Lesson One: Riding Double

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.

How To Write Horses (without Making Your Characters Stupid)

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.

Roughly 10 Cool Historical Queer Figures More People Should Know About

Part 1 - From Ancient Era to Early Modern Era

In spirit of Pride Month here's some snippets of queer history I think are interesting.

I've been working on a series of deep dives into interesting historical queer figures, but I haven't had the time to continue my list after the first entry about Julie d'Aubigny. I do want to continue with it, but I came to the realization that I will never have to time to do all the cool and interesting figures in depth, since there's too many, so I decided to do a list with brief descriptions about some of my favorite figures who are not that well known. Some of them are more well-known than others but I think they all deserve more acknowledgement.

I was able to trim down the number of figures to (roughly) 20, which was still too many for one post, so it's two posts now. They are in chronological order, so this part is set mostly before Victorian Era and the second part will be from Victorian Era onward.

This list is centered around western history (but not exclusively) because that's the history I'm most familiar with, though it's definitely not all white, since western history is not all white. I will be avoiding using modern labels, since they are rarely exactly applicable to history, rather I will present whatever we know about these figures' gender, sexuality and relationships. If there's information about what language they used about themselves, I will use that. Often we don't know their own thoughts, so I will need to do some educated guess work, but I will lean towards ambiguity whenever evidence is particularly unclear. If you are the type of person who gets angry with the mare suggestion there's a possibility that a historical gnc person might not have been cis, I encourage you to read my answers to related asks (here and here) first before sending me another identical ask. Try to at least bring some new arguments if you decide to waste my time with your trans erasure.

1. Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum (latter half of 2400 BCE)

Roughly 10 Cool Historical Queer Figures More People Should Know About

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum were ancient Egyptian royal servants, and possibly the first recorded gay couple in history known by name. They shared the title of Overseer of the Manicurists in the Palace of King Nyuserre Ini. They both had a wife and children, but they (along with their families) were buried together in a tomb. The tomb decorations show them similarly as other afterlife couples.

2. Marinos the Monk (c. 5th-8th century)

Marinos the Monk was born as Marina somewhere in eastern parts of Byzantine Empire, likely in the Levant. He was from a wealthy Christian family, possibly Coptic. Assigned female at birth his widowed father planned to marry him off and go to a monastery himself, but he convinced his father to take him with him dressed as a boy named Marinos. His father agreed and they were accepted as monks. After his father died many years later, he continued his life as a male presenting monk. Later he was accused of fathering an illegitimate child with a daughter of an innkeeper, which was not possible, but he didn't revoke the accusations, instead he begged for the abbot's forgiveness for "his sins". Marinos was banished from the monastery and became a beggar. For 10 years he raised his alleged illegitimate child as a father, until he was allowed to return to the monastery and do penance. Only after his death the abbot and the monks discovered his genitals and his inability to father children and were distraught for punishing an innocent man for 10 long years. The real father was discovered and along with the innkeeper and his daughter they all came to honor Marinos' grave and ask his forgiveness. He was canonized as a saint for his sacrificial selflessness, modesty and humility and honored across the Mediterranean from Ethiopia to France.

3. Mubārak and Muẓaffar al-Saqlabi (c. 10th - 11th century)

Mubārak and Muẓaffar were co-rulers of Taifa of Valencia in Muslim Spain. Al-Saqlabi means literally "of the Slavs", which in Al-Andalus was a general term for enslaved northern Europeans, as the two had been enslaved as children. They were in the service of another al-Saqlabi, a chief of police, and they worked they way up as civil servants till a local military coup in 1010, which resulted in them becoming the emirs of Taifa of Valencia. English language sources often describe them as "brothers" and "eunuchs", which gives the "historical gal pals" trope a concerning twist, but contemporary Muslim sources wrote fawningly about their passionate love, trust based on equality and mutual devotion. There was a popular genre of homoerotic poetry in the Islamic world at the time and poems in that genre were written about celebrating Mubārak and Muẓaffar's relationship. In 1018 Mubārak was killed in a riding accident and Muẓaffar shortly after in an uprising.

4. Eleno de Céspedes (1545 – died after 1589)

CW: genital inspection

Eleno was born in Andalusia, Spain, to an enslaved black Muslim woman and to a free Castillian peasant. He was assigned female at birth, given name Elena, and branded as a mulatto born to a slave. She was freed as a child and married to a stonemason at 15-16 years old. When pregnant, her husband left her and died a while later. Later Eleno testified that his intersex condition became externally visible, while he gave birth, and he became a man. He left his son to be raised by a friend and traveled around Spain. After he stabbed a pimp and ended up in jail, he started presenting as a man and openly courting women. Eventually he taught himself to be a surgeon with the help of a surgeon friend.

When he married María del Caño, his maleness was questioned and he was subjected to genital inspection multiple times and it was agreed by doctors that he had definitely male genitals, possibly also female genitals. After a year of marriage the couple was accused of sodomy. Eleno was tried by the Spanish Inquisition and subjected to more genital inspections, during which no penis was found. He claimed that his penis had been amputated after an injury. He defended himself in the trial by arguing that his intersex condition was natural and he had become a man after his pregnancy, so his marriage was legal. He was sentenced only for bigamy, since he had not confirmed that his husband was dead and punished as a male bigamist with 200 lashes and 10 years of public service to care for the poor in a public hospital. His fame attracted a lot of people wanting to be healed by him, which which was very embarrasing for the hospital so he was sent away and eventually exonerated from his charges.

7. Chevaliére d'Éon (1728-1810)

Charles d'Éon de Beaumont was born to a poor French noble family. In their 20s they became a government official and at 28 they joined the secret spy network of the king, Secret du Roi. They became a diplomat first in Russia and later in Britain while they used their position to spy for the king. Rumors circulated in London that they were secretly a woman. While in London they had a falling out with the French ambassador, accused him of attempted murder and published secret diplomatic correspondence. They were instead accused of libel and went into hiding. After the death of Louis XV in 1774 and the abolishment of Secret du Roi, d'Éon negotiated with the French government of the end of their exile in exchange for the rest of the secret documents he possessed. D'Éon took the name Charlotte, claimed she was in fact a cis woman - she had pretended to be man since a child so she could get the inheritance - and demanded the government to recognize her as such. When the king agreed and included funds for women's wardrobe, she agreed and returned to France in 1777. After that she helped rebels in the American War of Indepence - was not allowed to ]go and fight too, ghostwrote her not super reliable memoir, offered to lead a division of female soldiers against the Hasburgs in 1792 - was for some reason denied, attended fencing tournaments till 65 years old and settled down for the rest of her years with a widow, Mrs. Cole. After her death a surgeon reported that she had male primary sex characteristics, but fairly feminine secondary sex characteristics, like round breasts, which might suggest she had hormonal difference/was intersex in some way.

8. Public Universal Friend (1752-1819)

Public Universal Friend, or The Friend or PUF, was born as Jemima Wilkinson to Quaker parents in Rhodes Island, USA. Jemima contracted a disease in 1776, gained intense fever and almost died. The Friend claimed that she did die and God sent the Friend to occupy her body. The Friend didn't identify as man or a woman, and when asked about the Friend's gender, the Friend said "I am that I am". The Friend didn't want any gendered pronouns or gendered language to be used about the Friend. The Friend's pronouns, according to the writings of the Friend's followers, were "the Friend", "PUF" and possibly he. First recorded neo-pronouns perhaps? The Friend also dressed in androgynous/masculine manner.

The Friend started a bit cultish religious society disavowed by mainstream Quakers, The Society of Universal Friends, which I can only describe as chaotic good. The Friend first predicted a Day of Judgement would come in 1780 and when 1780 came and went, the Friend decided it was New England's Dark Day in 1780 and they had survived survived the Judgement Day so all was good then. The Friend preached for gender equality, free will, universal salvation (Jesus saved everyone and no one will go to hell) and abolition of slavery. The Friend persuaded any followers to free their slaves, which is probably the most chaotic good thing a potential cult leader can do with their influence over their followers, and several freed black people followed the Friend too. The Friend advocated for celibacy and was unfavorable towards marriage, but didn't think celibacy or rejection of marriage were necessary for everyone else, so it feels more like a personal preference. Many young unmarried women followed the Friend and some of them formed Faithful Sisterhood and took leadership positions among the Society.

The Society of Universal Friends tried to form a town for themselves around mid-1780s, till in 1799 the Friend was accused of blasphemy. The Friend successfully escaped the law two times. First the Friend, a skilled rider (what's a gender neutral version of horse girl?), escaped with a horse, then after an officer and an assistant tried to arrest the Friend at home, women of the house drove the men away. Third time 30 men surrounded the Friend's home at night, but a doctor convinced them that the Friend was in too poor health to move but would agree to appear at court. The Friend was cleared for all charges and even allowed to preach at the court.

9. Mary Jones (early 1800s–1853)

Mary Jones' origin is unknown, but she was an adult in 1836 in New York, USA. She was a free Black person, who preferred to present as a woman. She was sex worker by trade and used a prosthetic vagina. As a side hustle she would steel her customer's wallets, and usually they wouldn't tell anyone because it was 1830s and inter-racial sex and prostitution were illegal and everyone was repressed. Smart. Get your coin, girl. However after one of her more shameless customers discovered his wallet with 99 dollars inside had been replaced with a different man's empty wallet and contacted the police, she was arrested. The police discovered she had male genitals and when they searched her room they found several more stolen wallets. She appeared in court in her female presentation and when asked about her dress, she said that prostitutes she had worked with encouraged her to dress in women's clothing and said she looked better in them. They were right and she had since presented as a woman in her evening profession and among other Black people. She was convicted for grand larceny and sentenced to 5 years in prison. Later she continued to present as a woman and practice sex work, for which she was arrested for two more times.

10. George Sand (1804-1876)

George Sand was pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, a French Romantic writer. Amantine was high-born with a countess as a grandmother. George wrote about themself with alternating masculine and feminine language, using feminine language when talking about his childhood, but masculine language often other times. Their friends also used both masculine and feminine terms about them. Victor Hugo for example said about them: "George Sand cannot determine whether she is male or female. I entertain a high regard for all my colleagues, but it is not my place to decide whether she is my sister or my brother." George preferred men's clothing in public, which was illegal for those seen as women without a permit, but they didn't ask for permissions. They alternated between masculine and feminine presentations. They were outspoken feminist, critic of the institution of marriage, committed republican and supporter of worker's rights. They were married at age 18, had two children and left their husband in 1831, but legally separated from him in 1835. They had many affairs with men and some with women, at least with actress Marie Dorval. Their most notable relationship was with Frédéric Chopin, but they fell out before Chopin's death.