Month: December 2016

sungl0ry:

negative vs. positive reinforcement

Both of these are very bad, Viktor, don’t do this to people. Putting unnecessary stress on peeps you love is manipulative and wrong.

Also, marriage shouldn’t be used as a conditional reward… especially for something that Yuuri has so little control over. Even if he does everything in his FS and SP perfectly, he could still lose. That’s pretty shitty to do to him, AND THEN announcing it in front of everyone without any prior discussion just makes it WORSE.

JUST MY TWO CENTS. >:( 

teafortteu:

delicatefury:

jenniferrpovey:

sandetiger:

meridok:

meridok:

valerie1972:

quinnedleson:

Writing a historical novel means knowing how far they can travel on a horse, This is good info right here.

(via Pinterest)

Off the top of my head, it jibes with what I’ve discovered in other sources.

Queuing this with a reminder to self: add that Cartographer’s Guild thread link to this, it has more details w basically the same numbers.

… things i never did: add that link. Ahem.

Just to add re: horses re: typical 4 gaits

Walk is an average of 4mph
Trot is an average of 8mph
Canter is an average of 16-20 mph
Gallop is an average of 25-30 mph

Your gallop is probably only gonna be 40 mph if a) your horse is really fit or b) your horse is built for running, a la the English Thoroughbred or the American Quarter Horse. Your horse also needs to be pretty physically fit to sustain a gallop for more than a couple of miles. Top level eventing equines, at the peak of physical fitness, only sustain a gallop for about 11 minutes/4 miles, and that’s a tremendous effort resulting from serious conditioning, and is also including going over/through various terrain and obstacles that the average horse might shy away from. If your horse hits that speed, they will need to recover immediately afterward, either through stopping, or going at the walk.

Your horse will probably be able to maintain a relatively high speed for longer if they are alternating between walking and trotting, with some cantering. 

Good references for horse travel include the Pony Express, literally any cavalry program, and modern-day endurance racing.

More on horses and distance.

Message riders, including the Pony Express, would switch horses so they could run a horse to exhaustion without killing it and then grab another fresh one while a groom took care of the spent horse. Which would then do another run after it had recovered. Pony Express riders would switch horses about every 10 miles. Also, the riders were restricted to 125 pounds. Most Pony Express riders were teenaged boys. So, how far did a Pony Express rider ride in a day? About 75 miles. Still not 100. Could you do it? Probably, with multiple horses, but you’d be riding yourself beyond exhaustion and it’s more likely you’d fall off from tiredness, bluntly.

Stage coaches also used a similar system to maximize speed. A stagecoach could cover 60 to 70 miles per day. This was, by the way, the fastest way to travel in Regency England.

100 miles in a day on a single horse?

The Tevis Cup is a 100 mile race with a time limit of 24 hours. In 2016 the winning rider, Karen Donley, rode Royal Patron to the finish at Auburn at 9:48pm, having set off from Robie Park at 5:15am.

This means it took her 16.3 hours to cover the 100 mile distance on a single horse.

The Tevis Cup is the most difficult endurance ride in the world.

After such a ride, both horse and rider would be spent. They take days to recover from these rides. Days.

The horses have to be at least 8 years old to compete at the top level. They’re checked by a vet regularly, and these horses and riders train extensively.

There is absolutely no way horse and rider could cover 100 miles in a day and be fit for anything else afterwards. Furthermore, if a top race rider is taking 16 hours to do that distance, with anything quicker likely to kill the horse…

70 is more reasonable, but they’re still not going to be much use.

So, how far should you have your character travel on horseback in one day.

The answer is 20-30 miles, maybe 40 if they’re on a road in level terrain. Less if they’re having to trailblaze, use game trails, etc. That is assuming that your characters know how to ride and that their horses are in appropriate condition.

It’s also assuming you don’t have a wounded, unconscious companion tied across the saddle. Or have a pack horse. Dead weight – unconscious or dead bodies, the deer you just killed, your packs, or somebody who doesn’t know how the heck to ride slow horses down considerably.

The distances are similar, by the way, for mules.

I’m going to add this because no one else will:

Most tractors’ top speed, on a highway, is about 20mph. 

If you’re writing someone driving down a rural road (backroad or highway) during the spring or the fall, there’s a chance that they’ll be caught behind a tractor. You wanna frustrate someone, have that happen to them.

youremarvelous:

Since it’s midnight and I have a flight to catch at 5am, why not break down this little argument scene?

This scene is short but it’s important. We tend to quantify closeness by the times we see Viktor and Yuuri kissing, hugging, or otherwise acting explicitly intimate, but this little argument is just as important in conveying a shared emotional intimacy between the two. 

It’s pretty obvious from the start that Viktor doesn’t care about the damn nuts. He seems irritated already by the beginning of the scene, and I don’t think it’s because of the missing bag. Judging from Yuuri’s flustered state, he’s probably been dragging them all over, re-tracing their steps panicking trying to find the bag he lost. 

Viktor is patient so he’s gone along with it, but even he has his breaking point. Despite his irritation, he does what Viktor tends to do when he’s angry, and hides his feelings behind a fake smile. He’s aware of Yuuri’s anxiety which is probably why he’s placated him up till now, but he’s no saint and anyone would be tired and frustrated after being dragged around a city looking for a missing bag. Still, he doesn’t want to upset Yuuri further, so he appeals to logic: the shop is closed, aren’t you tired?

Yuuri isn’t having it, though. He sees right through Viktor’s fake smile and he knows what he’s doing. He hears Viktor’s words and feels that he is being blamed for a ruined evening. He doesn’t like it and he tells him so. 

This scene feels so realistic to me because it’s an argument I’ve had with my own girlfriend many times. The argument of semantics. There is no resolution here because neither Yuuri nor Viktor is really in the wrong. They’re just both in bad moods: Yuuri, because the bag got lost and he feels bad about it and thinks that Viktor is mad at him because of it, and Viktor, because the nuts don’t matter to him and he just wants Yuuri to stop fixating on it and let them enjoy their evening. 

What’s so striking is that neither of these characters is confrontational. Yuuri tends to fall into self-deprecation and, as previously mentioned, Viktor hides his feelings behind a smile. Yet, here they are, getting peeved at each other over something so minor. And not only getting mad but expressing that anger. For characters that tend not to do that, it speak of an extremely strong mutual trust. 

They know that an argument isn’t fatal to their relationship. They trust the other to not abandon them if they exhibit anything other than an agreeable attitude.

And then they walk in silence and the argument resolves itself. They don’t have to part ways, they don’t have to break everything down verbally, they just need to cool down and give each other the time and space to do so. 

I feel it’s rare to see such a realistic couple’s tiff. Normally, things are always 100% wonderful or extremely dramatic. But sometimes these little arguments pop up, sometimes someone gets hangry or anxious or tired and they take it out on their partner because that’s who is available and–unconsciously or not–that’s the person you know won’t abandon you just for showing a non-ideal side of yourself. 

I was never skeptical of Yuuri and Viktor’s relationship to begin with, but especially not now. We’ve seen them tackle so many different hardships together, we’ve seen Yuuri correct Viktor when he really was in the wrong, and now we’ve seen them resolve a minor clashing of personalities respectfully and maturely. This is a couple I can realistically see staying together. They’re not together for convenience, they’re not together just because they idolize each other or find the other hot–they truly seem to understand one another and work well together, and it makes their relationship a joy to watch. 

readableposts:

bisexualhenrycheng:

like there’s this whole thing in this book about how your brain grows stronger and healthier by practicing responding to stress in healthy ways,

because if a stressor is predictable and you feel a sense of control over it, you habituate and stop reacting to it,

but if it’s random and unpredictable you have the opposite response and become sensitized, so your reaction actually gets more and more extreme.

(if you hear a loud noise at predictable intervals you’ll soon stop noticing or reacting, but if you hear it at random intervals you’ll become sensitive to it and anxious.)

so one way to help people who have adverse reactions to reminders of trauma is to give them control over how they’re reminded of the trauma,

because it helps the brain practice responding to stress in a safe way so you can habituate to the stress response.

which is why if someone tags something for a trigger and you still choose to look,

it’s actually an act of healthy resistance against your reaction to that trigger (because it teaches your brain to habituate),

but encountering something triggering in a random and unpredictable way actually increases your stress response and makes you more sensitive to the trigger.

so people who are against trigger warnings because “you have to learn to cope” are actually taking away your tools for learning to cope,

because encountering stressors in a way that further strips you of control over your trauma is never, ever helpful.

it’s a lot of stuff i kind of knew but integrated and explained with more context and science

[spaces added and brief caps removed for accessibility]

Also why books about the tough stuff are extremely helpful. Fiction is our key to coping in the world.

elosoquelee:

zelly-fangirl:

just in case we all forgot how insane the Cards Against Humanity people were

That is a 20 pesos bill, roughly 1 dolar. Do you know what you can do with it in Mexico ?

-You can buy roughly 3 kilos (almost 7 pounds) of potatoes.

– You can buy 3 liters (roughly 3 quarts) of brand name soda.

– In Mexico City you can ride the metro 4 times.

– You can get 2 full meals at community dinners.

– You can buy a loaf of brand bread.

– You can get up to a Kilo (around 18 pieces) of egg

– 1.5 kilos of corn tortilla

Plus, some other things with the added bonus that the bill depicted is of the newer ones that are waterproof

The Types as Character Tropes

karotousen:

Based on stereotypes, duh.

INTP: Absent-Minded Professor, Erudite Stoner, Gadgeteer Genius, Reluctant Mad Scientist, This Is Your Brain On Evil

INFP: The Anti-Nihilist, Byronic Hero, Because You Were Nice to Me, The Dark Side Will Make You Forget, Not-So-Harmless Villain

ISTJ: The Reliable One, Unfazed Everyman, Cloudcuckoolander’s Minder, Loyal to the Position, Obstructive Bureaucrat

ISFJ: Yamato Nadeshiko, Humble Hero, Tranquil Fury, Churchgoing Villain, Love Makes You Evil

ENFJ: The Paragon, The Chooser of the One, Warrior Therapist, Soap Box Sadie, Psycho Psychologist

ENTJ: The Leader, Cultured Badass, Seme, The Corrupter, Visionary Villain

ESTP: Determinator, Ace Pilot, Da Editor, Blood Knight, Corrupt Bureaucrat

ESFP: Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot, Plucky Office Girl, Obfuscating Stupidity, Hidden Depths, The Ophelia

INTJ: The Spock, Tin Man, Aloof Big Brother, The Chessmaster, Evilutionary Biologist

INFJ: Hurting Hero, Hermit Guru, Zen Survivor, Living Emotional Crutch, Knight Templar

ISTP: Warrior Poet, Street Samurai, The Hunter, Because I’m Good At It, Then Let Me Be Evil

ISFP: All-Loving Hero, Hero’s Muse, Determined Defeatist, Granola Girl, Mad Artist

ESTJ: The Captain, The Ace, Nerves of Steel, Corrupt Corporate Executive, Egomaniac Hunter

ESFJ: Crusading Lawyer, The Social Expert, A Father to his Men, Nerd Nanny, Evil Matriarch

ENTP: Bunny-Ears Lawyer, Trickster Mentor, Knowledge Broker, Cool Loser, It Amused Me

ENFP: The Pollyanna, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Allergic to Routine, The Wonka, Revenge Before Reason