Crows write, too.

big things happening in england

I want to be him when I grow up

the event I talked about. I believe it's in a Kurdish region in Iran. source

@navramanan

the daf festival with a thousand players in the village palangan, kirmashan, kurdistan province, held in late april. yes 🥹

nothing I love better in media than two weirdos inhabiting each other's orbit and becoming even weirder together

that's the good stuff

If you ever find yourself thinking "oh, I can't write this Cool But Impractical thing into my story, it's just not realistic", here are a few perfectly realistic reasons why people and even whole cultures would rather do something in an impractical way rather than the sensible one:

I’m so sorry but in the nicest way possible do yall actually read books or just read words??? Cause I’ve been seeing that trend of people not understanding how “snarled” and “eyes darkened” and “eyes softened” etc. was used in a book and like…

Genuinely, do yall just not have imagination?? Or not understand figurative language??? Also eyes do literally darken and soften have you not lived a life??? How do you read with no imagination? Is this how you get through so many books in one month - you simply don’t take the time the understand the words as they are read?

George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, p. 48

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.

i have some follow-up questions???

Okay, THAT is what I call a fortune.

Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.

Might I add:

The defeat of the wizard who made people choose how they’d be to be executed

The woman who raised the changeling alongside her biological child

The human who died of radiation poisoning after repairing the spaceship

The adventures of a space roomba

Cinderella finding Araura (and falling in love)

I don’t know a snappy description but the my nemesis cynthia story certainly lives in my head

hilariously, these are almost all in my fic tag. so, a compiled list from the notes (and some extras):

I am in love with you /p

What about the one with the princess locked in a tower learning to become a wizard? That’s lived in my mind for years and I haven’t seen it in a long time

Oh, love that story, adding it to the list: 20. Princess Talia and adding a few more contenders 21. Thyme 22. The Monster under the Bed 23. A Meaningful Death 24. Humans are unstoppable…until they aren’t 25. The Monster under the Fridge 26. Antler Guy 27. Cleric slamming healing spells

Adding a few more I remembered:  28. The Frog and the Scorpion 29. HSTHETE 30. The First Witch in the World 31. Imagine that Oceans were replaced by Forests  32. A Faerie taking a Name  33. The Dragon on the Farm  34. Synovus & Menace  35. Raising the Anti-Christ  36. Aliens vs. Flora & Fauna of Earth (pretty sure there are even more additions to the original post but I had this one saved)  37. Doctors without Borders…in Space!  38. The Villain-Wrangler  39. The Last Contact  40. The 100 Parent-Point Children  41. And the Heavens Wept  42. The Night Gentleman  43. The Serpent God and their Priestess 

44. No One Showed Up for the Last Storytime

Wow! @writing-prompt-s contributing to like half of these!

I can hardly take any credit for these stories! But I love sharing them. Unfortunately I cannot read all the prompt responses so please tag me if you want me to reblog a story that resonated with you so I can give it a little boost :)

Enemies to "I accidentally came across you while you were vulnerable and scared and I'm not a total asshole so I tried to help you" to "accidental mutual uncovering of softer sides and vulnerabilities" to "I can't be mean to you anymore, not out of pity but because it would feel weird betraying that brief truce we had" to "Fine I'll make an effort to be nice to you now I guess" to "actually now that we're not actively hating each other you're not so bad I guess" to "i think we're friends but I'm not going to say that because I'm afraid you're not gonna feel the same way" to "oh you also think we're friends? Great" to lovers

Y'know, I'm kinda surprised I haven't seen Jack Chains more in fantasy tbh, like it's a really interesting and low budget armor style, I'm legit surprised I've almost never seen it in media

Couple examples I pulled from google images

Actually kind of! It's built with a very interesting principle behind it and I'm gonna explain it below because it's neat

Me: Okay, Brain. Think about what happens next in this chapter.

Brain: *Skips three chapters ahead*

Me: No, no. This one, this chapter, the one we are writing right now.

Brain:.......*47 scenes forward*

Me: NO

Old Lighters 🤔

Taking someone's cigarette out of their mouth: Multiple meanings - used a lot in media to convey control, power play, very masculine, I'm your boss and this is mine now, get over it. Mildly flirty, look at me, all in your space and shit, seductive. You're not allowed to smoke, because I say so.

Putting the cigarette back in their mouth afterwards: Ground-breaking. Would be less erotic to just fuck honestly. Who does this?

Darius had that dawg in him