every culture has a little dish that just translates to “we threw everything into that fucking pot we’re poor”
Funny enough, shrimp and grits used to be that dish, and then folks who live far from the ocean decided that shrimp was a delicacy and should be expensive and now shrimp and grits isn’t that dish any more.
Same with lobsters here. They used to be poor people’s food. People would till them into the soil for fertilizer. Not anymore.
Yup. Lobster used to be considered just a half a step above cockroaches. People facing execution would request as their last meal “anything but f***ing lobster.” But it cost money to get it inland, and rich people who didn’t live on the shore decided that it must be fancy because of the cost, and now even people living in historic lobster-fishing areas can’t always afford it.
When I was a child I thought Susan was needlessly mean to Ross. Then as I got older I realized Ross was an asshat and Susan was the only one on the show that could see it.
“Authors can’t use it in fantasy fiction, eh? We’ll see about that…”
–Terry Pratchett, probably
Try to implement anything but a conservative’s sixth grade education level of medieval or Victorian times and you will butt into this. all. the. time.
There was a literaly fad in the 1890′s for nipple rings for all genders(and NO, it was NOT under the mistaken belief that it would help breastfeeding–there’s LOTS of doctors’ writing at the time telling people to STOP and that they thought it would ruin the breast’s ability to breastfeed well, etc). It was straight up because the Victorians were freaks, okay Imagine trying to make a Victorian character with nipple rings. IMAGINE THE ACCUSATIONS OF GROSS HISTORICAL INACCURACY
people just really, REALLY have entrenched ideas of what people in the past were like
tell them the vikings were clean, had a complex democratic legal system, respected women, had freeform rap battles, and had child support payments? theyd call you a liar
tell them that chopsticks became popular in china during the bronze age because street food vendors were all the rage and they wanted to have disposable eating utensils? theyll say youre making that up
tell them native americans had a trade network stretching from canada to peru and built sacred mounds bigger then the pyramids of giza? you are some SJW twisting facts
ancient egypt had circular saws, debt cards, and eye surgery? are you high?
our misconception of medieval peasants being illiterate and living in poverty in one room mud huts being their own creation as part of a century long tax aversion scam? you stole that from the game of thrones reject bin
iron age india had stone telescopes, air conditioning, and the number 0 along with all ‘arabic’ numbers including algebra and calculus? i understand some of those words.
romans had accurate maps detailing vacation travel times along with a star rating for hotels along the way, fast food restaurants, swiss army knives, black soldiers in brittany, traded with china, and that soldiers wrote thank-you notes when their parents sent them underwear in the mail? but they thought the earth was flat!
ancient bronze age mesopotamia had pedantic complaints sent to merchants about crappy goods, comedic performances, and transgender/nobinary representation? what are you smoking?
Truth is stranger than fiction, and history is weirder than you think.
this post gets better every time it comes across my dash. To provide some more: those Romans also had vending machines, automated puppet plays, doors that opened to the sound of horns when you lit a fire in front of them, and working steam engines. All invented by one dude, Hero of Alexandria.
People generally want to think that the Dark Ages is the sum of the entire history of the world.
Charlemagne had a frigging PET ELEPHANT, sent as a present by the Caliph over in Bahgdad.
Emperor Frederick II. (around 1200) crossed the Alps with his own private zoo, including giraffes, in order to impress and dazzle his Germanic subjects, and it frigging worked. He also introduced legislation that a doctor was not allowed to also sell medicine (to prevent obvious charlatanery), but had to write a recipe for an apothecary to then redeem, which is a system STILL IN USE in Germany and other countries. He spoke several language, was tolerant towards his Muslim subjects in southern Italy (you read that correctly) and was opposed to trial by combat on reasons of it being unfair and irrational. Oh, and he wrote a book on ornithology.
Ancient Persians knew how to make frozen desserts even in summer, thus basically being the inventors of ice cream.
Medieval monks had an efficient way of testing for pregnacy (by pouring the urine of a woman on a toad, which, if the woman was pregnant, would change colour…).
k but i wanna know exactly what brother jeremy was smoking when he first thought that last one might work
A demon, creating Donald Trump with his buddies: “How many times you wanna bet humans will fall for the exact same scam from the exact same scam artist?”
A different demon, decades later, who has lost shitloads of money on this bet, repeatedly: “All right, show-off, try making him President. I bet they won’t be THAT stupid.”
a muggleborn student coming to hogwarts with a thermos flask and filling it with tea in the morning so it stays hot all day and their pureblood friends are like “whoa what spell did you use for that” and they’re like “?????? it’s just a thermos???” and all the pureblood students start pointing their wands at cups and saying “THERMOS”
THERMOS
plot twist: it works, mugs suddenly start keeping tea at the perfect temperature for the caster all day. students in muggle studies start experimenting with other muggle jargon and a new generation of magic spells are born, propelling the stagnated wizard community into the technological age
*points wand at book* KINDLE!!!! *book propels itself into fireplace and bursts into flames* I FUCKED UP I FUCKED UP
Our party was fighting the first boss (an evil wizard) of our campain and I was playing a Tabaxi Bard. The boss was down and only had a few hp left and was trying to convince us to let him have the Amulet we were there for.
Wizard: “You don’t understand… that amulet has more power than you could ever imagine. I would do anything to get my hands on it.”
Me, Bard: “Anything?”
Wizard: “Yes, anything.”
Me, Bard: “Then perish.”
Me: “I cast Vicious Mockery.”
DM: “The- The wizard falls to the ground as the cruel words shatter his last hopes and dreams.”
