#early forties

[samme-wunder]

Still thinking about ISAT so I made designs for them for a few years after the game's events. Slight spoilers for ISAT below? Not really tho. Captions: Picture one: Siffrin and Beau's bonding earrings. They shaped them to look like shooting stars and reminiscent of Isa's old earrings. Siffrin has a star-shaped scar under his eyepatch. I don't make the rules! I also gave Siffrin a cape. I imagine Isabeau gets super into fashion and Siffrin becomes his model and muse. Whatever he thinks will look good gets slapped onto Siffrin; their outfits are ALWAYS changing and they adore it. But they won't wear super heavy clothes. Picture two: Isabeau and Bonibelle! Isa is rocking an undercut and started growing out his beard a bit. He, like Mira, incorporates the change symbol into his clothes as he keeps his devotion to the Defenders. Boy is in his fashion designer era though, so many changes to the outfits happen. Bonnie's maxed out the cooking skills! They've gone back home to Petronille and are very active outdoors, always finding new interests. They've gotten into drawing and etymology, and those often come together! And in their pocket, they keep a gift from Siffrin: his silver coin. (It's definitely a joke that it's a symbol of Siffrin's eye and Bonnie gets to keep it.) Picture three: The ISAT girlies! They have the least changed about themselves but it's very symbolic. Odile has always been comfortable with her style, but she's started getting into writing novellas. After their journey, Odile's knee started going so she uses a cane and orthopedic shoes, but it doesn't slow her down much. If anything, it's only made her reach longer. Mirabelle started taking design courses with Isabeau and her Stylish classmate. She loves wearing flow-y dresses, and dressing like Euphrasie. She loves to change her hair and experiment with her hair texture and what she can make it into, but otherwise, Mira's stayed true to herself. And she's out of the dating pool, for sure, but that hasn't stopped her from picking up teaching classes at Dormont's house. (Also, her ears are pierced, but she's stopped wearing them.) Both girls send letters often back and forth for book club. And on the side, for Siffrin, they've been researching into the country North of Vaugarde. Anyway, honestly? I'm just having a lot of fun daydreaming about them and what they're up to. I REQUIRE a second ISAT about Siffrin's country. It'd be Neat (◐‿◑)

[manga-and-stuff]

Source: The Art of Nausicaä of the valley of the wind

by Hayao Miyazaki

Link to the full Artbook

[xx-j4nu5-c4t5-xx]

pascal and nervous in bert and ernie's sweaters

this was supposed to be a joke post but the demons took hold of me and now it's a fully finished drawing

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

🚨CROOKED KINGDOM SPOILER ALERT!!! 🚨

I’m once again thinking about how genius it was of Leigh Bardugo to kill off Muzzen near the start of Crooked Kingdom, simultaneously foreshadowing Matthias’ death and leaning us away from thinking it would happen

[faeriekit]

"It's so hard to teach kids consent 🥺" WRONG! Library books be upon ye!

Yes Means Yes, by Elaine Tai: "The various, "everyday" scenarios include the desire to touch someone's hair, play that can frustrate or hurt someone, and how someone might feel uncomfortable being touched or approached. Children will learn the importance of using their voice and listening when others use theirs, and parents can use the scenes as a foundation for further conversation."

Connor Kissed Me, by Zehava: "After Connor kisses Miriam on the playground, she tells a number of people who have differing reactions to the incident, until her mother encourages her to listen to and stand up for her own feelings."

Talking to kids about important topics goes way easier when you give them a basic expectation of what these experiences and situations might look like!

Additionally:

Emphasize to children that barring all necessary medical or safety interventions, their body belongs to them, and shouldn't be touched without permission. Yes, this does mean the conversation about vaccinations is going to take longer than usual. Consider it a trade-off.

Emphasize the affirmation, not the rejection! Sometimes people say no, and we respect that, and sometimes friends say YES to hugs and cheek kisses, and we get to share that with them!

There are plenty of alternatives to hugs and kisses! Don't want a hug? How about a high five? How about a pinky-promise? If you can't hold hands, why don't you hold onto my jacket, or I can hold onto your sleeve? Teaching kids how to ask for and offer alternatives when their peer says "No" goes a long way.

Encourage little kids not to keep "body secrets" at the request of others from their parents. If someone is asking them to hide something about their body from their parent, that's a huge concern.

Ask before hugging. Ask before kissing. Make other adults— yes, even nosy relatives—ask your child before a hug or a kiss. You can even model asking for physical affection with the co-parent if you have one. Modeling respect is worth it.

Lots of daycares are working harder to teach consent to younger children at younger ages. Some daycares are very proactive. Some are not. If you are in a position where you are interviewing multiple facilities about whether or not to place your child there, it's something that you can ask. "Do you have a stance on hugging between children, or between children and adults? What does it look like? Do you encourage boundary setting?"

And I like to think that we're beyond telling children that their bullies are secretly interested in them or want their attention but stop telling children that the other children who are harassing them are showing interest. 🔪 Stop it.

Children deserve safe, strong, respected boundaries! 🫂

[kawareo]

Nsfw alphabet

A- aftercare

Can we know for Gortash/durge compared to astarian/durge?

I'm fascinated by the differences in those relationships

(Gonna say for pre-tadpoles because after that the dynamics obviously change)

Astarion and Durge are very much friends with benefits, and (mostly for Astarion's sake) their aftercare is them getting back to normal as soon as possible. That includes breaking any potential tension, starting a conversation about something unrelated, healing whatever injuries Durge has given to himself during sex (their bondage tends to be improvised and not exactly safe for Durge when he's tied up) but they do also cuddle. Often Durge falls asleep and Astarion gets to lay there and think about when he will do when Caz is dead, or just whatever, because he does feel safe enough to dare think about things Cazador wouldn't like when he's being held by a Bhaalspawn.

On the other hand, Durgetash... They're more domestic. More quiet. Silently undoing Durge's binds and Durge quietly checking up Enver to see how badly his body took it. Enver often has a flareup in his bad hip after sex and they both pretend not to notice but Durge is mindful of it. They often take a bath if they have time and whichever is injured less helps the other there. Healing potions and quiet prayers are a staple of their aftercare. Neither of them is supposed to care enough about the other to provide aftercare tbh, so they do it almost silently and pretend it never happened.

So yeah the main difference is that (in Bhaal's eyes) Durgestarion is just casual necrophilia and Durgetash is a fucking blasphemy and aftercare is treated accordingly

[shadowuserannie]

Unreal

You know what would've been fun? If the elves had indefinite lifespans but not indefinite bodies. and them just like. not talking about it it being sort of an open secret that your parents take you aside to quietly explain, then make sure to say 'never mention this again'

Because just think about it. Elves taking a special elixir that maintains their body in its prime state. Skip a day and the decay is obvious, especially if you're already centuries old.

Some of the older elves obsessing because the elixir isn't perfect, it staves it off but they're not eternally twenty anymore, they look human forty now and forty is too much by elvin standards so they get plastic surgery.

Except elves' surgery consists of more elixirs. And the elixirs are almost perfect, too. They don't have the plastic botox effect that humans' plastic surgery does, that makes their face harder to move. The elves just...have this weird feeling about them. Like there's no obvious plastic surgery effect. It's just that uncanny valley feeling of 'face too perfect, too unreal.'

Elves obsessing over taking their elixirs, because there's a single Wanderling of an elf who was an Ancient. She lived in isolation. One day someone visited her and screamed because all that was left was a pile of ashes on the floor within a dress. She didn't want to live anymore and skipped a single day of her elixirs.

Elves can live forever, but unless they use elixirs to maintain their body then they will die. Except this contradicts itself, doesn't it? The very definition of quasi-immortality is living unless an outside force kills you. Your own body shouldn't qualify. And of course it's Sophie who brings this into question when she first hears it.

So what's happening is that elves aren't actually immortal. They just take elixirs to stop their bodies from aging and decaying to nothing. Otherwise, they have a lifespan just longer than a human.

And the very first elixir one takes to slow their aging, preparing your body for the rest, is Youth.

[jakemyboy]

King of the Paved Trail.

[orbitular]

I just fought for my life for a real genuine hour and a half to craft up my personal timeline for Night Swan/Cygnus/Jack

It has many flaws and assumptions so I will list them all below the cut if you'd be so kind to read:

1. Assumes time passes at the same speed in Danceverses that it does on Earth (unlikely)

2. Assumes Night Swan was the one to have Jack OR she took him from someone when he was literally 0-1 years old

3. Just Dance exists on Earth in 1997 . because I said so (again compliant with time passage being the same on Earth)

4. I was fighting for my life to rationalise why Cygnus would have a city named after him when he was 25 years old . so he's just a very enthusiastic architecture student okay

5. I was ALSO fighting to make Night Swan a reasonable age at the start of story mode so she entered the Danceverses at 29 and had Jack at 33 so he would be canon age (early 20s) and she would be in her mid 50s (a little older than I would have liked)

6. I couldn't have her enter the Danceverses any YOUNGER or Cygnus wouldn't have built the city yet because he'd literally be a young adult still doing his damn degree (and she needs to be there for Darkest Hour) . I could have made the age gap between them less but alas I Did Not Want To

7. Why do I call her Leda the whole time I Don't Know . I just like her name a lot and didn't want to write Night Swan or NS

There's probably more flaws but I shan't point them out and will simply let you do it for me ♥️ thank you for reading

[catilinas]

rereading masters of rome 👍 save me lucius cornelius sulla 👍 in retrospect it is kinda funny how it starts ten years before caesar is even born but there’s still this teleological pull towards him being [colleen mccullough voice] rome’s sexiest and specialest little dictator. from like page ONE

[weaponizedducks]

absolutely wild to me that your whole life is defined by exams you took when you were seventeen. their brains are not even fully developed yet. please pick a lane, adults. you dismiss their words. you call young people stupid and unable or not old enough to have good opinions or make choices or participate in the choosing of their own futures and yet you define their futures by one little test. well guess what an exam has a fuckton of choices and if they can't be trusted to have an opinion on their own lives then maybe they can't be trusted to make academic choices on a test either. either you give us a voice or you will not hear until it's too late

[ballwizard]

another FLORA FRIDAY DOODLE!! this time expanding on her and angelas designs for my funny angela & flora adventures idea

[clove-pinks]

It's Franklin Expedition day! HMS Erebus and Terror departed Greenhithe, Kent one hundred and seventy-eight years ago today, on 19th May 1845.

The contemporary illustration of the expedition departing in The Illustrated London News:

In the last few days before he sailed, Franklin may have experienced a premonition of his fate. Suffering from the flu, he was resting at home with his wife, Jane, who had just finished sewing a silk Union Jack for him to take. Concerned about his illness, she draped the flag over his legs for warmth. He sprang to his feet: “There’s a flag thrown over me! Don’t you know that they lay the Union Jack over a corpse?” But on Sunday 18 May, the eve of his departure, with his wife and daughter present, the profoundly religious Franklin read Divine Service for the first time to his crews. And when the expedition sailed from the Thames the next morning, carrying 134 officers and men, most felt the Franklin expedition could not fail.

— Owen Beattie and John Geiger, Frozen in Time

[lazy-toad]

I love that everyone called Michael "the old man" actually, I think more characters should call him that

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

hhhhhhhhh dilfguru might not be finished until tmrw………….. it was raining just a bit ago and i’m drinking a nice chai latte so the conditions r Perfect but i’m not capable of grinding it out within five hours 😔😔😔 i will Try though.