#like at best i'll get half points on it

[kuiinncedes]

bro why am i doing data science

[13eyond13]

love it when a character that's hard to read intuitively for you has like a dedicated fandom interpreter who can just glance at their blank face in a panel and then give you a 3k word essay on their innermost thoughts & desires & fears and neatly tie it back into the themes & whatnot as if it's the most obvious thing in the world

[orcelito]

Gotta love that we have nearly all the named konoha kunoichi (minus Tsunade, Kurenai, and a few other even more minor kunoichi)

AND YET. the guys still outnumber them.

Still. 5/12 is still way more than we usually get (since it's normally teams of like 1/4 to 1/8 or so)

Wow the female characters ratio in naruto is absolutely atrocious.

[priafey]

things the US needs to address:

the collective psychosis that leads people to make posts like these

[cuteniarose]

The consequences of my poor financial decisions are here!!

[longagoitwastuesday]

I'm three interactions away from spreading my Ijichi/Gojo agenda

[loumauve]

I snapped today at work, and by snapped I mean I politely commented on a help desk ticket by summing up an mess of an (type of) issue that's come up for at least the fourth time in the 2+ months I've been managing user accounts, and asked the person responsible to fix it (himself for once) because last time I fixed his mess-up it took me two whole days to work out the details with at least four other colleagues from different departments and I really don't want to do it again. there's other shit that needs doing, I've been working 10+ hour days for most of this week already, so I need to cut down not add on more.

(good thing tho - at least we managed to fix the issue where the dataset of a newer employee got mixed up with another one of the same name and therefore wasn't able to apply for any of the access/accounts she needed. technically not entirely my area but it does impact us not being allowed to create an account for her so I figured I might as well track that issue down. took three days and at least three other people, but hey - it should all work out now. yay for that)

[vettely]

i really thought he was the one bc he let me talk about goncharov on our first date and he listened!!!

[deadrlngers]

everyone pick which romance i should do first i can't choose by myself this is too hard i need others to decide for me i swear i will follow your judgment

[tired-o-fighter]

So you may wonder

Hey tired

You made so many promises for propagandas

Why didn't you post a single one?

Wellp

I am not exactly in an alrighty ish mental state lmao (nothing bad or tragic or anything just used all my brain energy and I'm running low and can't actually function like a human being lol)

But more importantly

I made the decision to go get my nails done. And because i basically had no actual nails to work with i got poly gel nails annnnnd it's too long. I ACTUALLY CAN'T FUCKING DRAW.

Holding a pencil like i used to is actually not possible but I'm relearning so it'll be alright

But digital? Haha no way. I use my phone and finger for all the digital art you've seen. Guess what when you get long ass nails you can't use your fingertip to touch the screen.

Still haven't had my mental breakdown over this. But for now (the next 20 days) i gotta draw traditionally 90% of the time. Which is what I'm working on. As again, Holding a pencil the way I've been holding for the past like idk 14 years is actually not possible and a tad bit painful when i try to do it by force

I'm actually genuinely sorry for not posting the stuff i promised. Regardless of the results of the polls , I'll post all of them as soon as i can.

Right at this specific moment i have no creativity like none and I'm just trying to figure a way out to prepare for the last day of polls

If you still want something. Whether it's art ask or au questions or anything you'd like to tell me or ask me, my ask box is always open. I'll do my best to answer them. Especially the none art ones

Thanks for reading my rant.

I'll bounce back just gimme a lil bit of time and don't let me isolate myself please

[atlantablack]

You know, i've been reading a lot of steve/tony fic the past month and i love them both a lot but i've been seething mad all day just thinking about how so much of this fandom treats him and purposely mistreats his character and Steve Rogers is this skinny kid from Brooklyn who signed up for a war over and over again despite knowing it would kill him because he didn't like knowing that other men were out there dying and when Erskine asked if he wanted to kill Nazis he said no and he spent years fighting in alleyways and causing trouble and getting beat up and probably would have ended up dead if Bucky hadn't been there to pull him out of shit because he doesn't like bullies and he refuses to back down and "Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man." and grenade get back get back and azzano and i have to put her in the water and "Yeah, we compromised. Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so the people could be free. This isn't freedom, this is fear." and "the price of freedom is high. It always has been. And it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not." and "we're not at war, captain" "they are" and he gets up and he gets up and he gets up over and over and over and he's seventy years out of time and everything keeps changing and every time he gets comfortable something destroys that comfort and he's always losing people, losing friends, losing soldiers, and there's never a clean break with Peggy because he misses their dance and then has to lose her in a separate more permanent way as well, and he loses bucky and finds him and loses him over and over and wants to trust people and keeps getting betrayed and he's trying to be a good man but it gets so complicated but he's still trying even when it would be so much easier to just not try at all and he hurts people because he's human and unfortunately being a superhuman with superhero friends means the capacity for hurt is wider and deeper than anything you or i could dream of but he keeps going and keeps fighting and loses the biggest fight of his life and lives with that every day for years when there are reminders of the biggest failure ever around every corner and then he just keeps going. He's twenty seven when he's unfrozen in 2014, younger than i am now, and the reasonable thing for him to do would have been to get out. leave the fighting and the aliens and the bullshit to someone else. But he's a good man and to him, sometimes, that means being a good soldier and sometimes good men hurt people but that doesn't mean they aren't still good men, it only means they're human and i think people could stand to sit the fuck down and think about what it would feel like to wake up in a year where every single person you knew is dead or close enough to it that they might as well be. there's no option to go make up with a family member he doesn't like, there's no old friends to become new again, everyone he knew is dead and he is still reeling from the fresh grief of losing bucky and somehow, instead of having a perfectly understandable breakdown, he picks himself up and keeps going.

and while i'm here, Tony Stark wouldn't thank anyone bashing on Steve in his defense. You destroy his character in your defense of him and he wouldn't even thank you for it.

[aberooski]

If I have another breakdown at work tomorrow like I did the last time I worked a Saturday I'm going to kill myself because last time I screamed in the hallway and cried so hard I was shaking because of how stressed I was.

[belovedspector]

.

[cherrygirlfriend]

bsf!rafe waking up with morning wood

warnings: smut (mdni) maybe somnophilia if you squint i guess? morning wood, me trying something new bc i came up with this random blurb i might try out writing other blurbs like this??? so if you have any ideas or pairings you want me to write for pls lmk because as much as i love writing +2k word fics it's fun to rewind by writing shorter stuff too

wherever rafe went, you followed; and even though it annoyed some of his friends, they didn't dare to say anything about it to rafe, because the one time they did, he got so angry they thought they were getting their asses kicked.

everywhere, also happened to include his bed. it had started after you had accidentally passed out on his bed from how much you drank, and he didn't care if you were there or not, he was sleeping in his own bed. now, it had gotten to the point where you couldn't sleep without him, and vice versa.

but you weren't a couple, of course not. rafe wasn't one for relationships, and you were just his friend since childhood, and even if he fucked you into the mattress a couple of times per week, or the fact that he never allowed any other girl to be in his bed, or that he thought of you whenever he hooked up with someone, it was just friendship.

"come on, wake up pretty girl..." he mumbled into your shoulder as you started stirring awake, rafe holding up one of your thighs up slightly as his hand rubbed his hard cock against your panty-clad pussy.

"come on, rafe..." you mumbled sleepily, and the blonde pressed a small, warm kiss on your shoulder over the fabric of his t-shirt. "why'd you wake me up? can't you see that 'm tired..."

"princess.. i need you..."

"rafe, we already went three rounds yesterday..."

"please, baby..." rafe mumbled, pressing soft kisses to your neck, the action causing shivers to go down your spine, and you could feel your panties starting to get wet, sticking to your puffy folds. "i'll do anything... just need you so much right now..."

you looked at him with half-lidded eyes as he pressed lazy kisses on your neck, "anything?"

"anything for you, princess. including murder."

"will you buy me those vivienne westwood earrings i want?"

"hell, i'll get a matching necklace."

and that's how you ended up with your best friend on top of you, pounding into your already sore pussy from the night before, your face pressed against the sheet as you let out moans that got muffled by the pillow, a handful of your hair around his fist as you closed your eyes in pleasure, your fists gripping the sheets to try and anchor yourself as he spoke in a low tone with every thrust "such a good girl for me... you're mine... this pussy's all mine... no one's gonna fuck this pretty pussy like i do..."

yeah. just friendship.

[jadevine]

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

Update March 1, 2024: Hey there folks, here's yet another update! I reposted Part 2a (the "medieval warhorses" tangent) to my writing blog, and I went down MORE of the horse-knowledge rabbit hole! https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/741423906984951808/my-post-got-cut-off-so-i-added-the-rest-of-it Update Jan 30, 2024: Hey folks, I've posted the updated version of this post on my blog, so I don't have to keep frantically telling everyone "hey, that's the old version of this post!" https://thebalangay.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/preindustrial-travel-times-part-1/

I should get the posts about army travel times and camp followers reformatted and posted to my blog around the end of the week, so I'll filter through my extremely tangled thread for them.

Part 2 - Preindustrial ARMY travel times: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask

Part 2a - How realistic warhorses look and act, because the myth of "all knights were mounted on huge clunky draft horses" just refuses to die: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/732043691180605440/helpful-things-for-action-writers-to-remember

Part 3 - Additional note about camp followers being regular workers AND sex-workers: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/740604203134828544/reblogging-the-time-looped-version-of-my

--

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" per day. 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, so by the time you're done slogging through drier patches of wetlands or squeezing through trees, a deceptively short 10-15 miles in rough terrain might take you a whole day to walk instead of the usual half-day.

If you are traveling in freezing winters 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.

Traveling in TOO-HOT weather is just as bad, because pushing yourself too hard and getting dehydrated at noon in the tropics will literally kill you. It's called heat-STROKE, not "heat-PARTY."

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.

—

UPDATE January 13: Several people have gotten curious and looked at maps, to find out how a lot of cities are indeed spread out at a nice distance of 20-30 miles apart! I love getting people interested in my hyperfixations, lol.

But remember that this is the space between CITIES AND TOWNS. There should never be a 20-mile stretch of empty wilderness between City A and Town B, unless your world explains why folks are able to build a city in the middle of nowhere, or if something has specifically gone wrong to wipe out its supporting villages!

Period pieces often portray a shining city rising from a sea of picturesque empty land, without a single grain field or cow pasture in sight, but that city would starve to death very quickly in preindustrial times.

Why? Because as Bret Devereaux mentions in his “Lonely Cities” article (https://acoup.blog/2019/07/12/collections-the-lonely-city-part-i-the-ideal-city/), preindustrial cities and towns must have nearby villages (and even smaller towns, if large and prosperous enough!) to grow their food for them.

The settlements around a city will usually be scattered a few miles apart from each other, usually clustered along the roads to the city gates. Those villages and towns at the halfway point between cities (say 10-15 miles) are going to be essential stops for older/sick folks, merchants with cargo, and large groups like noble’s retinues and army forces.

Preindustrial armies and large noble retinues usually can’t make it far past 10-12 miles per day, as denoted in my addition to this post. (https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask )

[redsray]

i do love the idea of the wayne kids giving bernard shovel talks about taking care of tim and all that but also give me batfam who are just as protective of bernard as they are of each other.

give me bernard, attending his first wayne gala as tim's significant other. having a suit custom tailored and funded by bruce even if bernard insists it's not necessary because he already has one. arriving at the gala anxious because of course he is, it's a goddamn socialite event, but being protected from every side by the wayne kids even when tim is dragged away.

Socialite: Oh, and who might you be?

Bernard: Oh, um, hi. I'm Bernard Dowd, nice to meet you.

Socialite: Dowd? I've never heard of your family before. Who...?

Bernard: I'm not here with my family, miss, I'm here with my boyfriend.

Socialite: ... Boyfriend?

Bernard: Yeah, I'm here with Tim.

Socialite, frowning: Tim... as in Drake-Wayne? He has a boyfriend?

Dick, coming up next to Bernard: He sure does! Bernard here is practically one of ours now, aren't you? He matters to Timmy, so he matters to us.

Bernard: Dick—

Dick: C'mon, let's get you back to Timmy. Farewell, Mrs!

Bernard: I could've handled that.

Dick: All the rules that apply to my siblings during galas apply to you too. I'm sure you could've, but you shouldn't have to. I've got your back too, now, yeah?

Bernard: ... Yeah. Thanks, Dick.

Jason, coming up to Bernard at the bar: Not to freak you out, kid, but there's a guy starin' at ya from the other side of the bar. Y'know him or should I encourage him to look away?

Bernard, startled: Huh? (looks around) Oh. No, I don't know him. Why... is he looking at me like that, actually?

Jason, scowling: 'S just how the slimy fuckers at these events are. Can't keep their eyes off anything that's small, young or pretty. Disgusting. I'll deal with him— where's your annoying other half gone, inferior blondie?

Bernard: Tim? He got pulled away for quote; 'something important' by some lady. He said he'll meet me here after he's done, so I've been waiting.

Jason: Huh. If I see him I'll point him yer way. Hey, don't be 'fraid to ask any of us questions or for help if ya need it. We know the best how daunting this shit can be.

Bernard, genuinely touched: ... Thanks, Jason.

Jason: Yeah, yeah. Don't tell Timmers I said that, though, he'll call me a loser.

Bernard, laughing: I won't.

Bernard, being talked to by several people at once and a bit overwhelmed by the attention: Uh— I'm—

Damian, stepping between him and the socialites: Dowd. I require your assistance.

Bernard: Um— hi, Damian— with what?

Damian: You will see when we get there. Follow me, Drake's more tolerable half.

Bernard: Okay... so what do you need from me?

Damian: Nothing. You seemed to dislike the attention from all of the nosy adults over there. It was the most efficient way of extracting you from the situation.

Bernard: Oh. Thanks, Damian.

Damian: Tt, don't thank me yet, Dowd. I am still criticising your choice in romantic partners.

Bernard: Didn't you threaten me with a katana to not dampen Tim's mood in any way shape or form?

Damian: Slander. I said quote 'if you make Drake more annoying by breaking his heart I'm going to maim you.' I don't see how you got the message you did from that.

Bernard, grinning: Sure, Damian. Sure.