old rags and candle ends (zeropixelcount)

things for which I have no present use but I am nonetheless hoarding

[kitten-kin]

Among my acquaintances, I am one of the better bakers. Therefore I am “the one who bakes”. Gathering of the Dutch-Indo elders? I will produce a spekkoek with no less than twenty layers. Nephew’s special day? I will make his favorite; macarons filled with chocolate ganache. Teen wistfully wishes for a Minecraft cake? I gotchu fam.

No one ever said “she’s already baked a dessert once and we loved it, so obviously we won’t ask her to bake again; tell her to make spaghetti this time”.

Write that trope again.

[cicerfics]

“Wow! I loved this story! I hope the author never writes anything remotely like it ever again!!” - Words that have never come out of any reader’s mouth, ever

[ten-ambar-metta]

Characters who I love because they are perfect and flawless in every way:

Feanor (is it enough that they will sing of the heroism of people who would never have lived without you? Is it enough that they will call you a villain in the letters you designed, by the light of your craft, that your star will twinkle over the desperate struggles of those who revile you? No, he would answer, but only because “enough” is a way of imposing your own limitations.)

Azaghal (it was not their war. but they were not the entitled arrogant monsters of the kingdom of the trees, willing to let children die at their doorstep rather than acknowledge kinship. the sort of kinship born not of blood but of laughter, of molten metal and strange tongues and curious eyes and ancient stories, the only sort of kinship Elves and Dwarves could ever share.)

Maedhros (i have no patience for those who do good in the hope of eternal salvation. give me the damned, who do good because they loathe evil, who do good because those they love still live, who see evil fall and love die and embrace the end because it was not about them - not for a very long time - maybe not ever - give me the damned who burn, and love, and die)

Fingon (I knew a man, once, a cynic, who told me that we weep at funerals because we ought to, that we do not truly care, because if we really cared we would not weep but draw a sword, we would tear apart the fabric of the world itself to snatch the one we loved back from Satan’s hands. We care as much as we are expected to care, he said, and no more. I laughed, because I know this story

about a man who must have told himselves a thousand times, on the Ice, that he did not care at all.

about a man who did the right thing not because it was expected

not because it was courageous

but because when Satan holds the one you love, some people draw a sword and go to face him

and so I will never be a cynic.)

[dwimmerlaiks]

this is utter perfection and I thank you for writing it

[oldragsandcandleends]

This is your irregularly scheduled reminder that this sideblog is basically defunct (aside from occasional accidents) & if you want to follow me the best places are:

Main blog @brightclothesforwinter

Writing blogs

@finiansghost and @somuchforspring (the one with faerie and a nearly-real world)

@sevenbecomefive (the one that's somewhat about prophecy)

@whowasoncenameless (the one with powers and Powers and a fractured world)

[oldragsandcandleends]

This is your irregularly scheduled reminder that this sideblog is basically defunct (aside from occasional accidents) & if you want to follow me the best places are:

Main blog @brightclothesforwinter

Writing blogs

@finiansghost and @somuchforspring (the one with faerie and a nearly-real world)

@sevenbecomefive (the one that's somewhat about prophecy)

@whowasoncenameless (the one with powers and Powers and a fractured world)

[oldragsandcandleends]

This is your irregularly scheduled reminder that this sideblog is basically defunct (aside from occasional accidents) & if you want to follow me the best places are:

Main blog @brightclothesforwinter

Writing blogs

@finiansghost and @somuchforspring (the one with faerie and a nearly-real world)

@sevenbecomefive (the one that's somewhat about prophecy)

@whowasoncenameless (the one with powers and Powers and a fractured world)

[finiansghost]

Moranwen waits, slow searing breaths while the Isle screams around her, for the doorway to close behind her traitor sister. A heartbeat, two, while it dissipates past reopening. She has time. She remembers, to a nicety, what it took the Fisher to kill their father. And her eldest son is more than his namesake ever was, in matters of grim endurance. She saw to that. (Her youngest is already dead. The Tesauai chose expedience over cruelty, and left nothing to chance.)

She knows it's going to be bad. She has enough ice in her heart now to weather any storm of emotion. She reaches, opens. Steps through.

The formless, directionless onslaught of agony bleeding from the stones themselves is replaced by something infinitely more specific. It's not an improvement. Perhaps it's just that the former is something she's had practice at ignoring.

Fresh water instead of salt is also not an improvement. It was probably supposed to be a taunt. Her sister's husband is not as creative as he likes to think. This is as old as the ice in her heart. Her son is dying, but he is not dead yet. And she has breathed for both of them before.

To move him now, to cut him down, will do more damage. That is inevitable, now. Even to set his ribs back in some approximation of their proper place is to do more harm, and very great hurt.

Fortunately, that isn't something Moranwen baulks at.

He is beyond screaming. Beyond sound. Sound needs more breath than reflexive fluttering twitches can manage. This would be… dangerous, if he wasn't. Maybe even to her. Certainly to anyone else in earshot. She will, reluctantly, grant the oath-breaker her sister married some wit; no doubt he thought of that, when he chose this death, and not another.

All her anger is ice. All her anger has been ice for a very long time. The burning flare now, the rage that he would dare to touch her son, takes her by surprise. The song that wells up is death to any who intrude on her now, death and drowning, the binding-together of the Isle's children, the spinning of power into life, the soothing of that helpless reflex that just wastes energy he no longer has to spare.

The Weather Isle's Frost-cold daughter, the False Chaunter's heir as much as Maefel and Rhian's, sings her fury. Sings mine over her last living child, threads healing if not comfort through her song. He knows her, in the moment; his hate tangles with hers. She breathes for them both, tastes salt on her lips, and takes her table-knife to bonds that that were a petty first cruelty.

Braces to catch him; braces for the spike of second-hand agony, the grate of bone on hatchet-splintered bone. Wraps him in what is probably his own discarded cloak. His awareness is falling fast, slipping into sleep, cradled in her power, and that's good; she will have to carry him from here, and that, too, is going to hurt.

[brightmouth-deactivated20230417]

My spouse and I just had one of those “wait your brain works HOW?” exchanges, and now I am BURNING TO KNOW HOW IT WORKS FOR OTHER PEOPLE:

Fellow speakers of this feral bastard language (English), rb and tell me in the tags: what is the delineation for you, if any, between evening and night?

[vaspider]

Evening is before you can see any stars. Night is when it is dark enough to see stars in the sky.

[waterhobbit]

Mostly I feel what spider said, though I tend to also consider that weird twilight period after the sun goes down when it's too dark for me to really see clearly but the sky is still too bright to see stars night.

But that may be my astigmatism talking.

[ciceqi]

“Evening” is when it’s still socially acceptable to be awake, “night” gave the fuck up already.

[rederiswrites]

Okay guys, for writing/general reference, a bit about what a ‘blacksmith’ is and isn’t:

A blacksmith is a generalist, a person who uses tools and fire to work iron.  Some blacksmiths work more specifically, so you get, say, an architectural blacksmith, who focuses more or less exclusively on things like gates, rails, fences, or an artist blacksmith, who makes wacky sculptures or what have you.  These days, though, that’s a pretty blurry line.  ‘Blacksmith’ is a pretty damn broad term, but it’s nowhere near broad enough to cover everything encompassed in ‘metalworker’, which is how I often see it used.  There are a LOT of different skills for working metal, and no one knows them all.  Some other terms:

A farrier shoes horses.  They may make the shoes, or they may buy them and then size them, but they actually do the shoeing.  Unless the blacksmith is also a farrier, they don’t know shit about horses’ hooves and are not qualified to deal with them and probably don’t want to.

A blacksmith works IRON, usually almost exclusively.  They might work with bronze or do a bit of brazing, but those are really separate skillsets.  If you work, say, tin and/or pewter, you are in fact a whitesmith.  You could also be a silversmith or a coppersmith, and so on.

Knifemakers and swordsmiths have their own highly specialized and fairly complex specialties, and usually a blacksmith wouldn’t mess with that unless they want to pick up a new skillset or if they’re really the only game going for a long way around.  By the same token, a swordsmith might never have learned the more general blacksmithing skills.  They’re not the same thing is what I’m trying to say here.  Likewise armorers.  There’s overlap but it’s not the same thing.

If you make metal items via molds and casting, you work at a foundry and are a foundryman.

Look, when metalworkers and individual shops and masters were the height of industry, this shit got REALLY specific.  There were people who spent their whole lives making pins.  Just pins.  Foundries specialized and made only bells, only cannon, only cauldrons, etc.  This is scratching the surface, I just wanted to make the point that ‘blacksmith’ is not the same thing as ‘magical muscly person who knows how to do everything related to metal’.

[cycas]

This sort of thing really illustrates the huge difference between writing fantasy and writing historical fiction, I think.   In real European medieval history, a smith might live, perhaps to the age of 50* - if he’s very lucky 60 or so.  And he (sometimes she, but mostly he) has to be earning money throughout his life,  so probably doesn’t have time to develop a whole set of skillsets, so if you write him being able to do loads of different things and having the right tools for all of them, it looks odd.  And if you write a woman, you probably do feel you need to give a bit of explanation about why she’s doing the job, since it’s a pretty sexist society on the whole, so she’s a little unusual. 

In fantasy, though, it’s all different.  Tolkien’s dwarves have an average lifespan of 250, so they have much longer to pick up skills (and live in an environment where probably it’s much easier and encouraged for them to do so: they live in cities that are concentrated on providing made items and skills to other species: they aren’t a generalist society, very unlike any human institution I can think of.)  They also ‘make mighty spells’ so very unlike real medieval blacksmiths, they are probably working metal with enchantment as well as tongs. 

We don’t know about their gender role situation, but I don’t think there’s anything in canon to say that the women aren’t making things (and even if there was, there are loads of dwarf cities that last for thousands of years, so no doubt there’s variation between them). 

Tolkien’s Elves of course live forever and also have more-or-less perfect memory, so there’s no reason for an Elven smith not to have all these skills and others, particularly if they are nobility (I don’t think in real-world history you get many noble smiths) and have other people helping to make sure they eat and have clothes and so on.  And it seems less of an issue being female, too: Galadriel and Arwen are notable makers of magical items.   *I’m assuming that if he’s a smith, he survived the terrifying childhood mortality rates, and we only have to think of adult lifespans. 

[ilsa-fireswan]

I love to talk about historic blacksmithing!  My husband and I run a blacksmithing shop (specialized in blade making) and we’ve done a LOT of educational demonstrations where we forge while lecturing on history, culture, techniques, etc.  (So feel free to ask me things!  I get all excited about it!)

Let’s talk first about the name!  Historically Smith would mean metal worker and the color would tell you what type of metal. Black is the designation for iron (because of the color it takes after being heated and cooled several times.)  Today Smith more generally means maker, but is still most commonly applied to metal workers.

And, as the OP said, if you need a tinker (tinsmith, also works pewter), silversmith (whitesmith), goldsmith (white- or yellow- smith), or coppersmith (red-, brown-, or green- smith), that’s a different discipline.  Not that a blacksmith has no idea how to work those metals, but his knowledge will likely be limited to how it applies to his general discipline.  For example, weapons and armor made for nobility might have precious metals used to decorate them.  (Aside: The techniques for iron vs copper are complete opposites and one of my favorite modern blacksmithing proverbs is about brass, an alloy made with copper and zinc.  It runs, “Brass, brass, what a pain in the… brain.” )

One of my choice historical bits is talking about medieval blacksmithing in England. This is something we actually have records of because of the guild structure. There were so many blacksmiths in urbanized areas that your permit to open a shop would permit you to make only a specific set of items. Pin drawers, chain makers, armorers, swordsmiths, farm tools, nails, wainwright (hoops for wagon wheels or barrels), farriers (horse shoeing)… all of those might be different shops.  And that isn’t even a complete list!  (Naturally there was a lot of overlap on high-demand items.) 

But even better, Yorkshire records that show us that women were regularly involved in the trade!  It was still male-dominated BUT several of the disciplines (nails, pins, chains) were almost exclusively women!  Women owned blacksmith shops, took apprentices, worked the forge - all of the things that mark them as “real” blacksmiths.  One of my favorite anecdotes is from William Hutton’s History of Birmingham; he encountered a nailer’s shop in which he noted “one or more females, stripped of their upper garments, and not overcharged with the lower, wielding the hammer with all the grace of the sex.”

Come yell at me about blacksmithing!  I want to learn what you know and I’d love to answer any of your questions!  I have a lot of prepared lecture snippets on a variety of smithing details:

Technological setbacks due to loss of historic metallurgical discoveries.

Why “damascus” swords are supposed to be the best.

Cultural and historical reasons for large, slow, strokes with a heavy hammer (like you see in video games) vs. small, quick strokes with a smaller hammer (like you see on YouTube).

Blacksmithing terms in modern English.  (”Keep your temper” being the most common.)

How settling America changed the Western picture to males-only generalized blacksmithing

Economic comparisons of the cost to hire a blacksmith

Apprentice vs. Journeyman vs. Master

More about female blacksmiths

What to wear in the forge (modern or historical reenactment)

How-to on a variety of subjects

Blacksmithing in movies

Why Forged in Fire doesn’t give you an accurate picture of blacksmithing or the skills of the contestants

Metallurgy (the science of metals)

Eastern vs. Western blacksmithing (Surprise!  Japan and Europe are wildly different!)

What kitchen knives do you need?  And how do you keep them sharp?

Did I mention I love to talk about it and get real excited?

[oldragsandcandleends]

Tonight's nearly-midnight thought: have we ever actually seen Danny Gaudie eating?

This stems, bizarrely, from the previous midnight thought, which was 'what if Oathbound used basically everyone's point of view except Fian's' and that leading to 'ugh, then I'd have to write Lindy Gaudie' which leads further to 'actually that might work' and that leads to, she does not have human teeth, does her brother have human teeth?

[finiansghost]

Twenty years ago Lena was someone else. She put that life behind her, while the old gang dropped like flies and muttered about curses. Now the stranger at the centre of it all comes walking out from under the hills and back into her life.

(part 1 of 4)

[finiansghost]

Part II. Lena and Fian meet again, in more sober context.

[finiansghost]

Part III: the fox. Third meeting, and this time it's actually deliberate.

[finiansghost]

Part IV: the green chapel. Confessions and conclusions.

[culturapagan]

[finiansghost]

Twenty years ago Lena was someone else. She put that life behind her, while the old gang dropped like flies and muttered about curses. Now the stranger at the centre of it all comes walking out from under the hills and back into her life.

(part 1 of 4)

[finiansghost]

Part II. Lena and Fian meet again, in more sober context.

[finiansghost]

Part III: the fox. Third meeting, and this time it's actually deliberate.

[finiansghost]

Twenty years ago Lena was someone else. She put that life behind her, while the old gang dropped like flies and muttered about curses. Now the stranger at the centre of it all comes walking out from under the hills and back into her life.

(part 1 of 4)

[finiansghost]

Part II. Lena and Fian meet again, in more sober context.

[finiansghost]

Part III: the fox. Third meeting, and this time it's actually deliberate.

[valkyriethais]

[finiansghost]

Twenty years ago Lena was someone else. She put that life behind her, while the old gang dropped like flies and muttered about curses. Now the stranger at the centre of it all comes walking out from under the hills and back into her life.

(part 1 of 4)

[finiansghost]

Part II. Lena and Fian meet again, in more sober context.

[oldragsandcandleends]

Bump

[finiansghost]

Twenty years ago Lena was someone else. She put that life behind her, while the old gang dropped like flies and muttered about curses. Now the stranger at the centre of it all comes walking out from under the hills and back into her life.

(part 1 of 4)

[brightclothesforwinter]

Finally sorting out this nonsense

Long story short, I messed up a decade ago and ended up in a situation with this account @brightclothesforwinter as my primary but using @oldragsandcandleends as if it were primary.

I'm finally fixing that, so you might want to swap which accounts you were following...

Finian's Ghost related stuff is moving from here to @finiansghost (I am slowly backfilling with the historic posts, but on queue.)

My general personal account stuff is moving from @oldragsandcandleends to here. I'm not going to bother moving historic posts.