Fuck You, Misogynists

So I've been working with chainmail for about a year and a half now and I've gathered knowledge on it:

- making maile isn't for the faint of heart: there's about 1000 rings in my work, and that's SMALL compared to a shirt or coif (hood)

- stained fingers and the smell of metal are normal

- there's more to it than "metal rings go together"; there's math involved, mainly the ratio of the inside diameter of the ring and the diameter of the wire used, which impacts what patterns can be used; there's a lot of uses of triangles, especially with seams; and a whole lot of counting and checking fit

- it's like knitting in some concepts, but it's different in most. Mainly, you're having to handle metal rings that, if dropped, disappear into the aether for a couple of months.

- small and tight doesn't immediately mean it's a good idea. It just means you'll be gaining length at a slower speed.

This is why they didn't teach us our 30 human rights; they now can play the shell game with us.

Educate yourself as much as possible

NPR

The State Department is changing its mind about what it calls human rights

The agency's annual human rights reports are being purged of references to prison conditions, political corruption and other abuses.

The US right now:

Magic broken down:

Back before modern science, it and magic were the same thing; an incantation/blessing held as much water as making salt of tartar (K2CO2).

Remember, too, not literacy wasn't as high in Europe as it was in other places, so the act of just writing showed you knew stuff many didn't.

Also, geometry (simply a way to measure things using shapes and the relationships they can make [e.g. two circles; one inside and on outside an equilateral triangle have a ration of 1:2, 1/2, or .5]) was thought to show the secrets of the universe. Stone masons in Europe used geometry as a measurement tool, which was a large component for this train of thought. The topic of geometry is for a different post

Also, spells can be anything from charms, hexes/curses/jinxes, enchantments, or blessings.

Divination: the past, present, and future are already written somewhere, depending on the topic in question; be it in the stars (astrology), the hand of the person (palmistry), the dregs in a teacup, the endtrails of an animal, a casting of chicken bones or ruinstone, or the reading of playing cards (tarot); cold reading (a psychology trick of reading people), trances (commonly used by oracles), and dream reading are all valid methods

I'm not covering witch doctors, voodoo, and other categories because this is already going to be long enough.

Oracle: someone who goes into a trance via gases, psychedelics (fumes or consuming), etc, to predict the future.

An enchanter/enchantress: Those that mainly do enchantments

Witch: herbal based studies. They're basically the doctor of the group. It's not limited to just women.

The stereotypical witch in the woods is a result of the person rejecting the city and living in isolation and rejecting the beauty standards of that day so they focus more on their studies.

Their studies were kept in a book called a Grimoir/ book of shadows.

Wizard: Academic. You're more likely to find these people pouring over a library of books with multiple charts out, dividers in one hand, and a quill in the other

These people (mostly men, but women can be wizards) study just about everything with magic: astronomy/astrology, alchemy/chemistry, or geometry itself

Warlock: someone who devoted their life to a being far more powerful than man (eldrich beings or the like), letting the being grant them magic.

This is not a cleric.

Sorcerer: naturally gifted with magic.

Cleric: the priest. Devoting their life to a deity, which grants them forms magic.

Yashwa of Nazareth (Jesus Christ) was a cleric by this definition.

Druid: a nature cleric mixed with a witch. Their spirits are of nature, and they speak to Mother Earth.

Don't confuse these with shamen, which are druids mixed with oracles

Paladin: the priest with a sword.

These are my current findings.

If your democrat friends start muttering about stolen election conspiracy theories, the time to have a sit down with them and express your concerns is NOW, while you still have a chance to reach them, not 6 months from now when they're fully conspiracy-pilled.

Here's some of the talking points and why they're bullshit:

'10 million votes don't just disappear!' -> Joe Biden's 81 million votes were a statistical outlier, sparked by the recent experience of the Trump presidency. The democrats failed to maintain that sense of urgency, but Harris still got more votes than Hillary Clinton, more than Obama and more than any previous democratic candidate. These numbers are not weird at all.

'The Republicans tried to infiltrate election- and vote counting organizations!' -> yeah, they did, and yet hundreds of independent legal observers didn't see anything go wrong enough to raise any alarms. Independent exit polls are also very consistently similar to the counted votes. Tons of international organizations specialized in this stuff observed the election and didn't see a reason to raise the alarm.

'But I know a dozen democrats whose mail-in votes were not counted!' -> In any election a certain number of votes are registered as invalid because something was wrong with the ballot. In a country the size of the US, that translates to many thousands of votes. The internet allows these people to find each other, creating the false impression that a suspiciously large group of voted was not valid.

'Musk used Star Link to mess with electronic voting!' -> Electronic voting machines are not connected to the internet and dozens of independent media have already debunked this myth. It is absolutely impossible to use Star Link to fake election results.

'There is voter disenfranchisement!' -> This is true. This has always been true, for every election. It's an issue worth talking about but it's not a special secret conspiracy that's unique to this election.

But just as importantly as the facts: sit down with your friend and talk about the anxiety that's behind their conspiracy leanings. Acknowledge their pain and fear. Help them find ways to feel less powerless and regain their sense of agency. Take them to a mutual aid event, involve them in a fundraising event for a marginalized group, invite them to a local community effort. If they spend more time feeling connection and empowerment and less time doom scrolling online, they're far more likely to stay in reality.

Headcanon: goblin is a homophone heavy language; you can learn a quarter or so of it and b able to understand the rest.

This sounds amazing, but it also has the Grammer of a drunk man: n's and l's are dropped, double letters are dropped, and many noises are terribly recorded.

A number of words are borrowed words from other languages as well, which makes it more complicated.

Example: "behl e banum" has several possibilities:

Either "that large animal is over there" or "that large animal is constipated," or "nose in dirt, poo is good," and only those fluent in the language understand the context and how to respond without sounding like an idiot.

"Gway ot ma gassa" gets even messier; "ma gassa" and "magassa" are two completely different things, and "ot" and "öt" can lead to disaster if swapped around.

This is why it sounds like noise; because it's several layers of context and percise pronunciation.

They seem like canon fodder, but in groups, word spreads fast, and what's implied is understood.

If I had $100 and I divided it among 0 people, how many dollars would each person get? Zero, for there's no one to divide the money.

There, I divided by 0 and didn't break reality