#neither not quite :(

[indigo6f00ff]

need to share an experience i had 30 minutes ago

(edit: thanks to @walks-the-ages for providing and reminding me to put alt text, sorry it slips my mind alot lol)

[courfee]

felt the need to jegulusify two posts i came across

[elodieunderglass]

And one amang, an Iyrysch man,

Uppone his hoby swyftly ran…

WAIT HANG ON - slamming the brakes on drawing this stupid picture - do you nerds even KNOW the etymology of the word “hobby”? The thing you do for pleasure? The thing you have too many of? The thing you spend too much money on and share with your friends? The thing tumblr probably is to you? Those hobbies?

It comes from a now-kind-of-extinct breed of Irish pony-horse. It was called the Irish Hobby. Supposedly the hobby got its name from the Gaelic word obann, or swift. They definitely were. They’d obann your pants clean off.

Fast tough little bastards, built for rough terrain and renowned for their speed and stamina, hobby horses belonged to the Celts, and their highly annoying style of mounted warfare. but their conquerors liked hobby horses a lot, kept them, used them for themselves, and found them useful enough, despite the fact that they also had famously useful things like mounted knights or horse archers. A lightweight Irish warrior, mounted on a hobby horse, was called a hobelar.

Reportedly and in depictions, hobelars rode without stirrups. Or saddles. Or bridles. Or - well - this is all sounding very improbable, because the hobelars COULDNT have just been charging around basically bare-assed on naked ponies, screaming, and somehow in the process undoing the composure of actual mounted armoured knights. Knights who, I remind you, had stirrups. Stirrups are useful! It’s quite likely the hobelars had some gear. And clothes. and weapons. And the ponies probably had some tack - I am picturing a bellyband that you could at least hang a saddlebag on, and a neck rope for catching the bloody thing, even if not a saddle. But the overall impression, somehow created by people on darling little ponies, was apparently quite striking and fearful.

I mean. God Forbid People Have Hobbies.

Anyway after a while, whatever people became the British had eventually conquered all of the rough terrain that hobbies were best at, and horse archers just got sexier, and mounted knights became aristos, and all the bog and forest people had been subdued, so it was time to sunset the hobelars. but WAIT! Hobby horses are still tremendously fun and appealing! They’re so fast! and you can ride them without a saddle! Sure, they’re not up to the weight of a mounted knight, or indeed a lot of guys… but surely we can still find a use for a hobby or two? In the back garden? Somewhere?

At which point an English king decided to keep hobby horses just for fun. No military application. No further development of the technology. Not for fun. Just as expensive, pleasurable, pets. Just for the joy of the thing.

And that is how hobby (activity done purely for pleasure) comes from hobby horse (small horse) possibly from obann (swift.) they’re very interesting and you should look all this up for yourself! because it sure sounds like Elodie doing a bit, doesn’t it?

Today, Irish Hobbies are functionally nonexistent. References for drawing include the Kerry Bog Pony, the Connemara, and (I personally think) Dartmoors and Exmoors. They’re said to have lent their speed to the Irish Hunter/Sport Horse and from there to the Thoroughbred, but every damn horse in the world claims relation to the Thoroughbred, and they can’t be THAT thoroughly bred.

At any rate - you can never have enough hobbies. Just be glad that yours aren’t expensive beasts with minds of their own, eating their heads off in the pasture! …Unless they are. In which case, you’re part of a proud tradition.

[arcticclimes]

Something something Fitzjames and Hodgson are two of the most dandy-ish characters in The Terror but they're also two of the most dangerous; they've both been to war, both do the greatest damage to Tuunbaq using the weaponry they were trained in by the navy (Hodgson with the cannon and Fitzjames with the congreves), and Hodgson is also the one to kill the Inuit family, directly connecting the violence of imperialism with the gentlemanly facade it likes to use.

[wilsonmybeloved]

i miss you nailgun

[crsssie]

God, I want Childhood Friend!Tim Drake

childhood friend!Tim whom your family trusts with your life for some twisted reason despite your protests about how he's more reckless than you

childhood friend!Tim who your friends all pester you about — well aware of the silly crush you've had on him since childhood

childhood friend!Tim who scared your family shitless when he revealed he dropped out of high school to search for his adoptive father

childhood friend!Tim who despite his status as drop out, your family still asks to have him over for dinner

childhood friend! Tim who has been at every single major event in your life whether in or out of his Robin mantle, flowers always in his arms as he greets you

childhood friend! Tim who has a file of photos of just you

childhood friend! Tim who happens to be... adding to that file at the moment

"Stop covering your face." He mumbles, fingers reaching to clasp around your wrist as you crane your neck to hide from his camera. "Please? Come on. You always look so pretty like this."

You only squirm in response.

"Come on." He whispers, pulling your wrist from your face as he's breathless from the way you look. "There you go. You're so pretty like this, birdie."

You try focusing on the way his camera clicks, but your eyes roll further back as he gives you a particularly harsh thrust — making you see stars. You trust that he wouldn't share the photos even if he was at death's door. You trust him with your life, but it doesn't mean you aren't embarrassed that he wants a photo of you like this so bad.

"Ah, Tim." You try, voice coming out in a whimper.

"Yes, birdie?"

"Close."

"That's right, birdie." A hand moves down to hold you down by the hip, speeding up. "Let me see that gorgeous look on your face when you cum."

You make him swear on his hard drive to never let the photo that he gets of you fucked out see the light of day. (not that he would've either way. only he gets to see you so vulnerable.)

[autisticsonic]

My take on a Sonadow fankid! She actually existed for a while now, but the trend gave me motivation to finally draw her!

Most sonadow fankids are purplish and tube-grown, so I decided to make her neither!

Background for the story under cut, in case it gets long!

So in this AU, stories from the more recent games happen when Sonic and Shadow are at most around 20 years old. Back then Sonic was rambunctious and reckless as we know him to be, and Shadow was a depressed, traumatized emo kid. While at first they were rivals as depicted in the games.

Over the years tho, just like their friends, the two matured. They started getting along a lot more, and became official friends, which eventually lead to dating. They both were afraid of getting serious though, so they took things slow and casual. Due to some of their unresolved issues, they couldn't get any closer. But not for much longer.

Some of it has been brought on by a Particular Event, and some of it due to restructuring how they go about saving the world, but things changed. As Forces has shown, putting so much responsibility on One Guy isn't wise. Sonic felt so quilty for failing, but it never should've been his job alone, so they created an organization, to share the load more evenly!

The org became global, with local groups of heroes being recruited all around, meaning that now the characters we know and love now had more time to take care of their personal lives.

While for some the change hasn't been much, Sonic, and to a lesser extent, Shadow, struggled quite a lot. Many of things happened in between, but eventually both of them grew to quite enjoy the domestic life.

They moved in together, and started taking things to the next level, now that both have done some healing and therapy. They found that they get along quite great. After a bit longer, they decided to start a family :)

Shadow came up with the name. He wanted to honor his sister's memory, but Mar-Mar was also a symbol of all his progress. He did go to therapy to make sure that he can handle them sharing a name, to see if it's a good idea, and well, it was!

She's now 4 and very loved, and her dads love each other very much as well. For a certain Sonic though, things won't go so great.

[rattsin]

Fury made Alanna gasp for breath. How could anyone get well in a menagerie? How could Jonathan breathe? This went against all the commonsense rules Maude had taught her for healing: clean air, quiet, absolute cleanliness, calm and reassuring voices. Didn't these people know anything?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I want it back / I drag its dead weight forward.

[spacetimeaccordionfolder]

Immoral thread, so weak

decided to do a whole colored digital thing with this sketch. Please imagine it in the post dismemberment pause where it almost feels like Kayne's hesitating.

Close up below.

mildly annoyed that the way I drew it you don't see a hint of all 4 limbs in a close up. Left leg is just over that way I promise. Oh and imagine that his breastplate is broken and you just can't see it. perhaps it's behind them. Perhaps its near his right arm. It broke in the first impact and is just not in view. I definitely did not forget to add the broken pieces somewhere.

[nataliesmisty]

[smitten-miqitten]

Somewhat unsettling Solavellan logo for when Lavellan isn’t quite the Inquisitor anymore, and Solas isn’t quite the Dreadwolf anymore, so they merge their branding 😌

I'm picturing wards and stuff placed with this symbol that have so many eyes staring. They may not be active players in Thedas in the future, but they're always watching 👀 I also like to think that it just kinda…happened. Like they put up a ward together and suddenly this image pops up within it.

I love how unsettling it looks. When all their friends die of old age and all context is lost with them, all anybody in the future is going to see is a bunch of really creepy looking eyes. Those in the future would have no insight into the intent of the people those eyes belong to, and probably think it’s a bad omen or something.

[walkingstackofbooks]

cw: child abuse

Once again, I got to the point where some comfort ought to have kicked in, and stopped... I'm sorry, I don't deliver closure, only hurt aha 😅

--

"I got grounded for a month after that," Miles finished sheepishly. Julian laughed.

"And you say that's your worst? My parents once grounded me from June through to August - and I lost food privileges once a week, too!"

Far from the round of laughter and "What did you do?"s he was expecting, he was greeted with a stunned silence. He raised his eyebrows, looking around at his friends in confusion.

"What do you mean, "food privileges"?" Sisko asked. Julian shrugged.

"Just, you know, my access to food was revoked for the day, or evening, or whatever time they'd set, and think about what I'd done."

"I'm sorry, your parents starved you once a week for three months?"

"You're making it sound worse than it was," Julian defended. "It wasn't that bad."

"Not being allowed to eat is pretty bad, Julian," Jadzia said, and from expressions on the others' faces, it seemed they agreed. He shrugged again, wishing he'd never said anything.

"What had you done?" asked Miles.

Just seconds ago, Julian had been ready to spin an impish tale of the two days he'd spent hiding away in the woods, but he has a sinking feeling his friends weren't going to see the funny side of this, either.

"I ran away. For two nights," he replied. "Funnily enough, it's more difficult than you'd expect from the way adventure books make it sound."

Odo harrumphed, but otherwise his joke fell flat.

"So you can see why they were mad," he continued. "When I turned back up again, they were thinking they were going to have to involve the police, and that would have been all sorts of awful."

"You went missing for two nights and they didn't--" The captain cut himself off, shaking his head. Julian looked away; Sisko seemed angry, and he wasn't sure how that made him feel.

"How old were you?" asked Kira.

"Fifteen," Julian replied. "It was just after I found out about, um, my genetic enhancements. Which is why it would have been so hard to explain, if, you know, they'd told the police about me."

"I can't believe this," says Miles. "You're saying you were so upset at finding out your parents had given you illegal enhancements that you ran away, and not only did they choose not to report you were missing, but when you came back, they punished you for being upset rather than, oh, I don't know, apologising?!"

Julian suddenly felt very small and stupid. "Well, when you put it like that--" he chuckled weakly, trying and failing to keep his voice light. Jadzia leant over to take his hand, and he knew he shouldn't push it away.

"I don't know," he said quietly, slumping back against his seat. "I guess, yeah - that's what I'm saying."

There was another silence. The outrage had died down, and now it seemed that no-one knew quite what to say. Jadzia's hand was beginning to feel oppressively warm.

"Food privileges," Sisko muttered, seemingly to himself, disdain dripping off each word. Hell. In hindsight, Julian really ought to have guessed how little his captain would approve of that one.

[sorry-not-feeling-it-right-now]

Do you ever think about how Shifty, the embodiment of change, wants things to go back the way it was before the split, while TLQ, the embodiment of being static, is conflicted over going back to how it was before and becoming a god again since he had a taste of what it’s like to be mortal and be his own person? And that part of him wants to change that? I think about that sometimes

(Edited to have this cause I have a stupid idea. Ignore this)

[terrified-spider]

I keep thinking about the trip back from the Amber Temple...

[neversetyoufree]

I've been thinking lately about Vanitas and Noé's first "what is salvation" fight at the bal masqué and what it means about their individual definitions of the concept, and I've realized something about Vanitas.

Noé's definition of salvation is the obvious one. It feels natural. To save someone is to keep them from dying. But in a way, his understanding of salvation is also almost selfish. Noé's foundational trauma is the constant loss of his loved ones. He is the eternal sole survivor. So of course he wants to keep people alive—he wants to "save" the people he cares about in the way that keeps them by his side this time.

It's not wrong to want that, of course. I don't mean "selfish" as a condemnation. It's just that the definition of salvation that Noé starts the series with is inarguably the one that best serves his own happiness.

And it's the same with Vanitas.

When Vanitas kills the little girl Catherine by restoring her true name, he tells Noé he doesn't know what salvation is. He might be lying there, or he might be telling the truth in that he's never put his definition of salvation into words or acknowledged it on a conscious level. Either way, though, I do think he has a definition of salvation somewhere in his mind, and it's a very personal one.

Vanitas sees salvation as the preservation or restoration of one's true self. You're saved so long as you can preserve your essential self, uncorrupted by outside forces. Even if the price of that selfness is death.

While Noé's foundational trauma that informs his worldview is the loss of his loved ones, one of Vanitas's foundational traumas is the loss of his bodily autonomy. Through Moreau's experiments and Luna's mark/bite, he has been transformed into something no longer fully human, and he hates it. From the moment Luna told him he was dying, he said he wanted to die as himself rather than live as their kin, and he has been denied that opportunity.

Nothing is more important for Vanitas than being able to dictate the destiny of his own body, and malnomen are the ultimate corruption of bodily autonomy and selfness. Altering one's true name warps not only their physical body, but their very being on a metaphysical level. The curse takes everything a vampire is and changes it, and doing that to an unwilling victim is the ultimate horror for Vanitas.

Given that context, of course Vanitas thinks that killing a child to restore her true name counts as saving her. He's restoring her essential self and un-corrupting her body and being, and even if her self is only returned for an instant before she dies, it's preferable to living on as something warped by an outside force.

Vanitas absolutely starts the series with a definition of salvation, and like Noé, it's the one that best serves his own happiness. He wants to be saved. He wants to be returned to his human self, and failing that (since he knows it's impossible), he wants to wipe out all traces of the force that changed him and then die without going any further down the path of inhumanity.

Vanitas might not be able to admit that definition out loud (or even to himself directly), but it's there, and it guides him early in the series as much as Noé's own definition of salvation guides him in turn.