#still interested in other peoples additions

[fictional-singer-competition]

✰ Round 1: Side A, Match-up 8

Additional Notes: Miku is the "Final Boss". I've chosen the next Vocaloid with the most votes aside from Miku to join the tournament and it ended up being KAITO. So yeah.

Propaganda!!! + Singing Voice Links (remember: they were sent by submitters!)

For Jonny

Note from mod: one of my online nicknames is harmonica so this was a jumpscare

♡ He’s a steampunk space pirate who plays harmonica, and does a mean evil chant -> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qtamEcKfDAg

♡ He’s a murderous evil space pirate who also does songs and tragedies and plays harmonica. He does a mean evil chant.

♡ Loser poser cowboy. He got arrested for grievous misuse of rodents one time. He made up a backstory that's a ripoff of his crewmate's. He's the first mate of the Aurora, but insists he's the captain (he's wrong). He did a post patricidal harmonica solo. He probably pushed the woman who made him immortal out of the spaceship (multiple times) (unsuccessfully). His best line is probably this one: "She gave me an interesting prescription - let’s see if I can remember. Oh yeah, half an ounce of lead to be injected directly into the brain. And it wasn’t a prescription for me.”

♡ Post patricide harmonica solo do i need to say more

♡ GUGHUGHGUHUGHGG HGUGHGUHGUH look at him hes such a little guy

♡ He's an immortal space pirate in a band with a bunch of other immortal space pirates who sing about tragedies they've witnessed. He insists he's the captain of these space pirates but everyone else says he's the first mate. He's a little feral (and by a little I mean a lot. Extremely feral) and commits atrocities and acts of massive violence for fun. He can excuse mass murder but he draws the line at sleeping-beauty-esque kissing someone to wake her up. His actual singing is also really really good, often he's singing in character as someone else (various characters from the tragedies he sings about) and he manages to voice act AND sing at the same time which is so so impressive. Also he's blorbo and I'm looking at you eith big autistic eyes please please pleeeeease vote for him

♡ My favorite tiny asshole

♡ He killed his father and sometimes gets angsty about it. He is a member of a fictional space pirate crew called the Mechanisms, who rove around space looking for "fun, violence, adventure, and violence". He is the first mate of the crew, although he insists that he is the captain (only to be corrected by the rest of his crew as well as every fan). He is also the lead singer of the band and plays the lead role in all of their albums. Also, almost the entirety of the fandom along with the rest of his crew think that he pushed the lesbian space vampire doctor that made all of them immortal out of an airlock.

SINGING VOICE SAMPLE:

~

For KAITO

♡ I love him your honour. Seriously he's probably the 2nd most iconic Vocaloid after Miku (and hands down without a doubt the most iconic MALE Vocaloid). He's been around since almost the very beginning of Vocaloid, years longer than Miku has, and he still has a lot of dedicated fans like myself. He's just a silly little guy who loves singing and ice cream.

♡ Kaito is one of the most versatile Vocaloids. When tuned properly he can sound near human-like and has such a pretty voice but can make the funniest sounds. He can also sing in lower registers (I think that's the term). It's why I've loved him for the past 15 years. Naoto refers to him as his son and I think that's cute too.

♡ OKAY HE'S MY FAVORITE VOCALOID I LOVE HIM SO MUCH AND HE GETS SO LITTLE ATTENTION PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HE DESERVES EVERYTHING HE MEANS THE WORLD TO ME he makes me so happy I have a lil keychain of him on my phone he's my best friend he's always with me and I love making him sing with my computer (also named my computer after him) PEOPLE DON'T LIKE HIS VOICE BUT THEY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING OKAY HIS VOICE IS SO PRETTY TO ME VOTE FOR HIM HE CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT but he's my best friend ^^

SINGING VOICE SAMPLE:

[kellyvela]

I was looking at some Jonnel x Sansa posts on here , and I came across one individual (probably an anti) who posted a screenshot of a grrm interview. He was asked about possible historical parallels from fire and blood to asoiaf and whether that is intentional and he said he doesn’t consciously do it. The tags of their post was something like “grrm: Jonnel who??” While I’m a little worried that grrm said that, the interviewer was specifically asking about fire and blood, not a family tree. And no matter what, I’m still very convinced the Jonnel x sansa addition was intentional, it must have been - Jonnel having a stark mother called Lynara , known as ‘one eye,’ a half brother called Rickon, married to the only other sansa stark ever who just so happened to be the heir to Winterfell with a younger sister . Their marriage solving the northern succession crisis. Not having children from this union, meaning grrm added it in merely to convey a jon married a sansa in canon. The last minute addition; revising the draft JUST to add it in…. It can’t be a coincidence !!! I mean, there’s even a rhaegar frey with a son called jonos… that’s all intentional in my opinion - but now that I saw that anti opinion, this one interview is what they seem to cling to lol. I went on a massive blocking spree so I’m not sure if this is wholly the case but seriously, the similarities are tooooo intense it’s impossible to ignore

Oh I know that post, and I also know that GRRM interview.

That OP doesn't like jonsa, and call shippers "freaks."

That tag was: "[grrm voice] Who the fuck is jonnel stark" (🤡)

The interview in question is this one:

The GRRM answers in question are these ones:

Ashaya: So we were talking about how working on Fire and Blood is history and it’s very different to write. One thing that we like to highlight in our show is something called Parallel Lives, which is the idea that there are parallels in your histories to current characters. George: You stole that from Plutarch, didn’t you?  Ashaya: Yes. Yes, exactly.  Aziz: Absolutely. I read those all when I was a lot younger, fell in love with them, so good catch. I love to apply it to A Song of Ice and Fire.  Ashaya: So we’ve observed it in A Song of Ice and Fire. Have you found that in like writing Fire and Blood, that it allows you to maybe play with plotlines or arcs for the characters in the main series? Do you do that consciously?  George: No, I don’t.  Ashaya: You don’t!  George: It’s not consciously.

But the thing is that GRRM didn't end the matter here, he went on to say the following:

Ashaya: Interesting.  George: Certain similarities are inevitable.  Aziz: That’s for sure. George: If anything, I try to veer away from that, cuz I don’t wanna feel like I’m repeating myself.  Ashaya: But history just naturally repeats itself, so…  George: Yes, there are certain resonances in history, there are certain universals about humanity, people competing for power, people competing for love, lust. All of these things…  Aziz: Some of these things are a constant.  Ashaya: Sometimes people are like, that’s a stereotype or that’s cliche, and I’m like that’s because it’s true to the human experience, it’s just true.  Aziz: A person with a lot of power being paranoid? That happens a lot. That also applies a lot to real world history, or to homages. What about when you’re writing in an homage? For example, one of my favorites you’ve included in the Nightfort scene with Bran, there seems to be a lot of homages to Tolkien and the Mines of Moria in that scene, which I love a lot. Do you aim to do that or is that also accidental or maybe you have some thoughts on your process there?  George: I love Tolkien, and actually the Mines of Moria is one of my favorite sections of Fellowship of the Ring. And that’s my favorite of the trilogy, Fellowship. Not that I don’t love them all. I don’t think I was consciously trying to do that, but again, you don’t know. You read these things and they lodge sometimes in the front of your brain, but sometimes in weird corners of your brain where they pop up at some point. I did wanna make the Nightfort a sinister place, with its own legends. It was very old, it’s a very big castle crumbling. And I wanted to give it that sense that so many things have gone here. Now, which are true and which are not true? I always tend to look at not only other fantasy books and history, but like the real world here. Get me in trouble here for what I’m about to say, but we have these legends that some people believe are literally true in our religion. We talk about the Garden of Eden. Was there ever actually a Garden of Eden? Was there Adam and Eve or the flood? Noah and the flood. That’s a good one. That’s a great story. God was pissed off, he made it rain for 40 days and 40 nights. The entire world was flooded and everybody died, except for this guy Noah, who built a big boat and he got two of every animal on earth. I don’t know how the kangaroos got from down in Australia to the Middle East, but they did. 

See, anon? GRRM didn't say he doesn't do parallels, he said he does them unconsciously, that some things remain in his brain and some day just appear again and he unconsciously writes parallels, similarities, patterns, etc.

He also recognizes that certain similarities are inevitable.

Besides, from his answers, it is obvious that he has realized that he does parallels unconsciously, it is evident that he has reflected on it; but one thing he does consciously is to keep them 😉

~~~

All that said, I think the jonnel/sansa addition to the Stark Family Tree was consciously on purpose.

~~~

BONUS

Q: It is my impression that there are parallels between Westeros history and current events in ASOIAF. so in your opinion to what degree is George martin's history cyclical? Because we have a lot of parallels. For example with the current history and the dance of the dragons.

Elio: You know George even uses that line from talking about the the arms of house Toland, the dragon eating its tail, but it was from the Archmaester Rigney which is a reference to Robert Jordan the writer of the wheel of time, that history is a wheel or time as a circle. I think George certainly deliberately sees, creates parallels. I mean this is a very obvious example, you know if you read The World of Ice and Fire, you saw the family tree of the Targaryens, and the family tree for Jaehaerys and his offspring changes quite a lot when fire and blood comes out. Because George realized that he wanted to create a kind of parallel by introducing another Daenerys. and he said like, i like the symmetry of it, I like the the sort of the way. You could perhaps read it as reflecting on Daenerys's story, maybe. I wish it was true. I mean I think fans of Daenerys need to be really worried about what's going to happen to her. Although I guess Game of Thrones maybe has revealed kind of where things may possibly end. Again the journey is going to be very different. I think you know circumstances, things are going to be very different. So there's a journey that matters. But in any case, so yes I think George uses cycles and things a bit. He likes setting up parallels of events, he likes paralleling characters, he likes paralleling events, and he likes paralleling the past and the present as well.

Linda: I think certainly that when he fleshed out the details of Fire and Blood, even when he first did the sidebars for The World of Ice and Fire, and they just grew. We could see that, okay here he's looking at foreshadowing or commenting on current events by doing a similar scenario in the past and he definitely likes to play around with those aspects.

[Source]

Read more about it here:

~~~

Maybe it's not that unconsciously sometimes . . . .

🤭

[agentrouka-blog]

The Pact of Ice and Fire is some really damning evidence when it comes to Jonsa. I got into an argument with someone on a forum about it because she disputed that it could just as easily be fulfilled by Jon (a Stark) and D/aenerys (a Targ). Except Jon is the Targ fostered at Winterfell... which seems much more damning to me evidence-wise; we learn about the pact, but more meaningfully it's already been partly fulfilled (leaving the open question of how it might be further developed) and in addition to that acts as foreshadowing for Jon's parentage. It's actually very elegant.

But you know what's most damning to me about it? Why would GRRM invoke 'ice and fire' in this pact - his series namesake, the prophecy for which R/haegar felt called to? It's special, and it might not be saving-the-world special (not GRRM's style - this was what my friendly rival invoked, that it could only be J/D because they'll save the world, i.e. the heroic song of ice and fire), but it's so special it foreshadows two major revelations in the story. About love and the human heart in conflict with itself and unfulfilled political promises. I mean, you could even make the argument that this foreshadows a bit of the dragon dispute - if the Starks have already made alliance with one 'dragon' (Jon) and the rest of Westeros with another (Aegon), what's left for D/aenerys?

Interesting, interesting, all very interesting; a fascinating piece of evidence to be sure. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the J/D take, though not to formulate my argument for me - this argument is both long past and also the one thing I used to hate in anon asks from people was being used to make their arguments (I would literally be contacted mid-Discord debate hahahah) - mostly just curious as to what you think about all those conflicting Snow/Stark/Targ elements - perhaps J/D itself if you feel like it - and the Pact. Love to hear your thoughts.

Something that is often overlooked is that Rhaegar dedicates the "Song of Ice and Fire" to his son Aegon. The son by Elia. The sun's son. His intended heir.

Because to Rhaegar the prophecy was about some kind of epic confrontation between a fire-coded hero and a presumably ice-coded enemy. The imagery and wording of Azor Ahai and his more explicit fire-ice/light-dark/good-evil dichotomies is so similar that we can reasonably assume that this Promised Prince is supposed to be Fire and the Song is supposed to be an epic fight with Ice.

We can't be sure what the motivation of Cregan and Jace would have been in naming their Pact in this way, though it's likely to be different and more representative of their respective elemental symbolism. Emphasizing a union and alliance between contrasting forces for a greater political good. (In their eyes.)

The structure of ice and fire as two opposing but equally destructive magical threats with mirroring arcs and magical conduits (Bran and Dany, actually) that is faced by all of humanity fuses both takes on the name. It's not fire good and ice bad, it's two extreme expressions of blood magic, with humanity banding together in the middle trying to survive.

Jon, as the product of ice and fire Houses, can't represent ice in a union with someone else's fire to create an alliance. He himself is already a mix of both, and his most significant political effect in the narrative has been to faciliate a crucial alliance between two former enemies. We can expect more along those lines. He is the fulfillment of the Pact, in a sense, (No thanks to Rhaegar, all thanks to the love of his mother, uncle and siblings) with only the minor political detail of that marriage to a Stark cousin still in question.

Dany, on the other hand, is fully identified with fire. She can't separate herself from that role to suddenly occupy a space separate from that elemental threat. She represents the threat. Or rather, if she separated from that power (like Bran will) she would cease to represent fire entirely.

If she is to be part of "ice and fire" it can only be in the role of an enemy to be defeated. If she ceases to be fire, she has no place in that equation, and she would be missing an icy counterpart. If GRRM had intended for Jon and Dany to represent ice and fire together, he would have never needed to bother with RLJ. Jon could be Ned's bastard "ice" son to Dany's "fire". But a significant aspect of his story is, specifically, the revelation that Jon is not, in fact, Ned's son. He is the son of a Stark maiden and a Targaryen prince, "hiding in the snow".

Jon and Dany occupy two very different spots in the "ice and fire metaphor continuum".

[ill-say-this-fast]

hey! since the poll ended a while ago, i would like to give my two cents in-

If the general public or the twin's social circle found out about their relationship, how badly would everyone react? Would it be like a pre-HOM situation where everyone is tryna persecute the maximoffs? how would the kids (Billy, Tommy, & Luna) play a role in all this? (and yes, let us all finally acknowledge that these three kids are (long-lost) siblings) #sc*arletv*s*on fans feel free to rage hehehe

Thanks for the ask :) theres a lot to say

In their close social circle I dont know how many people are actually shocked. But suspecting something youd never say outloud and being publically told it are different. It would be a negative reaction generally. I feel like superheros have got better things to do than actually attack them for it, exclude, sure, make nasty comments about, some people probably, but no ones gonna try and arrest them I dont think (definitely not pre-HOM 'maybe we should kill them' ideas). As Toby's said, Wanda's friends might be worried about her, especially those of them that dont like Pietro. But none of them are likely to accept it comfortably if she tells them she's happy. She might get quietly pushed out.

Now its different if the general public find out (who have less reason to already think it). That'll cause a lot of outrage, and the angry crowd will always be louder than the crowd that don't care. That demands a PR response and some of the other heroes would be obliged to either publicly denounce them, argue that its fine and there should be no legal consequences (unlikely), or argue that the evidence is fake.

Frankly Wanda and Pietro should probably be arguing that the evidence is fake. I imagine Wanda would just pretend nothings happened and try and go about her life. A lot of her social circle who were already doing the same about their suspicions might continue to. I can see a lot of the avengers doing that, especially if she's still working with them cuz she's a big asset as well as a friend. But the xmen and that lot, the periphery social circle, who like her less, are much more likely to take the opportunity to attack her.

Pietro doesnt have a lot of friends to lose. Or a lot of good public rep. I do think he'd tailor his general response to fit with Wanda's even if he wanted to tell everyone to go fuck themselves. I see Wanda wanting to keep out of the spotlight (this isnt a wrong of hers to earnestly take accountability for and make right, it's one of the most important things to her heart that people want to insult), and Pietro taking the spotlight for them if she thinks either of them should make a public statement. He'd get in a lot of scuffles about it, especially if people are saying unkind or crude things about Wanda to him to goad him about it. Magneto is more likely to be his problem, either gonna deny it or blame pietro but almost certainly deny especially publicly. Maybe hed try and set Wanda up with other people he approves of more like in ultimates lol.

Wanda wouldnt want to stop doing her helping people job even if the people were horrible. I cant see her running off with Pietro to live away from any hate really, even if he might prefer that. She'd rather negotiate (or magically influence) her way out of a prison sentence if anyone actually managed to bring a legal case against her and keep working even if that means alone now. Maybe move her official domicile to new jersey or rhode island or wherever cuz it wouldnt be a legal crime there even if everyone still hated it. She'd be sadder and lonelier but people leave her that way a lot and she keeps going.

The only thing that might get her really set against other people is if they start bullying her kids. They still have the shield of being magically created even though everyone's gonna be theorising they're Pietro's. (I can see Vision taking the opportunity to blame her and the kids being someone elses for their marriage problems which would add fuel to the fire.)

Billy would hold onto the magically created thing both as a public defence and internally cuz he would not want to think of himself as an incest baby, he might step away from Wanda for a bit to collect himself but he does idolise her. It would be good for him to get over that idolising and appreciate her more as a real person with human flaws and struggles and not his favourite celebrity, and maybe this situation would be a way for that to happen. Or maybe he'd get over the incest first and things would stay the same. Or maybe he'd so not get over it that he starts to feel negatively about her instead. I don't like that but it's possible for him. Especially if he's recieving negative attention, he doesnt handle that well, but also he's a baby god how many people want to test him.

Tommy would definitely fight people bad mouthing him mom in public. He's not worried about protecting his own reputation, he doesnt have a particularly good one and he sets himself against other people easily so what they think is worthless to him. I don't see him being bothered about Wanda and Pietro's relationship. Its more likely to drive him closer to his mom (and dad) because he's setting himself against the people who are against them. People giving him a hard time is nothing new, and he's gonna give worse back because he's vengeful like that, and he can blow things up. (Tbh I'd like Billy and Tommy to argue about it, that would be fun.)

Luna would be far less affected because she isnt their kid, just Pietro's. And she's more than used to people saying bad things about her dad. In-marriage doesn't seem to be taboo for Inhumans so thats not gonna bother her. Maybe the other kids at her school try and bully her about it, but she's more than capable of spilling all their secrets which might keep them in line, and as I said, it's not about her like it is her half-brothers. At the least though, it's another nail in the coffin for Pietro not getting custody if he tries to again.

[soups-archive]

Thoughts on Purgatory Day 4:

God what a fun day, and yet funnily enough a much more relaxed one.

It's gonna be interesting to see what the ramifications of blue's logout strat are gonna be because it's definitely going to be banned, but, from my understanding, blue used this strat to prove a point: that red's strategy was unfair.

Which is true, or at least I think it was true.

Personally, I feel like it was mostly unfair due to how difficult it used to be to get to global, but I feel like the admins have pretty fairly counteracted that and balanced things with today's introduction of the spawn portals.

Because with red's strat players HAD to physically travel to global and turn in the contracts within at least the last 30 minutes of gameplay. The portals now easily allow other teams to show up and at least put up a good fight, and we actually got to see how effective they are today with cellbit and charlie's assist they pulled for roier. If they had been just slightly quicker, green might've been able to steal back the win.

Which I think brings me to the other potentially unfair part of red's strat that I've seen be brought up which is that it isn't fair for streamers in European timezones/streamers who play earlier. Which is a fair criticism, but honestly I haven't personally been able to think of a way for the admins to balance the contracts around that without either: A) completely changing how contracts work, or B) unfairly punishing later streamers.

I think it's complicated, and I feel like the main thing that's gonna result from today isn't going to be them banning turning in tasks late but instead banning logging out right in front of the global NPCs. Knowing the admins, they'll probably figure out something I hadn't thought of and make the whole thing more fair for everyone.

Competition and lore wise, tomorrow is gonna be really interesting as well. A small alliance might be blooming between red and green and that might have massive ramifications going forward. That and I think (???????) that players might be getting their eggs tomorrow (?????). I know they described a period in which they had to keep them alive and the actual event ends on the 10th so I'm guessing they're arriving tomorrow. If they are, that shit is going to be crazy.

(Side note: It was also a delight to see teams casually hanging out more together today. As much as I enjoy the competition, I missed them all just chilling)

Overall, congrats blue on the win! Cheesy as fuck and they knew it but it was absolutely deserved! They worked their asses off! And green put up a hell of a fight! I hope they get their chance to win as well tomorrow!

[quibbs126]

Maybe I’m just being crazy, but you know, Caramel Arrow kind of does look like she could be the kid of Dark Cacao and Second Watcher

I mean, the browns and general eye colors more resemble Second Watcher, but the black in her hair and like the vibrancy of her browns could be attributed to Dark Cacao. Plus she has white eye lines (what are they called?) like Dark Cacao

I’d say the biggest hole is the fact that Caramel Arrow has a noticeably lighter skin tone than either of them, but like…other than that I’d say it’s not a ludicrous idea

Or again, maybe I’m just being crazy. This isn’t like, speculation for the game, it’s just me saying that she kind of looks it to me

[thenwethrowitonthefire]

Shout-out to everyone who survived a "fun" easter with the family

[funkylittlebats]

I just finished taz grad...... woaw

[swordsonnet]

.

[no-passaran]

Publication date: 19th August 2022

Think abortion is legal in Great Britain? Ask the two women currently facing life sentences

The overturning of Roe v Wade is horrific, but vulnerable women are being imprisoned for ending pregnancies right now in Britain. It’s time to legalise abortion.

Like many people in Britain, you probably watched with horror the US supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade, thinking, “Thank goodness women could never be prosecuted for having an abortion here.”

But let me tell you, it already happens here.

Two women are currently awaiting criminal trial in England for abortion-related offences, both facing charges that carry a maximum sentence of life. At least 17 women have been investigated by police over the past eight years for having had abortions.

In Oxford, a 25-year-old mother of one is facing trial for allegedly taking the drug misoprostol – one of the two pills routinely prescribed by doctors to abort a pregnancy. But her baby was born alive and she was subsequently reported to the police. She is being charged under the Offences Against the Person Act, a law passed by parliament in 1861, before the invention of the lightbulb and before women had the right to vote. The law states that a woman must be “kept in penal servitude for life” if she procures an abortion.

Another woman is facing trial after she took abortion pills she obtained from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) by post when rules were relaxed during the pandemic to allow this. She was allegedly 28 weeks pregnant at the time and is facing charges of “child destruction” (note the visceral language) under the Infant Life (Preservation) Act from 1929, which also comes with a maximum life sentence. She could spend the rest of her life in prison.

We so often think that the 1967 Abortion Act legalised abortion. But it did no such thing. It partially decriminalised abortion in England, Scotland and Wales, so long as strict conditions were in place, such as a confirmation from two medical practitioners that the pregnancy had not exceeded 28 weeks (subsequently reduced to 24 weeks in 1990), or that the termination was necessary to prevent injury or mental harm. Any abortion outside these criteria is still a criminal offence.

We know that it is overwhelmingly vulnerable women who are investigated and prosecuted for having abortions. One woman collapsed in the dock when she was sentenced to two and a half years in 2015 for taking tablets she had bought online to induce a miscarriage after the 24-week period of gestation. The court heard that she had “a history of emotional and psychological problems”.

Another woman, a mother of one, ordered pills online to induce an abortion in 2019 after her abusive boyfriend had told her not to go to the doctor. She had believed she was eight to 10 weeks pregnant but after a traumatic miscarriage in her bath tub, where she has described sitting in an inch of blood, she realised her pregnancy had been much further along. She was arrested in her hospital bed and served two years in prison.

These are just some examples of women who have faced trial: there are multiple other women who face gruelling police investigations. In 2021, a 15-year-old girl was investigated for a year after suffering an unexplained stillbirth. Her phone and laptop were confiscated during her GCSE exams, she was self-harming, and the investigation only ended after a coroner concluded that the pregnancy ended due to natural causes. Another woman was arrested in hospital last year and kept in a prison cell for 36 hours after a stillbirth at 24 weeks, and is now suffering PTSD. My question is this: if a woman has had an abortion late in the gestation period, or a traumatic miscarriage or stillbirth, should she go to prison or should she be offered support from medical practitioners at what is clearly a horrendous time, both mentally and physically?

Women in 2022 are being shackled by a 160-year-old law made at a time when we were not even allowed to set foot in the House of Commons. Urgent reform is needed to protect more women from harm, which is why organisations such as BPAS and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) are calling on the director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, Max Hill QC, to drop all charges against these women. The RCOG this month has gone further, calling on ministers to finally legalise abortion. There is absolutely no public interest in sending vulnerable women to prison for terminating pregnancies. Instead, these prosecutions will only serve to put off women seeking help from doctors because they might get arrested, pushing more women into unsafe and underground options.

Meanwhile, according to the criteria of the Abortion Act, a woman has to show that she would suffer grave permanent injury to her mental health if she did not have an abortion after 24 weeks. Why should women still have to pathologise themselves as mad, hysterical, unfit or suffering to legally access healthcare?

The state currently has a triple lock on women’s bodies. By not legalising abortion it has the right to force pregnancy, birth and motherhood upon us. Look to the rules on organ donation: it is illegal to donate people’s organs after they die (however desperately they are needed by people on waiting lists) without their permission. The law at present, which denies women [and everyone capable of pregnancy, for being considered a woman] the right to abort a pregnancy on their own terms, is to give us less autonomy than a corpse.

[thehappiestgolucky]

Do you think PK would be interested in electronics/mechanics in the mermbugs au? Or would soul master kinda ruin that for him?

He still would be! Naturally though, he’d be veering away from mechanics that harm merfolk in some manner.

But general human inventions that differ so wildly to what merfolk have available is still an interesting topic! Like phones and networks, like cars and trains, that sort of stuff doesn’t relate to what Soul Master did so it’s fair game. Just don’t ever propose a life draining kind of device to him ever again-

[viro-lil-goat]

I really hope this reaches more people, I'm only reposting this information from Instagram, the least that I can do. (Update: I changed their upbringing as it appears to have been listed wrong) Wiki page

When I just saw this information I couldn't stop crying thinking about it, and now my heart aches. They were the same age as me, I know for a fact like any other teen they dreamt of their future, who they would want to become, what to achieve, create, wondering if they meet those in the future they can call friends, wondeting if it'll get better when they grow up, maybe wished to leave that terrible place or maybe wanted to stay. How could anyone let this happen, why were they discharged from hospital so easily? And the school, we all know why. I hate to think about how, even with all the progress made, these things still happen.

"murdered schoolgirl Brianna Ghey on February 16, 2023. Candlelit vigils are being held across the UK this week for Brianna Ghey, 16, who was stabbed at Linear Park in Culcheth, Cheshire last Saturday. Brianna was a transgender girl and police are now investigating her killing as a hate crime. A boy and girl, both 15, have been charged with her murder"

An article that explains trans hate crime murders as on 2023

I hate everyone who have ever committed such vile hate crimes, I wish them in prison and hell. But i would never go down to their level. But I also blame the government, the school, and even those bigoted online accounts that teach their followers hate. In this case LibsOfTikTok, who targeted the teacher of this school, who supports lgbtq+, so they had to leave their position. It must have been the push for this to happen. I think their tiktok account has been thankfully deleten. But i have no idea about Twitter or any other. Please check and mass report them if it still exists. (Link to Instagram reel that this information is from)

ADDITION, PLEASE MASS REPORT THESE ACCOUNTS

[aromantic-pantyanarchy]

It's me. I'm the cis, heterosexual, aromantic man. I will never marry, I will never be married, I will grow into middle age and elder age and I will die unmarried. I will be forced to support a household of myself on only my wages alone for the rest of my life. I will be asked about women and marriage and children by my family for the rest of my life (or men, the progressive ones might say). I may not ever come out to them. I feel like I burned my coming out on something stupid. I don't want to explain it. I don't want to run them through the definitions and intricacies. I don't want the acceptance without understanding, placating me with ceased questions and poor explanations to other, drunk adults.

I like my hair to be long, I spent a year with it dyed a golden blonde with dark roots because I like the trashy party girl aesthetic. I want to dye it again with pink tips. I like painting my nails, black and blue are my favorite colors. I like wearing chokers. I also like wearing baggy jeans and ratty hoodies. I like having stubble. I like having chest hair. I like having a square jaw and broad shoulders. I wish I had a flatter stomach and a thinner profile frame. I don't know what this makes me, perhaps this is something no more GNC than Machine Gun Kelly. I think about this a lot, how queer my appearance truly is. I should think about it less. I have thought long and hard about if I could be trans or if I could be non-binary or if I could be genderqueer and the conclusion I ultimately came to is that I most enjoy being a man open to whatever self-expression I want.

I don't date, but I've thought about it. I would like to meet people, and I would like to have sex with them. But I don't want to hurt them. I fear if I explain what I am beforehand it'll scare them away. I fear if I explain after they'll feel manipulated or abused. I don't know how many people in the dating scene want what I want. I fear my own lack of experience will make me a bad lay, an embarrassing story to tell to confidants in hindsight. I fear my own virginity, a boundary to those I wish to be like. All of these fears are baseless, as I've not been able to even begin a single relationship in my life. Despite this I still heavily identify with terms like "slut" and "manwhore" and "thot" because my interests lay so deeply within casual sex, sex without great intimacy or emotion. This may be some form of stolen valor. I hope the true sluts are not too mad at me.

I made this blog several years ago because a mutual of mine reblogged memes making fun of aro and ace people, making fun of the concept of aphobia, and in addition well known aphobes. I didn't feel comfortable talking about aro stuff on my main blog, for as little as I talk about it. Living through the ace discourse of the 2016 era has largely caused me to cringe in embarrassment any time I am forced to discuss my orientation with people who aren't aro or ace themselves. I no longer follow this person. I unfollowed many people I was mutuals with from that time, most of them because they posted too often about how much they hated men and I didn't want to see that, some because our interests simply drifted too far apart, only one for explicit aphobia reasons. (Also one because they became a "both sides are bad, any vote is wasted" libertarian, but that's unrelated.)

I guess at this point I don't care deeply about what strangers on the internet think of me. If a trusted friend told me that they don't think I'm truly queer that may hurt. But I am going to continue to use the word for myself. I take up no resources. I go to events that are open to me. If an event was not open to me, I think I'd not want to go anyways. I am not a hypothetical, I am not a strawman, I am a person with lived experiences both within and exterior to the queer community. If you hate me, I will permit you to continue to do so. But ultimately, I am who I am, I cannot change these facts, and I would not choose to do so even if I could.

[maplewozapi]

I should have known if I brought up wc I’d have to talk about. But it includes of a lot of issues with feral/furry designs that use feathers in hair. I don’t necessarily know why the conversation only started and stayed in the wc fandom when horse/wolf/lion feral fandoms are still doing the same thing.

Now having feathers in the design isn’t a racial attack first thing off because there’s a lot of context around what feather’s are used, the shape, and where they are placed. If the look is anything like "rave Coachella looking tribal fantasy feathers and beads" it’s probably insensitive. I’m not to sure why it has to be feathers, I honestly think the wc fandom are holding themselves back when it comes to forwarding designs in a unique way. Tail feathers are also left out in this conversation as well, one or two feathers or feathers in the shape of a birds tail are fine but bunched together feathers are leaning to close to how we have our horses wear feathers. This is in the context of the design already looking like a "medicine cat" already its bad. it’s like those yt girls wear feather head bands but animal addition.

I’ve talked about this before but silhouettes are so important, like Native American stereotypes are on the global scale you cannot escape this silhouette you just have to avoid it. There’s no "but it’s in so many other cultures" no it’s not it’s totally unique to our people that’s why people flock to it because it’s so "mysterious, sacred" whatever their weird twisted up reason is. There’s so many unique ways to break this silhouette you just gotta be more creative. And I feel like instead of being more creative and coming up with totally different ideas it’s just easier to lean on these visual native stereotypes to get across "wild mythical nature fantasy"

I could get into the horse fandom and the weird situations they’re doing over there but that’s another crazy thing. I should say because someone will ask, ostrich feathers on like show horses or knights or puss in boots style is fine not the same thing (breaking the silhouette) they’re not related.

And it comes down to understanding what you are drawing and where this imagery comes from, I’m not gonna get my feelings hurt because of your design but I’ll question why are you drawing stuff like that. You cant remove that cultural/stereotypical imagery, and if you don’t care about it then you don’t care about the history or how it looks on your character and art.

I made it this far on the internet but if you want to be conscious about these things good on yea it doesn’t take much☺️👍

Edit: can’t believe I gotta say this but yes other cultures utilize feathers, if people are using feathers that are used in their culture then don’t harass them. That’s weird have some common sense. Ostrich feathers, peacock feathers it’s actually so interesting how native birds to an area affect the culture there.

[elodieunderglass]

On the topic of the monarchist animals I'm just really curious. What makes the winnie pooh real animals bourgeois? It's not like they own much more than the others. Do they just have bourgeois energy?

(In reference to my addition on this post; https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/748488762087047168/hold-on-lets-do-this-properly-paddington)

In the post I state that none of the stuffed/toy animals in the Winnie the Pooh series are monarchists, but that the real animals are bourgeoisie. Obviously this is tongue in cheek, but it’s still politically interesting to me because nobody ever reads Winnie the Pooh as an actual book. They just draw depressed Disney Eeyore and think they’ve done something.

Owl and Rabbit are real wild animals that live in the Hundred Acre Wood. The other characters in the story are Christopher Robin’s stuffed animals.

The “real” animals (reasonably) consider themselves to be separate from the stuffed ones, but where it becomes unreasonable is how they assume superiority and how they use this to exert authority.

(A charming response about how the stuffed animals view this: Piglet points out that Rabbit is both clever and Has Brain, and Pooh replies that this is why Rabbit “doesn’t understand anything.”)

Owl is characterised by being a bit of a fraud. The stuffed animals respect him for his presumed education and literacy, but even a preschooler understands that Owl can’t actually read. he actively deceives the other characters in order to maintain a higher social status over them. (Actually, Rabbit’s the most literate character in the Wood.) Owl gains relatively little advantage from this status, apart from his belief that he is superior and the pleasure in everyone deferring to him. A notable theme throughout the written series involves characters approaching Owl for advice, based on his self-made reputation of being wise and thoughtful, and him giving explicitly bad advice, rather than admit that he has no idea how to help. Also, they forcibly give him someone else’s house, in such a way that the actual possessor of the house (Piglet) feels he can’t speak up. Pooh immediately offers to Piglet that he move in with him, which even as a kid felt like an incredibly unsatisfactory solution to having the shyest character’s actual house given away to the character who casually lies about everything just to feel superior.

Rabbit is a grown-ass adult real wild animal. He is the social leader of a massively large family and an extended group of hangers-on (he has fifteen or seventeen close relatives, and the extended Friends-and-Relations are a sort of army); he is the only actually literate person in the narrative, so it is understandable that he feels this (although he also believes Owl can read.) literacy and Brain are considered very important in the Wood.

Rabbit believes in his own superiority and believes himself to serve as a sort of cadet to Christopher Robin. In the series Christopher Robin is the ultimate judge, and a kindly ruler; Rabbit positions himself constantly at Christopher Robin’s right hand and wants to be his enforcer. Christopher Robin, who is five and a fairly distracted God, does not really enforce anything. This does not stop Rabbit from trying to organise the entire Wood. It’s frequently mentioned that Rabbit wants to feel important, he wants to be the Boss. A beautiful, beautiful commentary on his character is when he wakes up feeling “important, as if everything depending on him… it was a Captainish sort of day, when everybody said “Yes Rabbit” and “No Rabbit” and waited until he had told them.” Fantastic!

However, we can see where this leads him. In the first book Rabbit is shown being hostile and actively anti-foreign in his approach to other people. When kanga and roo arrive in the forest - sanctioned by Christopher Robin who has received new toys - Rabbit instantly says they have to get rid of them. Like there is NO friendship in Rabbit’s heart here. There is no “god has placed a new friend in the wood so we have to get on with it.”

Rabbit’s anti-immigration stances are funny, and in-character, and shown by the narrative to be wrong and unfair. But they’re pretty unleashed.

His plan is to kidnap the baby and hold it hostage until the mother agrees to “leave the forest forever and never return.”

This is not a normal response to a new character. It is in fact fucking unhinged. Coming from the most normal-adult real animal in the story, it comes out of nowhere. “We have to eliminate them instantly. Take the baby hostage, blackmail the parent and deport them” Rabbit these are war crimes.

Anyway it’s all very heartwarming as Rabbit learns that he likes Baby Roo. (Their relationship grows warmer as Baby Roo says “yes rabbit” and “no rabbit” better than anyone else.) We never really learn why Rabbit is so violently anti-immigration that he instantly jumps to doing crimes, but it’s possible that he doesn’t like the threat to the status quo. Baby Roo, by deferring politely, thus turns out to be a valuable social inferior for Rabbit’s power base.

But in the next book we also get another new character introduction: Tigger. rabbit does not like tigger. In fact, he stops visiting Roo because Tigger lives with them. Rabbit, frustrated by Tigger’s bounciness, also decides to deliberately trick and bully Tigger in order to make him “small and sorry.” The fact that this comically backfires on Rabbit is part of the Pooh-lore storytelling style, of course, but it’s still something obvious even to the preschool audience - that isn’t how you treat your friends.

In conclusion, due to their hoarding of (social) capital and behaviors that prop up an unjustly unequal social system, I think the real animals in Winnie the Pooh are a bit bougie.

[pomefioredove]

having a crush on you

summary: how they would act having a crush on you type of post: headcanons characters: pomefiore (vil, rook, epel) additional info: reader is yuu, reader is gender neutral, rook is rook, not proofread, hi I'm insane and I love pining, I NEED to write another fic but with rook. might write this same prompt with other dorms

𝐕𝐢𝐥 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐞𝐧𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐭

don't take his calm and collected facade as apathy

he's slowly losing his mind about this

"pacing back and forth, mumbling to himself, falling asleep thinking about you" kind of losing his mind

it's my personal belief that Vil hasn't been in love before this

hasn't even really thought about it

so when you enter the picture it kinda throws him off balance

and with the exception of Rook, no one can even tell

he is an actor, after all, he can play the part of "totally platonic friends with room for Jesus"

(maybe a little too well)

but Vil isn't entirely emotionally repressed

he keeps things to himself, yes, but he's quite conscious of his own wants and needs

so when he realizes he's been craving your presence more than usual he does acknowledge it

in his head

and then does nothing about it for months

...what? he's busy

things like this can wait for him, and he doesn't want to put a rift between you two in case it might be a passing feeling

well... it doesn't pass

he becomes keenly aware of how much he wants you around him, how much he thinks about you, how much your very presence is enough to make him happier than he's ever... really felt

and you know what?

he is totally cool about it.

just kidding. he drives himself insane trying to think of the perfect way to confess, something that will impress you and meet his standards

he's dropping hints left and right and you don't seem to be picking any of them up

which again, just makes him crazy

(some days he really wants to ask you how oblivious one person can be, but he restrains himself)

I mean, how many times can he send you red tulips before you finally get the hint? he's practically spelling it out for you!

there is... a tiny, little part of him that worries you don't reciprocate

is he not your type? are you interested in someone else? perhaps he'd been too harsh on you, after all...

the fact that one little potato can make him so worried absolutely drives him mad

he is the vision of poise and grace and you are ruining him

and this sort of mood comes and goes in waves

just when he thinks he's pulled himself back together, you'll smile at him or say something cute and suddenly he's back to square one

(you're so adorable it's annoying -_-)

while he's sorting out a good way to express his feelings properly, he'll be spending all his free time with you

you need some new things? he'll be glad to take you shopping

you came over to see Epel? oh, well, he's not here, but you should stay for some tea, anyway!

your afternoon is free? he has some new lip gloss he's been dying to test out...

𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐭

contrary to popular belief, I don't think Rook would be so open about it

he still compliments you, of course, and sings praises of your beauty and elegance, and has little regard for personal space, as always

but he's like that with a lot of people, so it's hard to really tell when he likes someone

the truth of the matter is that Rook Hunt can be just as reserved with his feelings as anyone else

when he really, really likes someone, he keeps it to himself

why?

he's hunting you he's learning more about you before making his true feelings known

he feels it's necessary to have an adequate amount of information on his target before making a move, after all

for reference: you catch his eye at orientation, and do not have a single conversation with him until after winter break

(of course, after that, you start mysteriously running into him everywhere)

is he kinda weird about it? uh. yeah.

this is Rook we're talking about

on the other hand, he's completely lovesick about you and it's almost cute

he's definitely the type to write your initials in a journal with a glitter pen while kicking his feet back and forth and giggling

seeing if you would sound better with his last name or he with yours...

definitely has a very weird photo collection of you somewhere in his room

along with stacks of poems, pressed flowers, and little gifts he intends to give you once he's won you over

(when, not if. Rook is nothing if not patient)

you may find a rose left outside Ramshackle every so often

or a few cans of tuna for Grim

all while acting like the same old eccentric Rook, no discernable difference

except when you can feel his eyes on you at random places in the middle of the day

Ace and Deuce call you paranoid but you can't shake the feeling

though, every once in a while he'll get a little grumpy

Rook is easily jealous, and while that sort of possessiveness never extended to untouchable idols like Vil and Neige, he's already decided that you're his prey

and he'd kindly ask everyone else to find their own, thank you

he hasn't exactly planned the confession yet, but just know it's probably going to be the sweetest and craziest you've ever heard

𝐄𝐩𝐞𝐥 𝐅𝐞𝐥𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐫

first of all he's going to fight you for making him like you so much

second of all he's going to beg for a chance

maybe not in that exact order

Epel is constantly at war with his own emotions and having romance thrown in the mix is. uh. not optimal

not only does it ruin the stoic, strong male persona he's been trying to build, but it's also making him feel all soft and gushy

suddenly he cares about looking nice

(much to Vil's approval)

and now he wants to do nice things for you?

he's gonna bite you

how dare you make him think about kissing and holding hands!

don't you know he's supposed to be above all this romantic stuff? what is he, Rook?!

then, after his initial temper tantrum, he starts coping. hard.

he might be able to stomach the idea of being an item if he gets to wear the pants in the relationship

...yeah, right? right.

if you let him be the man, if you let him protect you...

he might be okay with it!

obviously he starts trying to show off his manly strength (seriously) every time he sees you

starts making comments about how tough practice was on him

will literally never let anyone else carry anything for you ever again

he even provides for you (in payments of apple juice)

obviously this backfires 'cause the second you do something that gives him butterflies he's back to giggling

(you'll have to ease him into the idea of being soft and romantic together, but he'll get there)

but, to his credit, he'd be the first out of all the above to confess

super suddenly and out of nowhere (and he ends up shouting it cause he didn't want to sound chicken) but it's sweet in its own way