concerned-astronomer

[concerned-astronomer]

[concerned-astronomer]

[concerned-astronomer]

My Maze Runner brainrot is not leaving so have some Newtmas doodle 🥰

[concerned-astronomer]

the pitt fic idea: patient comes in with a emotional support dog and the pup just sticks to robby’s side for the entirety of the shift and everyone thinks it’s adorable until they learn it’s a suicide prevention dog

[concerned-astronomer]

when you bring this kind of pics to me... I swear not to God anymore...

[concerned-astronomer]

As a society we have benefited so much from successful public health measures that we now have the privilege of declaring that we must not need them anymore

Bitch before enriched flour, neural tube defects like spina bifida were far more common. Even now, spina bifida clinicians and researchers are begging to have salt and maize fortified to reach groups that don’t use as much flour. Before iodized salt, the United States had a fucking GOITER BELT. Eleven years after the introduction of fluoridated water, a city in Michigan found the rate of dental caries among school children dropped a staggering 60%— in an era where tooth decay regularly fucking killed people

I’m literally not even going to start on vaccines, which are among the most successful and robustly studied public health measures in world history

You might say “oh well today we all have access to vitamins and toothpastes and dentists so we don’t need those things in our food supplies” and boy do white people on social media loooove to fucking say that. But here’s the thing: no, people don’t all have easy access to those things. That’s privilege talking yet again

[concerned-astronomer]

like, okay, consent does literally just mean agree. which is what enables this little rhetorical trick. because there's all this cultural emphasis on sexual consent, which is just expressed as consent, a lot of phrases whose intended meanings are "rape is bad" can be taken literally to mean "i should get to agree to everything that happens in my vicinity."

[concerned-astronomer]

The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood

[concerned-astronomer]

[concerned-astronomer]

[concerned-astronomer]

the purest form of serotonin is when a cat looks at u and u go like “what?” and it meows at u

[concerned-astronomer]

[concerned-astronomer]

[concerned-astronomer]

Not to be cliche, but Jane Austen's novels are a lot about how great power & wealth should come with great responsibility, and how most of the wealthy and powerful fail at that. She's asking questions like, "Is that insanely wealthy person polite, charitable, and considerate in a way that befits his station in life?" and she's finding most of them wanting.

[concerned-astronomer]

[concerned-astronomer]

[concerned-astronomer]

I'm rewatching BBC Merlin for the hundredth time and just need to talk about The Witchfinder episode from season 2 and how this impacted Merlin's decision to keep his magic a secret.

By now, Merlin has been in Camelot long enough to see how Gaius is a trusted advisor to Uther. They've been friends for decades. Uther trusts Gaius as much as he is capable of trusting anyone.

And yet. And yet Uther STILL orders the execution of his most trusted advisor on the word of the Witchfinder.

To Uther, the years of service and trust mean nothing in the face of sorcery. Uther tried to apologize (ish) later, and rightfully so, Gaius refused to just brush the near execution aside.

Now think about Merlin. He has come to care about Arthur as a person at this point, not just part of his destiny, but they aren't as close as we know they will be later.

Merlin has been traumatized by seeing his father figure almost die because the king was blinded by his hatred of sorcery. Merlin knows it was almost his own execution here.

It's no wonder he didn't want to tell Arthur at this point. If Uther was ready to kill Gaius, we know canonically he was fine with Merlin dying.

Once Arthur became king, I believe Merlin still remembered this. We know what Merlin said: he didn't want to put Arthur in this position, to have to make the choice of life or death. But I believe there was still this deep seated fear that his years of service and council would never be enough to out weigh the death sentence of being a sorcerer in Camelot.