Hey there, howdy, hello! Welcome to my writeblr that I am going to try real hard to be active on!
I'm Madd, they/them, and while I might not post it all here, I am a very active writer hoping for publication in the near future! I'm hoping to become part of the community, so feel free to tag me in things/shoot me asks/anything of the sort!! I'd love more writer friends :>
(Also, this is a sideblog! My main is warriorblood1, so if you get random follows/likes from that account, that's me!)
Want to know more details? Keep reading!
What do you write?
I write all kinds of things! I have ideas in honestly too many genres and whatnot at this point, and I hope to someday write them all!
Right now, however, I have two main focuses: spooky short stories, and a novel series! (Though I do have a couple other novel things.)
Tell me about the short stories.
My short stories tend to be 3k to 5k on average, and most wind up being horror or horror-adjacent. I tend to describe them as being "Twilight Zone-esque," but most would fit as being called gothic horror.
I have previously published some short stories, but my full legal name is on them so I hesitate to link them here. Regardless, I hope to publish a collection sometime soon!
Tell me about the novel series.
Auberon Academy is a four-novel series told through a rotating POV of four main characters. It is a fantasy setting (though a bit more modern fantasy; more or less 1950s tech-wise), but the plot is more of a mystery/thriller.
I'm redrafting the first novel (its also my Masters thesis!), and have the first drafts of the second and third ones finished, and am now (slowly) starting to draft the fourth! You can learn more about the first book, Manifestations and the Missing, here in this funny slideshow I made.
What do you do besides writing?
Not much. Just kidding.
I'm bad at video games, but I love to play them. A favorite hobby of mine is tabletop role-playing games, my favorites being Call of Cthulhu, Blackbirds, Dungeons & Dragons, and Vampire: The Masquerade! I also love to draw, and several of my story ideas are actually comics!
But lets be honest. Torturing my characters (canonically or otherwise) is my favorite thing to do. What kind of writer would I be if I said anything different?
How do you tag things?
General writing: #madd writing
Prompts: #prompt response
Tag games: #tag game
Ask games: #ask game
Asks: #questions
Resources: #holding
Auberon Academy-specifc: #boberon
Soulbearer-specific: #sogbog
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow-specific: #ttt
My art: #madd doodles
Other writeblr-related things: #writeblr stuff
Also, this post has the list of character tags for Auberon!
I'll also try to tag anything that feels like it should warrant a trigger warning!
Anything else to note?
I'm very nervous about posting my work to Tumblr (fear of theft really gets to you), but I'm trying to overcome it. That being said, you might not see too terribly much of it here - if you're really interested, please reach out to me! I'd most likely be happy to share more on a more private level.
Also, I have ADHD! I tend to hyperfixate on my own work (which is a nightmare but also useful), but if you're ever confused by something. That's probably why.
One hot and cool writing tip that I wish more people knew is... you don't have to write out people's accents phonetically. You just don't. You are not Dickens. You are (hopefully) not Rowling. There are so many other ways you can make someone's speech feel authentic to their background, or just make it clear that they're speaking in a certain accent, not limited to:
literally just saying 'he spoke with a Welsh accent'; sure, it's a bit blunt, but it gets the job done in a pinch. "He's completely drunk," he said, his southern drawl lingering on the final syllable as if to highlight the extent of the offence. Y'know, something of that ilk, but not as shit.
learning the specific vocabulary and syntax that someone with that accent might use. Sticking with the Welsh theme, because it's objectively the best accent*, there's a bunch of things that differentiate a colloquial South Walean accent, outside of our famed tendency to elongate a vowel to the point of death. The way we use prepositions (where to by is he?), the vocabulary borrowed from Welsh - saying that someone daft is twp, or something small is dwty - can easily signpost our speech as being from that specific area, without needing to type something like "'e's absolutely 'angin', man, pissed as a faaht 'e is!" Something less jarring, such as "He's absolutely hanging, he is." is just as clear. A character who says "Do you want a cuppa?" is coded or located very differently to one who says "You'll have a cup of tea, so you will."
ditto if there are specific ways that someone from a certain area might refer to a well-known concept. Regional words for mother and father, for example, or words that are class-specific; your character who calls his parents 'mater and pater' is likely inhabiting a different socioeconomic strata than your character who calls them 'mam and dad'. See if there's a colloquial way of saying 'yes' and 'no'; a lot can be signposted if your character says 'nah' rather than 'no', or 'aye' rather than 'yes'. A character saying 'couch' is inherently coded differently to one who says 'sofa'.
The reasons that writing accents phonetically is Generally Ill-Advised, In My Opinion are as follows:
quite simply, you're probably not being as clear in conveying the sounds of the accent as you think you are. Taking JK Rowling's work as the best possible example of this, her attempts at writing a Cockney accent phonetically come across like someone is chewing a mouthful of cheese curds and struggling to contain them. There's no consistency, no proper understanding of how to transcribe syllables into writing in a way that coherently conveys the accent she's trying to portray. I mean this so seriously, but what the flying fuck is: 'Well, 'e 'ad these 'ead pains and 'e was def'nitley nervous. Depressed maybe.' It's a crime, is what it is.
it's just plain hard to read. Trying to wade through sentences full of apostrophes and elision, parsing what's actually being said, gets tiresome. It asks the reader to do work that you're actively making harder for them. And that's not always a bad thing! Making readers Put Some Fucking Effort In can be very fruitful! But do you really want them to be struggling to understand every single thing that your Character B is saying for 350 pages?
which leads me onto the last point, and the most important in my mind: writing out accents like this always, always affects accents that are already in some way Othered. They're either racialised or working class, or associated with certain local regions that have negative stereotypes - think the deep South of the US, or the Welsh Valleys. They're never the 'default'. And this raises thorny questions about what the default is, what the standardised accent is, the accents that do and do not merit differentiation from the norm. You're relegating Character B to being hard to read because he's from, idk, Sunderland. You've decided that he isn't speaking 'properly', and therefore the reader needs to understand that other people think he's speaking weirdly. That, to me, is the principle issue. Because returning to JK Rowling (a sentence I hoped never to type), the only characters who speak like this in her work are working class, or they're from other countries. They're never from, you know, Surrey. Wonder why that is. And it's easy to be glib about it, but I do think it reifies class and regional boundaries in a way that's ultimately harmful.
This isn't to say that there's never a place for eye dialect in writing - Trainspotting (edit to respond to some legitimate comments in the reblogs: I bring up Trainspotting because it's written in Scots and Scottish English, not just Scots, but I agree that this isn't the best example as the Scots portions are not part of this conversation in the same way; consider Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston as a better example, and apologies for the confusion!) wouldn't be what it is without it, and there's definitely a different conversation to be had when it's your own accent and you're making a deliberate point about identity by differentiating through eye dialect - but I think that the blanket assumption of 'oh shit, my character is from Ireland, I'd better type that out phonetically!' can actually be both damaging to your writing and to your character representation, and I think that instead doing the work to really understand the vocabulary, speech patterns and unique aspects of a language or dialect always makes a work feel more authentic and lived-in.
To wit, less of this shite:
There’s mony a slip, an’ I’m no losin’ sight o’ any o’ my suspectit pairsons, juist yet awhile. (One of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels by the very English Dorothy L. Sayers, if you were wondering, and yes, that's supposed to be a Scottish accent; I'd not be bringing it up if it were a Scottish author writing in Scots)
and more of this:
"Are we straight so?"
"Aye, we're straight," said Jim.
"Straight as a rush, so we are." (Jamie O'Neill, Irish, from At Swim, Two Boys)
*objective determination made via a sample size of one: me, in an elaborate hat.
"southern gothic" this "pacific northwest gothic" that WHAT about north eastern gothic. I am IN pennsylvania what is our gothic aesthetic it cannot JUST be deer
I *think* you're confusing Appalachia with Midwestern gothic, since the mountains run through both pa and the midwest, but that's not what I'm talking about 😭 and Stephen King is New England gothic, and PA isn't part of New England, so....
congratulations for being the only two people so far to Get It (although the bit about the shabby 50s vibe definitely is new jersey specific in my mind bc I vacation in wildwood lmfao)
Gritty canonically has lived in a labyrinth underneath philly for centuries until a construction team accidentally opened a sink hole and he crawled his way out to the surface world. he's ABSOLUTELY part of it.
Hello Jenn! Why do some publishers and people insist on fiction authors doing or having big social media accounts when the fact is that publishers themselves have the greatest sway and reach and stuff? Most of authors I know barely get a drop in the bucket when they do their own promos and they track their sales to prove it. I mean, yeah, we would make or build one if asked but even some agents are insisting on “influence” nowadays to get their attention…
Publishers are well aware that they can do significantly more than the author can with traditional marketing. Things like ARCs, bringing the book to school library conferences, doing bigmouth mailings, having special bookstore display signage and special discounts for stores -- all of these things are things that drive sales to bookstores, schools and libraries. All of which are, obviously, necessary to sell books to consumers. (People can't buy the book if it isn't in the bookstore!)
So, MARKETING is to some extent consumer-oriented, but really mostly geared toward getting gatekeepers to know and love the book so that they can then make their community aware of it and push it, because that's the most bang for the buck. A passionate bookseller or librarian can reach a LOT of people, and those tentacles spread out!
Publicity is a bit of a different beast. The goal there is getting "earned media" -- that is, NOT PAYING for coverage, rather, getting the NYT or whoever it is to WANT to write a story about you. Publishers are decent at that too, but of course, not all books lend themselves easily to being featured in major media. So those two are the main avenues by which publishers get the word out about books.
But there is that third prong, SOCIAL media... which publishers, frankly, kinda often suck at. And this isn't ACTUALLY their fault. The problem is, things that the publisher creates tend to look like ADS. (surprise!) People on social media aren't looking for ADS. The things that go viral are things that feel AUTHENTIC.
So a publisher spends time and money crafting an elegant video about a book -- 30 copies sell. A grainy video of grandma hilariously reading a book aloud to a kid and laughing will set the internet on fire and suddenly a half a million copies of a nearly-out-of-print picture book sell. Obviously you can't manufacture or buy "authenticity" -- that's the whole point!
But it is just a fact that on social media, the AUTHOR is a way better ambassador for the book than the publisher can be. People DO want to listen to authors -- they DON'T want to listen to ads. So that's really the main place where an author can help with book marketing.
THAT BEING SAID. I've been doing this for nearly 20 years and have literally never had a publisher or anyone else in a position of power "insist" that one of my authors have "big social media accounts".
They might suggest that an author have at least one social media account. Not because they are expecting you to have a string of viral videos or anything -- but just because that's best practices! It's good for you to be able to post stuff on easily and and it's good for them to have a way for them to tag you in their posts. They'd appreciate that. But I don't think they are insisting, and I don't think they are follower-counting. If anything, that seems like LESS of a conversation than it was in the 2010s!
Of course, if an author HAS a big social media account, that's a nice bonus, I'm sure they'd be delighted -- but it's laughable to think that an author who DOESN'T have a huge following is just going to "get big" overnight because a publisher "insists". I just really don't think most publishers DO expect that.
I mean there ARE publishers and agents who are explicitly seeking influencer-type authors who have a huge social media presence. But that's not all or even most publishers and agents. If you DON'T have a huge social media presence, you probably aren't a fit for those particular folks, or vice versa. So, OK, move on. Normal authors with normal, regular social media (or even hardly any at all) do get book deals all the time.
Since people loved my "Preindustrial travel times" post so much, I decided to repost my "Realistic warhorses" info separately from the original link, where it was a response to "how to get the feel of realistic combat."
--
The original link is here.
The "Warhorse" post on my blog, plus a recent addition, is here.
And here's the text for people who want to go down my "grown up horse-girl" rabbit hole right away!
Medieval Warhorses:
First of all: DESTRIERS WERE NOT DRAFT HORSES. Horse/military historians are begging people to stop putting their fantasy knights on Shires, Belgians, and other massive, chunky farm-horses! The best known instance of “a knight needs to get lifted onto their 18-hand draft horse” is a SATIRE (A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, if I remember right), but somehow laymen decided to take it seriously.
Hell, I think the film’s historians knew that this was extremely inaccurate and begged the director not to do it.
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For the purposes of this post, I will not get into the different TYPES OF WARHORSES. That is a hyper-fixation for another day, lol.
—
First problem with “Draft horses as warhorses:”
The bulk of modern-day “breeds” are far too recent for a medieval or medieval-fantasy story. Modern horse “breeds” began around the 1700s-1800s, so that’s in the EXTREMELY late-medieval/early-modern period. Before that, most medieval horses were referred to by “TYPE/PURPOSE” and maybe a “Country/Region.” “Spanish/Iberian horses” (the ancestors of modern-day Andalusians, Carthusians, and Lusitanos) were overwhelmingly popular for combat, and other baroque horses were also esteemed.
Destriers are physically average-height at 15 hands high (about 5 feet tall at the shoulder/withers), but the important part is that they are STACKED at 1200-1300lbs when most 15-hand horses are only 900-1000lbs, so that’s a quarter to a third more weight in muscle.
And remember, muscle will not make a given horse look “chubby!” Good ways to get across a warhorse’s muscles in writing is 1) how ROCK SOLID they are when you touch them, 2) their chiseled shoulders, necks, and butts, and 2) when they get into motion, especially for a fight, their muscles will flex and get REALLY defined. The three regions I mentioned are usually the most visible if they’ve got horse tack or a rider on them.
Think of the difference between “regular horse” and “destrier” as “regular Tom Hardy, who looks fit but normal,” versus “Tom Hardy playing Bane, where he put on thirty pounds and his torso and arms look like a fucking tree-trunk.”
Warhorses had nerves of steel, and the best-trained warhorses used could sprint and turn on a dime–they’ve been called “the sports cars of the medieval world.” This is a far cry from huge, sweet, and lumbering draft horses.
Besides Spanish horses, modern-day candidates for destriers would be European cobs (heavier all-purpose horses, large Welsh cobs are the best-known modern breed), and Foundation Quarter Horses (working/stock horses that can herd cattle and race and actually USE their muscles, not the bloated halter-horses who are mostly bred to look “good” to judges).
—
But if the destrier was supposed to be the horse equivalent of “Tom Hardy as Bane” and not “The Mountain from Game of Thrones,” then how could they carry a knight’s armor as well as their own?
First of all, human combat armor is different from JOUSTING armor and it is easily half the weight for better mobility. Warhorses from proper medieval times aren’t shown wearing much horse-armor, even in jousting. The stuff you see in museums is also frequently the custom-made armor for wealthy nobles, who either 1) wore it once or twice a year for public celebrations, which is also why the armor’s in pristine condition instead of dented and bloody like combat armor would be, or 2) wore it because they were rich enough to not want themselves OR their expensive horses to die too soon in combat.
Assuming that all destriers needed to carry 150lbs for an adult armored man, PLUS another 150lbs of the horse’s riding tack and armor, is like people from the years 2500-3000 assuming that everyone with a “car” must have a Lamborghini or a Ferrari that takes up a lot of maintenance (if you want to keep it looking nice, at least) and can go 200 miles per hour.
So the vast majority of realistic warhorses/destriers didn’t get much if any armor, because 1) horse-armor is for princes and dukes, not Count Whoever’s third son or his nephew that he tossed out on adulthood with barely any money, and 2) horse-armor is going to weigh down your FAST and NIMBLE warhorse. (Remember: Knights wanted sports cars, not tanks!) Take a look at the horses and knights of the website called “Destrier!” Most horses there aren’t notably tall, and they mostly wear head-armor and fancy but not heavy horse-tack like capes, instead of full barding.
Another reason average/short warhorses were preferred is for medieval safety issues: You wanted to mount your horse from the ground without help. The famous knight Jean Le Maingre was so dedicated to fighting that he could VAULT onto his horse in armor, without touching the stirrups. His instructions are, essentially, “put on your armor, find your horse, put your hands on the horse’s back/saddle, and FUCKING JUMP.”
Unless you’re seven feet tall or a gymnast, you’re not jumping onto an 18-hand draft horse.
So all those Red Dead Redemption animations where you get to alley-oop your way onto your loyal steed? POSSIBLE, IF YOU ARE CRAZY/ANGRY ENOUGH.
Quick note: In ancient Ireland, they refer to a “steed-leap” that nobles, warriors, and other “people rich enough to own RIDING horses” were trained to use–with the important distinction that Gaelic nobles often took pride in either using saddles without stirrups, or NOT USING SADDLES TO PUT ANY STIRRUPS ON. So the bulk of Gaelic Irish nobles could theoretically go Red Dead Redemption on your ass.
—
And the third reason most combat-ready warhorses didn’t get armor is because infantry (the vast majority of most medieval armies) just had a low chance of hitting them in the first place.
First of all, most horses are already faster than people. Destriers were EXCEPTIONALLY fast as the cream of the crop. For the horse to need armor, someone needs a good chance of hitting the horse.
Second, most horses are hard to kill physically because horses don’t tend to like getting stabbed or shot at, so they will likely try to kill YOU, which means that a knight and his horse are TWO fighters who are both very angry and very protective of each other. Most people love their horses, and many combatants share intense bonds! IMAGINE IF YOUR HORSE IS ALSO YOUR SQUAD-MATE!
And last of all, most horses are hard to kill mentally because when you want to use cavalry, you ALSO want the other side’s infantry to get consumed by panic and bolt for their lives, away from their companions and AWAY FROM THE CHARGING HORSES. (Which routinely leads to a slaughter, often called a “rout” in period literature, or a “curb-stomp battle” on TV Tropes.) While most knights could dish out one-on-one duels against EACH OTHER, a knight against a foot-soldier is going to have a huge and explicitly unfair advantage if the soldier is not specifically trained and equipped to take them on.
See, when you get a herd of knights on their steeds, the noise and the wave of horseflesh charging at you is going to make your reptile-brain instincts scream “NOPE NOPE NOPE, WE GOTTA GO!!!”
That instinct is so strong that infantry ACTORS in movies–who know that this is not a real war, and the riders don’t actually want to kill them–still routinely break formation and run.
It was possible to stop cavalry with infantry and end up slaughtering them instead of getting routed–it was just extremely notable.
Also, unless you’re specifically going for blood: You don’t WANT to slaughter a whole formation of knights! That means you’ve just pissed away a WHOLE lot of money that the knights represent!
You killed the horses that you could have used for your own side, and possibly bred for more high-end horses! You ruined the armor that you could have used for your own side, or at least melted down for high-quality, already-mined metal! You killed the knights that you could have sweetened up and used for your own side–or more likely, told their families to pay you if they wanted them home intact.
Barely anyone remembers that knights were as good for HOSTAGES as they were for actually fighting. (Except for Game of Thrones, and it’s still only plot-relevant for Jaime Lannister and Theon Greyjoy, and they explicitly did NOT get the protection a noble hostage should have.) It’s noted that Agincourt was a GREAT ending for England because capturing all those French nobles earned them TWENTY YEARS’ WORTH of regular income in ransoms. If they hadn’t won and gotten all that sweet, sweet French money, they would have been bankrupted and depopulated instead.
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Two more strikes I’d feel are appropriate for “not wanting draft-type horses in combat:”
-Logistics 1: Too much food, too much hassle. Horses are already notorious for eating a lot, and a DRAFT horse that’s 2000lbs instead of 1200lbs will eat twice as much. No army wants to use their fodder for only half the number of horses they’d expect.
-Logistics 2: Too much hair, too much hassle. Shires and other British horses often have feathering on their legs, and anyone with long hair knows that loose hair/fur is a fucking PAIN. You can braid a horse’s mane and tail, but if you’re one of the many average/poor knights who DON’T have servants to take care of your horse for you, do you want to spend extra time cleaning and combing out your horse’s LEGS instead of necessary things? Like feeding them, grooming them, and checking for wounds? Nope, you’ll probably shave the feathering off or just pick a horse that doesn’t have it.
-Extra note on Friesian horses, who are RIDICULOUSLY common in “medieval” movies: Friesian horses are technically baroque horses in body form (Strong-boned! Big necks and butts!), but they’re also over-used in general, so most horse folks are sick of seeing them in movies. And if you don’t have the right kind of MODERN Friesian, you’ll probably be a laughingstock in addition to an eye-roll.
Some strains of modern Friesians are from carriage-horse lines, often referred to as “big movers.” This means “fun to LOOK AT, but terrible to RIDE.” Because, you know, those strains of Friesians weren’t meant for riding, but for PULLING CARRIAGES. Their movements are big, dramatic, and flashy… and their trot is notorious for bouncing people out of the saddle with every step. Not something you want for a knight who fills his opponents with terror.
A good riding horse’s movements are usually smooth and low to the ground, often described as “floating” and “effortless.”
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A horse-note that I can’t figure out where to put: Many Western cultures love the idea of fiery stallions (intact male horses) for their noble knights and kings to ride into battle on, but realistically, stallions are only half of a given horse population. Many Western stallions are also gelded if they’re not the cream of the crop (which is probably at least the bottom half of the male horse population). So mares can be used by at least half of a realistic formation who just wants a warhorse, and doesn’t care about aesthetics or masculinity.
Also, mares can be ruthless and stallions can be nervous wrecks! Horses are living creatures, with personalities and feelings!
Horses also aren’t very sexually dimorphic, so a 1200lb war mare is DEFINITELY a match for a 1300lb war stallion. And remember how Loras Tyrell used a mare in heat to distract The Mountain’s stallion? That happens with a lot of stallions… almost like they’re living creatures, with instincts that they can’t always control! So if you know when your girl is ready to go every month, you can play dirty in a joust, too!
Just remember that you’re taking an equal risk, since your mare will possibly try to let a stallion mount her instead of fighting. You will either need to bail when she starts making googly-eyes, or you need to know you have ABSOLUTE loyalty from her, and she will listen to YOU instead of “the hot dude I just met five minutes ago!” HORSES ARE LIVING CREATURES, WITH INSTINCTS THAT THEY CAN’T ALWAYS CONTROL.
Then geldings will be used by at least another quarter of “the knights who cannot afford a horse good enough to keep his testicles,” so that leaves “a quarter or less” of knights who can realistically be mounted on stallions.
WORSE NEWS: If you geld a stallion too late (usually once they’re MOSTLY physically mature at 4-5 years old), that risk may never go away–so you’ve got a gelding who’s not breeding quality, but he’s still chasing mares in heat and fighting other stallions in turf battles, without understanding that he can no longer make babies!
On the other hand, some cultures don’t geld stallions because they view it as unnecessary or outright unnatural… but they also don’t want half the horse population distracted by pretty mares, or fighting with other stallions who walk by the pasture, so those cultures breed them to be sweet and easily managed (outside of battle, at least).
In short: ALL HORSES HAVE POTENTIAL TO BE WARHORSES, WHETHER THEY HAVE BALLS OR NOT.
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Update, Feb 2 – Another day to expand on that “Different types of warhorses” mention!
Much like the common misconception of “all knights must be at least 6 feet tall and have 200 pounds of muscle” varied in real life due to genetics, cultural values, and logistics problems, the assumption that “all knights MUST have top-quality destriers that cost seven times the price of a normal horse” was not the case for the vast majority of “knights.”
Knights would have either “the best horse they could AFFORD” or “the best horse FOR THEIR SPECIALTY.”
A poor knight, or one of the early Middle Ages, would have “one horse that they’re with all the time;” that horse may not be pretty or come from fancy breeding lines, but they would get the job done and most definitely be taken care of. A wealthy knight of the later Middle Ages, when everything got more expensive and status more codified and finicky, would have two or three horses–one horse for warfare and one for regular riding, with the really wealthy knights having a third packhorse to carry all their stuff. (Moreover, they would have at least one servant to help take care of three horses.)
A muscled sprinter like a destrier is better in tight quarters and for short bursts of speed; to bring in the modern example of a classic/Foundation Quarter Horse, who are ideally “short-legged and low to the ground,” these dudes can literally hit the ground running and reach top speed in a few steps/seconds, so compare that to a sports-car going from zero to sixty miles. The tradeoffs?
1) You need to be able to hang the fuck on… and to avoid getting pitched into a wall/enemy WHEN THEY STOP.
2) That full-throttle gallop will really wear out your horse. A good commander will not bring out their heavy cavalry right away, because you also have to figure out how to get them back from the enemy’s side of the field.
In very simplistic terms, this is one of several problems that the battle of Agincourt had for the French; you had a bunch of hoity-toity noblemen with no proper battle experience who all wanted to do things their own way… and how do medieval noblemen usually want to fight a war? JUST FLOOR IT AND HIT THINGS AS HARD AS YOU CAN.
That went so badly that the recorded death-toll for the French side of Agincourt has been commented as “a roll call for French nobles.”
A destrier would not be suitable for a scout or light-cavalry; they’d need lighter and ground-covering horses to cover rough terrain, and to chase down the enemy for long stretches–akin to a modern-day Thoroughbred. For period pieces they might resemble an Akhal-Teke or “Turkmene” horse. A modern-day Thoroughbred horse can “only” reach forty miles per hour at a gallop, but they can keep that up for a whole mile or longer. So now your knight’s problem is “Hanging on for two or three whole minutes,” and anyone in performing or athletics will explain how long and agonizing a few minutes would feel on a rampaging horse. Have you seen how stacked a racing jockey is? The general consensus I’ve seen from equestrians is that barely anyone in any other horse-discipline is that built.
Meanwhile, an ideal light-cavalry horse would need longer legs for a ground-covering stride, and they may or may not be taller as well; as seen in the Akhal-Teke article, many endurance horses tend to show a lot more ribs and bones than other breeds, due to how lean they are. But think of them less as a dainty riding horse and more like a hunting greyhound/sighthound–all muscle, no fat!
The other type of light-cavalry horse would likely be a pony, used to going for miles on rough terrain, with little if any feed.
EDIT Feb 4, 2024: My post got cut off, so here's the rest of it!
The other type of light-cavalry horse would likely be a pony, used to going for miles on rough terrain, with little if any feed.
A period-accurate scout's horse was known as the Irish hobby, ridden by their eponymous hobelar troops. These little dudes were VERY little and about 12-14 hands high (48-54 inches, or 4 feet tall to bit under five feet tall). They were known to cover 60-70 miles a day in their raids, which my "preindustrial traveling" post notes is the EXTREME upper end of mounted distance travel. Their modern descendant is likely to be the Irish Connemara Pony.
Very wealthy and/or lucky European horsemen could probably manage to buy/steal an Arabian horse, as they remain exceptional endurance horses to this day. However, excessively cold/wet climates will need a lot of upkeep for a desert-bred horse to stay healthy.
While Arabians are known for their adorable "dished faces," this is not actually required! Many well-bred native lines have a regular face (ie, a "straight nose/profile") but they are from well-bred parents and have the capabilities of other Arabians. To the other extreme, you have some modern show/halter lines with REALLY exaggerated heads that hit a lot of people's "Uncanny valley" buttons, and they find it creepy/weird instead of refined. This kind of "seahorse face" would NOT be seen in a period piece.
Notice how the smaller a horse gets, the more ground it can cover? This is partly because size only matters TO AN EXTENT for "how long a horse goes," and partly because of physics! Less weight for a horse to drag around on its own body means more energy for putting miles behind them!
Tips for Writing Characters in Recovery from Addiction
I've encountered several portrayals of characters in recovery from addiction, both in fanfiction and published writing, that are clearly somewhat under-researched or leaning into stereotypes. Additionally, writing advice posts on the subject often feel detached and cite statistics rather than express humanity.
As a result, I decided to put together what I believe to be some characteristics and shared experiences of people in recovery that aren't just about withdrawal and might be less familiar to the general public. Perhaps they can be useful to writers aiming to write thoughtful and accurate portrayals of characters in similar situations.
Please note, of course, that both addiction and recovery are very unique, personalized experiences, so no one list will ever apply 100% to a single person—fictional or real.
Dreams of relapse. I personally experience these dreams at least 4-5 times a month, and they're unlike any other other dreams I have because they're so vivid and lifelike that I wake from them completely convinced for a moment that I did, in fact, relapse. These dreams do NOT mean you want to relapse. In fact, they are often a sign of extreme fear of relapse. The possibility of it is so nightmarish that your mind can only translate it into a literal night terror.
Adding to the previous point, the fear of relapse is seriously underestimated. Some people assume recovered addicts are always thinking about relapsing in a tempting way, but lots of these thoughts stem from the absolute, paralyzing terror of the past repeating itself—not an alluring urge to return to it.
Paranoia that everyone is looking at you thinking "they know the truth about my past. They know I was an addict." These beliefs are, of course, unfounded.
Constantly categorizing everything as "before addiction," "during addiction," and "after addiction." Even something as simple as looking at photographs can elicit thoughts like, "I was so happy in this picture. I had no idea what was coming for me in six months."
Counting recovery days nonstop to the point that it can even become debilitating. Your sense of time is forever altered because you're always trying to "catch up" on all the time you "wasted."
If people know, they will constantly make snide or condescending remarks, no matter how far along in recovery you are. "An addict is always an addict." "Well, I can see you're doing better than you used to be!" "I would never do something like that."
People will relentlessly assume you are less intelligent and talk to you like you're a child, especially if you're in the early stages of recovery.
Everyone knows addicts lose friends and/or family, and sometimes for good reasons, but the sheer number of people who leave for no apparent reason when you're actively trying to get better is surprising. The stigma surrounding addiction is so intensely negative that most people don't even want to be tangentially associated with it.
Addicts and recovered addicts are fetishized in unexpected ways— sometimes because of the obviously sickly appearance, the assumption that they will do anything to feed their addiction, the false belief that they are "fun" or "exciting," or maybe even that they just seem pathetic. Random people in public will approach you and straight-up ask for the most disrespectful sexual acts you can imagine. (After my addiction became common knowledge, people I thought were good people suddenly started trying like mad to sleep with me and then ditched me entirely. That's probably one of the most painful learning moments I had).
Physical symptoms can appear months, even years, after recovery starts. I know some who have noticed their hands suddenly becoming shakier, their hair thinner, and unusual chest pains.
You often become so angry and guilty with your past self that it prevents you from seeing how extraordinary your progress really is.
You start to realize how far you've come and how liberated you are in the smallest of moments. One of the greatest accomplishments of mine was realizing one morning when I woke up that the last thought I'd had before going to bed had not been about my addiction. Throughout my entire years of addiction, it was literally always the first thing on my mind when I woke up, even if it was just getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It was the last thing I thought of every single night before I fell asleep.
Speaking of sleep, a full night's sleep! Full meals! Not feeling sick 100% of the time. At first, it's almost like growing into a new body.
Your memory is not the same as before, whether you remember too much or there are big dark patches in your mind.
The appreciation. As difficult and painful as it is, a world in recovery is also so often a world of supreme beauty. You pay attention to life's details in ways you never could have imagined before. Things assume a gentle sincerity and sensitivity they never had previously.
Relapse does not always even happen. Some people quit and never look back. I decided to change my life in every way in February 2021 and spent all of that March relapsing. By April 1, I was ready and never went back once.
Addicts are always deemed selfish and narcissistic, even recovered addicts. Sometimes, ironically, recovery leads to increased empathy. It can take reaching a low point to understand another person's low point.
Recovery can be quiet. It's not always over-the-top constant relapses, breakdowns, etc. Sometimes it's just very private and silent attempts to make your life better.
Finally, a point I would like to emphasize is that addiction is a lonely, isolating experience, but often recovery is too. Yes, you can have rehab (if you're lucky to get into a good one), and, yes ,you might have a group or loved ones who help you (I hope). But every reason behind addiction and what you're actually addicted to is so individualized that no one will ever wholly share your experience. Finding a community can be challenging.
But, despite it all, recovery is a unique, beautiful, enlightening experience. If I were given the choice to go back and make it so I'd never had any of it happen, I would choose that option in a heartbeat. Still, I know in the depths of my soul, I'd be trading away some of the most raw, vulnerable, and profound lessons of my life in favor of blissful ignorance.
Above all else, I hope if you write a character in recovery, you try to portray them as you would anyone else—a nuanced and interesting human being 🫶
Reblogging this today after reading a published story in which an addict character miraculously quits cold turkey and is somehow an infinitely healthier and better person after that! Whenever I read stuff like that, I just feel sad. Even if it's a fantasy world story.
In reality, many physical and mental symptoms are present for a lot of people for YEARS, potentially forever! I can't even list everything wrong with my own body without sounding like an exaggeration. I have to be honest and admit I most likely shortened my own lifespan.
Writers, please do your characters and readers justice by clarifying there is no easy way.
first of all: 💀
why does every enemies-to-lovers dynamic either hit like a literary gut punch… or feel like two cardboard cutouts aggressively flirting?
there is no in between. i don’t make the rules.
and if you’re here, i’m guessing you’ve tasted both. the elite. the devastating. the oh my god i need to lie down after this confession scene kind…
and also the ones where you’re like “why do you hate each other again? because he smirked?? be serious.”
yeah. we’re fixing that today.
⚔️ if you’re writing enemies-to-lovers, we need to talk.
because most people aren’t writing enemies.
they’re writing:
mild annoyances
workplace rivals with ✨tension✨
people who had one (1) misunderstanding in chapter two and never emotionally recovered
and listen. that’s fine. that’s a trope. it’s cute.
but it’s not enemies-to-lovers.
🩸 step one: define your enemy
an enemy is not someone who:
is kinda rude
disagrees with your protagonist
has a “bad attitude” (???)
an enemy is someone who cannot coexist with your protagonist without cost.
read that again. PLEASE.
their goals? incompatible.
their values? clashing at a moral level.
their existence? actively making the other’s life worse.
what i'm talking about:
opposing sides of a war
hunter vs hunted
“if i let you live, everything i believe in collapses” energy
if they can just… avoid each other and be fine?
that’s not enemies. that’s tension with good lighting.
🗡️ step two: make the hatred make sense
this is where people fumble it CONSTANTLY.
they jump straight to:
banter → sexual tension → accidental hand touch → oh no i’m in love
NO. come back. sit down.
before attraction, there needs to be justified hostility.
and not surface-level “you insulted me once.”
i’m talking about (and yes please quote 'rin t' on this!):
betrayal
loss
ideological opposition
deeply ingrained bias they don’t even realize they have
the kind of thing where, if someone asked your character:
“why do you hate them?”
they wouldn’t hesitate. they’d have a list
the twist:
👉 both sides need to be right. (or at least feel right)
if one is clearly wrong, you don’t have enemies-to-lovers.
you have “problematic person gets redeemed because they’re hot.”
and we are not doing that today.
🔥 step three: attraction should feel like a problem
this is where it gets fun. :)
when they start catching feelings, it should not be:
“oh this is inconvenient but kind of exciting :)”
it should be:
“this is catastrophic. this compromises everything.”
love = risk.
because now:
their judgment is compromised
their loyalties are tested
their identity starts to crack
they should be actively resisting it.
denying it. sabotaging it. making worse choices because of it.
if falling in love doesn’t cost them something?
you skipped the entire point of the trope.
🕯️ step four: force proximity (but PLEASEEE make it hurt)
you can’t resolve enemies-to-lovers from opposite sides of the map.
they need to be stuck together.
BUT-important distinction-
not in a cute “one bed at the inn” way (yet. we’ll get there. don’t worry.)
in a:
forced alliance
mutual threat
political arrangement
survival situation
where they have to rely on each other…
while still fundamentally not trusting each other.
this creates:
tension
vulnerability leaks
moments where they see each other as human (ugh. disgusting. hate that.)
and every time that happens?
it should complicate things further.
💔 step five: the shift is not soft. it’s violent.
i need you to understand this.
the transition from enemies → lovers should feel like something breaking.
because it is.
their worldview? breaking.
their assumptions? breaking.
their sense of self? yeah. that too.
there should be a moment where:
they realize they were wrong about the other person
and it doesn’t feel good.
it feels like:
guilt
confusion
grief for the version of reality they believed in
this is what makes the payoff hit.
not the kiss.
the reckoning.
🗝️ step six: they don’t “fix” each other
if i see one more enemies-to-lovers arc where:
“he became a better person because she loved him 🥺”
i will simply pass away.
they don’t fix each other.
they force each other to confront things they were avoiding.
that’s different.
love isn’t the solution.
it’s the pressure that reveals the cracks.
🖤 final thought (and a gentle threat):
if your enemies-to-lovers could be replaced with:
friends-to-lovers + mild inconvenience
and nothing changes?
you didn’t go far enough.
push them harder.
make it uglier. riskier. a little bit devastating.
so, question to you my chaotic writers... what’s the real reason your characters hate each other?
not the surface answer.
the one they’d never admit out loud.
i’m nosy. tell me everything. 👀 I LOVE HEARING your thoughts (i reply because yes, i am a real person!)
I HAVE DIGITAL PRODUCTS!!!
if you're writing dark academia feel free to check out this packet filled with all the juicy prompts to spark ideas!
A gothic prompt pack for writers who love cursed universities, secret societies, and scholarly rot.✎ Write the Darkness ✎A 75-prompt horror
need help with your opening pages?! i have a free ebook for you all (aesthetic, cohesive and actually informative! it's free! but tips are highly appreciated!)
✦ A free (and actually helpful) guide to leveling up your first 10 pages ✦If you're unsure whether your opening is ✨doing enough✨ to hook re
teens that should all be dead put themselves in more situations where they really really should be dead in order to try and save the world but maybe none of them actually want to save the world. also there are stars. and cats.
four people individually figure out some shady shit is going on and then all independently go "well fuck, guess i gotta do something about this." its far more convoluted than it probably needs to be. also there's magic and a whole lotta queers
Things to consider when Writing about Gods & Religion!!
⊹ Are the gods actually real and active or is it all faith-based. because "god shows up physically to yell at people" is a very different vibe from "we haven't heard from them in 500 years but we still pray"
⊹ What do they want from their followers. worship, sacrifices, good deeds, chaos, entertainment. are they benevolent or kind of jerks about it. Ancient mythology gods were mostly jerks tbh
⊹ How many gods are there and do they get along. monotheism is simple but a messy pantheon where the gods have drama with each other?? so much more fun to write. they can have feuds. forbidden relationships. family issues
⊹ What happens when you die in this religion. reincarnation? specific afterlife? different afterlives based on how you lived? just nothing? this affects how people behave SO much
⊹ Who are the priests/priestesses and what's their role. are they magical conduits, political power players, just regular people leading prayers.
⊹ Are there religious laws and how strict are they. what are the sins/taboos. what happens if you break them.
⊹ What are the religious practices. daily prayers, annual festivals, pilgrimages, ritual sacrifices (of what though). the specific details make it feel real
⊹ Is there religious persecution. multiple religions that hate each other? one state religion and everything else is banned? forced conversions? people hiding their faith?
⊹ Do the gods play favorites or can anyone worship them. are there gods for specific groups (god of soldiers, god of thieves)
⊹ What proof is there that any of this is real. miracles? prophecies that came true? divine artifacts? or is it all just faith and tradition and nobody actually knows
⊹ How has the religion changed over time. do they have like reformation drama, lost texts?
⊹ What's the church's relationship with magic if magic exists. is magic a gift from the gods, heresy, completely separate, or did magic exist first and gods came later
Aight I'm hearing a lot about hyphens and dashes and em dashes and en dashes and I don't know what the fucking difference is. I'm not interested in the ai of it all, but I wanna learn the punctuation! I just use a dash if I wanna put a dash in. What is the difference? Is it just use or are they actually visually different punctuation marks?
This is the long dash and it is your best punctuation friend because if you are ever unsure about whether to use a comma, colon, semi colon or parenthesis, you can usually just bung in an em dash. You can use it to dramatically separate out a clause in the middle of a sentence — like this — or to add emphasis at the end of a sentence — like this.
Usually, there is a space on either side of the em dash, but you can leave out the space in front to indicate interruption:
"But I thought—"
"There's no time," said Jim.
En Dash (Alt+0150):
This is the middle-sized dash and its main use is indicate a range, e.g. 30–50 hogs, September–December prices, $100–$200, Paris–London express, p. 4–9, the years 2005–2011.
It's also used in phrases like student–teacher ratio, child–parent interaction, Vulcan–Human hybrid, US–UK military alliance. Why not just use a hyphen? Because we are talking about an equal partnership between two things. We are not talking about a student who is also a teacher, or a child who is also a parent. We are talking about an interaction between one thing and a different thing.
Hyphen
For everything else, use a hyphen, e.g.:
Forty-seven ginger-headed sailors
Mr Mainwaring-Phipps
If you pay once off [no hyphen], that is a once-off fee
If you work part time [no hyphen], you have a part-time job
On mobile, you can press and hold the hyphen key to get the dash options.
In some fonts, the dashes and hyphens are not that distinct from each other but in others they are.
The names refer to the length of the dash — an em dash is the length of the letter M and the en dash is the length of the letter N.
i love selkie aus but I feel like there is an overemphasis on "cool" seals like the leopard seal and other polar species wich makes me sad bc selkie aus are so ripe with opportunity for fun localisation! why are we ignoring the beautiful phocidae of the milder northern hemisphere!!!!
so! ignoring antarcic seal populations entirely and only listing arctic populations if their habitat overlaps significantly with human habitation zones, let me present to you the beautiful range of Reasonable Selkie Au Seal Species:
if ur blorbo is from any region close to the subarctic coasts of russia, canada, or alaska may I interest u in the elegant bearded seal
in alaska and northeast russia (and in v cold winters also north japan) u could also choose one of the coolest most fashion forward seals in the world: ribbon seals!
if youre wondering if theres a seal in the northwest pacific whose range goes a bit further south i am excited to tell you that the spotted seal is exactly the curious friend u are looking for!
and that's not all there is in the pacific! did u know about the hawaiian monk seal!!! it is beautiful!!!! it is the only seal that lives in waters where temperatures climb above 20°C (68°F)!!!
if we go back north for a minute, around greenland's and canada's atlantic coasts u can find yet another fashionable diva: the harp seal!!
another customer u will find on subarctic coasts is the timelessly classic ringed seal that also lives in the baltic sea
something v cool abt ringed seals is that they are closely related to some seals that live in freshwater!!!! one is a subspecies that lives only in lake ladoga in russia (left), and the other used to be considered a subspecies but actually is its own species that lives only in lake saimaa in finland (right) and they're among the most endangered seals in the world </3
the other seal species that entirely lives exclusively in freshwater is the baikal seal that unsurprisingly lives in lake baikal in russia and is not endangered at all! lovely!!
someone who can also hang out in freshwater is the humble harbour seal! it is mostly a saltwater seal (a subspecies called ungava seals that lives in northern quebec are actually exclusively freshwater seals) and lives basically almost everywhere on the northern shores of this blue planet (with the exception of the baltic sea where it is super rare) and it is also stinking cute!!!
one of the og selkies is the v underrated grey seal who has a smaller habitat (only across the atlantic) so sadly it is less universal of a sight but is no less delightful!!! they're very shaped :)
speaking of europe there are seals in southern europe and northern africa too! they are called mediterranean monk seals! theyre sadly at the risk of extinction but they're v cute little slugs :)
seals can be found even further east than the eastern mediterranean tho! there is a seal species endemic to the caspian sea whose name you can surely guess (caspian seal) that sadly is also v endangered but no less adorable!!!
for those of u keeping track at home these are all the seals for ur selkiefication needs if u want the seal to more or less be shaped like this emoji -> 🦭
if you, however, are ready to play it less safe, the phocidae family has a few more members that EYE personally think are way overdue some spotlight!
northern elephant seals have v apparent sexual dimorphism bc only the males have those famous proboscises that help them be crazy loud! they also fuck like machines (1 male impregnates up to 50 females per season) and hang out in california
hooded seals aren't as massive and live on the shores of an entirely different ocean but they're no less crazy: while the noses of the males may remind u of elephant seals, hooded seals can inflate theirs and also blow up a bright red tissue bag that comes out of their nostril!
and finally, okay I lied, I do need to mention one (1) southern hemisphere seal bc the southern elephant seal is the largest seal on earth, even bigger than its northern counterpart or seals from other families like the walrus! while they are a polar species they arent confined to antarctica they also wander and hang out in other places too like south africa, aotearoa or patagonia!
and there you have it! i did not mention any otariidae sorry bc I didn't want this post to take 500 years to make and all selkie aus I've seen were set in the northern hemisphere (most eared seals live in the southern hemisphere) but go look them up too they are very fun !! my favourite pic of an eared seal on wikipedia is this one of a cape fur seal pup facing off against a black-backed jackal that I need to link bc I hit the image limit but that's for u to explore :)
not gonna add onto that post cuz idk how meaningful my addition would be considering my Everything (white american)
but it does constantly infuriate me that my fellow fantasy authors treat knowing where Iconic Staple Foods are sourced from, and the vast web of historical relations and the imperialism that drove them, as like. Bookkeeping Worldbuilding, instead of as like. A crucial gap in information awareness.
Like you arent being asked to fucking. Plan out an entire encyclopedia of mercantile interactions to justify the presence of potato soup, you are being asked to acknowledge the barest fucking minimum that potatoes are not a crop indigenous to the feudal european aesthetic you are pulling on as fantastical inspiration, you are being asked to acknowledge the aesthetic you are recreating is explicitly a fantasy of colonial erasure. You are being asked, the barest minimum, to acknowledge your european inspired fantasy kings would not natively have access to coffee, and to CONSIDER where coffee comes from irl.
fucking. stop treating this like an above and beyond task, if your willing to research the style of castle parapets for the purpose of your descriptions, you should at least know where the fuck these crops come from. youre being egregiously ignorant to argue otherwise.
stop pretending your being asked to bend over backwards to make an entire world history for your fantasy world, you know damn well all your being asked is to acknowledge the impact of imperialism and colonization on what is considered the "generic, default" fantasy setting (and why tf its the default in the first place!!)
You are never letting a WIP rot. You are doing it a service. Your WIP is a sourdough starter and the five words you wrote that one day were all it needed to sustain itself. It will bubble and be ready when you are.
writing is so funny because i could write nonstop for 9hrs and then hit a block where im like "how do i transition between this moment and the next?" and then i just dont touch it for 6 months
Serious advice tho if this happens, it's likely because you already wrote past the end of the scene and wandered too far from the more logical transition point, and you should go back to the last time the writing felt "unforced" and cut everything after.
You can also just skip the transition. Really good writing can span years in a single sentence, like you can just authoritatively state fact and your reader will go with it.
carpal tunnel can't stop me @maddstermind - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
