists: probably the most populous local branch of humanity, and the one where most of our archaeological evidence of the first farmers comes from. Farm wheat and pulse crops, but acorns, pistachios, and figs are also important food sources to them. Some livestock, but hunting is still the primary source of animal protein for many communities. Foraging of wild and semi-wild plant foods (e.g. acorns from wild and semi-wild stands) is still important for many communities; communities often surrounded by fuzzy concentric circles of various intensities of eco-engineering rather than there being a sharp dividing line between farmed land and totally wild land. Agriculture, originally an extension of women's gathering activities, is still highly feminized in this era; men participate in farming, but a lot of plant cultivation is women's work. Inland agriculturalist gender relations more-or-less follow the hoe culture pattern.

Inland agriculturalist society is relatively peaceful and inlander agriculturalist communities are not very militaristic; to the extent that they are militarized it's often primarily oriented at defense against vampires and coaster slave raiders. Serious direct attacks on settlements are rare, so settlements are usually not very fortified; what fortifications exist are often mostly for protection against vampires and coaster slave raiders. The biggest threat to inland agriculturalist communities is the new crowd diseases being spawned by the agriculturalist lifestyle.

Inlander agriculturalist communities are mostly relatively socio-economically egalitarian. What social hierarchy exists is mostly gerontocratic; the words of elders carry weight. The inlander agriculturalist socio-economic system distributes most of a community's surplus more-or-less evenly among most of its members.

Inlander agriculturalist communities often do have leaders who are usually men and usually hand power down to their sons. However, these leaders are very dependent on the ongoing active consent of the governed to have any power, and they have about the same material standard of living as normal members of the community (though they do often possess symbolic luxury goods like precious stones and stone cups as symbols of office). Inlander agriculturalist communities do not tolerate leaders who try to tyrannize over their community or who live well while their people go hungry.

At the other end of the social scale, the other major exception to the relative socio-economic equality of inlander agriculturalist communities is, unfortunately, slavery. Slaves are mostly female refugees from the coastal zone, who are vulnerable to exploitation because they have no local social connections. Slavery is highly feminized because agricultural labor is feminized and because women are perceived as easier to control; inland agriculturalists have little interest in enslaving men (the equivalent bad end for coaster refugee men is to be killed as a trespasser or to be driven away into the wilderness and sooner or later end up as vampire food or meet some other similarly nasty fate). Slavery is not hereditary, and slaves may achieve integration into the community on better terms eventually. An imperfect but possibly illuminating recent historical analogy for early Holocene Anatolian inlander agriculturalist slavery is Iroquois slavery/bride kidnapping/adoption. Slaves are a small percentage of the inlander agriculturalist population.

Coastal farmer-fisher-whalers: probably originally a sedentary fisher-whaler culture on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Euxine Lake (what later becomes the Black Sea) which then adopted agriculture. This is a precociously urbanized, stratified, and militarized society with long-distance trade and raiding, deep sea fishing and whaling, and what could generously be called fortified city-states ruled by kings (though they're more like big villages by modern standards, a few thousand people). They're kind of like an early Holocene equivalent of Vikings (late Bronze Age Greece may be another relatively good analogy). They don't appear in modern history books because a lot of their settlement sites are now below sea level (sea levels were still lower than today during this era, especially the level of the Euxine Lake) and the ruins they left have been pretty thoroughly chewed up by coastal erosion and scavenging by later humans.

The coastal zone is much more militarized than the inland zone. War is more frequent and is often existential (whereas for inlanders it's usually a matter of disputes over things like acorn-bearing oak groves and hunting grounds on the periphery of a community's territory), so coastal settlements are much more heavily fortified than most inland settlements.

The coasters have not yet invented a social technology of territorial imperialism; the goal of coaster aggressive warfare is the capture of plunder and slaves, which are transported to the aggressor city-state to increase its wealth and labor force. A lot of this slave labor is then used for agricultural intensification. The result is a sort of Darwinism of communities; stronger communities attack weaker ones, enslave much of their population, use that slave labor for agricultural intensification, get even bigger, use the resulting increased military power to attack more communities, and so on. The main wrench in this is that these practices tend to also make coaster city-states festering factories of crowd diseases and spread those diseases around, but this tends to synergize with rather than disrupt this dynamic: faced with declining populations, coaster leaders tend to try to solve that problem by capturing more slaves. Greater militarization and boats capable of coast-hugging journeys of hundreds of miles means the coasters are also well-equipped for opportunistic slave raiding, and coaster slave-capturing parties have made themselves a major hazard over much of Asia Minor (they're basically a similar hazard to vampires; unlikely to attack a main settlement unless it's very weak, but will pick off individuals and small groups). These slave-catchers, and coaster traders and military expeditions, tend to spread diseases around as they travel, much like European explorers, conquistadors, and settlers did in the New World 1500-1900. The coaster society is a major driver of regional population movement, as the coastal zone is constantly drawing in captives while at the same time it has an outflow of escaped slaves, refugees from destroyed communities, etc. (they also indirectly drive a lot of population movement from the plagues they spread and from people moving to get farther away from them).

Big and powerful coaster city-states have large slave populations. Coaster slavery is less feminized than inlander slavery, as the coasters have more use for male slaves for heavy agricultural labor, but it is still quite feminized, for the same basic reasons as inlander slavery. Standard coaster operating procedure after total defeat of a rival community is to massacre most of the men and enslave most of the women. Coaster slave catchers preferentially target women. Unlike the inlander society, in which the social technologies of coercion are very rudimentary, coaster society is beginning to develop things like slave barracks, chain gangs, professional slave overseers, etc.. Coaster slaves often do not reproduce themselves, due to short lifespans, the gender imbalance of the coaster slave population, and the "would you want to bring a child into that kind of life?" factor, but when they do coaster slavery is often hereditary, though coaster masters have the option of acknowledging children of slaves as their own (a lot of people born into coaster slavery are conceived by masters basically raping their slaves), in which case they inherit the social status of the father; the trend is to acknowledge sons (who are more useful to the masters as male heirs and warriors) early in life when they're young enough to thoroughly socialize into the master's culture while leaving daughters in slavery. Coaster society has much higher socio-economic inequality than inland agriculturalist or hunter-gatherer society. The basic unit of coaster social organization is the patrilineal clan, with smaller and poorer clans vassalized to bigger and richer ones, and clan membership and rank within the clan as major components of social identity and determinants of socio-economic status. Patrilineal descent being important means coaster society is more patriarchal than inlander society, with coaster women having less sexual freedom and less freedom in general than inlander agriculturalist or hunter-gatherer women (the fact that coaster city-states often have relatively giant majority-female slave populations also contributes to this; the institutions and cultural sensibilities of a society like that tend to be not great for "citizen" women either).

I made up the coasters cause I wanted to set up an Alien vs. Predator sort of conflict between the vampire pack in my fanfic and a suitably nasty human proto-state; I bet that shows.

Hunter-gatherers: these are still a major feature of the Anatolian world in this era, especially in the inland northeast and in regions that aren't great for agriculture (hills, mountains, uplands, swamps, etc.). They are mostly small groups of nomads; in this region larger and more sedentary hunter-gatherer groups have mostly adopted agriculture to some degree by this time. Already in this era these people can be understood as "barbarians" in the James C. Scott sense: people whose cultures have developed in dialogue with and reaction against settled people. A lot of these people are escaped slaves and refugees from the coastal zone and their descendants, and that influences their culture, e.g. intensifying the simple hunter-gatherer trend toward "fierce egalitarianism."

----------

Both the inland agriculturalists and the hunter-gatherers have to some degree developed a cultural identity of "not like those assholes on the coast and proud of that," and this has mostly influenced them in what I and probably you would see as good directions; weakening hierarchical institutions and cultural features and strengthening egalitarianizing ones. Unfortunately, I think the flip side of that process would be making the coasters worse; it'd be anachronistic to call the coasters fascists, but I think their culture would probably have a lot of that energy.

[ironbornsource]

feel your body closing (I can rip it open) - by @cealtrachs​ Rated: Explicit Words: 880 Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Category: M/M Pairing: Theon/Ramsay Summary: After Melisandre assists during the Battle of the Bastards, Theon Greyjoy receives an unexpected gift on Pyke. He enjoys it more than one would expect.

So dark yet so satisfying: Theon is back to Pyke as his sister's castellan and enjoying his vengeance on Ramsay, who can no longer resist him. The magical concept is so darkly fun and the atmosphere is excellent. Warning for very explicit rape and dehumanisation

[hisfavoritewolf]

A Guide to Tevinter; The Language of Poisons

[morsrattus]

Pentan Cultural Overview: Slavery

In Glorantha, slavery is widespread, with only a few cultures having no documented practice of it, though few cultures practice the worst and most abusive forms of slavery. The Pentans are no exception, though due to the rigors of travel, few tribes keep a significant number of slaves at any given time. The Law of Yu-Kargzant lays down a set of structures in which slavery exists. It is illegal to keep a horse as a slave, due to the agreements made between Gamari and Hyalor, but human slaves are legal. Other animals cannot be kept as slaves, but rather as livestock; practically speaking, this largely means that Pentans rarely think much about enslaving Hsunchen, whom they consider to be animals, but would not consider it unnatural for a Lo Fak yak-person to live with a tribe as part of their herds, only very strange.

Because of this divide between horse and man, a Pentan kept as a slave is considered to be cut off from their soul horse spiritually, even if their captors have taken the horse and added it to their herds. This is a terrible position to be in, one of great spiritual weakness and suffering.

Firstly, a slave can only have a single owner. Slaves belong to a specific family, and in that family specifically belong to the Grandparent. Shared ownership does not exist, though the Grandparent may delegate the duties of slave care to others.

Secondly, it is the duty of any slave to escape. Therefore, a slave may not be punished for doing so - but may be punished for attempting to escape and failing. This has little practical difference, but strongly reflects a culture of rebellious slaves.

Thirdly, it is permissible only to enslave those who are captured in battle. Other slaves may be purchased from outsiders, but Pentan law states that only those who accept the risk of death and killing in battle may suffer enslavement. Slavery is never an inherited status in Pent, either.

Fourthly, there must be a route to freedom for all slaves. . All slaves may be freed through the rites of adoption. A slave may go to the Grandparent that owns them and offer up their soul and life, forsaking their old name and family as well as severing themselves from their soul horse forever. If the Grandparent accepts this offer, the slave is freed and initiated as a new member of the family, taking on a new name and finding a new soul horse. However, these rites are not easy and are often painful.

Male slaves who undergo the rites of adoption must be gelded, suffering a ritual destruction of their masculinity accompanied by intense physical pain and weakening of male magic. (Even male slaves who do not have a penis suffer this pain - it is a requirement of Gor Gorma's gelding rituals.) Female slaves who undergo the rites of adoption must become mothers, either through adoption of a child or by the normal means, and those who choose to adopt for any reason are still put through the pains of childbirth as a result of the ritual. Cloud people may choose which of these paths to go through, but it will be painful regardless.

There are strict laws on the treatment of slaves. A slave can be beaten if they commit a crime, but only disobedience of a direct order or failure to escape are reason to beat a slave who has not committed a normal crime. A slave must be given food, housing and care as appropriate to any Pentan. A slave who is abused outside the bounds of the law may sue for freedom, and must be given a horse and the option to join any family in the tribe that will have them or leave for their old kin as they choose. A slave who becomes pregnant by any means is automatically freed, and if not through the rites of adoption, are given the same choice of freedom as any other abused slave.

Slaves may also be ransomed, which has legally evolved into the basis for sale and purchase of slaves. Under Pentan law, a slave who is sold is technically being ransomed by their new owner, who may choose to free them or not as normal. A tribe may deny the option to ransom by outsiders, but a slave's own family must be allowed to ransom them. The price of a ransom is variable based on the slave's age and health, but cannot be made outside the bounds set by the law. Typically, a slave of up to 40 years old with no major injuries is worth goods equivalent to five horses.

All of these laws apply to slaves regardless of their origins. An outsider who is kept as a slave is given all of the same protections and options - and no extra ones, often making it very difficult for them to return home if they are freed for any reason.

In practice, Pentans tend to keep few slaves because traveling with them is difficult. A Pentan slave given access to horses is much more likely to escape, while outsiders often are unable to ride in the first place. This greatly slows down the travel time of any group containing a large number of slaves. Pure Horse tribes tend to keep more slaves, on average, than other tribes, relying on them to tend to gardens of food crops that they are not permitted to work themselves.

Even among the Pure Horses, large groups of slaves are typically only found in trade caravans. The slave trade is extensive in both the Lunar Empire and Kralorela, and some groups of Pentans make a significant amount of money dealing in slaves to both of these neighbors, or moving slaves between them. They may even raid Half-Man villages for the purpose of taking warriors captive for sale as slaves. Bandit groups may compound their lawbreaking by taking anyone captive for sale as a slave, though they must be careful only to deal with outsiders when selling people who are clearly illegal slaves under Pentan law.

It should be noted that while it is not considered slavery, it is not rare for a tribe to keep a village of Half Men in their territory as tributaries, demanding a tribute of crops, goods, or labor in exchange for not being raided by the tribe and being protected from bandits and other tribes.

It should also be noted: while life as a Pentan slave is not the worst kind of slavery in the world, it is still a terrible thing. Pentans consider slavery a pitiable status, if one preferable to death. This is why the law says it is every slave's duty to seek freedom, whether by escape or another method, and any Pentan kept as a slave will be actively seeking a way to end their slavery.

[beatricelalalala]

Little Minotaur 2022

I am the tiniest minotaur. I was born to a family of mutants in a world where humans subjugate the mutants. Mutants are usually enslaved as soon as they are born or captured. I am concealed because I am very small, and my mother puts me in her pocket.  My family is going into a field to work. I sneak away, but I am captured quickly because I am young and don’t have very sneaky skills yet. The humans take me to the processing area, and all of the slaves watch me in awe. I am the only slave ever to escape, and there is a legend about the escaped slave who could free everyone. As I am lead back to the camp, I see atrocious treatment of mutants by the humans. I see mutants being burned alive, being skinned, being kept in stress positions… and I am so afraid.

Mutants are given the option to work as a slave or to die. I wonder how new-borns are given this option. There is a taut wire that forks off in the distance. I am placed in a collar which is hooked onto the wire, and tows me forward. I must choose which to follow. I choose death. I am towed into a room with shelves of helmets and a kind older human technician. He dusts off a box with the least used, littlest suicide helmet. The helmet is usually put on the mutant's head, they press a button, and they die. In this way, the illusion that the mutants are killed or enslaved by choice is enforced. My helmet fits badly, but we strap it on as best we can. I am handed the button. I press it. Nothing happens. I press again and again. The technician laughs and grabs the button. It is against their laws to kill one who Is spared by the helmet system. I am released.

I feel the pressure of being the one who should bring a revolution of freedom. I am so small. I walk freely among the mutants. I see abuse and torture. I do not know what I should do. I am a the tiniest minotaur, so I am often overlooked. I accidentally hear the plans of one human overlord to capture me secretly. I buy a train ticket with stolen money. The humans try to stop the train from leaving, and I use this as a distraction to run to find allies overseas. I start running through the field, ducking behind haybales to be out of sight of the sharpshooters. This is not difficult as I am just so very small.

[aki-bara]

Okay, but as much as I love One Piece, the world itself is a dystopian hellscape. If you want to live in that world: WHY?

The fastest form of travel is by SHIP and if you live near the equator compasses don't even work. The WORLD government commits genocide on the reg and also they think slavery is cool. Like at least in the normal world if you don't like your government you can TRY to move somewhere else (not that easy but a possibility) here it's basically impossible because there's one government for the entire world.

[conquestar]

👑 Unlike Lucien’s occasionally physical relationship with Alexander, most of his relationships with Roman emperors were strictly platonic.

He did own slaves during the times of the Roman Empire, though. Not for any noble cause, though. He liked to dress them up and use them as accessories.

[asteroidaceae]

Oh, a thing about Izutsumi. Her selfishness is a very funny extended cat joke but also none of her behaviour was maladaptive to the context she was in before she skipped out on Toshiro's party. She was a slave. Inutade responded to being 'taken in' by Toshiro's household one way, by trying to make herself as useful as possible, but Izutsumi saw they were being taken advantage of from the start. Very sensibly, she chose to do the absolute bare minimum needed to stay alive and decided she didn't owe her captors shit. Her life from when she was bought to when she lost her collar was one long ca' canny. Her real arc is from one set of adaptive behaviours that got her through a horrible time to some that make more sense in a better situation. Like all cats, she has excellent boundaries.