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I hope that when you get pregnant you have a miscarriage that gets you charged with a crime under overly restrictive abortion laws and you inadvertently become a poster child for pro-choice activists

Is this the person I just blocked? I hope you grow up and stop wishing miscarriage on people you disagree with. Abortion kills humans. It's a human rights violation. It should be illegal. I'll never stop talking about it because of petty and hateful remarks from people like you.

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Favorite color: None - I like them all.

Currently reading: Isaac's Storm.

Last song listened to: I don't remember.

Last movie: Away.

Last series: All Creatures Great and Small.

Sweet, Savory or Spicy: Sweet or savory.

Craving: Pasta or chocolate ice cream.

Tea or coffee: Neither, but if I had to choose, tea.

Currently working on: A Sudoku book.

(I can't think of anyone to tag, sorry)

rules: tag nine people you want to get to know better

Tagged by @indrid-hot - thanks a bunch!

Favorite Color: A nice, warm, sunny orange - but also honestly most other colors of the rainbow and then some.

Currently Reading: The Tevinter Nights Dragon Age short story collection.

Last Song: L'appuntamento - Ornella Vanoni

Last Movie: Ah, gosh. HM. I haven't watched anything that's not a TV show in a while. I semi-voluntarily caught the last fifteen minutes of Scrooged over the winter holidays I guess?

Last Series: Last series I watched any part of is, as always, "Emergency!" because I will never not be stuck in 70's paramedic hell. If we're talking new-to-me shows, a friend's making me watch Grey's Anatomy (early seasons) once a week, probably because observing my growing despair about the characters' poor life choices is fun. I don't even normally watch medical shows, and yet here we are lol

Sweet, Savoury, Spicy: Savory if I had to pick

Craving: Some good spaghetti with olive oil and obscene amounts of lightly toasted garlic.

Tea/Coffee: Yes please, lol

Currently working on: OH BOY WHAT A QUESTION.

Spinning: Gotland on my spindles (4-ply, one single per spindle, for funsies - except I accidentally mixed up which bits of fiber go with which single on which spindle, so that'll be fun to sort out...), 7oz/200g of red Merino on the wheel (for a crochet hat, followed by 9.5 oz of red and black Merino for a woven scarf). But also 24.5oz/700g of grey Merino. And cotton on the supported spindle. And I've got some laceweight viscose on the mini turkish spindle that I should really work on...

Crocheting: Half a dozen things, including a lacy collar that needs buttons and blocking, a gigantic star-shaped wrap-around shawl, an incredibly boring granny square top for my little sister, and too many others to count.

Art: The Emergency! tarot as the eternal never-ending WIP; I also have some Dragon Age Veilguard related plans revolving around the Grand Necropolis and irl Catacomb Saints and I'd love to get some DA-style tarot cards done for all my player characters.

Writing: I still have a couple unfinished fanfics that need another chapter, as well as two deeply self-indulgent OC/Emergency! crossovers that friends are making me write, and I also have some Dragon Age stuff in the works - though if anyone will ever see that is another question entirely.

Music: Practicing various stuff for LARP; also slowly chipping away at Hozier's Work Song because my partner asked nicely.

With no pressure, I will tag: @geminyde, @caseyscraftycorner, @swords-n-spindles, @alpacazappa, @rosesonneptune, @rose-of-pollux, @zooarchaeologyatdinner, @kalikatze aaaaand I can't decide on a 9th person to tag so whoever wants to do this: You're It!

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There is a spectacle more grand than the sea; it is heaven: there is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is the inmost recesses of the soul.

In Les Miserables Jean Valjean spends years living under the alias of Madeleine, as a reference to Mary Magdalene. I’ve painted Madeleine and stinging nettles for the faith and fate theme of @valvertweek.

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An alternate backstory for Fantine

I thought of an alternative backstory for Fantine that I personally like better than the one Hugo gave her.

In my version, Fantine was born into wealth and privilege. Fantine is her nickname, and she has a fancy real name (just like Cosette’s real name is Euphrasie). She also has a last name (what it is doesn’t matter). However, her parents died when she was young, and she fell in with a group of three other young women (who, in this version, are gentlewomen, not grisettes). Fantine was extremely sheltered growing up and her parents never taught her about men or sex, so she was easily seduced by Tholomyes (who she reasonably expected would propose to her, as they are of the same class).

After Fantine has Cosette and is abandoned by Tholomyes, her social circle turns on her for having a child out of wedlock. Because she is a young single woman, with a daughter instead of a son, she is unable to collect any of her parents’ inheritance, and it goes to a distant male relative instead. Either he refuses to help her, or she is too proud to ask for his help (or too embarrassed to tell him of her situation).

After this, Fantine’s story goes pretty much the same as in the book, except that Fantine has never had to work before and doesn’t really have any life skills, so the transition to poverty is much harder for her. And because of her upper-class background (indicated by her accent), she doesn’t make any friends in the lower classes either, and they accuse her of putting on airs (just as Favourite does in the book).

I like this idea because it gives Fantine a riches-to-rags story, in contrast to Valjean and Cosette’s rags-to-riches stories. In the original version, Fantine’s descent doesn’t hit as hard as it could because she was on the lowest rung of society to begin with, so she didn’t have very far to fall. But my version would show how even a rich girl from a good family could end up at rock bottom, which might have made Hugo’s original readers realize that something similar could happen to them or someone they care about.

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A thought on The Wizard of Oz

One of the most famous lines from The Wizard of Oz is when the Wizard says to the Tin Man, “And remember, my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.” It’s often used as an inspirational quote.

But as my mom once pointed out when we were watching the movie, it doesn’t really make any sense. After all, your “heart” is within you, and not dependent on anyone else’s feelings about you. Plenty of people loved Hitler, but that doesn’t mean he had a great “heart”. Meanwhile, someone can be a super loving person, even if no one else loves them back. While it’s good for the Tin Man to recognize how much he is loved by others, his “heart” is displayed by his own kindness, not by others’ kindness to him.

But it just occurred to me that maybe that was the point. The Wizard is a huckster; he’s an expert at saying things that sound good on the surface but fall apart if you actually think about them. He’s a fraud, and he doesn’t give any of our heroes what he promised them. He can’t even operate a hot air balloon properly, which is how he ended up in Oz in the first place!

But if that’s the case, if we’re supposed to disagree with the Wizard here, I wish the movie had made that clearer. I wish there had been some refutation of his statement so the audience wouldn’t think that was what they were supposed to take away from the story. Because if the point was that the Wizard had it backwards, then a lot of people are still missing it.

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I had an idea about this.

In pretty much any version of the story, Snow White is quite a bit taller than the dwarves - probably at least a foot. So she can easily reach things that would be much harder for them to reach. So what I would do in an adaptation is to have this be Snow White’s role in the dwarves’ household - not to do housework per se, but to be the resident tall person who can do things that the dwarves can’t.

To back this up, we could establish that the cottage the dwarves live in was built by and for humans, and they moved into it after it was abandoned by its original owners. Everything in it is too big for them, and they have to climb on ladders or stand on top of each other to reach the higher shelves. This results in frequent accidents and arguments between them. Snow White comes across them during one of these arguments and offers to help, and this gives them the idea to let her stay with them if she uses her height to do chores inside (and outside) the house.

This would subvert traditional gender roles because men are typically taller than women, and it’s usually women who need men to help them reach things that are high up, not the other way around. So even though Snow White is taking on a homemaker role, she’s also taking on a role usually held by men, while the dwarves take on a role usually held by women.

Snow White and domestic work

I have plenty of misgivings about Snow White (2025), but I do think some of the venom being hurled at it is slightly over the top.

For example, the way some people on the Internet have lost their minds over the trailer's one-second clip that shows Snow White dancing and singing "Whistle While You Work" while the dwarfs clean the house around her.

Suddenly everyone has decided that the new Snow White is nasty, lazy spoiled brat who forces the dwarfs to do the cleaning. And maybe she will be, for all I know. But maybe some people are jumping to conclusions: the clip in the trailer is barely a second long. I'm sure that in the full scene, Snow White will pitch in and do her share of the cleaning too. Secondly, it's nothing new for the dwarfs and Snow White to clean the house together. The 1955 West German film version has a long sequence where they do just that.

Obviously the Disney remake has made this change in the name of "feminism," and I can imagine it being handled in an annoying, ham-fisted way, which makes Snow White seem like an entitled brat who's unwilling to repay the dwarfs' kindness by working. But at the same time... isn't it slightly valid? Countless women are burdened by the fact that their husbands, boyfriends, or other male housemates view housework as "woman's work" and don't do their share. Statistics show that even women with full-time jobs still do most of the housework at home too. Is it really so bad for a family movie to speak out against this tradition and show male and female housemates doing their housework together?

Of course the backlash is all part of the current postmodern trend of defending traditionally feminine characters from all the detractors who label them "anti-feminist," and arguing that they really are positive, empowering role models. That's all well and good, but sometimes I think the defenses go too far – they sometimes seem to deny that there's anything outdated about these characters' portrayals, and cry "Internalized Misogyny," "Girlboss," "Not Like Other Girls," etc. any time a heroine rebels even slightly against gender conformity. Sometimes it feels as if postmodern feminism wants all women back in the kitchen.

I've written about this issue in Snow White before, but I'll do it again. Both of the above statements can be true:

(1) A heroine who cooks and cleans isn't "anti-feminist" in the least. These are essential chores, regardless of gender, and demeaning them does no good to anyone. In the case of Snow White, she doesn't just do domestic work because she's female. The dwarfs do her an immense kindness by letting her live with them, not only because she's another mouth to feed, but because she's a fugitive whom the country's evil and powerful Queen wants dead; as Grumpy points out in the Disney version, the dwarfs are risking their own safety by hiding her. It's only natural and right that she should repay them in some way, and since she has no money, the best thing she can give them is work. They dig in the mine all day, with little time to clean or cook too, so it makes sense that she should do those chores for them; it's a fair and reasonable division of labor, with the dwarfs as the breadwinners while Snow White takes care of the house, even if it is traditionally gendered. The fact that she's willing to work shows her good character, especially since she's a princess, yet humble enough to keep house for seven peasant dwarfs. And in the Disney version, cleaning and cooking are the chief skills she knows, because her stepmother has denied her a traditional royal upbringing and forced her to work as a scullery maid. Yet not only does she not let this oppression break her spirit, she turns it to her advantage by offering her domestic skills in exchange for a new home.

(2) Snow White's cleaning and cooking don't exist in a vacuum. By putting so much emphasis on the domestic work she does for the dwarfs, both the Brothers Grimm and Disney were portraying her as an ideal female by the patriarchal standards of their day. And those standards are outdated. Heroines of today shouldn't have to cook and clean to be considered role models. Nor should children be taught that cooking and cleaning are "woman's work," or that a girl who lives in a house full of men should automatically be the one who does all the housework. In a modern reimagining of Snow White, it's valid to want to downplay her domestic work, or to portray the dwarfs as helping her around the house – which they've already done in versions from as early as 1955.

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Oh, so NOW abortion is violence, eh Tumblr?

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The pro-life movement belongs to everyone: right-wing, left-wing, women and men, straight and LGBT, young and old, post-abortive and never had one, to parents and the childfree, able-bodied, disabled, mentally ill and neurotypical, the rich and the poor, blue collar and white collar, religious, secular, spiritual....

You all have a place at the table, because human rights begin at conception. Because we were all once in the womb and highly dependent on adults who had a 50% chance of believing that they had the right to kill us at our most vulnerable. That any number of reasons relating to our biology/identity is a good enough excuse to kill us and others.

No one should own or lead the movement alone. We all belong to it, because all people once had the risk of being aborted -- of being killed.

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Themis in Marble

"No one loves the light like the blind man."

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Imagine JFK singing "Little Brothers" from Phineas and Ferb to Bobby and Ted.

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i love my cat but he is very fond of trickery

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post musical Hamliza be like

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Look at these adorable A Christmas Carol ornaments 😭

From mmmcrafts

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My nayme is Bird

and wen it's nyte,

a dozing man

I giev a fryte.

His weary mynde

evokes Lenore,

I play a trick,

I tap the door.