#the british horror website

[ren-is-real]

Inanimate Insanity dash simulator (pre ep 16) (i will do more of this if this goes well probably)

🪁 inanimateinsanityfan Follow

does anyone ever get so tired they start seeing spiders lol

💼 su1tcas3 Follow

me when i lay down and hallucinate the horrors lmfao

🪁 inanimateinsanityfan Follow

what

💼 su1tcas3 Follow

Oh so this is not a safe place suddenly

2,369 notes

🪁 inanimateinsanityfan Follow

as an unbiased outsider im cheering for them both ^^ im so excited for the finale!!!!!!!!!!!

#idk what i'll do when this ends tbh #like damn. #we'll cross that bridge when we get to it!!

19 notes

💡 brightestlight Follow

any couple can be gay if they are bisexual and their genders are weird enough

🪁 inanimateinsanityfan Follow

why did you post this directly after talking to me and test tube

🪁 inanimateinsanityfan Follow

lightbulb why did y

11 notes

🎤 mic-row-phoen Follow

when you want to ask someone about something but the trek is IMPOSSIBLE and you will DIE (hes downstairs setting up a party im just scared)

🍊 orange-got-juiced Follow

i am not giving you the aux to play green day at the party

🎤 mic-row-phoen Follow

:(

🍊 orange-got-juiced Follow

ok. two songs

19 notes

🎀 rain-bowz Follow

when a fake girl tryna act like me but im the only one there is

⚙️ rowbotted Follow

REAL!!!!!

🎀 rain-bowz Follow

who are you.

📄pageperrr Follow

hey didnt you die. or something

23 notes

🌮absolutleynot-taco Follow

hey anyone know where pickle is haha. anyone know his room number or amything lol like it would justs be fun to know,,, hagaha,,,, yeagh

0 notes

🏆awinners-trophy Follow

imagine using a run down website that hasnt been relevant in YEARS. you all need to get off and go touch some grass or something jfc

🔪sharpest-tool-inthe-shed Follow

you're literally using it?

🏆awinners-trophy Follow

kill yourself

#you used to be cool man

19 notes

🎈coldairballoon Follow

i drew some vent art about old stuff.. im better now!! im just letting off some steam haha

🏆awinners-trophy Follow

this is so cringe

🎈coldairballoon Follow

you're cringe.

🍊 orange-got-juiced Follow

trophy just ran to the bathroom sobbing

27 notes

🌽 official-meeple-ceo Follow

greetings tumbler! i an steve cobs, C.E.O of the meeple company. i am looking to get in contact with a mephone! specifically mephone 4. (model 4s) any help is greatly appreciated!

🖌️ brushedpaint Follow

go back to twitter vro 💀

817 notes

⚾ thegrandslammer Follow

trying a healthier outlook on life!! i'll tell yall how it goes!!

⚾ thegrandslammer Follow

failed

⚾ thegrandslammer Follow

failed

⚾ thegrandslammer Follow

failed

8,270 notes

🪁 inanimateinsanityfan Follow

i miss egg :( i wonder where the other one the aliens mentioned went. i hope it found a parent that loves it as much as i loved egg. i mean i wasnt the best parent but uh you get what i mean

🌽 official-meeple-ceo Follow

😜

🪁 inanimateinsanityfan Follow

???????

🪁 inanimateinsanityfan Follow

??????????what??????????

#why is steve cobs on tumblr get off

15 notes

🕯 innerflamed Follow

i need a boyfriend except he's not a boyfriend and is just some weird british guy i drag around with me everywhere

1,393 notes

🍀fourleafluck Follow

diversity win!! corrupt capitalist CEO of multimillion dollar company steve cobs is bisexual!

🌽 official-meeple-ceo Follow

who informed you of this.

🍀fourleafluck Follow

I WAS??? JOKING??????

#GUYS??? #STEVE COBS GAY ICON??? #HOLY SHIT #IM SCREAMING ITS HIS OFFICIAL ACCOUNT ITS NOT A GIMMIC #meeple

23,105 notes

💡 brightestlight Follow

as a member of the lgbt we do not accept steve cobs

💡 brightestlight Follow

even when he changes the meeple logo to a rainbow during pride month we dont accept him

21 notes

☯ ringinginthenewyear Follow

☯ ringinginthenewyear Follow

just to clarify yang posted this not me -yin

57 notes

🥒 pickledposting Follow

steve cobs being bi and accidentally admitting to it on tumblr was not on my 2024 bingo card ???????

🌽 official-meeple-ceo Follow

you'll be first.

🥒 pickledposting Follow

what

29 notes

[susiephone]

wtf is dracula daily?

i’ve seen a couple people ask this question on my posts about it, so i thought i’d go ahead and clear it up here!

ok so, the classic horror novel “dracula” is an epistolary novel - that means it’s told via letters, diary entries, ship logs, and news articles. (technically the term “epistolary novel” refers to works told solely through letters or emails, but many have expanded it to mean any work that is told via in-universe documents, hence why diaries and logs often get included as well. “frankenstein” is another classic example; the whole framing device is robert walton is recounting the story he heard from victor to his sister via letter. a modern example would be “several people are typing,” which is told via slack messages, or “the perks of being a wallflower,” which is told via letters from charlie to his anonymous pen pal, which is functionally more like you’re reading his diary.)

because of the nature of the narrative, we actually know the exact day nearly everything in dracula happens - the letters, news articles, diary entries, etc. are all dated.

“dracula daily” is a substack project where the novel is broken up into parts, with people who are subscribed to the project getting emails every day something in dracula happens - for example, the novel opens with jonathan harker’s journal entry on may 3, so on may 3, subscribers are emailed that entry. the action of dracula takes place from may 3 - november 6, plus an epilogue set some years later. the project started in 2021 (i think), but fucking BLEW UP in 2022, and they’re doing it again this year! lots of us are very excited - especially people like me who fell behind last time.

why not just read the book?

valid! due to some parts of dracula being told out of chronological order, dracula daily does reorder some things. for example, the first section of dracula is told entirely from jonathan harker’s pov, then the second section switches the pov to mina murray. their sections have some overlap in the timeline, so dracula daily jumps back and forth between their perspectives.

if you want to read the book as bram stoker intended, dracula daily may not be for you. but for a lot of people (myself included!), it breaks up a very long text into easily digestible chunks (....mostly. there is one entry that is 10k words), and the fact that it’s a big project means there are a lot of people reading along with you.

i think there’s also something valuable about experience the slow revelation of wtf is going on along with the characters. the book which you might otherwise get through in a few days is stretched out into months of suspense and agony as you wait for the other shoe to drop, and it’s great.

plus, the whiplash between “jonathan harker’s neverending horror” vs “lucy is basically on the bachelorette” that you get in dracula daily is very very funny.

how do i sign up?

right here! and if you sign up and fall behind in the emails, no worries - the dracula daily website posts past entries so you can catch up.

what if i prefer audiobooks?

have i got great news for you!

like i mentioned before, i couldn’t keep up with the emails last year. part of it is that it is much easier for me to focus on an audiobook or keep up with a podcast than it is for me to sit down and read, especially with longer entries.

this year, there is going to be a podcast titled “re: dracula” that was inspired by dracula daily. every episode will be a dracula daily entry, with a full voice cast! (seriously, if you listen to british podcasts, you will recognize some of these names. the magnus archives and wooden overcoats girlies are WINNING.) you can find that here.

there is also a podcast called “cryptic canticles” that has an already-completed audiodrama of dracula that i’m told is also extremely good, and was also broken up by date. you can find that here.

why do i keep hearing about paprika/the boyfriend squad/lizard fashion/cowboys?

you’ll see.

oh god am i gonna hear about this nerd shit for the rest of the year

yes. sorry.

[duckprintspress]

Cover Reveal: “Scrap Metal Angel” by Nicola Kapron

On October 10th, Duck Prints Press will be launching our next crowdfunding campaign for the novella Scrap Metal Angel by Nicola Kapron – and today, we’re sharing the cover for the first time!

Secret Gates have protected mankind from the unknown chaos beyond the edges of reality for millennia, and now, all that stands between everything humanity knows and the horrors outside it are a depressed trans man, his exhausted partner, and a creature ill-suited to the world after being pulled from his own horrific reality. This is Scrap Metal Angel by Nicola Kapron, an urban fantasy where only fragile Gates protect all we know from eldritch, incomprehensible magic. This is the world that Adrian Somer is determined to save.

Blurb:

Reality, tiny and fragile, is cut off from the sea of chaos and nightmares that surrounds it by seven Gates. One of them is open—and has been since the Stone Age. Through that opening, strange creatures and energies slip through. Some are malevolent. None are harmless. And all of them must be kept a secret.

Every hidden magical world needs a shadowy clean-up crew. Adrian Somer is a Gatekeeper, sworn to protect the cosmic Gates, to defend reality from the unknown entities that exist beyond them, and to help those whose lives are affected by magic.

When a grieving sorceress starts punching holes in reality to try and resurrect her murdered fiancé, Adrian must turn to a ghost from his past in order to save the city, and perhaps the world—even if that means digging up someone he thought was safely buried: the twin brother he killed eight years ago.

About the Author: Nicola Kapron has previously been published by Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine, Rebel Mountain Press, Soteira Press, All Worlds Wayfarer, Mannison Press, and more. Nicola lives in British Columbia with a hoard of books—mostly fantasy and horror—and an extremely fluffy cat.

From October 10th through October 25th, we’ll be crowdfunding through our website and webstore to fund publishing this awesome novella, with a goal of $2,800! You can preview the campaign RIGHT NOW, and if you’re interested in backing and want to get a notification when the campaign goes live, make sure you follow us on social media and/or sign-up for our newsletter!

We’re currently doing a poll to determine the exclusive extra that Patreon backers who also back the campaign will receive. There’s no time like the present to become a backer and get access to exclusive previews, behind-the-scenes access, backer reward short stories, Patreon-only merchandise, and more!

[ceoandslutler]

Shit i hope u get depression then slit ur wrist open u child loving fucktard

On god a drunk driver needs to smash u in between a tree before u rape a kid, you fr need to die

Fucking nasty ass pedo, literally Diddy Jr fucking off urself u pedo cunt

this doesn't really affect me but it's kinda funny how it's not ending. anyway in light of this happening, i would like to remind you that i am a real person.

hi, my name is sayé, im an adult gen z who's currently studying in university. i was born, raised and live in london and have two parents i love a lot. i also have a lot of friends but i used to be badly self conscious when i was a child so i tried to be more confident/reach out to others and ended up making friends with lots of different types of people.

my favourite colour is purple but i also like gray (if you couldn't tell lol). i really like queen esp a night at the opera and a day at the races (my fave albums!!) and have a huge crush on freddie mercury. also im a loser who listens to bts and have their posters in my room next to freddie 😭 i can do a mean serve and play really good tennis so much that in secondary school i was banned from serving during PE. i suck at baking but my best friend is an avid baker (so is my mum). BUT i can cook a delicious minted steak. my mum scolds me for always making my food too spicy. my dad always brings me a red bull whenever he sees me and loves ruffling my hair. my mum and i watch horror movies together every week (but my dad is too scared to watch them). i buy homeless people food whenever i can. i really want a cat but i don't have time for one. my favourite holiday is nowruz but i also love christmas because the street decorations in london are so nice. like most brits, i love princess diana but hate the monarchy. i used to watch "a place in the sun" often (british telly win). speaking of, i adore 5 oclock in the morning by lily allen. it's one of my favourite songs. fun fact i adore playing rhythm games and im really good at mobile ones but suck at osu!, also i may be addicted to dave the diver 😭 i love seafood, esp smoked basa, my mum fries it for me every nowruz (since fish and herb rice is our cultural new years' dish)

here's some of my most recent conversations w different friends that aren't too personal (no hate to law students LMAO)

i am a "normal" person. i live a "normal"* life. if you saw me face to face, you would not say this to me.

*by normal i just mean everyday, obviously norms are just social constructions but ykwim

if you saw a young adult w their friends, you wouldn't have the gall to even approach them.

if you saw me out w my sweet middle aged parents, you would think we're just a happy family.

i am a real human being.

i was part of this fandom since i was a kid. this blog is new but it does not contain anything explicit about fictional children/minors doing sexual acts. because i am not interested in that personally. it doesn't mean i will police anyone who does want to see that kind of content however because fiction is not real.

people telling me to die doesn't hurt me. but that doesn't mean others won't be hurt. my mental strength is not a pass for you to tell me or anyone to die.

i am a real person and so is everyone on this website.

anons need to remember that.

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

Sexiest Podcast Character — Scripted Bracket — Round 4

Propaganda

Hera (Wolf 359):

I don't care if she's an AI with no physical form, she is HOT

my digital wife <3

oh it's always "i want a hot computergirl with poor cable management to glitch on my shit" and "i want to fuck her until she bluescreens" on this website until it's time to put your money where your mouth is. i have a post about usb penetration with tens of thousands of notes. i see the things you all say. you have a hot computergirl in front of you and this is how you all repay her? you would abandon her? prove yourselves as the computer sex website; vote for hera NOW!!!

Renée Minkowski (Wolf 359):

killed a man with a harpoon while bleeding from a gut shot. you can't argue with that kind of sex appeal

There is a scene where the main character Doug Eiffel expresses his surprise at the fact that Minkowski, his commanding officer, has a husband. It's probably intended to be read as "Oh wow, she's such an uptight and boring stickler for rules, how could she have found someone to marry", but in my heart it is because she's so butch that Eiffel's brain is short-circuiting trying to figure out how it's not a wife back home. That is sexy!

Commander Renee Minkowski didn't survive for five years on a collapsing space station where the LEAST of her problems were a mad scientist using her coms officer as a petri dish and a plant monster living in the walls, memorize all 1001 rules of Price and Carter's Deep Space Survival Procedure's and Protocols AND manage to gain Communication Officer Douglas "Dougie Fresh" Eiffel's respect to lose to some "sexy" British man. Go my followers! A vote for Minkowski is a vote for all women stuck in sci-fi horror space stations!

Vote Minkowski! What's sexier than a woman of authority? They call her "Sir" and they MEAN IT. She is in charge of this disaster. She IS the very model of a modern major general. She is everything to me <3

How dare you not add Renae’s monster hunting a plant monster for a month canonically in the sex appeal. For shame. Jk jk.

[terrorcamp]

Terror Camp 2023's Panel Lineup Announcement is here!

We are so excited to hear from all of these amazing presenters over two days in December 🤩👏

Posters, artists alley tablers, and keynote speakers will be announced over the next few weeks, as well as the link to RSVP, so make sure you sign up for our mailing list on our website!

Without further ado:

Terror Day -  Saturday, December 9

Panel A: Primary Sources

"old Harvey (a mulatto)": Sailors of Colour on British Arctic Expeditions (1848-1859), Edmund Wuyts

"Do attend to your orthography": spelling as history in Franklin Expedition Letters, Reg

Relic or Artefact; an Analysis of Polar Artefacts in Museum Catalogues, Ash

Panel B: Historical Persons

Thomas Holloway: Pills, Palaces, and The Accursed Bears, Verity Holloway

"Scarface" Charley Tong Sing: A Chinese-American on the Jeannette, In the Papers, and Afterwards, Han

Failsons of Hudson Bay,  Jas Bevan Niss

“Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole”: Roald Amundsen as Shakespearean Tragedy, Ireny

Panel C: Cultural Understandings and the Arctic

How Fares the Raft of the Medusa?: Mutiny, Cannibalism, and the Portrayal of History, Brianna Lou

“This Place Wants Us Dead”: The Terror and Folk Horror, Allison Raper

Icebound, Not Down, Hester Blum

Erebus Day - Sunday, December 10

Panel D: Death and Narratives of Death

"Known to all the youth of the Nation": Scott's Sacrifice in Children's Literature, Branwell

What We Talk About When We Talk About Quest, Caitlin Brandon

Funny to think of it as coming home: football, exploration, and the stories we tell ourselves, Rach

Panel E: The Allure of the Antarctic

From the South Pole to the Stars, Emma

The Feminine(?) Antarctic, Sam Botz

There and Back Again: In the Antarctic with Ross and Crozier, Phil Mikulski

Antarctic Roundtable

Out of the Rookery: An exploration of science and survival on Shackleton's Endurance, with Rebecca, Meg, and Avery

[mi-i-zori]

Writing Resources - Masterlist

This masterlist will host the links to the posts and threads I've saved as writing resources. None of them are mine - all the credits go to the amazing people who made them.

Characters

Author, Narrator, Protagonist, Hero... Who is What ?

Creating Black Characters With Intent

Describe Your Main Character Sheet

Emotionally Reserved Characters

Flaws to Give to Your Characters

How to Introduce Your Character In 3 Steps

How to Show Emotions (They have a whole series for this, please go check it out !)

How to Write a Character Who's in Pain

How to Write Trauma With Humanity

Open Letter from a Poc for People Who Are Writing Characters of Colour

Questions for Crafting Problematic Characters

Tips : Nail Your Character's Mannerisms and Speech Pattern Down

Top-Tier Villain Motivations

What Will Your Character Do If...

Fantasy

Fantasy Guide to Education

Make and Interesting Wedding Dress in Your Fantasy Setting

Reasons Why Can't Your Characters Use Magic To Fix Everything

Some Locations and Structures to Include in Your Forest

What No One Tells You About Writing Fantasy

Good to Know

A quick Guide to Animal Symbolism

An Introduction to Small World Theory

Differences Between UK and USA Military Dog Tags

How Boat Pronouns Work

Medical Facts that are Commonly Overlooked

Medieval Dyes

Playing Music With a Bow! (The Archery Kind)

Realistic Travel Time

Roles on a Pirate Ship

Slater's Impromptu List of Military Reference Material

Sick/Poisoning Fics

Stop Doing This in Injury Fics !

Symbolism in Writing

The Anatomy of Passing Out : When, Why and How to Write It

The Anatomy of Punching a Character in the Face

The Symbolism of Flowers

Ultimate List of Weapons and Arsenal for Fantasy Setting: Purpose and Who Uses Them

What's the Deal With Archers and Animal Companions ?

Horror

Creepy Things to Add to Settings

Horror and Comedy : 90/10 rule

How to Write Creepy Stories

How To Scare Your Readers

Most Common Character Flaws in Horror Fiction

"Never Were" and "Used to Be" Monsters

People Get Eldritch Madness Wrong

Romance

When the Romantic Tension is High

Tips

If You're Starving in a Post-Apocalyptic Fic

How to Make Your Writing Less Stiff

Pep-Talk - You Are Allowed to Be Proud of What You Write + List of YT Channels and Amazon Links for Writing

Resources About Survival in the Wild

Skip Google for Research

Some Writing Advice

The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity

Write Smarter, Not Harder

Writing Tip : Research

Vocabulary

Aesthetic Words to Fill Up Your Vocabulary

Bilingual Characters - German Edition

CoD - Spanish for Ale and Rudy Fics

Colours in Descriptions

IRL Operator Phrases/Terms - USA Edition

Gemstone Colors

German Pet Names

List of Wikipedia Articles - British and American Words and Differences

Scottish Phrases and Words for Soap MacTavish (or Scottish Characters in general)

Soft-Feeling Latin Words and Phrases

On Using Words that Indicate Sounds and Tones for Dialogues

Words to Use Instead of "Running"

Words to Use Instead of "Sighed" and "Frowned"

Writing Russian-Speaking Characters

Voices

A Guide to Write a Mancunian Accent

Growled, Roared, Snarled, Etc... A Brief Description

Writing Character Accents in Fiction

Worldbuilding

A Website That Walks You Through Creating a Believable Society

List of unique and imaginative types of government that can add depth to your fantasy world

Random Linguistic Worldbuilding

Other

Backup Your Tumblr Blog

Disable Recall for Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs

How to Find a Post on Tumblr

Protect Your Stories on AO3

Show Me a 10ft Paywall, I'll Show You a 12ft Ladder

Mii's Blog Recommendations

@deception-united - I love the resources this person shares ! They have a masterpost that lists their useful posts, but they also complete some of these posts as answers to asks and reblog a lot of other resources.

@leisureflame - This blog has a lot of resources, advice and prompts ! The author also offers to help with other people's struggles too, which is immensely wholesome in itself.

@writers-potion - This blog has tons of amazing posts to help writers with their research. I keep coming back to it, and highly recommend checking it out ! Here are this person's extremely useful Masterpost (1) and Masterpost (2).

[vintage1981]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLINE MUNRO! 

Caroline Munro (born 16 January 1949 in Windsor, Berkshire) is a British actress and model best known for her many appearances in science fiction and action films of the 1970s and 1980s. According to Munro, her career took off in 1966 when her mother and photographer friend entered some headshots of her to Britain’s The Evening News “Face of the Year” contest.

“I wanted to do art. Art was my love. I went to Art School in Brighton but I was not very good at it. I just did not know what to do. I had a friend at the college who was studying photography and he needed somebody to photograph and he asked me. Unbeknownst to me, he sent the photographs to a big newspaper in London. The famous fashion photographer, David Bailey, was conducting a photo contest and my picture won.” 

This led to modelling chores, her first job being for Vogue Magazine at the age of 17. She moved to London to pursue top modelling jobs and became a major cover girl for fashion and TV ads while there. Decorative bit parts came her way in such films as Casino Royale and Where’s Jack? (1969). One of her many photo ads got her a screen test and a one-year contract at Paramount where she won the role of Richard Widmark’s daughter in the comedy/western A Talent for Loving (1969). 

1969 proved to be a good year for Munro, because it was then that she began a lucrative 10 year relationship with Lamb’s Navy Rum. Her image was plastered all over the country, and this would eventually lead to her next big break.

Hammer Films CEO Sir James Carreras spotted Munro on a Lamb’s Navy Rum poster/billboard. He asked his right hand man, James Liggett, to find and screen test her. She was immediately signed to a one-year contract. Her first film for Hammer proved to be something of a turning point in her career. It was during the making of Dracula AD 1972 that she decided from this film onward she was a full-fledged actress. Up until then she was always considered a model who did some acting on the side.

A string of fantasy and horror roles followed, including starring turns in Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1973), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), At the Earth’s Core (1976),  The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), StarCrash (1978), Maniac (1980), The Last Horror Film (1982), Faceless (1988), and The Black Cat (1989).

By the 1990s Munro had decided to focus more on her family, daughters, Georgina and Iona, and husband George Dugdale. However, since 2003 Caroline has renewed her interest in acting and has appeared in a number of film and audio productions. Since 2021 Caroline has been presenting the hit television series The Cellar Club for Talking Pictures TV.

The title First Lady of Fantasy was given to Caroline by journalist Steve Swires, who wrote many Starlog and Fangoria (@FANGORIA) articles on the actress in the 1980s and 1990s. 

Happy Birthday Caroline!

Official Website:  http://www.CarolineMunro.org

Representation: Thomas Bowington/Bowington Management

Some of her credits include: Dracula AD 1972 (1972), Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1973), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), At the Earth’s Core (1976), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), StarCrash (1978), Maniac (1980), The Last Horror Film (1982), Faceless (1988), The Black Cat (1989), Flesh for the Beast (2003), Turpin (2009), Midsomer Murders (2013), The Landlady (2013), Crying Wolf (2015), Vampyres (2015), Cute Little Buggers (2016), Frankula (2017), End User (2018), House of the Gorgon (2019), The Haunting of Margam Castle (2020), Ulalume - A Ballad (2023), The Pocket Film of Superstitions (2023), and the upcoming The Presence of Snowgood (2024).

[mariacallous]

Who is this speaking with a sneer on their lips and contempt in their voice before news of the Princess of Wales’s cancer broke? A monarchist or a republican?

“Kate's admission that she had doctored the photograph, and her apology for doing so, were the latest self-inflicted wound by the House of Windsor, for which trust and integrity are fundamental commodities.”

Those who do not know the UK might assume it is a revolutionary who wants to undermine trust in the integrity of the monarchy because they want it gone

Republican sentiment in the UK is indeed stronger than tourists like to imagine and the BBC likes to admit.

Irish nationalists and Brits of Irish descent are wary of the crown. Just 45 per cent of Scots want to keep the royals “for the foreseeable future”, with 36 per cent ready to get rid of them ASAP. Meanwhile, the constitutional pressure group Republic reports that for the first time a plurality of people under 45 favour abolishing the monarchy.

But however greatly they have grown in number, British republicans have little vim and less vigour. They (we if I am levelling with you) don’t care enough about the monarchy to abolish it, or most of us don’t. It’s not a political priority or a practical project.

Republicanism last grew in the UK in the 1990s after the marriage of Prince Charles (as he then was) to Princess Diana fell apart. Jack Straw and other Labour politicians of the day were Republicans in theory.

But in practice they imagined cancelling all their other political plans so they could focus on dethroning the Queen and recoiled at the prospect.

Even if a majority of the country favoured a republic (which it never has), an embittered monarchist minority would never forgive the government. And as the government became unpopular, as all governments do, the minority would become a majority and demand a restoration.

No way would serious Labour politicians waste their time. Nor would serious Scottish nationalist politicians who made the same calculations.

British republicanism died for the very British reason that it was too much trouble.

If you want to find creepy obsessions, and bullying, hectoring sadism, turn to the UK’s monarchists.

The quote I began with was not from some obscure Republican website, but from the Daily Mail, Britain's best selling newspaper and most-read news site. It is a monarchist institution, at least it says it is.

And if you think I am being a snotty intellectual sneering at the tabloids, the BBC was just as bad. The line between snob and mob in the UK is always thin and often invisible.

The BBC has a podcast dedicated to PR called “When it hits the fan”! In its latest episode it berates the royal family for making “big mistakes” in not explaining why Prince William missed the memorial service for his godfather, and compounding the sin by allowing his wife to be photographed without a wedding ring.  ( I know, the horror.)

The princess has now been forced by the pressure from those who claim to adore her to admit that she had a cancer diagnosis and now needs chemotherapy. She didn’t want to talk about it at first because, frankly, her health ought to be no one else’s business.

Given what we know, it seems at least possible, don’t you think, that her husband missed engagements because he was concerned about his wife

After leaving the hospital, she put out a picture of herself and her children she had edited to make her kids look good. She is not the first mother to have done this, and in any case her illness may have distracted her,

Now that they have forced her to talk about her chemotherapy, the ferrets are reversing and everyone who had hectored the royal family is sobbing and sighing.

To my mind, and I suspect to the minds of many other​s, they are displaying the sickest side of British monarchism.

Imagine a criminal who beats you up in the street. He kicks you when you are down, humiliates and destroys you. And just when you think he’s finished with you, he bends over and says with a sweet smile “how brave you are and how courageous. We are all so terribly proud of you.”

There is a limit to how much of this treatment modern members of the royal family will take.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have fled to America, and are hated for it. I accept that a part of that hatred is racist. A larger part is a modern version of British anti-Americanism. The self-aggrandising virtue signalling of the progressive American rich grates with many in the UK. It’s too egotistical; too “let’s talk about me” for traditional British people to tolerate​.

But the main reason why conservatives in general and the conservative press in particular hate them is that they have opted out. They don’t share royal duties. Instead of taking abuse, they call their lawyers. They just won’t play the game anymore.

In truth there are not many who will. The old queen stayed on the throne too long. King Charles was too old for the job when he was finally crowned, and now he is ill with cancer, as is the Princess of Wales. Meghan and |Harry have fled, and Prince William is pretty much on his own to do the royal duties of a monarchy whose supporters demand that it conducts itself on a grand scale.

I look at his children and wonder if they will put themselves through it or run like their Uncle Harry. You should not blame them if they do.

It’s people who claim to worship the royals who will drive them away or drive them mad.

Republicans will never kill the monarchy. Royalists just might.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 17 January 1928, Vidal Sassoon, dubbed the "anti-fascist warrior hairdresser" by the Telegraph newspaper, was born. Aged 17 he joined the militant anti-fascist organisation the 43 Group, formed by Jewish ex-servicemen and women, which smashed Oswald Mosley's fascists off the streets of London after World War II. Sassoon's weapon of choice? A pair of scissors. Sassoon recounted the following about his involvement in the group to the Iranian Jewish Chronicle: "Before the war there was quite a strong fascist party led by Oswald Mosley and he and his cohorts were put in detention [jail] during the war by [prime minister Winston] Churchill. After the war they came out and immediately started up again with their antisemitism and running through the streets and having meetings, it was quite ridiculous. Many truly brave Jewish ex-servicemen started the '43 Group'… these were tough men who had been through the war… most of my friends joined the 43 Group and there were quite a few hundred of us. Truly the fascists were smashed in the streets and yes if you were scared at times because it was scary. But after we saw the pictures that came out and the whole story of the Holocaust, there was actually no way we could allow fascists to run through the streets. I was arrested one night and put in jail, the following day the judge told me ‘to be a good boy’ and let me go. That was our life in those days, we decided that we were absolutely not going to allow what happened pre-war when Jews were just beat up indiscriminately in the streets. It worked beautifully because of mainly the tough Jewish characters that were in the British armed forces during the war, they were the people that did it. But also there were quite a few gentiles who had seen the camps, the horror of Europe and fought with us." Learn more about the 43 Group in our podcast episodes 35-37, on every major podcast app or our website: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/02/17/e35-37-the-43-group/ https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2188254731359665/?type=3

[toaarcan]

I shouldn't be surprised, given that this is the Voter Suppression Website, but it's also the Punch Nazis Website and I really did expect people to have made peace with the fact that World War II happened and was ultimately necessary.

Like, I am by no means a warhawk. War is bad, the military is bad (though there's a lot of nuance there, because not having one is generally a really bad idea unless you can somehow convince everyone in the world to not have one, which you can't. Yes, the military can be a tool of imperialism. It can also be a defence against it, see Ukraine for a very current example), pacificism is great. But pacifism did not, and would not, stop the Axis.

I am also well aware that the Allies' hands were far from clean. We bombed civilians. America turned away refugees from Germany that weren't 'useful.' At the highest levels, Britain and France went to war with Germany over fears of expansionism, not because they were inherently opposed to the vile ideologies espoused by the Nazis. Everyone just kinda let imperial Japan do whatever the fuck they wanted in east Asia until they made the mistake of touching America's boats.

But in the end, the war was still a necessity. How else were the Allies supposed to stop them?

The Nazis killed six million Jewish people between 1933 and 1945. Hitler blamed the Jewish people for Germany's defeat in WWI, which makes no fucking sense, but when has bigotry ever made sense? He drew upon centuries upon centuries of antisemitism to make mass genocide a political platform that he ran on, and he won. And almost as soon as he came to power, and secured his position, he began a systematic genocide.

He and his followers were so dedicated to killing and abusing Jews that they made strategic fuckups in the war, just to continue the holocaust. When the US and British forces landed in Normandy, and the USSR began pushing in from the east, the Nazi response was to accelerate the genocide, because killing Jews mattered more to them than winning the war.

More people died building the V2 rocket at Mittelwerk than were killed in all of the V2 strikes against Britain and France. As is often said of today's fascists, cruelty was the point.

In addition to the Jewish victims of the camps, the Nazis also killed 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, 1.8 million Polish people that were not Jewish, 250000-500000 Romani and other travellers, 310000 Serbian civilians, 250000-300000 people with disabilities (including at least 10000 children), 'tens of thousands' of German civilians who were politically opposed to the Nazis, 35000 criminals, 1700 Jehovah's Witnesses, an unknown number of LGBTQ+ people, and an unknown number of black people.

We don't know the full numbers, because the other thing they did when they realised they were losing is burn the records. They dug up mass graves and burned the bodies. We know as much as we do because they killed so many people that it was physically impossible for them to destroy all the evidence.

They created industrialised genocide. And this is just the holocaust, not the sum total of Nazi crimes, let alone those perpetrated by fascist Italy and imperial Japan.

So yeah, in light of all of that, I cannot, and will not entertain any drop of "Well actually the Allies were bad too" because the magnitude of the horror that the Axis were indulging renders it moot. They did bad shit too? Yeah, well, they were at war with the fucking Nazis.

One of the most important parts of the first few years of the war was the Battle of Britain. At that point, the French had been defeated, and the USSR still had a very tense alignment with Germany and Italy. America had yet to formally join the war, but were selling weapons to Britain, who were seemingly the last nation left in the fight. A few American pilots had also made the trip to Britain to join the fight.

In order to launch a land invasion of the British Isles, the Nazis had to achieve air superiority over them, and so began a series of raids against the RAF, and at first, they were doing pretty well. Targeting airbases and radar installations was the correct strategic move.

And then something happened that turned the tide: The RAF bombed Berlin.

This has been claimed to be an accident, the bombers were simply lost in the night, and thought they were targeting an air base, and they weren't. That probably wasn't true. But however it happened, it pissed Hitler off massively, and he ordered the Luftwaffe to switch focus to bombing British cities.

This was a tactical blunder like no other. Taking focus away from the actual military targets allowed the RAF to regroup and actually put the defensive plan for the islands into motion. Scores of British, Polish, French, and American pilots fought to defend Britain, guided by the now-unmolested radar stations.

And it worked. In fact, it worked really well. By the end of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had lost so many planes and so many pilots that it severely affected their tactical use for the rest of the war.

More than that, losing the Battle of Britain meant that A) the Nazis had lost their perceived invincibility, as someone had now taken them on and won, and B) it meant that Hitler's plan to avoid a two-front war, to knock France and Britain out entirely before rounding on the USSR, had failed, and being a deranged, genocidal nutbar, who viewed the existence of Communism as an existential threat, threw away the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and declared war on the Soviets.

The Nazi reaction to the defeat of the Battle of Britain, something arguably caused by the bombing of Berlin, was the first step toward their total defeat.

So yeah, I wholeheartedly believe that fighting WWII was ultimately the best thing the Allies could've done, and the people that made the decision to fight against the Nazis did the right thing, even if they did it for the wrong reasons, or used bad methods to do so. Of all the wars throughout human history, this is the one I can argue needed to happen above all else.

[adarkrainbow]

Fairytales - the dark season (2)

Today's title: No Rest for the Wicked

Aka the only other "dark fairytale" webcomic I know. Created by Andrea L. Peterson, it unfortunately hasn't updated since 2013, meaning the series will likely never be completed. It can be read on its official website, here. (Or on Internet Archive, since thanks to the webcomic being left untouched for many years, it might disappear one day...)

Personal categorization: "Adventures of dark fantasy"

Following the setting of the British fairytale "The Buried Moon", the webcomic tells of how moon has vanished from the night-sky. Princess November, cursed with insomnia thanks to being from "The Princess and the Pea", begins a quest to find back the moon, gathering in the process the most unlikely companions; the snarky Perrault (aka Puss in Boots after his happy ending), and the quite sinister Red (Little Riding Hood after she survived her ending). There's also a stupid but kind-hearted and fearless boy looking for the princess, who might be Jack or Hans, he doesn't really know himself.

Unfortunately for our goofy heroes, all sorts of monsters have been growing stronger in the darkness, and they'll have to face them - turning the comedy into a horror story...

[montyshistoryblog]

Agonies surrounding milkmen

What better way to distract myself from activist burnout and the horrors of the carpet-bombing of civilians by exploring the Blitz!

I recently started a module at my university called History As Mythmaking: The Myth of the Blitz. In the seminar, we were discussing how the public image of the Blitz of London was created in part through propaganda, especially certain attitudes such as the stiff upper lip (despite popular belief, Keep Calm And Carry On was scrapped before the Blitz and only rediscovered at the turn of the millenium), and the subject of the milkman photo came up. For those of you who have somehow escaped such a pervasive image, here's the photo.

[Ownership: Getty Images | Credit: Fred Morley working for Fox Photo (defunct)]

This image, the tale goes, is actually a staged image. Fred Morley, the photographer for a Fleet Street firm called Fox Photo, was sick of the fact that the censor board would prevent press photographers from publishing any photos that showed excessive bomb damage. In some instances this would be cropping images to cut out ruined buildings, while other instances were outright blocked from publication. So Morley came up with a clever work-around: play into the themes that the propaganda aimed for while showing bomb damage. Supposedly, Morley or his assistant dressed up in a milk-man uniform, grabbed a crate of bottles and patrolled London until they found fire-fighters actively fighting the damage, before capturing this photo. The theme of "stiff upper lip" and "the unflappable Englishman" were so strong in the photo that it was published regardless of the rubble.

But is it true?

It's a compelling, neat little story that perfectly encompasses the concept of positive propaganda, and that's that is exactly the problem with it. It's a very neat, clean little story which is told almost verbatim all over the internet.

The oldest reference I've been able to find to the idea that the photo is staged is from ancient ancient... September 2015, not even a decade. A publication on the Telegraph website titled "The spirit of the Blitz: picture special". On slide 7 of 25, the website reads this almost exact story from the then-Letter Editor Christopher Howse. This is already strange, since Howse is a specialist in religious news, but this is also the Telegraph and qualifications are often secondary to a good story there. Howse is incredibly difficult to contact, and I've resorted to sending a physical letter to the Telegraph's offices in hopes he will answer. Considering his old-fashioned sensibilities and his current work being the designated old man for articles by Young Conservatives, he may appreciate slightly outdated format. I will keep you updated if he ever answers, I included my email in the letter thankfully.

Now, dear reader, this could in fact be the woozle effect in play, wherein everybody is just citing each other. What makes this especially evident is that all of the websites that discuss this idea are the typical fodder, with names along the lines of "HISTORY SLAM" and the likes. Their citations, if any exist, typically refer to either a Snopes article that references the Telegraph article, or directly refer to the Telegraph article without linking it, because the link is now dead. All of these articles are suspiciously similar in grammar and sentence layout too. Every day, I come closer to agreeing with the Dead Internet Theory.

So why care?

It's such a minor thing, what does it matter if it's wrong? Now, for the vast majority of people, yeah frankly who would give a shit? But stories such as these do feed into what is ultimately an incorrect narrative surrounding the Blitz, especially the concept of Blitz Spirit. Any Brits who were conscious during the first years of COVID-19 may remember the constant references to Blitz Spirit and how we can survive anything because of our British "Keep Calm And Carry On" attitude, before looking out the window at the toilet paper hoarding and realising that Blitz Spirit is a load of bollocks.

Jenny Draper has an excellent video on how Blitz Spirit didn't really exist, and she references the idea that this very photo is fake in her video. I'm looking at contacting her when I can find an email or phone number to go through without being intrusive (seriously who the fuck is putting Youtubers' phone numbers on the internet?), since I wonder where she picked this up too.

The myth of Blitz Spirit does have an important place in British culture, and if you want a good but slightly dated discussion of the Blitz and British culture, I suggest you read The myth of the Blitz by Angus Caldwell. Some of the current affairs and politics of it are a bit stuck in the 90s, but the overall book and discussion is very useful.

Catching untruths regarding such a culturally important event in British culture, one that was playing into government policy in 2020, is an important part of actually learning from history, instead of learning from a historical mythology.

More updates to come once I've been contacted back by experts and/or journalists.

[eye-in-hand]

People on this website really be like "if you're against the USSR you're a fascist >:(" I don't think you know what the USSR was sweaty

Communists are not the opposite of Nazis just because they fought the Nazis. The British and Americans also fought the Nazis and ya'll aren't identifying with them because that doesn't piss your conservative parents off enough lmfao and you never had to face the horrors of what the USSR did to millions of people. Get bent.

It's almost like the soviets, the americans, the nazis and the british all did horrible things in the 40s and I don't have to glorify any of them. Because they've all been disgusting, violent, imperialistic states.

[sushisocks]

what do u think seans experience in reform school was like?? apparently the punishments were….well.

OH ANON!!!!! YES let's talk about this!!!!

So, a majority of the reform school horror stories that at least I've been hearing over the past few years have been largely been about schools that operated in the 20th century and into the 2010s at the latest, like the Dozier school or Elan. Then obviously there's the rest of the troubled teen industry but that's a more modern thing. Anyway, there's not a whole lot to go on for the late 1800's BUT I did manage to find a website which has a model for reformatory rules and regulations in 1890's Britain, which if nothing else, gives us something to go off in terms of what conditions could be like.

To start with, I think the fact that Sean was sent to reform school instead of other options interesting. Reform school was for delinquents; criminal children. Most likely, this means Sean was involved in criminal activity alongside his father - though, alternatively, it could mean whoever had to deal with Sean in the aftermath of Darragh's death, took one look at him and decided reform school was where he had to go.

Of course, Sean would never make life EASY for the officers and teachers of the school he was sent to. Not only is he there against his will, but those people and that place would, in his mind, all belong to the same entity which orchestrated his father's murder. That boy CAME to school with the intent to escape.

I think, with my HC of him having ADHD and dyslexia in mind, paired with his undoubted lack of respect for whatever authority figures that'd be at the reformatory, Sean would be singled out as a troublemaker from the get. It'd be one of those 'living up to expectations' thing from there, Sean making enemies out of the adults who were supposed to care for him and definitely coming up with ways to make their lives harder.

Sidenote; I definitely believe the little laugh Sean has after remembering his time in reform school was him reminiscing about all the pranks and shit he pulled to harass the workers there lmfao.

Of course, that also means he saw a LOT of the punishments they doled out. On the website they linked above, corporal punishment was VERY much on the agenda and I think Sean def saw the worst of it. I think an important aspect here is the understanding that once these things are seen as acceptable punishments, there's nothing stopping the person doling them out to up the severity of them despite regulations. A flogging shouldn't exceed 18 strokes nor a caning 8; but this offender has had several in the past few weeks and still keeps making trouble, lets add a couple extra just to get the message across.

I think the same goes for the punishments regarding isolation and meal deprivation; you can't tell me a young Sean already doesn't know the feeling of skipping meals out of necessity by the time he arrives at reform school - losing ONE meal as the regulations say with the assuredness of the next would do nothing to dampen Sean's spirits, nor a day in isolation.

Idk, Sean was truly desperate for money/food after 3 days, like that was when he tried to kill someone for it. Personally speaking, I go more than 12 hours without eating and I'd probably try to kill someone too. The 3 days speaks to a familiarity with hunger.

And idk, I definitely think Sean is used to being alone!!! It's why he likes being around people so much!! He grew up with only his father to rely on in the whole wide world, who probably HAD to leave Sean alone for prolonged amounts of time to do what he did as a Fenian & criminal. His scene in RDO also speaks to this; he gets lost and is on his own often!! It's not that he prefers it, but he is definitely used to it, and a day in isolation would probably make 0 difference to him fr!!

So, better up the ante to truly get those punishment across.

These are based on the British regulations for the time, mind! I couldn't find anything similar for the US, and I doubt there'd been a federal standard at the time, so I honestly imagine the punishments were more severe from the get, for Sean. Of course reform schools were supposed to be focused on reform over punishment, but when you're dealing with someone as possibly incessant and unyielding in their misbehavior as I imagine Sean was, punishment WOULD seem like the only option, with the knowledge they had at the time. I think he probably got the worse end of a LOT of it, because he wouldn't capitulate to the will of the reformatory very easily.

I don't think Sean stuck around for very long; around a year at most, I'd think. I also don't think he aged out of it, as the age of majority was 21 and it was more common for reform schools to set them up for some sort of legal work after 'graduating'. So yeah, he ran away, and promptly buried a lot of the bad shit he went through, as he is prone to do.

Thank you for this ask, anon!! I had a lot of fun thinking and reading about this, yall are REALLY indulging me here lolol

[kitchen-light]

It has become apparent in the last few years that there is a strong and growing interest in British folklore, myth, rural customs and seasonal rituals. An example of this can be seen the research done by Jon Wilks, editor of Tradfolk, a folk culture website, who made a list of all the Wassailing events taking place in the UK in 20226, and found 61 separate celebrations of our apple trees— 61 ritual events where libations are given to the trees, songs are sung and cider is drunk in the hope of a good harvest. Everywhere we look, there is a resurgence of events such as these, which connect to the cycles of the natural world, and consider our space within them — suggesting that we might be partners in a web of life, rather than rulers at the head of nature. I would be far from the first person to intimate that this resurgence comes, in large part, from the knowledge that we are in a climate crisis– the recognition that our relationship with nature is in a terrible state, and that we need to find ways towards balance, respect and collaboration with the lifeworld of which we are a part. The growth of the Green Man, and his image, is part of this reckoning with the terrible damage capitalism has wrought, a confrontation with the fact that capital’s obsession with controlling and exploiting nature will lead to misery, destruction and horror for human and nonhuman alike.

Rebecca Tamás, from her essay “The Kidnap of the Green Man”, published in Caught by the River, April 13, 2023