"You Idiot. We Could Have Been... US."

Reliable narrators do not exist. There are only degrees of unreliability.

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw, a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently

How to write horses (without making your characters stupid)

Lesson One: Riding Double

The first question to ask yourself is ‘is my character supposed to know what they’re doing or being taught by someone who does?’ If the answer is yes, this lesson is for you. If the answer is no and the character is supposed to not know about horses, then this lesson is also for you! Hooray accurate consequences!

(The second question is if you are dealing with realistic horses or fantasy ones. Because if your characters are in a far away world where horses are three times the size and strong enough to carry a literal ton? Idgaf go wild. Or are your horses magic and made of ice that can be summoned from thin air? Those can do whatever they want. But a real horse? They have real limitations.)

What is double riding and why is it a problem?

Double riding is just like it sounds- two people riding the same horse. It is commonly used in movies and television to keep actors in the same shot and to use less horses on set, but it is also used in video games, books, and animated media as well. And of course, sometimes people will ride double in real life as well, for brief occasions.

Without digging into some genuinely horrifying facts about equine anatomy, horses are really only built to carry a single rider in one specific place on their back. Saddles are used to distribute weight evenly and make everything more comfortable for both horse and rider, but they don’t increase the space available. Unless both riders are small enough to fit in the same saddle together, or the rider behind the saddle is very small, the horse will be overloaded. Riding double for long distances is NOT good for a horse, and any character that is supposed to understand horses will know this.

Let’s get some diagrams out.

So here is a horse (mine actually) and a skeleton of a horse so you can actually see inside.

From left to right, we start with the blue, which is the withers and shoulder blades.

The withers are bony processes up near the skin as part of the spine. They are not meant to have weight pressing directly down on them, and get sores very very quickly. A horse with sore withers obviously should not be ridden until it’s healed, and if ignored can lead to dangerous behaviors such as bucking or flipping over backwards.

The shoulders must be given freedom of movement and not be trapped by a saddle or the weight of a rider, in the case of riding double. If motion is limited, the entire horse can end up sore or worse

They’re like Christmas lights if you break one part the whole horse breaks

Next up is the green on my horse, the ribcage on the skeleton

This is the support area of the horse, where the strength of the back comes from. No weight should be placed beyond the attachment of the last rib

Again, not going into anatomy, but the entire chest and ribcage are held up by a sling of muscles, and the front legs are also only attached by muscles. However, these muscles hold up 70% of the horses bodyweight.

In general this is why saddle fit and rider positioning is very important- we’re adding our weight to an already complicated system

Finally the orange, the lumbar vertebrae.

This is the weakest point of a horses back by far, the lumbar spine

Just like the withers, these bones are very close to the surface and sore very easily if weight is placed on them.

Again, nothing heavy should ever be placed here.

This is also where the kidneys are, which are pretty important to the overall health of the horse and work best when they aren’t squashed

So. There’s your basic anatomy lesson. Let’s dig into riding double.

So here we go, some people sitting on my pony. Aren’t they beautiful?

The rider sitting in the saddle is in the optimal position for the horse to carry. Not too far forward, not too far back. Everything is dandy. The rider in the back, however, is sitting directly on the horses lumbar vertebrae. Even if the saddle pad extends that far for a little padding, the rider is still sitting directly on the lumbar spine.

I didn’t draw another rider, but having someone sit in the front of the saddle would be difficult for many reasons. For one, most saddles designed for long distance have a saddle horn, leaving nowhere to actually sit unless they’re somehow squeezed in between the main rider and the horn, or the main rider has slid back to sit more on the back of the saddle. (Neither are comfortable, trust me). For two, adding that much weight to the front of the saddle will overload the horses front and and cause pressure sores. And the legs of the double rider would have to hang down in front of the saddle, blocking the horses shoulders.

Basically- don’t have anyone sit there.

When riding double, the larger rider *always* must be the one sitting in the saddle. The lumbar spine can tolerate a child or small teenager for brief amounts of time, but *not* an adult. Absolutely not.

Here is the same picture with the riders removed, this time showing where pressure will be added.

Red I already covered above. Weight on the front of the saddle will cause sores on the withers and shoulders.

Green is someone sitting toward the back of the saddle. This will raise the front of the saddle up, adding pressure to the cinch under the belly that holds the saddle on. Cinch rubs can get very nasty very quickly, and a horse with cinch rubs and saddle sores should not be used again until they are healed.

This is *why* characters that understand horses would not ride double, especially if the horse is meant to be traveling a long way. You need to do everything you possibly can to keep the horse comfortable- make sure tack fits, saddle bags are balanced, and the rider is in the correct position in the saddle. Riding double throws all of that off, and it *will* cause long term damage if done repeatedly or for a long time. Horses are incredibly fragile creatures, even when given excellent care.

How do you avoid riding double?

Simple! Just add another horse to your story. Horses are herd animals and are more comfortable traveling in pairs than they are solo. If your characters aren’t worried about actually feeding the horse and just letting it eat grass the whole ride, there’s no added difficulty in having a second horse. Is one character riding out to go pick someone up? They can lead a second horse from the saddle (this is called ponying, btw), or a well trained horse can follow along loose.

As a morbid alternative, your characters can continue to ride double while understanding the consequences of this. Maybe the horse won’t make it all the way to their destination. Maybe it will arrive with sores and never be able to carry a rider again. Maybe your characters simply view their horse as transportation and are content to get a new one when the original is used up. It’s up to you, really.

And if your story is dependent on only having one horse or just them being on the same horse, that can be okay too. If the characters aren’t in a hurry, one of them can walk while the other rides. They can still use the one horse to escape a daring rescue. A character can hop from one horse to the other if their romantic ride is calling for a horseback makeout session. If the second rider is a child, or both are children, the single horse will do just fine. And of course, this is your story with a fictional horse. You can ignore all this and stick three riders on a horse for 500 miles straight with zero consequences if that’s what you really want to do. No one will stop you. This is only if you want your characters to read and act like they know their stuff. And I can assure you, irl riders everywhere will appreciate the effort.

Also, instead of googling try duckduckgoing

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

I found a new brush I love please have three of my Crowleys (hot lesbian blue collar Crowley, "we stan women in STEM" angel Crowley and book Crowley)

I’m trying to get into drawing more again, and his face is just my favorite thing. You’re all my inspiration, your talents makes me want to do more things ❤️

List of British words not widely used in the United States. Lists of words having different meanings in American and British English. List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom.

Do you also experience this soft and safe darkness of the night sometimes, especially with someone you love nearby? Crowley hangs the stars for Aziraphale in the theatre and they share a first kiss. The perfect start for the weekend. Short fic (~1100words). By @sapphosewrites

And within this fic a reference to a lovely poem. Aziraphale is quoting from Starlight by Harold Lewis Cook:

Starlight through the curve of space

Falls an age and does not tire;

Falls and knows not where it falls,

A curve of undiminished fire.

bitches will bring a million things to do on a train ride or long car trip and then spend the entire time looking out the window and daydreaming. i’m bitches

An angel bright, a demon bold,

Their love defied the stories told.

Beyond all time, through light and shade,

A bond unbroken, never swayed.

Upon the sea where moonlight gleams,

They whisper hope in golden dreams.

The waves may crash, the tempests cry,

Yet still they soar, yet still they fly.

Through endless skies, past heaven’s gate,

They dance defiant, laughing fate.

No chains of earth, nor law above,

Can dim the fire of their love.

And when the nightingale takes flight,

It sings their tale in silver light.

Of hope, of stars, of endless bliss,

A love that time could not dismiss.

The final #EveryFrameOfEden video is now up!

Thank you to everybody who took part! 💫 The web page with the full list of artist credits can be found here.

Slowed-down version under the cut: