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falconfate · 1 month

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Hello ranger’s apprentice fandom can we talk real quick about the stupidest thing Flanagan ever wrote

It’s about the bows. Yanno, the rangers’ Iconique™️ main weapon. That one. You know the one.

Flanagan. Flanagan why are your rangers using longbows.

“uh well recurve arrows drop faster” BUT DO THEY. FLANAGAN. DO THEY.

the answer is no they don’t. Compared to a MODERN, COMPOUND (aka cheating) bow, yes, but compared to a longbow? Y’know, what the rangers use in canon? Yeah no a recurve actually has a FLATTER trajectory. It drops LATER.

This from an article comparing the two:

“Both a longbow and a recurve bow, when equipped with the right arrow and broadhead combination, are capable of taking down big game animals. Afterall, hunters have been doing it for centuries with both types of bows.

However, generally speaking and all things equal, a recurve bow will offer more arrow speed, creating a flatter flight trajectory and retain more kinetic energy at impact.

The archers draw length, along with the weight of the arrow also affect speed and kinetic energy. However, the curved design of the limbs on a recurve adds to its output of force.”

It doesn’t actually mention ANY distance in range! And this is from a resource for bow hunting, which, presumably, WOULD CARE ABOUT THAT SORT OF THING!

Okay so that’s just. That’s just the first thing.

The MAIN thing is that even accounting for “hur dur recurves drop faster” LONGBOWS ARE STILL THE STUPID OPTION.

Longbows, particularly and especially ENGLISH longbows, are—as their name suggests—very long. English longbows in particular are often as tall or taller than their wielder even while strung, but especially when unstrung. An unstrung longbow is a very long and expensive stick, one that will GLADLY entangle itself in nearby trees, other people’s clothes, and any doorway you’re passing through.

And yes, there are shorter longbows, but at that point if you’re shortening your longbow, just get a goddamn recurve. And Flanagan makes a point to compare his rangers’ bows to the Very Long English Longbow.

Oh, do you know how the Very Long English Longbow was mostly historically militarily used? BY ON-FOOT ARCHER UNITS. Do you know what they’re TERRIBLE for? MOUNTED ARCHERY.

Trust me. Go look up right now “mounted archery longbow.” You’ll find MAYBE one or two pictures of some guy on a horse struggling with a big stick; mostly you will actually see either mounted archers with RECURVES, or comparisons of Roman longbow archers to Mongolian horse archers (which are neat, can’t lie, I love comparing archery styles like that).

Anyway. Why are longbows terrible for mounted archery? Because they’re so damn long. Think about it: imagine you’re on a horse. You’re straddling a beast that can think for itself and moves at your command, but ultimately independently of you; if you’re both well-trained enough, you’re barely paying attention to your horse except to give it commands. And you have a bow in your hands. If your target is close enough to you that you know, from years of shooting experience, you will need to actually angle your bow down to hit it because of your equine height advantage, guess what? If you have a longbow, YOU CAN’T! YOUR HORSE IS IN THE WAY BECAUSE YOUR BOW IS TOO LONG! Worse, it’s probably going to get in the general area of your horse’s shoulder or legs, aka moving parts, which WILL injure your horse AND your bow and leave you fresh out of both a getaway vehicle and a ranged weapon. It’s stupid. Don’t do it.

A recurve, on the other hand, is short. It was literally made for horse archers. You have SO much range of motion with a recurve on horseback; and if you’re REALLY good, you know how to give yourself even more, with techniques like Jamarkee, a Turkish technique where you LITERALLY CAN AIM BACKWARDS.

For your viewing enjoyment, Serena Lynn of Texas demonstrating Jamarkee:

Yes, that’s real! This type of draw style is INCREDIBLY versatile: you can shoot backwards on horseback, straight down from a parapet or sally port without exposing yourself as a target, or from low to the ground to keep stealthy without banging your bow against the ground. And, while I’m sure you could attempt it with a longbow, I wouldn’t recommend it: a recurve’s smaller size makes it far more maneuverable up and over your head to actually get it into position for a Jamarkee shot.

A recurve just makes so much more SENSE. It’s not a baby bow! It’s not the longbow’s lesser cousin! It’s a COMPLETELY different instrument made to be used in a completely different context! For the rangers of Araluen, who put soooo much stock in being stealthy and their strong bonds with their horses, a recurve is the perfect fit! It’s small and easily transportable, it’s more maneuverable in combat and especially on horseback, it offers more power than a longbow of the same draw weight—really, truly, the only advantage in this case that a longbow has over the recurve is that longbows are quicker and easier to make. But we KNOW the rangers don’t care about that, their KNIVES use a forging technique (folding) that takes several times as long as standard Araluen forging practices at the time!

Okay.

Okay I think I’m done. For now.

#to be VERY clear. I Am Not An Actual Expert.#i AM however drawing from my own experience and research #and literally i can find Zero literature about recurve arrow flights dropping faster than longbows #all i could find was that recurve range is worse compared to compound bows #which. OBVIOUSLY. compound bows CHEAT.#(said lovingly. ish. if you use a compound more power to you but also It’s Doing All The Work For You.)#this article was literally all i could find from a couple hours’ search comparing recurves and longbows #anyway recurves are cool. flanagan why did you do recurves so dirty.#for that matter why are all your women blonde.#(i’m not including brotherband here sorry)#(but also why did it take a spinoff series for him to create a named female character that wasn’t a blonde)#(flanagan explain)#god these books have so many problems. truly this is my ‘i could fix him’#thank you flanagan for getting me into this special interest. now Tell Me Why You Did It Wrong.#rangers apprentice #anyway if you REALLY want to read about some bangin historical horse archers #look up the parthians :)#specifically how they fucking Decimated an entire roman contingent :)#crassus getting absolutely demolished by mounted archer parthians is definitely my favorite bit of roman trivia

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madtotry · 4 months

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and if i could let it ride i'd take my time and free my mind one. — two. — three. — coming soon.

hiccup haddock x reader

a/n. gn reader. theres one mention that implies reader believes in gods. we're pretending night furys aren't quite as fast as they are in canon/or you can imagine elsa is just somehow even faster if you want. unlike the past chapters, this one ends abruptly because part 4 will be set immediately after this ★ 1.7k

the air tastes like freedom, and with the way elsa pierces through the wind with more enthusiasm than you've seen since last winter, you know she feels that same magic.

depending on where you go, the air is always crisp and biting, but it isn't always new. there's a time of year where something beautiful lays to rest her weary head until next year, leaving way for something magical to rise in her wake. it's the feeling of knowing the snow is fresh and the world is stopping just for a special moment, to say, "look at this, look at me, look at everything i can do." and you thank the gods every year, that you have lived to see another one of these seasons.

your arms whip up to feel the cold air run through your skin as elsa whips through just above the surface of the ocean, playfully dropping a wing to spray water up at you.

you laugh brightly, tilting your head up to gaze at the clouds racing by, and it takes everything in you to not fall and lay down on elsa's back — the idea in theory representing a perfect pastime, but in reality the one thing that could ruin your mood right now would absolutely be taking an unforeseen dip into the freezing sea lest you slip.

your eyes shut for a moment as you just sit like this, balling your hands into fits before thrusting them in the air excitedly and leaning down on your chest to rest your head atop elsa's.

she chirps at you in greeting, and flies a little further up from the sea to spare you from being splashed.

"i feel so alive," you whisper to her, a tradition at this point; ever since the first time the two of you flew through a day just like this, and you'd declared you'd never felt so alive to her. the sentiment still reigns true every year, and elsa always agrees.

on days like these, you're reminded just how fast she can fly and for just how long she never seems to tire — especially if she's close to the sea.

you don't know for sure how long you've been out here, but you near the island you've met hiccup halfway on in the past up ahead, and feel the same sensation you do when anticipating a new season as you approach it.

"what do you think?" you mutter to your dragon, and she's already dipping to graze the cold water of the ocean to fly just above the surface, circling the island.

the season is absolutely — at the very least partially — to blame for your boldness in going as far as to seek out someone you are usually terrified of looking your way. the world feels safer at times like these, and you almost feel as though you can be yourself, as though you could act like a normal friend.

elsa makes it halfway around the island before you spot hiccup and toothless flying past it, and you find yourself overcome with the urge to yell out jovially to get their attention.

however you bite your tongue, already seeing elsa's own bold plan of sneaking up on them unfolding, and you find you like her idea much more — it feels more like you.

"shhh," you playfully whisper to your already deadly silent dragon, as she glides just far enough behind and below them that she's gone completely undetected.

you have to hold a hand to your mouth to contain a giggle as she slowly rises; still completely unseen.

they finally notice you at the exact same time, both with an identical whip of their heads to your direction.

your hand falls back to hold onto elsa and the other raises to wave, leaving your wide grin on show as hiccup's brief distress at a possible threat becomes his own bright smile.

"you!" he exclaims, like he wants to say a proper greeting but the pleasant surprise caught him off-guard.

"me!" you reply so easily, talking freely having never felt so natural.

"i didn't think you'd be here," he says.

you shrug happily, "i'm always here," referring more to being in the sky this time of year than just the small island.

beneath you, elsa and toothless seem to have been staring at each other this whole time, not in any aggression, but you see toothless's eyes and recognise the glint of competition in them from elsa's own.

hiccup picks up on this a moment later after quietly asking his dragon, "what's going on, bud?" and spares a glance to see you almost smirking with both hands securing themselves on elsa.

in the blink of an eye, the unspoken race begins, and elsa is surging forward and swiftly surpassing toothless, dipping almost imperceptibly closer to the surface of the ocean, knowing she's even faster the closer she gets.

your hearing is enveloped by the strong wind racing past, but a quick cheer from hiccup breaks through the noise as toothless flies past you, now ahead of elsa by a significant distance.

this doesn't discourage her though, and if anything it draws your dragon to grow even more determined, flapping her wings with a vibrating strength followed by bringing them close to her body. you lean down as flat against her as you can, holding on tight as her now tearing through the air like an arrow makes you feel like you could be flung off at a single wrong move.

(you'd laugh at the memory if the wind in your face wouldn't whip your breath away, knowing full well you have been hurled off her back after not being fully prepare for just this.)

she reaches toothless, and flies just a bit further past him when she unfurls her wings to do the heavy lifting once more.

your eye catches hiccup's own mirthful ones and you can tell it's only a matter of time before he pulls a trick out of his sleeve to get ahead again.

you have to crane your head slightly to get a good look at them as elsa gains a lead, and frown when you notice them slowing down ever so slightly as hiccup's hand runs down the back of toothless's neck.

"they're up to something," you whisper to elsa as you try to keep a watchful eye on your competition, but it gets caught in the breeze when the night fury that was just trailing behind, now has caught up to you. he growls proudly, not-so-subtly showing off his new "v" shaped flaps that run from his neck to his tail.

hiccup seems proud too, especially when the two suddenly dip out of your view. you whip your head up and down, left and right, trying to spot where they disappeared to — gasping when toothless appears on your other side swiftly, and hiccup winks.

your mind stutters for a moment, not even realising the two have flown ahead of you again, and instead suddenly acutely aware of the freezing tip of your nose being drowned out by the growing warmth across your cheeks.

elsa, however, grumbles at your disracted demeanour, and speeds up as much as she possibly can, before making a warning 'yelping' sound to you, telling you to prepare for what she's about to do.

her sudden plunge breaks you out of your stupor, and as soon as her downward motion ceases, you sit up straight — this being something you've rarely seen in action and have grown confident in, but all the well familiar with the consequences if you don't raise yourself as far up from the sea as possible.

you know elsa has hit the water from the way her body grows colder, like ice, and you quickly feel the rest of her body submerge with your feet all the way up to where your knees dangle by her sides.

the water rushing past you nearly reaching your hips is heavier than the air above, and you know for yourself it would feel like trying to fly through honey, but for elsa, the water surrounding her only serves to fuel her.

even as the freezing water engulfs the lower half of your body, you reach a hand out to graze the surface. flicking the water with your cold fingertips, you imagine it absorbing into your skin with an ethereal glow, wondering how it feels for elsa to have something so simple yet so powerful coursing through her — funnily enough — like a fire.

toothless is still ahead of elsa, but she's now hot on his tail with her built up speed, and you're regaining focus from the coldness sinking away from your body, holding on tight in preparation for the light show elsa will embodying and soon zoom by her competition.

you find, as elsa rises, that your mind had been just as enveloped as hers in the water — for the moment your feet hang back out in the open air and the water is already dried off your hand, you can suddenly feel hiccup's gaze on the two of you, a heat you'd have quickly and self consciously noticed in any other situation.

you can't find it in yourself to look away from him now, and you can't stop examining his every facial expression — the wonder in his eyes, his surprised smile, and the way you swear it grows when he notices you're looking at him again — as elsa reaches the same height as toothless again; bringing the two of you face-to-face

you can tell the way his eyes are lit up he's curious about every intricate details of what elsa is capable of, his mind reeling at the sight of something he's never even imagined before. it's like he's been shown the stars for the first time, like the constellations are forming before his eyes, and you don't miss the way his eyes flickering from your dragon to you with warm cheeks impacts your heartbeat.

it only lasts a moment though, because the second elsa is side-by-side with toothless once more, you're holding on tight and she's soaring past in a blur.

the world around you feels secondary to the floating feeling of moving this fast, and your eyes shut protectively in face of the air pinching at your skin — but the smile on your face is unstoppable, as elsa's speed leads the two of you to a well deserved win.

#i listened to “dragon racing” from the the httyd 2 soundtrack on repeat while writing this and and it absolutely enhances the experience #and apologies for the wait between chapters #taking flight (my writing)#hiccup haddock x reader #hiccup x reader #httyd x reader #how to train your dragon x reader #httyd imagine #httyd fanfiction #hiccup horrendous haddock iii x reader #hiccup horrendous haddock lll x reader #hiccup horrendous haddock the 3rd x reader

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