When you pick up a sword for the first time you will be slow and awkward. This is frustrating, but refuse the temptation to try and become a “faster” fencer. Chasing after speed is like trying to catch smoke. If you try and pursue speed, all you will accomplish is haste. Haste is the enemy of 1st class fencing.

Speed is a lie the untrained mind tells itself when it sees an action it cannot follow. The truth is a combination of timing, control, and fluidity. Fluid motion, even done slowly, will always arrive before a hasty strike. Control will allow you to move without wasteful motion that will slow you down. Timing will eliminate the need to move fast almost entirely. There is no need to get somewhere fast so long as you get there at the right time.  

Tip for mymutuals who engage in bladed armed combat

signal boost

This is true for plenty of other things too!! When you’re learning anything that involves moving your body, don’t forget that quality of movement is more important than speed!

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast

THEYRE LYING JUMP AT YOUR OPPONENT JUMPSCARE JUMPSCARE BACK FOOT FORWARD AND LEAP AT THEM!!

send them to HELL!!!

writing tip: searching "[place of origin]ish names" will get you a lot of stuff and nonsense made up by baby bloggers.

searching "[place] census [year]" will get you lists of real names of real people who lived in that place.

I feel like I'm constantly shilling for them but BehindTheName.com, the only baby name site that doesn't feel like it's run by mommy bloggers, includes census-based graphs for dozens of countries/regions (though not all of them go back very far yet)

And you can expand them to see rank, number of babies, and percentage of babies and add a second name to compare. (in 1973 four percent of babies were named Jennifer! 1 in 25!!!)

Also this. Cursed.

@homoqueerjewhobbit what name did you search for your example, and what's going on with Moldova?

Those are the graphs for Samuel. They only have 1 year's data for Moldova right now, so that's why it's a straight line. Similarly, they only have 2 years for Mexico right now. The US goes back to 1880. I'm not sure how much of that is publicly available/translated records and how much of it is that it's like 1 or 2 guys maintaining a website of 27000 names and a finite amount of time to format and upload.

Here's the list of all of the countries/regions they have popularity statistics for if you want to nerd out on it!

You can't advertise BehindTheName for writers without mentioning the advanced search! You can search names based on cultural origin and usage, gender (including unisex), meaning, and even things like meter and number of syllables, or famous namesakes (you can also see a list of famous namesakes on every name's page, along with meaning, history, related names, alternate spellings in different languages, the above popularity graphs, and more).

I wouldn't even call BehindTheName a baby name site. They have a surname sister site and a random name generator with tons of variables to set that is very clearly intended to be used for fictional characters (iirc it can even generate a cause of death? I haven't looked at it in many years so it might have changed but these things predate generative AI so unless it's been forcefully enshittified it shouldn't be slop). Like, you can use it for baby names, but the website isn't explicitly intended for that purpose. This website caters to us.

Sucks that all the animals that are as smart as we are don’t have highly developed language centers. I just want to discuss the finer points of philosophy with a parrot.

I wanna live in a world where I can yell at a raven to get off my roof and it can tell me to fuck off.

In their language or mine. I’m willing to learn Raven language if it means that I can tell them where the good trash bins are.

I just imagined a raven running a language class pointing at pictures on a PowerPoint with his beak and making squawking noises and a bunch of 19 year old undergrads attempting to squawk back at him.

I don't think there's any justification for forcing ravens to learn how to use Powerpoint

Excuse you sharing his language with the youth is his passion in life

Also I feel like Ravens would love PowerPoint. They're that type of nerd.

Also I feel like

Ravens would love PowerPoint.

They’re that type of nerd.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

Not to be that person, but if you remember this, how's that newfound back pain going for ya babe

PHRASE ADDED!

I love the concept of sutures. Like there was a time in history where someone looked at a wound that could not close on its own, that nature itself had deemed to be lethal, and just went "well how about I just sew it close fuck you."

If nature didn't want us flipping it off, it shouldn't have given us fingers.

It wimdy

some birds are very intuitively named. looked up a sparrow going chipchipchip in my yard, it was a chipping sparrow. saw a black bird with red wings, it was a red winged blackbird. gray bird that sounds like a cat? gray catbird. the first time i saw a house finch it was perched on a windowsill. However, some birds are the red-bellied woodpecker

I gotta google something real quick

who named this bird

Petition to rename this bird the red herring woodpecker

2007 eBird gem

WHAT IS THE CHARGE? EATING A PENGUIN? A SUCCULENT ADÉLIE PENGUIN?

WHAT IS THE CHARGE? EATING A PENGUIN? A SUCCULENT ADÉLIE PENGUIN?

putting just one of these jokes in the tags instead of main reblog is a bold choice but all three?! get peer reviewed about it!

THE GUYS IN THE BACKGROUND MAKE MY LIFE. THEY’RE SO PROUD OF HER. FUCK YES

This is one of the very first things I reblogged and I still love it

This is one of the

very first things I reblogged

and I still love it

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.