This might be the best thing ever filmed.

I’ve seen the gif, but it’s even better with the context of how little time it took.

This is an accurate representation of 2020 so far

I love swords. Love them. Swords are to fantasy as walls to a castle. You need your swords to battle dragons, usurpers, knights and wizards. So lets go into the armory and learn about swords.

Anatomy of a typical sword

Types of Swords

Sword Moves

Things to remember about swords

1. When drawing your sword, the scabbard is on your opposite hip.

2. If a sword is two-handed, use two hands. Don’t try be cool. You will cut yourself.

3. Swords are sharpened using a whetstone and polished with oil clothes. Water rusts them. Look after your swords.

4. Swords can stick to to scabbard if the air is icy. To prevent it, you can line your scabbard with leather.

5. Practise with a blunted sword first. Blunt swords are used in tourneys.

6. Defense over Attack. Better to defend rather than attack.

7. Shields are your friend in defence but hamper your ability to attack.

8. Sword to size. Smaller and weaker swordsmen(women) can’t any wield heavier swords. Bulkier and stronger swordsmen(women) can wield heavier swords. Match sword type to body type.

I took some historical sword-fighting lessons to make the fights in my novel more realistic - here’s what I learned.

To make the fighting scenes in my low fantasy novel more realistic, I went to see a trainer for historical sword-fighting last week, both to barrage her with questions and to develop realistic choreographies for the fight scenes in the novel. Since I figured some of what she told me might be useful for you too, I put together a small list for you. Big thanks to Gladiatores Munich and Jeanne for making time! (Here are some more pictures if you’re interested.)

Caveat: I’m by no means a sword-fighting expert myself, so take these nuggets with a grain of salt – I might have misremembered or misinterpreted some of the things Jeanne told me. If I did, feel free to tell me.

1.) Weapon choices need to make sense

Let’s start with a truism: always ensure your character’s weapons make sense for a.) their profession, b.) their cultural background and c.) the environment they’re going to fight in. A farmer probably couldn’t afford a sword and might use a knife or threshing flail instead, and someone who doesn’t want to be noticed probably wouldn’t be milling about sporting a glaive or another large weapon. Also, soldiers native to a country with wide open plains would be more likely to carry long-range melee weapons such as spears or large swords, than those from a country consisting of mostly jungle or dense forests. The same applies to situations: if your character is going to be fighting in close quarters (even just a normal house), he’d get little value out of a spear or even a longsword, as there’d be no space to swing it effectively.

2.) Boldness often beats skill

In real swordfights, recklessness was often more important than technique. The fighter less afraid of getting injured would often push harder, allowing them to overpower even opponents with better technique.

3.) Even a skilled fighter rarely stands a chance when outnumbered

While a skilled (or lucky) fighter might win a two-versus-one, it’d be extremely unlikely for even a single master swordsman to win against superior numbers, even just three and if they’re below his skill level. The only way to plausibly pull this off would be to split the opponents up, perhaps by luring them into a confined space where you could take them on one by one. The moment you’re surrounded, you’re probably done for – because, unlike in Hollywood, they wouldn’t take turns attacking but come at you all at once.

4.) Dual-wielding was a thing

… at least in some cultures. I often heard people say that people using a weapon in each hand is an invention of fiction. And while my instructor confirmed that she knew of no European schools doing this—if they did, it’s not well-documented—she said it was a thing in other cultures. Example of this include the dual wakizashi in Japan or tomahawk and knife in North America. However, one of the biggest problems with the depiction of dual wielding in novels/movies/games are the “windmill”-type attacks where the fighter swings their weapons independently, hitting in succession rather than simultaneously. Normally you’d always try hitting with both weapons at once, as you’d otherwise lose your advantage.

5.) Longswords were amazing

Longswords might seem boring in comparison to other weapons, but they were incredibly effective, especially in combat situations outside the battlefield. The crossguard allowed for effective blocking of almost any kind of attack (well, maybe not an overhead strike of a Mordaxt, but still), the pommel was also used as a powerful “blunt” weapon of its own that could crack skulls. Though they were somewhat less effective against armored opponents, the long, two-handed hilt allowed for precise thrusts at uncovered body parts that made up for it.

6.)  “Zweihänder” were only used for very specific combat situations

Zweihänder—massive two-handed swords—were only used for specific purposes and usually not in one-on-one combat as is often seen in movies or games. One of these purposes was using their reach to break up enemy formations. In fact, one type of two-handed sword even owed its name to that purpose: Gassenhauer (German, Gasse = alley, Hauer = striker)—the fighters literally used it to strike “alleys” into an enemy formation with wide, powerful swings.

7.) It’s all about distance

While I was subconsciously aware of this, it might be helpful to remember that distance was an incredibly important element in fights. The moment your opponent got past your weapons ideal range, it was common to either switch to a different weapon or just drop your weapon and resort to punching/choking. A good example of this are spears or polearms—very powerful as long as you maintain a certain range between you and your opponent, but the moment they get too close, your weapon is practically useless. That’s also why combatants almost always brought a second weapon into battle to fall back one.

8.) Real fights rarely lasted over a minute

Another truism, but still useful to remember: real fights didn’t last long. Usually, they were over within less than a minute, sometimes only seconds – the moment your opponent landed a hit (or your weapon broke or you were disarmed), you were done for. This is especially true for combatants wearing no or only light armor.

9.) Stop the pirouettes

Unfortunately, the spinning around and pirouetting that makes many fight scenes so enjoyable to watch (or read) is completely asinine. Unless it’s a showfight, fighters would never expose their backs to their opponent or even turn their weapon away from them.

10.)  It still looks amazing

If your concern is that making your fight scenes realistic will make them less aesthetic, don’t worry. Apart from the fact that the blocks, swings and thrusts still look impressive when executed correctly, I personally felt that my fights get a lot more gripping and visceral if I respect the rules. To a certain extent, unrealistic and flashy combat is plot armor. If your characters can spin and somersault to their heart’s content and no one ever shoves a spear into their backs as they would have in real life, who survives and who doesn’t noticeably becomes arbitrary. If, on the other hand, even one slip-up can result in a combatant’s death, the stakes become palpable.

That’s about it! I hope this post is as helpful to some of you as the lessons were to me. Again, if anything I wrote here is bollocks, it’s probably my fault and not Jeanne’s.  I’ll try to post more stuff like this in the future.

Cheers,

Nicolas

Detective Comics #1027 - “Rookie” (2020)

Marvel Comics #1000: Over Troubled Waters

I WANT MY FUCKING DARKSKINNED STORM MOVIE NOW

I vote Michaela Coel. Period.

PERIDOT!!!

Here’s one of the first results you get for official TLJ merch. Ask yourself who’s missing. They put a fucking GUARD on this shirt instead of FINN. Then remind yourself this came out in 2017 and that what John is talking about has been a problem AT LEAST since the PROMOTION of TLJ.

Erasing Finn from the narrative in TLJ was a deliberate choice

To me, Disney tried to damage control with releasing the Mandalorian Season 2 stuff the same day John Boyega’s GQ interview was released. It really just fucked things up because one, it didn’t work. we’re still talking about it and we’re gonna keep talking about it because John spoke the truth. he’s calling out the bs that disney and their r(acist)idiculous sw ‘fans’ put him through. he’s doing what’s necessary because this can’t be swept under the rug. if it’s not talked about, then no one is informed. and if no one is informed, then change cannot happen.

as for two, it’s almost like they just gave us mando content because we kept asking for it but they literally gave us crumbs. okay, we got a new look for what the logo looks like but where’s the trailer? that’s what we want. they could’ve given us the trailer and put that logo and the date it’s gonna premiere all in one thing. but nope, they gave us crumbs. just doing the bare minimum to shut up fans but it’s actually the opposite now.

in all honesty, their damage control backfired on them. i don’t like what they did and how they are trying to draw attention away from John’s interview and bringing it to mando but yet they give us crumbs. had you done the right thing with john and supported him and his character, he wouldn’t have called you out. had you supported kelly marie tran there wouldn’t be heat on you. had you protected john when sw ‘fans’ attacked him and showed support then you would’ve been fine. had you not used the reylo storyline to give those stupid ‘fans’ what they wanted so they would side with you then you wouldn’t be called out right now. they brought this upon themselves because of how they fucked up everything. and then to use another show to bring the attention away from what you did, only to upset fans more because you still gave us crumbs shows, at least to me, that they really don’t give a shit.

so yeah, disney fucking sucks for doing that.

(source)

so apparently some people feel like it’s annoying when someone engages with a lot of stuff from the same person, like going through their ship tag and liking all the content there. 

hearing about this, i was immediately paranoid about reblogging literally anything from anyone i don’t talk to on a regular basis.

so to save others from the same paranoia, i’m gonna say that if you like every single post on my goddamn blog it is okay. i might be kind of concerned about your level of time management, going through 23,000 posts, but it wouldn’t bother me. 

The Lebanese Red Cross updated their donation site so that you would not need to sign up or download an app to donate. Here is the link supportlrc.app/donate to share with others

Writers: If you enjoyed writing it, that’s enough. Writing can be an end in itself. It doesn’t have to be “good” by anyone else’s standards. It doesn’t have to be published or validated in any way. Delight in putting words on the page. Delight in falling down pretty rabbit holes that might not “make sense” to others. IT’S OKAY TO WRITE JUST TO WRITE, just to have fun, just to please yourself. This is your permission slip. Go forth and create nonsense. I’m cheering for you. xo

POE DAMERON ICONS

Oscar Isaac drinking tequila on the Oscars red carpet → 2018 | 2020

Oscar Isaac taking part in the Legendary Comics panel for Comic Con at Home today, talking about the upcoming graphic novel Head Wounds: Sparrow, which he developed with two of his childhood friends. Panel is available here on YouTube.

This project sounds amazing and I cannot WAIT.

I can’t wait for this graphic novel!

So... I did a thing.

Shoutout to @batuuprincess @brightboisterousbananas and The Damerey Discord for encouraging me to post this!

Great job! <3 <3 

Thank you so much!!