#horse: charlotte

[bella-wolfford]

my horses! (wip)

most of these horses are rescue horses that i got for cheap or free. funding from the silverglade manor helps me care for them, big big shoutout to silverglade's baroness for her sponsorship!!

dawns last wishes/"dawn" (gen 2 lippizan) - dawn is a 30 year old lippizaner mare! shes been close with me since she was 17 and i was 9. i met dawn when i was helping around my local stable, and she had just arrived as a retired broodmare. i bought her for cheap off of her original owner when i turned 14! she can be spirited but she is never not gentle. dawn is the dearest to my heart.

freckled archangel/"angel" (gen 3 lippizan) - my baby boy! hes a 7 year old lippizaner gelding, and he is dawn's grandson!! hes spunky and super affectionate, knocked me over more than once trying to snuffle me. right now we do some jumping together and we love a good trailride, but our main thing together is flatwork.

charlotte (american saddlebred) - charlotte is a queen of a mare, around 20 years old. she came from a bad background; after years of TLC she wont let anyone stand in her way. its her barn, we just live in it. despite the attitude, shes charmed everyone. [authors ooc note: charlotte was a horse i knew irl. SSO released the american saddlebreds and i excitedly bought the one identical to her just a few weeks before she passed. shes very dear to me!]

promise you pearls/"pearl" (gen 3 icelandic) - one of the stable hands at steve's found this girl tied to a fence in the everwind fields, and i couldnt help myself from volunteering to take her. her sweet face said it all! we know none of her history, but suspect her to be around 13 years old. she loves to cross any kind of terrain, especially if its wet. ive given up on keeping her white.

questioning leaves/"forest" (ardennes) - this gentle 7 year old is everything. hes still very new to the barn, and he is very nervous, but he is so softhearted! the baroness bought him for eventing potential but quickly found he was not as advertised. he prefers to go on trail rides through quiet spaces, and ive been working with him a lot lately.

attackhorse bio here

aquamarine (gen3 etb) - my goofy little gelding. we dont know how old he is for sure but somewhere around 15. he was up for slaughter when we got him. i found out he is half blind, and we are still working on a lot of stuff, but hes so willing to do anything for his rider <3

harvest moon/"harvest" (american saddlebred w chimerism) - an 8 year old gelding! his fascinating color comes from chimerism, i like calling him patches. he loves to nibble hair and hes very spicy horse to ride. he was given up by his previous owner and i ended up getting him from steve.

mistmagic bio here

[charlotte-of-wales]

The Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte and the Duchess of Edinburgh at Horse Guards Parade for "Trooping the Colour" in London | June 15, 2024

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Sh*t has hit the fan in equestrian sport and I genuinely wonder if this is the beginning of the end of it's social license to operate.

I used to respect Charlotte Dujardin as "one of the kinder riders out there". Sadly it seems like this was all just marketing. She just happened to have a horse like Valegro that tolerated her harsh handling (she described him as "hard mouthed" which is a pretty good indication that he had poor training to start with).

But she was the golden girl of dressage and the UK's darling of the sport. Now the curtain is peeled back to reveal casual whipping of a horse's legs over 24 times, commenting how the whip "doesn't whip hard enough."

Methodical and not at all seeming angry or disregulated while the 15 year old on the panicked horse's back cries out. This is not a one off. It's a technique. I've seen it before. Instuctors that chase after "lazy" horses in riding schools with a whip so that the horse "doesn't get away with it."

What about horses getting chased around a round yard with a whip until rearing in panic and lathered up in sweat? I've seen that too, during an equine science program where we were supposed to be learning how to break in weanlings.

It just happens to be a Olympic gold medalist doing it and getting caught.

In the article it says "you can't force a 400-500kg animal to do something." You absolutely can and horses are regularly forced into things they don't want to do. They're flighty prey animals. They say "no" pretty clearly in competition rings but then the whip comes out, the spurs go on and the horse shuts down. Despite the blue tongues from lack of oxygen, mouths strapped shut with tight nosebands, bits that they can't escape from, froth and blood in their mouths, they continue. Because they have no choice.

When your training principle relies on negative reinforcement and positive punishment, escalation like this inevitably occurs. When your training principle is based in domiance, on "not letting them get away with it" and on "making them do it", this is where it goes. The horse's autonomy and feelings diminished into "naughty" or "just trying to be lazy" ... not fear or pain or just a simple struggle to do something they're not physically able to do.

And it becomes normalised, laughed off and accepted, especially when a gold medalist Olympian does it.

The only reason this is a scandal is because an elite rider got caught doing it. But this is not a one off or a "bad apple" this is what the entire traditional horse training model is based on.

The FEI is making a big show of this because they want to look tough on horse welfare so the Olympics doesn't throw out Equestrian sport. But just wait until the dressage kicks off. We will see the same tense, stressed out horses, toe flicking and hollow with hop-step piaffes that are an insult to the Classic masters of old.

The sport of dressage will crash and burn if it continues on its current trajectory. Equestrian sport will follow as a whole when the public realises these are not animals "enjoying their jobs". Unless the FEI allows for a huge paradigm shift where people can compete tackless and use positive reinforcement (actual +R and not the pathetic pat on the neck they pass off as +R), the sport will fall to ruin and the elites will have only themselves to blame.

[dongslinger--420]

Escape From LA: How BoJack Horseman deconstructs the sitcom

A LOT of BoJack's characterisation is based on the fact that he sees life as a sitcom. You can't separate BoJack the show nor BoJack the character from sitcoms. So much of the show is based on deconstructing sitcom tropes, and that BoJack thinks that the sitcom solution will work in his life. Take that episode in season 1 where Diane and PB are getting married: BoJack keeps trying to create increasingly complicated situations to sabotage their marriage because he has a crush on Diane, because that's what would happen in a sitcom. But none of them actually work. Diane and PB get married anyway because, why wouldn't they? And the episode ends with Todd telling BoJack that he should just give up.

The sitcom thing is played for laughs to varying degrees throughout the show, with Escape From LA being one example that is exclusively played for drama. The entire episode is set up like an episode of a 90s sitcom: BoJack is extremely close with Penny and involved in her life, there are characters with quirks and catchphrases, BoJack does his stupid BoJack dance at the dance, BoJack acts as the "cool grown up friend" to all of Penny's friends, the New Mexico leitmotif plays throughout the episode as a scene transition, the bjhm theme song is replaced by an 80s sitcom parody of a theme called "Kyle And The Kids".

But the thing about all of this is that the show isn't a sitcom, and everything I just listed has a real life consequence.

Much like bjhm itself does, at the start of the episode the show plays this sitcom subversion for laughs. Pete Repeat has an extremely stupid character quirk both in and out of the context of the story, and he never fucking says anything twice! Because that's stupid! BoJack's stupid dance gets him boo'd off the dance floor because realistically why would a group of teenagers do a 51yo man dance. Kyle And The Kids is immediately followed by a joke about Penny's younger brother Trip having an unprompted erection, which would crucially never happen in an 80s sitcom because, although normal, is not family friendly by any stretch of the imagination.

The rest of my points, however, are subverted in a darker way. BoJack's closeness with Penny means that he knows a lot about her life, and the scene where they go through their plan on what to do also has Charlotte in the room, who has no idea what they're talking about, showing us that this is not a normal level of what an adult knows (there's more to say about this one but I'll get to it later). BoJack acting as the "cool grown up friend" involves giving teenagers bourbon (bearing in mind these kids have only ever drunk beer), and eventually one of them gets alcohol poisoning and ends up going to the hospital. And every time the New Mexico leitmotif is used in the following seasons (i.e. every time New Mexico is mentioned), it is used as something to haunt BoJack. It's the equivalent of having an extremely dirty and terrible association with the Hannah Montana music.

It's difficult to decipher exactly what stereotypical role BoJack is supposed to be taking in this hypothetical episode of Kyle And The Kids, or whatever you want to call it. I think he's supposed to be taking the role of "father". "Father" is the role that he played on Horsin Around. "Father" is what he (at least originally) wanted to be in relation to Penny. "Father" is something that he has one frame of reference for: The Horse.

There is a line in Sabrina's Christmas Wish where Olivia is complaining about the boy she's talking to, and The Horse offers to take her to the dance. The funny thing about this line is that it's not at all out of place in Horsin Around, because it's normal for sitcom parents to have that level of involvement with their children. In fact, they have to, in a narrative context, because it's a dom com, and you have to have the characters interact with each other because that's just how stories work. However, it is out of place in Escape From LA, purely because we have Charlotte as a frame of reference. Charlotte and Penny are very close, and are shown to be very close throughout all of their appearances. But Charlotte is reacting to the conversation with comments like "who are these people?" because she's still Penny's mother at the end of the day. I would say I'm close with my mum and I've never given her that much information about my crushes (it took me half of my one relationship to even tell her that I was in a relationship). And because of this distinction, Penny doesn't see BoJack as a parental figure. She sees him as a friend, which is why she falls in love with him later on.

The interesting thing about this episode is that because it's so sitcommy by design, it's extremely easy to root for BoJack on your first watch. Because the "father" or the "cool adult/uncle/whatever" role in a sitcom is one that's known, and the father in the sitcom would never do anything wrong. Especially considering the background information we have that Charlotte is the one who got away. We, at least to a degree, expect BoJack to actually end up with Charlotte at the end of the episode. When BoJack says things like "you look just like your mother", on our first watch of the episode we connect that to his want to be Penny's father, because that's also BoJack's intention. But then everything gets shattered, both in and out of universe, when Charlotte rejects BoJack. Because suddenly, both we and BoJack are supposed to deal with the fact that, actually, why would she have an affair with Kyle? What information do we have that she and Kyle are not happily married?* This is not a sitcom. So then, BoJack starts to panic. He starts to think irrationally, as this illusion he has been creating for himself for 3 months and/or 29 years starts to crumble. He starts to see Penny, not as a daughter, but as the next best option to being with Charlotte, the next best option to keep living this lie he keeps telling himself.

Sure, it seems like shock value the first time you watch it. Because it's a subversion. It's not what you expect by definition. But then after you rewatch the episode, you can't unsee it. Everything is recontextualised. It's no longer a sitcom.

Escape From LA is my second favourite penultimate episode in the entire show. Other than being one of the biggest parts of the show that wasn't spoilt for me, it's so beautifully constructed and subtle and genius that it remains gripping every time, and I love noticing a new thing about it every time.

*For this very reason, Kyle's lack of appearances and an active role in this episode is genius.

[black-thoroughbred]

The Charlotte Dujardin video. Absolutely appalling.

[arthursfuckinghat]

Arthur and Poldark 𑁦𐂂𑁦 Brandywine Drop

[madthighsmoody]

@lesbanonqueen and I made this very important, very sapphic, triple venn diagram...

Thoughts?

[sweatytyrantobservation]

Berserk horses that caught my attention

And my thoughts on them here and there.

Zodd

First off, what the fuck are they feeding this thing, its huge. Must be incredibly strong to have zodd as its rider too. Would NOT wanna mess with it

Skull Knight

Worlds most unphased horse , ever.

Griffith

Very pretty. Not a lot of thoughts on this one, I just like the tack. I bet it gets round the clock treatment just cause its Griffiths.

Guts and Casca

Colour Matching horses! So cute. Suits them, like the little detail of the mark on the horses face with guts's if you look the tack on either horse matches the rider, dunno if it's intentional but I think it's cool.

Pippin

His horse is a shire, shire horses are fucking awesome

Honourable mentions

Princess Charlotte

Look how pretty it is :(

Farnese/ holy iron chain knights

Farneses looks like a fucking unicorn oh my god 10/10

Mozgus

Yeah we never see this horse ever again what happened to it, are they just keeping it in a box somewhere??

Just a panel that contains horses.

In all, I love horses, I love berserk, so why the fuck not? I can appreciate the detail and the subtle differences to a horse that belongs to a character like I pointed out w guts and casca. I was gonna add the unicorns but I can't add more than 10 images. Poor things though, being taken to war and back

In conclusion,

Berserk horses have definitely seen some shit

Part 2 of horses that have caught my eye

[world-of-celebs]

Charlotte Hawkins at Epsom racecourse on 31st May 2024

[bojackandherb]

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Anime Horse Tournament Round 3 Match 7

Propaganda:

Charlotte/Shallot/Charrette -

"One of the only horses with a name in attack on titan. It belonged to Dieter Ness who wore a bandana because he's bald on the top of his head because his horse likes to eat hair. Apparently the horse is deceased now, much like many other aot horses. RIP"

Horse from Frieren -

None submitted.

The Bicorn -

"He called out Chilchuck for lying about being a bad husband."

[jackoshadows]

My top shows of 2023

Reservation Dogs season 3. The Finale was a well done, emotional and deserving finish for this show

Deadloch. A hilarious murder mystery with fun female leads. I hope there's a season 2!

Foundation season 2. An example of how despite being so very different from the book series, the adaptation can still tell a very compelling story with intriguing characters and a well developed plot.

Slow Horses season 3. The most incompetent spies ever bumbling around political intrigue and MI 5 shenanigans.

Silo. An interesting mystery of what's outside the Silo. A bit dragging at certain points - can't be helped considering it's adapted from a novella - and yet, great characters and never losing the focus on the central plot made this a fun show. Loved it, can't wait for season 2

Bodies. I am a sucker for time travel shows and this one was right up my alley. The characters are amazing in each time period. Not a big fan of how it was all resolved at the end there.

Abbott Elementary season 2 and the final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Dark Winds season 2 and Black Snow - Murder mysteries in a complex and interesting setting.

1899. Sadly cancelled but the mystery was interesting and I wanted to know more.

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart - Just for the cinematography and the beauty of the settings, though the story about abuse and the long term effects of growing up with abuse was also beautifully done.

[preppyandpreppy]

[dongslinger--420]

Just realised the subtle genius of lampshading how insane it is that sitcom parents know as much as they do about their kids friends by having BoJack, someone who knows the relationships and personalities of all of Penny's friends, v Charlotte, a mother who knows a realistic amount, and then has the added bonus of being weird on first watch and then Extremely uncomfortable on all subsequent watches

[kj-munch]

bite sized trolls au doodle bc its back on the dome... his little thang

bonus:

big guy with the stupid glasses is @funnycatfelix oc, guy death threating him from the jar is troll murphy LOL

[kcdressage]

World champions Charlotte Fry and Glamourdale win the 2022 Dressage World Cup freestyle with a new personal best of 90.995% at the London International Horse Show.

Gifs by @kcdressage