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ossifer-deactivated20250706

it's hilarious how if you do any amount of research into life or death melee combat the prevailing themes that emerge are that

you're gonna get tired very quickly

tired leads to injured, injured leads to tired, tired leads to—

you're not gonna be as composed as you expect

humans are more fragile than you think and also more durable than you think. both are true and neither stop them from dying of an infection later (DO NOT GET BITTEN)

DO NOT GET STABBED (generally good life advice)

DO GET A SPEAR

knights are faster than you think

rainboq

Other favorites from history:

Humans are very good at *pretending* to fight each other in hopes that the generals way in the back are buying it so nobody has to get stabbed.

Most of the dying only happened after a side broke and tried to run, because then the rich assholes on horseback got to start running them down.

ere-the-sun-rises

When you do get a bloodthirtsy force, it gets bad real quick (see the battle of Adrianople, 378 CE, and the battle of Cannae, 216 BCE)

SUPPLY LINES FFS

Uuuuuuuh wow professionalization matters a lot actually

There's a lot of dust actually

Horses Will Not run through opposing infantry, but they will run at other horses

Elephants are not worth it, tbh

Shields matter a lot if you want to not die but good luck finding a balance between being too heavy and not protective enough

Anything is a projectile if you throw it hard enough

Always have a knife

Do Not Fall Down - you will be trampled

The guy with the biggest hat/plume is the leader

Release The Hounds

Valleys are BAD NEWS

Uphill is much nicer than downhill

A retreat route to boats on the sea is only helpful when you're already ready to sail

Forests are torches waiting to be lit

A professional soldier does a surprising amount of sitting around and day labour on massive projects

The army has always been a good place to become an engineer, it seems

Ffs, pleasr listen when the sergeant tells you something. He's always right

If you've got a shit general, make sure you've got a good tactician/strategist

That rich guy really doesn't know what he's doing, huh

Drowning is awful and being in the navy is certainly A Choice, but your wife will not be happy with you

Damn, all this shit is heavy :(((

Attack the baggage train >:)))

Uhhhh, sarge? The battle line broke. I'm going home

Why aren't the enemy running and screaming back at us? They're just ... walking towards us. I will not be sticking around to figure out whatever fuckery they're up to.

Blood is actually really slippery :(

I did not clean my blade and now the blood has dried and glued the sword and scabbard together :(((

Tf you mean we're gonna fight during harvest season. I think tf not.

I Hate This. All Of This.

Fuck me, battle is LOUD despite the fact I can't hear shit in this helmet

You're better to be down an arm than down a leg, tbh

Desertion rates are not as high as you'd think, but if you let the troops starve and get sick, they will abandon you en masse

WHAT MADE YOU THINK CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!

The fewer pieces to armour the better is usually is (with the exception of chain and scale)

Skirts and loose-ish clothes actually help conceal the lines of your body in combat

Don't wear too much armour in a hot place because you will be sweating until you pass out and die

CHARIOTS ARE SO COOL

Falling off a chariot is Less Cool

You're less likely to get stabbed than you are crushed or run over

Leather resists slashing damage, silk/linen resists piercing damage and wood/ceramic disperses blunt damage

Ceramic armour is actually so effective at defending its wearer that we still use it in bulletproof vests and tank armour (though once its broken it needs to be replaced)

A blade lodged in bone can actually be really hard to get back out

If your belly is cut open, you're already dead to an infection

Unless they hit a major artery, bleeding out takes a long time

dduane

(a) Supply lines. Supply lines. LOGISTICS. Never take your eye off the logistics.

(b) The best battle is the one that doesn't happen. The night before, meet up with the other side's quartermasters and buy up their mercenaries' contracts. (And don't try to get cheap about it. Odds are the other guys know within 10-20% how much cash you're carrying. Get pissy about the terms of the buy-out, and they may decide it makes more sense just to go ahead with the battle and take it all off you for disrespecting them.)

(d) Maslow is a better guide to the responsible management of armed forces than Kubler-Ross.

(e) LOGISTICS.

#humour #battle #history #for some reason I always assumed cleaning the blade of blood was for like. rust reasons. not because you couldn't draw it well once it drie

atlaculture

Do fire nation ppl actually worship fire/agni? Cuz the vedas actually also worshipped fire and a god called agni. Does that mean fire nation practices early Hinduism/vedas

It's hard to say. We only see the word agni used in their name for honor duels (Agni Kai), with agni (अग्नि) meaning "fire" in Sanskrit and kai (会) meaning "social gathering" in Japanese. The fact that "kai" refers to pleasant and non-violent forms of interaction leads me to think that Agni Kais were originally more ceremonial duels meant to express piety to the deity Agni. However, by the Hundred Year War period, it seems that the religious ceremony had evolved/been corrupted to become a form of conflict resolution with legal ramifications.

The impression I get of the post-Sozin Fire Nation is that traditional religiosity seems to be heavily discouraged. The Fire Sages seem to exist only to maintain ancient temples and conduct ceremonies; we don't see them present in any important meetings, so they presumably don't hold much real power in Fire Nation society. We see the children of the elites are taught to pledge their allegiance to the Fire Lord at the beginning of each day (or maybe even at the start of each class period), which implies that the position has developed a cult of personality that supersedes any religion in the country. The one village in the Fire Nation that seems to follow any sort of deity religion, Jang Hui (The Painted Lady village), is literally marginalized and mistreated by the Fire Nation authorities.

As for the Fire Nation of the past, it's possible they once worshipped Agni. It's worth noting that Agni is also worshipped in Buddhism as a minor deity, as well as in early Hinduism. Of course, Buddhism descends from Hinduism, so it still ultimately comes back to the Vedas. Especially with many aspects of the Fire Nation possessing a really strong Southeast Asian influence, it's reasonable to assume the Fire Nation's religious history might have went:

Early Hinduism-equivalent > State-Sponsored Buddhism-equivalent > Imperial Cult

I think it's very possible that there are small pockets of the Fire Nation that still practice an Early Hinduism-equivalent, though they probably did so in secret during Ozai's reign.

ongoing-catastrophe

We know from the Fire Sages and Aangs memory that dancing was something significant in Fire Nation culture before the war, and given the obvious significance of the Dragon Dance and the Agni Kai and even just dance as a form of social gathering.....could the Agni Kai have started out as a ceremonial dance?

Here me out. You mention the South/South East Asian influences in Fire Nation culture. Well within the Hindu tradition, Kalaripyuttu (the oldest martial art) and Bharatnattyam (a form of classical dance) are often refered to as brother-sister disciplines. They are said to have evolved from each other and the practise of one improves the other, and both (but especially Bharatnatyam) can be considered an act of worship.

(Also dance and martial arts often have complimentary evolutions, which is very cool to me)

Ancient Fire Nation society, where dance and martial arts are seen as complimentary and intertwined, where the Agni Kai is something akin to a Capoeira dance circle, and as the society grows mire warlike the dance aspect fall away and the martial aspect remains. Over time it becomes a rite-of-passage ceremonial duel. Except the society keeps hardening, and soon it stops being a cereminial rite of passage and instead becomes a show of skill and strength, a way to prove that you are worthy of your position.

And of course, Sozin comes along and dials up the "honor" aspect up to a hundred (especially considering the Fire Natiin borrows many elements from Imperial Japan) to the point where losing an Agni Kai no longer means you arent ready for the position you were vying for but instead a deep shame. Its a change that makes the existing heirarchy much more rigid, and rewards good fighters with high government positions regardless of other qualifications, and makes it much harder to question authority.

atlaculture

@ongoing-catastrophe

This a great theory. Really good insight into how a religious ceremony could be twisted to suit the needs of an oppressive society. It's also worth noting that the martial art that inspired firebending, Northern Shaolin, is the most influenced by Buddhist philosophy of all the martial arts featured in the show--- The other martial arts being Tai Chi, Hung Gar, Chu Gar, and Baguazhang.

Firebending descending from dance would also explain why Zuko loves to incorporate breakdancing into his fighting style:

I'd like to think the original Agni Kai ceremonies were once an all-day event that would feature both dances and ceremonial battles as a display devotion and respect for Agni and other spirits.

For example, there's a Thai dance known as Fawn Tian (กวางเทียน) or "The Candle Dance". According to Wikipedia, the female dancers pay homage to the divinities that protect the eight cardinal points of the Earth, asking them to pass through the candlelight. This dance could also represent a firebender's self-control and discipline over fire, as it takes a great deal of concentration and restraint to dance while maintaining a consistently sized flame in each hand. Think about how much Aang struggled to maintain just one flame with two hands.

The ceremonial battles could also be known as war dances (wai khru ram/ไหว้ครูรำ). Imagine witnessing the sword battle above, but the blades are on fire. Being able to pull off a performance would be a display of both appreciation for fire and skill [by not accidentally burning your partner].

I'd like to think that the pre-Sozin Fire Nation valued precision and versatility just as much as power, when it came to firebending. In symbolized how the Fire Nation's values were once much more balanced.

alicewiththreefingers

Your heart is too kind, your spirit too honorable. They'll kill you

#a knight of the seven kingdoms #akotsk #akotsk memes #ser duncan the tall #akotsk spoilers #ser dunk #dunk and egg #asoiaf #funny memes #t #incorrect text posts

what-even-is-thiss

One of the most common ways you preserve pork without refrigeration is keeping it in really salty water. This makes the pork borderline inedible because it’s so salty. What you don’t see in medieval fantasy is people soaking their meat in water for a bit before they cook it.

That’s also a reason to boil your meat though. Like yeah meat tastes better if you sear it first but sometimes you’ve gotta get that salt out.

what-even-is-thiss

You can also smoke your meats and make them into jerky basically. It’s not as juicy as pickling them though.

what-even-is-thiss

Also medieval peasants had more meat than you’d think because of these preservation methods. You can feed a pig scraps for the whole year and then butcher it at the start of winter and preserve the meat. Because of this they also often had access to lard.

Medieval peasants also didn’t eat chicken very often. That’s a source of eggs. If you’re lucky enough to own a cow it’s also unlikely you’d eat it unless it’s on its way out anyways. That’s a good source of milk. It’s more advantageous to keep a cow or chicken alive than to eat them.

These days chicken is usually the cheapest form of meat available. If someone is eating a chicken in a medieval setting though it’s either because they didn’t need that chicken anymore or because they’re rich enough to have chickens for eating.

what-even-is-thiss

If we’re talking mutton, European sheep are more often kept for wool or milk while middle eastern or African sheep are more often kept for eating. Europeans would of course eat sheep sometimes but it’s another one of those cases where it makes more sense to keep the animal alive rather than eating it.

Fat from a fat tailed sheep makes for good cooking fat if your setting is more middle eastern or North African inspired. European settings would prefer butter, lard, or olive oil depending on where exactly they are.

Goats weren’t super popular in Europe during medieval and ancient times. Very common in the Middle East and North Africa though both for milk and for meat.

figtreeandvine

A cow or ewe must have a calf or lamb every year to produce milk. Half of those offspring will be male, and thus will not produce milk. Ergo they were eaten, because you only need one bull or ram for a much larger number of breeding females.

The limiting factor for livestock keeping in the medieval period was winter fodder--there was enough summer grazing for the spring births in fallow fields that they fertilized with their manure , but not enough hay and grazing to get them through the winter. So the lambs--all the males and some of the females--would be butchered in the fall. A bull calf might be butchered as veal (or "baby beef", depending on timing) its first fall or might be over-wintered and butchered as beef the following fall. A few of the older ewes would be butchered as mutton, replaced with female lambs from the spring births. A female calf would be traded, sold, or kept as a replacement.

Similarly, half of the chicks born would be male, destined for spring/early summer butchering. (Or caponed, castrated, though that's much more difficult with a bird.) Chicken is a lean meat, though, and rather tough in a free-range bird, so it was usually stewed rather than roasted. Capon was a bit of a luxury food due to the difficulty of castrating them. Geese were much more popular due to the fattier meat.

Pork was plentiful due in part to the large size of a sow's litter. Over-winter one sow, and you get eight piglets or so, much more than a cow's single calf or a ewe's one to four lambs. Even if you didn't keep your own sow, buying piglets to raise and fatten was common. Most medieval pigs would forage rather than being fed scraps--hence the ubiquity of swineherd as a humble occupation.

nythracwn-archive

Dispelling Some Myths: Mediaeval Peasants ate Bland Food

Types of Meat Consumed in the Middle Ages

Food and Drink in Medieval England

benyavin

i will NEVER understand why bryke thought that quasi-face stealer amnesia plotline in the search comic was a good idea. never till the day i die.

because here’s the thing. i’ve harped before on how fucking dumb it is to take the character whose central line in the og show was “no matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are” and have them immediately afterwards 1. actually somehow just not leave the country they were banished from, and 2. deliberately and knowingly choose to have their own memories wiped. like ???????!!?

and yeah, that then leaves the question, when it’s revealed in late s3 that she was banished and is possibly still alive: why didn’t she ever come back for her kids? why didn’t she at least seek out zuko, who was also banished and therefore at least theoretically accessible to her? why didn’t she try to intervene when she presumably learned about the agni kai and her son’s disfigurement? and if she never learned of it, how could that be without her either deliberately forgetting she had kids or choosing to actively ignore any opportunity to get information about them?

and my friends, this is where the silliest part of the whole kerfuffle is. because there was ALREADY a built-in, solid, well-explored piece of worldbuilding that could very easily have answered all of those questions in a way that wouldn’t fundamentally violate the basic foundations of her character’s nature. that piece of worldbuilding? the city of ba sing se.

As a writer, this solves so many of your problems. If Ursa ends up in ba sing se (which there’s decent reason for her to do, given that it’s entirely reasonable that she’d be worried about ozai changing his mind and deciding he needs to tie up loose ends, and that the city just repelled iroh, making it about the most secure location she could get) then once she makes it inside the walls she discovers there is no war in ba sing se. suddenly, trying to get information about anything to do with the fire nation, let alone the royal family, becomes extremely difficult and dangerous. she has a plausible reason not to know, or have very little and extremely delayed awareness of what’s happening to her children.

also, the city is fucking massive and packed to the brim with refugees. even with zuko and iroh getting all about the lower and upper ring, it’s completely plausible for her to have even still been there without amnesia and just. never happened to cross paths. big cities are like that. you could see a million people in a day that you’ll never see again and they’ll only be a tiny fraction of all the people there that you’ll never catch a glimpse of. plus, once you’re lucky enough to get in as a refugee, it’s probably not so easy to leave again, especially if you want to have a chance of being able to come back.

if you really want the amnesia plot, the dai li/joo dee worldbuilding is already set up there too! all you have to do is have ursa keep trying to find out about her kids, maybe even discover zuko’s banishment and try to either reach out or leave the city in response, and have the dai li catch her in a sting to crack down on citizens promoting awareness of the war.

badabing, badaboom, ursa gets joo dee’d and now you have an amnesia plotline without ursa deliberately abandoning even the memory of her kids.

#ursa #atla #fic idea #plothole fix

macgyvermedical

In the 1700s, blood transfusion was used to treat psychosis. Oddly, sometimes it worked.

So a question for my followers: Give your best guess as to why this could have worked without looking it up.

I will answer tomorrow.

macgyvermedical

Answer: A particularly common form of psychosis occurred in the final stage of infection with syphilis. Syphilis is an uncommon bacteria in that is is extremely sensitive to temperature- so sensitive that a high fever greatly reduced or even eliminated infection with the bacteria. In fact, once quinine became available to treat malaria, which caused repeated high fevers, intentional infection with malaria was used to cure syphilis, which would then be treated with quinine. But in the 1700s, they (Europeans, at least) didn't have quinine yet.

So how did a blood transfusion treat syphilis? Well, in the 1700s, blood transfusions were not done with human blood- they were done with animal blood, usually lamb or calf blood. Since biblically calf or lamb blood was pure and contributed to the sweet nature of the animals, it was thought that if given to someone who was experiencing paranoia and hallucinations, the psychotic symptoms would decrease. This was not the case.

The amounts were usually small enough that the person didn't die. But it did cause frequent transfusion reactions. These reactions frequently caused high fevers, which treated the syphilis and helped decrease the symptoms caused by it.

headspace-hotel

Made so many errors they accidentally added up into something sort of right

archaeos

Hollywood archaeology: Secret treasure! Hidden maps! Ancient tombs!

Actual archaeology:

ivanaskye

so I wanted to find a picture of the lobster and

behold! an archaeologist

urbanfantasyinspiration

There are many benefits to being a marine archeologist

#history #archeology #archeology find #writing inspo

eloiscbridgerton

PLURIBUS 1.09 – La Chica o El Mundo

cpericardium

uss-edsall

Love seeing something from TikTok and going “girlie that is literally what led to the downfall of the Papal States”

uss-edsall

Jewish baby named Edgardo Mortara is seemingly about to die in Bologna, 1851

Catholic nanny secretly baptises him to save his soul, which she’s not exactly the kind of authority who can do that, but w/e, it’s interpreted by the church as valid later

Kid survives

1857 her secret gets out, a baptising makes a kid a Catholic according to the Church and a Catholic can’t be raised in a non-Catholic household in the Papal States, so the church authorises the police to kidnap Edgardo from his family

Raised personally by Pope Pius IX, Jewish family not allowed to take him back due to Church doctrine, this action destroys the family with grief and despair

This case gets international infamy with the Pope not understanding why everyone’s shiting on him for doing this, including allies

Emperor Napoleon III shifts from opposing Italian unification to supporting it as a direct consequence

Bologna falls the next year, 1859

Kingdom of Italy forms 1861

By 1870 Rome is lost to the Italians and the Papal States are no more

(Edgardo Mortara goes on to become Father Mortara)

(He dies in Belgium in 1940 three months before the Nazis occupied the nation, which if he’d have lived he would’ve been persecuted as a Jew)

communismlives

sztupy

Wikipedia confirms

bonyassfish

Fun fact: the Catholic Church did not stop doing this after Edgaro Mortara. During WW2, many Jewish children were put in convents or catholic-run orphanages for their own safety. Sounds nice right? Except after the war ended, when parents or surviving relative went back to claim their children, the church went, “uhhh, actually they’re catholic now, no take backs!”

The most infamous of these cases was the Finaly affair. Two Jewish children in France, Robert and Gerald Finaly, were placed in a Catholic nursery in 1944 in anticipation of their parents being deported to Auschwitz, where they were both murdered. Their aunt, Marguerite Fischel, survived the war and went to find the boys so she could take them to live with her. However, the nun who had custody of the boys, Antoinette Brun, adamantly refused to give them up, reportedly saying that “The Jews are not grateful”

What followed was a years long custody battle where despite being repeatedly ordered by courts all over Europe to return the boys, Brun took them to many different countries and hid them, with the support and help of other nuns and priests. It was suspected at the time, and later confirmed by documents released in 2020, that Pope Pius XII had supported the effort to keep the boys away from their surviving family and have them be raised Catholic.

Thankfully, after negotiations between a sympathetic cardinal in France and the chief Rabbi of Paris, the boys were finally recovered and reunited with their aunt.

Documents reveal the private discussions behind both Pope Pius XII’s silence about the Nazi deportation of Rome’s Jews in 1943 and the Vatic

I wish I could say that the phenomenon of the Catholic Church kidnapping children and keeping them away from their families for the purposes of forcefully raising them Catholic is unique to Jews, but it’s not. From the mid nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century, the Church ran hundreds of residential schools in the US and Canada where indigenous children were kidnapped from their homes and forced into these cruel and inhumane “schools”. The children were forbidden from speaking their own languages or practicing their own cultures and religions, their hair was cut, and they were subject to emotional, verbal, spiritual, physical, and sexual abuse. Many of the children died due to malnutrition or medical neglect, their bodies buried like dogs beside the schools. The Catholic Church was not the only Church to participate in this, but they’ve been the most reluctant to fully acknowledge and apologize for it. It was only in 2022 that Pope Francis apologized on behalf of the Catholic Church for their part, but some people found the apology inadequate.

Idk what my point is here, just that there’s such a clean link between evangelizing, cultural/religious imperialism, and how damaging and horrifying a religion can be when it is thoroughly convinced of its own superiority. And that unless an institution is forced to change, it probably won’t change on its own.

werevampiwolf

The Mormon Church also baptizes dead Jewish people "by proxy". Anne Frank specifically has been baptized by proxy multiple times.

espanolbot2

Einstein and Marilyn Monroe too (in the latter's case she had converted to Judaism).

luna-azzurra

Tips for Writing Injuries

✧ Broken ribs suck. You don’t just “walk it off.” Breathing hurts. Laughing hurts. Existing hurts. Characters with rib injuries won’t be doing heroic sprints.

✧ Concussions aren’t instant naps. Dazed vision, nausea, dizziness, maybe even personality changes, but they’re not going to collapse neatly like in the movies.

✧ Blood loss is sneaky. It’s not just about dramatic pools of blood. It’s dizziness, confusion, and the body getting cold as circulation tanks.

✧ Adrenaline lies. Someone can take a serious injury and not feel it until the fight’s over. That “I didn’t realize I was bleeding until later” trope? Very real.

✧ Twisted ankles are brutal. One bad step and suddenly running is off the table. Even walking hurts like hell. Perfect way to ground a chase scene.

✧ Burns linger. Even small burns hurt more than most people expect. Blisters, infection risk, constant pain, it’s not just a cool scar later.

✧ Dislocated shoulders = useless arm. Characters can’t keep swinging a sword or firing a gun. They’re basically fighting one-armed until it’s fixed.

✧ Shock is a thing. Pale skin, trembling, rapid heartbeat, and eventually disorientation. A character might not even realize how bad their wound is.

✧ Stitches aren’t magic. Getting sewn up is painful and recovery takes time. They’re not instantly battle-ready after a needle and thread.

✧ Scars tell stories. Some fade, some don’t. Some stay sensitive forever. Don’t forget the aftermath when the wound becomes part of the character.

fangirlmenace

Don't forget the aftermath when the wound becomes part of the character

@mer-acle

beholdingslut

this from the guy who wrote the sting pain index, a scale he constructed after letting himself be stung by insects

beholdingslut

“why did i start this list” pleaseeeeeee this is so funny

caracalliope

his descriptions were extremely on-point, and frankly inspiring when writing a hurt/comfort scene

Instagram poets could never!

lobautumny

For those who want it, here is the entire list:

Anyways, dude's 1,000% a huge masochist. Nobody just describes pain like this unless they're enjoying it.

babeluda

This guy reads like 'was made to write Fragantica comments but unfortunately does not enjoy perfume'. He found another niche, good for him

prokopetz

I understand why a lot of fantasy settings with Ambiguously Catholic organised religions go the old "the Church officially forbids magic while practising it in secret in order to monopolise its power" route, but it's almost a shame because the reality of the situation was much funnier.

Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren't keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn't one of those "well, it's okay when we do it" deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.

It turns out that if you give a bunch of dudes education, literacy, and a lot of time on their hands, some non-zero percentage of them are going to decide to be wizards, no matter how hard you try to stop them from being wizards.

lytefoot

Previous tags pass peer review:

#the catholic church: *collects guys who are fond of a) studying b) chanting and c) jobs where you get to wear a big hat*#the guys: *immediately start being wizards*#the catholic church: *surprised marginalia cat face*

andhumanslovedstories

I’ve told this story ten thousand times and I will tell it for the ten thousandth and first: whenever I think about wearing a costume to work on Halloween, I remember the time I saw a doctor breaking what must have been devastating news to a sobbing patient while the doc was dressed as a ketchup bottle.

andhumanslovedstories

There’s a lot of good responses to this but I obviously very partial to the healthcare ones

branwinged

ned being held up as the metric for moral goodness in asoiaf is absurd like did you not read bran i, agot in which he beheads a man on the run from the others because he must fulfill his fedual oaths and he carries out the execution through his family's ancestral sword which was definitely forged for the exact opposite purpose, i.e. in defense of the north against the others. and then he uses ice again to behead the direwolf which was meant to protect his daughter. is it any wonder that he also meets his end the same way, through it, after spending the rest of the book in king's landing in service to a failed king, desperately trying to reassure himself that they are not repeating history. bran i is saying ice was already metaphorically broken long before tywin melted it down because the starks have forgotten their magical history yes, but also because ned represents an older, failed generation in service to hollow chivalric ideals. and it is now up to his children, the ones coming of age in a world destroyed by the previous generations—it is up to bran, sansa, arya, and jon to reforge their family legacy, away from contradictory oaths and in service to hollow paradigms. (and in a way ice is already currently being remade through brienne, who is not a knight of the songs but still the closest thing to the idea of a true knight)

branwinged

this was interpreted as "ned's death is supposed to be karmic justice for gared's execution" by at least one person, so, to clarify:

i'm drawing a comparison between both scenes as part of a broader theme. ned starts the story by killing an innocent man. he is then wrongfully killed in the same manner. even the circumstances of the crimes they have committed are similar. gared did desert the watch and ned did commit treason but for sympathetic reasons which they are not allowed to disclose. gared has been driven mad by his encounter with the others and cannot speak. ned must lie out of fear for sansa's life. ned's not being punished by the narrative for gared's execution, but the parallel exists for a reason. ned dies by the very same rules of the system under which he executes gared. the big revelation here is that if ned's death is a gross injustice, then gared's death in the very FIRST chapter of the series and by extension the entire honour code of westeros is unjust. (he's also sentencing gared to death in his king's name: "in the name of robert of house baratheon [...] i do sentence you to die" and his downfall in king's landing occurs because of his fidelity to his king <- the broader point being made is that even a man with good and true intentions such as ned is blind to and complicit in the harm caused by westeros's moral and legal codes)

ned is an example to live by if your character's goodness is restrained to the rules dictated by their society, but the series is about committing heroic acts outside those social norms. because those social norms say sansa's greatest ambition in life must be to bear her prospective suitor's heirs. that arya cannot build castles or be a councillor to kings, only her sons are allowed that. that the only way for bran to be a hero is to be an able bodied knight. that a group of people don't deserve the right to live because they were born on the wrong side of a wall. we're introduced to the world of westeros through the point of view of a man trying to live the most moral life within these restrictive codes and then his story is taken over by his children (and dany, brienne, sam etc) whose desire to do good extends beyond those codes. because what's the point if the series's thesis on what makes a hero was already answered at the beginning of the story. if the new generation of children don't surpass the values of the previous ones. ned isn't killed for not having enough of a revolutionary spirit, ned dies because he is an older, more conventional breed of hero who no longer has a space to occupy in this new narrative.

homunculus-argument

I can understand how "modern person thrown into the past gets by pretending to be a healer/doctor" is as surprisingly common of a trope as it is. I mean I'm fluent enough at bullshitting to be pretty sure I could pull it off to impersonate a doctor in any time pre-1800s. If I have no idea what something is or how to treat it, I could just get the opinion of the other whatever-passes-as-medical-professionals around, but if their suggestions sound like bullshit I'm not doing it. And I'll beat the shit out of anyone suggesting bloodletting or mercury. With my healing stick. I've tied little bells on it, that jingle comically with every smack.

The awesome curative powers of my healing stick come from two separate sources: Placebo, and me using it to beat anyone trying to give my patients mercury.

alexaloraetheris

Ooooh you reminded me of that protocol I wrote about how to reinvent penicilin with only alchemical tools. You know. Just in case I did end up dumped in the past and needed a stable income.

hecksadecimal

what's the protocol?

alexaloraetheris

I am so glad you asked! I unfortunately lost the protocol because it was probably on my laptop, but I remember the broad strokes. So! In case anyone does end up stuck in the middle ages and can find a kindly old alchemist willing to lend you his gear, here's the revamped Penicilin (Re)Discovery Protocol!

0. WASH YOUR GODDAMN HANDS.

We're not working in a lab here, cross-conatamination WILL happen. Your job is to minimize it as much as possible. If you end up in a place where soap hasn't been invented yet, wash your hands in distilled alcohol. Your skin won't thank you, but you can afford all the nice hand creams after you cure the plague and get rich.

Find some Penicillium mushrooms!

Yes, penicilin is produced by mushrooms, though Ascomycotes are usually called moulds, it's a fungus, and it makes me laugh to call it a mushroom. Plus, in the middle ages, mushrooms were known to have medicinal properties, so you'll get a lot farther by calling them mushrooms rather than molds.

First thing you need: mouldy fruit. Oranges, or cantaloupes are preferred.

Here's the thing: mold is everywhere, so getting it will be the easiest part. The tricky part start with identifying the correct mold. You don't want to feed your patients black mold, do you?

So. Leave some fruit out. The more the better, because you want to up your chances. Then let it rot in warm and humid places. After a while, pick any fruit that looks white on the outside and green in the middle:

Not the best picture, but that's what it should look like.

2. Transplanting your (potential) Penicillium mushrooms

Until you get it on a plate it's damn near impossible to tell which mold you got. Get ready for some trial and error because you will have to sift through a lot of unwanted mold. You might want to wear a mask.

First you need something to transplant it onto. Making modern agar plates is probably impossible but thankfully not needed. You just need:

Glass plates (the kind that can be closed, you want to minimize cross contamination)

1-2 cup of Hot water (preferably distilled, ask your alchemist if he can do that)

1 cup whole milk (should be 13g of lactose per cup, if your Penicillium won't grow adjust the water-milk ration in favor of milk)

If available: Instead of milk use corn steep liquor. Unfortunately only available after America was discovered, so YMMW, but Penicillium LOVES this stuff. It will make your life SO much easier if it's available.

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon Yeast extract (get it from a baker)

3-6 teaspoons Gelatin (get it from a butcher)

Disclaimer: The ratio of each of the ingredients will have to be adjusted depending on the purity of the ingredients and on the conventional measuring sizes of the place you end up.

Gently mix it all in and pour out into the plates, let it solidify. If you end up dumped far enough that such refinement isn't possible, make bone broth and strain it through cheesecloth several times to make it as clear as possible, then mix it 5/6 broth and 1/6 milk. Again, if available, use corn steep liquor, but if not milk is fine. Add gelatin (should still be able to get it from the butcher) as needed to solidify it. I'm afraid experimentation will be needed depending on the resources you will be working with.

When you're done, you should have something like this:

Now that you have your plates, run an inoculation loop through a flame to sterilize it.

Something like this. Wave it through the air to cool it so you don't kill your mold, grab it from your fruit and geeeeeently spread it on top of your improvised agar without breaking the surface of the gelatin!

You can see the motions on this one pretty well. Close your plates, stack them about a meter/3ft from the fireplace. Judge for yourself, but ideally somewhere you would consider comfortably warm (20-24°C).

3. Identifying your Penicillium Mushrooms

If all went well, you are going to have something that looks like this:

Well, realistically, it will look something like this:

We're not actually doing it in a lab, after all. But IDEALLY, it will look like the above. It doesn't have to be perfect, you just need to be able to identify Penicillium molds for now.

IDEALLY, on the plate that matches the description of the penicillium mold you'll see an exclusion zone of bacteria around the mold, like the fourth plate in the second row, so you know you have a potential winner, but if you managed to avoid bacterial growth you need to take a few extra steps.

Penicillium molds have characteristic rings of growth, grey-green-white rings. They're easy to differentiate from bacteria because the molds are fuzzy and the bacteria as smooth and slimy. In the above picture, there are four plates that potentially have what we want, and two are less certain than others. Wash out the unwanted ones, make new agar plates, sterilize your inoculation loop and transplant your best candidates. You might need to do this several times.

Two types are confirmed to produce penicilin: P. chrysogenum and P. rubens.

The former is far more widely used today, but since we're sourcing them from literally thin air, we're more likely to get P. rubens, but unless you're a mycologist you probably won't be able to tell the difference. Thankfully you won't need to, because they both produce penicillin. Which brings me to the next step.

4. Confirming it's the penicillin producing mushroom

We're gonna need more agar plates for this one, and believe it or not, you're gonna need to mix blood into your agar. Wash your hands THROUGHLY.

(Theoretically you can get away with just milk, but identifying the correct bacterial colony on white agar is going to be a nightmare, so just add some sheep blood to your agar, conventionally it's about 5% by volume but you might need more to make it)

You need some gram-positive bacteria, preferably of the Bacillota type. Please don't go out and find a patient with fucking botulism or tetanus, you need to live long enough to make the cure. Instead, if you have a vagina, scrape some of the white, mucousy stuff from there and plant it on your plate. If you don't have your own vagina, a borrowed one is fine. Penicilin also works on Treponema pallidum, so if you get a syphilis-affected prostitute that should also work. Just wear gloves.

Ideally you get something like this.

This is actually Lactobacillus brevis, but Lactobacillus colonies all look relatively the same. The important thing is that it's all gram-positive, and will therefore be affected by penicillin.

Take new plates again, plant your Penicillium mold in the middle, and the bacteria all around it, getting as close to the center as possible. You can put down a paper marker for the mold. Wait for about 20 days.

Ideally, on at least one plate, you will get something like this:

This is literally a textbook example of testing antibiotics, but the Zone of Inhibition is what you're looking for. It means the mold is releasing a compound to kill the competing bacteria for resources, in this case, Beta-lactam antibiotic, or penicillin. Make sure to pick the one with the WIDEST ZoI, because that's the one that produces most penicillin.

So now we have the root stock, but our problems have just begun. This is the part where you're absolutely going to need an alchemist's help.

The problem is that a human body is not a petri dish. It's quite a bit larger. And you want the good bacteria destroying stuff without all the nasty contaminants, so you need a SHITLOAD of mold producing a LOT of penicillin, and then you need a way to filter it. You are going to need actual lab equipment for that, or near as they had it.

Since I lost the original protocol I'm going to need to do research all over again how to do that with alchemy equipment (or at least a microbrewery), so that will be in the next installment.

ospreyonthemoon

Fascinating.

punkahudsonia

Concept: generic fantasy adventure where the wizard has a crackpot assistant and he explains sadly that while Hreithbert is an excellent person for keeping the wizard tower tidy and the homonculi fed they're obsessed with cooking like ten million plates of inedible goop but it makes them happy so he permits it

And at the end of the story the big reveal is Hreithbert is a time displaced biochemist who has finally fucking refined their process for penicillin.

skribblegurl

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.