Underneath the Moonlight

You are transported back in time and into the body of a young noblewoman in the 1400s. Your parents have married you off to an awful, abusive, rapist husband whom literally no one else would marry despite him being very high nobility because he's that terrible. You successfully produce a baby boy and then plan to murder this man for the good of everyone and yourself. Here is the question: do you think you could murder him in a way that is undetectable to the historical people around you? Note: they aren't stupid, you are the prime suspect as the battered wife AND you can't just say poison. Where are you going to buy poison? Do you know anything about poison actually? NO GOOGLING! You were sent back without a plan!

Edit: my notes are full of murder. I love you all

Edit: to clarify about the poison, you can use poison if you actually know how to identify it, I'm saying you can't just go "Poison!" with no knowledge about poison. Buying it probably means they know that poison and you're caught. Your personal knowledge when you read this post is all you have.

Another point of clarity: You went through all that trouble to have a baby without modern medicine so you could get the sweet house after your husband died. That's why you can't be caught. No disappearing.

Edit again: Air embolisms are going on a high shelf because the syringe won't be invented for 350 years. Prove to me that you could make one from scratch, lol

Most historical accounts of ‘poisonings’ go along the lines of “got sick, died three days later, poison.” Which, if you’re trying to figure out which poisons might have been used, not helpful.

The accusation of poisoning was mostly used as a smear campaign, frequently to disgrace women, particularly those in positions of power. (Ie: Elizabeth Bathory, Lucrezia Borgia, Catherine de' Medici, heck even Cleopatra)

As far as which poison, that’s going to vary by location. Not every poisonous plant grows everywhere, plants that grow in the warmer Mediterranean climates aren’t going to be able to handle Scotland. And some like Curare wouldn’t available yet, although a form of Strychnine might be able to be imported. And if she can correctly identify a plant, dosage is going to very wildly on each plant and their growing conditions. She’d need to be lucky to get a high enough dosage to kill and not just make ill.

… Although during that time period, diarrhoea could be fatal, although more for children than adults.

Honestly, my bet would be to skip the plants entirely and go for the tried and true minerals: Arsenic. Was used for murder at the time, the death looks like cholera (diarrhoea!). And it builds up in the system, slow dosing could work, it’s tasteless and odourless. Could be requested for make up.

If you really want to embarrass him, get some imported Spanish fly, a.k.a. blister beetle. Yes, getting a stiffy is a side-effect, but it’s killing the person the whole time. Even better if he can be found dead in somebody else’s bed. And can claim he did it to himself.

MY ADVENTURES WITH SUPERMAN — "Into the New World" (3.01)

This movie messed me up

6 moons later and I’ve finished the selkie wip I started up in orkney

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

We were children looking up to our Shepherd. We believed our little world was perfect and nothing bad could happen to us. Then something rocks our world and we must take the bad, difficult things and learn to cope. We had the realization that not everyone has the best intentions for us. We learned that grief can be a powerful tool, that pain doesn’t need to stop us from doing what is right. We learned we couldn’t do everything on our own, and that everyone has value if you let them play to their strengths. That first impressions and bias can lead us down the wrong path. That religion is full of contradictions but faith rooted in love, justice and acceptance can offer peace.

And then all the other Sesame Street character accounts joined in:

And now I’m thinking maybe we’re gonna be okay… 💗

"So, boss... I may have messed up."

"What did you do, Ray?"

"Well, I made a post for Elmo saying 'Hi, how's everybody doing?'"

"I mean, that's kind of what we pay you for."

"Yeah, but.... <sigh> it turns out pretty much everyone is hanging on by a thread, badly enough that they needed to tell Elmo."

"Oh."

"God help me, boss, I think Elmo needs to be there for them."

SIMPLE SYRUP SIMPLE SYRUP SIMPLE SYRUP

I got some REALLY AWESOME local strawberries from my feed mill, but I absolutely could not eat the quantity of strawberries I got before they would have gone bad and the birds are not huge fans of strawberries. So instead of wasting the last 8 or so, I jam-packed this little container with strawberries, added an equal weight of white sugar, and stuck it in the fridge for about a day and a half.

The sugar leaches the juice/water content from the strawberries and creates a saturated, thin syrup (lower sugar = thinner, more watery, higher sugar = thicker, more like maple syrup). As you can see, the container is not jam-packed with strawberries, they have considerably shrunk in size, as all their delicious, delicious juices are now trapped in a fucking fantastic fresh simple syrup.