After much consideration, and consultation with some of my besties (thanks @kittenofdoomage and @chelsea072498 for your advice and love!) I deleted my Ko-Fi account and am now exclusively on Patreon!
I wanted a way to be able to still do what I love most while helping to provide for my family. You can now support my works, my family and help further my writing career by becoming a patron to my Patreon!
So, as of right now, there’s only gonna be a single tier to access my stuff. Everything I will be writing in the future will be first released on Patreon, then released here and on AOx3 a few days later. In the future, look out for content that will be exclusive to Patreon subscribers only.
It’s also gonna be set up to charge up front so no matter when you subscribe during the month, you’ll be charged at the first of each month after the initial subscription payment. This will not only make less headaches for the both of us, but you’ll get content faster!
I am still figuring out how this works so bear with me as I work to make this a success.
So we brought home two strays a couple months ago and they turned out to be pregnant. About a week ago, both of them had the kittens and we can’t keep all nine kittens.
If anyone in the upstate South Carolina area, or somewhere in Georgia or North Carolina near Pickens/Oconnee wants a kitten please message me, I’ll send pictures of them to anyone who asks.
They will be ready to go to new homes in a few weeks and I don’t want to have to take them to our shelter. They’re so precious and soft and the idea of putting them in a shelter or taking them to animal control breaks my heart.
It is super important that these babies find loving homes. 💕💕
Please please please reblog. If I don’t have homes lined up for them within a week I will have to call animal control and they will only keep them alive for 72 hours.
Anyone who reblogs this post will get a moodboard with a theme of their choice!
I don’t need a moodboard and good luck! Can you tell us how many you still have?
Can we figure out a way to do this to student loan debt.
I would read Ayn Rand to pay down my student loans
Our library ran the expenses and realized we spent about 3,000$ MORE than what we got back in trying to collect late fees. So? We dropped them completely. No late fees. Period.
If you keep a book, it auto renews two times. Then it comes up as overdue. If your overdue items exceed a certain amount, your account freezes. You can’t use any of the local libraries anymore until you return the items or claim them lost and pay for them. If someone else is waiting for the book, you can’t renew. Its that simple.
And guess what. Not only did we save money, but we /got more materials back/. More materials were turned in than declared lost as compared to before. There was no stigma to it. If you had already paid for the item, the money was credited back to you.
Because the people late fees actually affected were children and elderly adults – people unable to regularly get to the library. And the stigma of late items was dropped. Attitude and mindset are important.
we still have no late fees. And we are considered to be one of the top public systems in our state. People from out of state PAY to get library cards for a year because our online Overdrive system is amazing, and we have a ton of partnerships and interlibrary loan systems in place. AND we suffer less losses of both materials and patrons due to our “no late fee” policy.
In case anybody was looking for a name generator, Behind the Name has one you can customize by everything from gender and nationality to whether you want your characters to sound like rappers, hippies, or hillbillies…
There’s also a page for surnames, should you ever need that. If you’re stuck on names, I really recommend these pages.
Endless SPN Edits: The Man Who Knew Too Much, 178/∞
Sam’s just over here looking like he wants to be offended but instead ends up like… “you know what? That sounds totally feasible.”
It gets better when you remember that the whole scene is a figment of Sam’s own brain. Sam subconsciously presents himself with the possibility that he might be a hooker. Which works for crack, but also, given Sam’s history with his body and sexuality, makes for some good angst.
Big Horses are a Very New Thing and they Likely Didn’t Exist in your Historical and/or Fantasy Settings.
You’ve all seen it in every historical piece of media ever produced. Contrary to popular belief, a big black horse with long legs and long flowing mane is not a widespread or even a particularly old type of horse.
THIS IS NOT A MEDIEVAL THING. THIS IS NOT EVEN A BAROQUE THING. THIS IS A NINETEENTH CENTURY CITY CARRIAGE HORSE.
All the love to fancy Friesian horses, but your Roman general or Medieval country heroine just really couldn’t, wouldn’t, and for the sake of my mental health shouldn’t have ridden one either.
Big warmblood horses are a Western European and British invention that started popping up somewhere around 1700s when agriculture and warfare changed, and when rich folks wanted Bigger Faster Stronger Thinner race horses. The modern warmblood and the big continental draught both had their first real rise to fame in the 1800s when people started driving Fancy Carriages everywhere, and having the Fanciest Carriage started to mean having the Tallest and Thinnest Horses in the town.
Before mechanised weaponry and heavy artillery all horses used to be small and hardy easy-feeders. Kinda like a donkey but easier to steer and with a back that’s not as nasty and straight to sit on.
SOME REAL MEDIEVAL, ROMAN, OTTOMAN, MONGOL, VIKING, GREEK and WHATEVER HISTORICALLY PLAUSIBLE HORSES FOR YOU:
“Primitive”, native breeds all over the globe tend to be only roughly 120-140 cm (12.0 – 13.3 hh) tall at the withers. They all also look a little something like this:
Mongolian native horse (Around 120-130 at the withers, and decendants of the first ever domesticated horses from central Asia. Still virtually unchanged from Chinggis Khan’s cavalry, ancestor to many Chinese, Japanese and Indian horses, and bred for speed racing and surviving outdoors without the help of humans.)
Carpathian native horse / Romanian and Polish Hucul Pony (Around 120-150 at the withers, first mentioned in writing during the 400s as wild mountain ponies, depicted before that in Trajanian Roman sculptures, used by the Austro-Hungarian cavalry in the 19th century)
Middle-Eastern native horse / Caspian Pony (Around 100-130 at the withers, ancestor of the Iranian Asil horse and its decendants, including the famous Arabian and Barb horses, likely been around since Darius I the Great, 5th century BC, and old Persian kings are often depicted riding these midgets)
Baltic Sea native horse / Icelandic, Finnish, Estonian, Gotland and Nordland horses (Around 120-150 at the withers, descendant of Mongolian horses, used by viking traders in 700-900 AD and taken to Iceland. Later used by the Swedish cavalry in the 30 years war and by the Finnish army in the Second World War, nowadays harness racing and draught horses)
Siberian native horse / Yakutian pony (Around 120-140 at the withers, related to Baltic and Mongolian horses and at least as old, as well-adapted to Siberian climate as woolly mammoths once were, the hairiest horse there is, used in draught work and herding)
Mediterranean native horse / Skyros pony, Sardinian Giara, Monterufolino (Around 100-140 at the Withers, used and bred by ancient Greeks for cavalry use, influenced by African and Eastern breeds, further had its own influence on Celtic breeds via Roman Empire, still used by park ranger officers in Italy)
British Isles’ native horse / various “Mountain & Moorland” pony breeds (Around 100-150 at the withers, brought over and mixed by Celts, Romans and Vikings, base for almost every modern sport pony and the deserving main pony of all your British Medieval settings. Some populations still live as feral herds in the British countryside, used as war mounts, draught horses, mine pit ponies, hunting help and race horses)
So hey, now you know!
How the hell do you ride some of these things into battle?
I feel like I’d break the damn things riding them, much less a 200 pound knight in half plate.
Easily! First of all, people used to be smaller back in history.
Second of all, riding a horse demands fitness, no matter the size of the horse. The weight of the rider matters less if they are in good physical shape. A rider out of shape at 60 kilos / 133 lbs / 9.4 stone with no control over their seat shaking about in a slumped position will feel heavier for the horse than a rider at 70 kg / 155 lbs / 11 stone if they have good control over their own balance and muscles.
Third, heavy plate armour is one of the first reasons for breeding heavier horses, and came into fashion in the 16th century. But even a half plate jousting armour usually weighs only about 50kg. The modern weight guide for riding an Icelandic horse is around 80-100 kg / 177-220 lbs / 12.5-15.7 stone, so they can carry a lot of weight compared to their size. And Icelandic horse wasn’t even bred for heavy armour!
If you wear a heavy plate armour, you need a heavy horse. Still doesn’t mean tall. I gathered some draught horse / cavalry / knight type pictures for you.
Mongolian riders with Mongolian horses in Naadam parade garb. Traditionally light cavalry, for archers and lancers, or long-distance travel.
Icelandic riders with Icelandic horses in Viking-type armour, traditionally light cavalry or long-distance travel. They wear chainmail and lamellar armour.
When pulling, horses are even stronger than when carrying. The Finnhorse is not a heavy continental draught, but compared to its size it’s one of the strongest breeds in existence. An average draught horse pulls around 80% of its weight. This is pony-sized (138 cm / 13.2 hh) Finnhorse stallion Vuohimäen Havu, weighing at 340 kg / 750 lbs, and his weight pull record is206% of his own weight. He could haul around another horse twice his size.
And if we take a heavier continental-type draught horse, for example the Black Forest Horse from Germany (Schwarzwälder), you’ll see that heavy horse doesn’t have to be tall. The average height ranges from only 14.2 hh (pony-sized) to 15.3 hh, and in centimetres that’s 147-160. Still I doubt you could crush one of these tractors even if you tried.
People and horses before you have already tested that. They weigh around 550-640 kg or 1200-1400 lbs. The Finnish stallion above could pull the dead weight of one of these and vice versa.
Knight: this is my horse, he’s an absolute unit
Reblogging cause i just like horses.
Also there are plenty of “working” types of horses that are not tall, heavy, and basically ride like a couch. I don’t know how to ride and I still managed to do it without a saddle and with a piece of string only. Me and 3 other people. The same horse. The kicker? I doubt the horse even noticed that it had 4 people on its back.
Karate Girl 