#myth busting

[justcallmemrslupin]

Remus Lupin is Canonically Straight!

(And aroace coded)

Many people ship canonically straight characters and that's fine. Everyone has their fantasies, fetiches and favourite tropes. But when it comes to Remus Lupin, some people — Marauders fans again, of course 🙄— say he's implied to be gay or bi in canon.

Let me just correct you right there: No. he's not. He's actually heavily implied to be grey aroace. I'm sorry, ship what you want but this is not a matter of Interpretation. It is what it is. Full stop.

So, let’s sit down, pour some tea, and straighten out a few things (pun not intended, but I’ll take it):

Remus John Lupin is canonically straight.

• He had a mild crush on Lily Evans (stated by J.K. Rowling in an interview).

• He fell in love with and married Nymphadora Tonks. He had never fallen in love before! Never.

His romantic arc is exclusively with women.

His official biography states that he had never fallen in love before Tonks. If you’re still arguing, you’re not arguing with an interpretation. You’re arguing with a direct statement. That’s not canon-adjacent. That’s just canon.

David Thewlis is a brilliant actor — and a notorious joker.

He’s witty. He’s playful. He cracked a joke about Lupin being gay because Cuarón (the director) told him to play the character like a “gay junkie.”

Everyone on set laughed. Because it was a joke. It was behind-the-scenes direction and performance.

The metaphor of lycanthropy is about stigma.

Specifically, J.K. Rowling said it represents “the stigma surrounding blood-borne diseases such as AIDS.”

That’s about how society treats people, not a metaphor for queerness.

(Side note: Not all people with AIDS are gay, and not all gay people have AIDS — let’s not regress 40 years in our public understanding.)

Remus as queer representation

You know who else is emotionally repressed, guilt-ridden, touch-starved, and awkward around romance? Aroace people.

If anything, canon leans toward grey aroace, not toward any gay or bi reading.

He spent most of his life avoiding love, never fell in love until his mid-30s, and struggled with intimacy due to trauma and internalized stigma. That’s aroace spectrum, baby.

So... Just write your fanfics and be happy. But let people who apreciate canon and who seek true representation be happy too.

[myobsessionsspace]

One of The Narratives That Turned Canon

Why Jungkook not liking Jimin, when they were younger, is NOT true.

Images like this would circulate and be used as 'evidence' as to Jungkook's dislike for Jimin.

The narrative that Jungkook didn’t like Jimin and that Jimin annoyed/harassed Jungkook, always stemmed from cut off footage, jokey pictures or lack of understanding.

It needs to be remembered that the Rap Line joined Big Hit first, whilst the rest APART from Jimin joined in 2011.

Jimin was the last to join the trainees, around mid 2012. Being the last to join such an intense atmosphere of training, competition and comradery, we can understand that Jimin should have been the odd one out, the one that the trainees would have had the least shared experiences with, the least emotional bonds been the one that would have stuck out from the 'pack.'

The order of the members, as they joined Bangtan, with Jimin completing the group to form the 7 that we now know and love.

The Maknae of the group, Jungkook, had been taken under the wing of the hyung of the group, Jin, who protected him, gave him home comforts by taking him back with him to his family home, which was the closest to the dorms and treating him to meals, as the trainees had yet to make much money.

The maknae had also formed a close bond with the second youngest of the group Taehyung, who when he wanted to goof around and feel his age, he could count on him, who was the more extroverted out of the two and so would bring out different sides to Jungkook, that Jungkook couldn't display on his own and who helped in bringing the younger boy out of his shell.

For Jungkook he found cool, minor celeb underground rapper with a genius IQ and tall manly presence in Namjoon. He found the steady, unassuming presence in Yoongi, knowledgeable in the behind the scenes of music production with a pool of general knowledge also. He found in Hobi the cool street dancer who he could learn from and show sides of his self that he couldn't with the other five, a Hyung that by Jungkook’s own words provided him the most comfort before Jimin became that person to him.

Such a cutie!

People have often believed and carried on with an image of a quiet and mysterious, dark clothed, testosterone filled 'Alpha', when it comes to Jungkook.

He has been called out time and time again by his Hyungs and fans in their early days about his blunt personality, tone and delivery.

But Jungkook was and still is the embodiment of a classic shy introvert.

He’s taken several MBTI tests over the years (there are varied opinions on the validity/reliability and truth of these tests). One thing has remained consistent through them all, the ‘I’ for Introversion.

JK was young, introverted and SHY! Look at this BB titled ‘Jungkook Shy, shy, shy’.

Jimin came into the company and with his wonderful personality, amazing talent and genuine nature, he quickly formed bonds that cemented the 7. Though there were likely many misunderstanding amongst the seven young, hormonal men, all in a new and charged environment.

Rainy Day - both accounts

Jungkook DID find a hyung to look up to in Jimin

A person who would take him under his wing and protect him

A person to help and motivate him in his dance

A person he could be young, wild and free with

A person he could be himself with and feel the lowest of the low and the highest of the high with.

Jungkook wanted to quit being an idol to be a dancer???

ENG TRANS: “I will have a nice business trip to the US. Jimin will take good care of me.”

Though Jungkook was and still is, according to himself, an introvert, he gets moments where he leaps out of his comfort zone, not because he has to (like for example, for work) but because he wants to

Though Jimin has INCREDIBLE emotional intelligence *now* it didn't come from birth, it would have been developed and deepened over time.

In the early years of their bond, what we have witnessed third hand, are some of the workings that went towards the development of their emotional understandings of each other, how their bond evolved in front of people, what needed to be said and not said in front of others.

But make no mistake, they BOTH were fond of each other and equally sought out each others presence, for comfort, for fun, for motivation, for advice, for good times and bad.

The myth was that Jungkook didn't like Jimin in the early days and that they weren't close.

The truth is that, they were the closet of the whole group.

💜💛

This is a blog version of a twitter thread I did

Interesting Links:

Part 1

Part 2

[otmaaromanovas]

Currently working on the database and feel a need to vent my frustrations. I am filling in the section for Anfisa, Sydney Gibbes' maid who accompanied him to Tobolsk. There is very scarce information about her, apart from Rappaport's description in Four Sisters about her as being “toothless” and “old”. No reference is given for this.

Rappaport also exaggeratedly claims that Gibbes lived in “a hastily converted stone outbuilding near the kitchen - in smelling distance of the pig-swill” whilst at Tobolsk, simply because he did not like Gilliard and didn't want to share a room with him. No reference is given for this either.

The only reference to Gibbes living outside of the Governor's House is given by Evgeny Stepanovich Kobylinski to the Sokolov Report, who stated that "the Englishman did not like to live with anybody else, so he was allowed to live outside" in a "small house near the kitchen".

Furthermore, Gibbes testified that "[o]ur stay in Tobolsk was altogether very agreeable. I did not see anything very objectionable in the conditions of our life." Therefore, even in Gibbes did live in a make-shirt house next to a pig swill, he didn't seem to mind that much.

The relationship between Gibbes and Gilliard is also plagued by a lack of sources across the board. They appear to have had a practical friendship, keeping each other updated with news via telephone and letters. Gibbes would run errands for Gilliard, and the pair teamed up in Ekaterinburg to demand answers over what was happening with the Romanov family. Neither wrote anything overtly critical about the other, though there are rumblings that Gibbes was critical of Gilliard for publishing his memoirs in the years after the Revolution. This was likely rooted in the fact that Gibbes seems to have been an intensely private person, who would not have dreamt of publishing such detailed recollections of the family. Whilst Gilliard published a couple of memoirs, wrote for newspapers, and took a large public role in debunking the Anna Anderson affair, Gibbes returned to England, converted to Orthodoxy, and settled into a deeply pious life.

Essentially, all of the info in that quote on Anfisa is either completely unreferenced, or exaggerated. Big sigh.

Sources:

📍 George Gustav Telberg, Robert Wilton, The Last Days of the Romanovs, (New York: George H. Duran Company, 1920), p. 42, 105, 106

📍 Christine Benagh, An Englishman in the Court of the Tsar: the Spiritual Journey of Charles Sydney Gibbes, (California: Conciliar Press, 2000), p. 82, 136, 203-204

Photograph of Pierre Gilliard (left) and Sydney Gibbes, ГАРФ ф611 оп.1 д.102 л.86

[andy-kahou]

"Sharks don't know what camels are" INCORRECT!

The main predator of the arctic camel is the Greenland shark.

[gwydionmisha]

Myth Busting Elizabethan Ruff Collars: How They Actually Were Made and Worn

[roseate-felidae]

"Cats eat their dead owners"...

Maybe, but your dog is statistically more likely than your cat!

Just watched Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in cinemas (loved it btw) and saw a joke on "Cats eat their owners" in there. In the after life waiting room, a lady was eaten by her cats with said cats still chowing down.

Aforementioned cat lady that is eaten by cats in the film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice 2).

That phrase is usually used by cat haters to justify their belief that cats are "inferior" pets to dogs or "evil". The idea that they are so unloyal as to see you as food, instead of family, given the first opportunity.

This phrase has some truth in it. Not the idea of cats not loving owners. But that most species of carnivore (and some documentation of a bird and a hamster) have the potential to eat/chew their deceased owners in desperation or confusion. This is not cat exclusive.

But statistics on real life cases of cadavers found chewed on by their pets actually show dogs do this far more often than cats. It's suspected not to be due to starvation either (some having access to their regular food) but stress at the owners passing in both animals.

Here is one article on this topic:

Sadly this is a premium link.

I used 12ft.IO to see it for free.

Mine had a text overlay mistake that I fixed by copy and pasting the text into a word processor.

Some interesting quotes from the article:

Joseph Prahlow, a medical examiner in Michigan, sees evidence of pet predation during an autopsy “at least a couple times a year,” he said, and usually dogs—not cats—are the culprits.

- Joseph Prahlow, medical examiner, quoted in the National Geographic, "Would your dog eat you if you died? Get the facts." Article By Erika Engelhaupt

When it does happen, cats generally don’t cause as much damage as dogs do. They tend to go for the face, especially soft parts such as the nose and lips, says forensic anthropologist Carolyn Rando of University College London.

“It doesn’t surprise me, as a cat owner,” she says. “If you’re sleeping, they tend to swat your face to wake you up.” So a cat might start out trying to “wake up” a dead owner, and then begin to bite when that doesn’t work.

Instead, most documented scavenging of human remains involves dogs.

- from the National Geographic, "Would your dog eat you if you died? Get the facts." Article By Erika Engelhaupt

One possible explanation for such behavior is that a pet will try to help an unconscious owner first by licking or nudging,” Rothschild writes in his report, “but when this fails to produce any results, the behavior of the animal can become more frantic and in a state of panic, can lead to biting.”

From biting, it’s an easy jump to eating, Rando says. “So it’s not necessarily that the dog wants to eat, but eating gets stimulated when they taste blood.”

- Markus Rothschild, forensic examiner, and answered by forensic anthropologist Carolyn Rando of University College London. Both quoted in the National Geographic, "Would your dog eat you if you died? Get the facts." Article By Erika Engelhaupt

Overall, the film gag was just that, a gag. But many people do believe cats would eat them when they die. And using that as a "gotcha" "Cats are inferior to dogs" against cat lovers.

Cats aren't for everybody, but treating them like their some unfeeling psychos who don't care about their owners is unreasonable. They are animals incapable of morality for a start and have been documented to actually care about their owners many times. My cat Zoe, is purring in my lap for her petting as I type this.

You never really hear someone say it about dogs (despite the higher likelihood). So why mention cats?

Ironically, it's almost always pure dog who act like cats are "evil" or "inferior". Many cat owners don't think to that degree of negatively about dogs (if at all).

Bonus shitty picture of Zoe in my lap as I type this on my phone.

[isekai-man]

What were the real Elves like?

Most people don't realize myths are based on fact. The word elf means white, as in white skin, white hair. It was a pale Northern tribe akin to fairies, as in fair skin, fair hair. Races are known by their physical traits, like the Orochi, Nezumi, and Kitsune were mythologized as animals because that's what their physical traits reminded people of. Well these Northerners developed pale skin, hair, and eyes because the northern hemisphere gets less sun, so they were called white people ("Elves"). Elves were known as short and fit because long thin limbs lead to frostbite in northern climes. The ears and earlobes were slightly larger and thicker, also to protect against frostbite, so they stuck out through the thin straight hair more than average, but they didn't stick straight out or in long thin points, they only looked long and pointy when viewed from a certain angle. They were a hunting tribe like the Inuit, but they migrated earlier and got less sun so they adaoted more. A hundred years ago, dreadlocks were called "elf locks", because when you lived in the snow you didn't wash your hair often unless you were lucky enough to have a geothermal hot spring (or into watersports). Elves also had a reputation for sexuality, because you get experience when sharing body heat is a matter of survival. Same for crafting clothes, as in the shoemaker story. Elves were basically Viking vampires, short stocky sexy smart meat-eating Vikings with bigger ears and sharper teeth and dreads, although modern Viking bloodlines were diluted after they became wealthy German merchants. Pure blood is a bigger myth than Elves.

[remratatouille]

OKAY right I wanna pitch my podcast idea here, see if it is actually a good idea or if I just want to do it because I'm bored...

Anyway here it is:

Mythology myth busting

Essentially, I love mythology, especially greek, and I love retelling stories and talking about it more than anything, and I had an idea to do a podcast where I sit my friends down and ask them what they know about certain myths/ parts of mythology.

From there I break down what is right/ wrong/ etc, and essentially retell myths via the inaccuracies portrayed through pop-culture and such.

Essentially it's myth busters, for myths...

I don't know, does it sound like a good idea? Does this already exist? I need opinion from mythology people/ podcast listeners...

[aniseandspearmint]

Everyone Was Wrong About Avocados - Including Us

Too Long Didn’t Watch;

okaaay, so it turns out that that neat fact about Ground Sloths spreading avocados until humans cultivated them is probably a myth. Because from looking at preserved droppings and dentition, and analyzing bones and hair we still have around, it looks like they didn’t eat them!

Also, apparently early avocados had pits at least half the size of the ones we do now. It’s looking like we can thank early humans for keeping them around, and cultivating them into the fruit we have today!

[sadzimo]

Also, where I am ( for now? ) is where metaphors and excuses go to die.

You see, if we go one hour east, we are in the middle of the upstate New York farms, and I didn't see too many family dogs...

If we go two, there's a bridge crossing into Canada called the Rainbow Bridge. A young autistic me was very confused five years later, after that trip when ppl were discussing their pets.

If you go three total hours, you're either in Toronto or can get to most of Ontario, and guess what, no one's ever heard of Stephanie, is there something you want to tell me?

[myobsessionsspace]

Myth Busting

Watching this a viewer may think there’s a one sidedness they are seeing.

It’s a narrative going on in the fandom to this day.

However the exact interview Jimin walked in on, had Jungkook acknowledging, that in 2015 and since debut, he would name Jimin as his favourite Hyung:

2020 Japan Fancafe Footage alternative link, Jungkook reacting to 2015 Jungkook.

Though now they’re much more trained and diplomatic in not naming a specific member as a favourite.

His FAVOURITE Hyung! In 2015 when less aware of the implications he let it be known with honesty, since debut, Jimin Hyung.

They were close then and they’re close now.

The two that chose to embark on gruelling physical and mental work for 18 months, together.

Don’t let others and their negativity narrate their history for them.

🖤🤍

[silverscreensass]

Marlene Dietrich arriving in Paris knowing there was decree against women wearing trousers.

The decree remained technically enforceable until 2013 when the minister for women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, stated no one could ever be prosecuted using it. Which means it was never illegal, a few women had even received special permits to be allowed to “cross-dress”, but it was against societal expectations.

The guy on the right is her husband, Rudolf Sieber, so they’re not marching her off as is often claimed. Still sassy af though!

[otmaaromanovas]

Romanov myths part two - did sailor nanny Derevenko betray the family?

Several members of the imperial entourage have been villainised over the decades due to claims of betrayal, none more than Andrei Eremevich Derevenko, whom Anna Vyrubova stated in her memoir to have betrayed the family. Many historians in the 20th century took this as fact, but more evidence has shown that it is highly likely that Derevenko did not betray the family or Alexei, and fell victim to one of the many lies in Anna Vyrubova's book. Some popular history books go as far as calling him 'abusive' - but let's look at the real facts.

Background

Andrei Eremevich Derevenko was born in 1878, in Volyn, Zhytomr, in Ukraine. He was a member of the Baltic Fleet, originally a sailor, before being employed by the Imperial Family. In May 1906 he was appointed as the Dyadka, meaning 'uncle', to Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich. Derevenko was a sailor nanny: his primary role was to look after Alexei, and to ensure that the haemophiliac heir did not accidentally injure himself.

Derevenko found himself in more favour with the family in 1907, when he took admirable action when the Imperial yacht Standart collided with a large rock at sea. His experience as a sailor came in incredibly handy; he knew that the boiler rooms of the ship were most likely to sink first, so grabbed the tiny Heir and ran to the opposite side of the ship, ensuring the Tsesarevich's maximum safety.

In 1910, he was paid 120 rubles a year annually. By 1913, this had increased to 360 a year. Derevenko was joined by another sailor nanny in 1913, Klimenty Grigorievich Nagorny, to help protect the heir as he grew into a rambunctious boy. The Tsarevich especially enjoyed playing with Derevenko's sons: Sergei, Alexei, and possibly a third, Alexander. The Tsarina was the children's godmother, and in turn the Tsar and Tsarina paid yearly expenses for the boy's educations, and covered the cost of a surgery one of them underwent. Derevenko kept a daily diary, where he mostly recorded the duties he performed for Alexei, and what they both got up to during the day.

Now we come on to the origin of the myth. In her memoir, Anna Vyrbova claimed that after the February Revolution, she discovered this scene:

"Lying sprawled in a chair was the sailor Derevenko, for many years the personal attendant of the Tsarevitch, and on whom the family had bestowed every kindness, every material benefit. Bitten by the mania of revolution, this man was now displaying his gratitude for all their favors. Insolently he bawled at the boy whom he had formerly loved and cherished, to bring him this or that, to perform any menial service his mean lackey's brain could think of. Dazed and apparently only half conscious of what he was being forced to do, the child moved about trying to obey. It was too much to bear."

Anna Vyrubova was arrested in March 1917, and did not spend the following months with the family at the Alexander Palace. She claims that this event happened on 20 March 1917. In contrast, family photo albums show that Derevenko was still a part of the retinue until the day of departure to Tobolsk, and was actually promoted in July 1917 by the Tsar to the role of Alexei's official valet.

Charlotte Zeepvat, author of numerous books on the Romanovs and royal nannies, proposes an explanation:

One of the most enigmatic figures, and the most intimately involved with Alexei, was the sailor Derevenko. Anna Virubova claimed to have seen Derevenko bullying Alexei, shouting orders at a boy too bemused to fight back. If this is true it would have been a shattering experience, but its truth is not so clear cut as it may seem. According to Anna, it happened on 20 March, two days before her own arrest. After a display like that the sailor would surely have left or been made to go, but he was still at the palace months later. Shortly before the move to Tobolsk in August he submitted an invoice for new clothes and shoes for Alexei to Colonel Kobilinski, the commandant of the palace garrison. He was asking a huge amount, so payment was withheld: when the sailor complained to the Tsaritsa and she intervened on his behalf, Kobilinski showed her the invoice. She took the Colonel's part. Derevenko was refused permission to accompany the family to Tobolsk, but months after their departure, he was still pleading to be allowed to join them. Failing that, he asked for the return of a trunk, which he said had gone to Tobolsk in error. It was found and opened, and inside were the new clothes and shoes, and an icon given to Alexei by his great-uncle, Grand Prince Sergei Alexandrovich. Was Derevenko stealing? Looking after the boy's interests in his own peculiar way? No one will ever know.

Several letters sent by Derevenko have survived. In the letters, he explains that the commissioners at the Alexander Palace and Tobolsk had informed him that there was 'no space' to take him on the journey, so he was awaiting summons to Tobolsk, should his service be required. Interestingly, these letters detail that the other sailor nanny, Nagorny, stayed in contact with Derevenko, and that Derevenko also received multiple letters from the Imperial family and their entourage from Tobolsk.

George Hawkins, who has translated all of Alexei's correspondence and diaries from 1905-1918 and works directly with primary sources, found an interesting account by Comissar Pankratov. In this account, he explains that Colonel Kobylinski was confronted by Alexandra Feodorovna when Derevenko was not on a list of entourage, though was embarrassed when she discovered that Derevenko had requested a disproportionately high invoice to the Provisional Government for his duties. Pakratov added that Derevenko wrote to him repeatedly asking "when would he be called to Tobolsk to continue his official duties with the “heir”."

George Hawkins summarises:

"Going by this account, it would seem he didn't [betray the Imperial Family]. Ania Vyrubova is the ultimate source for his 'betrayal' where she wrote that he started ordering Alexei about. I think something like that may well have happened, as it is also reported by Sokolov in his investigation into the fate of the Romanovs, but it would seem he still stayed with the family until their departure to Tobolsk - trying to get extra money out of the provisional government with his exaggerated bill, and kept trying to get to Tobolsk for some time."

The exact fate of Derevenko is unknown. Some sources suggest that he joined the royalist White Army and died in 1921, either from being wounded/killed in action or succumbing to an illness. The early 1920s were years of intense turmoil and civil war in Russia, so it is not unusual that his documents drop off the record.

Though we can conclude that Derevenko likely did not betray the family in that he was 'abusive' to Alexei, he was not exactly popular with the surviving entourage. Pierre Gilliard recalled in his memoirs 'Thirteen Years at the Russian Court' that Derevenko preferred peasants to:

"[drop to their] knees before Alexis Nicolaïevitch to offer him what they had brought. I noticed that the boy was embarrassed and blushed violently, and when we were alone I asked him whether he liked seeing people on their knees before him. "Oh no, but Derevenko says it must be so !".

Gilliard also believes that the sailor nannies stifled Alexei's progress too much, and did not allow him to test the boundaries of his disease in order to become more self-disciplined.

Photo, from left to right: Pierre Gilliard (French tutor), Alexei Nikolaevich, Olga Nikolaevna, Andrei Derevenko

Sources:

Memories of the Russian Court - Anna Vyrubova

Romanov Autumn - Charlotte Zeepvat

Russian Imperial Family: Romanovs in Their Own Words - Helen Azar and George Hawkins

Expenses of Alexey - Alexander Palace Org

Alexei - Russia's Last Tsesarevich: Letters, diaries and writings Part One: 1904 – 1915 - George Hawkins

Alexei - Russia's Last Tsesarevich: Letters, diaries and writings Part Two: 1916-1918 - George Hawkins

Photos:

Public domain, flickr - LastRomanovs

[obscure-ref]

Today on rumor affirmation we test to see how many gods a band of five anime protagonists can kill using only the power of friendship. Meanwhile Kari, grant, and tory investigate if hair color effects your chances of getting isekai'ed into an amazing fantasy other world.

[dusty-the-burnet-companion-moth]

Bluming Idiot

Your example images are, but not what you're doing. That's called a plain grip, it's not the same thing. Ask someone who's trained in Jujitsu. They'll tell you.

Actual try it. You'll soon learn that's not the case. You don't fight with your weapon constantly pointing forwards. 80% of the time your weapon is perpendicular to that direction. In which case the difference between forward and reverse grip, is not that big of a gap.

Nope, actually it's worse. I knew this myth had to have come from a projectile user. You see, projectile weapons are fired at arm's reach. That means that framing with projectile weapons is hard. You have the length of two people's arms, the length of the weapon, and then a safe gap between them. So in movies gun are often held with the elbows folded, allowing the characters to get much closer, though realistically you couldn't shoot a gun that way. When sword fighting in forward grip, you can get real close during a sword clash. Both fighter's bodies can press against each other with the swords between them. Hold the swords in reverse fashion however, and you'll soon find the characters can't get anywhere near as close. Also, in a close reverse blade fight, blades tend to go lower, not higher. You either have a shot of the two character's upper bodies and the weapons out of sight, or an awkward shot of their lower body, with the weapons clashing. Try it yourself.

This is outright wrong. There are two kinds of melee weapons, phalanx type and free fighting type. Phalanx weapons are often long, because you have to reach past a shield barer, who's stood in front of you. Free fighting weapons by comparison are often small for one of two reasons. First, they are often used for fighting indoors, like when a castle is being seized. And second, considering the fact that shield bearers stand shoulder to shoulder, troops on the battlefield would be in equally a tight spot, and you don't want your sword catching on the people next to you. This is why the Roman javelin is long, and the Roman gladius is short. If you think about how much of the longer weapon actually protrudes past the shield wall, it's effectively no longer than the shorter weapon is.

Again, actually try it. Both deflects and blocks are stronger in reverse grip. Usually the people that make this argument, compare the blocks of reverse grip to the deflects of forward grip, and then say that blocking hurts their arm, when deflecting does not. Yeah genius, that's how blocking works. Try deflecting in reverse and blocking in forwards. Wow, all of a sudden it harder in forward style now.

Actually, it's the other way around. In reverse style, a push through your defense strikes your arm. In forward style it takes less effort to do and strikes the torso. The only difference is you deflect on the same side as the enemy weapon when using reverse grip, but you defend the opposite side of your body when using forward grip. Better to lose an arm, than to lose your internal organs.

I mean, you can actually see from this pose just how easy it would be to open your arms and deflect while at the same time cutting the opponent in reverse. Your enemy's not ever gonna be using a sickle anyway. Why did he change from using a long straight weapon? Go replace the sickle and perform the pose yourself. You'll see just how safe the reverse grip is in this scenario. He had to actively go out of his way to find an oddly specific circumstance to barely prove his point. Fair to say, he's bending the rules an awful lot just to make his argument make sense. Not the actions of someone who so effortlessly right that they can educate an audience.

LOL! Actually try stabbing precisely with each grip. Get back to me on which is more accurate. Again, slashing is also the opposite. Funny how he applies stopping force in the forward swing. I'd love to see him do that in a fight, where your target is constantly moving. You can actively see him stop himself from using stopping force in the reverse grip, because your arm position in reverse has a natural apex of the strike at exactly where he set up the log. ironically, if he attempted a push, he would have split the log.

Just cross your arms, you can now run in forward grip. Running sucks in reverse grip. Try it and see. The weapons are always sticking out at annoying angles.

[betamash]

Why don't we get to learn these things in sex ed? Why do we have to believe we are killing a living child that has thoughts and feelings?

Because they want to control our bodies.

These images are not showing children.

These images are not showing babies.

These images are showing embryos.

The fetus doesn't develop fingernails until 10 weeks and you're trying to convince me that it has a heartbeat at 6 weeks in? Bullshit.