#i do hope

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

Like it or not, the one who saved and modernized the monarchy was King George V, not king Edward VII, and this is an undisputed fact that all historians would agree with. After all, It was during the reign of King George V that 13 European Monarchies crumbled to the ground while the british monarchy survived. And it survived because of George V, because of his leadership, his modern statesmanship, his will to embrace and encourage changes, his popularity and the respect that his nation had for him, while he led his country to victory during WW1. He was the FIRST Monarch that brought monarchy close to people, hence why he was nicknamed the People's Monarch or the Citizen Monarch. George reigned during the most difficult times in the history of monarchy and of mankind, but he managed to save his monarchy and to modernize it, setting the path for a Constitutional Modern Monarch*. Your bias cannot change it, because facts dont give a damn about your opinions. A pity that you cannot uplift Edward VII without bringing George down. George wasnt dull, he was quite the character. He was genuine, funny, reproachable, a lover of books and cinema, and most importantly he was a SERIOUS LEADER, who acted exactly as a modern head of state is suppsed to act. Oh and he was a FAITHFUL Husband, he was devoted to his wife and loyal to her throughout their entire marriage. Something that can never be said of Edward VII who was unfaithful and over-indulgent in everything ( Im sure his mistresses would have preferred Handsome George though). If being faithful and family-oriented makes a man dull, than give me dull everyday. Queen Alexandra would've been happy to have married a man like George who never embarrassed and humiliated his wife

Oh my, where does this come from? lmao. Tbh, I deserve this kind of message when it's about Wilhelm. I'm totally biased regarding this rascally young fop (Alexander III said it first!). Badmouthing him is one of my favourite pastime. But George, come on! I never been too harsh with him? EXCEPT, perhaps, when it comes down to the Romanovs, but what can I say? When you don't have a backbone, you really don't…

Yet, I'm a tad puzzled by your message because we are talking about George V right? The one who in April 1905 hadn't seen his children for three months. The one who used to shout at his second son "Get it out" when the poor soul was suffering from stammer. The one who in 1917, while on a stroll in the grounds of Sandringham complained to Nora Wigram that his children always avoided him. Nora retelling this story in one of her letters to her parents said how Mary, David and Bertie became "quite cheerful & entirely flippant, writing their names in the snow" when George and Mary had gone home on said stroll. However, do you know who was ACTUALLY a good father? his cousin *whispering* Nicky.

Faithful yes but let me remind you that their marriage was far from smooth sailing. They lived seperately for months on end. You also must have forgotten the countless letters from George trying to apologise for shutting down, being rude or cold towards May. + May's letters complaining on how he would shut her out. The man was unable to articulate his feelings which led to endless misunderstanding. May who once wrote to George while in Paris : "I quite understand about yr not wishing to come to Paris & am not angry, I only thought it wd be nice change as I find life in general very dull- unless one has a change sometimes." She had wanted him to join her but had received a rebuff instead. May who wrote to his brother in 1900 while she was stuck in the gloomy York Cottage: "It is so dull here & I feel very low & depressed tho' Im pretty well on the whole" (alright she was pregnant at that time, but guess where George was?… out shooting birds).

Led his country to victory during WW1? Hmmm, you really mean George V who was described in 1918 by the Viscount Esher in those terms: "he seems virtually a recluse, steadily devoting himself to good purposes and little works of a good kind, but with not conspicuousness, no assertiveness of the King's position." / "making himself a nonentity" ? While May wrote on 19 november 1916 to her son David about the hospital visits: "They are "assomant" (tiresome) & I dislike them more than words can describe!" and then proceeded to explain how much she enjoyed her shopping trips at Goode's.

I'm teasing because OF COURSE I think George V was a good ruler and perhaps he was the kind of ruler the country needed at that time. He was a great arbitrator and was able to adapt and change despite having conservative views and being very much uneducated. How he dealt with the Irish question is a stellar example! He was an ordinary man who disliked society and suffered from bouts of depression. There is a sentence that struck me in Ridley's book which in my opinion sums up George : "He was a man of disconnected feelings".

I could write PAGES about Bertie's shortcomings and how his shenanigans damaged the monarchy. Yet he was a gifted ruler, very much in tune with his time.

So I guess anon, it comes down to... preference. If you are more into shooting birds and collecting stamps, you do you! I, on the contrary, have a soft spot for cosmopolitan kings with a string of scandals.

Now if you'd excuse me, I'm off painting the town red with Bertie!

[funforahermit]

..

[guiiay]

jinx and isha visit a walmart

[bixels]

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

[twinliches]

shoutout to the guy who after unsuccessfully hitting on my sister and being politely declined asked her "is it okay if i ask your brother instead" and when she said yes gave me a long and searching look before sighing and going "no. i am not drunk enough to go for a dude. but you look like an angel" happy bisexual pride to this man and this man only. hope you figure it out soon king

[everythingwasnormalhere]

pls rb if you think cuddling doesn't have to be s3xual

im tryna prove a point to my bf's mother help me out

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I love you Safety Wizard.

(Inspired by @keroascrazy)

[opiumvampire]

fuck w me

[chiptrillino-art]

(ID in ALT text)

"got your nose"

[pangur-and-grim]

one thing that took me embarrassingly long to learn is "sometimes when people say things, they will not be true."

I used to tell people about this revelation and they'd be like yeah.....duh.....but like, why wouldn't my base assumption be that you're communicating to me in a straightforward manner. anyway, I get scammed a lot.

[emjaydoubleyou]

this post is fearmongering. the results of this study are concerning and should definitely be a matter of public discussion, but this is certainly not the conclusion the researchers came to.

the point of the study was to assess the risks of exposure to toxic metals- something one of the co-authors notes are “ubiquitous” fwiw- via menstrual products. Their research confirmed that these metals are indeed present in tampons, but no further conclusions are drawn. it is possible the metal entered into the cotton from the soil, which is a well-known phenomenon; cotton is so good at lifting heavy metals that it has actually been suggested as a part of the solution for revitalizing polluted ground.

the authors conclude with an acknowledgement that the study should be repeated- their sample size was 60 tampons- and a suggestion that further testing ought to be done to indicate whether or not these metals can even leech out of the tampon in the first place, let alone whether or not such leeching could occur at levels deleterious to human health.

there is, in fact, a body of research- too small, for sure, but much larger than this single study- indicating that long-term proper tampon use has no observable negative impact on health. i am grateful and thrilled that more research is being done and i hope that this study is the first of many on this line of questioning, but i am really frustrated at this post and the response it got.

obviously, if this study alters your approach to menstrual health, more power to you. consumers should be informed-risk-takers, and menstrual health is double-obviously a very personal choice. but it definitely wasn't the researchers concluding that you ought to “avoid using tampons at all cost," only this tumblr user did. the lead author of the paper, in fact, specifically says that she hopes people do NOT panic about the results.

(the notes of the post were disappointing. people affirming that they knew they were right to be suspicious of tampons all along, or even recommending alternatives that actually have very little to no research regarding the safety of long-term use, etc. it’s a different conversation, but categorical distrust of tampons is old-school misogyny. you certainly shouldn't wear them if you don’t want to, but there is nothing inherently scary or wrong about them, and people who prefer them are not being reckless or crass.)

((if you're really worried about exposure to heavy metals, you may want to turn a critical eye to fast fashion, as an aside))

[junkworldusa]

you make me want to draw again

here you go! this is also for my future self.

[badolmen]

WARNING 18+

19

[onixiage]

sleepy time :)

[velvetw0rmz]

How To Train Your Dragon doodles

It’s been really cool seeing other people’s interpretations lately and it’s inspired me to try a few!