Here's UBlock Origin's Official Guide To Bypassing Youtube's Anti-adblock Popups, Updated Weekly. Please

you're laughing. charles dickens had a son named plorn and you're laughing

5 simple exercises to awaken dormant muscles

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libby app guide

aka how to support libraries and get books and audiobooks for free without pirating them.

disclaimer: this is so easy. it is also really fun.

one: download the libby app. you'll open it and it'll ask you to add a library.

two: get a library card. don't have one? good news, it's really easy and i am saying this as the laziest person on earth. it varies what you need to have to get a card library to library but almost all libraries will let you get one online. i have a card for my home town and for the town i moved to. sometimes you only need an email address, sometimes you need an area code. to get mine it took me about 5 minutes of lying on the couch aimlessly tapping on my phone. follow your heart. you can get cards for places you don't currently live. i will leave the ethics of that up to you but it's probably better than pirating and either way you're creating traffic for libraries which is what they need to exist.

three: add your card. you can add multiple cards for multiple libraries. you need the number. i have never had libby fail to recognize a valid account.

four: search for your book! some will be ready to borrow right away. others have an estimated delivery time. libby will always pick the one that's the fastest from the options available at all the libraries you have cards at. you can borrow audiobooks and ebooks. libby will send you a notification when you're book is ready to borrow. in my experience it's a lot faster than the estimate. if you aren't ready to read it, you can ask to be skipped over in line so you keep your place at the front but let someone else read it first.

five: read it!!! kindle is the most common way to do this. you can go to your loan and click read with kindle. it'll download it to all your devices where you have kindle. as long as you have the loan, it'll act like your book. when the loan ends, if the device is connected to the internet, it'll automatically be returned. it will save all your notes and highlights. (if you disconnect your device from the internet, it won't return the book. weewoo.)

anyway in case anyone else has been wondering about it, i really love it. is a nice surprise to see what i'm going to get and it's cut my reading costs down big time! it's also neat because i get to synch my books between devices unlike downloading books through cough cough other means. good luck!

what addons do you use for firefox? i've just downloaded it to switch from chrome (derogatory)

firefox (affectionate)

UBlock Origin obviously. out-the-box works just fine but has a bunch of extra privacy/tracking/spam filters you can enable

Decentraleyes protects you against tracking through “free” curated content delivery and works alongside UBlock (or any of the other common adblocking addons)

I Don’t Care About Cookies good for EU users where GDPR made it so every site ever in the universe asks you to accept cookies and privacy terms seventeen times a day. will just auto-accept for you. never see an annoying popup again! but only use in conjunction with…

Cookie Auto Delete does what it says on the tin. will automatically flush cookies, cache, and data when you close a tab. those cookies you just auto accepted? they’re gone now. whitelist any sites you wanna stay logged in on and let the rest fucking perish

Don’t Track Me Google removes that annoying link conversion when you copy google results. you know when it changes from “site.com” to “encrypted.google.com/randomnonsensefor200charactersblahblahblah”? yeah. this stops that happening. fuck off, google.

Don’t Accept image/webp blocks sites from using the most useless file extension known to mankind so you can save as .jpg or .gif as god intended. fuck webp. seriously. what even is that.

Bypass Paywalls Clean exactly what you think it is

HTTPS Everywhere automatically adds ecrypted security to any site that supports https (you can do this manually by adding the s yourself to any url but… who can be fuckin bothere amirite? this does it for you)

New XKit …duh

Google Search Filter allows you to remove domains from your searches forever. pinterest? gone. weheartit? nuked. also works on duckduckgo. never type “-pinterest” into a search again.

Simple Tab Groups allows you to group tabs together and shove them out of sight, which is nice if you’re researching something and don’t want 50 bajillion jstor tabs clogging up your normal browsing session

hello google chrome refugees

don't use any of these browsers, they're also chrome

Here are my favorite firefox plugins for security/anti-tracking/anti-ad that I recommend you get

please get off chrome google is currently being investigated for being an Illegal Monopoly so get outta there okay love you bye

Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?

Well, have I got the html for you!

Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!

Second kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/tHMjbb6/second-kudos.png" alt="second kudos">

Third kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/52bggQH/third-kudos.png" alt="third kudos">

nth kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6y7qGtC/nth-kudos.png" alt="nth kudos">

yet another kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/wKtcj0s/yet-another-kudos.png" alt="yet another kudos">

It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):

Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know ✌️)

friendly reminder that findtags is the best way to search tumblr’s absolutely destroyed tag system. it actually accurately looks through the tags without omitting results. it’s the only thing i use at this point because it’s the only thing that works

So, You Wanna Study Irish Mythology?

One of the questions I get hit with a lot is “If I’m getting into Irish Mythology, what sources do you recommend?” It’s a sad, sad truth about the field that a lot of really valuable info is kept locked away in books and journals that the lay person wouldn’t know about (and then we wonder why information about the field is so bad.) So, I decided to compile a list of sources that I’ve personally used and found helpful in my time. It’s not a complete bibliography because, frankly, that would take up a TREMENDOUS amount of space and you’d be scrolling forever to find what you wanted, and I don’t AGREE with every single thing they say, and it’s by no means exhaustive (keep in mind: scholars from all over the field use mythological texts to study things as diverse as law, geography, tribal names, material culture, etc. and here I’m mainly focusing on sources that are JUST mythological-focused) but they’re a good starting point to forming your own opinions. The journal articles are, tragically, generally kept confined to academia, but….perhaps….if you were to ask around, someone might be able to provide you with a copy. As a whole, Celticists tend to be quite generous when it comes to sharing articles. 

List subject to change, check back as time goes on to see if I’ve added anything. Also, as always, feel free to either drop me an ask or a pm if you’re curious about digging further into a given text/figure. I can’t act as a consultant on a religious question; I’m a very firm atheist with all the spirituality of a dull spoon, except with the existence of ghosts. My interest in the Tuatha Dé is purely scholarly; all that I can say is what I know about these topics from the perspective of the medieval sources, but I can definitely do my best on that one front, and I won’t reject anyone who has a different interest in the Tuatha Dé from contacting me. 

This list only deals with the Mythological Cycle, not the other strands of the literary tradition that is generally if not uncontroversially referred to as “Irish Mythology”. For Fenian Cycle traditions, a similar bibliography has been compiled by Dr. Natasha Sumner of Harvard, here. 

Editions/Translations of Texts (many of these are available at UCC’s CELT archive or on Irish Sagas Online): 

Tochmarc Étaíne, Osborn Bergin and Richard Best 

Cath Maige Tuired, Elizabeth Gray (If you can and you’re serious about the field, I highly recommend getting the actual Irish Text Society Edition, which includes a wonderful index of every time a given figure shows up in other sources. An absolute must for a mythographer.) 

Lebor Gabála Érenn, J.R.S Macalister, 5 vols. (The entirety of this is available on archive.org. Personally…while the rest of it is obviously important and worthy of study, if you’re interested in just the mythological stuff, I recommend Volume IV, which includes both the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha Dé. Unless you really, really want to read five volumes of medieval Irish pseudohistory, the last volume of which was finished posthumously.) i ii iii iv v

The Metrical Dinshenchas, Edward Gwynn. (5 vols.) (These are difficult, with many scholars outright ignoring them except when absolutely necessary. These are in a later form of Irish, which means that, while some of the contents in them could very well be Pre-Christian in nature, they very much do reflect a later medieval world. Some of them are just as much about contemporary politics as they are about mythology, and many of them also bring in content from the Ulster Cycle and the Fenian Cycle. My personal favorites to look up are Tailtiu, Carn Hui Néit, Duirgen, and Carmun, though there are MANY others.) i ii iii iv v

“The First Battle of Moytura”, John Fraser (Note: It’s a VERY late text, with the question of the Fir Bolg/Tuatha Dé battle and how far the tradition really goes back being one that’s very important to keep in mind. It’s a personal favorite of mine. But it’s very late.)

Baile in Scáil, Kevin Murray (Thurneyson also did an older edition that’s more readily accessible, hence why I linked it here, but Murray is the most recent and up to date.) 

“How the Dagda got his magic staff”, Osborn Bergin 

Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann, Richard Duffy (This is an Early Modern Irish text, so it was written down comparatively late. That doesn’t mean that there’s NO mythological content here, it’s a personal favorite of mine, but it means that it very much reflects the cultural context of around….the 15th-17th century or thereabouts. It’s very chaotic, very violent, and the heroic figures are….not….heroic.) 

Scél Tuáin Meic Chairill, John Carey

Echtra Nerai, it’s available in a fairly recent translation by John Carey in Celtic Heroic Age (pub. 2003) , listed below, though Kuno Meyer also did an edition/translation for it that I’ve linked to here. 

Books: 

Proinsias Mac Cana, Celtic Mythology (Personally, I’d recommend this one first - It’s designed for someone who isn’t a specialist and, while a lot of what he’s saying has been disputed back and forth, it’s still a handy primer and will get you into the myths.)

John Koch and John Carey, The Celtic Heroic Age (Once you have an idea of what you’re looking at, I recommend this one, since it’s a sourcebook. A TON of material from across the Celtic world, featuring classical sources, medieval Irish sources, and Welsh, all of it in one place.) 

Mark Williams, Ireland’s Immortals (I personally recommend you read this one after you read CHA, giving you a bit of context for what Williams is saying here.)

O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology (note: A lot of what he says here is no longer considered recent in the field, but his knowledge of his own sources is, frankly, without any other peer. Use with a grain of salt)

John Carey, The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature

Kim McCone, Pagan Past, Christian Present

Koch, Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia

Articles: 

John Carey, “Myth and Mythography in ‘Cath Magh Tuired’”

John Carey, “Donn, Amairgen, Ith and the Prehistory of Irish Pseudohistory”

Proinsias Mac Cana, “Aspects of the theme of King and Goddess in Irish Literature” 

Máire Herbert, “Goddess and king: the sacred marriage in early Ireland.”

Gregory Toner, “Macha and the invention of myth” 

Elizabeth A. Gray, “Cath Maige Tuired: myth and structure“

Thomas Charles-Edwards, “Tochmarc Étaíne: a literal interpretation”

Tómas O’Cathasaigh, “Cath Maige Tuired as Exemplary Myth” 

Joseph Nagy, “Close encounters of the traditional kind in medieval Irish literature” 

Mark Scowcroft, “Leabhar Gabhála. Part I: the growth of the text” 

Mark Scowcroft, “Leabhar Gabhála. Part II: the growth of the tradition”  

Joseph Nagy, “‘Talking myth’ in medieval Irish literature.”

John Carey, “The Location of the Otherworld in Irish Tradition” 

Máire Bhreathnach, “The sovereignty goddess as goddess of death?“

John Carey, “Notes on the Irish war-goddess.” 

Veronica Philipps, “Exile and authority in Lebor gabála Érenn” 

Kevin Murray, “Sources of Irish mythology. The significance of the dinnṡenchas” 

when hozier said “the likes of a darkness so deep that god at the start couldn’t bear” and when hozier said “i don’t need to know where we begin and end. i’d still know you not being shown you i only need the working of my hands” and when hozier said “i think i owe my life to flowers left here by my mother. ain’t that like them, gifting life to you again” and when hozier said “infinitely suffering, but fighting off like all creation. the absence of itself, anyway” and when hozier said “when i was young i used to guess are there limits to any emptiness?” and when hozier said “heaven is not fit to house a love like you and i” and when hozier said “let me wrap my teeth around the world” and when hozier said “throw enough rope until the legs have swung” and when hozier said “so much of our lives is just carving through the dark to get so far and the hardest part is who we are” and when hozier said “uiscefhuariaithe, the feel of coolness only water brings” and when hozier said “you may never know your fortune until the distance has been shown between what is lost forever and what can still be known” and when hozier said “a butchered tongue still singing here above the ground” and when hozier said “in a shot i’d swap my body for a body of water” and hozier said “trapped within an abstract from a moment of my life” and when hozier said “do you know i could break beneath the weight? of the goodness, love, i still carry for you” and when

If there was a way to run SUPER MEGA AD BLOCKER on this website I fucking would