Pirate, Cowboy, Knight, Viking, Samurai, or Princess?

OK, those are your only choices. Which of those would you be and why? XD

I want to be a male princess since we had a female king

I'd be a pirate. Because if I'd be a viking like my ancestors I'd had to drink mead, and I rather drink rum, honestlyXD

I would like to marry a Knight. I already try my best to live a life aligned with the seventeen values outlined in the Knight’s Code of Chivalry.

Ozoneocean wrote:
Pirate, Cowboy, Knight, Viking, Samurai, or Princess?

OK, those are your only choices. Which of those would you be and why? XD

I don't have the energy for any of those except maybe princess and that's just not me.

Pirate. They seem to have such exciting lives, sailing the seven seas, searching for buried treasure, all that jazz.

Laura seems to be onboard (pun intended).

Princess. Live in a castle, pretty clothes, good food, regular baths, servants, rich daddy, what's not to like? All these other career choices just seem so dirty and dangerous. *flicks blonde hair*

dpat57 wrote:
Princess. *flicks blonde hair*

Plus I like those princess phones.

Well I pick cowboy 🤠
Gimme a nice big huge oversized colt walker pistol, stylish hat, boot cut trousers, nice waistcoat, black frock coat, and snake skin cowboy boots 😁

-Actual cowboyz looked nothing like that but who cares? 😅

Arr, I already do pirate ev'ry September.

Knight is easy. Just put “sir” in front of my name. There were a few RL knighted pirates. I'd want the whole early 18th century get up with coat, waist coat, awesome frilly shirt, wide comfy breeches socks and shoes, sash with brace of pistols and a cutlass and huge tricornered hat. What I wore for a Halloween party.

Pirates don't wear boots. Step off the ship and you go right down. Boots are for riding not for striding the deck of me ship. Arrr.

Samurai: I'm a weaboo.

Knight for sure! I get a horse, a cool sword, awesome armor and a bunch of buddies What's not to love? (but i'd consider being a space cowboy, space cowboys are cooler)

I'd probably make a much better princess than a viking, a pirate or any of the others really.

Ozoneocean wrote:
-Actual cowboyz looked nothing like that but who cares? 😅

Like a John Wayne movie, actual cowboys didn't look like that (for one thing they were dirty), but they should have.

COWBOY


cuz I prolly wouldn't have to kill anyone.

I sometimes get accused of having certain Viking-like qualities - no idea why - so I'll just go with the flow and say Viking.

…

Btw., mead was an exception with us Vikings, reserved for special occasions. We had beer and something vile brewed out of birch water and wine and other stuff acquired by trade. So…
Skål, drucken anka!

bravo1102 wrote:
Pirates don't wear boots.

I don't if you directed that at me, or if you were speaking in general. Either way, any references I could find of female pirates outfits, boots were almost always included.

Wearing boots on an old wooden sailing ship is usually not a great idea because your grip is much less and you can't climb or swim in them, and in the latter part of the “golden age” of piracy those classic swash top boots were out of fashion.

BUT, a pirate captain doesn't have to climb and be a deck-monkey! The pirate captain would take and wear whatever clothes they wanted in order to look fancy and dominating. In the early part of the golden age of piracy the boots were still in fashion and we have at least one contemporary account of a pirate captain wearing them while conducting a cross country land raid on a coastal town.

So to say they didn't wear them is far reaching, but to say they would rarely ever wear them is better.

That, and apparently having ladies aboard the ship was bad luck anyway, sooooo. . . .

Ozoneocean wrote:

In the early part of the golden age of piracy the boots were still in fashion and we have at least one contemporary account of a pirate captain wearing them while conducting a cross country land raid on a coastal town.

Cross country raid on a coastal town. They were on land, not on the deck of the ship. On the deck of the ship no experienced sea dog wore boots. There are accounts of inexperienced types trying to domineer on ship wearing boots, slipping off and falling overboard.

The boots generally came off on board unless an unknowing land lubber, fashion
or no. You go on land, wear boots. On deck, you don't.

As for the bad luck for having a woman on board. Yes, it's your bad luck you can't have a woman on board. A lot more ships than was once thought (including the Royal Navy in the Age of Sail) had women on board. They were occasionally wives but more commonly did the laundry. It's hard to believe but it is true. The practice died out in the 19th century around the same time the romantic fantastical images of the golden age of piracy was gaining momentum. By the the turn of the century with the great illustrated books of N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle the image was set. Pirates wore boots and Viking helmets had horns and history be damned.

Might want to go to the Wyeth museum. They had a display of N.C. Wyeth's works and their subsequent influences as well as the later generations of the family like Andrew and his children and grandchildren. And model builder me had to explain to pretentious art snobs what dry-brushing was (one of Andrew Wyeth's techniques)

A captain who was well in charge of their men and definitely not going to be climbing rigging (because when you're the boss you don't do that), who's spending their time on deck or bellow decks in a fancy cabin in the stern of a big ship could definitely wear boots specifically to show off- they LOVED to show off in any way possible…
Assuming they HAD a big ship! Those existed but were very rare in the hands of mere pirates.

They'd know how to move without slipping and falling. From my sailing experience with yachts and a sailing ship in rough seas on the Indian and Southern oceans the biggest danger is tripping over loose stuff on deck once you have you sea-legs. The ride on a sailing ship isn't very bumpy generally though you tend to hold a list for a very long time when chasing a big wind! (so you're always walking on an incline)
-unlike a motor powered ship that can cut through waves and goes against the wind.

In a storm though ALL bets are off. You can fall over the side whatever you're wearing.
When the whole crew was on deck working frantically on the sails at 3am in the Southern ocean during a storm, all of us in wet weather gear, clipped to safety lines (which we NEVER used normally), big ship cutting along over 15 knots (which was as high as its speed gauge went), that was scary and I nearly went over twice… thankfully a big guy on my watch caught me both times.

Anyway, boots would be rare but not impossible and there's a valid argument to be made ^_^

The point to be made is not that boots are slippery, it's that they're too hard to remove if one falls overboard. Any shoes had similar heels during the age of Sail so it's all about kicking them off when you go overboard.

Besides in the 17th century high heeled shoes were far more fashionable and an indication of class than riding boots. Anyone could wear boots because of their job but only a true gentleman could wear shoes with no concern as to where he is going. Gold standard would be navies of the period. Second would be records of ship masters and their personal belongings. Invariably it's shoes, not boots and then riding boots for going ashore.

There actually is documentation. I had this thrown in my face when I tried to say there was no underwear in the Middle Ages. A lot of our understanding of history is mythology from popular media and not reality.

Besides you want slippery? Boots on wet metal. Step on that fender after it rained or on a dewy morning? Whee! That's why tanks have all those rails and hand holds.

The roll down variety of boot from the 15th-17th century could be worn because they could be rolled down enough to kick off. So Sir Francis Drake or Sir Hugh Willoughby could have worn the thigh high boots that rolled down.

dpat57 wrote:
Princess. Live in a castle, pretty clothes, good food, regular baths, servants, rich daddy, what's not to like? All these other career choices just seem so dirty and dangerous. *flicks blonde hair*

How about this part where you have to marry your cousin, probably twice your age, because bloodline has to continue? *looks at pictures of people with Habsburg jaw*

If those are my options, I'm choosing cowboy. Not the kind you see in westerns. I'd like to be the type of cowboy who is just some guy watching cows for the most of his time.

I'm thinking either cowboy or princess, since we've no queen option :p Every other option is being bossed around by someone ir having the world's most inane target on your back (looking at you pirates).

I would pick cowboy in the 1890s. Even though all cowboys lived a brutally harsh existence, they were relatively far away from the hierarchical structures of the rest of society. And the harshness of their life came from the vagaries of living in the wild, not from other people trying to kill them. My least favorite choice would be a princess, who was likely to spend her life living in a gilded cage.

Cowboys FTW!

I love the whole Doc Holiday/Wyatt Erp look from the movie Tombstone.
That dangerous-dapper look is SO cool. Plus Mexicans in charo suits are awesome.
Actual cowboys were so… sloppy haha! You can smell the sweat through the photos.

bravo1102 wrote:
The roll down variety of boot from the 15th-17th century could be worn because they could be rolled down enough to kick off. So Sir Francis Drake or Sir Hugh Willoughby could have worn the thigh high boots that rolled down.

Yes, any rolled sown style boots would only be worn in the early days of the golden age of piracy because they went out of fashion.
I made my own pair of roll down boots for my late 1600s early 1700s outfit… Mainly because I hates wearing buckle shoes and stockings, plus the lead character in the draughtsman's contact looks great in his. (though I look better XP)

Also none of these people had working toilets, or electricity, though at least princesses had servants and samurais had an income, depending on how high in the hierarchy they were. I suppose high level samurais also had servants. AAH, the beauty of the social pyramid, as long as you are on the top and not on the bottom!

Pirates often had a kind of social security system of their own, though. Vikings didn't have running water, but their toilets were ahead of their time, and they generally put much more store on personal hygiene than Hägar the Horrible usually suggests. (I learned that in the reconstruction of the Viking port town of Hadeby not too far from where I live. About the Vikings, not the pirates.)

Heeey, knights could be pretty wealthy and have decent loos in their castles ^_^
And old cowboys lived into the early 1900s (the 20s and 30s) so they had decent toilets by then LOL!

Usually when we imagine knights ans samurai we imagine those from the top. Average knight couldn't afford castle, full armor and bunch of servants. Many knights had only slightly better living conditions than other people around him. And no, this doesn't mean that they were as dirty and smelly as pesants. This image of brown and dirty Middle Ages is just a myth. Public baths and saunas were a thing back then.