Some resources for those writing medieval-type stories:
(via buttsofjustice)
Some resources for those writing medieval-type stories:
(via buttsofjustice)
For the Writers out there: Common Injuries And How To Treat Them
In my experience, RPers and Writers alike enjoy one thing: Making characters suffer. This little guide is supposed to help you with keeping injuries and the First Aid - in case you want to patch your character back together - realistic.
I am no medical professional, but I dare say I picked up a thing or two during my First Aider training ;)Under read more for length! Also, trigger warnings for blood, I suppose?
(via amhran-comhrac)
How To Poison Your Fictional Characters
A short list of several types of poison and their effects.
(Source: ink-moth, via mygoodrabbit)
The 15 Most Unbelievable Words in English
Agerasia
(n.) A lack of the signs of old ages; a youthful old age
“The agerasia of that fellow is amazing; look at him darting around on those skates!”Bayard
(n.) A person armed with the self-confidence of ignorance
“Only a bayard would walk past that bull.”Bed-swerver
(n.) An unfaithful spouse
“Phil refused to believe his wife was a bed-swerver.”Fard
(v.) To paint the face with cosmetics, so as to hide blemishes
“My wife’s tendency to fard in the bathroom for an hour made us late.”Gobemouche
(n.) One who believes anything, no matter how absurd
“That guy is a gobemouche–I told him that bull would not chase him, and he believed me.”Hansardize
(v.) To show that a person has previously espoused opinions differing from the ones he or she now holds
“Tom hansardized Phil by showing us a letter Phil had written to him.”Inadvertist
(n.) One who persistently fails to take notice of things
“I am an inadvertist when it comes to driving. I run over about 3 things a month.”Killcrop
(n.) A brat who never ceases to be hungry, and was popularly thought to be a fairy that was substituted for the child
“Once upon a time, wicked faeries kidnapped a child and replaced it with an evil killcrop.”Maritality
(n.) Excessive or undue affection on the part of a wife for her husband
“Marge’s maritality was driving Burt insane, so he went out with his buddies.”Natiform
(adj.) Buttock-shaped
“The children giggled when they saw the natiform pumpkin.”Obmutescence
(n.) The state or condition of obstinately or willfully refusing to speak
“The sullen boy glared at his mother in obmutescence.”Plinyism
(n.) A statement or account of dubious correctness or accuracy, such as some found in the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder
“Saying that the moon is made of cheese is pure plinyism.”Quaresimal
(adj.) Said of a meal, having the qualities of food served during Lent; austere, skimpy
“We only had a few pieces of chicken, and after our quaresimal meal, we were still hungry.”Scrouge
(v.) To inconvenience or discomfort a person by pressing against him or her or by standing too close
“I was standing in the elevator when six other people got in, and one in particular scrouged me into a corner.”Yepsen
(n.) The amount that can be held in two hands cupped together also, the two cupped hands themselves
“The pond was nearly dry; barely more than a yepsen of water was left.”From Grammar.Net
(via beebobeebo)
NONE OF YOUR FREAKING MOVIES GET IT RIGHT: a guide to Russian names.
This post was inspired by years and years of watching movies, series, and fanfics royally and hilariously fuck up the use of names in the Russian language, coming to the point where, if I see another pair of best buddies call each other by full name, I will shoot something, I swear to God.
There are 3 ways people in Russia address each other, and they denote different levels of formality, and the relationship between the speakers. You should know this stuff if you wanna write anything that includes Russian people talking to each other, because if you get it wrong, it will be, alternatively, hilarious or cringe-worthy. I have seen soo much of this in fanfic it’s not funny anymore. So read up y’all!
1. Name + Patronymic.
A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a surname based on the given name of one’s father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. (thank you, Wikipedia!) A patronymic is not a middle name. Russian people don’t have middle names, period. But we all have patronymics!
Use: formal
Used towards: your teacher, your big boss, a senior citizen with whom you don’t have a close relationship (say, your classmate’s grandma), your doctor, any kind of professor or scholar when you address them formally, a client when you’re in the service industry/work with people (not always, but very often).
Example: Ivan Petrovich, Sergey Vladimirovich, Anna Anatolyevna, Maria Sergeevna, etc
Student: Ivan Petrovich, could I consult you on my essay after class?
Teacher: Sure, Sasha, I’ll be in the classroom till 3.
Things that don’t happen:
Student: Ivan, when are you gonna grade our tests?
Teacher: Tomorrow, Alexander!
Remember: patronymics are gendered, they’ll have different endings for male and female names! The best way to figure out how to make a patronymic out of any given name is to go and ask a Russian speaker.
2. Name.
I’m talking about the full form of a name here, because there’s also a short form and that’s the next one.
Use: semi-formal
Used towards: if you’re an adult - towards any other adult with whom you are in an equal position but don’t have a close relationship; a colleague with whom you’re not close; a business partner; your boss if you’re close to them on the corporate ladder; another adult you just met and with whom you’re making friends with but you’re not close yet (not always though, but often); basically in any kind od setting where someone’s your equal but you’re not close. Teenagers/youngsters and children don’t really do this inbetween themselves, preferring the informality of short names. When people use full names, it means the relationship between them is formal in its nature, not really close or based on friendship.
Example: Vladimir, Pyotr, Alexander, Anna, Nadezhda, Valentina, Ivan, Natalya, Mikhail, etc
Things that happen:
Businessman 1: I think the business lunch went pretty well, don’t you, Alexey?
Businessman 2: I believe so, Mikhail, if things keep going this way, we’ll get some solid funding for our joined project.
Things that don’t happen:
Classmate 1: Hey, Mikhail, pass me the history textbook!
Classmate 2: Sure thing, Boris!
Friend 1: What do you say, Anatoly, wanna hit a few bars tonight, get a few beers?
Friend 2: Sure thing, Dmitry, it’s been a while since I got hammered last time! A good fuck afterwards would be awesome, too.
Remember: if two people are close in an informal setting, they’re not gonna do this. This is the number one mistake they make in movies. Siblings and close friends and people who are meant to be friendly and close to each other don’t bloody do this in modern Russian. Unless it’s for laughs or something.
3. Short name.
This is the one people get wrong often too, because the world generally seems to be uninformed about the existence of short names in Russian. And when people do know, they have serious difficulties telling short names for girls from short names for boys, or making a short name out of the full version correctly. The best way to figure this out is to ASK A RUSSIAN, y’all.
Use: informal
Used towards: your peers, buddies, friends, classmates, siblings, relatives, children and teenagers regardless of the speaker’s age, sometimes young adults too if they’re very young-looking and the other person is older. (I’m 22 and all my teachers use my short name, so does my dentist, my friends’ parents, etc. Note the difference: if I go to a bank, I will only be addressed by name+patronymic by the workers there, regardless of my baby face, because that’s a formal setting.) It’s also acceptable to use short names towards people much lower than you on the corporate ladder, sometimes: bosses often use short names for their secretaries, but not always, it really depends. Small children use short name + uncle/auntie to talk about any adult (this is sort of similar to Japanese).
Exaple (Full name - short name): Vladimir - Vova/Volodya, Mikhail - Misha, Evgeny/Evgenia - Zhenya, Nadezhda - Nadya, Ekaterina - Katya, Alexander/Alexandra - Sasha, Dmitry - Dima, Sergey - Seryozha, Maria - Masha, Natalya - Natasha, Ivan - Vanya, etc.
Things that happen:
Classmate 1: Morning, Katya! Ready for the test?
Classmate 2: Morning! Not sure about that one, Nadya, got any cribs to share?
Boss: Masha, could you please make me a cup of strong coffee? No sugar.
Secretary: Yes, Evgenya Pavlovna, it’ll only be a minute.
Things that don’t happen:
Teacher: Your last test was awful, Kostya, when are you going to start trying harder?
Student: I’ll try harder next time, Vanya, I’m really sorry. Please don’t fail me?
Remember: It can be very hard to guess if a short name is a boy or girl name if you don’t know, because they have similar endings, and that confuses people. Some short names are unisex, because they’re short forms for male and female versions of the same name, like Sasha or Zhenya. If you only know the short name, you will most likely fail at figuring out the full name if you don’t already know it, and vice versa. The best way to figure out the short form of a name is to ASK A RUSSIAN, seriously. Or a Russian speaker with a good vocabulary. Someone who already knows.
Also note: Russian is VERY creative with suffixes and diminutives, so a single name can have 3 or 4 short versions which get fluffier and fluffier. Example:
Nadezhda -> Nadya -> Nadyusha -> Nadyushen’ka. (my name)
Ivan -> Vanya -> Vanyusha, Vanechka -> Vanyushen’ka (the last one is so fluffy noone but your grandma would ever use it)
The last version is UBER fluffy. The third one is what my ex used to call me and what my close Russian friends call me to show tenderness/love/affection, same with my parents, and even my teacher calls me that but only due to our very close relationship. It’s not the fluffiest but still mighty fluffy.
NB for ficwriters: using names correctly is an A+ way to show contrast in relationships, or a contrast between a formal setting and a private setting. Especially if you’re writing m/m, use the fluffy versions SPARINGLY if you wanna convey a serious atmosphere (even in a cracky one, people aren’t gonna use them all the time either), but figure out the right moment to use them, when you wanna show a hurricane of affection/emotions and extreme tenderness, and you’ll hit your Russian readers right in the heart (for example, character A is returning from a war all wounded but alive, and character B is running towards them, hugging them and crying). But don’t try to make the fluffy versions yourself, just find someone and ask! Ask me, I’m always here.
Mkay, I hope that was clear enough and made some sense. If you’re not sure about something, the best thing to do is ask a Russian/someone who’s really fluent. Online translators don’t do SHIT, forget about them if you wanna get Russian right in a fanfic, the results are hilarious. ASK! That is the key : )
Reblogging for ficwriting friends.
(via myjusticecake)
ليس هناك ما هو صحيح، فكل شيء: A summary of how people die (and don't) in swordfights
This is a really good article about how quickly people actually die from cuts and punctures inflicted by swords and knives. However, it’s really really long and I figured that since I was summarizing for my own benefit I’d share it for anyone else who is writing fiction that involves hacking and slashing your villain(s) to death. If you want the nitty gritty of the hows and whys of this, you can find it at the original source.
…even in the case of mortal wounds, pain may not reach levels of magnitude sufficient to incapacitate a determined swordsman.
Causes of death from stabs and cuts:
- massive bleeding (exsanguination) - most common
- air in the bloodstream (air embolism)
- suffocation (asphyxia)
- air in the chest cavity (pneumothorax)
- infection
Stabbing vs cutting:
- Stabbing someone actually takes very little force if you don’t hit bone or hard cartilage.
- The most important factor in the ease of stabbing is the velocity of the blade at impact with the skin, followed by the sharpness of the blade.
- Stabbing wounds tend to close after the weapon is withdrawn.
- Stabbing wounds to muscles are not typically very damaging. Damage increases with the width of the blade.
- Cutting wounds are typically deepest at the site of initial impact and get shallower as force is transferred from the initial swing to pushing and pressing.
- Cutting wounds have a huge number of factors that dictate how deep they are and how easily they damage someone: skill, radial velocity, mass of the blade, and the size of the initial impact.
- Cutting wounds along the grain of musculature are not typically very damaging but cutting wounds across the grain can incapacitate.
Arteries vs veins:
- Severed veins have almost zero blood pressure and sometimes even negative pressure. They do not spurt but major veins can suck air in causing an air embolism.
- Cutting or puncturing a vein is usually not fatal.
- Severed arteries have high blood pressure. The larger arteries do spurt and can often cause death due to exsanguination.
Body parts as targets:
- Severing a jugular vein in the neck causes an air embolism and will make the victim collapse after one or two gasps for air.
- Severing a carotid artery in the neck cuts off the blood supply to the brain but the victim may be conscious for up to thirty seconds.
- Stabbing or cutting the neck also causes the victim to aspirate blood that causes asphyxiation and death.
- Severing a major abdominal artery or vein would cause immediate collapse, but this takes a fairly heavy blade and a significant amount of effort because they are situated near the spine.
- Abdominal wounds that only impact the organs can cause death but they do not immediately incapacitate.
- Severing an artery in the interior of the upper arm causes exsanguination and death but does not immediately incapacitate.
- Severing an artery in the palm side of the forearm causes exsanguination and death but does not immediately incapacitate.
- Severing the femoral artery at a point just above and behind the knee is the best location. Higher up the leg it is too well protected to easily hit. This disables and will eventually kill the victim but does not immediately incapacitate.
- Cutting across the muscles of the forearm can immediately end the opponent’s ability to hold their weapon.
- Cutting across the palm side of the wrist causes immediate loss of ability to hold a weapon.
- Stab wounds to the arm do not significantly impact the ability to wield a weapon or use it.
- Cuts and stab wounds to the front and back of the legs generally do not do enough muscle damage to cause total loss of use of that leg.
- Bone anywhere in the body can bend or otherwise disfigure a blade.
- The brain can be stabbed fairly easily through the eyes, the temples, and the sinuses.
- Stabs to the brain are more often not incapacitating.
The lungs as targets:
- Slicing into the lung stops that lung from functioning, but the other lung continues to function normally. This also requires either luck to get between the ribs or a great deal of force to penetrate the ribs.
- Stabbing the lung stops that lung from functioning, but the other lung continues to function normally. It is significantly easier to stab between ribs than to slice.
- It is possible to stab the victim from the side and pass through both lungs with an adequate length blade. It is very unlikely that this will happen with a slicing hit.
- “Death caused solely by pneumothorax is generally a slow process, occurring as much as several hours after the wound is inflicted.”
- Lung punctures also typically involve the lung filling with blood, but this is a slow process.
The heart as a target:
I’m just going to quote this paragraph outright with a few omissions and formatting changes for clarity because it’s chock-full of good info:
…[stabbing] wounds to the heart the location, depth of penetration, blade width, and the presence or absence of cutting edges are important factors influencing a wounded duelist’s ability to continue a combat.
- Large cuts that transect the heart may be expected to result in swift incapacitation…
- …stab wounds, similar to those that might be inflicted by a thrust with a sword with a narrow, pointed blade may leave a mortally wounded victim capable of surprisingly athletic endeavors.
Essentially, the heart can temporarily seal itself well enough to keep pressure up for a little while if it’s a simple stab. The arteries around the heart, while they are smaller and harder to hit, actually cause incapacitation much more quickly.
(via middlemarching)
Going beyond the Western gender binary - unlearning our backward cultural conditioning
In Western colonial society (which dominates many aspects of the globalized, capitalist world today) we operate under the presumption that there are only two genders, male and female. But gender is a social construction. One’s options for what gender they identify with are shaped by the culture they are born into. Biological factors are most-often the primary driving forces that choose among the available socially-constructed gender categories.
Cultures around the world have different ways of talking about, thinking about, and identifying gender. It’s often a challenge for (particularly cis-sexual) Westerns to think about other ways gender can be socially constructed. Westerns have the false equivalency of gender and sex drilled into their eternal psyche from the time they are very young, and re-enforced through examples in popular culture. There is no biological reality to gender. Many Westerners have the bizarre belief that one’s XY-sex-determination should also inform one’s gender identity, a socially constructed role in society.
In some cultures, there is no distinction made between gender and sexual orientation and the same can be said for sexual orientation - our culture socially-constructs the options and our biology helps us identify which socially-constructed option feels most ‘right’ and best resonates with us.
I’ve attached some photos to offer some examples of non-colonial, non-Western construction of gender. They’ve all been uploaded onto our Facebook page photostream in case you’d like to ‘like’ or ‘share’ them there. There are literally hundreds of ‘third-gender’ identifying peoples around the world. The eight I’ve chosen are mostly examples I remember from some of my anthropology courses but if you google ‘third genders’ you can find many lists and examples.
Who cares? Why it matters.
The most obvious reason to care about the way our culture has constructed gender and sexual orientation is to deepen one’s capacity for solidarity with people who identify as transgender, transsexual, and others whose gender or sexual identity exists outside of binary Western culture.
But there are other reasons as well. Western culture’s binary nature often creates non-sensical, problematic binary identity constructions that are inherently problematic. For example, I believe that Western masculinity (dominance, aggression, lack of communication, lack of emotional expression, etc) is inherently problematic. I believe that to be the reason why most acts of large-scale-violence and terror are committed by men (see: 100% of the mass school shootings in the United States), and I believe it fosters a degree of internal misery within people who heavily adopt these particular ‘masculine’ traits.
In the age of information, and the age of global connectivity, there is no longer any reason (particularly for young people) to feel isolated or restricted to Western definitions of gender, sexual orientation and identity in general. I think the social ramifications of a generation where more and more people begin to identify outside of the gender binary would be tremendous, and I think we should all consider how we can unlearn our cultural conditioning to embrace other, perhaps less exploitative and dominating identities.
Background information on the identities depicted in the above images:
Hijras
Hijras are male-body-born, feminine-gender-identifying people who live in South Asia (mostly in India & Nepal). Many Hijras live in well-defined, organized, all-Hijra communities, led by a guru.Although many Hijras identify as Muslim, many practice a form of syncretism that draws on multiple religions; seeing themselves to be neither men nor women, Hijras practice rituals for both men and women.
Hijras belong to a special caste. They are usually devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, Lord Shiva, or both.
Nandi female husbands
Among the Nandi in Western Kenya, one social identity option for women is to become a female husband, and thus a man in society’s eyes. Female husbands are expected to become men and take on all of the social and cultural responsibilities of a man, including finding a wife to marry and passing on property to the next generation through marriage. Female husbands may have lived their lives as women and may even be married to a man, but once she becomes a female-husband, she is expected to be a man. Women married to female-husbands may have sex with single men uninterested in commitment in order to become pregnant, but the female-husband (who is often an older woman, often a widow) will father the child of said pregnancy and treat the child like her own.Two-spirited people
Two-Spirit is an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as ‘berdaches’, Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations communities. The term usually indicates a person whose body simultaneously manifests both a masculine and a feminine spirit. Male and female two-spirits have been “documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America.”Travesti
In South America (with a large presence in Brazil), a travesti is a person who was assigned male at birth who has a feminine gender identity and is primarily sexually attracted to masculine men. Therefore, sometimes the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is not made. Travestis have been described as a third gender, but not all see themselves this way.Travestis often will begin taking female hormones and injecting silicone to enlargen their backsides as boys and continue the process into womanhood.The work of cultural Anthropologist Don Kulick (a gay male by Western definitions) in Brazil demonstrated that gender construction in Brazil is binary (like Western gender construction), but unlike Western gender construction, instead of having a male-female binary, there is a male-notmale.
In this particular construction of gender:
- Males include: men who have sex with women, men who have sex with Travestis but are never on the receiving end of anal sex, men who have sex with men but are never on the receiving end of anal sex.
- Not-males include: women, men who receive anal sex from ‘male’ gay men or from Travestis.
Fa’afafine
Fa’afafine are the gender liminal, or third-gendered people of Samoa. A recognized and integral part of traditional Samoan culture, fa’afafine, born biologically male, embody both male and female gender traits. Their gendered behavior typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to mundanely masculineWaria
Waria is a traditional third general role found in modern Indonesia. Additionally, the Bugis culture of Sulawesi (one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia) has been described as having three sexes (male, female and intersex) as well as five genders with distinct social roles.Six Genders of old Israel
In the old Kingdom of Israel (1020–931 BCE) there were six officially recognized genders:
- Zachar: male
- Nekeveh: female
- Androgynos: both male and female
- Tumtum: gender neutral/without definite gender
- Aylonit: female-to-male transgender people
- Saris: male-to-female transgender people (often inaccurately translated as “eunuch”)
Kathoey (often called ‘ladyboys’)
Australian scholar of sexual politics in Thailand Peter Jackson’s work indicates that the term “kathoey” was used in pre-modern times to refer to intersexual people, and that the usage changed in the middle of the twentieth century to cover cross-dressing males, to create what is now a gender identity unique to Thailand. Thailand also has three identities related to female-bodied people: Tom, Dee, and heterosexual woman.-Robert
Excellent overview of non-binary gender categories. Sadly, Western imperialism has all but extirpated many traditional concepts of non-dualistic sex and gender categories through residential schools and religious indoctrination. -Q
(via negacrow)
“Why do you hate the shape of breasts in plate armor so much?”
Since people often ask “Alright, well this is fantasy! Why can’t we have boob shapes in plate armor?!” I decided to make a post about it. My frustration has nothing to do with historical inaccuracy and I’m all for imagination and freedom— but I’d like to (very quickly) illustrate this for you:
I purposely over-emphasized the shape of the two spheres in the armor so you can really think about this.
Look at the shape of the blue cups and the green line, think about the form of that on some beautiful ornate plate armor. A female warrior is charging into battle. In the midst of this, she trips! Or is pushed over, or takes a blow to the chest! So long as the force is on the front of her torso it really doesn’t matter for the conclusion:
She feels a sharp pain in her chest and hears the cracking of bone! Oh no, what’s gone wrong? Well she doesn’t have time to think about that, because she is now dead.
Her sternum just fractured, take another look at that green line, that’s where all of the pressure from any front impact is going to go because of the shape of the two blue cups made for her breasts. The rest of the armor slides around your body, but because of the two cups for breasts that are often made in fantasy female armors, the pressure point is directly on the sternum. The breasts are not going to stop the force of you falling onto them, and because of that the metal is going to push in and bash you in the sternum.
What does a fractured sternum do? Why it goes right into your heart and lungs of course.
(that was the sound of all of my followers inhaling a sharp breath between closed teeth at once)
Here are three great solutions to the problem:
GREAT EXAMPLE OF FANTASY TORSO ARMOR THAT IS FEMININE BUT FUNCTIONAL:
It is usually possible to bind the breasts when fighting if they really are far too large to fit into regular looking armor (there’s padding anyway), but most women can actually fit into a similarly sized male counterpart’s armor quite easily. Even if that’s the case, the armor can be made to have a curve to it without putting all of the pressure in one area, which was actually a style of armor for quite some time as shown here:
And don’t even get me started on the dreaded “Cleavage Window”
The “Cleavage Window” defeats the purpose of having any armor on your torso because it means you’re just going to be leaving open the vital organs the rest of the armor is trying to protect.
If people are going to protect themselves and not have much torso protection, invest in some blocking lessons, because the best defense is to not get hit at all. There are also advantages to not having plate armor, and plate armor was often really expensive anyway.
— Edit —
supaslim replied to your post: “Why do you hate the shape of breasts in plate armor so much?”
I’d also like to add that boob bulges direct blows straight to the sternum as well, rather than making them glance to either side. Good post.
(via mirousworlds)
is that a pokemon
no but it should be
It has to be a pokemon.
SO CUTE!!!!!!!!!
(via themaskedstray)
