#also light source?

[windwenn]

POV ur being judged by a teenager objectively cooler than u wyd

[slothmonth]

I agree that "in Germany your boss legally has to provide you with work while you're at your job" is a bit funny considering the German stereotype. But I am really annoyed at people who act like this is some horrible hypercapitalist thing on that post about pushing people out of their jobs by just not giving them anything to do. When really it's very basic worker protection (within the context of German emplyment law.) Because under most circumstances you can't just be fired from your job. Your employer has to provide a reason for firing you if they want to get rid of you. You also have a right to specifially the work you were hired to do.

So your boss having to give you appropriate work makes illegal any of the following:

a) Making you clean toilets instead of (or in addition to) the clearly defined office job you agreed to do

b) Not giving you work and then firing you for not doing your work

c) Waiting for you to crack under the intense boredom of having to stay on one place with absolutely nothing to do for eight hours a day while your coworkers are roped into it to shun you (or hate you because for some reason you're the only one who doesn't have to do any work) until you quit "voluntarily"

or d) waiting for you to crack under the aformentioned pressure until you do what the people in the notes said they'd do, like watching movies or doing a second job instead which is something you then can be reprimanded and fired for

[lucabyte]

i CANNOT stress enough how incompatible the themes of these two pieces of media are. i promise my media literacy ability is actually good im well aware that these character mappings are absolutely nothing. that said. play with me in this space. in this sopping wet miserable space. its bad luck to kill a piou piou

original screenshots (and hypnosis 1904) for reference

[urban-shade]

made a little ref for myself of my personal hc of what seb was like in the middle of the experimentation phase

[lotus-pear]

old dazai lighting practice i found in my drafts that i have no intention of finishing so u guys can have it

[recny]

I'll be happy. For you, for her

[intheconfessiondial]

12 Months of 12 - September

[xshrimpcake]

painted Virtuosa for patreon last month

[carrotsofthepirabbean]

Well I haven't stopped thinking about my fossil hunters AU. So there.

[gremnda]

google search you ever see a man so beautiful it makes you cry

me with @plumadot's dnd au scar :,] i hope you like it beloved! <3

[elodieunderglass]

Your jockeyposting has enthralled me (certified non-horse girl) and made me curious—how much familiarity do jockeys have with the horses they’re riding? Is it normal for a given horse to have a Long Term Jockey or are the jockeys like. Called up a week before and asked to race a horse they’ve never met? (& interested to hear any Killy lore related to this)

Thank you so much! (In reference to Killie the jockey OC and random posting about horse racing more generally.)

In general, racehorses never have a long-term or even a repeat jockey, and vice-versa! Jockeys usually aren’t familiar with the horses at all.

There are three main situations where they might be, though; if they’re retained, if they’re nepo babies generational and have a trainer in the family, or if they’re amateurs having fun. So with apologies for making a really long post, I’ve structured this as a writing reference.

Retained Jockeys

Killie’s a retained jockey for a stable (very unusual - not many jockeys are good enough, and not many stables have the resource to employ one) and he and Thunder share an especially eccentric owner who likes to watch them paired up.

And hey, if we were unbelievably ultra-rich people with no moral compass, “putting Killie and Thunder in a jar and shaking them together, briskly, to see what happens” would be a fairly legitimate hobby.

I’m not an expert or personally involved in the industry, so if you were thinking of doing some writing in the setting yourself, a starting point for a retained jockey’s life is this “day in the life” video, of champion flat jockey William Buick, TW for discussion of weight.

Generational

Jockeys may handle horses as family businesses. In real life, “racing dynasties” are influential. A very lucky jockey, retiring in middle age with piles of winnings, often wishes to become a trainer; especially prosperous ones buy a stable operation, move in their family, use their reputation and connections to get owners to send them horses, and start chucking their own children on the horses as a source of labour. The children grow up, stick around home, and naturally keep getting chucked on horses for their day job. Next thing you know, you have a lot of grandkids and horses around the place, so you might as well keep going with it. Everyone pretty much lives at Grandad’s stable together, and then you get cousins scuffling on the day job like this:

That’s how Killie grew up, as the result of several generations of jockeys becoming trainers producing jockeys. but moving to a retained post was both a) the only logical move if it’s offered, and b) an escape from his parents, who are astonishingly awful. and if you are that kind of nepo baby, like Killie, it makes so much sense to flee the country (move to the uk and constantly pretend you’ve just dropped your phone in a horse’s water bucket, glubglubglub, BYE MA.)

Press “keep reading” for the amateurs and then what everyone else is doing.

Generational steeplechase jockey Jonjo O’Neill Jr does a day in his life here. he knows the horses and is doing admin, management and stable work … at his family’s massive operation.

Amateurs

Finally, in the UK, you can ride as an amateur jockey - usually in types of lowkey local steeplechases, like “point to point” - and basically anyone can do this. horse racing is fun, but you need a license to do it with other people, and the license remains incompatible with owning a registered racehorse. So technically your best friend could share a horse with you, in all but paperwork, and they could be the trainer and you could be the amateur jockey, and you could wrangle your way into actual races with a horse that you knew. It wouldn’t work very well as a day job (the horse would only race like 2x a month, netting you like £300 a month out of your friend’s pocket, plus the absurd costs of transporting/entering everyone) but if you were writing a crazy story in which some good friends and their pet racehorse decide to make it rich, that’s how you could do it.

Everyone else

Everyone else (including generational jockeys whose grandfathers didn’t have the foresight to establish a proper dynasty) just scrabbles around.

Most races aren’t high-stakes! There are a lot of basic boring races every day. (though, if you ask jockeys, there is apparently never quite enough work.)

horses might live at the stable of their owner but more commonly their trainer (some owners are both).

Jockeys cannot own racehorses themselves.

In the UK racecourses are randomly scattered around the country, usually hours away from each other. They all usually have several races every day.

Jockeys in the UK are paid £157.90 for Flat jockeys and £214.63 for jumps riders per race. They get this flat rate for everyone, whether they’re experienced or not! Their expenses are fairly high, and as freelancers they have to cover them all. The real attraction pay-wise is that they get a “cut of the purse” (percentage of prize money) if they win first, second or third place in a race. It’s a small percentage that they have to share with their agent, but there are sometimes some super-big stakes, where you can earn your year’s wages all at once.

Of course, you need to be piloting a pretty good horse in a high-stakes race to have a shot at that.

jockeys are a rare professional athlete that work every day, and they want (but are never guaranteed to get) a few rides every day. This usually means travelling across the UK constantly every day.

Racehorses usually only race once a week or less. They definitely don’t “work” as often! Their schedules rarely match up to jockeys. Driving them around the place is also a huge pain.

Jockeys live all over, and most of them are known to spend several times more hours driving between jobs than they ever spend sitting on horses. They get up very early each day, often “riding out” (doing early morning horse exercise) for trainers before hitting the road, often driving for several hours between races. This has been flagged in many sports medicine papers as one of their many wellbeing risks.

At any rate, with hundreds of jockeys travelling randomly around the country, getting injured and suspended and with stats fluctuating constantly, trainers work through agents to book jockeys - often not getting the one they want.

There are also considerations like trainer suddenly deciding they want to get a different (better) rider instead, leading to the one they booked getting “jocked off”.

All of everyone’s stats, from horses to jockeys, are publicly available, and everyone can study them obsessively. Trainers will request jockeys who have attractive stats - that’s not just “winning” stats, but weight/strategy/experience that might match the horse (+ terrain + conditions, etc). In their turn, jockeys with better options may turn down an offer of a horse with terrible form (I.e. a big loser, or a dangerous animal, or one that looks incredibly dodgy in race videos.)

Often trainers try to get the same jockey for their horse, but in all this chaos it’s not always possible, and everyone has to constantly pursue their own best interests.

Particularly winning jockeys and particularly influential trainers may gradually come together in working relationships, and as a horse gradually emerges as a favourite and the stakes rise, you’ll start to see it working more often with the same people. For example, in the Grand National, the jockeys will probably know the horses.

In conclusion, it’s common for the first time the jockey touches the horse to be when they’re thrown on top of it, prior to the race.

They get around this by studying form (race statistics), watching videos of the horse, and of course speaking to the trainer about their desires/instructions/strategy.

OKAY that is the MOST information that I could possibly have given!! I don’t know why I know all this!!! Thanks!!

[bigbrainbiology]

Truth is trapped in the Mirror 🪞

[sigsams]

had an idea about a geno variant being this super old knowledgeable reclused hermit that outcodes go to in search of advice for some reason and came up with this

alt ver below cut

original geno belongs to loverofpiggies

[ndglt]

dc pls give us this line up in an animated project im begging you

[angiedoodles]

Doodles of boyfriend shirt swap + obligatory puppyshipping dog and cat analogies 🫡

[jedidragonwarriorqueen]

I love me a good battle couple, it has to be said 😊