Monday meme
Sep. 28th, 2009 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterWords meme from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
isachi:
Reply to this post by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.
Poland
's my country. In some ways it's a den of madness, but it's my madness, and I think this describes most of our patriotism pretty accurately. We are fully aware that a lot of our history is a string of glorious, foolish suicides, Somosierras and Krojanty. But we're still here, and just try telling us what to do.
(We're also doing decently the past decade or so. Sane-ish politicians right now, economy doing best in Europe, and in general things seem to be on track *knocks on wood* All in all, I don't see myself moving away for the next few years, especially since I have confirmed you simply cannot get bread, meats and produce as good anywhere else.)
The Pope
Charlie, God rest his soul: a city in mourning. There's really no more to be said.
And Joe's all right too, for values of all right that include being Head of Inquisition for a while ♥ I admire his political acumen, and while I don't agree with all his actions, I like his style.
X and Clampesque
Ah, the Old Fandom :D I've recently realised it's been nine years since I started reading it, over eight since the first fics I wrote. I recall the flamewars with fondness, and none moreso than the ones surrounding the Clampesque period, the period when fandom started moving away from mailing lists. X dragged me into LJ, too, and I still have a lot of the old guard on my list *waves toisachi, reynardine, _leareth, rkold, ripedecay, sukeban, aishuu, xandrabelle, merentha, kiraboshi... okay, and too many more to list!
Snow
Winter's my favourite time of year, and snow themes have been present in my online identity for ages. There's something in the cleanness and promise of coming new wonders that speaks to me. My first blog was called Graphomania in the Snow, and one of my first online names was Winter Raven. Beth Winter kind of stuck.
So my being a fan of Takarazuka's Snow Troupe was kind of fate ;) It helps that it's at once the most traditional troupe (nihonmono FTW), and the one with the least-traditional latest string of top stars. I may get interested in other troupes (right now that would be Star), but at the end of the day, it's Yukigumi forever.
isachi:Reply to this post by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.
Poland
's my country. In some ways it's a den of madness, but it's my madness, and I think this describes most of our patriotism pretty accurately. We are fully aware that a lot of our history is a string of glorious, foolish suicides, Somosierras and Krojanty. But we're still here, and just try telling us what to do.
(We're also doing decently the past decade or so. Sane-ish politicians right now, economy doing best in Europe, and in general things seem to be on track *knocks on wood* All in all, I don't see myself moving away for the next few years, especially since I have confirmed you simply cannot get bread, meats and produce as good anywhere else.)
The Pope
Charlie, God rest his soul: a city in mourning. There's really no more to be said.
And Joe's all right too, for values of all right that include being Head of Inquisition for a while ♥ I admire his political acumen, and while I don't agree with all his actions, I like his style.
X and Clampesque
Ah, the Old Fandom :D I've recently realised it's been nine years since I started reading it, over eight since the first fics I wrote. I recall the flamewars with fondness, and none moreso than the ones surrounding the Clampesque period, the period when fandom started moving away from mailing lists. X dragged me into LJ, too, and I still have a lot of the old guard on my list *waves to
isachi, reynardine, _leareth, rkold, ripedecay, sukeban, aishuu, xandrabelle, merentha, kiraboshi... okay, and too many more to list!Snow
Winter's my favourite time of year, and snow themes have been present in my online identity for ages. There's something in the cleanness and promise of coming new wonders that speaks to me. My first blog was called Graphomania in the Snow, and one of my first online names was Winter Raven. Beth Winter kind of stuck.
So my being a fan of Takarazuka's Snow Troupe was kind of fate ;) It helps that it's at once the most traditional troupe (nihonmono FTW), and the one with the least-traditional latest string of top stars. I may get interested in other troupes (right now that would be Star), but at the end of the day, it's Yukigumi forever.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 02:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 02:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 02:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 02:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 02:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 02:45 pm (UTC)Words!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 02:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 03:56 pm (UTC)(I'll take [any] excuse to blow off homework. :) )
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 05:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 05:14 pm (UTC)I actually once considered writing one of my history comedy bits about Sigismund III Wasa and what's known around here as the Cudgel War.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 05:57 pm (UTC)It didn't last -- the authorities politely asked the Imperial Alexander University to put a lid on it -- but y'know. It was still kinda awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 07:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 07:34 pm (UTC)Heavy cavalry was, naturally, the big thing back in the day, and the winged hussars were sort of the the crack heavy cavalry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Since the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was unbelievably large, they were pretty much constantly scuffling with somebody, so there was lots of opportunity for Polish hussars to drum up a military reputation. This they indeed did. There were all sorts of battles, against all sorts of opponents, but the Battles of Kłuszyn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kluszyn), Kokenhausen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kokenhausen) and Honigfeld (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trzciana) are fairly indicative of their ass-kicking potential.
They got their name from literally sticking wings on their armour. Here's an artist's depiction (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Polish_winged_hussar_by_TBenda_.jpg), and here's a (very fuzzy) photo of a set of armour (http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/6695/img0897copypc0.jpg) with some attached. There's some very serious debate about whether they actually wore the things during actual charges, since having huge feathers stick out of your back apparently makes riding more difficult, but they did like to show them off. Since the wings are inherently cool, most dramatisations seem to love taking the position that they indeed kept 'em -- here's a movie clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1dD530tAsY) where the husaria get busy handing our asses to us on a plate, in what would appear to be the Battle of Honigfeld.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 08:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 04:47 am (UTC)(And it doesn't even have to involve alcohol. That's the scary part.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 10:07 am (UTC)It's a misty morning by the gray Baltic Sea. The hussars are shivering in their armour, their chargers snorting with cold as they carry their riders across the muddy ground and toward the field of battle. One rider stands tall in the colourless morning light -- the Polish general. This is a hard man, a weathered man, a man whose name contains no wovels. He gazes into the distance like Clint Eastwood, lost deep in thought. There's a galloping sound; his aide-de-camp, worried and bustled, with a blanket thrown over his shoulders, rides up to his commander.
And he says: 'General? The armies of Danzig or Sweden or Russia or Austria or whoever it is this week are approaching. We are outnumbered by far. The terrain is bad for horses. We have no culverins. How are we possibly going to win this?'
But the general says nothing. He just gazes into the far distance of the battlefield. And suddenly everything falls into place.
'My general? We need a pl...'
'We will wear... giant big feathers,' the General whispers in his hoary voice. (He's still Clint Eastwood.)
'Say what?'
'On our backs. We will wear giant big ostrich feathers on our backs,' the general says, and you can almost see the gears shifting behind his hard eyes. 'And that's why we'll win.'
'Okie dokie,' says the aide-de-camp.
And then, of course, they go and win.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 05:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 06:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 03:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 06:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 07:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 09:54 am (UTC)Hoo boy. This means I'm basically guaranteed to piss off all the Marxists. There will be comments. There will be blood.
And still it won't even come close to the ancient war between puppies and kittens.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 10:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-28 06:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 07:05 am (UTC)