a curated collection

they/them | 25+ 🌖 call me nightly, I’d love to hear from you 🌔

[stars-nightly]

Another bard who wanders with their pencils and sackbut to learn crafts, hear stories, and meet fascinating people. Currently with an interest for stories of questing, of nobility, and of lands beyond reality.

Everything will be tagged and organized. If I miss a tag or you need one added, just let me know!

(side blog for my worldbuilding/fantasy/general reference posting. If you recognize my art or writing style or interests, you probably do. Come say hi if you want 💕)

[theforsakenprince]

Bet it feels good as fuckkk to rest your hand on the pommel of your sword when the newcomer steps a little too close to your lord who you’ve sworn to protect with your life

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

OP: Why couldn’t traditional Chinese Yinpiao银票/silver drafts be forged if they were merely slips of paper? (cr大明宝钞，渐越)

Traditional Chinese yinpiao/silver drafts were paper vouchers issued by private banks starting from the Song Dynasty(960–1279). People could exchange these slips for physical silver at bank branches across the country.

Silver drafts were made in multiple copies with matching serrated seal edges. One copy went to the customer and others stayed at the bank. All edges had to fit perfectly together to withdraw silver. The unique split edge marks were almost impossible to copy.

This mechanism is known as qifeng骑缝 (split-joint seal) in China. It first originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BC). The Rites of Zhou records that contracts were written on bamboo or wooden slips in duplicate. Notches and marks were carved in the middle before splitting the slips, with each party keeping one half. The two halves would be matched by their notches for verification.

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 BC), this idea evolved into hufu虎符/tiger tally tokens. A military tally was split into two pieces with identical inscriptions carved along the split edge. Troops could only be deployed if the patterns and characters on both halves perfectly aligned, serving as a metal version of the split-joint anti-counterfeiting system.

The technology matured in the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Government documents and private contracts commonly used split-joint seals stamped across the dividing line. The Chinese character "hetong合同" (contract) was written across the middle before the paper was torn apart, so the complete characters would only appear when the two halves were put together. This split-coupon system was later adopted for Song Dynasty (960–1279) jiaozi paper money and yinpiao/silver drafts of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912).

Official Song dynasty paper money (Jiaozi交子) was abolished in 1107. Private silver drafts issued by Qing-era piaohao票行 (ancient exchange banks) vanished completely in 1951, hit hard by modern banks and currency reforms. Nowadays silver drafts no longer circulate as currency. Their collectible value depends on their rarity and physical condition.

Split-joint seals (骑缝章qifengzhang)are still widely used on important paper documents in modern China, an anti-tampering technique passed down from ancient times. They are applied across the edge of multi-page contracts, bidding documents and official archives. If any page is removed or replaced, the broken seal pattern can prove the file has been altered.

[ariaste]

OMG I got so excited about this because they used a really similar (though far less refined) version of this for contracts in the European medieval period!

First they were called "chirographs", but later the word "indenture" (in its earliest meaning as just a legal document of any kind between two people) came to be used, originating from the practice of a contract being written twice on a single piece of parchment and then cut in half with serrated edges (as in dent, "teeth" -> indents -> indenture) in order for each party to take one half, so they could later piece them together and verify that there had been no forgery -- same as the Chinese silver drafts!

(Charter of the Clerecía de Ledesma, 1252, showing the serrated indents at the top -- presumably they are cutting rather than tearing because they're using parchment, which I expect is much harder to tear than wood-pulp paper like the Chinese were using)

Delights me when human beings find similar ways to solve the same problem at two different ends of the world. <3

[escuerzoresucitado]

[armoured-fantasies]

went to go write something down on my phone, and ????

thank you, me from 1:53 AM. zero recollection of writing this btw.

[a-study-in-bullshit]

"I love you , I'm glad we're friends"

[knightclubbing]

rolls up to the battlefield in full plate and heelies on

[stars-nightly]

[redstonedust]

they're not super common but i really do appreciate characters who are introduced as one gender and later revealed to be closeted trans. i like that it challenges the audience to really think about how they perceive trans people because realistically not every trans person you meet is going to be out to you at first. yes we introduced this character as a man and now we're asking you to reframe her as a woman after you've already gotten to know her. can you be normal about that? can you be normal when it happens to people you know in real life? i hope you can.

[tsunflowers]

reading a historical romance novel and reflecting on the way these stories often present woke nobility for the contemporary reader. a big thing is servants. you can’t not have servants in those times but many modern readers think “but I would never have servants. it would be so weird to have servants” and in order to make the protagonists of the story more relatable they are actually friends with the servants. but flip your perspective and think of it from the side of the servants. wouldn’t it be so awful if your boss was always trying to be friends with you. a really common thing you’ll see is the woke baronet having tea in the kitchen with the servants bc he’s not like other baronets. but what if your boss wanted to hang out and talk during your lunch break every day. not so charming when you think about it that way

[kookaburra1701]

If you want a guide on household staff, what they (generally) do, and why, I recommend Judith Martin's book Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, especially if you can get the original 1982 edition (a "freshly updated" version was published in 2011 and while I'm sure it is excellent, I know that specifically the original 1982 version had a complete section about domestic servants.) It's written for contemporary staff in a large household or embassy, but the principles of how one should treat them, what their jobs do and do not entail, and how the duties shift when understaffed sounds like it would be really useful for you.

Also Judith Martin is a really entertaining writer, and has very good etiquette advice generally making the entire book a pleasure to read.

[girlcaligula]

god I just. love ruthlessness as a character trait so much. sexy sexy sexy

[girlcaligula]

this one. absolutely in love with this definition. give me a character who thinks like this and I’ll love them to pieces