Diversity win! Hideo Kojima outs you
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Diversity win! Hideo Kojima outs you
I’m sorry, what was that about Joe not being liberal enough for y’all?
Because me and my six figures worth of student loan debt would like a word.
Source
[Picture ID: Tweet from @itshilarybuff, October 5th “Not a drill: Joe Biden commits to eliminating student debt for those who make under $120k. Y’all Go Vote!!!” Below that is the quote tweet from NBC News showing a clip from a town hall in Florida.]
btw, his plan, as stated here, doesn’t wipe my stupid loans, those aren’t going away shy of economic miracle, and I still love this answer. He’s talking specifically about killing loans going forward for people, and to handle the loans we already have, I copied from his website below.
From joebiden.com/beyondhs/#
More than halve payments on undergraduate federal student loans by simplifying and increasing the generosity of today’s income-based repayment program. Under the Biden plan, individuals making $25,000 or less per year will not owe any payments on their undergraduate federal student loans and also won’t accrue any interest on those loans. Everyone else will pay 5% of their discretionary income (income minus taxes and essential spending like housing and food) over $25,000 toward their loans. This plan will save millions of Americans thousands of dollars a year. After 20 years, the remainder of the loans for people who have responsibly made payments through the program will be 100% forgiven. Individuals with new and existing loans will all be automatically enrolled in the income-based repayment program, with the opportunity to opt out if they wish. In addition to relieving some of the burden of student debt, this will enable graduates to pursue careers in public service and other fields without high levels of compensation. Biden will also change the tax code so that debt forgiven through the income-based repayment plan won’t be taxed. Americans shouldn’t have to take out a loan to pay their taxes when they finally are free from their student loans.
That is much better than what the current set up does. Minus taxes and essential spending will be a fight over what that means depending where you live, but its a really good thing.
He also wants to help with job training so we don’t all get these degrees that don’t help us get dang jobs. And he wants to go after private for-profit universities. And he wants to better fun grant programs. and, and, and.
Most important of all? This guy listens. Sure, sure, politics is gonna politic, but millennials are the largest voting block in the country now. If we raise a fuss, it actually matters. But only if we vote.
Actually, let me just show you some math. Actual total of loans doesn’t really matter above a certain point to be honest because the interest grows faster than you can pay them, so lets say you’re on that sinking ship, where the payment amount to actually pay them off would mean paying something like 2700 a month. obviously not gonna happen. So you’re on an Income Based Repayment Plan with your borrower. You can be asked to pay between 10 and 20% of your net income (depending on many factors)
Lets say you’re a single human person, working a good job, 60k a year; after tax, you have around 45k. Under Biden’s plan, they start by taking 25k of that, putting it to the side and removing it from the calculus. Then. they take an amount off for essential spending. Don’t know what that math works out to yet, so lets assume someone awful gets to decide it, and its 12.7k a year (the poverty line for a single human) Then, they only can bill you for 5% of the remainder. So.
60k - taxes = ~45k
45k - threshold = 20k
20k - essential spending = 7.3k
$7300 x 5% = $365 a year -or- $30 a month
Sure, Strife, that’s a pipe dream, you say, what happens if the ‘essential spending’ part dies in congress? Fair point, Congress is a sinkhole of evil. But lets see:
60k - taxes = ~45k
45k - threshold = 20k
20k x 5% = $1000 a year -or- $83 a month
Yeah, you say, but I’m a curmudgeon and I want to assume the worst because I hate politicians, what if they lose the threshold, and only get the 5% through and everything else stays exactly the same?
In that case, it will straight up cut everyone’s payments in half. Minimum. Whatever you’re paying now? Half that. In the case of the example above, that means
60k - taxes = ~45k
45k x 5% = $2250 a year -or- $187 a month
So this guy is out here going after free college for the younger parts of GenZ and all of our kids. AND he’s going to make the loans we have into a much more bearable burden. PLUS. If you didn’t see up there? That he’d kill the taxes paid on forgiven loans? Yeah, that’s a thing right now. If you pay for 20 years, and end with 60k in loans to be forgiven, you pay taxes on the 60k all at once. Which means you owe the government around 15k. Which. Ironically. Usually means you have to take out another loan.
And this would apply to everyone, you can opt out if you wanna clear yours sooner, but you don’t have to do the jump through hoops and beg routine like you do now.
This is a really really really good plan, folks, please look at something other than tumblr and fb, please look at his website, there’s some really good stuff in there. If you don’t understand, ask for clarification, bc there is so much good.
#the biden plans are heavily inspired by the progressives#Liz wrote parts#Bernie wrote parts#AOC wrote parts#the man is listening#so get him in office#and flip the senate#so Liz can drop a six inch binder called ‘plans to get shit done’ on the desk#and make McConnell cry from his minority leader desk
I’m sorry but you can’t just leave this in the tags
Fantasy Guide to Feasts, Food and Drink
Picture yourself at a banquet held at the local Lord’s castle. The music is playing, the people are chatting and rustling about in their best clothes. You sit at a table and what sits before you? Not chicken nuggets, my friend.
Food is always one of the staples of any world you build. You can get a feel of class, society and morality just by looking at the spread before you on the table.
Food for lower classes (Peasants)
Most peasants lived off the land, rearing flocks, tilling fields and tending orchards. If they lived near the sea, lakes, rivers or streams, they would fish. But since they lived on land owned by churches or lords, they would only be allowed a portion of what they grew. In cities, the peasants would buy food from one another at the market.
Peasants would make bread out of rye grain, that would make the bread very dark. In some communities they would make sourdough, which involves using a piece of dough you made the day before to make that day’s bread.
Eggs were a source of food that was easy to come by as farmers kept chickens on hand.
Cheese and butter would be sold and used in the farm.
Jam would also be made as it was easy to preserve and sell.
Peasants would not eat much meat. Chickens made money by laying eggs, pigs could be fattened and sold for profit and cows and goats would be used for milk. By killing any of these animals for food they would loose a portion of money. Poaching (hunting on private land owned by the lord) would come with severe penalties.
Pottage and stew were a favourite of peasants as they could throw any vegetables or bit of meat or fish in a pot to cook for a few hours. It wasn’t a difficult dish to make and often inexpensive.
Pies, pasties and pastries would be a favourite at inns and taverns in towns and cities most containing gravy, meat and vegetables.
With most villages and farms set close to forests, many peasants could find berries at the edge of fields. Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries would have all grown wild.
Food for Nobility & Royalty
Nobility and Royalty could always afford better food than the poor. However it might be a patch more unhealthy than the poor’s fare. Nobility and Royalty weren’t fans of vegetables.
The rich would eat a lot of meat, much of which they would hunt down themselves on their own land. Deer, wild boar, rabbits, turkey and other wild creatures would all be on the table.
Nobility and Royalty would be fond of fish as well. Lamprey eels was a delicacy only preserved for special occasions.
They could afford salt which was important for preserving meat and fish. This would allow the castle/manor/palace to be stocked in times of winter or famine.
They could also afford pepper and other spices, all of which could cost a fortune, to flavour their food.
During a feast, they would eat off of platters made of precious metals but only if you were seated at the high table. Other less important guests would eat off a trencher, a piece of hollowed out stale bread.
Sugar would be the height of dessert. The sugar would be shaped into fantastical formations to impress the noble guests. Tudor chefs would create edible sugar plates for Henry VIII to eat off of.
Swans and peacocks would be served in their plumage. Swans would be more royal diners as in England the monarch owns all the swans. In Ireland, it is illegal to kill a swan mainly because they could be children trapped in swan-bodies. Long story.
Feasts
At certain events, the noble/monarch might throw a party. Most parties would begin with a dinner.
The high table would seat the family throwing the party and the honoured guests. All the food would come to them first to be distributed to their favourites. They would drink the best wine and have the finest bread.
The rest of the hall would be seated together at trestle tables, eating off trenchers. They would be sent food by the thrower of the feast on account of their personal importance or social standing. The closer you were to the salt cellar, placed at the head of the table the more important you were. The further away you were, the lower your status.
Servants called cupbearers would serve wine and drink and move about the hall to carry jugs of wine to water the guests.
Dogs would often be found in the hall, to be fed scraps by the diners.
Drink
No world or party is complete without the booze. Since much of the water in Mediaeval times was putrid or dirty, the classes would avoid it.
Beer: was both a favourite of peasants and the nobility. It would be brewed in castles or in taverns and inns, each site having a different recipe and taste. It would be stored in barrels. Beer was widely available across the world and could be brewed at home. So therefore it was inexpensive.
The two main types of beer would be:
Ale: Ale in the middle ages referred to beer brewed without hops (a kind of flowering plant that gives beer its bitter taste). It is sweeter and would typically have a fruity aftertaste.
Stout: is a darker beer sometimes brewed from roasted malt, coming in a sweet version and dry version, the most famous stout being Guinness.
Wine: Wine would be made on site of vineyards and stored in cellars of large houses or castles. They would be expensive as they would have to be imported from regions capable of growing vines.
Port: Port wine or fortified wine would be made with distilled grape spirits. It is a sweet red wine, and also would be expensive to import from the counties able to grow the correct vines.
Whiskey: is a spirit made from distilled fermented grain mash in a device called a still (which would always be made of copper). The age of whiskey is determined by the length of time it has been sitting in a cask from the time it is made to the time its put in bottles. Whiskey was a favourite drink in colder climates and could be made any where in the world.
Rum: Rum is made by fermenting and distilling sugarcane molasses/juice. It is aged in oak barrels and would have to be imported as it could only be made in lands able to grow sugarcane.
Poitín: (pronounced as pot-cheen) is made from cereals, grain, whey, sugar beet, molasses and potatoes. It is a Dangerous Drink (honestly i still don’t know how I ended up in that field with a traffic cone and a Shetland pony) and technically illegal. Country folk in Ireland used to brew it in secrets in stills hidden on their land.
“Country folk in Ireland used to brew it in secret in stills hidden on their land.”
Not any more though. Of course not. All past and done with. Honest.
Just don’t take a chug from that litre-sized plastic bottle of apparently-7Up at the back of cousin Ciarán‘s pantry without asking first.
Voice of semi-experience; it was indeed a litre-sized 7Up bottle, the clear stuff inside it might indeed have looked like 7Up, but I have a working nose and 7Up does NOT smell like 80% ABV / 190 proof moonshine.
Why did I even open it? Because I don’t just have a working nose, I’m also nosy. BTW, well-made poitín is as close as nevermind to vodka. Badly-made poitín - or so I’m told and am glad not to speak first-hand - is the wrath of god in a bottle, compared to which traffic cones and Shetland ponies are but a light pleasantry.
While on the topic of spirituous tipples for fantasy drinking, vodka and gin both have a long history. Gin has only started getting adventurous during recent years, but vodka has long been flavoured by numerous things steeped in it - chilli or pepper (Pertsovka), honey and spices (Okhotnichya or Krupnik), lemon (Limonnaya) and bison grass (Żubrówka).
We’ve tried doing all but the bison grass, as well as black tea and coffee beans (not illegal distilling, just stuff dropped into bought vodka). Don’t leave any flavouring agent in place for more than a week, or everything starts turning bitter and acrid; I think some sort of breakdown begins. We lost nothing, but a couple more days would have been too much.
The most popular alternative to grapes, grain and potatoes for distillation are fruits like apples, cherries, damsons, lemons, pears, plums, raspberries, strawberries and so on, but if you can think booze might be made from it, someone somewhere sometime probably has made booze from it, or added it to basic white alcohol.
Besides the stuff that’s gone into vodka, roots have been used to make Enzian (gentian) and Ingwerschnapps (ginger) while vegetables have gone into Cynar (artichokes) and Zirbenschnapps (stone-pine cones).
Slightly off the food-and-drink topic, alcohol was once purely medicinal and was often called “water” or “waters” - “vodka” means “little water”, “whisk(e)y” comes from uisce beatha (water of life), and various fruit-based spirit drinks are still called eaux-de-vie (waters of life again).
Kipling’s story “A Doctor of Medicine” mentions a pretty vigorous medicinal water:
“…I drenched* him then and there with a half-cup of waters, which I do not say cure the plague, but are excellent against heaviness of the spirits.’
‘What were they?’ said Dan.
‘White brandy rectified, camphor, cardamoms, ginger, two sorts of pepper, and aniseed.’
‘Whew!’ said Puck. ‘Waters you call ’em!’ “
* “Drenched” here means “dosed”, though it might be safer to mark that stuff “external use only”, like these:
Eau-de-Cologne / Kölnisch Wasser (Cologne water), Hungary water, Lavender water and Acqua di Parma are all perfumes based on herbs and flowers whose scent was believed to counter the diseases carried by foul smells (a belief behind the name of one disease, malaria, which means “bad air”).
If a fantasy world already has distilled drinks Made From Things (Black Tar Rum in Westeros, Scumble, Old MacAbre and Special Sheep Liniment on Discworld) then it’s reasonable to include medicines, perfumes and yet more distilled drinks Flavoured With Things.
Our world already has booze with worms and snakes in it; with fantasy the sky’s the limit.
Especially after contact with a naked flame…
today I offer some she-ra tomorrow? who knows…
Fantasy Guide to Architecture
This post has been waiting on the back burner for weeks and during this time of quarantine, I have decided to tackle it. This is probably the longest post I have ever done. I is very tired and hope that I have covered everything from Ancient times to the 19th Century, that will help you guys with your worldbuilding.
Materials
What you build with can be determined by the project you intend, the terrain you build on and the availability of the material. It is one characteristic that we writers can take some some liberties with.
Granite: Granite is an stone formed of Igneous activity near a fissure of the earth or a volcano. Granites come in a wide range of colour, most commonly white, pink, or grey depending on the minerals present. Granite is hard and a durable material to build with. It can be built with without being smoothed but it looks bitchin' and shiny all polished up.
Marble: Probably everyone's go to materials for building grand palaces and temples. Marble is formed when great pressure is placed on limestone. Marble can be easily damaged over time by rain as the calcium in the rock dissolves with the chemicals found in rain. Marble comes in blue, white, green, black, white, red, gray and yellow. Marble is an expensive material to build with, highly sought after for the most important buildings. Marble is easy to carve and shape and polishes to a high gleam. Marble is found at converging plate boundaries.
Obsidian: Obsidian is probably one of the most popular stones mentioned in fantasy works. Obsidian is an igneous rock formed of lava cooling quickly on the earth's surfaces. Obsidian is a very brittle and shiny stone, easy to polish but not quite a good building material but a decorative one.
Limestone: Limestone is made of fragments of marine fossils. Limestone is one of the oldest building materials. Limestone is an easy material to shape but it is easily eroded by rain which leads most limestone monuments looking weathered.
Concrete: Concrete has been around since the Romans. Concrete is formed when aggregate (crushed limstone, gravel or granite mixed with fine dust and sand) is mixed with water. Concrete can be poured into the desired shape making it a cheap and easy building material.
Brick: Brick was one of history's most expensive materials because they took so long to make. Bricks were formed of clay, soil, sand, and lime or concrete and joined together with mortar. The facade of Hampton Court Palace is all of red brick, a statement of wealth in the times.
Glass: Glass is formed of sand heated until it hardens. Glass is an expensive material and for many years, glass could not be found in most buildings as having glass made was very expensive.
Plaster: Plaster is made from gypsum and lime mixed with water. It was used for decoration purposes and to seal walls. A little known fact, children. Castle walls were likely painted with plaster or white render on the interior.
Wattle and Daub: Wattle and daub is a building material formed of woven sticks cemented with a mixture of mud, one of the most common and popular materials throughout time.
Building terms
Arcade: An arcade is a row of arches, supported by columns.
Arch: An arch is a curved feature built to support weight often used for a window or doorway.
Mosaic: Mosaics are a design element that involves using pieces of coloured glass and fitted them together upon the floor or wall to form images.
Frescos: A design element of painting images upon wet plaster.
Buttress: A structure built to reinforce and support a wall.
Column: A column is a pillar of stone or wood built to support a ceiling. We will see more of columns later on.
Eave: Eaves are the edges of overhanging roofs built to allow eater to run off.
Vaulted Ceiling: The vaulted ceilings is a self-supporting arched ceiling, than spans over a chamber or a corridor.
Colonnade: A colonnade is a row of columns joined the entablature.
Entablature: a succession of bands laying atop the tops of columns.
Bay Window: The Bay Window is a window projecting outward from a building.
Courtyard/ Atrium/ Court: The courtyard is an open area surrounded by buildings on all sides
Dome: The dome resembles a hollow half of a sphere set atop walls as a ceiling.
Façade: the exterior side of a building
Gable: The gable is a triangular part of a roof when two intersecting roof slabs meet in the middle.
Hyphen: The hyphen is a smaller building connecting between two larger structures.
Now, let's look at some historical building styles and their characteristics of each Architectural movement.
Classical Style
The classical style of Architecture cannot be grouped into just one period. We have five: Doric (Greek), Ionic (Greek), Corinthian (Greek), Tuscan (Roman) and Composite (Mixed).
Doric: Doric is the oldest of the orders and some argue it is the simplest. The columns of this style are set close together, without bases and carved with concave curves called flutes. The capitals (the top of the column) are plain often built with a curve at the base called an echinus and are topped by a square at the apex called an abacus. The entablature is marked by frieze of vertical channels/triglyphs. In between the channels would be detail of carved marble. The Parthenon in Athens is your best example of Doric architecture.
Ionic: The Ionic style was used for smaller buildings and the interiors. The columns had twin volutes, scroll-like designs on its capital. Between these scrolls, there was a carved curve known as an egg and in this style the entablature is much narrower and the frieze is thick with carvings. The example of Ionic Architecture is the Temple to Athena Nike at the Athens Acropolis.
Corinthian: The Corinthian style has some similarities with the Ionic order, the bases, entablature and columns almost the same but the capital is more ornate its base, column, and entablature, but its capital is far more ornate, commonly carved with depictions of acanthus leaves. The style was more slender than the others on this list, used less for bearing weight but more for decoration. Corinthian style can be found along the top levels of the Colosseum in Rome.
Tuscan: The Tuscan order shares much with the Doric order, but the columns are un-fluted and smooth. The entablature is far simpler, formed without triglyphs or guttae. The columns are capped with round capitals.
Composite: This style is mixed. It features the volutes of the Ionic order and the capitals of the Corinthian order. The volutes are larger in these columns and often more ornate. The column's capital is rather plain. for the capital, with no consistent differences to that above or below the capital.
Islamic Architecture
Islamic architecture is the blanket term for the architectural styles of the buildings most associated with the eponymous faith. The style covers early Islamic times to the present day. Islamic Architecture has some influences from Mesopotamian, Roman, Byzantine, China and the Mongols.
Paradise garden: As gardens are an important symbol in Islam, they are very popular in most Islamic-style buildings. The paradise gardens are commonly symmetrical and often enclosed within walls. The most common style of garden is split into four rectangular with a pond or water feature at the very heart. Paradise gardens commonly have canals, fountains, ponds, pools and fruit trees as the presence of water and scent is essential to a paradise garden.
Sehan: The Sehan is a traditional courtyard. When built at a residence or any place not considered to be a religious site, the sehan is a private courtyard. The sehan will be full of flowering plants, water features snd likely surrounded by walls. The space offers shade, water and protection from summer heat. It was also an area where women might cast off their hijabs as the sehan was considered a private area and the hijab was not required. A sehan is also the term for a courtyard of a mosque. These courtyards would be surrounded by buildings on all sides, yet have no ceiling, leaving it open to the air. Sehans will feature a cleansing pool at the centre, set under a howz, a pavilion to protect the water. The courtyard is used for rituals but also a place of rest and gathering.
Hypostyle Hall: The Hypostyle is a hall, open to the sky and supported by columns leading to a reception hall off the main hall to the right.
Muqarnas : Muqarnas is a type of ornamentation within a dome or a half domed, sometimes called a "honeycomb", or "stalactite" vaulted ceiling. This would be cast from stone, wood, brick or stucco, used to ornament the inside of a dome or cupola. Muqarnas are used to create transitions between spaces, offering a buffer between the spaces.
African Architecture
African Architecture is a very mixed bag and more structurally different and impressive than Hollywood would have you believe. Far beyond the common depictions of primitive buildings, the African nations were among the giants of their time in architecture, no style quite the same as the last but just as breathtaking.
Somali architecture: The Somali were probably had one of Africa's most diverse and impressive architectural styles. Somali Architecture relies heavy on masonry, carving stone to shape the numerous forts, temples, mosques, royal residences, aqueducts and towers. Islamic architecture was the main inspiration for some of the details of the buildings. The Somali used sun-dried bricks, limestone and many other materials to form their impressive buildings, for example the burial monuments called taalo
Ashanti Architecture: The Ashanti style can be found in present day Ghana. The style incorporates walls of plaster formed of mud and designed with bright paint and buildings with a courtyard at the heart, not unlike another examples on this post. The Ashanti also formed their buildings of the favourite method of wattle and daub.
Afrikaner Architecture: This is probably one of the oddest architectural styles to see. Inspired by Dutch settlers (squatters), the buildings of the colony (planters/squatters) of South Africa took on a distinctive Dutch look but with an Afrikaner twist to it making it seem both familiar and strange at the same time.
Rwandan Architecture: The Rwandans commonly built of hardened clay with thatched roofs of dried grass or reeds. Mats of woven reeds carpeted the floors of royal abodes. These residences folded about a large public area known as a karubanda and were often so large that they became almost like a maze, connecting different chambers/huts of all kinds of uses be they residential or for other purposes.
Aksumite Architecture: The Aksumite was an Empire in modern day Ethiopia. The Aksumites created buildings from stone, hewn into place. One only has to look at the example of Bete Medhane Alem to see how imposing it was.
Yoruba Architecture: Yoruba Architecture was made by earth cured until it hardened enough to form into walls, or they used wattle and daub, roofed by timbers slats coated in woven grass or leaves. Each unit divided up parts of the buildings from facilities to residences, all with multiple entrances, connected together.
Igbo Architecture: The Igbo style follows some patterns of the Yoruba architecture, excepting that there are no connected walls and the spacing is not so equal. The closer a unit was to the centre, the more important inhabitants were.
Hausa architecture: Hausa Architecture was formed of monolithic walls coated in plaster. The ceilings and roof of the buildings were in the shape of small domes and early vaulted ceilings of stripped timber and laterite. Hausa Architecture features a single entrance into the building and circular walls.
Nubian Architecture: Nubia, in modern day Ethiopia, was home to the Nubians who were one of the world's most impressive architects at the beginning of the architecture world and probably would be more talked about if it weren't for the Egyptians building monuments only up the road. The Nubians were famous for building the speos, tall tower-like spires carved of stone. The Nubians used a variety of materials and skills to build, for example wattle and daub and mudbrick. The Kingdom of Kush, the people who took over the Nubian Empire was a fan of Egyptian works even if they didn't like them very much. The Kushites began building pyramid-like structures such at the sight of Gebel Barkal
Egyptian Architecture: The Egyptians were the winners of most impressive buildings for s good while. Due to the fact that Egypt was short on wood, Ancient Egyptians returned to building with limestone, granite, mudbrick, sandstone which were commonly painted with bright murals of the gods along with some helpful directions to Anubis's crib. The Egyptians are of course famous for their pyramids but lets not just sit on that bandwagon. Egyptian Architecture sported all kinds of features such as columns, piers, obelisks and carving buildings out of cliff faces as we see at Karnak. The Egyptians are cool because they mapped out their buildings in such a way to adhere to astrological movements meaning on special days if the calendar the temple or monuments were in the right place always. The Egyptians also only build residences on the east bank of the Nile River, for the opposite bank was meant for the dead. The columns of Egyptian where thicker, more bulbous and often had capitals shaped like bundles of papyrus reeds.
Chinese Architecture
Chinese Architecture is probably one of the most recognisable styles in the world. The grandness of Chinese Architecture is imposing and beautiful, as classical today as it was hundreds of years ago.
The Presence of Wood: As China is in an area where earthquakes are common, most of the buildings are were build of wood as it was easy to come across and important as the Ancient Chinese wanted a connection to nature in their homes.
Overhanging Roofs: The most famous feature of the Chinese Architectural style are the tiled roofs, set with wide eaves and upturned corners. The roofs were always tiled with ceramic to protect wood from rotting. The eaves often overhung from the building providing shade.
Symmetrical Layouts: Chinese Architecture is symmetrical. Almost every feature is in perfect balance with its other half.
Fengshui: Fengshui are philosophical principles of how to layout buildings and towns according to harmony lain out in Taoism. This ensured that the occupants in the home where kept in health, happiness, wealth and luck.
One-story: As China is troubled by earthquakes and wood is not a great material for building multi-storied buildings, most Chinese buildings only rise a single floor. Richer families might afford a second floor but the single stories compounds were the norm.
Orientation: The Ancient Chinese believed that the North Star marked out Heaven. So when building their homes and palaces, the northern section was the most important part of the house and housed the heads of the household.
Courtyards: The courtyard was the most important area for the family within the home. The courtyard or siheyuan are often built open to the sky, surrounded by verandas on each side.
Japanese Architecture
Japanese Architecture is famous for its delicacy, smooth beauty and simplistic opulence. Japanese Architecture has been one of the world's most recognisable styles, spanning thousands of years.
Wood as a Common Material: As with the Chinese, the most popular material used by the Japanese is wood. Stone and other materials were not often used because of the presence of earthquakes. Unlike Chinese Architecture, the Japanese did not paint the wood, instead leaving it bare so show the grain.
Screens and sliding doors: The shoji and fusuma are the screens and sliding doors are used in Japanese buildings to divide chambers within the house. The screens were made of light wood and thin parchment, allowing light through the house. The screens and sliding doors were heavier when they where used to shutter off outside features.
Tatami: Tatami mats are used within Japanese households to blanket the floors. They were made of rice straw and rush straw, laid down to cushion the floor.
Verandas: It is a common feature in older Japanese buildings to see a veranda along the outside of the house. Sometimes called an engawa, it acted as an outdoor corridor, often used for resting in.
Genkan: The Genkan was a sunken space between the front door and the rest of the house. This area is meant to separate the home from the outside and is where shoes are discarded before entering.
Nature: As both the Shinto and Buddhist beliefs are great influences upon architecture, there is a strong presence of nature with the architecture. Wood is used for this reason and natural light is prevalent with in the home. The orientation is meant to reflect the best view of the world.
Indian Architecture
India is an architectural goldmine. There are dozens of styles of architecture in the country, some spanning back thousands of years, influenced by other cultures making a heady stew of different styles all as beautiful and striking as the last.
Mughal Architecture: The Mughal architecture blends influences from Islamic, Persian along with native Indian. It was popular between the 16th century -18th century when India was ruled by Mughal Emperors. The Taj Mahal is the best example of this.
Indo-Saracenic Revival Architecture: Indo Saracenic Revival mixes classical Indian architecture, Indo-Islamic architecture, neo-classical and Gothic revival of the 1800s.
Cave Architecture: The cave architecture is probably one of the oldest and most impressive styles of Indian architecture. In third century BC, monks carved temples and buildings into the rock of caves.
Rock-Cut Architecture: The Rock-cut is similar to the cave style, only that the rock cut is carved from a single hunk of natural rock, shaped into buildings and sprawling temples, all carved and set with statues.
Vesara Architecture: Vesara style prevalent in medieval period in India. It is a mixture of the Dravida and the Nagara styles. The tiers of the Vesara style are shorter than the other styles.
Dravidian Architecture: The Dravidian is the southern temple architectural style. The Kovils are an example of prime Dravidian architecture. These monuments are of carved stone, set up in a step like towers like with statues of deities and other important figures adorning them.
Kalinga Architecture: The Kalinga style is the dominant style in the eastern Indian provinces. The Kalinga style is famous for architectural stipulations, iconography and connotations and heavy depictions of legends and myths.
Sikh Architecture: Sikh architecture is probably the most intricate and popular of the styles here. Sikh architecture is famous for its soft lines and details.
Romanesque (6th -11th century/12th)
Romanesque Architecture is a span between the end of Roman Empire to the Gothic style. Taking inspiration from the Roman and Byzantine Empires, the Romanesque period incorporates many of the styles.
Rounded arches: It is here that we see the last of the rounded arches famous in the classical Roman style until the Renaissance. The rounded arches are very popular in this period especially in churches and cathedrals. The rounded arches were often set alongside each other in continuous rows with columns in between.
Details: The most common details are carved floral and foliage symbols with the stonework of the Romanesque buildings. Cable mouldings or twisted rope-like carvings would have framed doorways.
Pillars: The Romanesque columns is commonly plainer than the classical columns, with ornate captials and plain bases. Most columns from this time are rather thick and plain.
Barrel Vaults: A barrel vaulted ceiling is formed when a curved ceiling or a pair of curves (in a pointed ceiling). The ceiling looks rather like half a tunnel, completely smooth and free of ribs, stone channels to strengthen the weight of the ceiling.
Arcading: An arcade is a row of arches in a continual row, supported by columns in a colonnade. Exterior arcades acted as a sheltered passage whilst inside arcades or blind arcades, are set against the wall the arches bricked, the columns and arches protruding from the wall.
Gothic Architecture (12th Century - 16th Century)
The Gothic Architectural style is probably one of the beautiful of the styles on this list and one of most recognisable. The Gothic style is a dramatic, opposing sight and one of the easiest to describe.
Pointed arch: The Gothic style incorporates pointed arches, in the windows and doorways. The arches were likely inspired by pre-Islamic architecture in the east.
Ribbed vault: The ribbed vault of the Gothic age was constructed of pointed arches. The trick with the ribbed vaulted ceiling, is that the pointed arches and channels to bear the weight of the ceiling.
Buttresses: The flying buttress is designed to support the walls. They are similar to arches and are connected to counter-supports fixed outside the walls.
Stained-Glass Window: This is probably one of the most recognisable and beautiful of the Gothic features. They can be set in round rose windows or in the pointed arches.
Renaissance Architecture (15th Century- 17th Century)
Renaissance architecture was inspired by Ancient Roman and Greek Architecture. Renaissance Architecture is Classical on steroids but has its own flare. The Renaissance was a time for colour and grandeur.
Columns and pilasters: Roman and Greek columns were probably the greatest remix of the Renaissance period. The architecture of this period incorporated the five orders of columns are used: Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. The columns were used to hold up a structure, support ceilings and adorn facades. Pilasters were columns within a chamber, lining the walls for pure decoration purposes.
Arches: Arches are rounded in this period, having a more natural semi-circular shape at its apex. Arches were a favourite feature of the style, used in windows, arcades or atop columns.
Cupola: Is a small dome-like tower atop a bigger dome or a rooftop meant to allow light and air into the chamber beneath.
Vaulted Ceiling/Barrel Vault: Renaissance vaulted ceilings do not have ribs. Instead they are semi-circular in shape, resting upon a square plain rather than the Gothic preference of rectangular. The barrel vault held by its own weight and would likely be coated in plaster and painted.
Domes: The dome is the architectural feature of the Renaissance. The ceiling curves inwards as it rises, forming a bowl like shape over the chamber below. The dome's revival can be attributed to Brunelleschi and the Herculean feat of placing a dome on the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. The idea was later copied by Bramante who built St. Peter's Basilica.
Frescos: To decorate the insides of Renaissance buildings, frescos (the art of applying wet paint to plaster as it dries) were used to coat the walls and ceilings of the buildings. The finest frescos belong to Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.
Baroque (1625–1750)
Baroque incorporates some key features of Renaissance architecture, such as those nice columns and domes we saw earlier on. But Baroque takes that to the next level. Everything is higher, bigger, shinier, brighter and more opulent. Some key features of Baroque palaces and buildings would be:
Domes: These domes were a common feature, left over from the Renaissance period. Why throw out a perfectly good bubble roof, I ask you? But Baroque domes were of course, grander. Their interiors were were nearly always painted or gilded, so it drew the eye upwards which is basically the entire trick with Baroque buildings. Domes were not always round in this building style and Eastern European buildings in Poland and Ukraine for example sport pear-shaped domes.
Solomonic columns: Though the idea of columns have been about for years but the solomonic columns but their own twist on it. These columns spiral from beginning to end, often in a s-curved pattern.
Quadratura: Quadratura was the practice of painting the ceilings and walls of a Baroque building with trompe-l'oeil. Most real life versions of this depict angels and gods in the nude. Again this is to draw the eye up.
Mirrors: Mirrors came into popularity during this period as they were a cool way to create depth and light in a chamber. When windows faced the mirrors on the wall, it creates natural light and generally looks bitchin'. Your famous example is the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.
Grand stairways: The grand sweeping staircases became popular in this era, often acting as the centre piece in a hall. The Baroque staircase would be large and opulent, meant for ceremonies and to smoother guests in grandeur.
Cartouche: The cartouche is a design that is created to add some 3D effect to the wall, usually oval in shape with a convex surface and edged with scrollwork. It is used commonly to outline mirrors on the wall or crest doorways just to give a little extra opulence.
Neoclassical (1750s-19th century)
The Neoclassical Period involved grand buildings inspired by the Greek orders, the most popular being the Doric. The main features of Neoclassical architecture involve the simple geometric lines, columns, smooth walls, detailing and flat planed surfaces. The bas-reliefs of the Neoclassical style are smoother and set within tablets, panels and friezes. St. Petersburg is famous for the Neoclassical styles brought in under the reign of Catherine the Great.
Greek Revival (late 18th and early 19th century)
As travel to other nations became easier in this time period, they became to get really into the Ancient Greek aesthetic. During this architectural movement they brought back the gabled roof, the columns and the entablature. The Greek Revival was more prevalent in the US after the Civil War and in Northern Europe.
Hope this helps somewhat @marril96
alright girls and gays,
which cartoon protagonist are you?
As the world fell…each of us in our own way was broken.
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD 2015 | dir. George Miller
(November 29, 1976 – August 28, 2020)
the thing that’s getting me about chadwick, is how tired he must have been. how much strength it takes to be undergoing painful treatment and invasive surgery, and to still be creating art. to know you probably will not live to a ripe old age and to say “i’m creating a legacy now” and using the time you have on this earth to tell black stories, to embody a warrior and a king for black people to see themselves reflected in, to create art. that sort of strength deserved to live, it deserved to survive. it’s so incredibly unfair.
rest in power chadwick, we watched you play a hero but little did we know, the hero was you all along. wakanda forever and always king.
Black Panther (2018) dir. Ryan Coogler
The projects that I end up doing, that I want to be involved with in any way, have always been projects that will be impactful, for the most part, to my people — to black people. To see black people in ways which you have not seen them before. So Black Panther was on my radar, and in my dreams.
A quick reference for writing characters with glasses when you don’t wear glasses
For Myopia related glasses (aka someone who is nearsighted and can’t see stuff far away) you cannot stop at a drug store to get some new ones
You have not invented glasses that turn dark in the sunlight, those already exist. They’re called transition and it’s kinda pricy
Glasses are very very very expensive and sometimes we can only afford to swap out the lenses and just patch up the frame with some electrical tape
Velma was not exaggerating in scooby do, if your eyesight is bad enough and you drop your glasses, depending on their color and where you drop them it will be hard to find them again if you have bad eyesight. (I have red glasses and a red duvet... the struggle is real)
There are a lot of nervous ticks related to glasses like pushing them up, taking them off to clean them, etc
We’re not supposed to clean our glasses with our t-shirt but most of us do it anyway because it’s easier
Depending on the amount of prescription it is possible to forget to wear your glasses, and very annoying when you realize you have (I speak from experience with my old pair of glasses, I now cannot forget them any longer)
Not wearing glasses causes forced vision which causes headaches which hurt. Not fun.
If you have a big prescription and frames that are too thin, the lenses will pop out and it will be annoying but usually they can be popped back in on their own.
I usually have to take off my glasses to use my phone because I’m near sighted and they don’t let me see properly when I’m using my phone. This also apply when reading a book and sticking it to your face or any paper that you hold closely
This is mostly just a list of thoughts typed out by a everyday glasses user that I find could be handy when writing characters with glasses when you yourself don’t wear them. List was inspired by reading something in a book that did what I said you can’t do in bullet point 1.
Feel free to add on to the list if you’d like
oh I love this. other things, my perspective as someone whose vision has gotten WAY worse over my lifetime from basically fine to almost cannot function without glasses:
-lying on your side with your cheek against a pillow or whatnot is awful with glasses because it pushes them against your nose and messes up your vision
-lots of people have different vision in one eye than the other (my right eye is much worse than my left eye, I know someone who's near sighted in one eye and far sighted in the other which is more rare)
-since lenses can't change their curvature your prescription does not give you perfect vision, it's an approximation of what you need to be able to see more or less well both distant and near. the exception to this is bifocal/multifocal lenses. they're not just for your grandma! my lenses are thicker at the top than the bottom, so if I'm looking at, say, my phone or a book, I tilt my head up and look through the lower part of the lense, and if I'm, say, driving, I look out the top part, because my eyes are SO BAD that there's no good average for them. this is a much more expensive lense, unfortunately
-most people don't have insurance that covers their glasses/eye exams and if they do it's probably not very good (mine is considered quite good, and it covers the exam and 200usd and some percentage of extra, my glasses this year cost about 600, I paid about 300. most frames in a store cost between 100 and 500 and I'm not joking.)
-if you have a very strong or weird prescription, most of those online cheap places are still pretty expensive, rip
-I don't care how much you wipe your lenses they will still be smudgy it sucks
-playing sports! is a thing that's a pain! my glasses bounce on my nose when I run. they fall off if I spin too fast (one time I shook my head bc there was a bug in the car and my glasses fell OUT THE WINDOW it was a real time)
-idk about far-sighted people but for nearsighted people sometimes squinting helps us see if we aren't wearing our glasses, this has to do with some science of how light works but I forget. for me my eyes are very bad and squinting doesn't really make enough difference to help.
-if your eyes aren't terrible, you can go without glasses at some distances. I can't anymore, but for a long time when I read or wrote in bed I would do it without glasses for the afore mentioned finding-a-comfortable-position-with-glasses-on-is-hard thing
-depth perception! and peripheral vision! are different with glasses! my frames are pretty big so I have a decent range of vision but peripherally where the glass isn't, I can't see, also if you switch between contacts and glasses the depth perception is different even if the prescription is the same
-new glasses probably are uncomfortable, or wearing them for long periods of time can be, at your ears and where they sit on your nose, often you can get them adjusted but depending on the discomfort sometimes it just goes away once you adjust to them
-how people feel about wearing glasses varies a lot. I was super excited for my first pair, at age 9, because all my relatives wore them and I thought they made me look grown up. my friend who got glasses around the same time cried for days and thought she would be bullied. to my knowledge she wasn't, but she was still very sad about having to wear them.
-bullying happens, I literally did get called '4-eyes' once in middle school (which didn't hurt my feelings because it was so cliché that I was just like???? what???? but I'm sure it happens to a bigger degree and is more hurtful to some people)
-knowing how to fix your glasses is a thing you figure out, whether it's owning a tiny screwdriver to fix the hinges or knowing how to use superglue best on the type of frames you have
Some additional things
- while a lot of people try contacts because it gives you more freedom there are people who can't wear them because of allergies or other issues and are stuck with glasses
- rain is the enemy. There is a way to make your glasses non-stick for rain/fog but it is expensive as fuck and most people need to clean the glasses of the rain regularly.
- same with steam/fog. You will be able to identify someone with glasses because they make funny moves to escape the steam from an oven
-the squinting counts for farsighted as well
-there are frames that bend and are designed to not break but again expensive shit
-don't forget sunglasses. We need sunglasses with our prescription. There are also these funny things you can put on your glasses that work as sunglasses which might be a cheaper option
- sometimes we don't realize how dirty our glasses got until we take them off because of a headache
-if a really young child has to wear glasses they will look like swim googles.
- Something I think artists in particular should know is that glasses make short sighted people’s eyes look smaller and long sighted people;s eyes look larger. It’s not generally that noticeable with smaller prescriptions but if someone’s eyesight is really bad you’ll notice it if you look.
- Speaking of terrible eyesight, in the UK at least, if your eyes are particularly weird or terrible, the NHS goes “yikes” and gives you free eye tests. After a certain point you get vouchers for glasses lenses too.
- Teenagers with poor eyesight often find it gets worse during growth spurts. Mostly that manifests as either needing glasses to see the board for the first time or having to wear glasses outside of class for the first time. In my case it was needing eye tests every 3-6 months and worrying my optician.
- if your character needs glasses but drives without them, they are a moron. Do not to this if you want any glasses wearing reader to like your character after this point. I came across this once and even though I can remember nothing else about the book I still want to smack the writer and character.
- Coming into a warm house on a cold day makes glasses fog no matter what you do
* some folks like me do wear them swimming; my eyes are so bad I also wear them in the shower. I rinse the fog off, I ignore the droplets, I wash them with face wash while I'm there.
* I don't wear them when I get up in the night to pee or whatever, I can navigate the house in the dark by memory and by listening. You can totally hear open vs blocked space once you get the hang of it.
* you can buy replacement nose pads by the dozen, especially if they screw in, often better cushioned than the standard plastic ones.
* strong lenses will distort at the edges, I get red and blue shift around lights, and 🌈 flashes.
* my peripheral vision is shit, but I can sometimes see behind me (and my own eyeball) reflected on the inside of the lens.
* some frames just eat hair. Yours, anyone you hug or whisper to or kiss.
* sex is a glasses optional activity, like, both yes and no.
* wraparound sunglasses rule, bc if you have a migraine, you can double up.
—The first time you ever put on your glasses, the first thing you notice is that trees have individual leaves instead of a cloud of green. This is weirdly universal (at least if you’re near-sighted).
—When you first get glasses, or get a stronger prescription, you have to get used to white objects and lights suddenly having outlines that are blue on one side and orange on the other. You get used to it and stop seeing it. (I’m not sure if this is the “red and blue shift” previously mentioned.)
—tbh glasses are terrible and contacts are better in every single way except they cost more. And you have to get used to touching your eyeball a little.
—But even if you use contacts you have to have glasses too because you can’t keep your contacts in all the time. BUT you’ll probably end up with your glasses being one or two prescriptions behind and being as cheap and bare-bones as possible because you only need them for like an hour a day.
(Source: got my first glasses at age 7 and my first contacts at age 9, now 35, nearsighted nigh unto blindness.)
Straight friend groups be like: *blonde girl* *chad* *the funny one* *kyle* *brunette girl* *frat boy*
Gay friend groups be like: *Professor X* *Magneto* *Havok* *Darwin* *Beast* *Mystique* *Banshee*
i see your “booker is happy that you are in love, really, but Please, he’s Tired, some people are trying to Sleep” and raise you booker, in the second week they’ve all been snowed in at some tiny isolated shack, hearing joe’s leg start bouncing under the table again, joe’s fingers tap-tap-tapping against his mug again, joe humming the same old love song under his breath again for the millionth fucking time, dropping his head into his hands and groaning “Nicky I’m begging you”
( @unstatedmartini )
Honestly if your anxiety is so bad that you can’t read like… something in the horror genre that I wrote (and tagged correctly) without tagging the post I made with “this literally made me have an anxiety attack i’m panicking omg my dereality is acting up” maybe you SHOULDN’T INTERACT WITH ME, because I’m a horror fan, I’m very open about being a horror fan, and I don’t like being guilt tripped over and over about a harmless piece of “creepy” writing I made!!
I’m talking about this kind of… growing group I see on this site and other sites who blames horror content creators for their anxiety issues that the creators have no control over?
For example, Adam Ellis drew a pretty good horror comic about the ghost of a creepy nurse (it was not graphic in any way, and was fairly tame) and posted this DM he received about it on his Twitter:
For any concerned, Adam Ellis put absolutely no id’ing info on this post, so the person who sent it is safely anonymous. But I honestly hate this so much. If you are THIS afraid of a drawing of a creepy ghost, you should not engage with media that is LABELLED AS A HORROR COMIC! Many people with anxiety (including myself) create horror as an outlet for our own fears–Ellis even discussed the fact that his comic was tied to his very real fears of doxxing and harassment by certain fans/enemies online. Do you have any idea how genuinely horrible it feels to be told “this thing you created for fun/to vent caused me direct and terrible mental damage?”
In short, stop being a manipulative, guilt-tripping asshole to horror creators. Stop engaging with horror media if you are so, so viscerally distressed by it that you send genuinely cruel things to people in an attempt to force them to apologize to you. A lot of horror creators use horror as an outlet to vent THEIR anxiety, and you are an asshole for trying to increase their anxiety by telling them that they “hurt you” by writing horror. G’night.
how lucky are we that we got two actors who care so much about joe and nicky; that when we want to read into a Meaningful Look™️ or microexpression we KNOW it was a deliberate Choice. it all means something! it doesn’t feel like we are fighting the text or that we’re reading too much into the acting choices. we - you, me, luca, marwan, greg rucka, gina prince bythewood - are all on the same page. it feels like we’re all having one long conversation instead of a debate, y’know?