what if i told you there was one user on the russian social network/ video sharing website odnoklassniki/oднокла́ссники that has uploaded nearly every movie ever from 1896 to the current day, mostly with subtitles. and including that has uploaded every criterion collection film in full hd with subtitles. for free. all hail ok.ru user fleurinna guta
they keep their films in unlisted folders so you cant just see them all on their profile unfortunately but ill provide links. also don't ask me why this user separates their films in this way, i don't know and frankly it confuses me too.
EUROPEAN FILMS (sometimes includes west asian films?)
JAPANESE FILMS
CLASSIC FILMS (aka american and British films)
"MISC FILMS" (aka films from everywhere that isn't the usa, europe, japan. sometimes films from the GDR are in here which is confusing again because communist germany was still part of europe)
this is a much better alternative to stuff like 123movies or bflix because there are no hot singles in your area or games that you wont last 5 minutes playing. hope u enjoy and let us all praise and embrace user fleurinna guta
On one hand, I am a firm believer in "just start writing a fictional story without hard research if that's what it takes to get the first draft down, mistakes can be fixed in future drafts". On the other hand, I am also a firm believer in cultivating the reflex of "hang on, I don't really know what that means, let me at least go skim the Wikipedia page right now to make sure I'm headed in the right direction here".
Sometimes, especially with original fiction that's presumably been professionally edited, obvious mistakes that are harmful can be infuriating, but I'm usually just amused whenever I encounter an author who clearly hasn't done research for the industry or skill that plays a central role in their story. If one of your main characters is an athlete, you should probably know the rules of that sport??? How its professional leagues work??? Maybe???
"Character A is a chef in a 5-star Michelin restaurant!" <- Michelin stars only go up to 3, bud. "Character B is a famous Michelin food critic!" <- Michelin reviewers are also famously anonymous, bud.
The easy fix for the above example is to just invent a fake food guide company for your story, with known reviewers and a system that goes up to 5 stars. Michelin Guides came out of a tire company and they're not infallible; they've received plenty of reasonable criticism over the years. If you know what Michelin stars actually are and where they came from, they can be modified and replaced in your fictional world's alternate universe to suit your purpose. Instead of you being very obviously misinformed about, uh, the basic facts of your setting in your own summary.
Does anyone have any memorable examples of "that's not how that works" experiences with fiction that have stuck with them?
-people get welding and riveting mixed up more than you would expect.
-the bronze age transitioned into the iron age more because the empires and hence trade networks necessary to cheaply transport copper and tin, than because iron is a 'better' metal than bronze. iron actually sucks really bad in almost every way compared to bronze and so much of the technological progress we see at the start of the iron age was specifically to cope with how much shittier iron tools were.
-you just plain can't have a pure iron sword. it would bend out of shape when you hit things with it. the process of folding and refolding iron in the forge mixes carbon in and creates steel, a much harder and more brittle metal. that's the deal with japanese katanas that were folded a zillion times. they're not made from a superior metal: they're made from really shitty metal, that was then put through a very labor intensive process to turn it into an actually functional steel alloy. this is also why the katana is curved, to add strength.
-cereal crops are difficult to plant, harvest, store, and transport. farming wheat is not easy and doesn't make you rich or even comfortable. you also straight up historically cannot do it in boggy places, tropical places, rocky highlands, or coastal lowlands.
-apples were mostly used for fermentation-- cider and vinegar-- as well as pectin for jams and extra fiber for stew, until grafting made table apples (sweet apples good enough to eat raw) possible a few centuries ago. medieval european peasants were eating quince and pears, not apples, AND they were cooking them: raw fruits and vegetables were considered unhealthy, especially for children. colonial americans were planting apple orchards for alcohol, not apple pies.
-stirrups weren't invented until way more recently than you might thing, but until they were, mounted combat looked REALLY different. without stirrups, your only options for horse combat is charioteers or horse archers, who use their horses to sweep in, launch projectiles from close, and run off again. it's just barely possible to use curved sabers from horseback and you see this in some desert campaigns with very skilled horsemen on VERY fast horses, because mechanically you use the saber to strike downwards as you ride past. but it needs to be a hit and run, because without stirrups to keep you in your saddle, the moment you start using a striking weapon horizontally you lever yourself off the damn horse.
-have you seen a map of italy. there's mountains there. horses are not useful combat animals in mountainous regions. they eat more than they can carry, the grazing sucks, and even if they don't go lame they grind their horseshoes off. if you charge with horses down a steep rocky slope you risk breaking all their legs. if you charge with horses UP a steep rocky slope you are already dead. stop using horses in the mountains. stop assuming the roman empire's use of horses looked anything like the british empire's use of horses. and especially stop writing fantasy novels where horses are a 1:1 substitute for motor vehicles.
-if you ride a horse wrong enough you die, or the horse dies, or you both die. i would like more fantasy novels to acknowledge this.
-with the single exception of sled dogs, large carnivores do not make much economic sense as transportation, and even less sense as motor power. even then, sled dogs are often fed on fish, a local protein source that can be harvested with nets and dried or frozen to store for a long time. if you have a fantasy carriage being pulled by bears or tigers, i hate you and immediately assume you haven't spent any time actually thinking about how animals, agriculture, economics, or technology works.
-on the same subject, wolves aren't better than dogs at any of the things humans use dogs for. that's why we use dogs. they are extremely high energy, reactive, and independent. wolves want to be wolves and do wolf things, and those things do not involve cooperating with a human friend to accomplish a human task. wolves can be trained to do things--zoos and sanctuaries have to train them, to get them to cooperate with medical care, and because it keeps them stimulated. and wolves can be friends with a human, or even several humans. but if a human needs a canine to help them hunt, or track, or be an emotional support friend, or pull a sled, or herd sheep, a dog is going to be better for that in every way.
-a wolf cannot be a registered service animal. in many american states, a wolfdog hybrid can't be either, because they're illegal to own in the first place.
Something that I get chills about is the fact that the oldest story told made by the oldest civilization opens with "In those days, in those distant days, in those ancient nights."
This confirms that there is a civilization older than the Sumerians that we have yet to find
Some people get existential dread from this
Me? I think it's fucking awesome it shows just how much of this world we have yet to discover and that is just fascinating
@makaeru peer review cos this made me check when the Sumerians happened and I forget how recent history is for every other continent. 7000 - 8000 years ago just isn't that long when you're in Australia, and the amount of detailed history we have access to here is wonderful and should be recognised more internationally
Source (non Aboriginal)
And a quote I picked out from a longer interview with an Aboriginal local elder about the area where he touched on the history
Source (the rest of the interview is really interesting and all transcribed, have a look if you're curious)
This is part of my Ancient Civilizations class that I teach, which does a whole week about Australia and the Torres Strait Islands because I was sick of never seeing them represented in USAmerican history contexts. With the help of @micewithknives and @acearchaeologist I've learned so many incredible things about Australia's past and it's been incredibly rewarding to share them with students.
My favorite fact about Aboriginal oral history is the fact that we pretty recently discovered that the Aboriginal myth of the 7 Sisters, an origin story for the Pleiades star cluster, accurately reflects a point TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO when two stars in the constellation got close enough together to no longer be distinguishable by the naked eye.
The story? 6 sisters running from something that took their 7th sister.
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