#science of fencing

[53v3nfrn5]

Warped medullary rays found on pieces of wood that resemble animals

[slack-wise]

Étienne-Jules Marey

[raina-or-shine]

ATTENTION AO3 ENJOYERS

[avampyone]

Reading Preferences

Thank you @shadesofblades for the tag!

I'm doing this for Dr Arazul since I've already done one for Hemlocke before!

BOLD genres your character reads. Italicize genres your character occasionally peruses. Strikethrough if they absolutely won’t touch it.

Arazul De'fleur

art | biography | business | chick lit | children’s | classics | comics | contemporary | cookbooks | crime | fantasy | fiction | gay and lesbian | graphic novels | historical fiction | history | horror | humor and comedy | memoir | music | mystery | nonfiction | paranormal | philosophy | poetry | psychology | religion | romance | science | science fiction | self help | suspense | spirituality | sports | thriller | travel | young adult | warfare

I tag anyone who would like to do this - feel free to do so!

[frogspawned]

pet peeve is when a story tells us something is aberrant, but it seems to matter more about who does the behavior than the behavior itself. rorschach in snyder's watchmen isn't going too far; we watch nite owl and silk spectre ii snap necks and arms with gleeful, loving abandon, in slow motion no less, while they lecture the audience about rorschach's violence. heroes frequently torture the plot contrivance out of a villain and then moralize to the camera when the villains do the same. indominus rex's killing spree doesn't shock or appall me; all the jurassic world dinosaurs act like mindless killing machines, and the camera lingers, rapturous, on their cruelty. it's not an outlier. there's nothing interesting about it beyond as a set piece.

in a better script, the indominus rex would have had pathos; a chimera made for entertainment, for profit, stitched together with no regard for itself and placed in a lonely box. a freak among freaks. of course it would be mad. but the film wasn't interested in it as an animal, or a character, only as a moving piece of scenery for people to scream at or breathe tensely while it can clearly smell and reach them but doesn't, because it isn't a character and doesn't have motivations.

it's just sort of boring, i suppose. it tries like all other empty drab things do to cover it with bombast and roaring and soaring brassy scores but it's just sort of dull. a sprawl of nothing.

conversely peele's nope is a transcendent monster movie, imo, because it thinks about the the whys and hows, how jean jacket perceives the world, how the world perceives her, and lets that shape the narrative as much as jupe or emerald or gordy. they consulted biologists and behaviorists, digging into the meat of it. the creature as a camera as an animal as a device. nope has layers. it takes its own insane premise seriously, and has something to say, and is a goddamn good movie. i forgot where i was going with this.

[columbiauniversity-schoolboard]

𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐚 𝐅𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐒𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒

☞ Professor Edmund Valerian's Social Sciences class:

• @the-archduke

• @alexis-fontenay

• @its-scottangelo

• @cicero-defacto

• @osoipoiitailegousin

• @cassyourheartout

• @coribennett

• @grandinrag

• @alice-roosevelt

• @celiaserene

• @the-pastinthefuture

• @foreveryour-remus

• @tiger-of-the-lychee

• @juliasromeo

• @eilginn

☞ Professor Jadranko Vrban's Advanced inorganic chemistry + biochemistry:

• @coribennett

• @cicero-defacto

• @juliasromeo

☞ Professor Matías Aranis' Linguistics + Medievalists class:

• @cassyourheartout

• @cicero-defacto

• @animae-dimidium-meae

☞ Instructor Osami Daishi's music class:

• @cassyourheartout

• @the-archduke

• @grandinrag

☞ Professor Nahla Elmaleh's Art History class:

• @cicero-defacto

• @foreveryour-remus

☞ Instructor Nathan Frost's Culinary Arts Program:

• @sir-percival-of-glastonbury

• @osoipoiitailegousin

☞ Instructor Andrew Perkin's Drama Class:

• @last-grand-duchess-of-russia

☞ Professor Iona Swanson's Anthropology+ Cultural studies Class:

• @cicero-defacto

☞ Professor Marquis De Chastellux's Philosophy Class:

• @foreveryour-remus

• @tiger-of-the-lychee

• @cicero-defacto

☞ Professor Helena Ziegler's Biology + Biotechnology Class:

• @celiaserene

• @hikikomori1932

• @eilginn

☞ Professor Cillian Hamilton's Law class:

• @coribennett

☞ Instructor Torakichi Shinmen's Naginata Club:

• @tiger-of-the-lychee

• @celiaserene

☞ Instructor Julie d'Aubigny's fencing Club:

• @foreveryour-remus

• @cicero-defacto

☞ Katie Perugini's MUN Club:

• @alice-roosevelt [Vatican representative]

• @the-archduke [Austria representative]

• @cicero-defacto [Italy representative]

• @sir-percival-of-glastonbury [Britian representative]

• @coribennett [France representative]

[partikron]

Gundam Duels and Academic Fencing:

The setting of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury is as fantastical as any other entry in the franchise, and while the mechanized student duels seem pretty silly (and wildly expensive) at first, it's not actually that different from what went on in Germany, Austria, Belgium and other countries in the early modern period.

University students have often had a penchant for fencing, the arts of arms being a common post-lecture hobby of students in places like Bologna or many parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Eventually this academic fencing culture developed into what is usually called "Mensur", where male members of different fraternities stand within striking distance of one another and strike at each other with sharp swords (think something like a sharp fencing foil rather than a large cutting sword). Flinching or dodging is not part of this, and the idea is that you will bear the strikes that hit you stoically whilst striking at the face of the other man.

The inevitable scars resulting from these bouts (called "Schmisse" in German, also referred to as "smites" or bragging scars) became seen as a badge of honor and manliness, and became the prized rewards of proving your courage. The wounds were rarely very serious, though, and some people were known to open healing wounds to make them look more intense than they originally had been. This "scar-culture" was primarily present in Germany and Austria, though. Mensur still goes on, by the way, just not as prevalent as it once was.

You could say there's a parallel between striking at the face in Mensur and how the victory condition in the mobile suit duels is severing the sword antenna on the head of the opposing mech, too.

[simpsforscience]

Your Phone always knows where you are, ever wondered how it creates this magic? 🪄🛰️Turns out, the secret isn't buried treasure, but a constellation of satellites whispering your location! Swipe ➡️ to decode the GPS enigma 🤔

📸Image sources: GPS in the car - Unsplash Satellites around the Earth - Shutterstock Ground Stations - Shutterstock Satellite broadcast - Masterfile Signal reception - Shutterstock Spheres of influence - GISGeography Intersection point - Unknown

[selfmaderibcageman]

conceptual endorsement of naukograds only on the factor that they let you deport normalfags

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

me: why don’t I remember some things

also me: OH YEAH L TAKES OVER FOR LIKE 87% of EVERYTHING

[olivers-cocoapuffs]

What if James and Lily were Neville’s godparents which is why Neville lives with his nan (because they’re dead and can’t look after him)

[thestarminstrel]

I love your art! Your Nichoji illustrations are so beautiful.

Are there any tropes or genres that you like a lot and would like to see more of in Fence fan works? 

!!!!!

thANK YOU?? 💛💛💛 goodness you all are sO damn sweet 😭😭😭 i'm just happy to be here and that people enjoy my silly thoughts

oooo that's a good one. i love the tattoo artist/florist trope a lot for no real good reason tbh. particularly for eugesse uwu. have always been a big fan of antihero/robin hood aus where one character is running from the law and the other is some journalist or hero trying to catch them. on that thread, secret identity shenanigans too. some other rapid fire ones are road trips, snow days & winter shenanigans, olympics shenaniganary, and finding each other as adults post high school and falling in love (whatever trope that's called??).

also full disclosure that just bc of my life going crazy since 2022 and eating all of my free time, i haven't been active in the ao3 tag like i used to be :') if folks have written stuff like this, hell yea! feel free to send it and i'll hopefully have a moment to read

thank you for the ask!! 💛

[iowacitypast]

Hall of Liberal Arts viewed from the southeast, The University of Iowa, 1920s

Creator: Kent, Frederick Wallace 

The Hall of Liberal Arts, opened in 1902, was renamed Schaeffer Hall for University President Charles Ashmead Schaeffer in 1934.

https://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/islandora/object/ui%3Aictcs_16584

[evilkitten3]

i was thinking about all those posts ending with "thanks [insert occupation here] side of tumblr" and ended up thinking that if i'd actually become a lawyer like people kept asking me if i would as a kid then i could answer people's legal questions for free on tumblr

which then led to the realization that kid me was right and i absolutely should not be a lawyer i would go broke in moments

[wtfungus]

just fucked up trying to sell some blackmarket reblogs

call that a fencepost error