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#there are antibiotics in my historical fantasy thanks
penaltybox14 · 3 years
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Decofiremen: Silky, the Sear, and the fever
@darknight-brightstar @zeitheist @squad51goals Where Silky sweats in a hospital bed, wanting forgiveness, and Birch sits beside him, wanting the same thing. 
Thomas does not really sleep.  The fever pulls him one way and the Sear pulls another, and he lies shadowy and suspended between them, like birds on a telegraph wire.  But while he does not sleep he seems to dream: or maybe, he is simply tumbled back and forth in time, which has no meaning or reason.  Memories burst unbidden from the bubbles in his lungs, they sluice down into the needle from the bottle hanging above his bed.  Lungs, bottle, bed, light, dark.  He struggles to breathe: air in, air out.  It catches inside him, trapped, fights inside his chest and throws outward through his teeth: he coughs, wheezes, coughs again. 
A hand lays on him: his Sear skews out in all directions.  He thinks of the Jesuits, in Rochester, and then the nuns, in Greenwich Village when he was just a wisp still.  He'd been reared on rows of beds and tall windows and the promise of a greater light.  Sisters had sat with him through fever when he was small, tended his body with damp flannels and peaceful words.  But this touch strikes him like a pig-axe deep in his lights, and the fever skitters around it, hissing like coals.
When he opens his eyes the world is blocks of light and humming shadow, blurred, throbbing strangely.  The teeth of the night-time are ground to the root and the day is straining on the horizon.  Who's to sound the waking bell, who's already awake to tend the horses?
He closes his eyes again but the hand is insistent: it is familiar.  It is real.  He remembers. 
If he is dreaming, he thinks, turning his head: it would be a fine dream to stay in.  If he is dead, he thinks, it would be a fine enough welcome to St Peter's dew-damp fields. 
He was not dead or dreaming then and he is not now, not again, not when his vision stills and the sweat stops stinging his eyes. 
"Easy, Silks," says the sight of distant smoke.  "Easy now."
Thomas wants to take in the face: the throat, the stiff collar, the heavy coat with the captain's sigil on the sleeve, the hands, the dirty nails.  That coat looks as if it's never been worn; as if it still has cedar in the pockets.
The face is bent now, in hands, the one scarred - the skin flat and toneless, pale as Irish table-linens.  The shoulders curve and hunch.  He looks as though he is praying, though Thomas knows he never prayed to any God in his life but stubborn will and worn no halo but his own fists. 
He is not real.  How can he be real, be here.
I never guessed I would see you again.  I never had any hope of that. 
I used to pray for it.  Did you know?  How I used to pray to God you would forgive me, what I couldn't do for you?
At the crest of dawn and cradled in the fever's breast he dreams about Saint Florian's Hall and the morning sun, in thick, dusty blocks, breaking in and painting gold the decades of wax and polish on the floor.  Men stood, clasped firmly in wool, white gloves, their hair glossy with pomade, mustaches waxed as the floor, men waited with furtive eyes and firm jaws for their belts, their flourishes, their captain's coat and sigil. 
An empty auditorium, a single wooden chair that clacks when it opens and leans hard on one leg.  Clacks like a laugh.  Lit up by a sunbeam.  Among that room of stoic men, who whispered.  The sun holding up the ceiling, the dust suspended like ash in water in gutters, gulped down by drains and washed away to the river. 
When he coughs, the dust motes dance in the light, and shine like sparks.  It hurts to breathe, but the dream hurts more, he doesn't want to go back there.
Thomas sweats as if he lies in state in embers, watches the coals thrum and throb like the gloss of a gelding's croup at the canter, in the sun, in the blazing scorching half-twilight of a four-alarm blaze.  He sweats in the dark: where the sun and the house have fallen, the rafters stove-in like ribs, where the smoke ate up his tongue like rats and his sear scratched out his outstretched hand and he was too late, and he doesn't want to go back there.
Thomas opens his eyes.  He imagines that he opens his eyes and everything is right-side up again. 
Thomas opens his eyes.  He stares at the high ceiling.  His chest is broken open and all his dreams flown out, scattered and fearful. 
Thomas opens his eyes and turns his head: there is his brother, exactly where the sear said that he ought to be.
"My God," he whispers, his voice as dry as decades.  "You're still here."
Birchy looks at him, his eyes red, as if he has been walking through smoke.  Birchy's mouth moves: opens.  Closes.  His throat bobs hard and his lips grow tight.  He is sorry, says the deep sear.  He is so, so sorry. 
For what?
"I left."
"Oh."
The sear moves around him like a cloak, like something he could sink his hands into, some holy thing that ties him to earth and flesh.  His younger self draped across the flank of a horse, his hand on the muscular arch of its great neck.  God lives in the hands.  God speaks in the eyes.  Listen, Thomas, say the Jesuits.  Listen, Castor, says old Kidder Parson. 
You alright there?  Says a boy, years ago, at Captain Jack Hazel's engine-house.  Lying in bed and reeking as the sweat of their sear dries on their skin.  Feeling tender-skinned and brand new. 
"You're here," Thomas says.  "Now."
"Aye," Birchy says.  "I am, now."
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scripttorture · 6 years
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Thanks for coming back so quickly. If I could ask another question, do you know roughly what the rate of survival was even in those non-lethal forms? And also what was the attitude if someone died during/after torture that was intended to punish not kill? Thanks.
It’s difficult for me to put a figure on that whichis why I didn’t originally. I can discuss the contributing factors and takea guess, but this really is just a guess. It’s also nudging into @scriptmedic’sarea more than mine.
 There are a lot of factorsthat feed into the fact our life expectancy now is much much higher than lifeexpectancy in the Middle Ages.
 A quick illustrative example of just how huge the gap is: Alfred theGreat of Wessex. He is the only monarch England has ever called ‘Great’, helaid the groundwork for unifying England and was the only Saxon King toeffectively hold the Vikings at bay. He’s also believed to have had Crohnsdisease.
 We think he died around 899 ADat the age of about 50. But we don’t actually know because his death wasn’t recorded.
 One of the most popular explanations for that is that 45-50 was simply howlong people lived. His death from ‘old age’ was expected and so not recorded.
 That was for a rich man who we can assume didn’t suffer from prolongedperiods of malnutrition.
 I’d say the three most important advances since the time period you’retalking about have been nutrition,sanitation and antibiotics.
 Some, but not all, of these advances can be mapped on to writing abouthistorical periods generally.
 One of the things I mention, but don’t dwell on, in theMasterpost on Starvation is the higher rates of infection that accompanymalnutrition. In a time period where periodic bouts of starvation andunder-nourishment were the norm thatmeans assuming that virtually everyone below the absolute elite would be more prone to infection and lessable to fight off infection.
 The diet of ordinary people could also be incredibly monotonous, whichincreases the chances of diseases associated with lack of particular nutrients,such as rickets, anaemia etc. Those conditions could also make a character morevulnerable to infection.
 I’d say generally these points about nutrition and starvation apply to most cultures and time periods globally.While we are now much closer to eradicating starvation and diseases of malnutritionwe are not there yet.
 If you’re trying to figure out the chances of a character surviving besure to factor in their access to food, not just over the past few days but recentmonths and years.
 And then there’s sanitation which er-
 You know what? I’m just going to quote a description of an English homein the Middle Ages (via T Deary’s HorribleHistories: Measly Middle Ages)
 ‘The floors are commonly of clay,strewn with rushes under which lies undisturbed an ancient collection of beer,spittle, grease, bones, droppings of animals and men and everything that isnasty.’
 People rarely washed. Human and animal waste was everywhere. Water thatcould be used for drinking or washing was often contaminated with human waste. Bandageswere not always cleaned, rarely boiled and the majority of people probablycouldn’t afford enough clothe to change them regularly anyway.
 I’d like to stress that situation wassolvable with the available technology at the time. Not every historicalculture was this soaked in filth. The comparative cleanliness of towns andcities in the Arab world at the same time (and indeed parts of Africa) wouldhave resulted in lower rates of infection and higher rates of survival.
 But you asked for Europe and frankly at that time there was no wastedisposal. Human and animal waste was everywhere. Butchers dumped the entrailsof slaughtered animals in the streets. Rubbish was left to rot.
 People washed irregularly at best and there was no real sense that handsshould be clean before touching wounds or that implements and bandages shouldbe clean.
 The chances of foreign matter getting into an open wound were incrediblyhigh. The chances of that matter being some kind of bacterial culture were also incredibly high.
 So even before we get into the lack of decent treatment for bacterialconditions there are two massive factors suppressing the victim’s immune systemand encouraging infection to take hold.
 And there was really almost no effective treatment other than treatingsurface symptoms and hoping. This was a time when the usual treatment wasliterally prayer.
 I’ve spent most of the morning looking for percentage survival ratesfrom infections in the era pre-antibiotics. The numbers I’ve found vary hugelydepending on the type of infection and the particular bacteria causing it.
 I’m finding death rates anywhere from 11% to 80% for common bacterial causing infection in cuts and burns.
 That’s among people who were fed in periods where basic sanitation was morecommon.
 And we haven’t really gotten into the fact that the tortures we’rediscussing are highly damaging in and of themselves. These are serious woundsthat can kill regardless of infection, especially because torturers are not ‘skilled’people. They don’t pay particularattention to the damage inflicted on victims or stop and think if may be they’vegone ‘too far’. Instead they tend to just keep going.
 Blood loss would also have been a pretty big cause of death, especiallyfor amputations and flogging.
 So I’d say a conservative estimate would be a 35-40% death rate fortorturous punishments that weren’t intended to be lethal.
 For more serious injuries caused by torture that figure would rise. Andit would rise again for people who were more severely malnourished.
 A death rate of up to two thirds wouldn’t be unrealistic orunreasonable.
 The does not mean you have tokill your character.
 I don’t think there’s anything wrong with us writing character survivingin situations where the odds are stacked against them, but I think it is important to acknowledge when that’sthe case. There’s nothing wrong with having your character get luckyoccasionally, especially when it comes to fighting an infectious disease. Justacknowledge that they were lucky.
 Which leaves me with the final point- what did people at the time thinkof this death rate?
 I’m going to have to keep the answer to that relatively shallow becauseI don’t know a lot about Christianity and the answer is heavily bound up in thereligious thought of the time.
 Essentially ideas about punishment and justice were bound up in the religiousideas of the time. Suffering was seen as retribution in part because it broughtpeople closer to God.
 The prevailing idea was that everything happened according to God’s willand for a reason. Therefore if someone died during a punishment they weresupposed to die.
 In some circumstances this seems to have been seen as a proof ofinnocence or redemption. God stepped in to take the good soul to heaven. Inother circumstances it seems to have been taken as proof of guilt.
 I honestly don’t understand enough about the religious thought at thetime to provide an analysis of that.
 But in terms of building a fantasy world- well that’s not necessarilysomething you need to delve in to. Very few fantasy books actually make theirworld’s religion Christianity. That means you have the scope to decide foryourself how a character’s death or survival would be viewed. That meansthinking about the religion, social order and justice system.
 It could also mean thinking about conflicts between those systems andcounter-cultural movements. There were a lotof ‘heretical’ sects during this period of history and a lot of cultsvenerating particular saints or purported events.  
 My own fantasy stories aren’t based in this period but one of the thingsI’ve enjoyed doing is using minority cultures in the world to providealternative points of view on events. That’s definitely something that can beused in regards to torture and different ideas of justice or morality.
 I don’t have any sources I could confidently recommend on religion inthe Middle Ages. Davies’ The OxfordIllustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic might provide more information,although on a very particular area. Deary’s HorribleHistories series is also an incredibly good source on both torture and medicaltreatments. Scott’s A History of Tortureis…useful in parts if you can stomach the amount of racism in his writing.Amber recently released two volumes on the history of torture and the historyof punishment which I haven’t read in their entirety yet. Both contain sectionson historical Europe though I have my doubts about the attitude and sources in The History of Torture.
 The best source, as ever, is accounts from the time. Descriptions oftrials and punishments. I’m unsure where the place to start looking for thosewould be. I know that earlier sources (ie 1000 AD and earlier) are harder tocome by for England particularly, in part because many of the primary sourcesburnt during the Great Fire of London. Sources for the 1200s, 1300s and 1400sare more numerous and may be a better period to concentrate on as a result.
 If I come across anything that stands out as particularly useful I’ll besure to add it to the Sources page.
 I hope that helps. :)
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imsfire2 · 5 years
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Questions meme
I was tagged by @hoofgirl
1. Your favourite past time and why?
I first read this as “favourite pastime” and was torn between “writing” and “walking the South-west coast path” but then I re-read and realised my mistake!  
TBH I’m not sure I’d want to live in another period of history.  I’m very conscious of how fortunate I am to live in a place and time with women’s suffrage, widespread literacy as the norm, antibiotics, etc.  
But a favourite historical era as a setting for fiction is the ancient world.  Round about 1500BC to 500AD (pretty long period of past time, sorry!). Ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, the ancient Near-East, ancient Rome.  Fascinating history, cultures and legends.
2. Five things that inspire you most?
a) Great art of all kinds. Great writing inspires me to want to write better; likewise great painting inspires me to try again at my own, great music gets my creative juices flowing, and the work of other potters inspires me to keep on throwing and experimenting and never let my pottery become the same-old-thing.
b) The open air, especially near the coast.  Walking by the sea, swimming in the sea, looking out from a clifftop.
c) People who experience dreadful set-backs, losses, hardships, but aren’t hardened by it and come back every time with a new start and a heart that is still kind and loving.
d) Myths, legends, folktales and fairytales from around the world.
e) Stories and characters that grab my imagination and set me thinking “what if?”.  I’m definitely one of those writers who don’t have original ideas so much as original ways to take an old idea down a new path.
3. A fictional character you would: date, be best friends with, want as a teacher, want to be adopted by?
Date: Cassian Andor.  I’m way too old for him of course!  But I was brought up to think that looking after your man is a really important role for a woman, and although I now believe men should learn to look after themselves, I think Cassian needs and deserves someone to care for him as selflessly as he has cared for others.  Seeing as he’s devoted the whole of his life, sacrificed his conscience, etc., to the greater good.  He’s a hero and he deserves all the love in the world!
Be best friends with: The women of “Firefly”.  Wonder Woman.  Mantis.  Nebula.  Natasha Romanoff.  Spock.
Want as a teacher: Elnora Comstock (from “A girl of the Limberlost” by Gene Stratton Porter).  Proto-feminist entomologist and brilliant natural violinist with great fashion sense and a kind heart, who heals her broken family relationships and recognises growth in others, and gets her man without giving up her dreams or her agency to do it.  What a role-model!
Want to be adopted by: Eowyn and Faramir.
4. A story idea you scrapped?
Not exactly scrapped, in that I might still do it one day, but it’s unlikely; I started work on a Rogue One/Arthurian legend mash-up, featuring Cassian and Jyn as Tristan and Isolde.  I gave up when it became clear that it would be a) ridiculously, epically long and b) impossible to give anything but a heartbreakingly tragic ending (because both canons end in heart-breaking heroic deaths all round).
Definitely scrapped; I wondered about doing a fic with neurodivergent Cassian struggling to fit in on joining the Alliance, but set the idea aside because a) not my story to tell and b) too bloody sad, to give him yet more difficulties to contend with when his life is already so hard.
5. What project(s) are you currently working on, and do you have anything planned for the future?
a) Sorting out some Rogue One one-shots for the next few weeks and some Cassian-centric ones for Cassian Appreciation Week.  
b) Planning for Vol 2 of the “Stardust and Moonlight” series (and looking for a title).
c) Also working on an original fic idea, which I may have outlined here before; a historical AU fantasy set in the sixteenth century, in a world where the conquistadors failed to conquer central and south America, leading to a totally different balance of power across the world.  Magic exists and Queen Elizabeth the first and Mary Queen of Scots are married.  Our protagonists are a British woman actor from Shakespeare’s company, and a Mexican spy for the Aztec Empire.  Slight touch of Rebelcaptain fan-casting going on there, LOL!
d) Miserably aware of having an unfinished Rebelcaptain WIP and of having no idea how to finish it.
e) Other original fic ideas and re-drafts of previous work.
f) Assorted other fanfic ideas in varying states of usability. 
I have a list.  It’s long.
6. Favourite character trope?
Self-discovery/maturation; characters gaining self-confidence and agency through experience and the passing of time, and coming into their true selves.
Healing; characters who have suffered or been wounded in themselves learning to move on, accept their damage, heal and grow stronger.  Closely related to the above but not quite the same thing.
The first two of the “Cinnamon roll” types; the character who looks small and/or fragile but is actually tough as old boots and will fuck you up if you hurt their loved ones, and the character who looks grim and dangerous but inside is the kindest and most noble soul you’ll meet all year.
7. Favourite tropes to read/write?
Read?  Happy endings!  
I am such a sucker for a good, well-written HEA that’s believable for the characters in question.  That said, I also appreciate a good cathartic cry (I mean, come on, I’m a Rogue One fan!).  But if there’s going to be tragedy, it needs to be
a) well-handled, i.e. believable in the context and wholly in keeping with characterisation,
b)  not done just for shock value/I’m-so-grimdark point-scoring, and
c) hopeful or in some way worthwhile for the characters.
Also bed-sharing, non-sexual intimacy (physical, verbal and wordless), deserved-and-earned redemption arcs, love stories that aren’t just about physical attraction.
Also fairy-tales!
Write?  Angst-with-a-HEA.  
Pining, especially mutual pining.  
Love stories that begin in friendship and liking/respecting one another.  
Psychological/emotional healing leading to a better life for a character who deserves all the good things.
And in fanfic, AUs where good and honourable characters who suffer and/or die in canon get to live and find happiness, however small or contingent, and to have hope.
Thank you for asking!
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