Things I'm Wondering About

[ithildin]

Random things I'm wondering about today as my brain leaps from one fic to another.

Would the stays in a corset deflect a knife so that instead of it stabbing where it was intended, it would go in at a different angle, potentially causing a less serious wound?

What was the most popular serious/hardcore recreational drug during the Roaring Twenties? Was opium still being used heavily?

What about the teeth of Immortals anyway? Would they never wear down? Would they grow back if knocked out, or are lots of Immies wearing dentures?

Early nineteenth pistols. Need to know more. Must look through collected websites soonish.

Just what did happen when Charlotte went to Bali with Tony? Will they ever tell me? Do I really want to know?

If Ezra Standish had to choose another name for a new persona, what would it be?

Later: Wow! I wasn't expecting so much random pondering help [g] And some of these aren't even for any specific purpose, just idle curiosity. Like the immie teeth one. Why am I wondering about it? Not a klew! I just am.

Comments

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

From my comment reply above [g] ...

I was thinking that if the attacker were behind and the victim turned at the inopportune moment, so the knife would hit somewhere below the shoulder... The knife tip could conceivably be thrown off even more by snagging on a bone.

Yeah, though I'm more wondering about hardcore drugs (I reworded my post to make that clear. Didn't think so many people would be helping me randomly ponder!) I'd love to be able to set a scene in an opium den, just because! [g]

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium

Scroll down to "Prohibition outside China." Interesting that the 1875 ban appears to have been as much racially motivated as anything else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine

Scroll down to "Prohibition." Definitely still easily available in the 20s (why Cole Porter could write a line about getting "no kick" from it with nary an eyebrow raised in the 30s). A 1914 ban -- also racially motivated! -- sounds like it didn't slow things down for most consumers at all.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

The drug trade rarely seem to be slowed down by much.

[pen37.livejournal.com]

I'd look at corset patterns for the time period in which you are setting your story. That would probably give you the best idea.

As far as hardcore drugs, Most of my research seems to indicate that opium in china experienced a renassance after a nationwide chineese crackdown. So if you set the opium den in a chinatown setting, that might possibly work. But those crazy americans were bobbing their hair, smoking (sometimes mj), listening to Jazz and hanging out in the speaks.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

It doesn't have to be opium, just would be cool! [g] The person in question would be a 200 year old immortal, so might be less inclined to go with what's trendy. Heh.