An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Years later, and I can still picture the opening of Oath Breaker perfectly. I will never forget Draco's daring escape from the manor. This story holds a special place in my heart for both its characterizations and worldbuilding. It explores magic and magical history in a way that is more intrinsically tied to the legends and linguistics of Britain in the tradition of great fantasy. I think it is one of those gems that proves how special HP fandom was and can be, because of the creativity of its fan authors.
So thank you, @kc-anathema for penning this. And now, I must finally correct the oversight of having failed to read the rest of your work.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 26/?
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini, Hermione Granger
Additional Tags: Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Magic, Creature Draco Malfoy, Slow Burn Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Work in Progress, magic research, Dark Academia, Slow Burn, I can't say slow burn enough
Summary:
Infected with vampirism at Voldemort’s command, Draco must maneuver in the shadow of powerful enemies, contracting with forgotten gods, in the hope of surviving the war between the Death Eaters and the Wizarding World, ultimately drawn quite by surprise into the arms of the Boy Who Lived.
The (two year old) child just spent ten minutes solid giggling at the gif of the cat jumping. She managed to get out the word "tail!" from time to time 😂
On July 20, 1969, 109 hours and 42 minutes after launch, Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin entered the lunar lander ‘Eagle’, made a final check, and the Eagle undocked from the lunar orbiter ‘Columbia’, where the third member of the crew Michael Collins, stayed in orbit around the moon.
Partially manually piloted by Armstrong, the Eagle landed 0 degrees, 41 minutes, 15 seconds north moon latitude and 23 degrees, 26 minutes east moon longitude. Armstrong stepped out, and Aldrin followed 20 minutes later: human beings stepped on the moon for the first time. The two men spent 21 hours and 26 minutes on its surface.
One of the astounding aspects of the mission was the seeming simplicity of the technology used to get man to the moon. According to Oliver Gassmann, professor of Technology Management, the mobile phone in your pocket has one million times more memory than the Apollo 11’s computer. Same about the procesor: the latest phones typically have more than 100,000 times the processing power of the computer that landed man on the moon 50 years ago.
“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” –Neil Armstrong
(gifs from the documentary Chasing The Moon, 2019)
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.
PITCH: We call it Moon Day, and then every 7 years when it falls on a Monday, that's an even BIGGER deal and we call that Moon Day Monday and go absolutely apeshit about it (the next Moon Day Monday is in 2026 so we have a couple trial runs first)
I'd like to share an amazing fact about this day I only discovered recently
Before stepping onto the moon for the first time 56 years ago - Buzz Aldrin took holy communion.
"I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements."
He then read John 15:5 which says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."
"I could think of no better way acknowledge this enormous achievement, than by giving thanks to God"
I think there's something really beautiful about this moment. I can't quite put my finger on it. He was about to step out onto the moon, for the first time ever. But more important to him in that moment was the awe-inspiring sacrifice of Jesus.
He stood at the pinnacle of man's achievement, and acknowledged his dependence on Christ.
God give us the grace to acknowledge you in the midst of our most outstanding achievements
You could also technically say that "slavery was a paternalistic relationship between social classes" about the Roman Empire...but I think fewer "progressives" would admit that than talk about the Golden Age of Islam and how great it was because Romans white.
The Number of People Enslaved The number of people enslaved by Muslims has been a hotly debated topic, especially when the millions of Afric
The Number of People Enslaved
The number of people enslaved by Muslims has been a hotly debated topic, especially when the millions of Africans forced from their homelands are considered.
Some historians estimate that between A.D. 650 and 1900, 10 million to 20 million people were enslaved by Arab slave traders. Others believe over 20 million enslaved Africans alone had been delivered through the trans-Saharan route alone to the Islamic world. Dr. John Alembellah Azumah estimates in his 2001 book “The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa” that over 80 million more Black people died over that route.
Arab Enslavers Practiced Genetic Warfare
The Arab slave trade typically dealt in the sale of castrated male slaves. Black boys between the age of 8 and 12 had their scrotums and penises completely amputated to prevent them from reproducing. About six of every 10 boys bled to death during the procedure, according to some sources, but the high price brought by eunuchs on the market made the practice profitable.
Some men were castrated to be eunuchs in domestic service, and the practice of neutering male slaves was not limited to only Black males. “The calipha in Baghdad at the beginning of the 10th Century had 7,000 black eunuchs and 4,000 white eunuchs in his palace,” writes author Ronald Segal in his 2002 book “Islam’s Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora.”
Arab Slave Trade Inspired Arab Racism Toward Blacks
Its important to note that Arab is not a racial classification; an Arab is almost like an American in that people classified as Arab today could be Caucasian (white people), Asiatic or even Arabized Africans. In the beginning there was some level of mutual respect between the Blacks and the more lighter-skinned Arabs. However, as Islam and the demand for enslaved Blacks grew, so did racism toward Africans.
As casual association with Black skin and slave began to be established, racist attitudes towards Blacks began to manifest in Arabic language and literature. The word for slave —abid — became a colloquialism for African. Other words, such as haratin, express social inferiority of Africans.
Arab Enslavers Targeted Women For Rape
The eastern Arab slave trade dealt primarily with African women, maintaining a ratio of two women for each man. These women and young girls were used by Arabs and other Asians as concubines and menials.
A Muslim slaveholder was entitled by law to the sexual enjoyment of his slave women. Filling the harems of wealthy Arabs, African women bore them a host of children.
This abuse of African women would continue for nearly 1,200 years.
Arab Slave Trade Ushered in The European Slave Trade
The Arab slave trade in the 19th century was economically tied to the European trade of Africans. New opportunities of exploitation were provided by the transatlantic slave trade and this sent Arab slavers into overdrive.
The Portuguese (on the Swahili coast) profited directly and were responsible for a boom in the Arab trade. Meanwhile on the West African coast, the Portuguese found Muslim merchants entrenched along the African coast as far as the Bight of Benin. These European enslavers found they could make considerable amounts of gold transporting enslaved Africans from one trading post to another, along the Atlantic coast.
The Arab Slave Trade Sparked One of The Largest Slave Rebellions in History
The Zanj Rebellion took place near the city of Basra, located in present-day southern Iraq, over a period of fifteen years (A.D. 869–883). The insurrection is believed to have involved enslaved Africans (Zanj) who had originally been captured from the African Great Lakes region and areas further south in East Africa.
Basran landowners had brought several thousand East African Zanj people into southern Iraq to drain the salt marshes in the east. The landowners forced the Zanj, who generally spoke no Arabic, into heavy slave labor and provided them with only minimal subsistence. The harsh treatment sparked an uprising that grew to involve over 500,000 enslaved and free men who were imported from across the Muslim empire.
Arab Enslavers Avoided Teaching Islam to Blacks to Justify Enslaving Them
According to some historians, Islam prohibited freeborn Muslims from being enslaved, so it was not in the interest for Arab slavers to convert enslaved Africans to the religion. Since converting enslaved Africans to Islam would grant them more rights and reduce the potential reservoir of people to enslave, propagators of Islam often revealed a cautious attitude toward proselytizing Africans.
Still, if an African converted to Islam he was not guaranteed freedom nor did it confer freedom to their children. Only children of slaves or non-Muslim prisoners of war could become slaves, never a freeborn Muslim.
The Time Period
The Arab slave trade was the longest yet least discussed of the two major slave trades. It began in seventh century as Arabs and other Asians poured into northern and eastern Africa under the banner of Islam. The Arab trade of Blacks in Southeast Africa predates the European transatlantic slave trade by 700 years. Some scholars say the Arab slave trade continued in one form or another up until the 1960s, however, slavery in Mauritania was criminalized as recently as August 2007.
The Arab Slave Trade Allowed More Upward Mobility Than the European Slave Trade
Upward mobility within the ranks of Arab slaves was not rare. Tariq ibn Ziyad — who conquered Spain and whom Gibraltar was named after — was a slave of the emir of Ifriqiya, Musa bin Nusayr, who gave him his freedom and appointed him a general in his army.
Son of an enslaved Ethiopian mother, Antarah ibn Shaddād, also known as Antar, was an Afro-Arabic man who was originally born into slavery. He eventually became a well-known poet and warrior. Extremely courageous in battle, historians have dubbed him the “father of knighthood … [and] chivalry” and “the king of heroes.”
This kind of upward mobility did not occur in the European slavery system.
Arab Slave Trade Not Limited To Africa or Skin Color
One of the biggest differences between the Arab slave trade and European slaving was that the Arabs drew slaves from all racial groups. During the eighth and ninth centuries of the Fatimid Caliphate, most of the slaves were Europeans (called Saqaliba), captured along European coasts and during wars.
Aside from those of African origins, people from a wide variety of regions were forced into Arab slavery, including Mediterranean people; Persians; people from the Caucasus mountain regions (such as Georgia, Armenia and Circassia) and parts of Central Asia and Scandinavia; English, Dutch and Irish; and Berbers from North Africa.
A bit of late news, it's come to my attention that Bit Bot Media, those paragons of quality and delivering promises, have been astroturfing reviews of Ascendance on Metacritic. The source comes from The Elder Fraud on Discord as well as these Reddit posts: 1 and 2
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance released on March 31st 2026 and despite having numerous reported bugs and other QoL issues, no patches have been released. Backers who supported the Dead Shall Rise, the comic Ascendance is based off of, also created by Bit Bot, have yet to receive their Kickstarter rewards as of the time of this post. Yet Bit Bot is wasting time inflating reviews for a game no one -- not even them -- cares about. Why?
Probably because they're trying to court the Thief fandom to fund a new licensed comic project through BackerKit, which the Legacy of Kain fandom has been vocally sounding the alarm about. If you're not aware of Bit Bot's history, feel free to search the #bitbot tag on this blog as I've been documenting them for a while.
So I just simultaneously did, and possibly didn't lose my job today :)
Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.
So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.
But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.
It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?
So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:
Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.
And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.
So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".
So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.
I don't know what else to say aside from I've been laughing all day and I'm gonna have a hell of a time explaining Schrodinger's Unemployment to the benefits office.
Update that is not an update because I'm basically certain this isn't what actually happened:
My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.
Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.
Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.
Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).
Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues
(also shout out to the person who proposed Carmen Sandiego)
According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.
Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.
For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.
So now I'm officially out of a job. Because my workplace was literally stolen in the night.
Actually fuck it let's share some photos cause I wouldn't be inclined to believe this myself. It's not like anyone can stalk me at my job now and I'm not gonna have to see any coworkers that might find my tumblr.
Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life
Aaand a close-up:
The last remains of a once Very Much Solid And Immobile Workplace
You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading “the land of the free” in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more.
JAMES STEWART in MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)
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