#history brainrot

[atlas-is-busy]

Everything is a foundation for something so much greater. Everything is a foundation for something so much greater. Everything is a foundation for something so much greater. Everything is a foundation for something so much greater. Everything is a foundation for something so much greater. Everything is a foundation for something so much greater. Everything is a foundation for something so much greater.

[redladydeath]

So, back in 2022 I came up with this alternate history idea I called “Bloody Mary II.” I don’t think I ever posted publicly about it, but the main idea was basically “What if the Glorious Revolution went horribly wrong?” Recently, I was randomly struck with some new ideas for it, so I figured I’d write some stuff out.

During the advance on London, William is fatally shot by a random, independently-acting king’s man. Mary is in pieces when the news reaches her, but finds herself the new focal-point of the whole affair. William’s murder is an international incident; the invasion fleet is in disarray, unsure of whether to return home or press on, England is in chaos as the people struggle to make sense of what is going on (whether the aimless foreign army occupying their land is a good or bad thing, was the assassination justified or not, is war about to break out, what should be done about James, etc.), the Dutch want James’ head on a pike for killing their prince (James did not actually want William killed, but no one is willing to believe him at the moment), and all eyes in Europe are now on England. Despite her intense grief and lack of confidence in her abilities, Mary feels obligated to take up the reigns as the revolution’s new head.

She begins directing the invasion fleet and, once William’s body is returned to the Netherlands and she is able to lay him to rest, she sails to England to lead them in-person. She is driven by an urge to honor William’s memory and a burning desire for revenge upon her father for taking him from her. Despite her fairly swift arrival, the invasion has already been blown way off course; the English citizenry has become divided in their support for the revolution and James has had enough time to throw together a decent defending army. Instead of a bloodless coup, a full civil war breaks out between the two opposing sides. Mary truly wants no part in all this, but continues in her campaign because she feels that she must do what needs to be done.

Over the course of a year or so, Mary and James wage war against each other, despite both parties’ misery at “having” to do so. Eventually, Mary’s forces manage to push James out of Britain; he simply does not have enough support to keep fighting her indefinitely, despite her own unpopularity for leading a foreign army and instigating a second civil war. Mary is crowned queen while James and his family take refuge in France. However, the country remains unsettled and James continues to make attempts at regaining his crown, so Mary has her work cut out for her.

Parliament urges her to remarry in order to bring in more support and hopefully produce an heir, but Mary refuses to even entertain the possibility. Now that she no longer has the distraction of constant danger, her grief, combined with her pre-existing depression and the stress of having so many people relying on her to make decisions, is all-encompassing. She feels that remarrying would be a betrayal of William’s memory (despite him giving her permission to do so before leaving with the invasion force) and she decides she will never love again. She becomes an almost Queen Victoria-like figure, determined to stay in mourning for the rest of her life. Her unwillingness to compromise on this causes her reputation to take another hit, as she’s dooming the country to another succession crisis once she dies. Anne is still suffering her obstetrical problems, so there's no clear heir to the throne and many fear that the Dutch may attempt to sway Mary one way or another, as she is still closely involved with them despite not holding any power there.

Through the stress of navigating war and queenship without any preparation, Mary comes to rely heavily on Bentinck for support. He swore to William on his deathbed that he would protect and aid Mary and, in his own grief, has fully committed to that task. The two of them end up forming a somewhat co-dependent, but purely platonic, relationship, united in their grief for William. The English are highly skeptical of Bentinck; they already want to removal all Dutch influence from Mary’s court and his intense closeness with her has everyone convinced that they are having an affair. Some think that he's the reason she refuses to remarry, others that he’s manipulating her and is the real power behind the throne. None of it is true, but it does even more damage to Mary’s public image. After several years and several attempts to remove him through various means, Bentinck asks Mary to allow him to return to the Netherlands. She refuses, as she’s remained relatively isolated at court during her time as queen and she’s come to rely so heavily on his support and advice.

Eventually, during one of James’ attempts at invading Britain, a young James Francis Edward is captured by Mary’s forces. He is brought to her for her to decide what to do with him. Upon meeting him for the first time, Mary is struck with the horrible realization that this is indeed her brother and that the whole invasion that ruined her life it was predicated on a lie. Despondent and throughly emotionally exhausted, she is unsure of what to do with him and simply keeps him with her at Hampton Court. He’s young enough that he doesn’t completely hate her yet, and thus the two form a detached, but somewhat caring relationship. James and Maria are absolutely besides themselves, trying to get their son back, and Mary’s advisors are urging her to come to a decision about what to do with him, but Mary, exhausted with playing the political game, refuses to make a decision one way or another, content to simply sit still for the first time in the years. What happens next has yet to be seen.

All of this chaos and Mary’s extremely mixed reputation result in her going down in history as “Bloody Mary II.” She’s a figure of some sympathy on account of her horribly tragic life, but the English people simply could not forgive her for dragging them into a second civil war only 40 years after the first.

[silverquillsideas]

in the palm of your hands

[carstairs112]

Ok we all know Tamsyn Muir loves her references whether it’s Homer or Tumblr. And also everything is the Bible/ Catholicism, so maybe it’s not surprising that fanartists are recreating obscure Catholic art trends accidentally (or on purpose)

I just finished writing a paper on crucified nun artwork that was popular in Colonial Mexico for a bit in there, specifically this one and its accompanying eulogy sermon. What makes this image special is that it differs from other crucified nun artwork, instead having Christ on the cross and the nun on top of him. It is also accompanied by text about the two becoming one and their dedication to each other.

Basically I argued that due to the historical context it was created in it reads as both metaphorical mystical sex, (there is a long history of the cross being Jesus and nuns’ marriage bed since they are considered Brides of Christ) and an attempt for the nun to mortify (self-injury flesh and fast) in order to be closer to Christ.

Then I remembered that the iron fence spike is a locked tomb version of the cross and there is a good amount of art with Harrow crucified on top of Gideon. They also tend to be accompanied by quotes like “one flesh one end”.

Artwork by Moonssnail

Artwork by Kayleerowena

Artwork by Fluffegwuffeh

[befooremoonrisee]

to me one of grrm's biggest screw-ups is not letting gaemon and jaehaera grow into adulthood, because the dynamics those two could have with aegon lend themselves to so much.

you're aegon iii and you're forced to marry the daughter of the man who killed your mother and your brothers. her only friend is her dragon and you hate dragons because one killed your mother in front of you and two others killed your brothers. she hates you and would kill you if that didn't mean her own demise. your best friend is also a son of aegon ii, but he hates him too, as he is responsible for the death of his mothers, he was a pretender, he is a nice kid who wants to help people just like you. he's the only one that understands you.

you're jaehaera, your father won the war, but you're forced to become the wife of the son of the man who killed your twin, the woman who put a bounty on your other brother's head and who drove your mother to suicide. your grandmother, the only family you have left, is crazy with grief, she wants you to kill aegon. you're just a child. your dragon is a wretched delicate thing, just like you, your husband hates it. he is afraid of it, it makes you happy. your only brother (if he is your brother) doesn't like you, he spends all his time with aegon, you try to bond with him, but he is not jaehaerys. he will never be.

you're gaemon, son of a whore, bastard of a king. you were the hope of the smallfolk, a path for liberation, but the royals came and they killed your moms. now you're their pet, their tool to avoid being poisoned. you love aegon, he shares the same wounds as you, but you resent him, he is using your body, your life, that's what you smallfolk are for the royals, just pawns in their little games. maybe you're tired of it. then viserys comes back and you're discarded, not longer a friend, but just a tool. jaehaera claims she's your sister, but she isn't, aegon is nothing to you, she creeps you out, she understands what being a hostage is.

[easternkid]

"Henry Winter would've loved the notes app" No. Henry Winter didn't and will never love anything modern. He uses a fountain pen and isn't bothered by the ink, he even reads under candle light - for christ's sake, he uses and is obsessed with Latin, which is by the way, a dead language.

[alarmsofmyheart]

When all the (most of the) shows are about highly achieving people having a queer romance, Jack and Joker picked up the 'i didn't study well ever since I was a kid and later I became a thief and went to prison' person as a lead and 'i got my national team opportunity snatched and I am a debt collector because I can't pay my parents debt' person as a lead. And threw in a bunch of other suffering people. Poor, rich, in debt, shrine people, gay, straight, kids, old, middle age, 20s- everyone is suffering.

Insane level of creativity and portrayal of smol struggles of daily life extending to a whole life.

[babybells123]

No but you don’t understand . I need Jonsa to be a tangled mess of depravity and tenderness. Grief haunting them - the ghosts of their past connecting them in some irrevocable way, because perhaps that’s the only way they know how to bond - initially, at the very least. Estranged but bursting with love but not knowing how to show it because ‘we were never close.’ But Sansa used to teach me courtesy, and Jon used to sneak me lemon cakes when no one was watching. I love you so much but I feel as if you’re a stranger to me and I don’t know how to change that. Do you wish it was arya who walked through those gates or I should have been a better brother to you, I should have ridden north for you. Please just let me hold you in my arms until our hardened hearts soften again. Until something ineffable develops. And to their horror, they realise this raw and fresh and beautiful (damaged) bond that they have created. And then comes the angst. The yearning. The unspoken words. Religious disillusionment. Inadequacy. Shame shame shame. Understanding slowly burning brighter, until they realise how similar they actually are and oh my god , you were there the whole time and I never even realised. But she was radiant and glowed brighter than any star in the sky, how could I not ??? Now give me your hands and I’ll kiss your fingers one by one, I’ll gentle each tip the way you’ve deserved. And I’m here, I see you. I’m not leaving, but gods am I a vile being. Look at how this world has corrupted me.

[callcorbett]

something about glass onion that makes me go insane is first the movie starts with Bach’s ‘little’ fugue in G minor, then the box miles sends to each of the ‘shitheads’ has it as one of the clues. Don’t exactly remember who says it but someone says that fugues are a complicated layer of music. While they are layered they are not fundamentally complicated, it’s just layers of the same figure played over and over again. The fundamental core melody is all the same. Which is a perfect melody for Miles thinking his plan and puzzles was this complicated system of music, when it’s really just the same story told over and over again, and also a metaphor for the glass onion itself. I dunno I just love when classical music is used in movies that itself tells the story in a deeper way

[asbestos-11]

if i had a nickel for everytime i'd been emotionally affected by a blonde fictional man, i would be so rich, i would be swimming in billions.

[crispyliza]

Fic idea: After the end of s2 Ekko starts to cough up blue flowers. Thinking his time is limited since the object of his affections is already dead he decides to travel the world when one day he encounters the very reason for his sickness...

[redladydeath]

anne's feud with william and mary honestly reads like one long AITA thread that gets bombarded with "everyone here sucks" replies

[ideas-on-paper]

The origin of the term "Sweepers"

Lies of P fun fact of the day: The name of the Sweepers probably originates from the crossing sweepers of Victorian times - usually destitute children, disabled or elderly people who swept the pathways for well-off pedestrians.

19th century streets were commonly teeming with dirt, mainly horse dung due to all the carriages on the roads (you can see a fair bit of broken-down carriages in Krat), but also food waste and other kinds of refuse. This “mud” created an inconvenience for rich folks - particularly ladies with their long dresses - who wanted to cross the streets without soiling their fine clothes.

This is where the crossing sweepers came in, who stood at the ready to clear a path for any passersby with their broom, receiving a tip in return for their service (unless the lady or gentleman was particularly stingy). Being a crossing sweeper was considered as just one step above begging, and it was one of the last resorts for poor people to earn a “honest living”.

With Krat being the City of Puppets, however, you’d have to wonder whether this wouldn’t be a job for puppets to take over - it’s quite probable they had public street sweeping puppets, and rich people surely had their own butler puppets that accompanied them whenever they went out on the town.

But perhaps, the name “Sweepers” is a vestige from the past, applied to this subgroup of Stalkers in a more figurative way: They are recruited from the lowest classes and slums, and they get paid by aristocrats and upper-class people to clean up their “filth” (as in eliminating their adversaries and similar kinds of dirty work). On one hand, they’re at the opposite end of society than the rich folks that they work for, but at the same time, they’re unable to live without them.

[mh777p]

На рандоме fr

[blugerine]

I’m just now realizing the geniusness of the dance scene in season 2 and how taking a “comedy” show seriously reveals so many new things about it.

NOTE: I have no idea if Neil Gaiman wrote this scene with the intention of it being interpreted in this way, but I really think it sheds so much light on why Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship seems like it went nowhere but downhill ever since season 1.

I feel like because New Omens is marketed as a “comedy show”, viewers usually go in with the intention not to take things too seriously (except for the more emotional beats that are signaled by somber music and intense acting *cough cough*), but as a result of that, we (or at least, I did) missed out on seeing some scenes differently because we originally wrote it off as “just a silly bit”. I definitely did that during the scene where Crowley performs the “apology dance” in front of Aziraphale because he left him alone to take care of Gabriel. I kept thinking about that scene over and over again in my head because it always seemed much more intentionally childish to me than any other goofy scene we see the husbands get up to in season 2 and even in season 1, and I just realized now a reason why that might be the case.

When Crowley comes back to the shop and has to apologize to Aziraphale, the first words that come out of his mouth are “I’m back”, and both him and Aziraphale know those words aren’t enough for Aziraphale to take him back, so what’s the next best thing? The apology dance! When Crowley initially resists the idea of performing the apology dance, Aziraphale reminds him that he’s done the apology dance numerous times in the past, listing all the specific years over the centuries to really get his point across until Crowley relents. After Crowley begrudgingly finishes the silly dance, the audience share a good laugh, Aziraphale is content enough to accept him back, and the fight they just had all seems so “stupid” now in comparison to the bigger fish they have to fry.

Now, what’s the problem in this scene? Or rather, why is this scene such a big deal in regards to why they broke up at the end of season 2? That’s because it’s, again, another example of how they always DANCE (quite literally) around the actual problems in their relationship that result in them constantly breaking up. And this has been happening for CENTURIES, time and time again, they always default to pushing their problems under the rug, letting bygones be bygones. They believe they’re forgiving and forgetting, but as Aziraphale keeps recounting all the years he’s done the apology dance, it’s very clear that they’ve actually never forgotten any of those previous instances of frustration and words of venom they’ve hurled at each other. Instead, they’ve opted to pretend they’re over it, onto “bigger and better” things to do as a distraction. The only time they start conveniently bringing up past wounds is when they have YET ANOTHER breakup scene.

The dance is performed so childishly because of the childish way they deal with the problems that arise in their relationship. Despite knowing very intricately about the infinite vastness of the universe, of mankind’s greatest strengths and weaknesses, they were not made to view themselves as having human emotions, and they were not trained to make compromises that did not threaten their very existence. Crowley and Aziraphale both started as angels, and Crowley wanted God to compromise with him about keeping the universe around for more years than She had planned. But God doesn’t take suggestions, so Crowley’s angelic status was quite literally burned from him as he was sent down to Hell, which traumatized him greatly, and made Aziraphale exist in fear of the divine punishment that came to those who disobeyed God.

As such, Aziraphale and Crowley have so little understanding of how to compromise in a healthy manner, because the first time one of them tried to do it, it ended terribly for both of them, and they subconsciously vowed never to do it again. That’s why, when one of them wants to apologize, it’s almost like a child’s idea of what one is. There’s no addressing of why Crowley’s so desperate to abandon everything and run away, or why Aziraphale is so adamant on staying, even when it clearly hurts him to do so. There’s NO reasoning or compromise. There’s NO talk other than “I was wrong, you were right”. It’s either your side or my side, or we never see each other again.

Aziracrow represents a very realistic on-and-off relationship, where two broken and codependent individuals cannot compromise for fear of divine punishment or even just fear of losing the one that means the most to them. And their little dance? It’s just one of the many times they’ve tried to ignore their very real and important relationship (and character) issues, and it just continues to rot away their relationship time and time again. It’s like putting a bandaid over an infection, but they’re both immortal and everything’s working against them to actually work on healing that infection from the inside out.

So yeah, the dance scene is fucking brilliant because no one saw that coming until you actually finish season 2 and think back on it. Again, maybe I’m just being delusional reading into a scene that wasn’t a big deal, but if Neil did write it with this intention, then I think the way he disguises meaningful insights into broken relationships, tortured characters, and religious trauma through the use of comedy to be really. fucking genius.

And really sad.

I think I might cry a bit after this actually.

(Also, hello, I still have no idea how to use tumblr 💀)

Edit: Just made a couple clarifications here and there! Also, thank you so much for all the positive reception 😭!!! Reading all your reblogged tags gives me so much serotonin agsjdgs it feels so nice being in this fandom so far ❤️

[somebluemelodies]

it’s goddamn early here right now but like

spiderbit and cellboier and their respective relationship and irl friendship really do something to my brain. i know it’s been said before but they really are one of the prime examples of what quackity set out to accomplish with the qsmp

like cellbit and roier, both as characters and cc’s, hadn’t even known each other two full months before their characters were married. and because of that, we’ve gotten to see a whole lot of growth, in both their actual friendship and, consequently, q!spiderbit’s relationship. from communicating in predominantly english to speaking each other’s languages. and isn’t that just so cool?

spiderbit is one of the most inexplicably wonderful (if morbidly wholesome) fictional relationships i’ve seen in literal ages, and the craziest part is… they’re cubes in a block game… portrayed by two people who haven’t even known each other a full year yet (and you’d think they’ve known each other for ages now with the way they’re almost always on each other’s asses)—

and… idk man. the qsmp has just given us so many incredible things on so many levels that probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and i’m eternally grateful for that :’)