You know what terrifies me? It's so incredibly easy to just rip out the stitches of a crochet project. You can literally just leave it in your bag and hours of work could be undone if you're not careful.

I'm about three weeks behind in Naruto, so I'll try to post something every other day.

Actually, he didn't. It was Gatou's men who took him out. Either way, you shouldn't be thinking about Zabuza and rather Orochimaru, and by that point you should know you can't really take him down.

No, actually I don't know why the Sage of the Six Paths became worshiped by the shinobi world because as far as I can tell he wasn't. Literally this wasn't a thing until the past few chapters or so. If anything the only thing I got about their mythology is Fire Country at least worships their spirit of fire, as shown by their priesthood, but that's about it. I wonder if this is a later development by Kishimoto; certainly Mandara and Hirashima though were created early on considering Naruto and Sasuke fought by their statues at the Valley of the End in part 1.

It was odd how Naruto rejected her confession; if he knew she was so deeply in love with Sasuke, why did he try to win her affection for years? Or perhaps he moved on after the time skip. Still, he momentarily seemed pleased with her words.

From the start I thought Samehada was the craziest sword I've ever seen because it grated people to death instead of a painless slice. Now I find out it can fucking move on its own and is sentient. My favorite part is when Kisame just kicks it.

I'm kinda upset he survived this because it would've been one of the top ten deaths of the series, and this is including Zabuza taking out a whole mob of people with a kunai in his mouth. Well, I get suicide by shark isn't bad either. I have no idea how A and B were able to behead him without knocking their arms into one another.

Yeah, seriously, when the hell did he get that? Remember when acquiring summoning abilities was this awesome thing, a contract signed in blood? Now everyone and their mother can just summon an animal to work for them.

Okay, it explains why Danzou was able to use wood techniques, but later on Orochimaru says he also gave him the sharingan arm. If that's the case, why the hell was Orochimaru after Sasuke if he had spare sharingans lying around? Also, why did Orochimaru want Yamato as a test subject so bad? The way he phrased it, all his experiments didn't work out. Clearly they did if you were able to give a man these abilities.

As I work on these models, I realize more and more that actual engineers don't design these gundams. Wow, this was back heavy. I have no idea how this would work in real life. The whip is surprisingly flexible and I believe that beam is larger than the actual gundam itself. The wings can extend, although not as smoothly as the Wing Gundam. Well, that was a Perfect Grade.

The transformation is surprisingly painless. You detach the whip from the arm, flip the legs over the head, and reattach the whip to the butt. I don't know how that flows in the actual anime and now that I think about I don't believe I ever saw the Epyon transform. Also now that I look at this, I realize the cockpit is facing downward in plane mode. Perhaps it flips internally so he's not hanging from his seat.

[21:20:01] Dun 4 Hire: So when was younger, I was too lazy to bring the cans from sliced peaches and pineapples to the recycling
[21:20:07] Dun 4 Hire: And I would leave them in my room for long periods of time.
[21:20:11] Dun 4 Hire: Like, really long periods of time.
[21:20:23] Dun 4 Hire: Once I left a pineapple can in my room for literally months
[21:20:29] Dun 4 Hire: And when I finally picked it up
[21:20:41] Dun 4 Hire: The residual pineapple juice at the bottom had turned silver and viscous.
[21:50:38] gattsu456: Jesus.
[21:50:48] gattsu456: You remember M&M Minis?
[21:51:01] gattsu456: The ones that came in those plastic cylindrical cases?
[21:51:15] Dun 4 Hire: Yeah!
[21:51:32] gattsu456: So one time, after finishing one of those, I stuffed about 20 toothpicks into the case.
[21:51:40] gattsu456: And filled it with water and hid it behind the TV.
[21:51:47] gattsu456: And then I forgot about it.
[21:52:02] gattsu456: About 8 years later, my parents were wondering what died in the living room.
[21:52:33] gattsu456: Turns out it was that, and everything inside was brown and viscous.
[21:52:37] gattsu456: And!
[21:52:42] gattsu456: The toothpicks weren't in there anymore.
[21:53:38] Dun 4 Hire: Wait wait wait wait wait.
[21:53:44] Dun 4 Hire: See, mine is explainable: laziness.
[21:53:53] Dun 4 Hire: Yours is... you had an idea to fill that with... toothpicks and water.
[21:53:57] Dun 4 Hire: ....Why?
[21:54:14] gattsu456: Thinking back on it... I have NO idea.
[21:58:16] Dun 4 Hire: I'm trying to think of scientific experiments that could be useful in and I keep coming back to the conclusion that you were doing something really stupid.
[22:01:06] gattsu456: Come on!
[22:01:08] gattsu456: I uh
[22:01:40] Dun 4 Hire: Yes?
[22:02:03] gattsu456: I had a complicated childhood.
[22:04:29] Dun 4 Hire: Listen, we all went through Aeris' death together. Some people expressed their grief in different ways. My brother screamed as he grabbed the TV screen. You apparently put toothpicks into a mini M&Ms container, filled it with water, and left it behind the TV for eight years.
[22:04:53] gattsu456: Someone had to do it.
[22:05:31] Dun 4 Hire: I'm certain it's what she would've wanted.

Agatha Christie is one of the most famous mystery writers in the world, and recently I've been watching the Hercule Poirot TV adaptation. When I was a child I would watch alongside mom, but being about three all of the plot went over my head. As an adult I enjoy comparing it to modern crime shows because it takes place in the 1920s and 30s without the focus on forensic evidence; it's old-fashioned gumshoe work.

Now I've never read any of her books and I'm not certain how much of this is for dramatic effect, but there are lots of incidents that occur which would never fly nowadays. For example, in one case a woman committed suicide after being blackmailed. Her best friend and roommate entered the room and discovered the body, and in her anger arranged the room so it would seem like the first woman had been murdered by her blackmailer. When Poirot had revealed to the police the man was framed, they just confronted the woman and she angrily stormed away. How the fuck is that allowed? She fucking tampered with crime scene evidence. A man was handcuffed and nearly put on trial for murder. There's no way she's walking around free after this.

I went online and discovered that yes, there is a third arc in Rune Factory 4, however it can only be triggered by a random event. I have no fucking idea why they would choose to do this. Having random events in general I guess are okay, but it being an integral part of the gameplay is just stupid. Like, I'm sitting here resetting the game over and over trying to trigger the event. I shouldn't have to do this. I just want to play the damned game. Sure, there's plenty of farming to do and guys to date, but I'd also like to progress.

What I dislike about news is they report on stuff before it actually happens. For example, let's say Obama gives a speech on global warming. You'll find an article a day or two before that says, "Obama today is expected to talk about global warming. In it, he'll..." After it happens, they'll tweak the tenses from future to past, add in some quotations, and rest is more or less the same. I understand that the business runs on being first to report, but I feel you're making the story before it happens. Like, the writer of the article already has his point of view decided before it's actually happened, so it's almost inconsequential whether Obama has made that speech or not. I'd rather they just write a paragraph saying, "Obama is expected to give a speech today about climate change at 2:30 tomorrow, which can be watched on these channels..." And then afterward give the analysis instead of before.

I dunno, I felt like Nagato yielded to Naruto's point of view too quickly. Admittedly there are times when people have a life-changing experience, but considering he's devoted half of his life to this path, having some sixteen-year-old stand in front of you and said with a determined look, "Trust in me, I'll stop the cycle of hatred," doesn't seem that convincing.

Oh, that's where the Hokage's crystal ball went.

Konan was a disappointment for me. She didn't have much going for her personality-wise and was simply just a mindless support character. Haku was too, but his story was portrayed much better because we were all weeping when he and Zabuza died. Konan's death scene was cool, don't get me wrong, but considering Akatsuki is driven by strong personalities she was just a shadow in the background who even in the end didn't amount to much.

Zetsu freaked the shit out of me from the beginning, and now knowing he could split himself in half was just terrible.

In one of the tankoubans Kishimoto discussed samurai briefly, saying because this was a ninja manga he didn't intend to have them outside of those two protecting Gatou in the beginning of the series. That's why I was surprised when he reintroduced them here.

I was surprised with Sai here for showing this moment of insight. His introductory arc was unsatisfactory, but he does have moments like these that show he's trying his best. It's nice how he was able to say what most were unwilling to.

[21:47:35] Dun 4 Hire: Have you been keeping up with Naruto?
[21:59:15] gattsu456: Yeah.
[21:59:35] gattsu456: I love what a dead-beat dad Sasuke is.
[22:00:03] Dun 4 Hire: I love that.
[22:00:10] Dun 4 Hire: I also love how Orochimaru is just sitting in his bases, doing god knows what
[22:00:15] Dun 4 Hire: ANd they don't really give a shit anymore.
[22:00:25] Dun 4 Hire: Like, he clearly is still doing crazy crap because he has a younger body.
[22:00:29] gattsu456: He's just been out there doing random shit to kids.
[22:00:29] Dun 4 Hire: And no one cares.
[22:00:54] Dun 4 Hire: It's like, "Oh, that Orochimaru. He's just experimenting on kids again."

I really do fucking love how he nearly killed Sarada, then just completely ignored her afterward in favor of giving Naruto an update on his mission. He turned out to be the father we call expected him to be.

So I beat Rune Factory 4 again, which also had a full set of ending credits, except I'm getting the feeling there's a third arc after this. If that's the case, that shit is completely insane.

In case you haven't heard, it was revealed the head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, Rachel Dolezal, is actually white, even though she's been posing as black. When I heard about this I laughed and thought that was pretty funny, but didn't think much about it. I guess it actually pissed off some people because I started seeing some posts about it. Supposedly some people said she was trans-racial and this is a backlash to it?

Dolezal is at fault for lying, that I can definitely say. But now that I see this "trans-racial" thing, I feel really uncomfortable because you literally can change a few words about that and it could be a rant against transsexuals. Like, "It's a shame #transsexual wasn't a thing during the Middle Ages. 'Please husband/father, stop beating me, I was born into the wrong sex.' " Or "Trans-sexual, cool. Then I'm trans-class..." Race and sex are not the same thing, so it's not like the involved are interchangeable. But some of the arguments are what I think is facing the transsexual community today. Besides Dolezal lying, there's anger against someone who is privileged and white suddenly becoming black, and blacks are joking that they could become white to get the same privilege. But couldn't I say that as a woman? That a privileged man wants to become a woman, so I may as well change my sex too to become a man? Get the same wages? Not be sexually harassed on the train? Not have all my actions second-guessed because I'm a dumb woman? What does this man know about being a woman? How dare he try to live through the prejudice I experience daily!

Let's say hypothetically Dolezal was open from the start about her racial background. Her having black siblings allowing her to identify more with the black community would not have given her that stewardship at the NAACP because she's white. I'm totally cool with that because it's a group for colored people. Forget Dolezal for a moment, let's say an East Asian feels more comfortable in the Middle-Eastern community. That person would not be fully accepted because he/she is East Asian and would never become the head of any organization propagating Middle Eastern rights. Most of us would think that's fine. But then I have to think: Does that mean a trans-female individual should not be allowed to rise through the ranks of a women's rights organization because you weren't born a woman, regardless of what you identify yourself as? Because if it's okay when it comes to race, I'm not certain what's the difference when it comes to gender, and I don't wanna say that about transsexuals.

I went to a fancy restaurant over the weekend, and the portions were ridiculously small. The food was excellent (they have two stars in Michelin), the service was the best I've seen in a long time, but I ordered a skirt steak and probably got about six slices of meat. Okay, maybe they're going for European style here, that's fine, but then you have to reduce the price. Because in America when I'm spending over $25 for an entree, I'm expecting a hefty portion. The cheese plate was the average price ($15), but they also gave me really small slices. I'm guessing that extra money went to the choreographer of the wait staff because holy crap I've never seen such a whirlwind of activity when being presented with the food or having the plates removed.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/legendofzanon

Well, hat off to you sir. That is some excellent work.

In case you haven't heard about Freddie Gray, he was a black man who was picked up by Baltimore police for carrying an illegal switchblade. Whilst being carried by the police van, he was not properly strapped down and sustained spinal injuries that ultimately led to his death. Following his death there were many protests, many of which turned violent, and six police officers were indicted. Since May homicides and crime in Baltimore have skyrocketed, and it's probably because the police have pulled out from the trouble-spots of the city, which is where the riots had taken place.

To be honest I can understand the police's stance. After hearing people call them pigs or say phrases like "fuck the cops," alongside the deaths of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, it's a completely human reaction to think, "Well, if you don't want us to be around, then that's fine. We can just leave you to your own devices." Part of my dislike toward the protestors is many of them were doing the same thing they were protesting against: Generalizing and demonizing a group instead of carefully looking at individuals. Is there an institutionalized racism toward blacks in the police force? Of course there is, and if you don't think so you're an idiot. And blacks can see injustice after injustice and they too had a completely human reaction and lashed out against the cops instead of carefully looking at each officer, many of whom were on their side, or never abused their position, or did not hurt someone based on race.

I think both sides really need to reevaluate their approach. For blacks, whether there's abuse or not, cops are still necessary. Otherwise it'll devolve into what's happening in Baltimore. They're the wronged party in this case and definitely deserve delayed justice, but offending the people who are keeping the peace in the neighborhood is not the smart move to do. They shouldn't have to moderate their speech because of years of violence toward their community, but at some point realpolitik has to step in. Is it better to tone down the hatred or to have shootouts on your block? For cops, realize that most of the protestors just want accountability. That's not an unreasonable thing to ask. If a member of the force does something horrible, there should be a punishment for it. This isn't like minor abuses like going through a red light. People are dying. And be the bigger man in this situation. Yeah, you're receiving insults, but know that you joined the police to help people, and innocent kids in Baltimore are getting caught in the crossfire of gang wars you're no longer trying to stop.

Years ago my elementary school taught us knitting but never crocheting. As I'm trying out crocheting now I realize it's kinda similar to knitting, and I realize now that I was pretty shitty at that. It's gonna take quite a bit of practice to get good at this. I hope I can as quickly as possible so I can start making myself stuffed animals. Thank you to Peguero for the voice of support: "If it's like knitting, you'll build muscle memory and get better tension. Or stab someone in the eye with the needle, one of the two."

The problem with living in Manhattan is no one has a fucking house so no store accommodates to your needs. We need shrubbery for the backyard, but any Home Depot or nursery only have houseplants, and whatever outdoor plants they have are small and pitiful. We've been driving back and forth from the Home Depot in Yonkers, but it's such a pain in the ass. Even apartment buildings in Manhattan have huge planters at their front doors with beautiful displays; where the hell are they buying those plants from? Unfortunately it's probably some place waaaay downtown and would equally a pain in the ass to reach.

I'll admit I've never read Cutie Honey, but was this series particularly monumental? There's like five different anime series for it. They've even kept the opening for it throughout.

Okay, the rest of the world can mock us for using the imperial system; 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 1760 yards to a mile seems pretty ridiculous. It's like converting knuts to a sickle. But what I will defend is Fahrenheit. If you're using Celsius for the weather, you're limited from about -15° to 40° because that's the only thing that's reasonable. If it's 100°, then we're all dead. Why would you want your measurement restricted to such a small amount? It's like when Harlan rented a BMW and to brag how fast it could go, the engineer had the speedometer reach up to 250mph. Except you're never going to drive that fast, so Harlan complained he was limited to about a quarter of the speedometer and it was hard to tell how fast we were actually going.

Celsius was meant for water, but Fahrenheit is for people. It's specifically created for the weather. There's no justifiable reason in this case for why Celsius is better than Fahrenheit; if you want to use something more scientific, why not just try Kelvins?

I say this every year but... I'm not asking for your home addresses just to stalk you! I just need them for invitations and such! I won't show up at three in the morning with a dildo sword, I promise!

I've been saying over a month now that I'd do two posts in a week to compensate for a week I skipped it, so here it is.

Although Kakashi would go onto great things, I feel his death was cheapened by his revival, even more so than Gaara's. The fact that Naruto was willing to... not quite forgive, but come to an understanding with Nagato even though he had killed people close to Naruto would've had a bigger impact if Kakashi had died. There's still Jiraiya, but it wouldn't've had the same punch as with the both of them.

I found Ebisu's reminiscence over how the village gradually accepted Naruto to be really sweet.

By this point most people weren't reading it weekly anymore, so it probably didn't create the shock that it should've. Even though Nagato brought people's lives back, fucking Konoha is gone son.

This is the moment I think the essence of Naruto died for me. Until this point, Naruto was filled with interesting characters, some stronger than others, but an underdog was able to beat them either through sheer force of will. Even so, he was just one person and the others were able to use their unique skills to help him out on this adventure, stressing the effort of teamwork. This is the moment when they said, "Naruto's just way to fucking powerful now. Even helping him would be a hindrance." Although that's not to say they weren't integral for the rest of the story, the balance had changed.

Okay, I'll admit Naruto still has some shit up his sleeve. Turning one of Nagato's bodies into a frog was pretty ingenious.

I love how this touching moment is just ruined by Kyuubi.

My whole body hurts. Instead of a post, here's a silly vine:

If I had to pick the most famous philosopher from the Middle Ages it'd probably Thomas Aquinas, but to be honest I like Anselm of Canterbury the best. Generally medieval philosophers go hand-in-hand with theology because their topics are usually what is the nature of the Trinity or something along those lines. To do this they rely heavily on the Bible, which I dislike because using revelation in philosophy doesn't seem like the best method since your point is "because God says so." Aquinas doesn't have a single argument without a biblical quote. Within a medieval, Christian context this is fine, but if you're looking at it from a modern point of view or say trying to convert Jews or Muslims, it's not very impressive.

That's why I like Anselm because he tries pure logic. There's no appeal to the Bible once in any of his works as he tries to prove the existence of God. Traditionally there are three proofs for God. The first is teleological, the modern variation of which is intelligent design in the United States: It's impossible for something as complex as nature to be created without some sort of creator in the background doing the work. The second is the cosmological, or in philosophy 101 is often referred to as "the unmoved mover." Something can always be traced back to something else: I was born from my mother, who is human, and humans originated from primates in Africa, which had mammals stomping on it for a while, which came from some earlier animal, which came from one-celled organism, which came from the Earth, which was formed from dust clouds coming together via gravity, which was made from stars exploding, which came from materials from the Big Bang, which came from... what? There has to be an end to this, someone who started all the movement, and that must be God.

Then there's ontological, which I'll admit is not very easy to understand. I wrote a fifty-page term paper on this fucker and I still have difficulties describing it, but this website has a good breakdown of Anselm's proof:

1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined).
2. God exists as an idea in the mind.
3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist).
5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)
6. Therefore, God exists.

You can make arguments against that (a contemporary of Anselm's named Gaunilo of Marmoutier did, and Anselm wrote a long riposte), but I still appreciate the effort. He was able to step back and say, "Okay, let's say for a moment we come upon an atheist. Shaking the Bible in his face isn't going to change his mind because he doesn't believe in it to begin with. We need something that you can actually sit down and discuss on his terms. Let's a priori this shit up." Admittedly this isn't going to help when you're debating a Jew or Muslim, but at least it's a start.

I've mentioned before that The Iliad doesn't discuss the run-up to the Trojan War but starts in medias res, and honestly it's just a small slice of the entire story. For example, if there's one thing everyone knows about the Trojan War, it's the Trojan horse. That's not there. It doesn't even cover Achilles' death. If all you knew about Greek myth was from The Iliad and The Odyssey, you wouldn't even be able to conceive of everything else you're missing.

That's all I was thinking about as I read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion. I never really got into The Lord of the Rings until the movies, and as I watched them I could perceive there was a lot more going on than what was being played on screen. For example, what is the Third Age they're living through? What happened in the First and Second? Who exactly is Sauron? Where did he come from? How come he was able to make these rings and no one else? How did he get these massive armies without anyone noticing? Why the hell are all these elves getting on boats and heading west? What is there?

The Silmarillion explains all this shit and more starting from the creation myth. In it you find Sauron is just the lackey of a bigger badass named Melkor/Morgoth, whom you can interpret as Satan because he was one of the most powerful Ainur (angels) but went against the creator Eru (God) and eventually came to Middle Earth and created all the fucked up stuff you see like goblins and whatnot. I can't even fucking give a summary of the crap that he did, but essentially he started a war between himself and the other Valar (Ainur who descended to earth to help create it) that completely fucked up the land all the Valar were living in, and they decided to build a new continent out west.

As I'm reading this I was thinking, "Jesus fuck, you had all this backstory and very, very little of it ended up in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit proper." Like, wizards are just Maiar (spirits who help the Valar) who've taken human form to be particularly effective against Sauron since they can communicate with mortal beings. That's why Gandalf was able to return after "dying," because he was just sent back in human form to keep on fighting. And that's just like three pages in The Silmarillion, of which is just one out of like five or six other large tomes about the topic.

It's a dry, dry book that is almost textbook-esque, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you're interested in Tolkien's wider universe. I heard they're actually planning a movie for this, which I'll admit I cannot conceive can be smashed into one film because of the density. Oh my god, it is dense. I guess another trilogy it is.

Sorry, yesterday's post was supposed to be about Raymond of Toulouse, but I got sidetracked explaining the background. Remember all that stuff I said about second sons? Yeah, Raymond was the odd one of the bunch because he wasn't. He had already established himself as a count and duke in southern France and was by this point middle-aged. Although later on it would be acceptable in 1095 it was odd for someone in his position to leave for the Holy Land; second sons were willing to go because they had nothing to lose. If you do suddenly leave for years at a time, you have to appoint a deputy who may or may not keep your domain in line. Although the wife could be relied often for administrative purposes, she wasn't effective when it came to waging war. The king's power wasn't really that great yet, and if two neighboring barons wanted to war with each other, there was really little the "central" authority could do stop them. When crusading became a common enterprise, the church tried to lay down rules that you couldn't just invade some land whose lord was off fighting infidel, but that often was ignored. Remember the story of Robin Hood who fought bad King John and tried to save King Richard? That's because Richard was captured on his way back home from the Third Crusade and was held prisoner until England paid a ransom.

So you have to wonder what was going on in Raymond's head. Perhaps he did experience the religious fervor of the time and felt his duty to bring Jerusalem back to Christendom. Being from southern France, he was heavily involved in Spain's Reconquista and was one of the few leaders who had actually laid eyes on a Muslim before. Or maybe he was thinking of greater glory in the Levant; Raymond never returned to France and carved out a principality for himself there.

I was talking with my medieval professor about the differences between medieval and modern history, and there's just simply too much information the closer you get to us now for obvious reasons. But that means for a historian it's harder to see the big picture because you're inundated with this deluge of information. People become experts on just one battle or one conference because there's only so much the human brain can sort through.

Conversely though in the Middle Ages it's harder to get a sense of the individuals due to a paucity of sources, which usually are just one monk who probably has never let his monastery since his parents put him in there at age eight. Thankfully in the First Crusade we have a lot of first-hand accounts, but many of them were from a lord's "personal historians," who would just write great deeds their patron did instead of giving a balanced view. Raymond's unusual because he didn't do that, so everything about him is from people who may be hostile because he rubbed up against the other big figures in the story.

Consequently you have to read between the lines to get a grip on his personality, motivations, etc. The fact that the Muslims and Jews of Jerusalem fled to hide under his banner is telling; the impression people got from his reputation is that he would be honorable, was not a religious zealot, and was able to keep his men in line; Tancred of Toranto promised to protect people as well, but was incapable of preventing his own men from killing them all. It's kinda what historians live off of because this is just my own personal interpretation and I can't prove any of that shit. And of course some other person will say something else, and we'll spend the next forty years debating about it.

When the crusaders finally reached Jerusalem in 1099, there was a complete massacre. They ran after every single man, woman, and child they could find and killed them. One crusader reported the following morning when he tried to go to the Holy Sepulcher to pray, the blood was up to his ankles in some places. However those who ran to Count Raymond of Toulouse and pleaded for mercy were spared, meaning he had to protect these people from his fellow crusaders.

See, the interesting thing about the first crusade is there was no real leadership. In the years leading up to the First Crusade, Seljuk Turks were conquering much of the Byzantine territories in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), and even besieged the capital Constantinople itself. Internally the Byzantines were a mess because the court officials were wary of the army encroaching on their power and convinced the emperor to defund the military slowly over several decades, so when the Seljuks finally arrived there wasn't much resistance. A palace coup occurred in 1081 that placed Alexius I on the throne, but the situation was so bad that after trying to solve shit on his own he finally appealed to Pope Urban II in 1094 for help.

West Europe itself was undergoing a transitional period: The barbarian, Muslim, and Viking invasions were over, so it could finally get its bearings and try to build civilization all over again. Law codes were enacted. Court etiquette was becoming institutionalized. Art was starting to make a larger appearance. And most importantly, primogeniture. I discussed this before on my xanga, but it was the custom for the barbarian tribes to divide a father's patrimony equally amongst his sons. That usually meant either all the sons start killing each other until one comes out on top, or they live in peace and their power is diminished because the wealth has been split. Eventually they started giving the whole thing to the eldest son, which meant the younger sons either had to enter the church or find a wealthy heiress to marry. That wasn't possible for everyone, so Europe was experiencing a problem of younger sons roaming the countryside and robbing people or trying to start fights with lords in different lands to get their property.

Which brings us to the Council of Clermont in 1095, which many prominent clerical and lay leaders attended. Pope Urban laid it all out: The Seljuks are knocking on the door of Constantinople, and the Byzantines are asking for our help. We have a shit ton of people who are fighting amongst ourselves for land. Why not just go out to the east and fight the Muslims instead? I'll even throw in you get a free ticket to heaven if you die. Most of the famous individuals from the First Crusade were second sons and they left with the intention of making some sort of realm for themselves out in the Levant.

But this whole enterprise was a complete misunderstanding. Remember, before the Roman Empire was divided in half between East and West. East became what we call the Byzantine Empire (they never called themselves that and continued to refer to themselves as the Romans all the way to the end). The West just collapsed under the weight of the barbarians. So Alexius just turned to whom he expected to take up the mantle of emperor, the pope. Except the pope doesn't really have an army of his own. So he had to ask other people to do it for him, which is what happened at Clermont. Alexius was under the impression the pope would send some of his highly-trained troops over. What he got instead were several armies and much, much more.

The main players of the First Crusade are Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin, Bohemond of Toranto and his nephew Tancred, Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy, and Raymond of Toulouse. They were actual military men and spent their time collecting supplies, training their men, and securing routes to Constantinople. In the meantime, word went round about that crusade. Alexius wanted soldiers. Urban wanted to send soldiers. But that didn't meant people were going to listen. Again, this is a transitional time in Europe. It's kinda like now with the new internet and computer technology shaking things up and people are somewhat unsure what the future will look like. Now that Europe was settled a bit, urbanization became a thing again and society had to relearn what it's like to have artisans, use cash instead of bartering, and a system of bureaucracy. These towns were out of the social structure of the Middle Ages: They weren't part of the church, they weren't part of the nobility, and they weren't part of the serfs who tended to the land. So you had an uneasy populace who suddenly got a voice of certainty in the form of preachers talking about this crusade, saying salvation could be found in the Middle East. People just up and left their homes, not really comprehending the situation or what they would face out in Anatolia, completely untrained in how to fight.

We're not certain how many showed up for the First Crusade, but it's somewhere between 50,000-100,000. And every single person is doing their own thing. Godfrey and Baldwin have their own army, Bohemond's got his, Raymond probably has some of the best in the whole lot, and tens of thousands of civilians milling about without any weapons or armor. It was a complete mess and if the Muslim world at that time also weren't undergoing internal fraction, there's no way they could've won. No one was coordinating their positions or anything. Hell, Baldwin left halfway to conquer some lands to the northeast of Jerusalem called Edessa and wasn't even there for the siege of Jerusalem. Bohemond did the same thing with Antioch.

Which brings us back to the beginning of the story. You have a bunch of religious zealots who were not mentally prepared for the situation, wearing heavy metal armor, walking through the hot sun of Israel with barely any supplies, were nearly wiped out several times in battle, have very little discipline because there's no real leadership structure to keep people in line, and after a long, terrible journey through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and finally Israel are pretty much only still continuing because they believe God wants them to take back Jerusalem on the infidel. So when they finally reached their goal, they unleashed all their frustrations on the poor populace.

Because this venture was not planned to go this way from the offset (Alexius was just thinking they would push the Seljuks back to probably the edge of Anatolia), it's also incredible the crusaders were able to hold onto their lands for about a century or two. They had to start a kingdom from the start, bringing their European social structures that's foreign to a Middle Eastern population. They could not keep up population-wise with the Muslims at the edge of their borders, and new knights had to keep being imported to to replace those who died in battle; that's the origins of the Templars, Hospitallers, and the Teutonic Order: to encourage people to sign up and join the fight in the Holy Land. But eventually the Byzantines got their shit together and started demanding the land they said the crusaders took from them, and then the Muslims united under Saladin... Jerusalem fell in 1187 and the last holdings was in 1291 when Acre was taken. I wonder what the original crusaders would've thought if they knew all their hard work would be destroyed a century later. Perhaps not kill everyone so the locals are not pissed off at you.