#shitposts were probably a thing in the 1500s

[alpaca-clouds]

Olrox, the Conquest of the Nahua, and Why Hernan Cortez is one of the Biggest Assholes of History

One of my most liked posts here on tumblr - outside of some shitposts - is the one I did about the historical context of Olrox in season 1 of Nocturne. It just so happens that reading a lot of anthropological works during the last year, I also learned a lot about both the Nahua, the conquest of their culture, and about what a massive fucking dick Hernan Cortez was.

So, let me once again share this with you.

As I noted: In 1783 Olrox says he is 250 years old. While this might be a rounded number, this would mean he hsa been turned around the 1530s. Though given that in season 2 he speaks specifically about how the Nahua Empire fell, I would assume he was at least born around 1500, if not in the 1490s. Looking at the design I would guess he was around 30 years old when he was turned into a vampire.

While I would love to say: "As you know from history class", I am not kidding myself... History class has very probably not taught you much in terms of colonial history - it sure as hell has not taught me. So, I will rather say: "As you might remember from the well established bisexual masterwork The Road to El Dorado, it was the Spanish noble Hernan Cortes, who conquered the Aztec Empire" - though obviously I will keep refering to them by their Endonym, Nahua.

So, today let's talk about how that happened.

Let's Talk about the Nahua first

Let me say one thing first: Us white folks tend to go into one of two extremes when it comes to depicting indigenous people. Either as "wild savages" or as the "noble Indian". Which is why folks really know quite little about the Nahua, because most narratives about the Nahua tend to focus either 100% on the human sacrifice practiced in the Nahua culture, or on the genocide of the Nahua. And otherwise they might know about the Cortes conquest of the Nahua - in which most are not aware that there is a lot of Nahua living in Mexico to this day. More than two and a half million, to be exact. (I do not know how often I had to explain this to people when Black Panther 2 came out.)

The Nahua are an interesting case in terms of colonialism and imperialism - because they were themselves an expanding, imperialist empire. (And mind you, I am fairly certain Olrox being a Nahua is not accidental in this regard.)

By the time America was "discovered" by Europeans, the Nahua were expanding, and waging war against the cultures surrounding their lands. They were quite aggressive against some of the other indigenous cultures. And while they did not practice cattle slavery, they absolutely took war prisoners as slaves. Yes, those could be freed eventually, and usually the status of a slave was not to be inherited, it was still slavery. They also killed a lot of people from those other cultures.

In fact this was the reason why Cortés found support among other indigenous people, when he revealed he was planning on conquering the Nahua. Specifically the Tlaxcala and Cempoala helped Cortés and the conquistadors, because they (wrongly) assumed that the Spanish were safer for them than the Nahua.

This is not to say, that the Nahua were super evil or anything. Just that even among the indigenous cultures, there also were expansionist, imperialist cultures. And that history is more complicated than "good indigenous people" and "evil colonizers". And reducing the entire thing on "indigenous people are pure and good" is also a form of racism, removing the complexity from the indigenous people.

However, this fact does not remove that Hernan Cortés definitely is up there with the top historical assholes to ever do assholery.

Hernan Cortés was horrible, actually

One of the books I read on this tried to go a bit more into the worldview of the conquistadors. Basically going into why those people did those horrible things. And how basically they were so indoctrinated into the Catholic belief, that they thought that indeed if they forced their religion onto someone else on the tip of a sword, they were doing those people a favor. Because in their logic there was no question that people who did not worship the Christian God and Jesus would go to hell. And yes, that is messed up, but yeah, they got indoctrinated from birth, basically.

However, Hernan Cortés himself? He was a fucking asshole bastard, who very much was in for the money. A bit related to Castlevania Nocturne: He was related to the Spanish Governer to what later became Santa Dominque, which at this time was still Spanish controlled. And he wanted the supposed money of the New World. The gold and silver and gemstones.

So, he got some people - who for the most part really were religiously motivated - and was like: "Yeah, we gotta bring Christianity to those folks, and get some money from there. And everyone who comes with me will gets not only to go to heaven, but also a share of whatever profits we make." And then, when he arrived in America (mind you, against what he had been instructed to do - so he commited mutiny to be exact), he ordered his men to set their ships aflame, because he wanted to make sure that nobody is going to flee.

Then he made the deal with those other indigenous folks, before fighting the Nahua together with them and his own forces, who were miserable not being used to this climate. And then when he was done, he enslaved the Tlaxcala and Cempoala, while going to his own men like: "So, we got less money than expected. Everyone only will get 80 Pesos for this. Oh, by the way, you all owe me 300 Pesos for the equipment I provided to you, the food and everything. If you needed medical attention you owe me even more than that."

For reference, if I have not fully miscalculated today (it was hard to calculate, because I did not find a formular for direct calculation, so I had to go from Pesos into Real, from Real into Shilling, from Shilling into modern GBP, and from that to USD), 80 Pesos at the time are worth about 20 000 USD today, So not a whole lot for risking your life half on the other side of the world. And of course the money they supposedly owed him is then about 70 000 USD. Meanwhile he settled down in a nice pretty castle.

So yeah, Hernan Cortés, fucked everyone over. Literally EVERYONE.

Now, mind you. Because some of his people - who for the lack of money, now were stuck in the Americas - started to rise up against him, he basically calmed them by saying: "Yeah, you know what? Let enslave more indigenous people." And the fact that they were like: "I guess that is fine then" says a lot about their morals. But generally speaking... Yeah, fuck Cortés. I sure hope that asshole is somewhere deep, deep, deeeeeeeeep in hell.

And mind you, after Cortes took over what today is Mexico, it apparently got really bad. With a mixture of a famine, the slavery and the sicknesses the Spaniads brought to the place, apparently it was at times after this so bad, that there were literal dead bodies lining the streets. Some died of hunger, some of sickness, and some had been killed by the Spaniads.

[blarneythedinosaur]

Lbr. Shitspeare SO woulda been a shitposter if shit posts were shitposted in the shitteen hundreds.

“Please save me! I’ll do anything for you!” “Then perish.” “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.” “Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?” “…Then I shall face God, and walk backwards into hell.” “…I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.” 

-All of these are from shitposts, regrettably not from literary classics.

[thedreadvampy]

taken from @totopopopo

Why did you choose your URL? I legit could not tell you that with any precision, I've been using it so long. Vampy was a nickname I took on at like. 13 in like 2006 on an old roleplay forum bc my friends used to mock me for being awake at the point friends in the Western US were going to bed late. TheDread...I mean it's a Princess Bride reference for sure, it definitely went 'there's no Vampy username available on X platform so let's try TheDreadPirateVampy' but idk when or how I lost the 'pirate'

Any side blogs? A few! Obviously there's my art blog @ongoingart, but there are a bunch of weird and abandoned ones uhhhhh there's @rotefashion which is where I collated visual inspo for my MA, there's my Trauma Blog which I only give the URL out by request and my Sexy Stuff blog which NOBODY gets the URL for, there's @transexclusionaryradferengi which I largely made to keep Arguing With TERFs off my main, there's some I made at uni in like 2013 (@invisibleladycock started as a NSFW art blog but ended up just being me and my pal shooting the shit, @whatasillyoutfit was a daily outfit blog I quickly abandoned, and then @hellacollective and @chooseyourownsmut were collaborative projects with uni pals) and so on.

like I never delete things and I've been on here for like 10 years so. BUT. ongoingart and very occasionally rotefashion are the only ones I've used in years.

How long have you been on Tumblr? Too Bloody Long

Do you have a queue tag? I never learnt to queue and I'm not starting now you will get flurries of uncurated Content and you'll damn will like it.

Why did you start your blog in the first place? God I really don't know stop asking me to remember things

Why did you choose your icon? I did Pride makeup for like the first time in my adult life and I really liked it. also my old photo was me at like 16 and very steampunk and it kinda. no longer represented my vibe. idk why my icon has always been a photo of me, I'm just That Vain ig.

Why did you choose your header image? It is one of the paintings I'm proudest of and I just. I really leveled up on light and atmosphere in that one. again. vain. (also until last year I was mostly Robin Hobblogging on here so 🤷‍♀️)

What's your post with the most notes? Extremely the Blobbyland one it has literally like. 28k. then the Piggate one which has like 10k. basically my notes always have a few people in them saying 'WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ENGLAND'

How many mutuals do you have? How all I meant to know this? (and honestly given how much my social circles have changed while I've been on here I can't keep track of who's still active anyway)

How many followers do you have? 1541 because you bitches can't follow instructions and keep me at an even 1500. also that's Too Many Followers and simultaneously like is it idk what classes as a lot.

How many people are you following? Like 430 I pretty much only ever unfollow people of they make me actively angry to see them and even then I often don't like. I barely use my dash so 🤷‍♀️

Have you ever made a shitpost? I will direct you to my 3rd and 5th most popular posts which I call the Ragging On Toryboy Elias diptych. is that shitposting? what qualifies as shitposting?

How often do you use Tumblr every day? CONSTANTLY IT'S A PROBLEM I USE IT UNTIL I RUN OUT OF CONTENT THAT SCRATCHES THE BRAIN WORK ITCH AND THEN I SIT AND REFRESH IT

Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? CHRIST have I like I swear I don't go out of my way to start shit but I seem to be everyone's Discourse Mutual all the same. anyway I mean obviously there's the Stuart Semple thing the TMA discourse the Pride discourse etc but tbh mostly I get anons so idk. which blogs I'm beefing with or how many of them there are.

How do you feel about the 'you need to reblog this' posts? Fuck off no I don't performative bullshitttttt

Do you like tag games? YES I CRAVE ALL INTERACTIVE CONTENT but in practise all my tags are boring

Do you like ask games? I LOVE TO BE TALKED TO

Which of your Tumblr mutuals do you think is famous? idk like all my art mutuals are more popular than me. also probably @alientoastt and @milfkarlmarx on pure mechsfandom clout

Do you have a crush on a mutual? no half my active mutuals are Children no offence. and also I don't do a lot of crushes and them I do have I save for irl pals 🥰

tagging @milfkarlmarx @silly-slacker-person @trisshawkeye

[withoneheadlight]

I was tagged by @memes-saved-me <3<3<3<, Thank you, love <3<3<3<

~

1. why did you choose your url?

It’s because, one day, just a few months after starting to write again, feeling like I was sweating blood every time I had to sit down and do this, Neil Gaiman made me feel the most understood I‘ve ever felt when it comes to writing:

“It's a weird thing, writing.

Sometimes you can look out across what you're writing, and it's like looking out over a landscape on a glorious, clear summer's day. You can see every leaf on every tree, and hear the birdsong, and you know where you'll be going on your walk.

And that's wonderful.

Sometimes it's like driving through fog. You can't really see where you're going. You have just enough of the road in front of you to know that you're probably still on the road, and if you drive slowly and keep your headlamps lowered you'll still get where you were going.

And that's hard while you're doing it, but satisfying at the end of a day like that, where you look down and you got 1500 words that didn't exist in that order down on paper, half of what you'd get on a good day, and you drove slowly, but you drove.

And sometimes you come out of the fog into clarity, and you can see just what you're doing and where you're going, and you couldn't see or know any of that five minutes before.

And that's magic.”

He summed it up in another interview like this:

“Writing a novel is like driving through the fog with one headlight out. You can’t see very far ahead of yourself, but every now and again the mists will clear.”

i printed it and got it on my wall, too. so i don't forget.

and guess what’s one of my all-time favorite songs? yeah, you got it :D

also, that's the amount of mental enlightenment I go through life with: half the standard equipment. So it fits me pretty well i guess.

2. any side-blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them.

yeah i’ve got a few. most of them to stash things i like, in general or in other fandoms, but in harringrove i have @thequarryatnight as a fic/hc storage of sorts.

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

uh, technically a few years?. I've had a few different accounts that I always ended up forgetting about. But had never really used Tumblr until this past last year and a half.

4. do you have a queue tag?

I use the most simplistic 'queue' ... when I remember to put it on XD (which, I should, because I'm always so worried people think I'm in here ignoring them when in reality what I usually have is the longest queue)

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

Uh, long and boring story? xD. I started posting harringrove in my main a few months after I started using the account again, along with posts/reblogs for other fandoms. But with Tumblr being the chaos it is (for me at least, and for the way my poor add brain works) it felt pretty overwhelmed, having so many different things in one place, and never being able to find anything so I decided to make this one side-blog only for posting my fics, but then people started following me here and suddenly there were a bunch of them and then suddenly it felt like it made more sense?, rebloging things in here where more people could see them? so I made @thequarryatnight and started reblogging my stuff in there, so I wouldn't get crazy, and started using this as a more fandomish blog.

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

I love pictures taken from the side? xD, they’ve got this feeling, of looking at someone without them noticing. there’s a longing in there that’s always fascinated me, and steve’s breathtaking in this one (same as billy in my main pic, imo). i like to think billy'd look at him and think ‘fuck’, fall in love for the hundredth time so, yep. I love that pic.

7. why did you choose your header?

Is a picture of Santa Carla at night, aka Santa Cruz, where Lost Boys was filmed. Is my second favorite fictional town (first is Astoria i might have a list) and the feeling of it is just *chef’s kiss*. Had to have it. But I’m thinking of revamping it for the summer? maybe? I’ve got a few ideas, it’s been hard to decide, but I wanna bring out the summery vibe this year.

8. what’s your post with the most notes?

it’s apparently my upside-down kiss one! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out (i used this page since I had 0 idea of how to check this)

9. how many mutuals do you have?

i honestly don't know, but they all are amazing mutuals <3

10. how many followers do you have?

one of the best things about tumblr: doesn't show the follower count <3 (imo)

11. how many people do you follow?

about 1000? xD

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

if saying the first stupid thing that comes to my head in here is considered a shit post, then,t o o m a n y.

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

I've been trying to reduce the number of times I come checking but still, way too many :D

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

nope. never. sometimes i want to leave my opinion in some posts, but i still feel pretty insecure about the language, so i'm perpetually afraid of being misunderstood.

15. how do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts

the ones with something good/bad is gonna happen if you don't reblog? i usually scream internally while i fast-scroll past them while both feeling like bwahhahaha and scared shitless.

16. do you like tag games?

oh i LOVE tag games too much.

17. do you like ask games?

very very much. even if sometimes i repent bc it's hard for me to find the time to answer them xD.

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

dunno but @chichipafarolillos is my personal superstar <3

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

no xD but I really really <3<3<3 my mutuals.

20. tags?

@ghostofjellyfishforgotten @missroserose @rascheln @neonponders @cockasinthebird @thatharringrovehoe @edith-moonshadow @dyingontheharringrovehill @wholeshebangs @irishbeings @smashmouth-hargrove @mourntheantagonist @aestheticchaoss @somuchanemoia @cupidsintern