Latest Posts by thechangelingsea - Page 2

a hug ❤️‍🩹

Soooo, the German name for a bassoon is Fagott, from Italian fagotto, meaning bundle, because that's what it looks like. There is also the extremely fun instrument called a serpent, which I encourage everyone to look up. It's very silly-looking.

And thanks to Richard Wagner, we have this:

They really are everywhere.

I feel like Bertie Wooster’s method would be to run away from an angry swan.

(I have tested this method and it works.)

“Life advice with Bertie Wooster” is one of my favourite running gags in this series. Do you think Aunt Dahlia ever prevails upon him to write agony uncle columns for Milady’s Boudoir?

And I longed for your kiss for a million years

The story of the Ineffable Husbands is not that different from that of a stalactite and a stalagmite finally finding each other.

My friend @lunaramoonlight and I just visited a cave in Spain and she said stalactite and stalagmite have the slowest of the slow burns, only kissing after thousands and thousands of years... and I was like OMG THAT'S SO GOOD OMENS CODED! So I simply had to draw them like this.

Date? What? I don't want a romantic date.

I WANT TO ROMANCE MY FRIENDS!!!!

Making them laugh, making them happy, making them feel special.

An Arrangement

And a scrapped version below the cut. I take no responsibility for historically inaccurate knight undergarments

This is now my new favorite best friend duo

🏳️‍⚧️Happy Trans Day of Visibility 2025🏳️‍⚧️

I love you all, my trans beans 🩷

You are seen. You are loved. You will always be safe with me 🩷

Be proud of yourself. Be proud of your scars. They’re beautiful🩷🩵🤍

blame the angel. those were very clear instructions, after all.

A movement launched by French illustrators to fight the new obsession with chatgpt-generated "starter packs" made me want to join their fight.

Because every day, AI steals, destroys, and makes artists invisible.

Every person who enjoys and uses this "prompt" creates terrible pollution.

Because big brands like Ikea have appropriated this prompt instead of paying a designer.

Support artists and the No AI Starter Pack movement.

Article reference

Hi. Shout in!

Shout out to all the Aces who aren't Aro and the Aros who aren't Ace, we are lumped together so often so I'm here to say hi. Demi Queer, hopeless romantic here. Love uuuuuuu.

My cartoon for this week’s Guardian Books.

Aziraphale thought Crowley might need a little help with handling a gun, but things didn’t go quite as planned

one of the many versions of me

Details:

Crowley's charcoal portrait. 11 hours of work.

"You idiot. We could have been... US."

this is a part of a collab we did with like 7 other peeps to illustrate quotes from the second season of good omens

-

(PLEASE DON’T COPY/EDIT/USE/REPOST, REBLOG INSTEAD)

Aziraphale portrait in pencils and charcoal. I spent 19 weeks drawing this.

One of my absolute favorite drawings from one of my absolute favorite TV shows <3

I was a little sad when I did this and somehow It comforted me

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.

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.

State of signature support today 30-3-2025 is

France, Finland and Ireland have reached the threshold of signatures. Wahoo!

Spain = 79%, Belgium = 61%, Netherlands = 61%, Slovenia = 55%, Denmark = 38%, Germany = 38%, Sweden = 38%

HEY GUYS!!

GUYS!!!

FRANCE HAS REACHED THE REQUIRED NUMBER OF SIGNATURES ON THE CITIZEN'S INITIATIVE AGAINST CONVERSION THERAPY IN THE EU!!

ONE COUNTRY DOWN, SIX TO GO!!

We also need still quite a few signatures in order to reach the one million required.

As to date, the six other countries with the most signatures are:

Spain - 38.72%

Finland - 30.31%

Ireland - 24.86%

Netherlands - 24.15%

Germany - 23.54%

Belgium - 23.09%

So yeah, still a long way to go, but we ARE slowly getting closer. Don't stop now! Don't let this stay within the community, either, if you have any friends or family who are open to queer rights, get them to sign, too!

a compilation of all my planned good omens studies/recreations to commemorate finishing this project! they’ve been a great learning experience, and a bit of a trip down memory lane, though i must admit the monet ones are probably my favourite. 

redbubble | society6

So unfortunately, Redbubble removed my Good Omens pieces, so if you’re interested in any of these pieces, please use my S6 link!

Do you think people who are virgin should write smut? I feel like most of them don’t even know what they’re writing and just write what they think sex is

the implication this ask suggests that people who write about murders, cannibalism, politics, magic, royalty au, sci-fi, wars, supernatural, time travel, medieval era, werewolves, vampires, mermaids or goblins must be murderers, cannibals, presidents, wizards, royalties, astronauts, ghost hunters, soldiers, time travelers, knights, werewolves, vampires, mermaids or goblins in real life is so funny to me

Playing with the uniform of Lieutenant Crowley o.o

"Just a bunch of women in their 40s and 50s shredding each other, and it is wonderful to behold." - showrunner Rafe Judkins on the opening of The Wheel of Time season 3

15 min drawings

shout out to @eybefioro and @firelikestars for suggesting moments and expressions

Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

✧

➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can ask be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”