“Your ancestors are amazed at all your spices!”
“Your ancestors are impressed that you are an educated woman!”
“Your ancestors are proud that you are thriving in spite of what society did to them and you”
It’s all very sweet! But! Necromancy! Is! Still! Illegal! Your ancestors are going back in the ground!
Stop resurrecting them to show off!
Downloaded Portal: Prelude RTX, but couldn’t launch it. And I don’t know if it’s because of GPU settings or something else.
Snyder fans getting mad that there's a show starring beloved children's comic book hero Superman that all ages can enjoy.
I’m always here for Snyderfan Shade.
Things that are okay to make up if you wanna play with Catholicism in your story:
- Religious orders (just because there wasn’t an order dedicated to fighting vampires doesn’t mean there can’t be)
- Saints (just because there wasn’t a St. Kxchylian, patron saint of transporters, doesn’t mean there can’t be)
- Popes (see previous. You can also make up bad popes! We’ve had our fair share)
Things that are not okay to make up:
- Doctrines and teachings
- Sacraments
- Secret societies that hide the Real Truth from the unwashed masses (you can actually get excommunicated for trying to do this in real life)
Well, the vampire-hunting order is presumably hiding one Real Truth from the unwashed masses. Though I suppose “technically you all already knew the Real Truth, most of you just think it’s only a legend and we’re in no hurry to correct you” isn’t exactly hiding.
They have on their Wordpress website built in 2007 that they were established by St. Quirinus “the stake” of Romania to combat vampires. They offer annual retreats that include demonstrations of stick and staff weapons from the active brothers. If you call their abbey the automated system gives the option “If this is a request for assistance with a vampiric problem, press three.” Prospectives are disqualified if they’re anemic. If nobody believes that they’re actually going out and fighting vampires, at this point that’s not on the order.
Your description of the website for an active religious order being a “Wordpress website built in 2007″ is just way too accurate.
Things that are okay to make up if you wanna play with Catholicism in your story:
- Religious orders (just because there wasn’t an order dedicated to fighting vampires doesn’t mean there can’t be)
- Saints (just because there wasn’t a St. Kxchylian, patron saint of transporters, doesn’t mean there can’t be)
- Popes (see previous. You can also make up bad popes! We’ve had our fair share)
Things that are not okay to make up:
- Doctrines and teachings
- Sacraments
- Secret societies that hide the Real Truth from the unwashed masses (you can actually get excommunicated for trying to do this in real life)
The history of corporate propaganda.
I vividly remember attending a training session with a scan from an 1880-something newspaper that said "unions used to be something we needed, but we're past that now." The corporate propaganda hasn't changed in 130+ years.
Pierwsza napisana przeze mnie książka (Dzieci z Księżyca*) kontra Moja pierwsza wydana książka (Klinika doktora Marcha).
*Obyczajówka w stylu Dzieci z Bullerbyn z postaciami o imionach z Czarodziejki z Księżyca. Also - tytułowy Księżyc był małą miejscowością w Japonii. Bo tak.
——————————————————————-
The first book ever written by me (Children of the Moon*) vs. My first publsihed book (Doctor March’s Clinic).
*A book inspired by Astrid Lindgren’s The Children of Noisy Village (which is a required school reading in Polish elementary schools) with names taken straight out of Sailor Moon. Also - the eponymous Moon was a Japanese village.
Hey, what if I also self-publish my really old romance novel about a love between a halfling merchant and elf pick-pocket, with shades of social commentary on racism (that’s very poorly done and clearly not thought-out at all)?
Probably it will be quite popular, as a fantasy romance. But it will be a terrible idea.
-Biped
-No feathers
I knew it, the mobile nuclear launch system “Metal Gear” is the perfect boyfriend
Diogenes, holding up a plucked chicken: Behold, a weapon to surpass Metal Gear!
Imagine how fucking proud Diogenes would be to know that this one-off joke of his was still being referenced nearly two and a half millennia later. None of us will ever reach that man’s tier of trollery no matter how hard we try.
A true King.
prolifecatholic139
irishironclad
all RIGHT:
Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT
(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)
This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.
If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.
By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).
Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)
So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies
FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.
What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.
Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.
Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.
So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.
SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life
When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.
For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.
So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.
Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.
I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!
