Read this & be mindful of those partaking in Ramadan.
I would rather everyone read and shared this instead of “remember to tag your food/nsfw/etc!” post that’s going around every year. (None of these things actually break your fast and if you’re fasting and worried about seeing them, you shouldn’t be on tumblr).
Being considerate and kind goes a long way, so I’d appreciate if this post went around instead.
All right guys, I’ve decided to put together another masterpost for you - this time on historical fashion. This could get lengthy so… bear with me. (Forgive me also if some of the dates are a touch inaccurate - I’m not a historian and I’m going with what Google gives me.)
Prehistory -
Neolithic Clothing - The beginnings of textiles, some woven materials, leather, etc. Circa 102000 BCE - 2000 BCE
Bronze Age Britain - The development of more sophisticated textiles, including wool and some ornamentation, including brooches. Circa 3200 BCE - 600 BCE
*Note: I’m not including many cultures here (such as Asian/South American) simply because of my own lack of expertise + time and space limitations in this masterpost.
*A Note on Women’s Fashion - Tight lacing did NOT appear until about 1340, which means that shapely, comely bodices would not have appeared in fashion before this time.
*Note: For the Tudor and Elizabethan eras of fashion it’s important to note that there were laws in place which dictated what clothing you could wear due to your social class.
Overview of Native American Clothing - *Note: Please use this as a starting point only and do your own research. Remember that different groups have fashions specific to their cultures. This is more to know what NOT to do than to know what TO do.
Dual Wielding Fighting with Two Swords or an Offhand Dagger
Fighting with a dagger in the offhand instead of a shield was a common practice. A long dagger made an excellent tool for catching the opponent’s weapon while attacking with your own. While attacks were made with the dagger, it’s greatest benefit was as a defensive tool.
Here the dagger is being used to restrain the attacker’s weapon (note: The big guy’s sword is pointed away from the dagger guy. Again, the problem with flat images and flat swords is swords tend to disappear in perspective. My apologies for the unclear drawing.) The dagger user is now free to attack with their sword in their next action.
I have more experience with double swords so we’ll be talking mostly about that now. We both know that’s why you’re reading this chapter anyways.
Two Swords are used like off-sync partners, with one movement slightly behind the other while they’re in motion. One might temporarily stay still to cover a line while the other attacks, but you’re not going to be fighting two battles at once except for in exaggerated cartoon circumstances. We’ll talk about fighting multiple opponents in “I’ll Take You All On” (chapter coming soon)
As an example, if two downward cutting attacks are being used, what this off sync movement achieves is that as the first sword finishes it’s blow, it deals with the opponent’s weapon. The second sword is a split second behind the first, and now has a clear path to finish it’s blow. The first sword continues to restrain the opponent’s weapon.
In one pattern of attack, the lower sword begins with a thrust, forcing a defence from the opponent then the upper sword begins it’s preparation. The lower sword then follows and does it’s own cut ending as the new top sword. Beginning with the thrust provokes a reaction from the defender and buys time for the first sword to swing back in preparation while the attacker remains covered.
When defending with two swords you can use any of your usual defences as outlined in “A Crossing of Blades” but you need to be careful that you’re not criss crossing your arms and getting tangled up. That’s another reason for the off sync movements. If they follow their patterns and both do the same action, the arms will stay untangled.
Crossing the blades to collect the attacker’s sword is one of the coolest looking defences you can do with two weapons. This one also works well with a dagger in the offhand.
Things get more complicated when both opponents are dual wielding. Now each opponent can restrain with one sword and attack with the other. Even so, they’ll still be following those same slightly out of sync patterns.
It might feel like we can do two things at once, but really we’re just switching quickly between two tasks. It’s better to have two swords working towards one goal then trying to have them both achieve two different things.
Often in one action you’ll still be catching both of your opponent’s swords in the defence.
I’m not feeling ambitious enough to try breaking down two dual wielding fighters anymore than that though, so we’ll leave off here. In the next chapter we’ll look into things you can do with a free hand that’s not holding anything.
Atilliator: skilled castle worker who made crossbows.
Baliff: in charge of allotting jobs to the peasants, building repair, and repair of tools used by the peasants.
Barber: someone who cut hair. Also served as dentists, surgeons and blood-letters.
Blacksmith: forged and sharpened tools and weapons, beat
out dents in armor, made hinges for doors, and window grills. Also
referred to as Smiths.
Bottler: in charge of the buttery or bottlery.
Butler: cared for the cellar and was in charge of large
butts and little butts (bottles) of wine and beer. Under him a staff of
people might consist of brewers, tapsters, cellarers, dispensers,
cupbearers and dapifer.
Carder: someone who brushed cloth during its manufacture.
Carpenter: built flooring, roofing, siege engines, furniture, panelling for rooms, and scaffoling for building.
Carters: workmen who brought wood and stone to the site of a castle under construction.
Castellan: resident owner or person in charge of a castle (custodian).
Chamberlain: responsible for the great chamber and for the personal finances of the castellan.
Chaplain: provided spirtual welfare for laborers and the
castle garrison. The duties might also include supervising building
operations, clerk, and keeping accounts. He also tended to the chapel.
Clerk: a person who checked material costs, wages, and kept accounts.
Constable: a person who took care (the governor or
warden) of a castle in the absence of the owner. This was sometimes
bestowed upon a great baron as an honor and some royal castles had
hereditary constables.
Cook: roasted, broiled, and baked food in the fireplaces and ovens.
Cottars: the lowest of the peasantry. Worked as swine-herds, prison guards, and did odd jobs.
Ditcher: worker who dug moats, vaults, foundations and mines.
Dyer: someone who dyed cloth in huge heated vats during its manufacture.
Ewerer: worker who brought and heated water for the nobles.
Falconer: highly skilled expert responsible for the care and training of hawks for the sport of falconry.
Fuller: worker who shrinks & thickens cloth fibers through wetting & beating the material.
Glaziers: a person who cut and shaped glass.
Gong Farmer: a latrine pit emptier.
Hayward: someone who tended the hedges.
Herald: knights assistant and an expert advisor on heraldry.
Keeper of the Wardrobe: in charge of the tailors and laundress.
Knight: a professional soldier. This was achieved only after long and arduous training which began in infancy.
Laird: minor baron or small landlord.
Marshal: officer in charge of a household’s horses,
carts, wagons, and containers. His staff included farriers, grooms,
carters, smiths and clerks. He also oversaw the transporting of goods.
Master Mason: responsible for the designing and overseeing the building of a structure.
Messengers: servants of the lord who carried receipts, letters, and commodities.
Miner: skilled professional who dug tunnels for the purpose of undermining a castle.
Minstrels: part of of the castle staff who provided entertainment in the form of singing and playing musical instruments.
Porter: took care of the doors (janitor), particularly
the main entrance. Responsible for the guardrooms. The person also
insured that no one entered or left the castle withour permission. Also
known as the door-ward.
Reeve: supervised the work on lord’s property. He
checked that everyone began and stopped work on time, and insured
nothing was stolen. Senior officer of a borough.
Sapper: an unskilled person who dug a mine or approach tunnel.
Scullions: responsible for washing and cleaning in the kitchen.
Shearmen: a person who trimmed the cloth during its manufacture.
Shoemaker: a craftsman who made shoes. Known also as Cordwainers.
Spinster: a name given to a woman who earned her living
spinning yarn. Later this was expanded and any unmarried woman was
called a spinster.
Steward: took care of the estate and domestic
administration. Supervised the household and events in the great hall.
Also referred to as a Seneschal.
Squire: attained at the age of 14 while training as a
knight. He would be assigned to a knight to carry and care for the
weapons and horse.
Watchmen: an official at the castle responsible for security. Assited by lookouts (the garrison).
Weaver: someone who cleaned and compacted cloth, in association with the Walker and Fuller.
Woodworkers: tradesmen called Board-hewers who worked in the forest, producing joists and beams.
Other medieval jobs included:
tanners, soap makers, cask makers, cloth makers, candle makers
(chandlers), gold and silver smiths, laundresses, bakers, grooms, pages,
huntsmen, doctors, painters, plasterers, and painters, potters, brick
and tile makers, glass makers, shipwrights, sailors, butchers,
fishmongers, farmers, herdsmen, millers, the clergy, parish priests,
members of the monastic orders, innkeepers, roadmenders, woodwards (for
the
forests). slingers.
Other Domestic jobs inside the castle or manor:
Personal atendants- ladies-in-waiting, chamber maids, doctor.
The myriad of people involved in the preparation and serving
of meals- brewers, poulterer, fruiterers, slaughterers, dispensers, cooks and the cupbearers.
THAT FIRST SITE IS EVERY WRITER’S DREAM DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I’VE TRIED WRITING SOMETHING AND THOUGHT GOD DAMN IS THERE A SPECIFIC WORD FOR WHAT I’M USING TWO SENTENCES TO DESCRIBE AND JUST GETTING A BUNCH OF SHIT GOOGLE RESULTS
D&D writing prompt: Write a D&D adventure in the style of a famous author
GRRM: At the end of the first session I kill the PCs. Next session I tell them about how the NPCs from their backstories are getting killed and captured by the villains. Then the session after THAT I let them roll stats for the surviving backstory NPCs.
Brandon Sanderson: after like 3 sessions we start a new campaign with new characters. A few sessions into that, we start again. Then we go back to the first one. Then we start a 4th. Around this point, you all find out that actually, all of these campaigns take place in the same universe and you keep running into this one asshole NPC in every campaign. You meet 4 times/week.
Robert Jordan: The campaign is really good overall, but there are a lot of side quests and random adventures. It started with 5 PCs, but then they split the party, and some other friends wanted to play too, so now there are 20 PCs running around. This game has been going on for about twelve years, then I die and a friend who’s been following the story but hasn’t played takes over the campaign to finish it off.
Terry Pratchett: You start off by raiding an ancient tomb. You steal the treasure, and the dead in the tomb rise. They don’t attack you. They start complaining, asking you if they wander into your house and steal your nice burial urns, no they don’t, so could you please put that back and stop screaming, you vitalist fucks? When you finally get out, you run into the city guards who are all level 15. They arrest you and you get tried for thieving without a license. There’s a dragon in the cell next to you. It didn’t pay its taxes.
jennifer’s body (2009) dir. karyn kusama - a newly possessed high school cheerleader turns into a succubus who specializes in killing her male classmates
a girl walks home alone at night (2014) dir. ana lily amirpour - in the iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and
loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a
lonesome vampire.
american psycho (2000) dir. mary harron - a wealthy banking executive hides his alternate
psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he delves deeper
into his violent, hedonistic fantasies
american mary (2012) dir. jen soska - the allure of easy money sends mary mason, a medical student, into the
world of underground surgeries which ends up leaving more marks on her
than her so called “freakish” clients
the rage: carrie 2 (1999) dir. katt shea - a horrible massacre strikes up after an outcast teenage girl is taunted
by a group of high school jocks, all of them unaware of her cutthroat
telekinetic powers
amer (2009) dir. hélène cattet - three key moments, all of them sensual, define Ana’s life. her
carnal search sways between reality and colored fantasies becoming more
and more oppressive
pet sematary (1989)dir. mary lambert - behind a young family’s home in maine is a terrible secret that holds
the power of life after death. when tragedy strikes, the threat of that
power soon becomes undeniable
the babadook (2014) dir. jennifer kent - a single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles
with her son’s fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon
discovers a sinister presence all around her
the slumber party massacre (1982) dir. amy holden jones - written by feminist writer rita mae jones, a high school student’s slumber party turns terrifying as an escaped man with a drill decides to crash the party
Jennifer’s Body is amazing and so awfully underrated.
* Correction: American Mary was directed by Jen AND Sylvia Soska, twin sisters.
ravenous (1999) dir. antonia bird - a disgraced army captain, reassigned to a remote outpost, encounters a charismatic and manipulative cannibal.
near dark (1987) dir. kathryn bigelow - a small-town farmer’s son reluctantly joins a traveling group of vampires after he is turned by a beautiful drifter.
All going on the watch list
Jennifer’s Body is one of my all time favourite movies because it’s also incredibly funny and sexy as hell and has a happy ending!
