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The Clouds Are My Thoughts

@cjskyelark / cjskyelark.tumblr.com

Perfectionism Leads to Procrastination Skye | They/He | 26 | Queer | USA
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marco3173
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petermorwood

Question for horsy people: would the support from his stirrups help much with this, or is he doing the mother of all ab crunches?

It's a combination of stirrup use, center of gravity, extreme muscle control, and a very close working relationship with the horse. In this video, there's a very high likelihood that the archer trained to make this shot on the same horse that they're riding for the final take, and that the horse is already highly trained to carry and recognize archers.

In order to fire an arrow from the back of the horse accurately, you basically have to be so experienced with horseback riding that you can ride a horse running at any speed without ever allowing your butt to touch the saddle, or for the horse's gait to jostle you above waist-height. It's very possible to do, but it's incredibly difficult to learn to do well and maintain that position/pivot to adjust your aim over longer than a few minutes of riding and shooting while also doing everything you can to avoid bouncing as the horse moves. The best archers out there can accurately fire an arrow while standing on their horse's back as the horse is running at a full gallop.

The stirrups are there to help a rider correct their center of gravity if it goes too far in one direction, as well as to signal the horse to turn, speed up, or slow down with specific signals given through the rider squeezing the horse's body with their legs, tapping them with a riding crop (riding crops should NEVER be used hard enough on a horse to hurt them; just to lightly tap the horse on one flank or the other), and/or combination signals through the horse's reins and the pressure they feel from the rider's heels in the stirrups.

The really interesting part lies in the fact that the archer must trust the horse they're riding in order to successfully ride, shoot, and not fall off. I never got into archery when I was riding horses, but I was a barrel racer (where you ride a horse as fast as possible around 3 triangularly arranged barrels so fast that the only thing that keeps you attached to the horse is centripedal force and Death blinking long enough not to see what you're doing). A horse who knows its rider, or is just extremely experienced with carrying people, can modify its own gait and center of balance to help protect their rider from falling.

Horses know when you don't know what you're doing if you're going on a trail ride you payed to go on in a group. They can tell just by feeling you in the saddle whether or not you know how to ride, and if they can trust you to not screw up, fall, and die. The horse is 100% aware that "if the human falls off, they'll be hurt or die", and if the horse likes you, it will try its best to compensate for mistakes you make while riding.

In the above video, the archer is only using one stirrup to support their full weight on the horse due to the angle of the shot. The video is of a classic "drive by" arrow shot, such as if the archer were riding past another enemy archer or mounted warrior in combat. Their right leg (the foot that's actually visible in the shot) and foot are in a prepared position so they can quickly correct their stance and balance themselves again after they've fired the arrow into the target. Only one stirrup is keeping the rider on the horse, and if you watch their left leg carefully, you can see their knee subtly bending in response to every time one of the horse's hooves is about to strike the snow. This effectively neutralizes the jolting energy from the horse throwing off the archer's aim (and the archer themselves), and keeps the rider steady and stable while they aim and fire the bow.

If you look even more carefully, you'll also notice the horse responding to the archer's movement: The moment the archer releases the string to fire the arrow, the horse stops running so aggressively (nostril breathing evens out, front legs stop rising as far into the air with each step). This is to slow down the forward force of the charge and provide an even more stable gait so the archer can safely sit back in the saddle without the bouncing of the horse's galloping jostling the still-unstable archer as they're trying to stabilize their center of gravity in the saddle and take on a more comfortable posture. There's a good chance the horse already knew it was time to slow down from the sound of the "twang" of the bowstring and began slowing down the second it heard it!

Writers: When you're writing characters that work closely with horses, it's absolutely critical to emphasize the relationship between the rider and their horse(s), and to be aware that, with horseback riding, the horse itself is its own character.

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HELP A TRANS GAL PAY RENT!

Making a new post bc my old one has died out. I'm still unemployed after a month long job hunt n rlly need some assistance. I have to raise $515 for bills & rent by the end of the month. Please boost & help out if you can.💜

V: demonic_donna

C: demonicdonna

P: dm me

UPDATE: I managed to get bills covered and just need to find rent now, which is due in about a week. I'm resetting the amt w what's left after bills. Please keep it going! Tysm 💜

$50/465

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biologist here! why are plants green? well they suck up air from the sky (blue) and mix it with the sunlight (yellow) i fucking love science.

Every time I see this post I fly into an incandescent rage because it’s VERY ALMOST TRUE and it FUCKING SHOULDN’T BE and I HATE the way op explains it

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ampervadasz

Unmute !

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chibikittens

That’s the most “meow” meow I’ve ever heard

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takineko

SHE’S SO MAD THAT WATER IS WET

@is-the-cat-video-cute this is probably fine, I’m just curious

Rating: Cute

this kitten is vocalizing its annoyance, and it is indeed vocalizing it AT the water, as if the water is going to take a hint and stop being wet and gross on its paw.

you WET miette? you wet her paw like the fish???? oh! oh! jail for water! jail for water for One Thousand Years!!!!

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what was this movie even 

A cinematic masterpiece.

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angremlin

I CANNOT stress enough that in the Spy Kids films, Danny Trejo is literally playing his titular character from the Machete movies, who happens to be the kids’ uncle, because the movies have the same director

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lang-wich

what this reply misses is that Machete originated *in* Spy Kids. the Machete movies are Spy Kids spinoffs

I think it’s important to make clear that Robert Rodriguez, the director, says that Spy Kids and Machete are alternate universe versions of each other , while Danny Trejo, the actor, says that what happens in Machete is just what he does when he’s not hanging out with the kids

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valmillion

me: *exhaling massive bong rip* "fuucckk im hungry lol"

my traditional liveried english butler who lives in my apartment and works for free (its a fetish for him): "does sir wish to have her baconator and nuggets now?"

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reblogged

Had a debate with a friend and now I gotta know

please reblog for larger sample size, my friend bet me no one would say Gimli and I wanna prove her wrong

My LOTR crush changed as I aged and learned more about myself.

When it first came out while I was in middle school and hadn't figured out I was bi, let alone heard the word nonbinary? Ambiguously Eleven Legolas capturedy imagination.

In high school and early college when I was dealing with both internalized homophobia and a lot of violence from my male peers? Gallant and chivalrous Aragon was suddenly very appealing.

In my late twenties when I finally started feeling comfortable in my own skin? Gimli's adventurous charm and dwarf-is-its-own-gender was and still is very engaging.

But now that I'm in my mid thirties with a home and bad joints? Sometimes I like to imagine Samwise Games cooking dinner and doing the dishes for me.

To be clear, this is only the current phase and I can feel the changes of midlife socioeconomic stability and the chains of public scrutiny I faced as a young thing falling away and allowing me to get WEIRD and grow into an eldritch creature like my ancestors before me. Relatedly, I've been thinking a lot about Galadriel.

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dollsahoy

I am super against light pollution, and have been for decades

but I am also super annoyed by the way it's framed as "without light pollution you can see how beautiful the night sky is" way more prominently than it's framed as "hey, did you ever stop to think of how much energy/resources/money are literally wasted by having so much light shine up into the sky?"

so people get the idea that light pollution can only be remedied by eliminating all night-time light, which would make being outside at night very inconvenient, instead of by making night-time light shine only on the ground where, y'know, the people who need it are

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lydiardbell

The mildest example of what OP's talking about in Dunedin, Aotearoa:

This is just with the streetlamp equivalent of using lampshades. Imagine what truly directional city lights could achieve?

Reblogging this again cause light pollution actually have negative health affects on humans and wildlife. We weren't meant to live in a world constantly bathed in light.

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I love how on Tumblr, "media literacy" has become "Um, just because someone writes about this doesn't mean they're endorsing this. I hate all these media puritans ruining everything."

I'm sad to inform you that knowing when and whether an author is endorsing something, implying something, saying something, is also part of media literacy. Knowing when they are doing this and when they're not is part of media literacy. Assuming that no author has ever endorsed a bad thing is how you fall for proper gander. It's not media literacy to always assume that nobody ever has agreed with the morally reprehensible ideas in their work.

Sometimes, authors are endorsing something, and you need to be aware when that happens, and you also need to be aware when you're doing it as an author. All media isn't horny dubcon fanfic where you and the author know it's problematic IRL but you get off to it in the privacy of your brain. Sometimes very smart people can convince you of something that'll hurt others in the real world. Sometimes very dumb people will romanticize something without realizing they're doing it and you'll be caught up in it without realizing that you are.

Being aware of this is also media literacy. Being aware of the narrative tools used to affect your thinking is media literacy. Deciding on your own whether you agree with an author or not is media literacy. Enjoying characters doing bad things and allowing authors to create flawed or cruel characters for the sake of a story is perfectly fine, but it is not the same as being media literate. Being smug about how you never think an author has bad intentions tells me you're edgy, not that you're media literate. You can't use one rule to apply to all media. That's not how media literacy works. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Aheem heem. Anyway.

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romcommunist

shes only your girl because she hasnt heard my kermit thee frog impression yet

and she never will. *hits you with my bus*

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