#this was the exact enrichment i needed in my enclosure | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tauforged · 1 year ago

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the worst parts of being primarily a digital artist for a very long time and trying to ease back into the physical mediums you started off with to get some enrichment in your enclosure, as documented by me:

- colors. oh god how did i forget all the basics of color mixing so fast. this shade of blue looked perfect when it was wet but now it’s dry and it’s off and it’s driving me NUTS. why are paints and markers so expensive!! why the fuck did this brand DISCONTINUE a COLOR. ITS A COLOR!!!! oh i love how these paints handle but they only make like, two shades of purple and neither of them are anywhere near close to what i need. i have to spend a solid 20 minutes mixing the exact shade—oh god, i added too much red, fucking christ should i just start over? can i salvage this? i don’t even know anymore.

- drying times. i forgot that the paint was still wet and when i went to work on a different area of the piece i smudged it with my hand and didn’t notice, now i’m leaving little pink spots everywhere i put my hand down. i wanna go back and blend that bit a little better but it’s already dry so it’s gonna be a whole ass process. literally sitting there impatiently staring watching paint dry so i can add the details i just had an idea for without smudging the underpainting. i’ve let this piece sit for long enough now i think, it should be ready to move- nope, god dammit, now there’s a fingerprint on the corner and it’s going to drive me insane.

- the materials are finite?!?? oh god am i wasting paint? i’m done but i’ve got so much extra left on the palette paper, i feel like i should eat this or something. can i save this? quick i need to start another piece so i can use the leftovers. oh i squeezed a little too hard and WAYYY too much came out and now i’m frantically trying to cover the resulting glob with some plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry before i use it all. ugh i love this shade so much, its my favorite to work with- i don’t want to use it all cuz i’m not sure if i can find it for sale again, i’d better save it for a piece that’s really important— what do you MEAN paint expires?!?!??!!??!

- why the fuck everything cost money

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darkwood-sleddog · 2 years ago

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I feel like outdoor dogs are perfectly fine if you know what you're doing (and I've met plenty people who do), but most people don't. That being said, this is also a major problem with "indoor" dogs, ESPECIALLY breeds that are meant to be "easy", since people think they don't need to be socialized or whatever. Honestly, as long as you have the time and resources to properly care for a dog, it doesn't matter how it's kept. THAT BEING SAID, outdoor cats are still neglect, plain and simple.

"Most people don't"? So you know the exact statistics of what outdoor dogs fall under neglect and what outdoor dogs fall under cared for? Or do you just feel personally very sensitive about dogs being kept outdoors? I'd be interested to know your sources because I often see the opposite of what you're claiming due to the different circles I run in than the average indoor dog owning populace.

The point being that one CANNOT make a blanket statement that outdoor dogs = neglect or that "most" are neglected because this is not necessarily true. Saying that outdoor dogs are neglected or even that "most" are follows ARA talking points often used to push Anti-Outdoor dog legislation here in the US and in other areas so it would behoove us to not make such blanket assumptions. When people assume all or "most" are abused this can translate as "all outdoor dogs are therefore bad" for many people and they will then be supportive of anti-outdoor dog legislation instead of supporting measures that would actually help people in their community care for their animals be it one living outside OR inside (this can include such things as low cost vaccination and spay/neuter clinics, resources for proper tie out and enclosure, financial aid and properly funding municipal shelters). While you touch on it in your ask I think a lot of people are glossing over and not reading the part of my post where i say "Given proper care, food, water, shelter, and enrichment."

While I agree that unsupervised outdoor cats are neglectful, there is nothing wrong with a cat spending time outside on leash or in a catio or another cat proof enclosure. Again, these are NUANCED conversations that cannot be covered by blanket statements.

Keep in mind you are asking a pro-outdoor dog, pro tie-out, pro working dog, pro sled dog, pro hunting dog etc. blog here.

#dogblr #faq #ask #outdoor dogs

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ghostbrawl · 9 months ago

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sent the 🐯 - nono the thing is i do know you!! youre not a stranger im just... sometimes i get spooked off, from interacting so much. because sometimes i think people just hate me and only keep me around as to not make me upset :( and thats got nothin to do with you, you didnt do anything wrong. its me with my stupid thoughts and shit. i think youre really cool and i love your art and style and you seem so confident and dont give a shit about a lot of things. im intimidated by that

tried to answer this one privately and realized i couldn't because its an anon ask haha .. welp! i still want you to hear my input on this one so it's just going to be no reblog.

i'm going to put my response under the cut though for the sake of people's dashboards and because it's somewhat mushy. continue if you dare, followers - i'll be talking in depth about, like, emotions an shit.

so i sat on this ask for a while and really rolled it around my enclosure a little bit. full disclosure i need to just say for a long time i also felt this way - by that i mean feeling as though [people just hate me and only keep me around as to not make me upset] - for various reasons.

one reason was that i had experienced real world examples of this sort of coddling many times - people online and in real life would often entertain me to my face and talk about me behind my back, mostly until i got too annoying to bear and was openly lashed out at or shunned. most of these incidents occurred when i was 16 or younger, to be fair, but they did make a mark on me.

another reason was just anxiety - if i didn't know exactly what the people around me thought, it would be safe to say those thoughts were bad. it would've verified what i thought about myself- and assuming those people already hated me allowed me to empathize with the versions of my loved ones that i created in my head. i often mourned the fact that they had to deal with me before i even knew whether they were annoyed or not.

these were the two main reasons why i often felt like people hated me, but i'm sure there were more.

i don't have an EXACT read on who you are anon, though i feel like i have an idea (you don't have to tell me, but if you'd like, reach out and send me a dm) - but personally, if we know each other, and i've not yelled at you or blocked you or told you not to talk to me, there's an incredibly decent chance (99%) that i neither hate you nor think you're annoying.

if you're my next door neighbor from two years ago, i take that back. but if you aren't, keep reading!

other than in my deepest darkest worst moments, i've pretty much trained myself out of the kneejerk assumption that my friends and loved ones hate me. i'll try not to sound preachy when i talk about why, but trust me when i say i have a point here in talking about it.

anyway - here's how i stopped doing that.

#1 - i started to model my own understandings of people's attitudes toward others based on my own attitudes.

ok i know that sounds weird or isn't very easy to understand so let me just give an example.

a technique i used a lot was just thinking through how, when, and why i liked or loved my friends. i loved my friends because they have similar interests to me, because of the history we had together, because it was easy to communicate with them, because i loved their minds and ideas, because they enriched my life (even when i didn't talk to them as much), because i was excited to hear from them + learn about their life, because i cared about them and didn't want to see them sick or hurt, because they were fun to hang out with, etc. etc etc.

then, i'd think about how i felt when one of my friends messed up, was irritating, annoying, or made me angry in some way. depending on how egregious the ill was, i reacted anywhere from pretty much none at all (for most irritations or annoyances) - to 'angry in the moment, it fades later' (for high stress situations in which i had no excuses for that friend) - to 'we seriously need to work this out' (for ongoing situations in which i was building up the strength to address).

most of the time, the irritations i encountered fell into the first category. many times i couldn't even be annoyed - i loved those friends so much that it didn't even matter, either in the very second the irritation happened or in the grand scheme of things.

in the few moments that i encountered more grave irritations such as those in the last category, what usually would happen is either that me and the other person sorted out our grievances and both agreed to change our behavior, or we parted ways.... and many of the friends i parted ways with i found wanting their company again and reconnected with them.

in evaluating myself in the context of my friends, though i can never know how, when, or why my friends love me, i know for relative certainty that when i am irritating or annoying to them, it is incidental and fades just as quickly for them as it fades for me. my friends will never be as concerned with my small flaws and ills as i am - it simply doesn't affect them nearly as much as it affects me.

^ this idea is doubly true for acquaintances and people you don't know as well as to say "friends" -- at the acquaintance level people can choose whether to get closer or to drift, factoring in time, interest, hyperfixation, location, their jobs, etc.

but this first technique only worked when i had the self-esteem to internalize the fact that other people's inner worlds were both just as complex as mine (holding complex feelings about oneself and each other) and just as simple as mine (annoyed or not? and for how long? etc)!

so another thing that really helped me was

#2 - faking confidence until i could build it properly.

i know everyone says this shit and it seems so ineffectual when it feels much more grounded and real to be cynical, to be anxious and upset with oneself.

and in many senses, it IS ineffectual - immediately. faking confidence is something that only works over years of doing it, and in faking your confidence you must also identify very real parts of yourself to be Actual Confident(tm) about and work toward feeling that way for real.

faking confidence is the sandbox where i, personally, found actual things to be proud of myself for within. when i faked confidence in my voice, way of thinking, my art, and my personality, i eventually found actual things to like in each of those aspects of myself based on how people reacted to that "front" of confidence i put up about those aspects of myself.

for a while i faced an awkward phase where my faked confidence was so intense that it manifested as arrogance and aggression toward others -- avoid this if you can . facepalm emoji.

but in presenting myself as somebody who was equal (or even greater) than other people in social situations i was in, other people pointed out things to be praised about me.

at first i'd be skeptical, but i'd keep it in the back of my mind. but over time, i'd see over and over the success of those parts of myself in social situations, artistic circles, athletic contexts, etc, and start to think "maybe i am good at [x]" or "maybe [personality trait] about me is helpful and cool", and on and on and on.

confidence and self-like is a process that builds on itself and gets easier over time. the second i began to question whether traits i had were really harmful or bad, the more i started to see reinforcing evidence of the contrary; of them being productive, healthy, interesting, worth having rather than destroying.

and the further you progress in this avenue, the easier it is to #not give a shit about things - or to respond less to attacks on the psyche or personality.

and when i reinforced + gained a respect for the parts of myself i once hated, it became easier to believe that others could admire me as much i admired them - that others could brush off my shortcomings as easily as i brushed off theirs.

recently, i hate to admit, i've had to start this process of loving myself all over again as i've started to experience a major personality shift brought on by gaining different + new responsibilities in my life. i respond differently to new circumstances so many times that i'm becoming somebody different - somebody i'm not yet prepared to love. somebody that i'm much more inclined to loathe, because i've seen the effects of my new personality traits on myself and others; not in observing my own actions, but in observing the actions of people in my life with the same personality traits such as my family.

so for now my confidence in a lot of situations is much shakier than it used to be - but the foundations i created back when are still there. when i don't believe in myself or punch down on myself i can keep it relatively contained internally and not project it onto others - or if i can't avoid projecting it, i at least understand on some level that i'm being unreasonable... and i can still keep that outward confident look pretty seamlessly while working out new insecurities from within.

trust me - i give a lot of shits, and so does every other confident person you know. we just keep it to ourselves - not to say that keeping it to oneself is inherently better, but it just helps to keep oneself from spiraling into deeper and deeper self hatred. keeping that hate on the down-low keeps it from gaining significant power.

in terms of being intimidated by other confident people....

i have nothing really to say about that. i think it's something that both affirms and worries the confident person in question - to be intimidating is to be slick and cool and impenetrable. but to be intimidating is also to be impenetrable (/neg) - impossible to see the inner life of through that glare of coolness or confidence. i guess its a double edged sword, i dunno.

but i think it gets easier to see even the intimidatingly cool as dorky, regular people when you recognize that pretty much everyone has or had crappy self image at one point. people are less intimidating when you allow the idea that they too, are people who fuck up, who go through things, who break down, who hate themselves, and who are just trying their best to seem like somebody lovable and worthwhile. and do that in order to CHASE interactions with others - and that wanting those interactions doesn't reflect badly on you or them.

but idk. i get it if u don't wanna read all that.

TLDR: ur thoughts aren't stupid and we've all been there. and i'm just some tumblr user on the internet it's really not so serious or scary. i post incessantly about robot sex and wizards instead of getting groceries. and everyone is just as stupid and dorky as the worst person you know and that's totally fine.

#may archive or private or delete this post once i feel like the anon in question has seen this - sorry for the MASSIVE fucking post.

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youngster-monster · 1 year ago

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personally i phrase my working titles like joke articles, which is good because a. i get to simplify the plot of the fic for peabrain future me who undoubtedly will read the 3000 words of absolute nonsense and not understand a single letter of it and b. i get to add it to the pile of silly working titles. case in point, " pro gamer KABEDONS unsuspecting minimum wage worker, KILLING HIM INSTANTLY " which i will not be explaining because it is frankly way funnier that way

my little plate in front of my enclosure just reads "The Loathesome Poor Organizer" and when you look inside its just me on my hands and knees before a giant digital billboard of the drafts category in my discord server

im literally this close to giving in mark my worms

there are a few rarepairs i like that have as few as 1 (i dont want to talk about the 0 fic tags... my pairs will be so damn rare that theyre still raw) fic in the whole fandom and im (INTERNALLY, i dont interact with things i dont like) beefing with like 12 different authors because of how firmly i believe that He Would Not Say That

me liking your fics is good because youre like that entire tag. when i realized how many were yours i was like HELL YEAH!!!!!! IM EATING GOOD!!!!!!!!!

ahem, now for tag time! you get to have One of my funny working titles for the time being :) most of them are highly contextual so theyre less funny unless you get 300 dms about the precise context and frankly im subjecting you to plenty rants as is so that one i shared is, incredibly, the one that needs the LEAST explaining

I WANNA TELL YOU ABOUT HIM SO BAD oh my god everytime i get the chance to talk about him i about go nuts. i hate him so much but hes kind of iconic. he wasnt always a god and he became one because it was funny for the rp. he canonically has a one way trip to the abyss in his house and i still dont know how to explain that in lore. i want to share more about him and i Will, hopefully, but that involves removing my masquerade mask and i am still a Little too scared. SOON. YOU WILL KNOW HIM SOON

its so awesome having friends who are abnormal about things in the exact same way as you.. like youre gripping eachothers shoulders and going YOU GET IT!!!! YOU GET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

beastly noises on hold until internet gets better!!!! The Animal Is Hibernating

Silly title gives nothing of the plot away, all the vibes, more at 6

I am throwing fresh fruits into your enclosure. and a pumpkin for enrichment.

I also don't interact with things i don't like because i wasn't raised in a barn but. being a hater is good for you actually. @ some authors in some tiny fandoms i'll read you but like i'll be a judgmental bitch about it

my toxic trait is that i am very proud of being so much of that tag and everyday i think about getting so much worse about it. sorry to the haters you are so valid but unfortunately a few people said they liked my stuff so now i want to feed them Forever with (unearths years-old wip ideas) peacock kael'thas au i guess???

oc has that one way trip to the abyss at home that minecraft lava pit for convenience that Pet Oblivion

#ask #anonymous #desperately making grabby hands at that pro gamer kabedon it sounds Great #Show Me Your Face Anon I Want To Hear About Your Boy #still no wifi ): i want to make beastly noises over monachopsis again...

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lakesbian · 1 month ago

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#Jessie teasing Sy for the bit: 'ha u have a little crush!'#Sy: no. i don't find mauer attractive despite (list of attractive traits) which is how you know i don't like men. I didn't even have'#-a crush on gorgon even though he was handsome and-'#jessie- whose now starting to move past the bit: ......

need to stress that in my vision here it's absolutely not a bit. she's NOT kidding the serious question is serious. like i think they meet up with mauer for the first time again in years and jessie is watching him perk up like a fucking dog. his behavior is indistinguishable from normal to mauer and everyone else but jessie has a complete mental catalogue of every sylvester mannerism ever and she's 90% sure she pinpointed the exact moment where mauer threatens sy and his dick actually twitches. like she can't prove it but she's pretty sure. and her memory is perfect so she's instantaneously teleported back to hearing gordon's observation that sy likes a challenge so much he can't distinguish between people who challenge him and people who he's attracted to. and she thinks about how 65% of their flirting minimum is sy trying to beat her at mental death note monologue chess. shes like hmmm. hmmm. this is her chosen topic of the night. she Loves to psychoanalyze and bother him it's enrichment in her enclosure. tormenting him with a 50 minute interrogation that spans their entire journey back from the meeting point. at one point sy thinks she finally dropped it and then she brings it up again while they're eating dinner. by the end of it he knows, and she knows, and he knows she knows, and she knows he knows she knows, and so on and so forth. and they also both know that sy will still literally never verbally admit that he's got a deathly serious psychosexual fixation on that old man. the "your crush" gag i mentioned in the other post chain about this absolutely starts only after jessie knows in her heart and soul that her boyfriend wants to fuck the abstract concept of that old man's orating skills & decides to never let him live it down ever.

if twig was good it would include a plot beat about sy and jessie starting to cooperate with mauer on anti-monarchist rebel group stuff and jessie picking up on how weird it is that sy keeps complaining about not being allowed to Thwart (tm) mauer's Brilliant Plans + acting noticeably impacted around him, thus prompting her to start the book's second conversation about sy's psychosexual fixation on mauer

#twig time

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shinelikethunder · 2 years ago

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maybe unpopular opinion: i don't buy the post-s3 Hannigram dynamic where being Committed Murder Husbands means they're claustrophobically wrapped up in each other to the exclusion of all else and there are no important secondary characters anymore, just NPCs who shuffle briefly into their lives to do a little NPC schtick and then either get murdered or shuffle off

first of all because i think they do both genuinely like the people they like - Will cares about the handful of recurring people in his life even when he's a grumpy bastard man, and his habit of picking up strays isn't limited to dogs; Hannibal finds people interesting, appreciates good company and the chance to put on a show for any acquaintances in the vicinity, and is always on the lookout for murder protégés

second of all because i don't even think it's contestable that Hannibal, in particular, would have all the cabin fever tolerance of a too-clever bengal kitten that needs staggering amounts of enrichment in its enclosure to deter it from hunting you and all your favorite household items for sport

but most of all because their relationship isn't that type of claustrophobic - in fact, it relies heavily on triangulation with whichever third parties have caught one or both of their attention. they are always playing games, always testing each other, always tugging at the lines of influence to come up with new variations and reversals, always curious about what previously-unseen facets of each other can be drawn out by a fresh set of circumstances. and those games work best with some additional, unpredictable variables in the mix. maybe I'm alone in this, but i DO think they'd get bored if it were just the two of them.

yes they both have a possessive & obsessive streak, but i think it's important to remember that when Will says "you don't want me to have anything in my life that isn't you," it's not accurate (the original Murder Family plan is secretly still very much in place), it's not meant to be accurate, and i don't think it's pure projection of Will's own jealousy either. what it's meant to be is a half-truth that conceals the one specific lie he's most worried Hannibal will suss out: it follows on the heels of an accusation that Hannibal did a great job alienating him... from the exact allies Will is plotting Hannibal's downfall with in secret.

(yes, it's mingled with very real hurt - the same way his own possessiveness of Hannibal is mingled with a very practical desire to deny him allies and hostages. point is, there's an angle, and as usual it's hard to untangle the gameplay from the conflicting emotions that drive or derail it. their possessive hunger exists, but it also lives in eternal tension with their hunger to know each other, because it's through their dealings with others that they reveal themselves.)

anyway this is all the world's most long-winded way of saying that i think it'd be really fucking funny if they never did get around to having sex UNTIL one day they accidentally their way into a threesome

you thought the smug little barely-disguised quips about eating people were over? think again, the UST has finally been shattered and now there are two cannibals giving each other blowjobs in front of a partner who isn't even in on the joke

#hannibal #hannigram #meta #will graham #hannibal lecter

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is-the-snake-video-cute · 3 years ago

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Okay, so (long and) potentially divisive question coming up, so I understand if you don't feel comfortable responding fully or at all. One of the is-the-thing-cute blogs talks a lot about the difference between tamed animals and domesticated. Another argues that several species that are commonly kept as pets, shouldn't be. My Mum, always ready with a hot take, says every time I mention wanting a snake that it can't be a good life for the wee scaly boi, being shut inside a terrarium. 1/3

"...I'm interested in your opinion. Obviously captive born pets can't be released into the wild, and the exotic and/or illegal pet trade isn't going to go away anytime soon. But should snakes have been turned into pets? In the care of an experienced owner, such as yourself, how good a quality of life do you think they enjoy as opposed to being wild? Like do they miss hunting and travelling? 2/3

Or do you think they're more happy with a chill, predator-free home, with tasty treats delivered when they need? With cats there are lots of very valid reasons to keep one, and keep it indoors. Is the same applicable to snakes? Honestly no judgment whatever you say, I'm genuinely just interested and only like maybe 15% looking for a way to shut my Mum up. Thanks for the blog regardless! 3/3"

This is a really good and important conversation, and I think it's definitely a discussion that's worth having! I will say that there are some reptiles that should NOT be kept as pets (chameleons, for example, have care requirements so exacting that I personally think keeping them as pets is borderline cruel, and I know many pet bird species are unethical to keep because it's so difficult to meet their needs for space and enrichment in captivity).

Here's what we know. In captivity, snakes will live well over twice as long as snakes in the wild. Ball pythons, for example, rarely live more than 10 years in the wild. In captivity, it's not unusual for them to be older than 30 and still going strong. It's not an exaggeration to say that snakes in captivity will live lifetimes more than their wild counterparts.

We also know that, in the wild, snakes do not travel by choice. By nature, snakes are ambush predators, and vastly prefer staying in one place, only travelling when it is necessary. We also know that an appropriate captive enclosure will not rob a snake of the ability to engage in natural behaviors (including hiding, climbing, and burrowing), unlike animals like parrots, who in captivity are simply unable to act on the same instincts they would have in the wild.

Snakes are also shy, easily-stressed animals. Being pets removes virtually all stressors, such as predation, inappropriate temperatures, and lack of food and water. Like most reptiles, snakes do not think in the same way that mammals do, and I believe that, when all their needs are being met and they have appropriate enrichment, captive snakes likely enjoy lives that are much more stress-free than wild snakes.

As for whether snakes should have even been turned into pets in the first place, I don't know. Certainly snakes will never be domesticated animals, and they still need opportunities to act on their wild instincts in captivity - but, like I said, captive snakes still get those opportunities. For me, it's along the same lines of questioning whether fish, hamsters, ferrets, and other non-domesticated animals should ever be pets. I don't know, and honestly I find it a bit reductive. There are captive populations of snakes now, and like you said, that isn't changing any time soon. Instead of debating the ethics of decisions made decades ago, I think it's more useful to focus energies on keeping the snakes in captivity appropriately, in appropriate enclosures with suitable enrichment, and staying at the forefront of research on best husbandry practices.

I will also say, as someone who has worked with snakes for my entire professional life, the good that pet snakes (and ambassador animals, like my own snakes) do for snake welfare and wild snake conservation is difficult to overstate. Pet snakes help people learn to love snakes, and meeting pet snakes helps people who are afraid of snakes learn they're not scary animals that should be killed on sight.

Gosh, sorry that got so long! Point is: there are animals that it is unethical to keep as pets, but I am not convinced snakes are among that number. Pet snakes enjoy freedom from wild stressors, live lives that are much longer than their wild counterparts, and (if kept appropriately) still have opportunities to engage in instinctual behaviors if they choose.

#not a rating #long post

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actual-changeling · 1 year ago

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I may or may not write a proper meta post at some point but there's two things I wanna add here that I think are important.

The first is the official unofficial communication with hell. Without going into too much detail, I think it's not only Muriel that's lonely, it's all of them. Heaven is fucking empty, there is jack shit to do except what, potentially watch humans in their enclosures? Do archive shit and sort files for millennia?

Hell can torture humans at least, which provides them with some entertainment, but we know that demons like Furfur are stuck doing the exact same thing most angels are - paperwork.

Heaven and hell *need* each other, they are each other's purpose, whether they admit it or not.

Trying to fuck shit up is only fun if someone is trying to stop you (whether that's literally or in a legal sense), and you cannot do any thwarting or "do good" if there's nothing to thwart and no evil option.

I don't think any of them have allowed themselves to actually think about what the fuck they'd do if one of them was destroyed. It's their goal but the fun part is the trying to make it happen, not the reward you get after, which is arguably no reward at all. Season 1 and Crowley talking to Aziraphale about all the shit he won't have makes that very clear, same with his line in the final fifteen.

"If heaven ends life on earth, it'll be just as dead as if hell ended it."

They're all lonely and without purpose and they need their opposites.

This already got longer than intended, but here's my second point.

When the Metacunt sends our belove-hated angels back to heaven, Uriel asks if they did anything wrong, and there's genuine fear in their voice. No matter what they do or don't know about the book of life or falling, they're afraid of celestial punishment Aziraphale isn't.

I think there's a lot going on in heaven in regards to order and punishment that we have no idea of, and it will both make it harder and easier to break the system.

Anyway, tl;dr get angels and demons into some sort of occult/ethereal speed dating and maybe give them a ball pit and some enrichment; they're withering away in their empty car dealership halls.

but like... think of the implications of Gabriel being so quick to drop all connections to heaven after a few years of knowing Beelzebub. He has been heaven's #1 guy for all of time but he was given a gift by a demon and he's ready to abandon God for hell

demons may not trust each other but at least they have a common enemy, a shared trauma. But what do the angels even have keeping them together? They have been left so lonely and devoid of kindness - the structure of heaven honestly seems like it'd crumble under the weight of a feather

#alex talks good omens #good omens #sorry op i did NOT mean to derail your post but here we are

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shorthistorian · 2 years ago

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Hey Jordan, @antique-symbolism referred me to you for a history question I've got about a story I'm writing that might help out some other writers as well. I've got a pseudo-historical setting that lacks telecommunication and a formal postal system, but the narrative requires a good deal of messages being sent back and forth between characters. I've got couriers and pages in the story, but they're a little overworked! I was wondering if you had any insights into historical postal systems and how people sent and received messages and packages before standardized addresses, or between people who were traveling/lacking a permanent residence. How on earth did pages and couriers find people w/o modern ways of tracking people down? Thanks!!

Hi! I love questions like this and @antique-symbolism knows that. They are like pumpkins full of ground beef she tosses into my enclosure for enrichment.

Precise answers to your questions are going to depend on time and place, but since you are in a pseudohistorical setting, we have some wiggle room. I’ll be leaning on the work of Professor Lindsay O’Neill, who I had the pleasure of being a TA for during my grad work at USC. You’ve already identified the big issues at play here. A formal postal service is a pretty crazy and modern thing that we take utterly for granted. For a small fee (for letters at least) you can send something ANYWHERE in the world, even to very remote or unpopulated places. That’s wild and it doesn’t happen overnight or without a lot of organization and investment. For a long time, governments had their own couriers and postal routes, but they were not supposed to be carrying personal correspondence. (An analogy here would be ARPANET, the precursor to the modern internet developed by the US Department of Defense.)

Prior to true postal services, a letter writer had a few options. One could pay a carrier to transport a letter or ask a friend to carry one along with them if they were going the right direction. As today, a letter might need to make multiple stops along its journey or be passed between multiple people. The farther off the beaten track someone lived, the more time and money it would take for the letter to arrive -- if it did at all. O’Neill mentions in her book The Opened Letter that writers regularly made reference to letters “finding” their recipients as in, “when this letter finds you” (24). It was far from a guarantee that it would! [Side note: It is worthwhile to consider how letters and goods are moving. Overland travel, at least until the wide implementation of railroads, was slow and expensive. Water transport was far cheaper and far faster, like months faster, even when moving longer distances. One could easily imagine a setting where post offices only sit along water routes and inlanders need to travel to pick up their mail.]

So what about your story? Details will have to depend on your exact setting, but here’s a few ideas. If letters are as important to the story as you say, maybe that is a reason to beef up the postal infrastructure. This doesn’t have to be a full, government-run, continent spanning postal service, but if your characters are associated with a larger organization, maybe that body invests in regular carriers. Alternatively, your characters might just be willing to pay the money required for quick couriers.

Door-to-door postal service is a more modern development (starting in a handful of major cities in 1863 in the US, for example), so in your story, travelers or people without permanent addresses aren’t at as much of a disadvantage as you might think. Anybody receiving mail would have to retrieve their letters or packages at the post office. Alternatively, if you wanted to reach a wandering friend, you could send a letter somewhere else like a hotel or a business where they could check for it.

As I see it, here’s the bottom line: the mail is, by default, slow, expensive, and unreliable. If it isn’t those things, then there must be some systems in place to improve it. What those systems are and how your characters interact with them will reflect the details of your setting.

I hope that is marginally helpful. If you have more specifics of the time/place you want to emulate, I’d be happy to answer more questions or direct you to other resources. Thanks for getting in touch!

#history #writing #historian for hire

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fanfiction-artist-prototype · 3 years ago

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I just finished re-reading "We Don't Remember a Boat in a Bottle" as well as just reading the two chapters of "What We Didn't See". I was so excited to see new content because I had read all the comments on Boat in a Bottle to get the extra info you dropped, and just seeing Bakugou's perspective and getting Izuku's thoughts at the USJ with What We Didn't See was such a treat. Then in the comments of What we Didn't See I saw you had extra content and world building here. Man, when I say I screamed I mean it I was so excited and hungry for more insight into your AU that I spent the last 1&1/2 hours just reading through the entirety of your Boat in a Bottle tag. I feel like a tiger who just got tossed a pumpkin stuffed with meat. You know just proper arrangement to my enclosure.

So I just had to come on and show my unending appreciation, because your writing is so engaging. Just the way you world build and write characters is so phenomenal because you give proper set up and motivation. You make your characters human in all of their short comings.

Also I have a question. In "We Don't Remember a Boat in a Bottle" why did the Yagi family try to get Granny to stop "coddling" Izuku. Most of what she was doing was just giving the proper attention he needed as a child that age. Or did they just see it as her giving only Izuku attention.

Well anyways I love your fics and this au to bits. Hope you have a good day today

(*＾3＾)/～♡

Okay first let me just like squeal in joy at the sheer love I have just been given? I'm providing proper enclosure enrichment my friend you've just done the exact same to me because I FEEL VALIDATION IN THIS CHILLI'S TONIGHT.

I kept seeing your name next to all the notifs I've been getting tonight and my smile was so big like the joy I felt was indescribable seeing someone like my work so much! And can I just give you the BIGGEST thank you for enjoying my work?

SO onto your question:

why did the Yagi family try to get Granny to stop "coddling" Izuku. Most of what she was doing was just giving the proper attention he needed as a child that age. Or did they just see it as her giving only Izuku attention.

The answer is that due to how estranged the whole family (excluding Tenko here) is from Izuku they don't see a mistreated kid holding onto the one person within close range he is absolutely convinced cares about him, they see a kid who 'acted up' - since it's after AM lands in the hospital that they tell her this so after the rain scene- and is now throwing a tantrum by ignoring them and only latching onto his Nanny who's letting him do so because, in their eyes, she's too soft on him.

Not, you know, noticing the fact that this same child hasn't been treated like an active family member by anybody but the Nanny and his 'older brother' who the boy doesn't even really 'count' has been told he's got to interact with people who haven't looked his way or cared about him in a LONG time.

Also he's being extra clingy to Granny at this point because he's picked up on Nighteye's unease towards him so he's equally as uneasy as that man so his clinginess is a defence mechanism, he's a child latching onto the one thing that makes him feel safe.

Hope that answered your question, have a fantastic day/night!

#We Don't Remember A Boat In A Bottle #my fic #fic asks #my asks #asks #answers

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