Today was mostly trying to get the button coat done (almost there, but it will not get done before I go to bed), so my words are all from IM, but I still have over my minimum word count, so. Good enough.
my entire life changed when my dentist told me that the only time my teeth should be touching is when i’m chewing. every single time my teeth are touching i have to separate them. and i noticed that i clench my teeth a LOT.
when your mouth is closed and your teeth are touching or held tightly together, you are unnecessarily straining muscles out of stress. the healthiest way to hold your jaw is slightly apart, where it is relaxed. THIS HELPS WITH HEADACHES
ive been thinking a lot about fighting evil lately
as you do
and I wanna talk about it for a sec
we tend to think of fighting evil as an epic quest to destroy a mcthingie and break an evil spell all at one go or this big climactic battle where the bad guy falls off a tower at the end
evil is more like a wall
sometimes you can bust through it like the hulk and stomp on the pieces and go you when that happens but its easy to think that if you cant find that battering ram youve failed and its hopeless
in real life most of the time the fight is little bit by little bit
maybe you correct someone in conversation or you call a politician or you vote or you put your pronouns in your profile and a little piece of that wall gets chipped away
maybe sometimes you can knock a whole brick loose and maybe sometimes you can only damage the mortar but youve just made that wall a little weaker for the person behind you
and the one behind them
and the one behind them
and the one behind them
and the one behind them
and maybe youll never get to stand on the ground cheering when the evil tower falls or be there to gloat when the villain gets dragged away in chains yelling about how he would have succeeded if it werent for you personally
but dont you for one second think you arent fighting
and dont you for one second think your fight doesnt matter
Stand up, warrior; you are not yet finished.
Beaten you may be, but broken?
Angels have fallen from greater heights
and survived, so why shouldn’t you?
Never mind what you are made of;
you are more than this flesh that binds you.
There is nothing you have to fear
that should not fear you a thousand times more.
Your heart is a galaxy, and your soul is lined in stars.
This is a video about how people used to walk in the middle ages, and how it changed around the 1500s when people started wearing a different kind of shoes.
the modern heel striker vs. the medieval ball strider
This is how I was taught to take steps in winterguard and colorguard. The people with the instruments did a rolling heel-step instead, because it would preserve the clarity of playing a musical note while moving.
It’s probably relevant that winterguard is usually performed barefoot or with soft footwear with no heel support.
Also, runners – especially long-distance runners – are usually taught not to heel-strike. Instead the ideal place to “hit the road” is neither the ball nor the heel – it’s the middle of the foot.
Short distance runners usually do ball-strike because it’s faster, for many of the reasons described in that video. You’re leaning forwards more so you can use gravity to help propel you forward, and you’re using more muscles in your legs. Heel-striking usually happens because your steps are too large.
In ballroom dance, too, you wear shoes with very soft soles and glide around on the balls of your feet.
I’m looking at this from a writer PoV – it’s fascinating to know about, because it influences the way people move when fighting.
Not just sliding, gliding footwork thanks to soles with much lower grip than modern athletic footwear, but “poise” in both senses – “having poise” as in looking graceful, and “being poised” as in ready for quick movement.
For reference, a clearer view of what turnshoes look like.
Rather than an infodump lecture on how the characters are walking on the balls of their feet in soft shoes, show what effect it has on the way they move, and the way they sound – much quieter than in modern shoes. Maybe contrast that to the first time they have to wear something heavier, as disguise, uniform, formal dress, foreign costume etc.
Roland Warzecha also mentioned pattens, wooden outdoor “under-shoes”.
A couple of years ago I reblogged a post about sabots (clogs, wooden shoes in general and by extension, pattens) in which I wrote this:
It’s worth remembering that pedestrians going to and fro in a medieval
town (especially in wet or snowy weather) might have been surprisingly
noisy, and that people who went out of their way to be quiet, whether or
not they were dressed all in black, might have been regarded with
suspicion…
A consequence of being pagan in the modern world is that sometimes you just aren’t taken seriously. I’m not claiming that our religion is necessarily directly targeted by oppression, but in a Christocentric world a lot of pagans still have to keep themselves under wraps and go to worship a god they don’t believe in, and even those of us who can be open about it get treated like crackpots.
I would love to be able to say “I worship the gods of Olympus” without being treated like I’m intellectually deficient. After all, the Greeks were a primitive and superstitious people, even though secular western society has been falsely tracing its lineage to Greece for centuries.
But in trying times, when it just seems like it’s silly to burn incense to gods most people think belong in Mythology for Dummies books, its important to know that these gods were real.
Imagine being ill and being brought to the Temple of Asclepius, and sleeping there, feverish and shaking, and being told of your cure in the night.
Imagine being a bride burning a lock to Artemis before her wedding, hoping that her husband would be kind and her new family welcoming.
Imagine being a sailor near drowning praying to Poseidon and washing up on dry land, and taking a bowl to his sanctuary that tells the world how the god saved you.
The gods were real to these people. They were real to Sappho, who called Aphrodite down resplendent with a word. They were real to Homer and all the poets who begged the Muses to sing through them. They were real to the initiates at Eleusis, who went into the dark unknowing and came out knowing that even in death they would be thrice-blessed. They were real to the people who came to their sanctuaries and decorated them with pottery and marble and art, and who built some of the most spectacular buildings the world has ever seen, just to house their gifts to the gods.
It was not a matter of faith, but of knowing. The gods were real to them, and to us too, they are real now.
I’m a kemetic polytheist and this still resonates with me.
I’m a Gaelic polytheist and this brought tears to my eyes. It’s incredibly touching and a reminder that our gods aren’t just characters in a book or figures lost t history. They are here with us, and are just as important and valid as any other.
Today’s writing is all notes, so I really don’t know how to snippet it. But I have figured out how to map siblings to cousins and everything else. And I only had to change one person’s death date, extrapolate the existance of another person, and outright create a third to make it all work.
*lets head thump onto the desk*
I am just really, really glad that Muzio Sforza had so damned many known offspring. It made it so much easier to figure the whole mess out.
Ok, that’s just to make the Sforzas work as they do in the show. Then there was working out how to make things work for the OC, and for one of the relationships to make sense. And I have thirty years worth of plot figured out, so I have plenty of stuff to play with once I actually get to this particular story. If I get to it as more than notes.
So. No snippet today, but there’s the spoiler-free ramble about the newest addition to the spreadsheet of doom.
*makes several rude gestures at the pile of fabric and plastic and metal and paper that has just been deposited in a chair for the night*
It’s worth it, honestly, but I know small humans who weigh less than that coat.
32 more buttons to stitch on, in two rows. Possibly 33, ‘cause I’m tempted to sew one of the buttons on that I’ve been handed but aren’t ones I’ve collected.
(And this does not count any of the large ones with character images on them. Those are still on a headscarf that I wear even more rarely than the coat.)
I’m going to go put together today’s mini nano post, and then start getting ready for bed.
Listen: In the future, there is a small, quiet room that is just yours, where you are safe and you are free. In that room your shoulders will finally start to come down from around your ears. Nobody can come into that room unless you let them. In that clean quiet place, you will work and you will study. You will love and you will heal. I know this is true because I am there with you. We are there together because you saved us. You saved us because you were brave and because you never stopped believing in that room.See you there,Your Future Self
There's a Mirror on the Wall 