#~their own~ i don't want your version of the thing; i want the actual version ; i know you can't do it verbatim obviously; but

[brujamala-aka-gigi]

a tarot reading just in case you need to remember this: it's okay to be a bitch.

we all know good vibes, kindness and empathy are amazing traits and etc BUT... there's shitty people who don't deserve that and some of us can't pretend like we are not full of anger. "negative" emotions are just as valid as "positive" ones, they contribute to our growth and our character, and they also keep us same from further harm.

pile 1 pile 2 pile 3

pick a pile and let's find out what type of "bitch" behavior can bring something good to your life.

MASTERPOST & PAID SERVICES

xoxo gigi <3

images from pinterest and dividers by @ithemes 

plz excuse the shit quality pictures of the cards, i'm working on that but i didn't realize how bad they were until i uploaded them :(

btw I'm doing a poll so you can pick a day when its convenient for you and me to do an ask game on here, answer some questions with my tarots and give away readings from my menu.

Pile Number One

Hello there! So, the cards on this reading are mostly “positive” if we take a superficial approach, and ignore the prompt of this reading. What I see here is that, although there’s a sense of brightness, joy and enthusiasm that is typically associated with your identity, there’s a lot of your inner world that it’s not getting any chances to be manifested into your daily life. I think many people assume you are happier than you actually feel, and many people think the joys and blessings of your life came to you out of nowhere, they think you’re naturally successful, when in reality you are quite the hard worker. Nobody likes to be realistic in the struggle to achieve anything, so it's understandable to some extent that people are not seeing the actual strength and patience that it took you to be where you are. 

Personally, I think that sometimes it’s really hard to fight back against misconceptions on how hard do we actually have to work in order to get something, it’s even harder when people don’t allow you to express anger, and belittle any feeling that it’s not as comfortable to be around as your usual “good vibes”. You are the type of person who everyone is too lazy to understand beyond their own romantic ideas of you. Don’t let others dehumanize you like that, you are a person, not a secondary character in someone’s love life, or the sweet innocent sidekick, or the girl next door, or whatever. Embrace everything that makes you complex and misunderstood, as these are the things that will bring you closer to people who are actually interested in your true self. 

But, there’s absolutely nothing wrong if you’re being strategic about who gets to see your most genuine version and who doesn’t. I see a lot of prosperity for you in the future, and you might not be able to appreciate this now, but your career choices will make you quite happy eventually. Take a lot of time to reflect on the people you want to keep around you, trust your intuition and prioritize your mental health, don’t be afraid to communicate your emotions in ways that others might find uncomfortable, in the worst case, by doing this you will find out who actually deserves your time and energy. And please, don’t fall for the first person who shows any kind of romantic interest, this is not a great moment for you to deal with a relationship, as there’s some emotional work to do first. Be persistent with how you take care of yourself, be patient and kind to you in the same way you are with others. 

Pile Number Two

What I’m seeing a lot on these cards is a lack of closure and proper communication about it. I’m not necessarily talking about a situation that hasn’t been settled yet, but more so about the fact that you are able to perceive things deeper than the average person and whenever you can, you do go ahead and take the actions necessary in order to get things going in the way you know best. You are someone who moves quickly and efficiently, but others who are more dogmatic in their ways are beginning to find issue with this, forcing you to conform to spaces where everyone knows you are too overqualified to be in. 

I don’t think you are someone who is submissive or someone who allows people to walk all over you, but I see that you’re trying to find less conflictive approaches to issues and situations that you are used to solving in more explosive ways. Behaving in a more “diplomatic” or “assertive” way is not exactly what works for you, but at this point it is necessary that you learn to tolerate being put in this position. I don’t see you losing your values or your ideals, not even your personal strength. But I am concerned that you might be doubting yourself with things that are so bonded to your nature that you haven’t even thought twice about so far, and rightly so! You’re lucky that your determination and passionate ways, even when proving an inconvenience to others who don’t get it, has been channeled in such proactive ways. 

At this point, all I can tell you is that whenever you are being forced to remain in stagnation due to self doubt, you shouldn't attribute this to your lack of will to stick to norms and traditions, but more so, this situations happen because people around you need to catch up with what you already saw and processed. This means that many times you will have to choose between waiting or moving on by yourself. Be strategic about this, and always make sure that there are comfortable places for when you need to reflect and relax. Yes, many things have gone right for you by moving impulsively and following your gut, but imagine how much more you could accomplish if you took some time to plan. 

There’s nothing wrong with your creativity thriving in chaotic environments, there’s nothing wrong with being confrontational and hot headed, absolutely nothing bad about being perceived as hot headed and impulsive… just be more mindful on how to channel these parts of yourself. 

Pile Number 3

Okay, this is a complex set of cards for a complex and sensitive person.  What I'm seeing here is this sort of nostalgia other people have for a version of you that was painful to live for yourself. I think plenty of people were feeling too comfortable with you when you were not on top of your game or working towards your own personal happiness. I feel like you are now beginning to find new ways of questioning and deconstructing ideas and actions that are no longer serving your deeper desires, and you are sharing this with people who are not willing to join you in this path, while also alienating you from your own power to manifest into existence the person you want to become. 

As you are beginning to move away from spaces of comfort that were designed for a weakened version of yourself, you will realize there’s plenty of facades and deceitful half truths. It’s a shame that all you have during this moment is your own emotional intelligence and a well justified sense of hope, nobody should face things like this on their own. But being realistic, solitude is a strength in your case, and you will soon find out that this journey was meant to give you consciousness about the powers and strength, many have tried to hide from you in order for them to keep the spotlight. 

Don’t let others force you into being someone who is only an ornament or a tool for keeping a facade. Even if you are naturally generous, kind, empathetic, and altruistic, it’s not a betrayal of those values to focus on growing outside places that don’t deserve all your sensitivity. This is a moment where you will find plenty of personal characteristics that many have ignored or belittled, cultivate those and nurture your ability to exist on your own terms. You have more control than you think, and far more tools than you imagine. It takes bravery and intellect to take the steps you are taking into finding new ways of being yourself, while also being celebrated and respected. 

Always remember that many times, others will make you believe something crucial to you is a defect, or a disadvantage, but it’s up to you if you’re taking into consideration the thoughts of someone who doesn’t know why you are who you are, and who you are trying to be. (You shouldn't).

[jesncin]

Evening! I'm a young chinese/indo american and plan on reading your comic soon, but beyond that I've frankly just been desperate for any decent rep in DC/Marvel - are y'all aware of any comics / comic characters / runs that handle an asian character's background well? I feel like I'm slugging through quagmires braving search results. All of them are just talking about racism but I want the good, and process of elimination feels like a bad strategy. Thank you

Hello fellow Chindo! Thank you for planning to read my book (which obviously I recommend for great Indonesian representation, heheh)! :) They're probably pretty mainstream choices, but regardless! I have a couple of recommendations:

New Super-man: Kong Kenan, written by Gene Luen Yang

This comic run has a bit of a typical start before jumping into some truly refreshing and fun wider worldbuilding! My biggest criticism to Superman legacy characters is that they should expand on his inherently political themes, and they mostly just stay stuck in science fiction silliness. But not Kong Kenan! His world, cast and even powers are steeped in politics and culture, just an absolute treat.

2. Girl Taking Over: A Lois Lane Story written by Sarah Kuhn with art by Arielle Jovellanos

My all time favorite canon reimagining of Lois as Asian (she's specifically Japanese American in this version)! A perfect marriage of Lois' character as a hard working, career-focused, jaded girlie with the struggles of model minority as an Asian American woman. She stands out on her own here without Superman and has a fantastic cast system that builds her character wonderfully. I especially recommend this graphic novel if you were disappointed with the wasted potential of Asian Lois Lane in MAWS.

3. Superman Smashes the Klan written by Gene Luen Yang with art by Gurihiru

Need I say more? I will anyway. This is the best Superman story of all time, to the point it will actively ruin your enjoyment of other Superman stories for you. It seems so obvious to pair Superman's inherently immigrant allegory with that of actual immigrant struggles, especially with an Asian American family- who are perceived as the perpetual foreigner- and yet this is the first time that story really commits to that comparison. A fantastic reimagining of the original radio show arc that actually centers the Chinese American family being harassed by the Klan. My perpetual recommendation to anyone looking for their next favorite superhero story.

4. Shadow of the Batgirl written by Sarah Kuhn with art by Nicole Goux

Okay I haven't read this one yet, but I keep hearing good things about it! And It's written by Sarah Kuhn, who delivered for Girl Taking Over, so I don't doubt she did great here too. I do generally wish Cassandra will get to be written by a Chinese woman specifically since so far she's been written by Japanese writers. No shade to them of course, but I want cultural specifically. Cassandra tends to be in the vaguesian void and that's a disservice to her character.

The way this list is switching between Gene Yang and Sarah Kuhn is telling of the writers I trust haha.

I've got a heavy DC bias so I can't recommend much of Marvel, but I do remember enjoying Kamala Kahn's Ms. Marvel 2014 series under G. Willow Wilson's writing. Kamala is an endlessly charming character, and I don't think the MCU did her justice tbh!

Those are my reccs that I feel pretty confident recommending! I know there's other prominent Asian characters and writers in DC/Marvel, but they're a hit and miss for me.

[askfallenroyalty]

random question but, is your interpretation of chara meant to be aromantic? (specifically the tumblr version cause reboot chara is at a life stage where it isnt super relevant yet) i understand a lot of their behaviour in the bonus epilogue is trauma based, but as an aro i relate a lot to their feelings. no worries if u dont want to answer this btw :)

aw, this ask makes me so happy. I'll be holding it close to my chest and cherishing it. I want nothing more than for people to relate and connect to the characters I write.

As for Chara's intended sexuality/romantic orientations -I actually have grown to not want to add labels to characters I write. I feel it's reductive to the character's lived experience and can simplify things.

Personally, and I know this isn't necessarily true for everyone, but I feel what you are is subject to change and fluidity. Especially younger characters I don't want to say what they are for certain -That's partly why I stressed Asriel being het until I revealed they were actually gay/trans. In my own trans experience, I feel more fem/ masc/ other at different times. And I don't ID as gender fluid, just gender whatever.

None of that is to say it's wrong to put labels on characters, just from my writing perspective I do not feel the need to say "character is definitively X or Y." Plus, I think this is a great benefit to writing from this angle, is that different people of different backgrounds can relate in different ways to the same character.

.....................all that said, Chara is such a private character I don't think I could give you a straight answer. It's not my business to know. Personally, I see it as aro as well, but that's not anymore "canon" to their character than anyone else's interpretation of my Chara.

[small-strong-bookish-butch]

Pardon me, dearest Anni, would you mind sharing your thoughts on DID and multiverses? It sounds very intriguing and you always have such thoughtful opinions 💙 (ps ilu I hope you're finding time for nice things and tasty treat breaks)

DID multiverse/alternate universe theory

Examples:

Everything Everywhere All At Once

???? I forgot

Still Life With Tornado

probably Into The Spiderverse and Across The Spiderverse but I haven't seen them yet

• Life Is Strange (just played most of them)

Okay so like, the theories I'm drawing upon:

came back wrong

recognizing that you are the way you are— that you are 'you', yourself, etc— that you are here, aware of your surroundings, etc. = that you [are aware you] DIDN'T 'come back wrong'

the alienation and disorientation of literally experiencing yourself differently than everyone else does/has/etc

the DID experience of experiencing a core level of dissociation/unrecognition/disconnect from current reality

• a world where something turned out Very Differently because you made one (1) choice differently

the multiverse as literally alternate endings??? Like what if there was an alternate universe (or multiverse) where all the alters ended up happy and in their own bodies?? Doesn't that make you want to cry

time loop where you can't remember enough (about) how to change the day until it happens again

The.... selves? I'm drawing upon:

yourself as a ghost

yourself as not tied to anyone/anything you know at all

yourself as an 'idealized', fully coping, flawless being who's as (un)likely to really 'exist' as any other versions of you

yourself as totally different than how you are now (i.e. Evelyn as herself, in love with the IRS lady, in Hot Dog Fingers universe) but still you at the heart of it

you being 'you' in a way that's recognizable to everyone else but you know it's off/wrong/un-human etc

Writing this out in my neat little bullet points made me realize that I don't actually know many multiverse thingies. But in my heart it's true. You know? You know.

I'd love to hear other people's opinions on this, esp if you also have DID or DPDR stuff!!

I may expand on this later, in like, a couple years! :P

Thanks for your kind wishes, I hope you're havin' something sweet too <3

[krokaxe]

Yk the nonsense that I experience from weirdos on tumblr dot com is genuinely cosmic

What sort of desperate-to-be-the-most-victim do you have to be to emulate what's actually affecting another person? Like fr there's copying somebody's hairstyle or whatever but ??? Emulating mental illness ??? Trauma ????

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

[pericky; a look into ricky's head during their meeting.]

---

"I'm glad you came, I wasn't sure you would." The wine pours, the sound of it drowning out the missing word in that sentence: back.

Of course, is the response, and the part of Ricky that's spent twenty years tearing itself apart to understand why vibrates with relief. It doesn't matter anymore. Of course, of course, he thinks giddily along with the words. He never needed to wonder why Pericles wasn't coming back in the first place; he was always going to.

I'm happy you invited me, and of course he thinks again. A lifetime of pretending he wasn't always going to either falls away. However harsh and lonely the world has been, all's right with it again; and the shy voice of the boy inside him that he's tried so hard to kill says, so quietly, I missed you.

[daz4i]

I'm gonna let you in on a badly kept secret. most of my dazai analysis is truly just me projecting. but being decent enough at bullshitting to make it sound convincing so ppl usually end up agreeing with my takes

[leatherbookmark]

ootd features the words "black dress" in its lyrics and people are like oh! this is a reference to another group's song, "black dress"!

i'm unwell.

[bishonenspit]

international eroica fans are some of the most ungrateful fans of anything i have ever encountered i stg

[thevalleyisjolly]

Being quietly but incredibly vindicated by Taliesin explicitly saying at the Comic-Con panel that bringing Molly back would have been wrong, that Molly’s whole deal was a celebration of the ephemeral, and that introducing Kingsley was always the plan.

[tmae3114]

[muffled screaming into my hands]

[mythvoiced]

-. finally bought m'own copies of the Iliad and the Odyssey IN GERMAN~ ♥

[aeide-thea]

wow okay then. finished the book, yelled a lot at el's sleeping inbox about it, may archive some subset of that yelling here later but. definitely that was. an experience i had. compellingly plotted, on the whole, although WOW was the denouement lurid, but. exTREMely long list of bones 2 pick as per previous posts (& also possibly forthcoming ones).

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

The thing with the Mari Lwyd, though, is that it's being... I don't know, 'appropriated' is the wrong word, but certainly turned into something it isn't.

Thing is, this is a folk tradition in the Welsh language, and that's the most important aspect of it. I feel partly responsible for this, because I accidentally became a bit of an expert on the topic of the Mari Lwyd in a post that escaped Tumblr containment, and I clearly didn't stress it strongly enough there (in my defence, I wrote that post for ten likes and some attention); but this is a Welsh language tradition, conducted in Welsh, using Welsh language poetic forms that are older than the entire English language, and also a very specific sung melody (with a very specific first verse; that's Cân y Fari). It is not actually a 'rap battle'. It's not a recited poem. It is not any old rhyme scheme however you want.

It is not in English.

Given the extensive and frankly ongoing attempts by England to wipe out Welsh, and its attendant cultural traditions, the Mari is being revived across Wales as an act of linguistic-cultural defiance. She's a symbol of Welsh language culture, specifically; an icon to remind that we are a distinct people, with our own culture and traditions, and in spite of everyone and everything, we're still here. Separating her from that by removing the Welsh is, to put it mildly, wildly disrespectful.

...but it IS what I'm increasingly seeing, both online and in real world Mari Lwyd festivals. She's gained enormous pop-culture popularity in recent years, which is fantastic; but she's also been reduced from the tradition to just an aesthetic now.

So many people are talking/drawing about her as though she's a cryptid or a mythological figure, rather than the folk practice of shoving a skull on a stick and pretending to be a naughty horse for cheese and drunken larks. And I get it! It's an intriguing visual! Some of the artwork is great! But this is not what she is. She's not a Krampus equivalent for your Dark Christmas aesthetic.

I see people writing their own version of the pwnco (though never called the pwnco; almost always called some variant on 'Mari Lwyd rap battle'), and as fun as these are, they are never even written in the meter and poetic rules of Cân y Fari, much less in Welsh, and they never conclude with the promise to behave before letting the Mari into the house. The pwnco is the central part to the tradition; this is the Welsh language part, the bit that's important and matters.

Mari Lwyd festivals are increasingly just English wassail festivals with a Mari or two present. The Swansea one last weekend didn't even include a Mari trying to break into a building (insert Shrek meme); there was no pwnco at all. Even in the Chepstow ones, they didn't do actual Cân y Fari; just a couple of recited verses. Instead, the Maris are just an aesthetic, a way to make it look a bit more Welsh, without having to commit to the unfashionable inconvenience of actually including Welsh.

And I don't really know what the answers are to these. I can tell you what I'd like - I'd like art to include the Welsh somewhere, maybe incorporating the first line of Cân y Fari like this one did, to keep it connected to the actual Welsh tradition (or other Welsh, if other phrases are preferred). I'd like people who want to write their version of the pwnco to respect the actual tradition of it by using Cân y Fari's meter and rhyme scheme, finishing with the promise to behave, and actually calling it the pwnco rather than a rap battle (and preferably in Welsh, though I do understand that's not always possible lol). I'd like to see the festivals actually observe the tradition, and include a link on the booking website to an audio clip of Cân y Fari and the words to the first verse, so attendees who want to can learn it ahead of time. I don't know how feasible any of that is, of course! But that's what I'd like to see.

I don't know. This is rambly. But it's something I've been thinking about - and increasingly nettled by - for a while. There's was something so affirming and wonderful at first about seeing the Mari's climb into international recognition, but it's very much turned to dismay by now, because she's important to my endangered culture and yet that's the part that everyone apparently wants to drop for being too awkward and ruining the aesthetic. It's very frustrating.

[sabertoothwalrus]

There’s something I love love loveeee about Laios and how badly he wants to be cool.

Let me preface with this: in general, I believe the harder you try to be cool, the less cool you actually are. The less you care what people think about you, if you’re “cringe” or “weird”, the more likely people will perceive you as confident and self-assured.

There are countless pieces of media where characters try to fit in with some group, change every part of themself to look/act like what they’re “supposed” to be, and end up miserable, often realizing the people they’re trying to impress aren’t worth the trouble.

I’ve experienced this in my own life too! Sometimes when I go out I wear a rainbow propeller cap! Cause I think it’s funny and silly and!! I ALWAYS get compliments!! I don’t wear it to be cool, I wear it because it makes me happy. And people overall have a positive reaction to it. it’s a huge contrast to when I was teenager and didn’t really put as much of myself into my appearance/wardrobe, and barely left any kind of impression on people.

So anyway, let’s get into it.

Laios… he’s been hurt so badly by people. He resented humanity for it. And yet, he still yearns for the approval of others. He wants FRIENDS!!!! and was angry and frustrated to learn his perception of his relationship with Shuro was so drastically different than Shuro’s!!!!

He KNEW that people were put-off by his love of monsters. Up until Falin got eaten, he deliberately suppressed how much he talked about it with others. He probably thought by not talking about monsters so much, it was working!! He was doing all the Right Things now! So Shuro confessing he always hated him was a huge blow.

But the reality is, he loves monsters. And most importantly, he loves cool monsters. He fantasizes about what would make the Ultimate Monster.

He feels very strongly about what he considers “cool” as well. He finds all aspects of monsters fascinating, but can still be HORRIBLY underwhelmed when they look too lame for his tastes.

He knows most people don’t feel the same way he does. He knows his “cool” is everyone else’s “weird”. It’s so tragically sweet how he latches onto Kabru the moment he shows interest in monsters, and takes every opportunity to infodump about them to him.

He wants people to find monsters as cool as he does!! But, he also wants people to think he’s as cool as he finds monsters.

Like!!! djkfghadkfjg IT DOESN'T EVEN BOTHER HIM WHEN PEOPLE HAVE A WRONG IMPRESSION OF HIM! He's FLATTERED by it. It's almost like, at this point, it doesn't matter to him if people don't like him. People can not like him and still think he's cool.

And my favorite thing is, it works. Laios IS cool as fuck. You KNOW he thought he looked so badass when he did this and he was RIGHT:

And yet, this is him trying very hard to look cool. But it's Laios's version of cool. It's almost contradictory, in that sense. Cause he knows people still don't get it. Like. He wants to be cool. He doesn't care about the "normal" ways to be cool. He thinks his cringe thing is cool. He does his cringe thing, that people very much do still think is cringe. So you would think that, since he wants people to think he's cool, he would not do the cringe thing. But he wore the pelt because he thought it was cool. And people clapped and cheered for him anyway.

is what he's doing really so different than this? ^

YAYYYYY WOOO GO LAIOS YOURE SO COOL!!!!!!!

[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.

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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 )