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It's my 11 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

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The preborn are a convenient group to advocate against. They can't stand up for or speak for themselves. They can't protest or march for their rights. They can't fight back. They can't throw punches at those trying to harm them. They're caught in a small space, forced to die.

Kristin Monahan, Secular Pro-Life

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From Natural Womanhood on Facebook:

Doctors often prescribe hormonal birth control, like the Pill, to manage endometriosis symptoms in teenage girls instead of performing definitive laparoscopic surgery. This delay in diagnosis is fueled by the misconception that menstrual irregularities and pain are normal for women. However, relying solely on the Pill can worsen the condition, impacting a woman's fertility when she eventually stops taking it.

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Tim Fleming had a mother? I was beginning to think he was some kind of aberration; like he was an alien foundling who just showed up one day.

But yes, dear Heartland fans: Tim Fleming was indeed born of a woman, born on Earth (we can safely assume), and regrets not spending more time with her when he was younger when she was diagnosed with dementia.

And we get this little nugget after 18 seasons of knowing nothing about Tim’s origins.

After. 18. Seasons.

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@plato-was-a-moron I’m assuming this is the piece you were talking about. I couldn’t find any mention of a ventilator, so maybe the piece was edited after you read it.

The woman with the womb infection could have been given antibiotics to treat her infection. That would have been a risk for the baby, but not a death sentence, and could have either allowed her to continue the pregnancy or kept her condition from worsening until they could do more.

In almost every one of these stories that people send me, the doctors are waiting for the patient’s condition to worsen so they can “intervene,” causing the woman’s condition to, well, worsen.

The problem seems to be that, after decades of legalized abortion, doctors can’t imagine how to treat a pregnant woman without killing her baby. They think that it’s necessary to tear a small child limb from limb before trying literally anything else.

Doctors who actually care about saving moms and babies have been finding that in many cases the mother’s health condition can simply be treated without killing the baby.

Even with cancer, it’s often possible to do chemo, radiation, and surgery while protecting the baby. With radiation, a lead apron can be placed over the belly to shield the baby. Chemo drugs can be used after 12 weeks, and surgeries are done on pregnant women all the time.

Also, a very plain reading of Texas and Ohio law says that ectopic pregnancies can be removed. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or stupid.

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Every time I read or watch Lord of the Rings I can’t help but think about how Tolkien had survived one of the bloodiest, most cruel, most dirtiest and darkest wars in human history, came back and wrote this:

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

And this:

"'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo.

'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'"

And this:

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."

And this:

“Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the wise cannot see all ends."

And this:

“True courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one.”

And clearly they were all written partly because he survived the war, because of what he’d seen and done and learned. But at the same time the unwillingness to lose faith, the courage and strength that this man had to believe in these things after going through hell! It makes the nihilists look so cheap, so uninteresting! People who’ve went through concentration camps and wars believe in humanity anyway, isn’t that proof that hope and love exist? And many, many, many of them did not return or returned broken and cruel and traumatised to the point when no faith in others was possible for them, and nobody can blame them. But there were many who refused to lose faith and hope. They have seen some of the worst that life has to offer and came back believing that we shouldn’t be eager to deal out death in judgement and should love only that which the sword defends.

No matter how many people say that humanity is horrible and undeserving of love, and life is dark and worthless, and love doesn’t exist I remember this and have hope anyway. Because there were people who have actually had all reason to believe in the worst and still believed in the good, so the good must be real. The good is real, even despite the evil, and we must trust in it.

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It’s rare people get it right the first time, which is bizarre to me. It’s a “wrong accent on the wrong syllable” issue. Mostly a strange quirk of some North American speakers.

Has anyone ever mispronounced your last name?

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Whoa! After 18 seasons, we finally get a canon name for Lisa Stillman’s sister. We also now know that they’re estranged and why.

After. 18. Seasons.

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Heartland Talk Show: Season 6, Episode 5

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We Don't Need No Stinkin' Continuity

Maybe it's petty of me to keep carping on this, Heartland writers, but if you can't keep even something like this straight...

Maybe we are living in a divergent Heartland timeline, and have been for a while.

Maybe we're in the DeadTy! Universe, where Ty dies (obviously); where Jack had a sister named June whose burial plot is right there in front of everyone's eyes, but no one ever wondered who she was or asked about her because Jack never mentioned her (until Luke happened to notice it); whose lovely little sketch inspired the Heartland Ranch brand, and who should have been alive when Jack married Lyndy; a timeline where Lyndy is buried at the Heartland family plot (and has a headstone we never saw until Jess took a picture of Jack standing in front of it) instead of Jack having spread her ashes in the river like he so poignantly revealed to Lisa on their first real date.

Didn't anyone compile a series bible for this show?

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After All This Time...

I've never had this happen before. When has a show lasted so long that a fanfic you wrote a while back actually has to move from "canon-compliant" to "alternate universe" due to new information being revealed about a character?

As of Season 18 continuity, Wide River to Cross must now graciously bow out of the realm of possible continuity and slip into AU territory. 

At the time that fic was written, very little was known/revealed about Lisa’s horse breeding/racing business. This fic writer never imagined the series would even last as long as 18 years, or that the Writers would actually give us anything of substance concerning Lisa’s Fairfield business practices. Certain things have now been revealed as of Season 18 continuity (Ep. 1803 You Can Lead a Horse to Water) that make my own creative decisions about Lisa totally “alternate universe”.

I ain’t even mad.

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'I feel like we could just keep going:' After 18 seasons, Heartland showrunner says dynamic characters still have stories to tell

After filming Heartland for 18 seasons, it’s probably safe to assume that the producers, cast and crew have endured just about everything that Mother Nature could throw at them in rural Alberta. But the production faced a unique challenge this summer.

One of the main plot trajectories for Season 18 is that the Bartlett ranch, which has been at the heart of the series since its 2007 launch, will face devastating drought conditions. It is a story arc based on the real-life challenges faced by ranchers and farmers in Alberta. Writers for Season 18, debuts Sept. 29 on the CBC, began planning this thread not long after the province went through a particularly dry period in 2023. 

But when cameras started to roll in May, Mother Nature decided not to co-operate.

“We were shooting a drought in one of the wettest seasons we’ve ever felt,” says Amber Marshall, who plays protagonist Amy Fleming in the series. “It was quite a challenge showing characters out there talking about how if we don’t have rain, we’re not going to make it, in this lush green pasture. It’s one of those things where you write scripts so many months in advance and the previous summer had been so hot and dry, so that’s what they were basing it off of. Last year, everything was crispy and dry and hot and then this summer it’s beautiful and raining and lush green and we’re talking about this big drought that’s impacting the area.”

So the crew, already adept at negotiating Alberta’s mercurial climes, occasionally had to shoot around the flourishing green fields to capture the hardship. It all plays into a “save-the-ranch” vibe that will be a part of Season 18. Drought is not the only challenge this season facing the clan, which still includes Amy, older sister Lou (Michelle Morgan), father Tim (Chris Potter) and grandfather Jack Bartlett (Shaun Johnston). The operations are also facing increased competition by Pryce Beef, a neighbouring ranch whose practices are adversely impacting the Bartlett business.

“They are selling beef to a lot of the same venues that we would be,” Marshall says. “It’s head-to-head rivalry with your next-door neighbour and that’s why Lou steps up and tries to use her business background to make a go of the profitable side of the ranch.”

While the writers have decided to put more focus on the day-to-day struggles of a working ranch in Alberta, Heartland would not be Heartland if these challenges didn’t intersect with the characters’ personal lives and loves.

Since 2007, the Canadian public has had the rare opportunity to watch a family evolve for nearly two decades as the Bartlett-Fleming clan became the expanded Bartlett-Fleming-Morris-Borden clan. When Lou and Amy arrived at the ranch, the latter was only 15. That means she was a year younger than Lou’s oldest daughter Katie (Baye McPherson) will be in Season 18.

Longtime viewers watched Amy arrive at the ranch as a young teen grieving the death of her mother and grow into a young adult, wife, mother and – at the beginning of Season 14 – devastated widow forced to deal with single motherhood after the untimely death of longtime character Ty (Graham Wardle).

After mourning the death of her young husband, Amy eventually began seeing other men as time passed. In Season 17, that included Nathan Pryce Jr. (played by Spencer Lord). In a Romeo-and-Juliet twist, he just happens to be part of the family that owns the competing ranch. Further complications arise with the return of Ty’s best friend Caleb (Kerry James), who wants his relationship with Amy to be more than just friends.

“Amy is becoming very close with Nathan, who is the neighbour they are in direct competition with,” Marshall says. “So, of course, that doesn’t sit well with Amy’s family and it causes some ups and downs in the relationship with him and the family and she is stuck in the middle of it.”

As always, these soap-opera entanglements will be balanced with Heartland’s usual helping of horses and other animals as Amy continues to work with troubled equines. Marshall is now a producer on the series and one of her main tasks is dealing with the horses that are brought onto the show. She has been a devoted equestrian since before she was cast as Amy and it remains an integral part of both the series and her life.

“At the beginning of the year, we talk about the arcs and we look at the horse storyline(s),” she says. “Does this make sense? Can we bring in new horse characters? Can we bring in new horse breeds? How is this going to work with the fundamentals of what goes on behind the scenes, like the wranglers finding these horses? Can the horses do the discipline we’re asking them to do? Are they going to be comfortable on the set? So a lot of my time and energy goes into the animal actors and the horse storylines.”

It all fits into a solid formula that has been winning Heartland fans around the world. Last week, CBC announced it would be expanding its streaming portfolio with a separate channel dedicated to Heartland that will feature the first 17 seasons of the series.

Despite the drought, competition and heartache, the Heartland ranch still needs to be the sort of romantically rustic and aspirational setting where families and teens want to spend time.

Mark Haroun became showrunner of the series in 2016 but has been with Heartland since the beginning. He landed an entry-level script supervisor job on the series in its debut season. The key seems to be mixing new elements – the series has a habit of bringing in new pre-teen or teen characters every few seasons, for instance, to keep that demographic appeased – with the traditional aspects. While Haroun could have never predicted the show’s longevity, he said he did recognize early on that it was something special.

“I certainly knew that there was lightning in a bottle with Heartland,” says Haroun, who picked up the Showrunner Award this year at the Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards. “It’s that combination of the cast and the kinds of stories we were telling. That sort of family drama didn’t exist on television. That audience hadn’t been tapped into. It did feel like there was something really special from Day 1.”

While the series is still going strong after 18 seasons, there are inevitable questions that come with such longevity. When will it end? How will it end? Are the cast, crew and writers prepared for it to end?

Of course, the decision will ultimately be made by the Mother Corporation. But Haroun says the hope is that the series would get enough of a runway before cancellation that the writers could create an ending that is satisfying for them, the actors, the characters and the audience. Whatever the case, Heartland is a long way from being exhausted, he says.

“Nothing is guaranteed, but I feel like we have so many more stories to tell,” Haroun says. “I’ve never gone into the room at the beginning of the season and struggled to come up with stories because there are such rich, dynamic characters and it feels like we have so many places to go with stories. I feel like we could just keep going.”

Heartland airs on Sundays on CBC.

Source

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Background Actors on Heartland

Funny the things you notice on second watch of Heartland. The show currently has a dedicated YouTube channel that runs Seasons 1–17 for Canadian subscribers. As I watched Through the Smoke (Ep. 1404) last night, there's a scene in Maggie's Diner where rookie mayor Lou second-guesses herself about the tone she struck in delivering the evacuation order.

In the background were some of her council members. One of the women looked oddly familiar, and then it dawned on me she looked an awful lot like the woman who drove by Amy and Ty (and Ty's stalled truck) in Ep. 303. She's the one who stopped to ask if they needed help (and of course they didn't).

I had time tonight to go back and check.

Sure enough, it is the same actress: Karen Ryan, according to the IMDb. (She also appeared in Ep. 102 After the Storm and Ep. 1407 Courage; her character in Season One is apparently "Bunny".)

It's kind of cool to see this sort of thing on Heartland, that background actors return and randomly show up, even if they're not involved in any significant way.

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Reblog if you've ever cried over the death of a fictional character

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Looking at you, Corporal Jennifer “Pilot” Chase of Captain Power & the Soldiers of the Future…

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Jessica Steen has a minor role in Season 3 of Mayor of Kingstown, a dark, gritty series streaming on Paramount+. She plays Sarah, the owner of a place called Don’s Diner the cops of the show like to hang out. IMDb says she’s in five episodes.

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“I cannot pretend prochoice vs. prolife is about women versus babies. It isn't. It is about society versus families.

Abortion doesn't save women. It doesn't stop or fix rape. It doesn't end poverty. It doesn't stop domestic violence. It doesn't do anything except undo women's healthy biology, kill her child, and send her right back to whatever circumstances she came from.

Sure, if she just doesn't want to be pregnant, it ends pregnancy. Why doesn't she want to be pregnant though? The replies are along the lines of, "Fuck you. It doesn't matter. It is her choice and right." Ok. Thank you for telling me you care about abortion, not women.

This is what is being offered as the savior for women? This is our freedom? This is our equality? This is the answer we are being offered for children living in poverty, abuse, or neglect? Just pre-emptively guess their fate and kill them? This is what we are being offered as a way to address maternal mortality? Don't attempt to make advancements that address complications that arise in pregnancy, just blame women's biology and kill her kid?

I do not accept that this is the best we can do for women, children, or families. I do not accept that to be free, equal, and safe women have to turn against their biology and their children.”

– Robin Atkins