Join the Timberhearts!

[alphacrone]

thinking about all the “small” art that’s ever existed. songs that were only ever sung in one village. stories written by children that got lost in the shuffle. personal paintings that didn’t survive the test of time. how they affected the lives of just a few, but still existed, still mattered to someone.

[alphacrone]

this is not a sad post!!!! this is a celebration!!!!! art is part of the human condition!!!!!!! we were born to create and share!!!!!!!!!!!

[thetimberhearts]

Shepherding, Part 3

In which Fargon and Hyla figure out how to talk to spirits.

This was no earth elemental; this was a timber spirit. Hyla became acutely aware of this as her axe came up and cut through its face, and she almost dropped her axe as it fell back, green light spilling from its wound.

‘Spirits preserve us!’ she gasped. ‘I am so sorry.’ She was on the verge of tears as Dregorda got to her feet, staring at her slack-jawed.

‘Hey, it tried to kill us,’ she said. ‘Only fair we return the favour.’ She started forward, but Hyla grabbed her shirt and pulled her back.

‘Everyone wait!’ she yelled. She stood, putting her axe away. Fargon was getting to his feet, covered in dirt and worms. Tilt was near the hole in the fence, at once trying to stop the sheep wandering out and drawing back on her bow.

‘This is a forest spirit,’ Hyla explained. ‘If we kill it, we injure the forest - I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’

‘Alright,’ Dregorda replied, ‘but if we let it live it’ll keep stealing the sheep. I’m all in favour of taking it down permanently!’

‘That’s not our call!’ Hyla protested. ‘We need to return through this forest. If we do it harm it’ll pay us back in kind, and I’m not keen on dying because we took down a sacred tree folk.’

‘I dunno,’ Fargon said. ‘I just got hit by a wave of dirt, I’m on Dregorda’s side here. I’m gonna burn this sucker.’

‘Will all of you just stop for a minute and help me with these sheep!’

They turned. Tilt was currently leaving grooves in the dirt as she dug in her heels against a ram which was gently but steadily pushing her towards them. The other sheep were following on, all apparently keen to be out of the field. Hyla and Dregorda felt something barge past them, and Dregorda began to protest, but the tree creature was walking to meet the sheep. It held out a hand, and shoots began to grow from its palm - the sheep nibbled at them contentedly, and it began to walk into the forest.

‘Hang on!’ Hyla cried, interposing herself between it and the trees. She held out her hands and began to sign to it as she spoke: ‘the owner of these sheep is mad that they keep disappearing at night. We want to know why, and we want you to stop stealing them. Understand?’

The tree folk cocked its head to one side, unheeding to the nudging of the sheep. It raised its hands and signed, stronger and more emphatically. Hyla watched, mouth tracing sentences for a moment before she stared, confused.

‘I hate to say this,’ she said, ‘but I don’t understand this thing’s dialect. We need another way to talk to this spirit.’ It tried to move past her and she jumped in the way, looking to the others for help. Dregorda shrugged. Tilt was now atop the ram’s head, staring backwards as it walked ahead.

‘I might be able to,’ Fargon said. ‘But it’s... risky.’

‘...Alright,’ Hyla said. ‘We’ll follow him for now. Let’s at least find out where he’s taking these things.’

-

‘What’s so risky about talking to it?’ Hyla asked Fargon as they followed the spirit. It paid little heed to them as it wove its way through the trees, the roots obligingly flattening its path as it went.

‘There’s always a risk when magic is involved,’ Fargon whispered. ‘It could backfire, or it could work too well - I could get stuck inside the thing’s head or it could get stuck in mine!’

‘Neither of those is ideal,’ Hyla muttered.

‘And even if it works perfectly,’ Fargon continued, ‘we’d have no filter. Or I wouldn’t - I don’t know about spirits and their attunement to magic, but I’d essentially be... sharing my mind with it? I dunno, it’d be tricky. If I even think something it dislikes it could mean hostilities.’

‘So we’d have little control over how it happened, and even if it worked we’d have little control over what we said?’ She looked at the back of the thing’s head, thoughts working through her mind.

'Maybe? It's... even more complex than that,' Fargon said. 'But if no other option presents itself, I'll try it.'

'Well be prepared,' Hyla said. 'I think we're coming up on the clearing - we're about to find out why the forest is stealing sheep.'

The tree elemental had stopped as the forest opened out into another large, clear area. The Timberhearts followed it in, behind the press of sheep which fanned out and resumed nibbling on the verdant grass. Others took a drink from the small pool which rippled at the foot of a great tree.

A tree which then moved.

All of the trees in the clearing moved in response to the entrance of the sheep; they curled in close, some drooping branches low to caress their woolen coats, others sprouting shoots around head height which the beasts would turn to chomp with idle comfort.

‘Ohhhh spirits,’ Fargon murmured.

‘It’s not just one elemental,’ Hyla said. ‘It’s a whole copse of them!’

-

Dregorda and Tilt spent the next hour sitting in the branches of these trees, while Hyla and Fargon argued quietly below. Tilt pulled leaves from her tree and leaned down to try and entice the sheep to look up.

Dregorda had attempted to negotiate a peace between the two of them earlier, but it had led to raised voices. Fargon didn’t know the consequences of using his powers to communicate with these things; Hyla didn’t want to give up and let the sheep just stay here.

‘Surely there’s another way?’ Dregorda asked. ‘I mean, maybe one of these trees speaks our dialect of spirit-speak?’

‘We’ll get nothing done if I have to interpret the words of spirits I barely understand!’ Hyla grumbled. ‘I need Fargon to talk with them.’

‘And I told you, I’m not risking my brain leaking outta my ears!’ Fargon snapped.

‘Well one of us has to!’ Hyla yelled, loud enough that the trees paused to stare at them with faceless trunks, and the ambulatory spirit moved to a combative stance. The time between was spent having a similar conversation, several times over, in hushed tones.

Tilt giggled as her tree shook in irritation, bursting a bloom of leaves where she’d been pulling them from the branches. Dregorda huffed a laugh and leaned back, closing her eyes.

‘Hey, why doesn’t Fargon just go into Hyla’s mind?’ Tilt asked. Dregorda opened her eyes.

‘I don’t... would that work?’ she sat up, running it through. ‘Then what’s going on? He’s just seeing what Hyla’s seeing. But he can’t interpret for Hyla.’

‘Well can he link a tree’s mind with Hyla’s too? Then Hyla’s the bridge between them, and Fargon doesn’t need to risk his brain turning to goop.’

Dregorda leaned down, grabbing a lower branch and swinging herself to the floor. She approached the bickering pair and tapped Hyla on the shoulder.

‘Hey. Tilt’s just given me an idea. Can I run it by the two of you?’

‘I’m not going into a spirit’s mind,’ Fargon repeated.

‘You might not have to,’ Dregorda said. She relayed the plan; Fargon rubbed his chin and paced back and forth as he thought it over.

‘It’s trickier, sure,’ he noted. ‘Dangerous for Hyla, perhaps - would you be okay with that, acting as a bridge? You’d be dealing with two minds, but I’d only be a passenger. I’ll just facilitate the connection.’

‘What are the potential problems?’ Hyla asked. ‘You were worried about being stuck in a tree before - could you get stuck in my head?’ She visibly grimaced at the thought.

‘Unlikely. Human minds are easy, it’s the same scale as mine - no chance of getting lost in there. Not that I’m calling you small-minded!’ Fargon added, seeing Hyla’s glare. ‘Spirits are ancient things - their minds cover miles. I’d be worried about you getting lost, but if I’m acting as a tether...’

‘Then you can always fish me back!’ Hyla finished triumphantly. ‘Brilliant! Okay, if you can interpret for me, I can talk to it.’

Fargon looked at Dregorda, then back at Hyla.

‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked. Hyla nodded.

‘We made a promise to Brye,’ she said. ‘Hook me up, wizard boy - I’m gonna talk to these trees!’

-

It took several minutes for Hyla to convey the idea to the tree spirit in her pidgin sign language - it signed back once or twice, emphatically, but in the end it nodded in understanding and joined her and Fargon.

They sat cross-legged in the middle of the clearing. Fargon glowered at the sheep which bleated around him.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘this would be a lot easier without so many distractions around.’

‘We don’t pick where we do this, Fargon,’ Hyla sighed. ‘Let’s at least make it quick - you’ve got me freaked out about this thing getting stuck in my mind, I’d like to get it over with.’

‘Alright, fine. Close your eyes.’ Hyla did so, and he followed suit. ‘Take a deep breath,’ he added. And as she did, she felt the space around her pinching...

‘You can open your eyes now.’

Hyla opened her eyes.

She was standing on a plain of grass, a meadow which sparkled with wildflowers in all the colours of gemstones. Fargon stood opposite her.

‘...this is a tree spirit’s mind?’ she asked uncertainly. Fargon tutted.

‘This is my mind,’ he said. ‘I brought you here first, before I link us up to the spirit. Just jumping straight into a mind like that can be dangerous - like staring straight down into deep ocean.’

Hyla looked around, seemingly admiring the space.

‘Kinda empty in here, isn’t it?’ she said, with a wry grin.

‘Hey!’ Fargon cried. ‘Do you want my help or not?’

‘Sorry, sorry!’ Hyla held her hands up placatingly. ‘Alright Fargon - what else do we need to do?’

‘I just need to warn you: what you’re seeing here is a merest fraction of a mind. Because I have the control to show you only what I want you to see. I’m going to be doing that for the spirit, so it doesn’t see everything in your head - we’ve known each other long enough, I’m sure you don’t have any problems with me going through your memories.’

‘So you’ll be puppeting me this whole time?’

‘No, I’ll just be editing what you show to the spirit. It’ll get a controlled version of you, rather than the whole thing. Rather than getting impressions from your subconscious, it’ll be getting pure conscious.’

Hyla strode around the meadow as she pondered this, kicking up flowers and clods of dirt.

‘It’s tricky,’ she mused. ‘On the one hand, we need to talk to this spirit; on the other, I don’t really relish you going through my subconscious while I try to negotiate with it.’

‘Last chance to back out,’ Fargon warned. ‘Is my looking in your head too big a price to stop this thing?’

Hyla planted herself and shook her head.

‘You’re right, Fargon - that’s no choice at all. Bring in the spirit; it’s time to talk.’

[vampmilf]

a lot of you need to be a lot more chill about cishet passing people and couples still being part of the queer community

[vampmilf]

its happened to a friend recently and ive seen plenty of people including streamers/youtubers etc have the same thing happen over and over again, where they put the LGBT label on their streams or a pride flag in their bio and then they get people demanding to know every detail of their identity.

if you see a guy online with his girlfriend and he has a pride flag in his bio and your first reaction is to question whether hes even allowed to put that there, log off. the guy could be bi, could be trans, could be nb, could be literally any queer identity at all and it doesnt matter. its none of your fucking business. he could also just be an ally showing support, its none. of your. business.

you are not the queer police and it is not your job to make sure everyone in the queer community has the properly documented justification for being part of it. touch grass. you need to be normal about not knowing everyones labels and identities and about people keeping those private.

cishet passing people have always existed and will always exist within the queer community, they are our family and belong with us.

[theoldstone]

Adder Stones (sometimes also called hag stones, witch stones, serpent’s eggs, snake’s eggs, Glain Neidr, Milpreve, adderstanes, Gloine nan Druid, aggry, or aggri) are stones, usually smooth or glassy, with a naturally occurring hole bored straight through it, typically from water erosion or natural damage.

That said, there are no shortage of stories claiming these stones have a more unnatural origin. One claims that they are formed from the hardened saliva of a great number of serpents, massed together, and the holes are from their tongues. Another claims the stones are actually the heads of snakes.

Adder stones feature prominently in Welsh mythology and Druidic culture. They were believed to have magical powers and thought to protect people from a gamut of problems, ranging from eye diseases, evil charms, nightmares, whooping cough, and snake bites. It was also believed that if you looked through the hole in an adder stone, you could see through the disguise of a fairy or witch.

[inky-duchess]

Fantasy Guide: Horses, Steeds and Mounts

Horses are a staple of fantasy. Instead of writing them as emotionless vehicles lets give them life.

Horse Terminology

Mare: female horse

Gelding: castrated male horse, big boned and gentle

Stallion: male horse, more agressive

Foal: baby horse

Filly: girl baby horse

Colt : boy baby horse

Yearling: a horse a year old, too young to ride

Pony: small, smart and sturdy,

Colour

When writing horses, we like to colour them in. Make sure to have a look at my colours post for some symbolic choices.

Appaloosa: white hair and dark patches

Bay: red-brown, dark, mahogany bay, red bay, sandy are all common shades but bay must always have a hint of black.

Black: black but keep in mind that pure black is very rare.

Chestnut/Sorrel: reddish coat, may have brown/rws

Dun: yellowish commonly but can be reddish yellow horse

Paint/Pinto – white patches

Palomino: golden coat, white mane

Piebald – dark-skinned, with large splotches of black and white

Roan: blue or strawberry; mixed colored and white hairs. A blue roan has black and white manes, red roans have white manes.

Physical signs

These all tell you what the horse is telling you. Listen to your horse.

Blow: exhaling through the nose. This indicates curiousness and often followed by nuzzling.

Breathing: Yes, check if the horse is breathing first. Always a good point. But yes, horses have a resting breath that is relaxed. Changes to this could mean anxiety or fear.

Ears are up and pointed forward: alert and interested

Ears are pointed out to the side: Sleepy, tired, unwell or submissive.

Ears are pointed up: unwell or bored

Ears are back and pinned flat against the head: angry and aggressive. Fuck off right now or you’ll catch these hooves.

Neigh/Whinny: a sound made to look for company in people or horses.

Nicker: usually means “hello” in either a friendly context or a mating context. Mama horse will nicker to their kids.

Scream: usually while fighting some other horses.

Snort: exhaling through the nose sharply which is code for where’s the danger.

Feeding time

Horses need to be fed and it’s expensive. Horses are the most costly thing for a castle or army to have. It takes money to field a large calvary so make sure you have some food on board.

Apples and fruit.

Barley

Bran

Grass

Hays

Oats

Root vegetables – beetroot, carrots, parsnips, and turnips

Tack

Corn

Tack

This is the term for your horses kit. This will be a basic list.

Saddle: Your seat on the horse

Stirrups: supports that hang from either side of the saddle to support the feet.

Girth: A belt that fastens the saddle to the horse.

Bridle: The bit that goes over the horse’s face

Reins: connected to the bridle and ensures you have a grip

Bit: this is what the horse has between its teeth.

Horn: a raised portion of the saddle that sits at the point where the saddle is close to the neck.

Blanket: a drape of fabric used to warm a horse or stop rubbing from the saddle.

Things you ought to know about horses

Riding bareback (i hear you laughing, pervert) is actually quite hard and dangerous

Horses have limits and most can’t gallop all night without a break

Horses often break legs and sometimes must be put down (honestly fuck you Veronica, #cobalt deserved better)

Horses die in battle, not all horses make it out (you go, Joey)

Common horses mentioned in fantasy

Destrier: The most popular war horse of the medieval era. These horses are only ever really used by knights in battles, tournaments, and jousts. It was not the most common horse but it was considered the desired of horses even being called “the great”. Usually male, these horses were renowned for their agility able to turn quickly making it suitable for battle. Destriers are expensive. When one looks in the histories you seen them going for almost ten times the price of another breed. The breed has since died out but scientists and equestrians have since been trying to reproduce them.

Courser: This was the more commonly used and available war horse. It is fast and strong horse ridden by knights and men-at-arms. They were not expensive than the destrier but still would cost a pretty penny.

Rouncey: A commonly used horse used anything and everything. Mostly used for riding, the horse could be trained for battle.

Palfrey: Would be an expensive horse for riding. It was a slender horse with an ambling gait so it was prized for traveling over distance.

Hunters: Or more commonly called Thoroughbred. The Thoroughbred is a fast horse and an agile one. Though vest for racing, the thoroughbred was mostly used when the nobility went riding in hunting excursions.

[whetstonefires]

the problem with knowing things about battle tactics is that an ever-increasing subset of popular media becomes impossible to enjoy properly because you have to sit there like 'wow Captain Protagonist good to know all those dead people on your own side are a direct result of your total lack of anything resembling brains'

[whetstonefires]

seriously i'm not talking about anything elaborate, just basic common sense, but common sense is so much harder to ignore once you've got systematized data to back it up, like

what do they even think a fortification is for???

what do you think a shield is for. what do you think ranged weapons are for????

make the other sonuvabitch have a hard time killing you without getting killed first! most basic goal of combat! why are movies so bad at writing characters who actually attempt this on even a very small 'army' scale?

[whetstonefires]

and like i said in the first post, it's not just that it's Dumb, the thing is that once you put the character in a command role, their ability to think their way through a combat situation with some degree of optimization becomes a reflection on their character on like. a moral level.

if your tactics are dumb and reckless but you usually win and it's just you punching people that's one thing. or even if it's you and five guys who've decided they like how you roll!

but if you are put in charge of soldiers. and you throw their lives away because you don't know what you're doing. that's not okay.

it's not always avoidable! one of the basic problems with armies! but when it happens in fiction it needs to be on purpose, to make sure the military elements of the narrative remain thematically congruent.

when you have a bit where Main Character is in command and then makes avoidable bad decisions and people die who didn't have to. either the protagonist has been put in a horrific position by whatever authority figure thrust them into a role they didn't want and weren't competent to handle, without support.

or the protagonist, voluntarily assuming a management job they suck at, has committed a grievous harm against others by not recognizing their own limitations.

even if they win! i don't want to be watching a movie where the main character squanders every tactical advantage and loses 40% of their forces totally unnecessarily for Narrative Tension, but the enemy retreats or gets eaten by a dragon or loses the MacGuffin or whatever, and then there's triumphant music and a party because They Won!!!

no! they fucked it up is what they did! this is some Light Brigade gaslighting shit! shut up. our boy just massacred people who trusted him.

[chimaerakitten]

This is reminding me of the extremely weird experience I had watching, of all things, The Kid Who Would Be King a couple months ago, because it was one of very few fantasy movies I’ve seen recently wherein actual tactical thinking is evidenced.

And like, granted, it wasn’t especially brilliant tactics, but it was weird as hell to be watching a bunch of middle schoolers fighting hell zombies display a better understanding of concepts like fortifications and ambushes and traps and bottlenecking an invading force than most purported “good leaders” in fantasy with far more adult target audiences

[whetstonefires]

#it is possible that the kids were good at tactics #because being a movie for kids meant NOT letting their Allies (other children) get massacred #for later dramatic payoff #so instead they’re allowed to make good choices and not die

rip that could very well be

[arachcobra]

It’s funny, despite being the grandad of the genre, I seem to remember Lord of the Rings doing battle strategies pretty well. The only big exception is when Aragorn challenged Sauron and that was deliberate to get the guy’s attention.

[whetstonefires]

Yeah, because Tolkien was 1) a soldier and 2) a medievalist and also 3) a person who gave a shit about things making internal sense, so he couldn't have abided writing really bad strategy that was meant to be read as good, and he was equipped to know the difference.

Most fantasy is not written from that baseline, and Tolkien while a huge influence is often overblown in terms of impact because he's a respectable antecedent as opposed to, say. Conan the Barbarian.

[alexunlawful-deactivated2024022]

See also: spoopy litwick comic

For some reason I’ve become infatuated with the idea of Calem unwittingly becoming a Phantump’s mom.

PS, some extras I haven’t posted here on Patreon.

[homunculus-argument]

I never get tired of the thing where fantasy books name something by just calling it a word but capitalising it. Like oh shit, that person is a Wielder. The supernatural ability to see beyond matter called the Sight. Forces of Light and Darkness. The prohibited art of Knowing. A place simply known as The Blight. Awesome and horrible forces. The Force. You know something's getting bat shit wild when Fantasy Capitalisation comes into the picture. As in capitalising the letters, not the unholy act of seizing fantasy itself in order to churn profit off of it.

That is the work of evil creatures, like The Mouse.

[flowercrownsylveon]

Broke: meeting the parents

Woke: meeting the unknowable supernatural beings that live in the woods

[road-kill-eater]

TURN BACK

[cipheramnesia]

I just think it's interesting how in 1961 Michael Moorcok created Elric of Melniboné in part for a contrast to the extensively popular Tolkienesque fantasy writing common in that day (still common today), and he was like, "Yeah so this super inbred prince comes from a hyperxenophobic kingdom of an island nation which has fallen into almost total decay, and they think everyone different from themselves are barbarians who they like to torture and enslave. He wants to fuck his cousin so much and he is literally as white as physically possible."

And from there proceeded to give Elric a powerful magic sword of destiny which he uses to win back his kingdom and it goes right back to being terrible so instead of being a king who restores honor to his nation, he literally murders every single person on the island and burns his whole kingdom down.

He fucks off to die but his murder sword won't even let him, and just kills every single person around him constantly like, friendship is magic all right and that magic is evil murder sword food. But he finally murders his way to basically a legendary city of paradise where heroes get to go and rest in their final days except he's done so much murder that a giant fuckoff army tracks him down and razes paradise to the ground.

Then once pretty much every single person and several gods are dead he's like now what murder sword there's no one left to kill and murder sword is like "actually there's one" and fucking stabs Elric to death before transforming into a demon and destroying the entire planet.

And while he didn't exactly invent whole languages I have to admit he sure did some fuckin contrast there and basically created the trope of a scary fantasy murder boy in black armor with a magical black evil sword what is evil, and proceeded to turn this gritty reboot of the Conan sword and sorcery subgenre into this entire other different Eternal Champion thing.

Some thirty or so odd years later the whole drug fueled alcohol soaked lot of those stories ended up in my hands in the guise of cheap used paperbacks with lurid covers, and that's how Elric of Melniboné took the place in my own youth usually occupied by The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings, and never got supplanted by either.

[cipheramnesia]

This is part of why I am that what I be, that I was buried up to my eyebrows in the lurid and graphic pulp of new wave writers from the sixties at the same formative age my fellow nerds were have their brains exploded by Tolkien's footnotes, and like all of western fantasy is kinda surrounded by this inescapable sphere of hobbity influence so the gist of Tolkien isn't something I can shake loose but it was also never something that got any really roots into my topsoil, so the part of me that conceptualizes interesting fantasy feelings remains this deep down dark sticky black bog and peat and thick murky gloom, a kind of personal portion of my core self that remains, preserved, untouched by the idea of rings and dwarves and quests because it's full of fucked up guys with addiction problems and depression wandering hopelessly through strange lands trying to decide if living is worth the fight. No goal or greater good or accomplishment or reward, just a hope for snatching a tiny bit of peace and love out of the world and that's like....in there, that's like my Legolas and Aragorn and whatever the other ones are all rolled into one.

[mothsprout]

Soot dragon, they live in unused chimneys

[brucebocchi]

after reading a bunch of classical literature i’ve decided to revive the concept of knighthood all by myself

[brucebocchi]

who the fuck is donkey hotay

[samijen]

good soup

[thetimberhearts]

I still think about the Timberhearts sometimes, and whether or not I'm the right person to write it.

It was inspired by Wildermyth - a video game that pretty well sells pastoral fantasy against a backdrop of ever-developing monster threats - and also by a lot of Terry Pratchett. The witches books, Tiffany Aching, any of his books set around the hedge-magic of farming life.

Reading his biography, I'm struck by how different a life we've led. I always heard about his taking the "full-time" part of being a full-time author very seriously, but I never heard the stories of him keeping bees and taking his goats up the field and generally being surrounded by animals, vegetables, and general countryside.

I love the countryside. I wish I could live there. But I don't drive (I'm not sure I'll ever be able to) and I need to be around people, and I don't have the energy to give to growing so many living things.

Perhaps, then, this is a question of research. Maybe I ought to look into some aspects of rural medieval culture to figure out where I want to go with this. I don't - I can't - have the lived experience. But I can begin to understand what others have lived and use that to guide me.

This is another project that's gone on the backburner for now. But I'll be returning to it in time.

[mini-moss]

Migration

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[where-is-tom-scott-today]

I am here in a place of no honor