Combat - Tumblr Posts
"The problem with trying to be historically accurate, is that history doesn't care"
So much of the time we think of historical cultures as being very uniform, but people have always been weird, and our expectations of past behaviour don't always match the reality!
Writer's Guide: Hand to Hand Combat
Your character is unarmed and all they have left to fight with is their bare hands. If they hope for the enemy to catch their hands, you will have to write an effective scene. So how can we write a good hand to hand combat scene?
Most Common Moves
Now, I'm not going to list 30+ martial arts moves. Most of your characters will not be masters of kung fu or mixed martial arts. Most people who get into fights are novices.
Punch: a punch is probably to go to strike. Try not punch anybody in the face because one, they will expect it and two, it will hurt your hand. If you can aim for the soft parts of an opponent, kidneys or gut.
Kick: Kicking isn't pretty but it is effective. A good swift kick to the back of somebody's knee will fold them like a lawnchair.
Go for the groin: Man or woman getting kicked in the nether regions is no picnic. A good swift kick with your foot or your knee can incapacitate your opponent. Its not the most honourable of moves but it works.
An Elbow strike is effective: The elbow is your strongest point of attack. Drive it in to a windpipe or a gut and you can but yourself valuable time to retreat or stall your opponent from answering back.
Eyes: they are weak points. Jab somebody in the eyes with a thumb and they will stop in their tracks.
Throat: You can end any fight by going straight for the throat either grasping it in a headlock or jabbing it with a fist which can collapse the windpipe.
Bite: If you are unable to snack your opponent, use your teeth. The human bite is perhaps not as strong as a hyena's but it is strong enough to shorten your opponent by a finger or two.
How to Escape from Grips and Holds
Pinned from behind with your arms pinned: You have to stop your opponent from getting to a headlock. Move your hips to one side and strike backwards toward the groin or gut. This should weaken the hold of your opponent. Once the grip is loosened, turn toward your opponent and snack them into the nose with the heel of your hand.
Held from behind: Bend forward as far as you can making it more difficult for your opponent to lift you. Jab with your elbows back into your opponent's chest or face. Turn toward your opponent once the grip loosens and strike at the face or the groin again to subdue your opponent.
Headlock: If your opponent has you in a headlock, DON'T STRUGGLE. You could break your own neck. Turn into your opponent's side as close as possible. With your hand that is furthest away, hit your opponent into the groin or gut.
Pinned down on the ground: Most likely your opponent is using their own hands and weight to keep you down. If you can move your knees, try to jab them in the side or the groin to unbalanced them.
Things to Remember
1. The whole 6-10 minute bout only happens in films or controlled sporting events. Fights are usually over within a few minutes. (when writing effective fights, keep the pace short.)
2. Girls are vicious. I've worked in nightclubs and broke up a fair few fights. Boys will knock the shit out of each other but girls will tear shreds out of each other. I have known grown men to break up fights between guys but nobody wants to break up a catfight.
3. One wants the fight to end quickly. If you keep slugging at each other, you'll get tired pretty fast. Have your character try end the fight as soon as possible.
4. Nobody emerges from fights unscathed. Even winners may come out with black eyes, broken noses or at very least a broken lip. If you punch someone, you will likely bruise your knuckles if not split them.
5. If your character is fighting to survive, they don't have to stick to etiquette. They will have to do anything to survive even if it means doing something unpleasant like fishhooking or hairpulling.
Fantasy Guide: Common battle wounds and how to fix them
Arrow wounds: Now if the lung, heart, kidney, other major organ is hit, there may be little to do. The kidney has a back up, so maybe a skilled surgeon could save him, not exactly sure however. If hit by an arrow and not hit dangerously in an organ or artery, we can help. Firstly, DO NOT REMOVE arrow by yanking. Arrow must be worked from the skin by skilled hands. Once arrow is out, wash would with clean water/alchohol/herbal remedies. To heal slow, sew up wound and wrap in bandages. To speed it up, cauterise the wound with fire. It will hurt and patient pay pass out but now the arrow wound can heal faster. This works for crossbow bolts as well. On the gross side, arrows may be smeared with dirt or shit, so sepsis is a danger. This is how the great Richard the Lionheart died. Sometimes the mighty lion is killed by a shit arrow. But hey, shit happens. Arrow wounds take a couple of weeks to heal.
Sword slashes: if shallow, wash and bind up. May require stitches. If deeper, repeat process with more stitches and more bandages. Even if shallow, the cut must be washed using alcohol or clean water. May take a few days to weeks to heal depending on wound depth and severity.
Stab wound: Again don’t remove knife or object. If already removed, wash would and sew it up. You may need to cauterise. If guts, organs, brain, is falling out, there is nothing to do. This may take a couple of weeks to months to heal depending on wound.
Broken Bones: A break must be splinted with a board of wood and bandages. Slings can support arms and wrists. If your character breaks a leg, it may be worse. Breaks don’t heal great without modern medicine. Your character may have a limp or leg pain. In you’re are living in a hot climate, you’re pretty much fucked because infection sets in fast. These may take months to heal.
For @maslovianwench
Preserve-se, cuide-se, ame-se. Ser positivo ou negativo isso é indiferente. O importante mesmo é o respeito pelo ser humano. 02/12 Dia Mundial de Combate a AIDS #human #choice #life #good #cool #pic #love #combat #day #respect #AIDS #instampic #instancool #Instagram
More Kafka Edits
Aesthetic: Boer operator
South-African SWAT team intervening in attempted armed robbery. Their motto: “You have never lived until you have almost died.”
An intriguing video about gender roles, violence, and rite of passage. Let's break it down as such, with a Daoist lens.
Being a member of modern society, the idea that men specifically have a duty to either impress others (males or females) with displays of masculinity is a bit disappointing to me. The fact that this video focuses so much on the self-imposed trials of Men not only illuminates the prevalence of this idea, but reinforces it. Are there truly no examples of female proving grounds? Or is it enough that they wed a man and bear his children? I do not believe that the Path particularly cares what sort of genitalia you possess; we all walk along it regardless of what our bodies look like.
Violence, on the other hand, is quite relevant to the Dao. It is, has been, and always will be an integral part of the human experience. We can choose to either ignore this, as the narrator (and the series as a whole) have implied, or we can recognize it and moderate it within our society. It takes place either in the form of athletic sports or violent rituals or actual combat, and there's a reason it has never left our societies. Rejecting it as a part of our identities would be as foolish as denying ourselves music or art; it is in our nature to fight. You might watch the stories presented and think the people and practices barbaric, but what defines barbarism? How does the absence of such violence in your life make you more civilized? In fact, it is more than likely that violence has simply taken a different form in your activities, making the line between civilized and barbaric essentially arbitrary.
With that said, however, the reason and cause behind violence in our lives becomes much more important. Once we accept that violence will exist as a part of our culture whether we want it or not, identifying the true nature of that violence is what allows us to create a harmonious state with it. More specifically, the idea that a group needs to express violence in order to prove themselves worthy of their peers is the most trouble I have with the episode. We are worthy enough to be ourselves, and should be judged by our own merits. None of the groups shown are in a state of war, and none are auditioning to be soldiers. Their performance in pseudo-combat is less about their actual skill and more like a quick way to discover traits about their character under duress. This is indeed useful, but a society following the Dao would need no such test, which is a second-handed way to learning one's true nature. A person's actions should be judged by how they live their normal everyday life, not by arranging circumstances around them to force them to act differently. The necessity to seek admiration and praise, to run from failure, to take oneself out of their actual reality so that they might be more than themselves in a different set of rules; these are indicative of an unstable base of persona. If we accept who we are without the need for others to approve us, then we can exist and perform as the person we choose to be.
This is not to say that the practices themselves are not beneficial to those that participate. The rigors of physical training, the tempering of combat, the satisfaction of executing a flawless gameplan or adapting to an unexpected setback; these are all incredibly useful and healthy for people to have, especially with violence being such an ingrained part of our nature. But they should be sought out and practiced by our own personal choices along the Path, not because they are needed to gain social status. If a people forge themselves to be stronger and sharper than they were before by their own choices, success and social status will follow.
Commission I did Gilda the red panda kickboxer
Alice The Bunny
Happy year of the rabbit! Here a fanart of Alice the Bunny from the game Bloody Roar, it was very entertaining to draw
COMMISSIONS OFFER, fullbody, fullcolor, simple background x 8USD! Watch me on https://twitter.com/FuzzyLynxs
Nalu! a queen in boxing
Yay, unsolicited advice time! Or, not really advice, more like miscellaneous tips and tricks, because if there's one thing eight years of martial arts has equipped me to write, it's fight scenes.
.
Fun things to add to a fight scene (hand to hand edition)
It's not uncommon for two people to kick at the same time and smack their shins together, or for one person to block a kick with their shin. This is called a shin lock and it HURTS like a BITCH. You can be limping for the rest of the fight if you do it hard enough.
If your character is mean and short, they can block kicks with the tip of their elbow, which hurts the other guy a lot more and them a lot less
Headbutts are a quick way to give yourself a concussion
If a character has had many concussions, they will be easier to knock out. This is called glass jaw.
Bad places to get hit that aren't the groin: solar plexus, liver, back of the head, side of the thigh (a lot of leg kicks aim for this because if it connects, your opponent will be limping)
Give your character a fighting style. It helps establish their personality and physicality. Are they a grappler? Do they prefer kicks or fighting up close? How well trained are they?
Your scalp bleeds a lot and this can get in your eyes, blinding you
If you get hit in the nose, your eyes water
Adrenaline's a hell of a drug. Most of the time, you're not going to know how badly you've been hurt until after the fact
Even with good technique, it's really easy to break toes and fingers
Blocking hurts, dodging doesn't
.
Just thought these might be useful! If you want a more comprehensive guide or a weapons edition, feel free to ask. If you want, write how your characters fight in the comments!
Have a bitchin day <3
Hello all! I have some fun robot related news to share. Last weekend I went to Build Fight Fun in Tallahassee and GOT FIRST PLACE WITH FLUORINE!!!
I honestly did not expect this at all, I figured Fluorine would go 3-2 at best and lose in spectacular fashion. I don't really have the words to describe how happy I am about this.
I've been working on Fluorine in various forms for over 3 years, and it makes me happy to finally see the robot performing as well as it has been.
The fights
Here are some more pics I took at the event showing some more of the damage I dished out
More pics can be seen here