Hapfairy's Tumblr

[hapfairy]

Hello Tumblr ✨

I seem to have used such ancient code on my Tumblr that I can’t update my description, and it doesn’t appear on mobile at all. So I thought I would attempt to do a pinned post that vaguely explains who I am.

I’m Sophie, I’m 36 and I’m an author from the UK. I’m a Tumblr dinosaur who used to mainly post about symphonic metal, Terry Pratchett and another author who shall not be named… As well as whatever books and TV shows I was into at the time. I still like all those things – apart from that one guy lol... – but it turns out (to probably no-one's surprise) I have ADHD and I sometimes get new hyperfixations that last anything from a few weeks to a lot of years! After having a bunch of obsessions with TV shows that immediately got cancelled (RIP my beloved Shadow and Bone, Lockwood and Co, Dead Boy Detectives, Our Flag Means Death…) I’ve now got stuck on Dan and Phil, so expect a lot of them for the foreseeable future…

These are my middle grade series which are all of the spooky mystery flavour. Some of you might even remember me posting about these back when I was just an aspiring writer!

PSA FOR THE KIDS: my Tumblr account is an entire adult in itself, so please note that none of this is intended for kids! This is a blog full of fandom nonsense and posts about media for adults, plus bands and art and whatever silly Tumblr things I find funny or interesting - which might be sweary or whatever. If you’re a kid, please go find me at https://sophiecleverly.com/ 🙏

[hapfairy]

I got my Pham box today!!

And tried on the hat, before it was immediately stolen by my child 😆

[wingkink]

btw it's so fucking stupid you can be anxious physically in your body even after you've decided mentally you don't care. I'm supposed to be in charge here

[userlesbian]

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

[depsidase]

[fairycosmos]

airpods are literally such a massive downgrade like remember when headphones cost £2 didn’t need charging didn’t randomly disconnect and didn’t get lost all the time. remember when tech kinda worked for kinda cheap

[fairycosmos]

remember when phones just fucking had headphone jacks

[punksalmons]

every time any highly-regarded artist turns out to be a complete piece of shit a hundred people come out of the woodworks just to say they never liked them/found their work very overrated. omg bestie your sense of aesthetics has suchhhhh a good morality and prediction skills 😍 do you want a little kissy on you forehead.

[slowedmountains]

a new trend

[dannyboyandpdawg]

Phannies: goddd they're so relaxed together at the chelsea flower show what a wonderful era we're in

Dan: my hair looks like SHIT

Phil: I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FLOWERS

[ur-favorite-fishgirl]

if you vote me for president i vow to make everything the ocean again. no more land only ocean. this will solve all of our problems and replace them with new, far more interesting problems

[wynns-wonderful-pixel-paradise]

[bluecontactlens]

"At this time! In this place!" 🪻🥚 Happy Glorious 25th of May to those who celebrate. GNU Terry Pratchett

[aristocrating]

its 2026 i cannot handle any more fucking "author A obviously ripped off author B" discourse by people Who Have Only Seen the work of author B and admit themselves that they have no further knowledge of the literary landscape they are moving in. like.

[insomaniackills]

Folks really need to reacquaint themselves with this concept

[tisorridalamor]

Describing Terry Pratchett’s books is difficult. Someone asked me what the book I was reading was about, and I had to tell them it was about banking and the gold standard, but like in a cool way with golems and action. 

 I don’t think they believed me.

[poorlydescribedpterrybooks]

welcome to the club

[amatalefay]

It is so, so difficult to explain to people that your favorite book is about transgender feminist dwarves, Nazi werewolves, and the mystery of a missing piece of really old ritual bread. And Opera saves the day.

[poorlydescribedpterrybooks]

yes, give us those sweet, sweet, terrible descriptions

[rhys1812]

A tortoise who’s really a god, finds an allegory for Jesus and they go on adventures in an ancient greece like place and then a desert 

[thesummoningdark]

The chief of police averts a rerun of an ancient war, partially despite and partially because of being possessed by a dying dwarf’s graffiti

[nightfoot]

It’s like Les Miserables but Javert is the good guy and also there’s time travel.  

[aethersea]

Macbeth but it’s about the witches

[zephyrantha]

Chapter one, the protagonist is hanged. Then he’s put in charge of the post office. Yes, in that order.

[roachpatrol]

it’s like mulan if there were way more mulans in mulan and also pratchett is extra irritated that too many people missed the point of jingo

[hypotheticalwoman]

The bureaucrats of the universe get annoyed at the paperwork humanity causes so they decide to steal Christmas.  Replacement Christmas is done by Death and replacement Death is done by goth Mary Poppins, who is also in charge of the investigation.

[katedrawscomics]

these are all nice and accurate reasons to read discworld if you haven’t yet

[uovoc]

Romeo and Juliet football AU but the other team is wizards

[animate-mush]

Hollywood????

[garrettauthor]

An entire clan of tattooed, hairy, kleptomaniac, alcoholic Scotsmen decide a little girl is their new best friend whether she wants to be or not and she rescues her absolutely worthless brother by discovering the power of selfishness.

[darkravn]

@cosmictwobyfour

[nudityandnerdery]

Someone is dying, journalism is being invented, and part of Pulp Fiction is going on in the background.

[pimpmizziriam]

The universes burocrats want to measure everything so they pay a man to imprison time so everything will stop and they can measure things in peace. Goth mary Poppins saves the day, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse is the best Milkman in the world, and chocolate saves the day. Also someone was born twice.

[tanoraqui]

Classic dynastic machinations are happening in fantasy China, to be completely overturned by a gang of elderly barbarian heroes and the world’s worst wizard and best sprinter

[bailesu]

Death incarnate battles a shopping cart for the fate of the world.  

[sashathephoenix]

@grifalinas

[grifalinas]

Phantom of the Opera au, except there’s witches, a cookbook that is thinly-veiled pornography, and Christine is played by a fledgeling witch with multiple personalities who can’t stop being sensible long enough to enjoy herself

[letslipthehounds]

Hidden heir to the throne decides an cynical, alcoholic cop is the best role model in the world.

[brawltogethernow]

Atlantis provides an excuse for a xenophobia-inspired war between Britain and the Middle East but it’s fine because the armies are arrested for conspiracy to cause public nuisance.

[numberlover1729]

the jfk assassination is parodied in the above.

Rain is brought to australia by a lousy wizzard who runs from dropbears, steals a sheep, and invents vegamite

[dduane]

(sigh)(smile) All of the above.

[scribefindegil]

You can defeat Vampire Fascism with the powers of violence, your debilitating anxiety disorder, and a nice cup of tea

[boogerwookiesugarcookie]

the pied piper is a racket being run by some talking mice and a cat but they accidentally invent socialism. then of course there are also the rat horrors

[stargazing-bookwyrm]

A trio of witches (two of them uninvited) go on a journey to find out how the third one should be a fairy godmother. They run into and out of half-finished stories and manage to encounter a large amount of classic literature unscathed.

[hapfairy]

The girl with the tiny Scottish friends is back, but now she has to learn how to be a witch so that she can wear a hat that doesn't exist. Also a cheese comes to life

[sashayed]

has anyone figured out how to turn off the thing where you love your pet so much it slides inexorably into grief-borrowing

[boomstab-papa]

[your-cosmic-creature]

“For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”

[pusheen]

[mangled-by-disuse]

some actual dark ages accomplishments you might recognise:

Beowulf (manuscript dated between 975-1025)

the invention of jury trial (in britain, idk about elsewhere)

Insular artworks and illuminated manuscripts like the Lindisfarne Gospels (c. 715-720)

also includes baller metalwork look at this 7th century sutton hoo shoulder clasp pls

Carolingian artworks and illuminated manuscripts like the Aachen Gospels (c. 800s)

La Chanson de Roland (c. 1040)

national coinage for small kingdoms as well as major empires (in europe) (i know this is earlier in asia)

tartan

modern graveyards (in churches, with stone markers)

near-universal literacy (before 1066, as many as 90% of freemen are thought to have been literate in England, including peasants without land) and the promotion of churchmen and administrators from all levels of society

Ecclesiastical History of the English People (c. 731), one of the first post-Classical attempts at evidenced, factual historical writings, covering from 55BC to the 700s, and the stated inspiration for chronicles across Europe all through the medieval period.

the "Celtic cross" and other cool knotwork and animal designs in masonry, generally the result of Viking motifs being applied in areas with better masonry skills

wide distribution of law books

church parishes

The Book of Kells (c. 800)

horseshoes

the Hagia Sophia (now a mosque, but built as a church by Greek architects in 537)

central heating (really!) (also fun fact: we had central heating in europe before we had chimneys)

foot-pedal looms

grenades (sort of) (they were Greek fire rather than gunpowder explosives but you still throw a small pot at the enemy and it go boom)

Táin Bó Cúailnge and the rest of the Ulster Cycle

English translations of the Bible from the 890s

The Exeter Book (c. 975) which has some absolutely baller riddles in it btw

Ibn Sina's writings on medicine (1020s) - I've tried to stick to a European milieu here (since "Dark Ages" is a European term) and Ibn Sina was Persian. but under the name "Avicenna" and alongside fellow Persian al-Razi/"Rhazes" (c. 864-935) he basically reshaped European medical practices up to the 17th century, so, like. he deserves his flowers.

but also

SOME THINGS THAT ARE NOT FROM THE DARK AGES (a very incomplete list):

castles

knights

plate armour

common law, parliament, or magna carta

trial by combat

chaucer

pikes and other polearms (besides spears) (in fact pikes are generally considered to be a sign of the shift from medieval society into early modern)

the poetic edda and prose edda from which we get most of our understanding of "viking mythology" (although they're drawing on earlier sources)

the crusades

cathedrals (mostly)

stone houses

feudalism

modern cities

guilds

the black death

these are all medieval, but became major parts of european society after the 10th-11th century, which is generally the cutoff for "early medieval" or "Dark Ages".

(it's usually the 10th century. England is late to the party, less because of cultural backwardness and more because the Norman Conquest in 1066 provides such a neat dividing line that historians for almost a millennium have been unable to resist making it The Change Of Eras)