Glitter & Salt

I made these as a way to compile all the geographical vocabulary that I thought was useful and interesting for writers. Some descriptors share categories, and some are simplified, but for the most part everything is in its proper place. Not all the words are as useable as others, and some might take tricky wording to pull off, but I hope these prove useful to all you writers out there!

Cnetizens: We got u girl

Gaia is a dwarf planet that's stupidly rich in iron, which gives it earth like gravity and makes constructions like Midgar, Junon and Gold Saucer cheap.

Shinra scientists haven't discovered DNA yet and most of their medical science is successful via dumb luck of Jenova being highly adaptive and also the existence of literal magic. They probably haven't figured out atomic theory either.

Cetra did some measure of terraforming on Gaia and Meteor is how they did it. They made the Black Materia for a reason and doubt it was because they wanted to destroy the Planet. I think it was to nudge the Planet's orbit to more desirable place. There's bunch of craters all over Gaia, including the bottom of the ocean, and I don't think they were all caused by the Calamity.

The Summons (in their original non-playable cutscene form in FF7) aren't actually creatures from other worlds, they're memories. Each summon sequence is a event that happened on Gaia sometime in its past, that was then immortalised into Materia so strongly that it can affect physical world.

My Take from the episode Including: Info-Dump, and Questions & Concerns

Info-Dump:

Lacrosse: (”la crosse” = “the stick”, French) is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins in a tribal game played by the indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands and by various other indigenous peoples of North America. The game was extensively modified by European colonizers to create its current collegiate and professional form. The modern sport is governed by World Lacrosse and is the only international sport organization to recognize First Nations bands and Native American tribes as sovereign nations.

Lacrosse Jersey Numbers (so far):

> Scott McCall - 11 > Stiles Stilinski - 24 > Jackson Whittemore - 37 > Danny Mahealani - 6 (Background)

First Mention of Greenberg: COACH: “Greenberg, take a lap! Let’s go! Faster, Greenberg! Let’s go.” (Could be #31)

At the end of summer, when Covid numbers were at a lower point, I took the risk to visit her in her new apartment and I quickly realized that, unlike when I’d spent the night at her house before, the couch wasn’t made up like a bed. She explained that since her new couch was so fancy and pink, I couldn’t possibly sleep on it, and so I needed to sleep in the bed with her. You know, out of necessity. I woke up with her snuggled around me in the middle of the night.

We’re dating now, and I genuinely think I’m going to marry her. Just the other day, though, I mentioned that if she hadn’t been weird about her fancy couch, I probably never would have like confessed my feelings. AND THEN she stood up, took the cushions off the fancy couch, UNFOLDED IT INTO A HIDE-A-BED, and said “I KNOW.”

there was only one bed

This user is anti-censorship

This user believes in “don’t like, don’t read”

This user believes in “ship and let ship”

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Armour has always been about layers.

Example 1200s minor noble: linen shirt, gambeson (layered and quilted linen with wool insulation), chain mail, surcoat, arming cap, helmet, coif, bigger helmet.

Another example Alexander era Macedonian hoplite: linen tunic, greaves, 1" of tightly pressed and laminated linen, helmet (probably with some sort of arming cap/padding inside), big ass shield.

Silk.

Silk.

The Mongolians used silk vests because silk isn’t broken by an arrow, and you can use the silk to gently pull the arrow back out, even if it’s barbed. They also often used silk as the backing for leather armor.

The first bulletproof vests were made in Japan and Korea. Out of, yup, silk. Silk could stop black powder bullets, but was rendered obsolete by higher powered modern firearms. A combination of silk and metal was experimented with, but dropped because of the expense of silk.

Franz Ferdinand was wearing one such vest when he was assassinated, but it didn’t help because of where he was hit.

The US military is now looking into something called Dragon Silk, which is spider silk made by GMO silkworms, to make body armor that might be more comfortable than the current kevlar vests.

This is where linen, hemp or even nettle (no, it doesn’t sting) comes as the next-to-skin layer; comfortable, hard-wearing, easily washed and not even unusual: “linens” was period-speak for “underclothes” for centuries.

All three are made the same way, more or less, involving a technical vocabulary of retting, beetling, scutching, hackling etc.; look it up.

*****

* The wooden scutching-knife may be and IMO almost certainly is an ancestor of the “Dussack”, a German / Central European training weapon (the real thing would have been a Messer, a large fighting knife). Compare this illustration from a fight manual ca.1570…

…to a couple of modern repro dussacks…

…and finally to a couple of painted antique scutching-knives from Sweden, one marked 1918, so the shape hadn’t changed much in 300 years….

*****

Any fabric where the washing instructions are “boil until clean” will be OK as bottom-layer armour. That’s how its laundry labels say to treat top-quality Irish damask linens inherited from my Mum, so fabrics like hemp or nettle certainly won’t come to harm.

Your characters may interpret it this way: those who boil their under-tunics the night before combat seem to drive off a lot of infection demons and make wizard healing a bit easier.

Finally, a memorable side-note that has literally nothing to do with fabric armour or indeed fabric of any kind: in 1806 (or ‘08) MP and ex-military surgeon Humphrey Howarth was challenged to a duel.

That morning he washed thoroughly all over, then proceeded to the duelling ground in his coach - stark naked, knowing from his experiences as a military surgeon that cloth fragments forced into a wound were the primary cause of fatal infection.

armorers and archaeologists and historians have been debating about leather armor not in terms of was it good at being armor– modern leather gloves, boots, and jackets do a great job!– but whether or not any given civilization would have found it cost effective to use leather for protective equipment. some civilizations don’t have very many cows to spare. some have plenty. some could never hope to afford enough silk to let mercenaries have it; some mercenaries made a point of wearing gaudy patchwork silks and fabrics as a point of pride, some have historically exported the massive amounts of silk they had.

leather rots, especially leather that is continuously exposed to rain and sun and blood and stabbing. it’s not so easy to patch. it needs to be tanned and cured and oiled and maintained carefully. does leather make good armor? sure! is it what any given fighter would have been equipped with as the most effective protective gear for the time, geographical and economic climate, and contemporary weapons technology?

when i’m lonenly, which is translated to most of the time, i make them; green, yellow, pink, blue, white, purple.

and, believe me, it’s kind of a relief to make them. not only for the colors and cute shape, but also for the fact that the time i spend makin them i am entertained and don’t have to think about my loneliness anymore.

i learnt how to make them like two months ago, by the way. and i have made over 300. 

This is for everyone. Guys, girls, both, neither, and more.

When you’re upset, make a star. When you’re stressed, make a star. I make them in school when the teacher yells at our class for being lazy or dumb. I make them at home when I’m in my room, wishing someone would notice my feelings and give me comfort. I’ve always made them with whatever I had around, and write a number on each and every one because its therapeutic. I can see how far I’ve come and how many times I haven’t given up.

Right now I’m at around four-hundred and seventy, and it really puts everything into a perspective.

Thats four hundred and seventy times that I could’ve given up. I’ve gotten pretty close on some of them - scarily close, but every one of those stars is a reminder to keep pushing forward, because I wake up every day and on my dresser is a box full of stars, and when I’m happy I think of how far I’ve come.

I think this idea should be passed around as much as possible. Its calming and distracting from and panic I feel. It gives me something methodical to do: Fold here. Fold there. Crease that line. There you go, Create. Produce. Make something solid and focus on it. Make another if you need to. Write a number. Fill up the jar, box, drawer.

And when you’re breaking and feel everything crashing down, you can look at your stars and think:

You can tell Firefox to fence in Facebook in the browser preferences. Also a good time to change your search engine to DuckDuckGo and leave Google search behind (or only use it with another browser that’s separate from daily use).

The EFF (OP of the tweet) has various types of privacy tools that they’ve created. Some are browser plugins. I recommend going to their site to learn more about internet privacy and advocacy (and donating a few bucks if you can spare it). https://www.eff.org/pages/tools

But if you’re already on an Android device:

3D Koi Pond stitched and designed by awkward_chocobo.

“Saw this 3D Koi Pond a while ago, and thought it was so cool! But since I couldn’t embroider for the life of me, I decided to try a cross stitch version. I had a bunch of help from this sub, thanks everyone!

I had 3 layers of fabric in 3 hoops. Bottom one had some pebbles, middle layer are the koi, and top layer are the lily pads. I stitched them individually and stacked them. :)