Abby
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arobertswrites.com
Abby
@arobertswrites.com
6.8K followers 700 following 40K posts
SFF writer and essayist you’ve never heard of. SocDem/progressive. Tolkien nerd. Armchair medievalist. She/her. Header by beloved.moe.

Website: arobertswrites.com
Newsletter: buttondown.email/arobertswrites
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arobertswrites.com
The monks named their bees.
Six beehives, four of them named Ophelia, Abigail, Cordelia, and Rita.
January 12, 2026 at 1:24 AM
arobertswrites.com
My boy? My terrible son Ciarán?
'Brother Ciarán! The Lord does not reward idleness!' the senior monk reprimanded the new scribe, who had been staring dreamily into space. 'Sorry, Brother Eoghan, said Ciarán humbly. From The Medieval Scriptorium by Sara J. Charles.
January 11, 2026 at 9:00 PM
arobertswrites.com
A Type of Guy who also thrives on the internet.
Jerome, even by his own account, was difficult and hot-headed, and quick to press his opinions on others (particularly women). From The Medieval Scriptorium by Sara J. Charles.
January 11, 2026 at 8:33 PM
arobertswrites.com
*screams*
For a while—maybe since 1883, when the Pendleton Act created a merit-based civil service of experts—we, as a nation, thought to ourselves: Life is too short for everyone to inspect their own food. Let the government handle this. But then along came the Trump administration to wonder: What if we didn't?
January 11, 2026 at 1:25 PM
arobertswrites.com
I do not have 10 posts in me today because I’m tired but this is Ciarán he’s a terrible medieval Irish monk, who for some reason I’ve drawn as an Onion headline.
Pencil drawing of a dark haired white man wearing a cowl and monastic tonsure, in front of a Celtic cross, graveyard, church, and big gnarly tree. Text at top says “Homo in ordine philosophiae valde slower debet.”
January 11, 2026 at 12:29 AM
arobertswrites.com
The relevant part of the statement by Becca Good:
Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow. Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.
January 9, 2026 at 7:53 PM
arobertswrites.com
I’m sorry this can’t be me.
Medieval manuscript illustration of a bishop blessing an anchoress. The anchoress is in a comically small chapel, with only her head visible peaking out the window. From Corpus Christi College MS 079, folio 96r.
January 8, 2026 at 7:43 PM
arobertswrites.com
I’m sure the cells with pre-dug graves were all the rage.
A ceremony called the Enclosure officially declared the new anchoress dead to the world. It was then she was locked in—either by bricks or a sealed door. Some cells came with a grave already dug in the center of the floor. Others were instructed by their bishop to dig the dirt with their nails each day, scratching away at the floor that would one day bear their corpse. Talk about memento mori.
January 8, 2026 at 7:36 PM
arobertswrites.com
Sign me up tbh.
So here's the pitch: you're going to entomb yourself in a small cell for the rest of your life and contemplate God. You'll never touch another human, feel the sun on your skin, or shit anywhere but a bucket. One small caveat, you may keep a cat. Got it? Good. Let's go.
January 8, 2026 at 7:33 PM
arobertswrites.com
Annoying that parody headlines are just regular headlines now.
Fake headline by the parody site Clickhole: Total Context Collapse: New Polls Show That 100% Of Americans Have Forgotten Why We Built A Society In The First Place And Why We Need To Keep Doing It. Photo show a crowd of random people.
January 8, 2026 at 1:57 AM
arobertswrites.com
Someone (please do not respond, let them fade into obscurity) quote reposted my thread about Tolkien with a lecture on the orcs being ontologically evil, which is racist, like I was born yesterday and this is my first day on the internet.
Hayao Miyazaki smoking and looking tired.
January 6, 2026 at 9:25 PM
arobertswrites.com
By now everyone should have noticed that whenever the right wing adopts some cultural phenomenon, it’s usually like this.
Garfield the cat next to a sign that shows his ow face with a “Do not enter” sign over it. The caption says “Huh. I wonder who that’s for.”
January 6, 2026 at 1:51 PM
arobertswrites.com
At the reformist Céli Dé monastery of Tamlachta, it was considered good for monks to talk to and hang out with nuns, and if they had any lustful thoughts, they just had to deal with it.
Devout young nuns he thinks it right to go and converse with and to confirm their faith, but without looking upon their faces, and taking an elder in your company: and it is right to converse with them standing on the slab by the cross in front of the hostel, or in the retreat where they live. And the elder who goes with you, and the senior nun who lives in the company of the young nuns, should be present and not far from you, where they are. When ill desires or ill thoughts overtake you, through seeing women or in converse with them, it is not to be indulged by you even as an idle thought, then he considers that such desire is not great matter; it is meritorious, however, if a man gets clear of it. From Women in a Celtic Church by Christina Harrington.
January 6, 2026 at 2:03 AM
arobertswrites.com
One example of the complicated status of monastic women in early Ireland is that menstruating nuns were considered ritually unclean, yet they were excused from strenuous activities and their monastic brothers were expected to care for them.
During their monthly illness which is upon virgins of the church, they are free from their vigils while it is on them morning and evening; and let gruel be made for them at tierce. Whatever time it happens, that illness is to be attended to. They shall not go to the hand [i.e. receive communion] then, because they are unclean during that time. From Women in a Celtic Church by Christina Harrington.
January 6, 2026 at 1:41 AM
arobertswrites.com
Say what you will about Instagram but at least I’m not the only one making unhinged (complimentary) saint-themed art over there.
Drawing by Coinswallow of Saint Nicholas saying “You have to get out of there” to a woman in a pickle jar, who says “No. Put the lid back on.” The caption says “In 2026 I'm staying in the pickling barrel & neither you nor the honorable St Nicholas can extract me. I am marinating in delicious brine. I will tell you when I'm done.” This alludes to the story Saint Nicholas resurrecting a child who was killed and put in a pickling jar.
January 5, 2026 at 11:35 PM
arobertswrites.com
TIL that medieval scribes’ tummies hort.
Then, hour after hour bent over a desk, you would meticulously form words, with hands, back and eyes aching and intestines constantly cramped. It's no wonder that some scribes could not keep their misery from spilling onto the page, complaining bitterly of their lot in added notes in the margins. From The Monastic Scriptorium by Sara J. Charles.
January 5, 2026 at 10:56 PM
arobertswrites.com
Reductress parody headline: Woman Decides to Unwind by Reading a Thousand People’s Thoughts on the 68 Most Horrible Things That Happened Today. Photo shows a woman lying in bed, looking at her phone in the dark.
January 5, 2026 at 10:49 PM
arobertswrites.com
Yeaaaaaaah
The cover of The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages by Sara J. Charles.
January 5, 2026 at 10:42 PM
arobertswrites.com
2026 planner with a black and brown tortoiseshell pattern on the cover.
January 4, 2026 at 11:15 PM
arobertswrites.com
Like that is clearly CARDBOARD.
Aragorn LotR reading a book. He would look great except the hardback cover of the book is clearly made of FRICKIN CARDBOARD!
January 4, 2026 at 8:49 PM
arobertswrites.com
The Flat Child refuses to move so I can turn down the covers.
A grey and black dog lies on a purple blanket and white comforter on top of a bed.
January 3, 2026 at 3:33 AM
arobertswrites.com
Apparently it’s passable Dutch.
Dutch “die spambot” translates to English “that spam bot.”
January 2, 2026 at 11:26 PM
arobertswrites.com
Dubliter: let your monks drink booze

Máel Ruain: no

Dubliter: well I let *my* monks drink booze, and they’ll get to heaven just as well as your monks.
Dublitir came to Mael Ruain urging him to give the brethren leave to drink ale on the three chief festivals in the year (he does not name the chief festivals). Mael Ruain replied: 'So long,' said he, 'as they are under my control and keep my commands, they shall drink no drop that causes them to forget God in this place.' ‘My monks drink ale, ' said Dublithain (or Dublitir: it is written thus: Dublit-) 'and they shall be in the Kingdom of God along with thine.’ From the Teachings of Máel Ruain.
January 2, 2026 at 11:21 PM
arobertswrites.com
Apparently hearing the news caused disturbance in the mind even in the late 8th/early 9th century.
He bade them not to ask the people who came to visit them for news, or to talk to them, but only to transact the business that they came about: because great is the harm that is done and the disturbance that is caused by such news to the mind of him to whom it is told. From the Teaching of Máel Ruain.
January 2, 2026 at 11:05 PM
arobertswrites.com
This aside in the Teachings of Máel Ruain seems to hint some Irish monastics experimented with veganism?
Buaidrén (flummery) was not forbidden, because it is made of bread, nor dry eggs: for he paid no heed to the maxims of some who forbid them as being the makings of birds or of flesh.
January 2, 2026 at 10:32 PM