#''the personal is political'' well then i'm not doing very well for the world. politically speaking

[labelleizzy]

Lifted from a friend, but this is IMPORTANT.

I'm going to be blunt.

I know that what's happening is stressful. I know that many of you are trying to stay distracted for your own well-being.

I'm also fully aware that to some of you, I'm coming across as a politics obsessed alarmist.

But this is really important: yesterday multiple lines were crossed that weren't just Trump, being Trump. Lines were crossed that make it very clear that we're in the beginning stages of a coup.

*Elon Musk, who isn't a member of our government, basically shut down a government organization. He locked members of our Federal Government out of their computer system, HAD THE EMPLOYEES SEARCHED, and then copied the personal information of all 2.5 million of our federal employees, for who knows what purpose.

*Last night 88 FBI agents were marched out from their place of employment, like criminals, because Trump felt that they weren't "loyal" to him. That is dictator behavior.

* Last night the few remaining real news sources that we have, were told that they will be removed from their place in the Whitehouse and that they will be replaced with "news" sources like Brietbart. Meaning our trusted news sources will have no access to what is happening in the Whitehouse, while conspiracy sites are given free rein. That is how dictators control the media, shutter access to the real news and have the ability to spread propaganda. Hitler did that.

*Let's not forget that Musk, who once again has no right to do so, has had emails sent to all 2.5 million of our Federal Employees, trying to force them to quit their jobs. Many of them have.

*Today over 1,000 Federal Employees were fired, illegally. Dictator behavior.

*There have been protests across the county and around the world that none of us have heard about because our existing news sources are already being silenced. Most of the information that I posted has only been covered by 1 or 2 news sources (mainly Reuters) because the rest are too scared of the repercussions.

I could go on and on.

My point is this, this is not the time to be complacent or to bury our heads in the sand.

This is real. It is really happening. You aren't imagining it. Reacting to this is healthy and normal. Those are reactions built into us with the purpose of keeping ourselves safe.

We aren't safe.

We need to contact people within our government NOW.

Lawsuits and elections aren't going to save us from this constant daily onslaught.

_Only direct action will._

[sha-brytols]

see i think he's right in that there is no actual discernable line between Anders and Justice but i think it's a little bit more complex than that because. well obviously we see moments where justice just straight up takes control of anders body like in the fade or the quest with ser alrik or his rivalry path. but i also feel like a lot of the things anders says and does is not entirely just him. like.

okay so justice has a very distinctive style of speech. very verbose. rarely (if ever) uses contractions. has a very declarative style and frequently speaks in terms of absolutes. "It was your condemnation of their race that led to your folly" and "This is a mortal body of flesh! I am trapped within!" it's a very similar, albeit less poetic, manner of speech to that of cole's. their mannerisms are very reminiscent of someone whose grasp of communication is limited to the abstract (if that makes sense.?) so their speech feels unique in that it's more visceral and conveys a certain Feeling in the player. while cole's is more flowery and evocative, justice's speech is direct and forceful.

and as we know anders in awakening, he talks more casually, much more carefree, upbeat, very informal and uses more colloquialisms in his speech. "Erm... i didn't do it?" and "Whoa. She's talking to me. Voluntarily." he's literally the most unserious man in the world and honestly talks more like the class clown from your college frat party than a fantasy wizard.

i think this is most apparent when you see him and justice talking to each other:

justice is very no-nonsense and straightforward and really super does not fucking appreciate anders' cheeky attitude, while anders is borderline obnoxious and seems to enjoy being a smartass for the fun of it.

so like. in da2 we know that for the Most part, the smarm and glibness has been very toned down and anders is now more somber and subdued. he's also become more romantic (both in the literal sense as well as in the literary sense) and idealistic. he seems to have settled in a middle ground between polite and familiar and his tone is less playful and more earnest. he's also become a lot more respectful with how he talks about religion, compared to how he casually wonders if andraste was actually ugly or something in awakening (interesting thing to note: we know for a fact that justice actually believes in the maker and also has a deep respect for mortal faith)

so my personal interpretation of the justice/anders dynamic is that they kind of exist on a spectrum of sorts. one side being "mostly anders" and the other side being "mostly justice" with his default state being right smack in the middle. something that immediately stuck with me when i got it was anders' reaction in aveline's act 2 quest

maybe i'm insane and overthinking it but. this is just such a fucking abnormal response to a cute goofy "oh no how do i get this guy to like me?!" conversation that i can't not immediately think. hi justice.

her banter i think also provides a pretty perfect example of this

hi justice ^_^

hi anders ^_^

so my interpretation has always been that like. while i do believe for the most part they are genuinely "one" as anders claims, it's pretty clear to me that there is still a small divide between them, but it's more like in the way purple is always a mix of red and blue, but sometimes purple is more blue than red. and sometimes it's more red than blue. they aren't entirely separate from one another, but you can clearly see which is the strongest at any given time.

am i making sense. is anyone here. can you hear me. hello

[transmutationisms]

hello! I remember you making a post mentioning Margaret Sanger + eugenics recently… I’m wondering if you might be willing to share more thoughts on the relationship between Sanger, eugenics, and the birth control movement? or if you have any recs for papers to read on this topic? thanks in advance if u have anything to share!

yeah i stuck some reading under the cut for length but basically and reductively this has become a poisoned discursive well because reactionaries of various stripes have discovered that Sanger was a racist eugenicist, and have also discovered that if you say that about a public figure, a certain brand of liberal will immediately rush to condemn the person with little to no reflection on what the significance of their objectionable beliefs might historically have been, so now every family values white supremacist thinks they are the cleverest boy in the world for being like "erm actually Planned parenthood was founded by a eugenicist" and the best response the average liberal can come up with is "[splits hairs] no it wasn't".

in reality what they should be saying instead is more along the lines of: this is because eugenics and white supremacy were incredibly popular politics in the usa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and were ideologies that united public health champions (& political figures in general) from across the 'left–right political spectrum'. additionally Sanger's rhetoric varied over time and by audience, though i'm not really interested in doing rehabilitative work for her historical image and mostly bring this up to demonstrate that eugenics was so popular it was widely rhetorically advantageous to throw support for it, whether you were a feminist demanding access to birth control or a garden-variety misogynist opposed to reproductive autonomy.

anyway Sanger's legacy and the legacy of US feminists in general simply has to account for the fact that both 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' policy demands can be weaponised either for increased reproductive autonomy or for eugenic endeavours. it's not the [contraception / abortion / etc] in itself that creates the eugenics, and banning contraception or abortion doesn't solve the problem of capitalism nurturing and relying on eugenics (as disingenuous reactionaries already well know). a lot of right-wing writing on Sanger is indeed trumped-up, poorly substantiated, de-contextualised shock tactics—also, she did genuinely espouse a lot of racism and eugenics.

none of this is really relevant to the political question of whether, moving forward, reproductive autonomy ought to be ensured (it ought). but, it is certainly relevant to the question of why the us feminist movement has done a generally middling job of securing access to things like contraception and abortion: in part, this is because it has long been a movement that sacrificed an actual commitment to providing healthcare in an extremely unwise series of faustian racism bargains that (at best) framed reproductive rights in a very negative, libertarian-inflected way, and (at worst) threw over the principles altogether and wilfully ignored or even participated in the establishment of eugenic policies expressly designed to constrain the reproductive autonomy of racialised, poor, and disabled women.

Dorothy Roberts talks about feminist eugenics broadly, including some remarks on Sanger, in Killing the Black Body (1997)

Peter Engelmann's A History of the Birth Control Movement in America (2011) pretty much what it says on the tin; my notes from when I TA'd bioethics say we focussed on the introduction and chapters 1 and 3

Evolution and Eugenics in American Literature and Culture, 1880-1940: Essays on Ideological Conflict and Complicity (2003) ed. Lois Cuddy and Claire Roche has at least one chapter you'd probably find useful

there's also this annotated bibliography on Sanger but it's from the 80s, so the real value-add is if you want to see contemporaneous writings about her, or you want a list of her own actual publications. I don't know whether this is still considered a comprehensive list of the 70-odd years it does cover!

a couple dissertations, even though these are generally not as valuable citation-wise as published books or articles:

International Intercourse: Establishing a Transnational Discourse on Birth Control in the Interwar Era (2004) by Julie L Thomas, Indiana University

Feminist Eugenics in America: From Free Love to Birth Control, 1880–1930 (2006) by Susan Marie Rensing, University of Minnesota

[uncanny-tranny]

I think another aspect of conservative thought people need to understand is the idea that it's all about dominance.

The reason why sayings like "we don't want to trans your kids, we want trans kids to live" is because, in the conservative mind, you are replacing their dominance with your own. It can never be about what is best for others, it is always about expressing absolute power and control.

Natural selection, at its ideal, will weed out the people who "shouldn't live." If their existence is a threat to the already-established hierarchy, then it's obvious that they shouldn't exist in order to challenge hierarchy.

While this certainly isn't a "conservative-only" mindset, it's a trend I have noticed more in conservative spaces. This is why I don't always think it's helpful to go on about how, "Oh, we don't want to threaten your worldview. We just want people to live 😊". You will fundamentally be threatening their power in their minds. Therefore, nothing you say can truly take away from the anxiety, fear, and anger at losing control that may be instilled.

[batemanofficial]

hello upper middle class northern usamerican tumblr user. i want to play a game. you will notice that you are in a super america convenience store in rural kentucky - you have three minutes to purchase a snack and drink of your choice and make normal small talk with the cashier. however, if you use the word "cryptid" or generally make reference to appalachia and its inhabitants as "wild", uncivilized, or lacking restraint around alcoholic beverages during your time here, i will personally tie you to the chassis of a four wheeler and tip it into the river. live or die. make your choice

[daz4i]

i literally can't think about life or the future for more than a few seconds without getting so distressed that i shut down. surely this is a good sign for things to come

[dingusships]

bigass vent over general life things

things in general are really not great i don't really have any optimism for the future or making a life for myself. like i don't really have any drive or ambition to look forward or work towards anything good/meaningful because as time goes on there are going to be really bad life events that i just don't think i can keep facing anymore. and theyre going to be worse. i'm just dragging along life solely on the basis that i was plopped here to just Exist and that's my task at hand that i'm reluctantly upholding. just exist until it's over

[pickapea]

everyone must unlearn the phrase "eat the rich". none of you are responsible enough to use it in a way that means anything

[medicinemane]

The problem with people who are "right" because they insist they're right, and the only way to be right is to simply perfectly follow their every dictation on the subject unquestioningly is this...

Ok, let's just take it as a given that you're right... the problem here is that if that's what's right I'm afraid I have to dig my heels into being wrong. If you are as righteous and just as you insist you are then I've got no choice but to be the villain because I can't stand what you're saying I'd have to do to be good

Shockingly I even think it's wrong, which is odd because we've already defined it that you're inherently and unassailably right... yet here we are

Worst part is there's a lot of these things where I'm not even full stop against it, I actually might be on their side if they could stop and address a couple of issues I consider kind of important... but they won't, because they're morally right and don't have time for addressing nonexistent issues I'm clearly just dreaming up

Undoubtedly right they are, the defect must surely be my own... and yet here we are. Vile and wicked as it might make me, I still can't just go along with you

[talentforlying]

constantine: wait. you — you sent my friends off to — to ... clarice: yes ... always out-of-towners. disrespectful sorts. breakers of xenia.

not over this, actually, because he really did trust clarice. right off the bat, without having seen each other in years, dropped in fresh from another universe, he put his son's life in her hands without questioning her once. he didn't even consider that she might stab him in the back until it happened, he was absolutely blindsided by it. this man cannot catch a break, i fear.

[batshit-auspol]

So a bit of background first for our international followers: Clive Palmer is one of Australia's many mining billionaires who like to meddle in our country's politics, and as such he is utterly despised by all of Australia.

Picture for context:

He is most commonly known online by the title "Fatty McFuckhead", (problematic as it may be) because he tried to sue a youtuber for $500,000 for calling him that - and he lost. So the name stuck.

Up until his most recent foray into parliament, the legally certified Fuckhead was best known for his batshit business ventures, such as attempting to build "The Titanic 2" (failed) and trying to build a dinosaur theme park (also failed, but at least nobody got eaten by a T-Rex in this one).

For a very long time Clive played the role of sugar daddy to Australia's largest conservative party, the ironically named Liberal Party, until they had a falling out in 2012 after Clive claimed there was too much money influencing politics (lol), at which point he started his own party, days after saying he totally quit and wasn't fired and he only left because he didn't want to be a distraction.

His initial run at parliament was actually kinda successful, with Palmer's group winning 4 seats, plus a member from the "Motoring Enthusiasts Party" joined them too after accidentally getting elected and not knowing what the fuck to do.

Despite this initial success however, Palmer's party (which ran on basically no platform other than "I'm rich") hit an iceberg (titanic 2 achieved) and seven elected state and federal politicians quit within the first year.

By the time the next federal election rolled around, only one Palmer party candidate was still running for re-election. The most successful of this group - Jaquie Lambie - quit to sit as an independant and is still in parliament today.

Here she is with a painting of herself strangling Clive (she sells signed copies of this)

And here the senator is posting about liking sausage:

Anyway, we're getting to the point: which is the yellow posters. By the 2016 election, just two years after forming, the party was in complete freefall. It won just 0.01% of the vote at their second election, and it was announced shortly after that Clive was quitting politics and the party was being shut down. Australia breathed a sigh of relief.

It was, of course, short lived.

Clive, in desperate need of attention, restarted the party for the 2019 election, fielding candidates in every seat and spending $60 million in advertising in an attempt to win votes.

Every single candidate lost.

It was in this campaign however that Australia really started to fall out of love with Palmer, because most of that $60 million went towards putting up the world's least compelling marketing billboards on almost every single free space in the country.

For a good six months this was basically the only thing you would see in Australia if you went outside:

Clearly Graphic design is his passion. And yes, the genius did just straight up try and copy Trump's homework while changing a few words, hoping nobody would notice.

Very quickly these all got vandalised and it seemed the ad companies didn't care enough to replace them.

We could go on posting examples, there are thousands, but the best is definitely the one Ikea put up shortly after Clive lost the election:

In 2022, Clive's party contested the election AGAIN, this time also opting to send millions on spam text messages to every person in Australia begging for people to vote for him, as well as buying almost every youtube ad for a year, at the cost of $100 million.

He won a whopping one seat.

During this election Clive ran on an anti-lockdown, anti-vax platform with the slogan "freedom, freedom, freedom". That message, however, was slightly undermined when his goons, dressed in 'Freedom!' shirts, made national news for trying to beat up a protester who turned up at a rally dressed as an annoying text message, shouting "pay your workers" at Clive.

As if that wasn't bad enough, at another rally Clive knocked himself unconscious while trying to jump up on stage, and then a few weeks later was rushed to hospital with covid, while his anti-vax ads were still in regular rotation on TV, at which point it was also leaked to the press that Palmer had been alledgedly trying to buy Hitler's car.

Utterly humiliated, the party deregistered again shortly after the election.

Can't wait until he runs again in 2025.

Anyway, on the other "Clive tweeting Miss Kobayashi's Dragon" thing, we have no idea what that means but here's a screencap:

[wcnderlnds]

carried away | choi seung-hyun (t.o.p)

・❥・ summary: getting to film a movie with seunghyun is all fine until you have to film a kissing scene ・❥・word count: 1.1k ・❥・warnings: n/a ・❥・ authors note: saw a video of tazza behind the scenes and was inspired 👀

Choi Seung-hyun was one of the most interesting people you had ever met. Not only was he a complete sweetheart but he was one heck of a talented actor. He could switch between himself and the character he was playing almost seamlessly. Not many actors had that kind of talent — some opting to stay in character through the whole shoot to not lose focus but not Seunghyun. When he was in character, he was locked in and when he was out of it, he was the fun, sweet guy that you had come to know over the last couple of months. It amazed you every single day.

When you’d first got the job to star alongside him, the nerves you’d felt were probably the worst you’d ever experienced. He was an icon, part of one of the biggest bands in the world. It was daunting knowing you were going to have to be face to face with one of K-Pops biggest idols. Turns out there had been no reason to worry whatsoever because he was the nicest person you’d ever met. The very first day you’d met on set he’d introduced himself politely, made sure you were comfortable and did everything he could to make it easy for you. It wasn’t your first job. You were pretty well known in the industry but every set was different. All the different actors and crew; sometimes you didn’t know what to expect. So far, this had been your favourite movie to work on. Did most of that have to do with Seunghyun? Absolutely.

Today was the day you had been dreading the most, though. Intimate scenes were always daunting to film but now you had to film one with Seunghyun. Oh, you were so screwed. Over the last few weeks, you had developed a little crush on your co-star. Not a word had been uttered to him but you were fairly sure you weren’t hiding it very well. The giggles at his every joke, the way you’d hang on to his every word, find any reason to be close to him — it was like you were a kid again with your very first crush and didn’t know how to act.

“You ready for this?” Seunghyun asked as the two of you stood waiting for the director to start the scene. He stood there, tie loose around his neck, his white shirt unbuttoned slightly showing off some of his chest. If you weren’t so nervous, you’d definitely be staring right now.

“Yeah,” you nodded, hands flexing at your sides. “I'm a little nervous but I’m ready.”

“I’ve got you, okay? You want to stop at any time just tell me and we will. We don’t even have to do this if you’re not comfortable with it. I’m sure we can think of a way around it,” he reached out to give your arm a reassuring squeeze. Even just a simple touch like that made your heart beat ten times faster so what the hell was going to happen to you the moment his lips met yours? 

“It’s okay, I promise. I’m glad it’s with you. I trust you.” A genuine smile adorned your face making Seunghyun smile, too. Was he blushing as well? Surely you were imagining that.

It wasn’t too long after when the director yelled action and it was all hands on deck. Before you could even prepare yourself (which you’d had plenty of time to do if you hadn’t been so nervous), Seunghyun’s hand was on the back of your head and his lips crashed against yours. The second his soft lips began to move, your head turned fuzzy. Your hands fisted in the shirt he was wearing as he backed you up onto the bed. As you laid back, he settled on top of you, his tongue tangling with yours. You knew you were supposed to be acting, that this was your character and not you but it didn’t stop you from getting lost in the way his lips fit so perfectly against yours. Or the way his body slotted between yours like a puzzle piece.

It wasn’t until Seunghyun pulled away — breathless and with red tinted cheeks — that you realised the director had shouted ‘cut’ over five minutes ago. You could feel the flush of your cheeks as the embarrassment coursed through you. Without a single word, you ran off the set to hide in your dressing room. If that wasn’t the most mortifying moment of your life, you didn’t know what was. How could you have gotten so lost that you didn’t realise the scene had ended? How unprofessional. 

It was five minutes later when you heard a knock on your door. You barely mumbled a “it’s open” when the handle turned and in walked Seunghyun. You had your head in your hands but as you heard him clear his throat, you looked up. There he stood looking as gorgeous as ever. 

“Can I…?” He gestured to the spot next to you on the couch. You nodded your head, resting your hands in your lap. He sat beside you, twisting his body slightly so he could look at you. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m embarrassed and mortified and really wish the ground would swallow me up right now.” The urge to hide your face again was strong but you fought against it. You had to be an adult and own up to what had happened. “I’m so sorry, Seunghyun. That was so unprofessional of me. I…I’m really sorry.”

He shook his head. “No, don’t apologise. I could have stopped it sooner but… uh, I didn’t want to.”

Did you hear him correctly? He didn’t want to stop kissing you? 

“…what?” You asked in disbelief.

“Yeah,” he let out a low chuckle, shrugging his shoulders. “I like you. I’ve been trying to figure out how to make a move without it being weird for a couple weeks now but nothing seemed right. But then when I kissed you and you didn’t seem to stop, I couldn’t help myself. If anything it was unprofessional of me.”

“Just a couple of unprofessionals then, huh?” You joked, gently nudging him with your elbow. “I like you too, by the way.”

“I know, you’ve been pretty obvious.”

“Shutup.”

He laughed, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and bringing you into his side. “Want to get dinner tonight?”

“Yeah, I’d love to,” you smiled up at him, his eyes catching yours. It was so easy to get lost in him. Everything about him was so perfect. 

“For the time being, we have a lot of kissing to do because apparently we were too intense for the scene or something,” Seunghyun jokingly rolled his eyes, holding his hand out for you as he got to his feet. “Let’s get back to work, shall we?”

If work meant you got to keep kissing the handsome man standing in front of you then you were more than happy to get back on set.

taglist (ask to be added!): @ldydeath @infinetlyforgotten

[valdevia]

Very funny that tumblr is having discourse about whether my art is misinformation or not, after I've been posting it all over the internet for years without any controversy. So let's talk about it!

I know people arguing are a vocal minority, but I'm not going to dismiss anyone's concerns. It's an actually interesting topic that I really consider, and it touches some important issues in society. So here's my (rambly) two cents.

My art is meant to misdirect, in some way. Photomanipulation and the tone I typically use are meant to briefly confuse the person reading it into thinking they're hearing a real story, at least for a few seconds.

The Intended Experience™

In this sense, I feel like my art can be misinformation! And it's not only people who don't think critically about things like "how come I never heard about mermaids being real before?".

So, no disrespect to anyone that fell for one of my pieces! My work plays with reality, so if you fell for it for more than a minute, it just means my tone and style worked a little too well for you! And there are legitimate reasons to be confused when you see something online, too. For example, there are people who can have trouble telling real and fictional things apart. When you post something that goes out to a million people, you'll get one million different reactions.

That's why I always take care to make it really clear, outside the main piece and snippet of text, that my art is no more than fiction. There are tags, the tone of my account, even my profile picture is meant to reinforce this. I also have a website which, in part, is meant to capture the clicks of people to wonder if my stuff is real and google it, so they can find a real source that's clearly an art website. You can try googling "mycelium infection 1806" or "pupillosarcoma" to see how my website tends to appear first.

If I get this comment I know I've done something believable!

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that my art wholly constitutes misinformation. What we need to understand is that misinformation is not the same as disinformation. Misinformation is just incorrect information. It's your grandma seeing a little bit of a found footage movie on TV and thinking it really happened. She might be spooked, but nobody is harmed. Disinformation is false information that's purposefully crafted and spread in order to cause harm, division, or further a political view.

Now I ask you: what real world harm does my art create? The worst that can happen is that a tiny percentage of those that see it get a little scared thinking a weird bug is real, or that mushrooms really grow on faces, or that scientists have released millions of trilobites into the oceans. Is that really that bad?

Anyway, that's my take on the topic! I'm obviously biased, but this being my style, I do put a lot of thought into it and I'm always open to people's opinions! (Just don't scream at random people on the replies or you'll get blocked!)

[witchthewriter]

𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐭'𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞

⤷ female, Valyrian blood (dragon rider), and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!

a/n: APPARENTLY THIS IS A GUY NAMED DAVOS BLACKWOOD. But he literally IS Bloody Ben. So he's staying Bloody Ben.

P.s. I'm ageing Benjicot up so he's around 24 or whatever age you want him to be that's over 18 <3

ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ | ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ ᴵᴵ

𝑺𝑭𝑾🌿

・It wasn't an arranged marriaged. No, not by any means.

・You had been sent by your Queen to remind the Houses of Westeros their pledge to her. And Rhaenyra had chosen you to go to the Blackwoods.

"I expect you will be welcomed warmly," her Grace said with a warm smile.

You bowed your head and returned the smile.

・You always felt safe around Rhaenyra, she was someone very close to you. Someone who you would fight to the death for.

・The first time Benji saw you, his heart stopped...which was a very fair reaction as you were atop your fearsome dragon, The Cannibal.

・You bonded with the wild dragon when you were 13 - it was the first day of your periods and you were sick and tired of being without a dragon.

・It was in your blood. And you were done waiting.

・Your first flight with Cannibal was difficult - although the blood magic seemed to be strong between the two of you.

・You were the exact person he was waiting for.

・So when your duty came to aid Queen Rhaenyra; she did asked for you to unite with a House through marriage

・That was heavy - a big duty that you did not think would need to happen, since you bonded with Cannibal. Wouldn't you be put on the front lines straight away? Her answer was no.

・But you knew the realities of war and faced your duty head on (you know Cannibal will always defend you)

・Your marriage was a significant one. All the Blackwoods were invited, and Rhaenyra was there to oversee the ceremony.

・However, having all of your family there would have been another Red Wedding, so only a few choice people from your side could be invited.

・Nonetheless, it was absolutely beautiful.

・Dragonfire lit the skies, chasing away the dark. Even Cannibal was having a good time. There were tributes made to him - sheep, cow, goats galore. You swore you saw him smiling.

・What you absolutely weren't expecting was Benji to INTERACT with Cannibal...

・He brought up a bull from the biggest hoard they had. Benji watched as the dragon practically gulped the animal down. However, he wasn't scared - he was impressed. And intrigued.

・You were absolutely moved by Benji's act. Truly. Because it showed his bravery. His daring. And of course his caring. You knew, you could feel the way Cannibal was feeling - and he trusted this Blackwood.

・So you decided to give him a wedding present. A fly.

・By doing so, you broke down every single one of Benji's walls and he knew you were the one for him. His wife. His firt and only one.

・After a tough day, and you both go to your chambers; he'll grab your arm and kiss your wrist. A physical way of saying "I'm so glad you're alive and mine."

・Learns High Valyrian for you. He wanted to surprise you with it. And surprise you he did.

・You call each other: Ñuha jorrāelagon (my love), Ñuha prūmia (my heart),

・ A very particular sentence that Benji says a lot is: Nyke pendagon nūmāzma ao everyday (I think about you everyday)

・Of course he knows you can protect yourself; but that doesn't stop him from defending you. You're his world now. You mean so much to him.

・No body thought this union would work as well as it had.

・So, Bloody Ben & The Rider of Cannibal became a formidabble pair that made men tremble wherever they went.

𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔

Like Calls To Like

The Gomez & Morticia Adams

"Think they'll try us?" x "Fuck I hope so."

𝑹𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒄 𝑷𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆

Unbreakable Bond

Growth through Adversity

Bickering and Banter

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒏𝒈

Please Please Please by Sabrina Carpenter

The Politics & The Life by Daniel Pemberton

O Verona by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra

𝑁𝑆𝐹𝑊 🔞 No one under the age of 18 past this point, makes me feel weird if you read it.

・Gives you complete and utter respect both in and out of the bedroom.

・Has never and will never push you to do anything you don't want to do

・The first time you were together, it felt like your bodies were on fire. Meant to burn together. The words kept replaying over and over in your head as he touched you. A deep yearning overtook you and suddenly time stopped.

・His lips were warm, his hands cold but when he took off his clothes, you couldn't help but grin.

・There's such desire between you two that even your mount can sense it.

・Your sex life is very active - at least once a day. Maybe you're in your Honeymoon period, but you cannot keep your hands off one another when you're alone

・And when you're at feasts, Benji's hands find their way down your thigh, and slowing inching inbetween them.

"Really, here? Now?" You asked n a hushed tone, trying not to draw any attention to either of you.

"Yes. Here, now. Or we can go into the hallway and I will ravish you there. Upto you, wife."

[mortalityplays]

You need more free art.

I quit my job yesterday. Well, actually I quit my job eight weeks ago, but they finally released me yesterday for good behaviour. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do - but I do it for the wrong reasons. Working for major charities, you learn very fast that 'I want to make the world a better place' is a phrase you use to ask people for money, not to give them things. I was an ass-backwards fit for that world.

You need more free art. I need more free art. Everyone has felt the shift in our media landscape over the last ten years, away from access and towards nickel-and-diming the human experience. That lack of access is making life and culture worse for all of us, across the board. Paywalled news sites leave us less informed, attacks on the Internet Archive leave us less capable of research. Algorithmic social feeds and streaming walled gardens trap us inside smaller and smaller demographic bubbles, where we are increasingly only likely to encounter ideas that have been curated for us by marketing departments. Hasty efforts to resist AI commodification have only led to more artists locking their work away and calling for even more onerous systems of copyright law. This is not good for us.

We all need more free art.

So what am I going to do about it?

This is a question I have been asking myself for years. It's easy to sit here feeilng frustrated and thinking 'boy I hope SOMEONE does SOMETHING'. It's harder to take action in a world where I still have rent to pay. But hard doesn't mean impossible. Sometimes hard just means time-consuming, frustrating and slow. And sometimes it's worth doing something time-consuming, frustrating and slow because...I want to make the world a better place.

I'm going to do this:

1. From April 1st, I am relaunching as a freelance writer and editor.

This is the one that will (hopefully) help to pay the bills. I am a very good and experienced editor. I've worked on hollywood movies, I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders, I have clients who have been coming to me exclusively for more than 10 years.

Alongside bigger contract jobs, I am going to refocus on offering my services to small-press creators at a reduced rate. That means you, graphic novelists. That means you, itch and amazon writers. I want to help you develop your work, the same way I help large organisations. You can learn more about what an editor even does and what kind of pricing you can expect here.

2. I'm also going to start giving shit away. Like, constantly.

Next week I'm going to launch a new free shop. If you're unfamiliar, a free shop, giveaway shop, swap shop, etc. is an anarchist tradition of setting up a storefront where anyone can take what they like for no cost. Offline, this often means second-hand clothes, tools, furniture, food etc. Online, I am going to be giving away digital art. Copyright-free, no strings attached. It will (eventually) feature everything from print-res posters to zines, poems, tattoo flash, t-shirt designs and anything else we come up with.

Yes, I said 'we' - while this is a curated collection, it will feature work from a variety of credited and anonymous artists and activists, all of whom have agreed to give their work away to the public domain. Some of it will be practical, some of it will be political, but a lot of it will be decorative or personal. This is, in part, a response to recent difficulty I had finding somewhere that would print a one-off joke poster for a friend that featured the word 'faggot'. Enough. No middlemen - no explaining ourselves. Just print our shit and enjoy it.

I'm very, very excited about this project. I'll have more to say about it closer to the launch, but you can expect it to go live on March 27th.

2.2 I forgot to mention the ACTUAL LAUNCH GIVEAWAY

To celebrate my launch, I am going to be giving away a ton of physical prints. When I went looking for my old stock to see if it was worth setting a new (paid) storefront up, I realised I had way more old work in storage than I thought. This will be announced in its own right on Monday, but this is why I've been hinting you should go follow my Patreon.

On April 1st, I will pick 8 random patrons (from across all tiers including non-paying followers!) and mail them a bundle of assorted prints and postcards. The prize pool includes A3 and A4 posters, packs of A6 postcards, and printed minicomics that I've previously sold for up to £12 each.

You don't have to be a paying subscriber to enter - this is strictly no-purchase necessary. It is purely and entirely a celebration of the concept of GIVING ART AWAY FOR FREE.

3. PORN, YOU PERVERTS

Because I still have to pay to stay alive, I am going to be subsidising all this free art with the introduction of Fuck You Fridays. Starting from March 29th, I will drop a new 18+ short story on the last Friday of every month, over on itch.io (yes I know my page is desolate right now, don't worry I'll get there).

The first edition, Go Fuck Yourself, is about, well - telling your boss where to stick it. Julia has had it with her millionaire man-child manager, and is just about ready to let him know what she really thinks. It's a short and steamy 5k words, with a gorgeous cover illustration by @taylor-titmouse, and you can pick it up for $3 starting from March 29th.

4. ANOTHER BIG SURPRISE

I'm keeping this one under wraps for now, but April 1st will also play host to one more (FREE) launch. If you've been following me for a long time, you might remember the other significance of this date (no not April Fool's day, though that is certainly thematically relevant to this entire effort). That's all I'll say right now. Watch this space.

tl;dr: I'm sick of paywalls and career ladders. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is. More free art for everyone and I'm not kidding around!!!

[emberwhite]

Do people judge a book by its cover? They absolutely do. They take one look at this, and they either often instantly hate it or love it.

Talking about how things should be is just yelling into the void. There is just reality. And this is the reality of being a self-published indie author.

People make complete conclusions based off of incomplete information. In this case, my book, there are no adults pressuring the boy into getting any surgery. There's no mention of surgery at all even. This person is thinking of a children's book written by a very popular political figure. Some people have had the courtesy to ask me if it's like that book. It's not at all. It's not even political. It's a story told from the perspective of a kid who grows up knowing they are very different and yet can tell no one about it. Even saying a word about it would bring all of his deepest and darkest fears into reality.

The challenge was to make the story as dark and scary as I could without ever going too far for a children's book. There are already some scary children's books and movies out there that prove what's possible, and I worked with my illustrator, Marta, to push it as far as we could go. There's one page we had to re-do almost completely because even I said that's a bit much.

But I'm very happy with the final result because we also got to do so many fun and colorful pages like this.

There will be plenty more drive-by reviews as the book continues to grow and grow. They take one look and see a soapbox to express all of their disappointments and frustrations in life.

I think they might be scared of the book. The world they grew up in is slowly fading away day by day, and it's all they have come to know. They've been around for so long that everything has become a bore to them, and the only remaining pleasure is to escape into the past in order to better preserve it. I can oddly relate, actually.

So the book is on Amazon, and you can watch the whole thing for free on YouTube as well. If you get the chance, let me know what you think. Literally, watching it for free and then giving it a simple rating on Amazon is the best way to support the book. But I also love waking up to reviews like this every day.