9 Feature Stories We're Reading This Week: Medieval Fight Clubs And Why J. Law Is Cool

This week for BuzzReads, Tim Chester explores the geeky world of hardcore medieval combat. Read that and these other great stories from around BuzzFeed and the web.

1. Inside The Violent, Geeky World Of Hardcore International Medieval Combat — BuzzReads

Conor McDonnell for BuzzFeed

Battle axes! Bloodshed! Bureaucracy! Middle Ages war reenactment is taking a turn for the violent as a new breed of weekend warriors — don’t call them LARPers — grapple with dangerous weaponry, entrenched nationalism, and a bit of institutional corruption and chaos. Read it at BuzzReads.

2. Joe Biden in Winter — Politico Magazine

Marco Grob/Trunk Archive

Will the Vice President run in 2016? Glenn Thrush explains why it's possible: "Biden simply isn’t ready to quit. It’s not clear he even knows how. He’s a comeback addict, a restless striver who believes that anyone who isn’t climbing is falling." Read it at Politico Magazine.

3. Inside the High-Stakes Battle to Control How You Talk to Friends — Wired

Ben Wiseman / Wired

The next big thing in the world of social? It's the way you talk with your family and friends. Writes Mat Honan: "In 2014, the message is the medium worth fighting over." Read it at Wired.

4. Jennifer Lawrence And The History Of Cool Girls — BuzzFeed

Getty Images

"Be chill and don’t be a downer, act like a dude but look like a supermodel." Anne Helen Petersen discusses J. Law in the context of other what she terms Cool Girls of today and yesteryear. Read it at BuzzFeed.

5. How Three Amateur Jewel Thieves Made Off With New York’s Most Precious Gems — Smithsonian Magazine

Bettmann/CORBIS

In Oct. 1964, three men stole millions in diamonds from the Museum of Natural History. But as David Sears explains, that's just where the story got interesting. Read it at Smithsonian Magazine.

6. Ghosting — London Review Of Books

AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth

In 2011, Andrew O'Hagan was hired to ghostwrite Julian Assange's planned memoir. That arrangement didn't quite pan out, but it did yield this fascinating, incredibly thorough story about the doomed process and says as much about the man's psyche as any book could have. Read it at the London Review Of Books.

7. I Took The Dalai Lama To A Ski Resort And He Told Me The Meaning Of Life — Slate

Bob Shaw for Slate

In 1989, the Dalai Lama made a visit to New Mexico. Douglas Preston — then a magazine writer in Santa Fe — was asked to take a role in the visit: "Someone had to manage the press and keep the Dalai Lama from being buttonholed. And that person was going to be me." Read it at Slate.

8. Running Back From Hell — Runner's World

Daniel Seung Lee / Runner's World

PTSD affects thousands of men and women who've served in the armed forces. There isn't a single cure — but one interesting option is emerging for those who suffer. As Christine Fennessy asks: "Can running help soldiers heal?" Read it at Runner's World.

9. I Was A Final Fantasy Addict — BuzzFeed

bravelydefault.nintendo.com

A gamer's confession: "I thought I had grown up and left role-playing games behind. But I couldn’t resist trying the highly hyped Bravely Default to see if I was ready to relapse." Read it at BuzzFeed.