Some Idiotic URL

I’ve moved the main blog to @someidioticurl a while back, only leaving the queue running. It’s just run out.

This blog will stay here for a while, till I sort through the posts and move what I want to keep to the new blog, but I’ll be deleting it after that.

I’ve moved the main blog to @someidioticurl a while back, only leaving the queue running. It’s just run out.

This blog will stay here for a while, till I sort through the posts and move what I want to keep to the new blog, but I’ll be deleting it after that.

I’ve moved the main blog to @someidioticurl a while back, only leaving the queue running. It’s just run out.

This blog will stay here for a while, till I sort through the posts and move what I want to keep to the new blog, but I’ll be deleting it after that.

I’ve moved the main blog to @someidioticurl a while back, only leaving the queue running. It’s just run out.

This blog will stay here for a while, till I sort through the posts and move what I want to keep to the new blog, but I’ll be deleting it after that.

I’ve moved the main blog to @someidioticurl a while back, only leaving the queue running. It’s just run out.

This blog will stay here for a while, till I sort through the posts and move what I want to keep to the new blog, but I’ll be deleting it after that.

To make the fighting scenes in my low fantasy novel more realistic, I went to see a trainer for historical sword-fighting last week, both to barrage her with questions and to develop realistic choreographies for the fight scenes in the novel. Since I figured some of what she told me might be useful for you too, I put together a small list for you. Big thanks to Gladiatores Munich and Jeanne for making time! (Here are some more pictures if you’re interested.)

Caveat: I’m by no means a sword-fighting expert myself, so take these nuggets with a grain of salt – I might have misremembered or misinterpreted some of the things Jeanne told me. If I did, feel free to tell me.

1.) Weapon choices need to make sense

Let’s start with a truism: always ensure your character’s weapons make sense for a.) their profession, b.) their cultural background and c.) the environment they’re going to fight in. A farmer probably couldn’t afford a sword and might use a knife or threshing flail instead, and someone who doesn’t want to be noticed probably wouldn’t be milling about sporting a glaive or another large weapon. Also, soldiers native to a country with wide open plains would be more likely to carry long-range melee weapons such as spears or large swords, than those from a country consisting of mostly jungle or dense forests. The same applies to situations: if your character is going to be fighting in close quarters (even just a normal house), he’d get little value out of a spear or even a longsword, as there’d be no space to swing it effectively.

2.) Boldness often beats skill

In real swordfights, recklessness was often more important than technique. The fighter less afraid of getting injured would often push harder, allowing them to overpower even opponents with better technique.

3.) Even a skilled fighter rarely stands a chance when outnumbered

While a skilled (or lucky) fighter might win a two-versus-one, it’d be extremely unlikely for even a single master swordsman to win against superior numbers, even just three and if they’re below his skill level. The only way to plausibly pull this off would be to split the opponents up, perhaps by luring them into a confined space where you could take them on one by one. The moment you’re surrounded, you’re probably done for – because, unlike in Hollywood, they wouldn’t take turns attacking but come at you all at once.

4.) Dual-wielding was a thing

… at least in some cultures. I often heard people say that people using a weapon in each hand is an invention of fiction. And while my instructor confirmed that she knew of no European schools doing this—if they did, it’s not well-documented—she said it was a thing in other cultures. Example of this include the dual wakizashi in Japan or tomahawk and knife in North America. However, one of the biggest problems with the depiction of dual wielding in novels/movies/games are the “windmill”-type attacks where the fighter swings their weapons independently, hitting in succession rather than simultaneously. Normally you’d always try hitting with both weapons at once, as you’d otherwise lose your advantage.

5.) Longswords were amazing

Longswords might seem boring in comparison to other weapons, but they were incredibly effective, especially in combat situations outside the battlefield. The crossguard allowed for effective blocking of almost any kind of attack (well, maybe not an overhead strike of a Mordaxt, but still), the pommel was also used as a powerful “blunt” weapon of its own that could crack skulls. Though they were somewhat less effective against armored opponents, the long, two-handed hilt allowed for precise thrusts at uncovered body parts that made up for it.

6.)  “Zweihänder” were only used for very specific combat situations

Zweihänder—massive two-handed swords—were only used for specific purposes and usually not in one-on-one combat as is often seen in movies or games. One of these purposes was using their reach to break up enemy formations. In fact, one type of two-handed sword even owed its name to that purpose: Gassenhauer (German, Gasse = alley, Hauer = striker)—the fighters literally used it to strike “alleys” into an enemy formation with wide, powerful swings.

7.) It’s all about distance

While I was subconsciously aware of this, it might be helpful to remember that distance was an incredibly important element in fights. The moment your opponent got past your weapons ideal range, it was common to either switch to a different weapon or just drop your weapon and resort to punching/choking. A good example of this are spears or polearms—very powerful as long as you maintain a certain range between you and your opponent, but the moment they get too close, your weapon is practically useless. That’s also why combatants almost always brought a second weapon into battle to fall back one.

8.) Real fights rarely lasted over a minute

Another truism, but still useful to remember: real fights didn’t last long. Usually, they were over within less than a minute, sometimes only seconds – the moment your opponent landed a hit (or your weapon broke or you were disarmed), you were done for. This is especially true for combatants wearing no or only light armor.

9.) Stop the pirouettes

Unfortunately, the spinning around and pirouetting that makes many fight scenes so enjoyable to watch (or read) is completely asinine. Unless it’s a showfight, fighters would never expose their backs to their opponent or even turn their weapon away from them.

10.)  It still looks amazing

If your concern is that making your fight scenes realistic will make them less aesthetic, don’t worry. Apart from the fact that the blocks, swings and thrusts still look impressive when executed correctly, I personally felt that my fights get a lot more gripping and visceral if I respect the rules. To a certain extent, unrealistic and flashy combat is plot armor. If your characters can spin and somersault to their heart’s content and no one ever shoves a spear into their backs as they would have in real life, who survives and who doesn’t noticeably becomes arbitrary. If, on the other hand, even one slip-up can result in a combatant’s death, the stakes become palpable.

That’s about it! I hope this post is as helpful to some of you as the lessons were to me. Again, if anything I wrote here is bollocks, it’s probably my fault and not Jeanne’s.  I’ll try to post more stuff like this in the future.

Cheers,

Oooh, okay, all right, gather around, folks, let’s learn some history!

So before this hellsite existed, there were really cool websites to go to exclusively for Harry Potter content. Some of the top ones I can remember are MuggleNet, The Leaky Cauldron, SugarQuill, and, of course, HP Lexicon.

The Harry Potter Lexicon wasn’t just a website, it was a massive Wiki before Wikis even existed. And I still go to it over the Harry Potter Wiki. And I have gone to it ever since I was a kid. Here’s what it looked like in 2005:

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It was incredible!

One could (and I did) spend hours just searching through every single topic about the books, the plotpoints, the locations, the characters, all written out in journal-format, like an actual old-fashioned lexicon, each page featuring cool fanart that was used with permission and always linked back to the artist:

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But the main reason to go onto the website was the essays. You think the SuperCarlinBrothers are impressive? They are. But so were the people who submitted to the HP Lexicon. I was just reading an essay this morning on the Weasley brothers’ ages. Every essay was brilliant. This is the website that made us all realize R.A.B. was really Regulus, that Snape was a double-agent, that Harry was a horcrux. This is a website that that J.K. Rowling used/praised:

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She then promptly turned around and brought the creator to court. (She technically didn’t sue him, she sued the publication company, but he was still brought to court and put on the stand.) Here’s an article from The NY Times:

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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/nyregion/09potter.html

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Steven Vander Ark was allowed to publish a condensed version of the encyclopedia (which is currently sitting in my dusty attic). Link: x

He publicly claimed that he has no animosity towards Jo for taking him to court and he continues to update the Lexicon with essays/content to this day, so if you somehow have never gone onto the website, take a look: hp-lexicon.org

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I tried to be as neutral as possible when presenting the facts of the court but if you want to know my actual opinion, here are my tags from the original post:

ATTENTION COSPLAYERS:

I would like to make the paint brand “Angelus” known. It is a special paint that is for leather, faux leather, rubber, and similar surfaces.

This is literally the best paint you can buy if you love a pair of shoes, but they aren’t in the right color for your character.

This stuff coats VERY well AND the coats of paint bend with your shoes. This means no cracking!!

In the photos above I took black rain boots and painted them with Angelus Turquoise. As you can see, they don’t look black any more! It’s so good!

I managed to paint two boots with a little one ounce bottle of the paint, and I still have a third of the bottle left over!

The paint dries very fast, so you can put layer on top of layer on top of layer without it streaking.

You can get the paint on Amazon and it comes in every color!

He’s like a fucking heroic cryptid.

Just imagine it, your village/region/kingdom is under attack by some monster or another and out of the trees this slender little twunk appears and immediately starts acting like he’s gonna help.

And you’re skeptical of course cause look at him.

And then you find out that he’s basically a one man army who just fuckin wrecks the dragon/god/monsters/etc terrorizing your place before he breaks all of the pots in town and disappears again.

Owls confirmed to be the creepiest birds ever. LOOK AT THE FUCKING THINGS. If you fail to notice the one on the left fucking SWALLOWING a rat, then you have the dude singing some satanic chant or something next to him, and then you have those two other fucking psychos synchronized to make you feel creeped the fuck out with their soulless dance of FUCKING DOOM.

it’s genuinely in the interests of advancing plot (e.g. ‘Pass the screwdriver?’ and you can assume my muse passes the screwdriver over, or even just that your muse ended up with the screwdriver one way or another, without having to stop the reply altogether for my interjection)

it’s NOT my muse’s dialogue, inner or outer

it’s REASONABLE for my muse (e.g. if they’ve already made it quite clear the screwdriver is a sentimentally precious family heirloom or something, then the screwdriver might not reasonably change hands)

the reply isn’t solely about my muse’s actions, thoughts or feelings, but rather is about your muse, with reference to mine

you are willing to accept criticism & critique and change the reply if I can’t reasonably see my muse doing that