#bbc green wing

[punikai2020]

Happy Valentines Day 💘

to My Favorite Britcom Couples.

@flatnumberseventeen @comedyfan2013 @bbcmyhero @bbcghostsupdates @stathletscaps @kitmarlowe @local-blog-for-local-people @notfspurejam @judith-buckle @fuckyeahwildwest @tjevo9-my-family

[i-may-be-an-emu]

TELL ME ABOUT THE MEN!!!!!!

HELLO!!!

GLADLY :DD

THE MEN. :)

They’re called shoot from the hip (sfth) and are @shootimpro on youtube, tiktok, instagram, facebook, x/twitter, as well as on linktree, patreon and ko-fi.

They’re London based but have done shows outside london like in Scotland (Edinburgh Fringe) and even to Spain. They want to hopefully go to other countries in the future too!!

From left to right they’re Sam, Tom, AJ and Luke :)))

(this will probably be LONG so putting a read more lol)

Ok so they do improvised comedy and their shows have two halves (generally with a break in the middle) they play lots of short drama games in the first half and then improvise 20-30 minute (on average) plays in the second half, sometimes with another game at the end.

The plays are so much fun (they’ve got 38 of them up on youtube so far!!) and they’ve also released two full specials (full shows) which you can find on their channel :)

(just a note that for a few of the older ones (apart from the first one) they were filming on an iphone and just projecting their voices, the the audio and image quality can be hard to deal with)

they have SO MUCH CONTENT because during covid they did zoom-style improv shows with eachother and you can watch them as a patreon

they also have SO MANY VIDEOS that are just the regular public ones!!!! They upload short ones of the games and some 5-10min ones of the games too, as well as the long forms (plays)

Now some info about the guys :D

Samuel Thomas Russell-Holmes:

Birthday 21st July 1989 (35)

Married this year and expecting a baby!!! :)

wears a red flannel a LOT (less recently, but still a LOT, it’s his Thing)

he says some very risky things sometimes but also has the audacity to look shocked when the others do it lol

Fav colour is green

he’s 5”10

brown eyes

currently producing a radio show for the bbc called wing it (available in December!)

if he were a Disney Princess he said he’d be Rapunzel

VERY GOOD AT ANIMAL (specifically goat/sheep) NOISES

kisses Luke a lot lol (kisses all of them a lot, but specifically Luke- I counted like the madman that I am lol)

great at talking in Spanish gibberish, often paired with opening his shirt buttons

loves fantasy things

wrote an audiobook called “Evergreen”

his mother and grandfather are/were successful actors

Has a drama degree

Low spice tolerance

has eaten raw egg live on camera

can be a tad egotistical but we love him

Thomas Mayo-Woodman/Hodgson-Mayo:

HES SO TALL (this man is almost 2m tall- he’s 6”5.5 :0)

brown eyes

his birthday is 10th July 1989 (35)

Married to a drag king (@pipdream on insta, tiktok, youtube, ect.) who’s pronouns are they/them

Wrote a graphic novel (it’s called Future it’s about space lesbians)

literally one of the sweetest and kindest souls on this planet I’ve never met him but every time he says anything it’s like WOW OK YOURE SO NICE AND KIND AND WONDERFUL (everything I’ve heard from people who’ve met him is SO NICE)

SO GOOD AT IMPROVISING (specifically Shakespearian-style) MONOLOGUES

his favourite colour is red

has two english degrees (very good with grammar and words)

has adhd

makes a garbled choking noise very well (you have to hear it to get what I mean I guess lol)

has eaten a teabag live on camera

He’s the “dad” of the group

Very hard to make him laugh on stage (but he’s been laughing more, recently!!) and each one is treasured

so kind did I mention he is kind

lovingly called a squid or squidboi by the fandom because of one time he like stuck his hands in his sleeves and was like “I’m a squid”

does a lot of admin work for sfth and handles the finances (at least he did, they might have someone for that now I’m not sure) and takes care of the patreon

Alexander Thomas Jeremy (AJ):

Birthday on 4th November 1991 (32)

CONFUSION KING /aff (he gets confused easily but we love him for it)

He’s bald and gets made fun of for it RELENTLESSLY (again, lovingly)

Absolutely ANGELIC singing voice

Blue eyes

born in Manchester(UK) but grew up in France (fluent in French)

makes movies/short films on youtube!! He’s working on a new one now and you can find them @atjeremy on youtube (that’s also his insta and you can see stuff about his films there too!)

does a lot of the editing for sfth and has a lot of input into which longforms to upload apparently (all of them decide tho I think)

he’s such a himbo (/aff)

fav colour is blue

He’s 6 foot tall

On their covid livestreams would always forget to get costuming ready

his rapping is BEAUTIFUL (words that barely rhyme at all and make NO sense 😌)

can deliver GREAT one liners

so good at playing children it’s crazy

can do magnificent cartwheels and loves to jump on the others with no warning

lots of muscles but lost an arm wrestle against Tom

Thinks he can’t do an Irish accent but I think it’s pretty good

also has a drama degree

Luke Christopher Manning

Birthday is the 23rd October 1989 (currently 34 about to be 35)

Hazel eyes

hes not short but he’s the short-EST, 5”7.5

gets made fun of for his height a LOT (lovingly!!)

SO good at accents

so good at playing women

also so good at playing children

such a good actor overall

says THE MOST UNHINGED THINGS

people think he’s innocent (somehow) but he’s SO unhinged

took his pants off live on stage (wearing underwear but still lol) (AND it’s on youtube hahaha)

lives in Spain with his long term girlfriend (fluent in Spanish)

so much attitude in such a small guy (/aff)

often compared to Macaulay Caulkin looks-wise

plays bass guitar in a band

Teaches acting (to kids??) in Spain

also has adhd

also has a drama degree

His favourite film is back to the future I believe

So confident in himself (this is a very good thing)

people say he “doesn’t age” and looks really young but I personally think he does look his age

sometimes called “Luke Womanning” as a play on his last name because of how amazing all his female characters are

They’re all really close friends and met at uni and started doing improv around 13 years ago together! Started gaining popularity 2022 and are gaining more and more fans every day!

Um. Whoops I wrote a lot lol. (It totally hasn’t been an hour of me just writing this hahahaha)

anyway I love them so much :)))) (as you can probably tell)

anyway!

THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON THIS ASK MEANS SO MUCH TO ME :DDDDD

[phoenixyfriend]

Calls for Action, Call Your Reps: 2/13/24

This is USA-specific, as that is the place I live and know.

Find your elected officials.

Today, much of my information is coming from Democracy Now!, which I generally listen to as a podcast (functionally, it is a radio news broadcast, like NPR or BBC), and I am quoting from the text versions on their website.

The Senate passed a $95 billion military funding package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in the pre-dawn hours this morning. But the bill’s fate remains unclear after House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the measure over its failure to include hard-line immigration restrictions. This comes after Johnson and other Republicans rejected an earlier version of the bill which did contain the border crackdown they had demanded. Johnson has told Republican congressmembers he will call a House vote on a stand-alone funding bill for Israel.

From the same page, we are hearing that President Biden is urging Israel to refrain from invading Rafah, where a million or so Palestinians are currently sheltering, but is not actually threatening any kind of repercussions for said invasion. Reports from both official sources (e.g. the Hamas-run health ministry) and less official (e.g. American doctors returning from relief services in Palestine) indicate that over half of the deaths in Palestine are children.

I am not going to pretend that I know what is going through Biden's head.

Both House and Senate:

Reinstate funding for UNRWA. While the claims made by Israel that employees of the relief agency were involved in Oct. 7th are troubling, THEY are not well supported, and western officials did not do their duty in investigating the claims before cutting funding. This arm of the UN is currently providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to the 2.3 million displaced peoples of Gaza. It is especially disturbing and concerning that the many children of Gaza, who are already suffering due to this conflict, are now having this support revoked. Many sources are also claiming that the evidence is flimsy at best.

Urge both Senate and House to refrain from funding Israel, or to at least put some strings on it. The IDF cannot be given funding without some regulations on what they can do with it. They have proven that they are unwilling to take steps to protect civilians.

FOR THE SENATE: Urge your senator to put their support behind Bernie Sanders and his motion to restrict funding to Israel until a humanitarian review of the IDF’s actions in Gaza has been completed. Cite it as Senate Resolution 504 if your Senator is right-wing enough to react negatively to the mention of Sanders by name. NOTE: This resolution was TABLED by the Senate on 1/16, but it is being brought back in as conditions continue to escalate.

FOR THE HOUSE: Urge your representative to put their support behind Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s petition for the US government to recognize the IDF’s actions in Gaza as ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and put a stop to it. ALTERNATELY: recommend that they support House Resolution 786, introduced by Rep. Cori Bush, Calling for an immediate deescalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.

On the House Floor this week, to call your rep about:

H.Res. 994: Married persons tax break. Vote nay. Loses billions in tax revenue and explicitly targets green energy.

H.R. 2766 and H.R. 4039: Condemnation of China's actions against the Uyghurs. Can't tell you which way to talk on this. Seems good on the surface, but given who's presenting it, I worry there's something worse tucked into the text. Hopefully someone can provide a better take.

H.R. 3016: IGO Anti-Boycott Act. Vote Nay. This appears to be intended to force US companies to do business with US allies instead of participating in boycotts. This appears, to me, to be an attack on movements like BDS. To Dem Reps, argue that this refuses the right of peaceful protest to US citizens. To Republican Reps, argue that this is a dangerous government overreach and that it is not the right of the government to force US citizens to purchase products and materials from specific foreign partners.

H.Res. 966: Condemnation of sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7. Vote Nay. We know sexual violence is bad. Hamas has already been condemned for their actions. This is, at best, lip service. It is a waste of time. There are much bigger, more impactful things to work on, and this is going to waste time and resources in the Senate if it passes.

If you wish to support my political blogging, I am accepting donations on ko-fi.

[tertiaryapocalypse]

my piece for the disabledstuck zine, which you can check out here!! it looks really cool all together ^_^

[id: an illustration of john, jade, rose, dave, and davesprite sitting together, in what is presumably a living room. behind them are a variety of posters displaying theirs and the alpha kid's interests, including, from left to right: a picture of kamina from gurren lagann, a national treasure poster, a signed & elaborately framed drawing of sweet bro and hella jeff hugging, a squiddles poster which has been drawn on top of to look like the beta kids, an image of schrodinger with cat ears and whiskers drawn on in pink, a framed photo of sigmund freud, a poster for the movie contact, a photo of obama with red hearts drawn all over it, a wizard print, a poster for bbc sherlock, a print for problem sleuth, a horse calendar with orange annotations on the image and every day crossed out in red up until the 26th of july, a printed image of jigsaw, and a printed image of lil nas x. behind all of the other posters and images is a large photo of neyteri. the wall is a light bluish grey, and the floor is hardwood. june and dave sit on a light green couch with a floral pattern. davesprite is an orange sprite who is slightly glowing. he has similar features as dave, though wing wears his hair in short locks and has a septum piercing. he has gauges and a black beaded bracelet. wing leans on the top of the couch with his arms crossed and wings tail floating behind him, looking over at dave with a lazy expression as dave talks. dave is a blasian person with medium dark skin, short curly hair, which is bleached blond, braces, and aviator shades. she wears a dark red hoodie, dark grey skinny jeans, and a similarly red beanie, as well as green socks with dinosaur bones patterned on. he has a star of david pin and a system flag pin. he leans on the couch and has one leg crossed over the other. john grins, seemingly laughing at dave. she's a chinese-brazilian boy with lighter skin, square rimmed glasses, some stubble, and long straight dark hair in a ponytail. she has his ears pierced and wears a trans necklace, as well as his typical tee shirt and a pair of grey cargo shorts. she leans against the arm of the couch. rose and jade both sit on the floor with their backs to the couch. rose is knitting a pink scarf, listening to their conversation while making an amused expression. it's a blasian girl with curly lavendar hair. she has dark makeup on, and wears a black t-shirt with a purple pleated skirt and black socks. she wears compression gloves and black earrings shaped like the star of david. jade leans on it's knee, sleeping peacefully. jade is a chinese-brazilian person with long wavy dark hair, streaked with white. they have white dog ears and a tail, though said tail is hidden. they habe rounded glasses and wear a dark green cargo skirt and dave's shirt. dave, rose, and davesprite have rounded chins, wide, flat noses, and full lips, while june and jade have slightly more angular chins, hooked noses, and thinner lips. john and dave both have canes leaning against the couch. june's is green and has an offset handle, and daves is a red folding cane. end id.]

[petewentzsvaginabones]

Proper Introduction

Sup i’m Max (might change it tho)

i’m the #1 mike fuentes hater, extremely socially awkward, some sort of puppy boy (not in a furry or therian way even tho y’all are cool asf, those are just kinda the vibes 🤷‍♂️) i’ve been told that i’m pretty odd :) /ref

more shit under the cut cuz this is long

any random blurbs abt life or fandom/bandom shit go under #occasionally ace rambles

my mom is @whats-a-girl-to-do

my beloved is @randomslinky

Sexuality: GAYYYYYYYY (bisexual, homo-romantic, aroace-flux)

Gender: Dude (ftm)

my silly little issues: Chronic joint pain, autism, depression, anxiety, anger issues

current hyperfixations:

dan and phil

P!ATD (pre-split ofc)

SOAD

past hyperfixations:

the grinch

monster high

anime (mha demon slayer ect)

cavetown

hamilton

greek and norse mythology

satanism

catholicism

cults

ghosts

sewing

crust punk fashion

scene fashion

scene music

It (2017, 2019)

SFX makeup

Gorillaz

stranger things

gravity falls

cirque du freak

asl

Harry Potter (i was 8)

beetle juice the musical

heart stopper

the little mermaid

SIX the musical

FOB

Queen (band)

The Beatles

Goth music and culture

favorite media:

Will Trent (books and show)

BBC Sherlock

Heartstopper

Dan and Phil (DanAndPhilGAMES, DanAndPhilCRAFTS, Daniel Howell, AmazingPhil)

Kaos

Cirque Du Freak

the Saw franchise (i’ve watched all of them at least three times)

Childs Play/the Chucky movies

Coraline

Nightmare Before Christmas

The Black Parade Is Dead!

Heathers (musical and movie)

The Crow (1993)

Bohemian Rhapsody

A Hard Days Night

Beetlejuice (musical and first movie)

Hamilton

Six The Musical

Shrek (1, 2, 3, and the musical, 4 is bs and unhappiness)

Flatliners (the one with Kiefer Sutherland)

RHPS

Bodies (netflix show)

special interest: Music (playing and listening)

bands/artists I listen to:

MCR, PTV, SWS, Paramore, Blink-182, Green Day, Misfits, Ramones, The Cramps, Radiohead, Pixies, FOB, FIR, Weezer, Nirvana, Deftones, Frank Iero, The Beatles, Queen, David Bowie, Roger Taylor, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Wings, Pink Floyd, Gorillaz, Dolly Parton, SOAD, Tame Impala, Peter Gundry, Lil Darkie, Rob Zombie, McCafferty, The Cure, TV Girl, Dead Original, Grateful Dead

Instruments I play: Piano, guitar

fun fact: idk bro i’m actually boring asf

me lolz

[violet-moonstone]

Heathers Part 4: Rogue Heather and Conclusion

Part 3

This is my favourite option, which is why I saved it for last. This route focuses on skills Heather could much more believably pick up on her own—in fact, these are skills we already see her exhibiting in RoB. This version of Heather is very much like Arya Stark—minus the combat training—specifically, Arya when she’s in Braavos. She’s good at hiding, sneaking around, pickpocketing, etc. She would rely on changing her behaviour and appearance to fit the situation and slowly build her arsenal of disguises as she improves her skill and has more resources at her disposal. One day, she might appear as a raggedy street urchin; the next, a bawdy barmaid; then, a haughty noblewoman or cunning hunter.

Her primary use of this skill would be survival—blending into the background or standing out without people knowing her true identity—but this would also be strategic. She could get information either from being a fly on the wall no one considers being cautious around, or by being charismatic and charming people into trusting her. In more extreme situations, she could slip poison into the drink of a bar patron, set fire to the room of someone who thinks she’s their servant, or (in a version of RTTE with a more mature rating) stab someone once they’re in her bed. (I’ve written a fic about this)

I think this option makes the most sense, because it requires no retconning of her backstory and includes the most believable skillset for someone without any training. I also think that with a heavy focus on stealth, it wouldn’t make sense for her to have a large, armoured dragon with reflective scales (once again, sorry Windshear). Instead she could have a small dragon that could help her with fetching things, being on watch for danger, and shooting fire at close range. I’m thinking a Terrible Terror or something similar. Although a small dragon with similar traits to a Changewing would be really cool, like a winged chameleon of sorts—but maybe instead of becoming invisible, it just mimics different colours and textures.

In terms of costumes for Rogue Heather, it can really be anything. She’d probably need a base outfit for when she’s not in disguise, in which case, I’d go for something like the redesigns all the dragon riders except Hiccup got, which was basically putting them in the same clothes as in RoB/DoB but with different colours. I think the outfit Heather’s wearing in RoB is pretty good for a rogue type character already—just use a slightly different colour scheme that’s still faded, and keep the hood from her current design. Her disguises could be much more dramatic and could include wigs and makeup as well.

I have a headcanon that she has a favourite disguise though. Due to all the danger and insecurity she’s faced, she’s become ruthlessly ambitious—not just for revenge, but for wealth and power. She never wants to have to worry about being unsafe or scrounging around to survive. I think her favourite roles to play are rich and powerful women. In these roles, she gets to wear something beautiful—I’m thinking a deep green gown that brings out her eyes. It could also be a reference to serpents and envy, which goes hand in hand with her use of poison and her desire for the finer things in life.

I love this version of Heather. I’m currently in the early stages of writing a very long fic (that will probably just include regular Heather because the story already has a lot of OCs and moving parts), however, if I get enough inspiration, I might write some one-shots here and there about her.

Some ideas for her more fancy/aspirational disguises:

From left to right: Labyrinth (2012), BBC’s Merlin (I always thought Katie McGrath would be a great grown-up Heather)

(Some more historical Norse looks)

And a more everyday look:

(From Voriagh)...tell me this model isn't LITERALLY HEATHER. I think it's the murder in her eyes.

(Arya in Game of Thrones, tunics from Dark Knight Armoury)

Conclusion...After a Note About Combat and Women in Fantasy

Before I finish, I want to briefly touch upon another issue I have with Heather’s character. You may have noticed that the latter two options I gave have a much stronger emphasis on her intelligence and/or social skills than her physical prowess – I did this intentionally because I find that RTTE lacks characters who are not combat focused (Even Johann turned out to be a skilled knife-thrower. I miss when he was just a friendly and knowledgable—though talkative—merchant). While I appreciate that the female characters in the show are shown to be capable fighters, they don’t all need to be. I think fantasy and sci-fi writers tend to forget that making women into combatants is not the only way to make them strong, empowered, or interesting. There are so many ways that characters, regardless of gender, can have agency and be integral to a plot; these ways don’t have to include putting a heavy weapon in their hands. I’ve briefly discussed this in another post, but I think the dynamic between Viggo and Ryker would be much more interesting if Viggo were not physically strong and had to depend on Ryker’s strength just as much as Ryker depended on Viggo’s wits. And while Hiccup’s sword fighting abilities are commendable, let’s not forget that his first great achievement would never have been possible without curiosity, intelligence and empathy—the three things required to befriend Toothless—not physical strength. I love Race to the Edge, and I understand the combat-heavy focus (because “Vikings”) but I do wish there was just a bit more variety when it comes to the way characters navigate dangerous situations.

Alright, so there you have it: My 3 Heathers. I’m very tempted to draw all three of them, to get a clearer image of what their designs would look like. Which one do you prefer the most? The revenge-fuelled warrior, the unhinged alchemist, or the ambitious assassin? Let me know, and thanks for reading!

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Some quotes here that deserve further comment:

With the shops closed and the midday sun beating down, Palestinians took to the streets in the centre of Ramallah to vent their anger.

Ramallah, home of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, is not exactly a stronghold of Hamas. The demonstration wasn’t huge – a few hundred people at most.

But no one should doubt the strength of feeling, the sense of shock and anger, generated by the killing of Ismail Haniyeh. The green banners of Hamas were held aloft, alongside – but outnumbering - the black, white, green and red, Palestinian flag. Children rode on their fathers’ shoulders, carrying toy machineguns.

This just demonstrates everything that is fundamentally wrong with Palestinian society. After months of insisting on a ceasefire for a war they encouraged and supported, you would think that Palestinians would welcome the death of a man who started this war.

Note that the BBC says that Ramallah isn't a stronghold of Hamas. But Palestinian polls show that Hamas' popularity has increased in the West Bank since the October 7 terrorist attack. And the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) attempted unsuccessfully to form a unity government with Hamas. The PLO is one of the Palestinian terrorist groups that previously met in Iran to swear allegiance to the IRGC and the Ayatollah.

Notice also the children brandishing toy machine guns, further proof that the Palestinians breed their children as cannon fodder in their neverending campaign of war.

Defiant chants echoed through the streets. But there’s real anxiety here too. Palestinians feel that a wider conflict might be looming, one that could engulf the West Bank. They feel that this is what the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu wants.

Once again, we see the post-factum wisdom of the Palestinians. A sensible and ordered society would have foreseen the threat of a wider war prior to launching a heinous terrorist attack. Not so with the Palestinians. As the saying goes, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

The Palestinians threw in their lot with Hamas, wildly celebrating some of the worst crimes against humanity within living memory (while simultaneously denying those crimes took place). Now that they are forced to face the cost of the war they planned, funded, and celebrated, they have suddenly become fearful of wider escalation.

Note how instead of blaming their own billionaire terrorist organisations and the foreign government using them as a tool, they choose to blame Prime Minister Netanyahu. Palestinian society is incapable of accepting personal responsibility.

“I think the Israeli government has just committed one of the gravest mistakes in its life,” the moderate Palestinian politician and former presidential candidate Mustapha Barghouti told me earlier, as he prepared to walk with the demonstrators.

“This was a political, criminal act and if they think that this act of assassination will break the Palestinian resistance, they are absolutely wrong.”

The Palestinians committed one of the gravest mistakes in their lives when they decided to stoop to unprecedented levels of savagery on October 7. In doing so, they lost the sympathy and support of almost all of the Israelis who had previously supported the establishment of a Palestinian state and peaceful coexistence.

They started a war that they are clearly losing, hence the desperate begging for an unconditional ceasefire and weaponisation of international outrage to save Palestinian SS officers from punishment.

But the supposedly "moderate" Palestinian politician Mustapha Barghouti does not mention October 7, let alone condemn the atrocities his people planned, committed, celebrated publicly, and then, in their moral bankruptcy, decided to deny because millions of civilised foreigners were disgusted by those crimes.

It never occurs to him that the Palestinians are almost entirely at fault for the predicament they find themselves in. Nor that the Palestinians' willing slavery to Iranian terrorists is a liability, not an asset.

Palestinian society is allergic to personal responsibility. Even the so-called "moderates". If this man is so moderate, why does he list a war criminal Haniyeh as part of Palestinian "resistance"? Because what is falsely labelled as "Palestinian resistance" is in fact the bloodthirsty ideology of Islamic jihad, as seen before in Islamic State, the IRGC, Hezbollah, and the rest of the savages currently causing murder and mayhem in the Middle East.

This morning I spoke to three senior Hamas officials, and they were all in a state of shock.

First of all, there is no such thing as a "Hamas official". These are terrorists, plain and simple. Do you ever hear people speak of "Islamic State officials" or "the al-Qaeda-run health ministry"? Terrorists are illegimitate by definition.

The state of shock further undermines how divorced the Palestinian mindset is from reality. These people thought that Israel was joking about targeting Hamas' leaders. They hid Yahya Sinwar in a tunnel, but thought that Ismail Haniyeh, who pretended to support ceasefire negotiations, would be immune to said punishment. They thought Israel was buying the line that Haniyeh was a mere "political leader" and wouldn't be treated as an architect of October 7.

And they were proved entirely wrong.

No wonder they are in a state of shock. This will devastate Hamas for weeks, if not months. It will severely restrict their ability to travel safely, thereby strengthening their isolation and weakening their terrorist infrastructure. Yahya Sinwar, who was relying on Ismail Haniyeh's confidence, is now isolated, all the more so since Mohammed Deif and Mohammed Issa are both dead.

They gave different - quite confusing - accounts as to what exactly happened in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in the early hours of today.

Terrorists are untrustworthy. Surprise, surprise. Maybe it's time to take a closer look at their "death toll" statistics as well, where they have been mysteriously concealing the number of dead Hamas terrorists and inflating the number of women and children fatalities.

They said they were very surprised by the attack, that Haniyeh had visited the city many times before and must have felt safe going there.

What are they surprised by? Israel meant business about destroying Hamas. Ismail Haniyeh was on Israel's kill list from day one of this war. These bewildered Arabic SS officers evidently thought they could tie Israel's hands behind its back by continually stalling over the hostage negotiations, and that this would protect Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar from being killed. Hubris and a total lack of morality.

And the question now arises as to who should be responsible for this major security failure - and was it the right decision for Haniyeh to be in Tehran in the first place?

Really? No questions as to Haniyeh's leadership of a Nazi terrorist organisation, his perpetrating of Nazi extermination doctrines against the Jews since the late 1980s, his involvement in October 7, his fomenting of wider war, his support for the Iranian terrorist state, and his attempt to prolong the suffering of Israel's hostages by frustrating negotiation?

Was it the right decision for Ismail Haniyeh to centre his life around the extermination of the Jews?

Ceasefire talks: And there are also concerns for what it means for ceasefire talks - as Haniyeh was a key figure in negotiations. Qatar's PM says how can talks succeed when one side targets another.

Is Qatar's Prime Minister on drugs? Or is he suffering from amnesia? Ceasefire talks are being governed by the hostages that his friends in HAMAS kidnapped from Israel. Has he forgotten that? Has it occurred to him that no talks with his corrupt, pro-terrorist state would be necessary if HAMAS had not targeted ISRAEL last October?

Hamas is the reason why talks are failing. Hamas is the reason for the "wider war" that journalists and Palestinians who refuse to learn their lesson are now quivering over.

These foreign useful idiots wait for the Palestinians to commit crimes instead of stopping them from doing so, launder those crimes as being inevitable or justified, then start drumming up "wider war" fears whenever Israel pursues justice against the Palestinian (and Lebanese and Iranian) criminals. This helps entrench the Palestinian sense of perpetual victimhood, allowing them to avoid addressing their own wrongdoing and involvement in starting wars they clearly cannot win.

Here's a rather telling part:

But not every incident like this leads to escalation.

In 2020 then-President Trump ordered the assassination of Iran’s most powerful military commander Gen Qasem Soleimani, in Baghdad.

There were furious calls for revenge but not much happened.

In 1986, then-President Reagan ordered an airstrike on Libya in retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin discotheque.

There were fears the Arab world would erupt in flames but it didn’t.

And why is this the case? Because the Palestinians and their deluded, amoral followers keep making the same fundamental miscalculation. They overestimate the amount of support they have in the Arab and Muslim world. Granted, many Arabs and Muslims have chosen to jump on the Palestinian train of Islamic jihad masquerading as political grievance. But the Palestinians and their Iranian slave masters simply do not have as much support as they believe.

Hamas gave slow, yet increasing Arab and Muslim willingness to normalise relations with Israel as a justification for its apocalyptic slaughter of Israelis on October 7. Hamas and its proxies hoped that October 7 would mobilise the mujahideen (Islamic soldiers). Hamas and its proxies hoped that the entire Arab and Muslim world would back Iran's attempts to exterminate Israel.

None of this turned out as the Palestinian terrorists had hoped. Saudi Arabia, while maintaining an appearance of distance from Israel, nonetheless chose to help block Iran's unprecedented missile strike on Israel this past April. Saudi Arabia also blocked financial transfers to the West Bank and Gaza. Prior to this, Saudi Arabia had blocked financing to the Palestinian Authority, only relaxing that block as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Even Jordan, whose Queen never misses a chance to excoriate Israel, helped block Iran's missile strike against Israel.

There are quiet, yet notable factions within the Arab and Muslim world that fear Iran and see Israel as a necessary tool of pushing back on the Islamic Republic's murderous sphere of influence.

But there's an even more fundamental issue here. For decades, Western journalists, "intellectuals", and others have capitulated to Islamic terrorists by demonising anyone who wishes to confront them. The reasoning goes that confronting Islamic terrorists will lead to escalation. The idea that Islamic terrorists often use threats to fabricate an appearance of strength, that they can overestimate the number of allies they have, and that it is, in fact, possible to defeat them, is often ignored.

Hence why the world has refused to back Israel's aim of destroying Hamas. It's not possible, they said. Hamas will always be there, they said. It will lead to escalation, they said.

Yet after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' terrorists are reportedly in a state of shock, unable to account for how Haniyeh could be targeted while in Tehran, and now fearing for the prospect of a ceasefire. Hamas will now struggle to travel freely, knowing that if Israel could kill Haniyeh in Tehran, no Hamas leader is safe (as Israel vowed last year). Hamas will struggle to promote a new leader. Yahya Sinwar will be further isolated.

The fact that Hamas is doing everything it can to engender a ceasefire with little to no conditions is already proof that Hamas cannot win. Not even with the support of the terrorist Islamic Republic, Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. As soon as they feel the heat from Israel, they are suddenly interested in negotiation for a ceasefire.

Islamic terrorists can be defeated. People just have to want to do it. If the civilised world declared war on Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the IRGC, these amoral savages would be in serious panic mode. Without gullible Westerners believing that these people are "fighting injustice", they have limited support. Even the Arabs and Muslims openly cheering for these Palestinian SS officers aren't that keen on taking in many Palestinians from the war zones they created.

One day we will wake up and hear that Yahya Sinwar has been captured and killed. It will be like the last days of Adolf Hitler in his bunker. This is because Israel believes in justice and is dedicated to victory, no matter what the cowardly international community says. And when the Middle East becomes a civilised place, people will have to thank Israel for having sacrificed so much to rid the world of these Islamic terrorists.

[moorishflower]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you @landwriter for the tag <3<3<3 Answers under the cut!

How many works do you have on Ao3? 227!

What's your total Ao3 word count? I broken two million this year! :)

What fandoms do you write for? I guess you'd say my "main" fandom is still The Sandman, because that's what really started me writing again, but I'll write for any piece of media that inspires me. I've written for The Terror, the D&D movie, Dungeon Meshi, Supernatural, Sherlock, and Homestuck at various points.

Top five fics by kudos: 1. aulon raid - In which no neonazis are allowed in the New Inn. 2. Curse of the Green Hag - The one where Xenk Yendar is cursed by a hag and he and Edgin have to fuck about it. 3. Ecdysis - Undressing and armor and bathing. 4. That I Should Wedded-Be - This was my first attempt at something longer. It's definitely not one of my better ones at this point but it was one of the first ones so it has a lot more kudos. 5. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - The one where Hob fucks Dream on his desk.

Do you respond to comments? I would really like to, but I find that I often don't have the energy, and because I want every response to be unique and thoughtful and just for that person, it means that I feel really bad if I give a simple "thanks!" and nothing else. Inevitably the bad feeling of not responding in a meaningful way outweighs the good feeling of getting the comment, so now I really only respond to comments if they address me directly or ask a question.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? the long way down maybe? It has a more open "hopeful" ending. I don't usually let things end on a low note!

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Hallmark-Adjacent, I think. Literally ends like a Hallmark movie lol.

Do you get hate on fics? Once or twice it's happened. If it's happened since then I haven't been aware of it. I'm sure a lot of conversation goes on in like, discord channels and such that I don't follow. I'm not particularly interested in debating with people about the intentions or morality of my writing. I try to be as authentic and inclusive and respectful as the setting and story allow me to be, but I'm also human and fallible. *shrug* I grow and learn more every day. Expecting perfection from people is an exercise in frustration and futility.

Do you write smut?

yeh

Craziest crossover: Wrote a BBC Sherlock/Homestuck fusion. That was fun.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of. If it was like Cocoon or Maybe sprout wings I think I'd be really upset about it because I put so much into those, but I don't know if I'd feel particularly devastated if it was anything else. BSN, maybe. I mean it would suck? That's a shitty thing to do, but also, you're not earning any real clout or money by doing it, lol.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! A number of my fics have been translated, mostly into Russian (thanks chainsmoking and Bonniemary!), and one into Spanish (thanks Dhixi!). I'm incredibly flattered every time someone takes the time and effort to do a translation. It's an incredible art.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, though not recently.

All time favourite ship? Listen I write so much for Sandman but truthfully? Mulder/Scully. Alpha and omega ship. Don't know if anything will ever compare.

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? At this point, The Whole of Love Contained is so far removed from my current writing style that I would have to restart from scratch, I think. I'm not counting it out forever, but there are other ideas I've had that I'm more interested in pursuing first.

What are your writing strengths? I really like sentence construction. The flow of it. How you can use punctuation to make it stop -- and then carry on, giving it purposeful structure. I've been told I have a talent for inserting life-altering sentences into the middle of things so that they hit you like a punch. Idk I'm bad at listing my own strengths. I like to research things a lot?

What are your writing weaknesses? Pacing, definitely, and action scenes. I always feel like my action scenes have low-stakes feel to them. And dialogue. I think a lot of people struggle to write realistic dialogue, though, so that might not just be me. Keeping the momentum going. Sometimes I'll be so focused on reaching one specific scene that I'll lose track of how to actually get there, and I'll stall out. I feel like I have a lot more weaknesses but I struggle to articulate them beyond a sense of deep dissatisfaction with my own writing, especially in comparison with other writers whom I greatly admire. I feel often like I'm churning out things that are easily-digestible and entertaining, but not necessarily meaningful, or not conveying what I would like them to do. Logically I know that "entertaining" is a value unto itself, and nothing to scoff at, but still. The writer's hubris, maybe.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? Kind of depends on what you're using it for, I suppose. I tend to stick with one narrator's POV, so it can be useful if the narrator doesn't speak that language, but we, as the readers, can pop the sentence into translate and get the gist. I tend to use that sparingly as a gimmick, though, because I'm not multilingual except in the very most basic of terms and I prefer being correct to being aesthetic, lol.

First fandom you wrote in? If you want to be technical, it was Harry Potter. But the first fandom I wrote seriously for was Heroes.

Favourite fic you've written? I'm still proudest of Maybe sprout wings. Not sure if I'll ever write something like that again, where so much of it just felt right. And it got a compliment from a writer I admired very much in Homestuck fandom, so I reckon I did something right with it.

I'll tag @arialerendeair and @dsudis because I know you've both been in fandom for a while and I want to hear your stats <3

[secondjulia]

BREAKING: Historical Research Reveals Previously Unknown Giant Communal Bed in the Dreaming

I'd like to state for the record — after reading this BBC article, "The Lost Ancient Practice of Communal Sleep" (also a supplement to the communal bathing addendum of the Amnesiac Hob universe) — that if one can sleep in the Dreaming, then science confirms that they are definitely all sleeping in one giant bed.

Dream & Lucien & Nuala & the Corinthian & Matthew perched on the headboard with his head under his wing, & Gault, & probably a whole series of be-tentacled nightmares cuddling up between, & Merv & a few leaves from Fiddler's Green sighing in through the window. And sometimes Hob wanders in (especially when the hippogriff, wyvern, and griffin who are supposed to be guarding the palace are having a little nap, also in the giant bed). Sometimes the palace residents give him a strange little look, as they do whenever dreamers wander too deep into the heart of the Dreaming, but Hob just saunters over sleepily & climbs into this perfectly normal cluster of sleeping strangers.

(After this happens several times, they might subtly leave a little space beside the King of Dreams when they see Hob approaching, because Dream's always in such a better mood after he's cuddled up with his human!)

[mariacallous]

The Spectator asked me to write about George Galloway’s victory in Rochdale. I found it hard to feel anything but despair about working-class Muslim voters, who once again turned out in huge numbers for a white saviour and tankie[i] who had saluted Saddam Hussein, Bashir Assad and Vladimir Putin.

After all these years of exposure, no one has the right to feign ignorance about Galloway’s record. It’s not that his supporters do not know who Galloway is. It is that they know but do not care.

A large chunk of Muslim voters and an element on the white left adore him because he hates Israel and that is​ all that matters.

There’s a lot of drivel going around this morning that Galloway’s victory is a disaster for Labour. In the short-term that cannot be true.

Leave aside that Labour got into such a mess it did not even run a candidate, an analysis by Prof Rob Ford of Manchester University, and friend of this Substack, shows that Labour seats with a large Muslim vote are safe.

In the long run, though, it is a different story.

Lyndon Johnson is meant to have said that the skill you need most in politics is the ability to count. As the Muslim population grows and as Palestine becomes not one issue for the wider left but the issue, left politics will change

Here is how I ​see it

The Rochdale by-election raises a question that Labour will find hard to duck in government: can a European left-wing party survive without a pro-Islamist foreign policy? They can’t win with one, as Jeremy Corbyn proved twice. But the shocking success of George Galloway last night shows that the arguments of the Corbyn years have not been settled.

No one can pretend they do not know who the loudmouthed old ham really is after all this time. Just before Muslim voters propelled him to victory, Galloway received the endorsement of none other than Nick Griffin, the former leader of the British National Party (BNP). 

To use an overused label correctly for once, the BNP is genuinely neo-fascist. And yet Griffin had no qualms in recommending that his followers ‘get out and vote for George Galloway’ and ‘stick two fingers up to the rotten political elite and their fake news media cronies’.

 Like cocktails before a dinner party, obsessions about Jews bring all the extremists together.

What better illustration could you have of the horseshoe theory?

Admirers of dictators admire each other. Galloway ‘saluted’ Saddam Hussein, whose forces killed tens of thousands of Muslims. He praised Bashar al-Assad, as the Syrian president’s forces slaughtered the country’s Sunni Muslim population, for maintaining the ‘fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs’ – the grandiosity of Galloway’s pompous language was in inverse proportion to the misery Assad inflicted.

None of this concerned Muslim voters in Rochdale. Opposition to Israel was all that mattered.

There’s an argument doing the rounds this morning that Labour’s disastrous performance was just a blip. Galloway is a narcissist, it runs, who won’t last long. Muslim voters responded to his anti-Iraq war campaign and gave him victory in Bethnal Green in the 2005 general election. He was out by 2010. He won the Bradford by-election in 2012, and the voters rejected him in the 2015 general election. The voters of Rochdale will almost certainly do the same later this year.

Labour sounded confident. ‘George Galloway is only interested in stoking fear and division,’ the party told the BBC. Labour will ‘quickly’ select a new candidate for the upcoming general election, the spokesman said, adding the party wants to deliver the ‘representation and fresh start that Rochdale deserves’.

I am sure they will. Labour’s poll lead is so great, it can afford to be confident. But Rochdale raises a question about how Labour will deal with the obsessions of a large section of the left once in power, which are unlikely to go away.

The best way to think about it is to look at the threats to MPs and the endless denunciations of Keir Starmer. They are absurd on the face of it. Labour is in opposition. It has no influence over the Israeli government or Hamas whatsoever. What it says is supremely irrelevant.

But the explosion in rage makes sense if you see the anti-Starmer campaign as an attempt to bolster the chances of independent left-wing candidates and to change party policy. (For one, Jeremy Corbyn, kicked out of the party in October 2020 will be thinking of running in Islington North after Galloway’s victory.)

To date it has been a mess. Tom Baldwin, Keir Starmer’s biographer, says​ that the Labour leader and his team had simply not thought about Israel when they gave Benjamin Netanyahu a blank cheque after the Hamas atrocities in October. My guess is that they were so appalled by Labour’s anti-Semitism scandals of the 2010s they swung to the opposite extreme.

You can see how extreme they became by watching a YouTube clip from four months ago of Starmer telling Nick Ferrari that Israel had the right to ‘cut off power, cut off water’ to civilians in Gaza. It has been played tens of thousands of times by Starmer’s opponents. 

Now he has spoken to the Israeli left, government figures in Qatar and Jordan, and the Biden administration and has embraced a standard centre-left suspicion of Netanyahu as a result.

I could go on about the Labour leadership’s naivety. How can you not have a settled view on the Israel/Palestine question when Israel so dominates leftist thinking? When, indeed, supporting Palestine is now for a large faction on the left almost the definition of what it means to be left-wing? It’s astonishing.   

It is equally astonishing that due diligence did not spot that the official Labour candidate held views about Jews that weren’t just anti-Israel but were simply racist. Now Labour has moved on, and I can easily see a Labour government offering full diplomatic recognition to the Palestinian Authority as a compromise.

But that is no more than a Conservative government is likely to do. The activists are crying ‘from the river to the sea’ on the streets, and the Labour left do not want compromise. They want Labour to be like France’s largest left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI), which is for electoral, as well as ideological, reasons pro-Islamist.

LFI repeatedly declined to call Hamas a terrorist group (a conclusion the EU came to about Hamas a full 20 years ago). Their initial communique on 7 October used Hamas’s own language about itself, calling the attack ‘an armed offensive by Palestinian forces’ that came ‘in the context of the intensification by Israel of the policy of occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem’.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party can’t win a presidential election any more than Corbyn could win a general election.

And as with Corbynism, its foreign policy is not just about Palestine but includes a softness towards Vladimir Putin and the other dictators George Galloway salutes. On the other hand, LFI captures a large chunk of the Arab-French vote because it is pro-Islamist. And no French left-wing party can succeed without that vote.

Labour is so far ahead at present it can shrug off the mess in Rochdale, and predict with assurance that it will retake the seat at the election.

It can say it has learned from its mistake in underwriting Netanyahu and his extremely right-wing government and moved on.

In power, however, things will be different. What Labour says and does will finally matter, and elements in its electoral coalition will be making their demands very clear.

Labour hopes that Joe Biden’s ceasefire initiative will work, and that Israel will just go away as an issue.

That hope, as anyone who knows the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict since 1948 will guess, is likely to be vain.

This is the conflict that never goes away.

[overworkedblorbobattle]

Welcome to the Overworked Blorbo Battle Preliminary Round!

Many characters were submitted for this tournament so, in order to allow as many different blorbos into the bracket as I can, I’ve had to limit them to one per series. For most, i just included the most highly submitted character but there were a number of series with characters who had the same (or very similar) number of submissions. Therefore, I’ve created a preliminary round for you to vote on which character from each series gets to enter the bracket.

There will be 37 polls lasting 1 week each.

The polls will be separated into 3 waves. Each wave will be posted 24 hours after the previous.

The first wave will begin on Tuesday the 27th of June at 3PM BST

I've tried my best to only include official images for all of the characters on the polls but I'm not familiar with every series listed so, when the polls go up, if you notice I've used a fanart or cosplay image without permission or credit please let me know and I'll add credit and correct it for any future appearances of that character.

I apologise if I’ve accidentally spelled something wrong or used a wrong name for something, I’m not familiar with every series listed.

The matchups are listed under the read more

There may be spoilers ahead

Wave 1

Poll 1: Ace Attorney

Dick Gumshoe

Apollo Justice

Miles Edgeworth

Franziska Von Karma

Phoenix Wright

Poll 2: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Katara

Azula

Aang

The Cabbage Merchant

Poll 3: Batman

Barbara Gordon/Oracle

Batman/Bruce Wayne

Alfred Pennyworth

Tim Drake/Red Robin

Dick Grayson/Nightwing

Jim Gordon

Poll 4: BBC Ghosts

Pat Butcher

The Captain

Poll 5: Welcome To The Table

CDC

DC

Poll 6: Carmen Sandiengo

Carmen Sandiego

Chase Devineaux

Poll 7: Critical Role

Laerryn Coramar Seelie

Percival De Rolo

Poll 8: Death Note

Light Yagami

L

Touta Matsuda

Poll 9: Disco Elysium

Harry Du Bois

Kim Kitsuragi

Poll 10: Discworld

Havelock Vetinari

Ponder Stibbons

Moist Von Lipwig

Poll 11: Doctor Who

Coordinator Narvin

Romana II

Rory Williams

The Doctor

Poll 12: Ensemble Stars!

Keito Hasumi

Mao Isara

Tsumugi Aoba

Wave 2

Poll 13: ER

Carol Hathaway

Mark Greene

Poll 14: Falsettos

Mendel Weisenbachfeld

Dr Charlotte Dubois

Poll 15: Final Fantasy

Aymeric De Borel

Emet-Selch

Reeve Tuesti

Jessie Jaye

Poll 16: Fullmetal Alchemist

Riza Hawkeye

Roy Mustang

Poll 17: Hatchetfield/The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

Emma Perkins

Paul Mattews

Poll 18: Homestuck

Karkat Vantas

Peregrine Mendicant

Poll 19: Honkai

Fu Hua

Natasha

Poll 20: House MD

Lisa Cuddy

James Wilson

Poll 21: Hunter X Hunter

Cheadle Yorkshire

Heavens Arena Elevator Operator

Kurapika

Poll 22: Lobotomy Corporate

Angela

Hod

Poll 23: Mistborn

Elend Venture

Marsh

Poll 24: Monster Prom

Joy Johnson-Johjima

Vera Oberlin

Wave 3

Poll 25: Persona

Ryotaro Dojima

Sadayo Kawakami

Poll 26: Project Sekai

Mafuyu Asahina

Yoisaki Kanade

Haruka Kiritani

Poll 27: Spongebob Squarepants

Squidward

Spongebob

Poll 28: Star Wars

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Commander Fox

Poll 29: The 25th Annual Putman County Spelling Bee

Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre

Marcy Park

Poll 30: The Adventure Zone

Lucretia

Mama

Kravitz

Poll 31: The Owl House

Alador Blight

Hunter

Poll 32: The Wilds

Dot Campbell

Fatin Jadmani

Rachel Reid

Poll 33: The X Files

Dana Scully

Director Walter Skinner

Poll 34: Toontown: Corporate Clash

Atticus Wing

Chip Revvington

Poll 35: Transformers

Soundwave

Shockwave

Prowl

Optimus Prime

Minimus Ambus

Ratchet

Poll 36: Witch Hat Atilier

Olruggio

Qifrey

Poll 37: Worm

Amy Dallon/Panacea

Lisa Wilbourn

[xcaliburmoz]

ʟᴏᴏᴋɪɴɢ ғᴏʀ ᴍᴏᴏᴛɪᴇs !!!!

« so, ive not been on tumblr for YEARS and ive changed and need to refurbish my feed (too much spn u get me) »

✧🇬 🇪 🇹  🇹 🇴  🇰 🇳 🇴 🇼  🇲 🇪 ✧

a little about me:

⋆ im morgain, currently 19 and british (big pain) ⋆

⋆ i have 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘴 and i might sometimes say kinda triggering things (girl needs to vent ok) ⋆

⋆ i dont feel the need to label myself for society's benefit but i am queer ⋆

⋆ my colours are forest green, blood red and navy blue ⋆

of the things i enjoy:

『 𝖆𝖗𝖙 』

✰ i like art, like, a lot. it gives me breath of life ✰

『 𝖇𝖔𝖔𝖐𝖘 』

✰ i like books. mostly fantasy and romance (ew ik) but i looove a good thriller (the magus anyone?). just finished reading captive prince by cs pacat and im mayorly hyperfixated now. i read obcene amounts of fanfiction too (ao3 only, i am after all an adult) ✰

『 𝖍𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖞 』

✰ i have the hots for history. i am obsessed with the past and have a bad habit of romantisizing it, within reason ofc. thank u bbc merlin for my lovely obsession with the arthurian legends ✰

『 𝖕𝖔𝖊𝖙𝖗𝖞 』

✰ i live off of poetry. poems and poetic quotes (very un poetic way to say but u get me) give colour to my thoughts or something, im not the poet here ✰

『 𝖕𝖍𝖎𝖑𝖔𝖘𝖔𝖕𝖍𝖞 』

✰ i enjoy frying my brain with philisophical (and scientific) concepts beyond my intellectual capacities. also, conspiracy theories (in the fun kind of way) ✰

『 𝖇𝖆𝖐𝖎𝖓𝖌 』

✰ i bake, not well really but i do it anyway ✰

『 𝖜𝖗𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌 』

✰ i write, not well but i do it anyway, ive dabbled in the fanfiction arts with varying results ✰

『 𝖒𝖚𝖘𝖎𝖈 』

✰ MUSIC. music is the strings that keep me annimated in life. there is nothing more bleak than a life without music. im big on indie rock and stuff, alternative, vaguely emo shit (not that much) my fav band is nothing but thieves, undefeated till the end i swear ✰

『 𝖓𝖆𝖙𝖚𝖙𝖊 』

✰ frogs are my spirit animal and i cry when people litter. i cry when i hear about biodiversity loss, i cry when people say shit like, this used to be a forest before we cut it down for timber, i cry i cant see the stars. i cry a lot. but i really love the forest ✰

my shows, books, films etc:

nbc hannibal

miraculous ladybug (judge me if u dare)

acotar the series

spn (in moderation)

fourth wing (ik its bad)

bbc merlin

how to train your dragon

mcu (just bucky really)

harry potter (i love a good drarry and/or dramione)

sam and colby (yes im one of those girlies)

six of crows

killing eve

scream (1996)

Things i dont like:

CAPITALISM

spiders

olives

〘 thats me, if u share my interests lets be moots? 〙

i can be funny i promise

[phoenix-joy]

Author & Timestamp: Margaret Talbot October 22, 2018 (almost 6 years old as of May 2, 2024)

Polychromy refers to "decoration��in many colours, esp in architecture or sculpture". - Collins Dictionary. Extract of a much longer article (please note: I have shortened some sentences where possible and broken up some paragraphs by added spacing. I did this to try to make it a little easier for other neurodivergent people to read):

Researchers demonstrate the process of applying color to the Treu Head, from a Roman sculpture of a goddess, made in the second century A.D. Ancient sculptures were often painted with vibrant hair colors and skin tones. - Photograph by Mark Peckmezian for The New Yorker

For Abbe, [...] a professor of ancient art at the University of Georgia, the idea that the ancients disdained bright color “is the most common misconception about Western aesthetics in the history of Western art.” It is, he said, “a lie we all hold dear.”

[...]

[...] Marco Leona, who runs the scientific-research department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art [...] said, of polychromy, “It’s like the best-kept secret that’s not even a secret.”

Jan Stubbe Østergaard, a former curator at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum, in Copenhagen, and the founder of an international research network on polychromy, told me, “Saying you’ve seen these sculptures when you’ve seen only the white marble is comparable to somebody coming from the beach and saying they’ve seen a whale because there was a skeleton on the beach.”

[...]

[...] debate about ancient sculpture has taken on an unexpected moral and political urgency. [In 2017], a University of Iowa classics professor, Sarah Bond, published two essays [...] arguing that it was time we all accepted that ancient sculpture was not pure white—and neither were the people of the ancient world. One false notion, she said, had reinforced the other.

For classical scholars, it is a given that the Roman Empire—which, at its height, stretched from North Africa to Scotland—was ethnically diverse. In the Forbes essay, Bond notes, “Although Romans generally differentiated people on their cultural and ethnic background rather than the color of their skin, ancient sources do occasionally mention skin tone and artists tried to convey the color of their flesh.”

Depictions of darker skin can be seen on ancient vases, in small terra-cotta figures, and in the Fayum portraits, a remarkable trove of naturalistic paintings from the imperial Roman province of Egypt, which are among the few paintings on wood that survive from that period. These near-life-size portraits, which were painted on funerary objects, present their subjects with an array of skin tones, from olive green to deep brown, testifying to a complex intermingling of Greek, Roman, and local Egyptian populations. (The Fayum portraits have been widely dispersed among museums.)

Bond [had] been moved to write her essays when a racist group, Identity Evropa, started putting up posters on college campuses, including Iowa’s, that presented classical white marble statues as emblems of white nationalism. After the publication of her essays, she received a stream of hate messages online. She is not the only classicist who has been targeted by the so-called alt-right. Some white supremacists have been drawn to classical studies out of a desire to affirm what they imagine to be an unblemished lineage of white Western culture extending back to ancient Greece. When they are told that their understanding of classical history is flawed, they often get testy.

[In early 2018], the BBC and Netflix broadcast “Troy: Fall of a City,” a miniseries in which the Homeric hero Achilles is played by a British actor of Ghanaian descent. The casting decision elicited a backlash in right-wing publications. Online commenters insisted that the “real” Achilles was blond-haired and blue-eyed, and that someone with skin as dark as the actor’s surely would have been a slave.

It’s true that Homer describes the hair of Achilles as xanthos, a word often used to characterize objects that we would call yellow, but Achilles is [mythological], so imaginative license in casting seems perfectly acceptable. Moreover, several scholars explained online that, though ancient Greeks and Romans certainly noticed skin color, they did not practice systematic racism. They owned slaves, but this population was drawn from a wide range of conquered peoples, including Gauls and Germans.

Nor did the Greeks conceive of race the way we do. [...] Rebecca Futo Kennedy, a classicist at Denison University, who writes on race and ethnicity, told me, “Cold weather made you stupid but also courageous, so that was what people from the Far North were supposed to be like. And the people they called Ethiopians were thought of as very smart but cowardly. It comes out of the medical tradition [of the Hippocratic humours]. In the North, you have plenty of thick blood. Whereas, in the South, you’re being desiccated by the sun, and you have to think about how to conserve your blood.”

Pale skin on a woman was considered a sign of beauty and refinement, because it showed that she was privileged enough not to have to work outdoors. But a man with pale skin was considered unmasculine: bronzed skin was associated with the heroes who fought on battlefields and competed as athletes, naked, in amphitheatres.

[...] Tim Whitmarsh, a professor of Greek culture at the University of Cambridge, writes that the Greeks “would have been staggered” by the suggestion that they were “white.” Not only do our modern notions of race clash with the thinking of the ancient past; so do our terms for colors, as is clear to anyone who has tried to conceive what a “wine-dark sea” actually looked like.

[...]

On the website Pharos, which was founded [...] in part to counter white-supremacist interpretations of the ancient world, a recent essay notes, “Although there is a persistent, racist preference for lighter skin over darker skin in the contemporary world, the ancient Greeks considered darker skin” for men to be “more beautiful and a sign of physical and moral superiority.”

[In 2017], high-school students participating in a summer program at the RISD Museum, in Providence, were so fascinated to learn about polychromy in classical statuary that they made a coloring book allowing gallery visitors to create brightly hued versions of the objects on display.

Christina Alderman, who runs the program, told me, “The moment they found out that the statues were originally painted, I just lost them to that idea. They were, like, ‘Wait, are you serious? I’ve played video games set in ancient times, and all I see are white sculptures. I watch movies and that’s all I see.’ It was a real human response—they kind of felt they’d been lied to.”

A marble head of a deity wearing a Dionysiac fillet, from the first century A.D. Traces of red pigment remain on the lips, eyes, and fillet. Marco Leona, who runs the scientific-research department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said the fact that ancient statues were once painted is “like the best-kept secret that’s not even a secret.” - Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art

A bust of a young African boy, sculpted in the first century B.C. Ancient sculptures of African people were often made of basalt and painted with reddish-brown layers to create a lifelike effect. Mahogany-colored paint is still visible on the boy’s face. - Courtesy Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

/endofextract

[I edited this blog post to provide a definition of polychromy and fix a couple of typos. - May 3, 2024]

[princesssarisa]

Sleeping Beauty Spring: "Music Time: The Sleeping Beauty" (1979 stop-motion animated short)

This 18-minute British Sleeping Beauty hails from the BBC School program Music Time, which was produced on-and-off from 1970 until 1991 to bring music education to children. In keeping with the aim of the show, it's more an adaptation of Tchaikovsky's ballet than of the original fairy tale, and its soundtrack features even more of Tchaikovsky's music than the Disney film does. The music is further emphasized by the lack of any spoken dialogue, although there is voiceover narration by Helen Spiers.

Despite ostensibly being based on the ballet, this short incorporates some details from the original tale and some unique ideas too. It opens with the Prince on a hunting trip, pursuing a stag into the briars that surround Princess Aurora's castle. In front of the castle, he finds a large book sitting on a marble pedestal, and opens it to find that it contains the story of the Sleeping Beauty: thus we go a hundred years back in time to see what happened.

When Princess Aurora is born, her parents send messenger pigeons to deliver all the invitations to her christening, including to the kingdom's four fairies. But one pigeon accidentally drops the invitation meant for the fairy Carabosse, so she never receives it. Although it's hard to imagine that she wouldn't have caused trouble anyway: in sharp contrast to the three lovely, ethereal good fairies, she's a blatantly evil-looking, ugly fairy with a bald head, an eyepatch, and long black fingernails, always accompanied by tiny green devils. As in Tchaikovsky's ballet, it's the Lilac Fairy who softens Carabosse's curse from death to sleep, and sixteen years later, as in the ballet, it's amidst Aurora's grand birthday feast that the curse comes to pass. But the details of how it happens are slightly different: here, Aurora plays hide-and-seek with other young ladies as a party game, creeps into an old tower to hide, and there finds Carabosse disguised as an old woman with a spinning wheel. The Lilac Fairy then arrives to magically transport the sleeping Aurora to her bed, to put everyone else to sleep too, and to surround the castle with protective briars. This is where the story ends in the book the Prince reads, with the statement that only a prince brave enough to fight and defeat Carabosse will wake the princess.

The Prince chops through the briars with his sword, then finds Carabosse waiting for him. They duel at the top of the tower, the Prince's sword against Carabosse's magic staff, until finally the Prince flings the staff over the tower parapet, and powerless without it, Carabosse promptly falls from said parapet to her death. The Prince then finds Aurora and kisses her. As the young lovers stroll together in the moonlight, the briars sprout white roses, the rest of the court awakens, and fireworks light the sky in jubilation.

The stop-motion figures are simple and doll-like yet charming, and the Rococo-inspired sets and costumes pair well with the beauty of Tchaikovsky's music. While I certainly wouldn't call this an essential version of Sleeping Beauty, it's enjoyable all the same, and it probably served as a good introduction to Tchaikovsky for British children in 1979. If you enjoy both Tchaikovsky and the art of stop-motion animation, I recommend it.

@ariel-seagull-wings, @thealmightyemprex, @faintingheroine, @reds-revenge, @comma-after-dearest, @autistic-prince-cinderella, @the-blue-fairie, @thatscarletflycatcher

[eaglesnick]

“The Inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings”– Winston Churchill

The latest wealthy Conservative donor to endorse Starmer’s Labour Party is billionaire John Caudwell.  Like many billionaires, Caudwell is no stranger to controversy. In 2002, he was accused of

“…bullying staff to back his plans to build lucrative executive homes on greenbelt land.”  (Guardian: 04/07/02)

Could this be a reason why Starmer has said he would give local councils more powers to build on green belt land? Is this another example of would be Labour cronyism at play?

More recently, Caudwell was involved in a High Court case where he was accused of:

“...orchestrating a campaign to oust her (business woman Nathalie Dauriac) from Signia, and to expropriate shares at a low value.” (Financial Times: 08/05/18)

Caudwell was ordered to pay Dauriac, his former business partner,  £471,000 for the value of her shares. Previous to their falling out, Caudwell, putting profit making before human decency, had asked Dauriac to promise not to have children until the business was “firmly established”. Ms Dauriac also accused Caudwell of “bullying" tactics during their partnership.

This new convert to the Starmer’s Labour Party admitted on Desert Island Discs that he had:

“…taken advantage of tax avoidance schemes in order to be able to invest more heavily in Phones4U when it was still a fledgling company. (The Standard: 23/01/23)

Many on the left-wing of the Labour Party have either been suspended or kicked out of the party altogether under Starmer.  When Starmer says he has changed the Labour Party it is true – he has, but will he live to regret it?

Like many political dictators, Starmer has purged the party of anyone who doesn’t agree with his worldview. This is how the BBC reported his actions:

“Sir Kier Starmer has been accused of freezing out left-wingers and promoting his supporters…At the same time the party has been accused of "parachuting" Starmerite candidates into seats over the wishes of local Labour members” (BBC News: 02/06/24)

No leader worthy of that title should surround themselves with "Yes” men and women. A strong leader can tolerate opposition within their own ranks. In fact they should welcome it. Good Cabinet government DEMANDS a variety of views be aired when discussing policy options.  Is Starmer so insecure he cannot abide opinions other than his own? No, I don’t think so.

Starmer knows exactly what he wants to do and how to get there. Unfortunately, his views are so far right of traditional Labour Party values he has found it necessary to expel or silence the left wing of the party. But in alienating the left he has had to turn increasingly to wealthy outsiders like Caudwell to bolster his position, as well as the right-wing Blairites within.

When Conservative Natalie Elphicke, a hard-line anti-immigration Conservative, decided Keir Starmer was the leader for her, eyes were raised, but should they have been? We have already noted elsewhere that Starmer (and shadow cabinet colleagues) have been accepting massive donations  from billionaires with private healthcare business connections.

This is just the tip of the iceberg;

“Much has been made of Labour’s increasingly close relationship with big business and the wealthy under Keir Starmer…Dark Arts has already reported on the access and influence enjoyed by corporate lobbying firms who employ Labour candidates to connect their clients with senior party figures.”  (open Democracy: 13/03/24)

And there we have it! Wealthy individual and big corporations are paying money to gain access to Starmer and his team. These huge sums of money are seen as an investment.

That investment is paying off. This why John Caudwell, and people like him have turned to Starmer:

"It's no good living in the past. Let's look where we are, the here and now and the future. What Keir has done - as far as I can see - has taken all the left out of the Labour Party and he has come out with a brilliant set of values and principles and way of growing Britain in complete alignment with my views as a commercial capitalist." (Yahoo News: 19/06/24)

The Labour Party under Keir Starmer is no longer the party for working people : it is the party of “commercial capitalists”

[tiltedsyllogism]

Rules: List 8 tv shows to get to know me better.

Okay so I have thought about this an embarrassing amount since @naturaliseme tagged me last week, and I ultimately concluded that I need *two* lists: one for show that currently structure my perception and thinking, and one for shows that have played that role at some earlier point in my life but don’t anymore. (Some of the formerly-rotating-in-my-brain shows are ones I still love or thing are great, others I can’t bear to watch anymore.)

Currently/still rotating:

1) For All Mankind

2) Midnight Mass

3) Friday Night Lights

4) She-Ra (Netflix reboot)

5) the Walking Dead

6) Black Sails

7) Steven Universe

8) Battlestar Galactica

Erstwhile rotators:

1) the X-Files

2) the West Wing

3) House, MD

4) Community

5) Sherlock (BBC)

6) Criminal Minds

7) Orange is the New Black

8) Jessica Jones

I think I still only get to tag eight people, though? I am tagging @trickybonmot @masked-alias @doctornerdington @tomato-greens @moocowmoocow @chelsieheartstriker @tafkarfanfic @tinyboatbigshark and @vulgarweed .