awfullyqueerwriter

[awfullyqueerwriter]

nastya <3

[awfullyqueerwriter]

Look, I'm aware my experience is mostly strange and also, I'm not transitioning (now, at least), but like... I've done two sport-like activities seriously. Medieval combat, and fencing. Fencing a sport that relied very little on anything related to the kind of benefits you get through having more testosterone in your system- and it's an actual sport, which is good. But like... most sports (I did not check this, it is vibes based) are based more on skill and practice than just brute force.

And then you have medieval combat. Which like... yeah, that is a sport (no, it's not, but it is close enough) that is almost entirely height and weight based. I am saying this as a small, light person- literally every instructor I have had has said something along the lines of 'you are 100% going to lose against almost everyone, because you kind of just too small for this sport'. And I cannot stress this enough- we are wearing very, very little protective gear. Like, when I hit someone with a sword, I am almost certainly just wacking their bare arm/thigh (well, they're wearing jeans. No armor, is the point). And like... even then, the actual risk is that someone is being reckless, and hits you on the face. Because even when you are literally hitting someone with a sword and trying to do damage... sports just aren't that dangerous, unless you're being risky, in which case, that's not strength based.

So yeah, my 2 cents!

this could be totally out of your purview or something you’re totally uninterested in but it’s about gender identity and such so i thought i might as well ask. i was ranting about how our dad talks about trans women and how they are being used as a republican scapegoat right now with my sister, who plays college rugby, and she was essentially like “i agree that the bathroom thing is bs and i don’t think they’re dangerous or faking it but i don’t think they should be allowed in women’s sports, especially contact sports, bc all of my worst injuries have come from playing with people who are transitioning and they just do hit harder” and i basically didn’t know how to respond? i know about like the variety in human hormones and everything else but i don’t know how to navigate that conversation around my sister’s lived experience, especially when i don’t think she’s being intentionally/explicitly bigoted. i guess im just wondering if you have any advice for how to navigate that conversation in the future if it comes up again

idk tell your sister to go play no contact ruby if she's going to be a wiener about it

[awfullyqueerwriter]

Someone please tell me, in the year of our lord 2024, why the fuck was someone blazing onceler fanart to my dash

[awfullyqueerwriter]

The first time Jason addresses Medea by name in Euripides' Medea is at line 868. The entire time, up until this point, he's been calling her gyne, which means ambiguously either woman or wife.

And, like. Woman is the generally accepted translation. That that makes sense. But imagine. He's been calling her wife this whole time, up until she refuses his help.

Does he call her Medea for his own sake or hers? Does he do it to make her a stranger to himself, to put distance between them so that he can let go? Or does he do it to insult her? To pretend there was never any closeness there??

Actually, on further inspection, this is also the first time she calls him Jason, rather than “my husband” (Eur., Medea, 869). We, the audience, know that this is because she's putting on good graces to appease Jason and manipulate him into accepting their children (so they can deliver the poison to Creusa), but, like. Jason doesn't know that. For the rest of the play, the only thing she's called him his “my bitterest enemy,” “evil man,” and a bad man.

For the first time in days, she calls him Jason. I just. One has to imagine it was tender, right? It has to have been, she's laying it on thick because her murder plot relies on it. But she calls him Jason, with all its connotations and history. She begs for forgiveness. She begs for the safety of their children. And so he bows to her, let's them stay. He is not immune.

There has to be love there. There has to be.

[awfullyqueerwriter]

Preindustrial travel, and long explanations on why different distances are like that

I saw a post on my main blog about how hiking groups need to keep pace with their slowest member, but many hikers mistakenly think that the point of hiking is "get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible" instead of "spending time outdoors in nature with friends," and then they complain that a new/less-experienced/sick/disabled hiker is spoiling their time-frame by constantly needing breaks, or huffing and puffing to catch up.

I run into a related question of "how long does it take to travel from Point A to Point B on horseback?" a lot, as a fantasy writer who wants to be SEMI-realistic; in the Western world at least, our post-industrial minds have largely forgotten what it's like to travel, both on our own feet and in groups.

People ask the new writer, "well, who in your cast is traveling? Is getting to Point B an emergency or not? What time of year is it?", and the newbies often get confused as to why they need so much information for "travel times." Maybe new writers see lists of "preindustrial travel times" like a primitive version of Google Maps, where all you need to do is plug in Point A and Point B.

But see, Google Maps DOES account for traveling delays, like different routes, constructions, accidents, and weather; you as the person will also need to figure in whether you're driving a car versus taking a bus/train, and so you'll need to figure out parking time or waiting time for the bus/train to actually GET THERE.

The difference between us and preindustrial travelers is that 1) we can outsource the calculations now, 2) we often travel for FUN instead of necessity.

The general rule of thumb for preindustrial times is that a healthy and prime-aged adult on foot, or a rider/horse pair of fit and prime-aged adults, can usually make 20-30 miles per day, in fair weather and on good terrain.

Why is this so specific? Because not everyone in preindustrial times was fit, not everyone was healthy, not everyone was between the ages of 20-35ish, and not everyone had nice clear skies and good terrain to travel on.

If you are too far below 18 years old or too far past 40, at best you will need either a slower pace or more frequent breaks to cover the same distance, and at worst you'll cut the travel distance in half to 10 or so miles. Too much walking is VERY BAD on too-young/old knees, and teenagers or very short adults may just have short legs even if they're fine with 8-10 hours of actual walking. Young children may get sick of walking and pitch a fit because THEY'RE TIREDDDDDDDDDD, and then you might need to stay put while they cry it out, or an adult may sigh and haul them over their shoulder (and therefore be weighed down by about 50lbs of Angry Child).

Heavy forests, wetlands and rocky hills/mountains are also going to be a much shorter "distance." For forests or wetlands, you have to account for a lot of villagers going "who's gonna cut down acres of trees for one road? NOT ME," or "who's gonna drain acres of swamp for one road? NOT ME." Mountainous regions have their traveling time eaten by going UP, or finding a safer path that goes AROUND.

If you are traveling in winter or during a rainstorm (and this inherently means you HAVE NO CHOICE, because nobody in preindustrial times would travel in bad weather if they could help it), you run the high risk of losing your way and then dying of exposure or slipping and breaking your neck, just a few miles out of the town/village.

And now for the upper range of "traveling on horseback!"

Fully mounted groups can usually make 30-40 miles per day between Point A and Point B, but I find there are two unspoken requirements: "Point B must have enough food for all those people and horses," and "the mounted party DOESN'T need to keep pace with foot soldiers, camp followers, or supply wagons."

This means your mounted party would be traveling to 1) a rendezvous point like an ally's camp or a noble's castle, or 2) a town/city with plenty of inns. Maybe they're not literally going 30-40 miles in one trip, but they're scouting the area for 15-20 miles and then returning to their main group. Perhaps they'd be going to an allied village, but even a relatively small group of 10-20 warhorses will need 10-20 pounds of grain EACH and 20-30 pounds of hay EACH. 100-400 pounds of grain and 200-600 pounds of hay for the horses alone means that you need to stash supplies at the village beforehand, or the village needs to be a very large/prosperous one to have a guaranteed large surplus of food.

A dead sprint of 50-60 miles per day is possible for a preindustrial mounted pair, IF YOU REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO. Moreover, that is for ONE day. Many articles agree that 40 miles per day is already a hard ride, so 50-60 miles is REALLY pushing the envelope on horse and rider limits.

NOTE: While modern-day endurance rides routinely go for 50-100 miles in one day, remember that a preindustrial rider will not have the medical/logistical support that a modern endurance rider and their horse does.

If you say "they went fifty miles in a day" in most preindustrial times, the horse and rider's bodies will get wrecked. Either the person, their horse, or both, risk dying of exhaustion or getting disabled from the strain.

Whether you and your horse are fit enough to handle it and "only" have several days of defenselessness from severe pain/fatigue (and thus rely on family/friends to help you out), or you die as a heroic sacrifice, or you aren't QUITE fit enough and become disabled, or you get flat-out saved by magic or another rider who volunteers to go the other half, going past 40 miles in a day is a "Gondor Calls For Aid" level of emergency.

As a writer, I feel this kind of feat should be placed VERY carefully in a story: Either at the beginning to kick the plot off, at the climax to turn the tide, or at the end.

Preindustrial people were people--some treated their horses as tools/vehicles, and didn't care if they were killed or disabled by pushing them to their limits, but others very much cared for their horses. They needed to keep them in working condition for about 15-20 years, and they would not dream of doing this without a VERY good reason.

[awfullyqueerwriter]

idk, I feel like almost every single discussion, theory, words of support, or even mention of transness is just for monogender people. people claim to support those who don't meet rigid binary standards but the only trans people that seem to actually matter are the binary trans man and the binary trans woman. with the genderless nonbinary person mentioned sometimes when it's relevant. the binary is what people base their worldview on, their discussions of systemic oppression. there's no room for us multigender people anywhere because we either contradict their ideas or we're just not included because it's inconvenient to fit us anywhere in their theory. men and women are not opposites. there is not just man, woman, and neither (people who you categorize as basically man or woman depending on their association with gendered oppression). some of us are both and you need to consider us when discussing these sorts of things

[awfullyqueerwriter]

I forgot to share this on the right day but still important anniversary.

[awfullyqueerwriter]

Nahhhh you me to tell me they knew each other knew each other

DID SILCO FIND THEIR MOM IN THE S1 OPENING SCENE???

[awfullyqueerwriter]

Unfortunately all my playlists are super boring :(. 90% are just '[artist] favorites'.

Tagging: @ulysses-but-somehow-more-transer @sobbing-space-trash @rusalkaandtheshepherdgirl @watermelonolemretaw @yourlocalluciferian @rainbowstargazerlilies @transgender-rex

let's start a game! see which name of your music playlists people like the best...

tags... @poetsinnyc @xxcherryberriezxx @yourfavvgal @neil-perrys-suicidal-tendencies @anhonest-puck @pingunaa @lesbicosmos @snek-of-eden @beetheyapper @froginthestars @noctilucaa @please-hear-me-out @star-laboratory @nicoandthepoets /nf +anyone who wants to join!!

[awfullyqueerwriter]

You show up for your first day at Copyright-Free Magic School. As you're going through orientation, you're informed that all new students get a school-assigned familiar that they are responsible for housing and maintaining. The staff member assures you that your assigned familiar is appropriately chosen and reflects you in some way.

Spin this to find out yours. (Remember, you are responsible for maintaining this familiar in your dorm room.)

[awfullyqueerwriter]

Happy birthday to AO3 🎂🎉

[awfullyqueerwriter]

I figured since cartin got me kinda popular all of a sudden and I got a lot of new followers I might post some old art that I like

ALWAYS CREDIT ME IF YOU WANNA REPOST! or just don't repost, that'd be perfect actually

[awfullyqueerwriter]

happy arcane s2 eve to all who celebrate!! wahoo

[awfullyqueerwriter]

Ooooh! New idea for why lyfrassir was so dramatic in the report: the black box, which was a part of the train, which was powered by kvasir's blood, the source of the mead of poetry, could have affected lyf speech patterns/how they acted, especially with bifrost-contamination stuff.

[awfullyqueerwriter]

Ambessa: Becomes a more significant force of nature in Piltover as she plans to take down the undercity with the Noxian Army, hopes to get her hands on hextech, and takes advantage of Caitlyn's vulnerability as she employs her to be the new Commander-in-chief

Caitlyn: Guided by her rage and grief of her mother's death caused by the person who is connected by blood to her loved one Vi, leaving her in a state of complete confusion; Becomes desensitized by morality as she is willing to do anything in hopes of hunting down Jinx, such as poisoning the streets of the undercity with the Gray and murder an innocent child.

Vi: Failed at her attempt to make things right (which would never happen) and was left entirely alone by all of her loved ones, including her sister Jinx, who technically turned into a war criminal, causing disastrous events and her romantic partner Caitlyn who spirals into a turmoil

Viktor: Becomes a hypothetical Jesus Christ as he heals shimmer-wrecked Zaunites after he was completely submerged in the hexcube, something that he was promised that his close partner Jayce would destroy whom he had to leave behind.

Heimerdinger:

[awfullyqueerwriter]

sevika becoming a mom to 2 kids that ain’t even hers is so 40 year old stud coded LMFAOOOO she is the father that stepped up