#north start

[strideofpride]

Okay, for nine months now we’ve all seen firsthand how American media lies and spreads misinformation about the situation in Palestine and what’s really going on over there. Have you stopped yet to consider what other countries American media is lying to you about?

[franksfishies]

boyfriend treating you like an afterthought? get yourself a closeted necrophile

[inkskinned]

actually sometimes being neurodivergent is great bc you have a particular kind of Silly Mode that just . manifests glory. harmless fun is my precious side quest & i have a high score in whimsy. like okay if i gotta be the first dork in the dance pit it's gonna be me and this random toddler and we're gonna avril-style rock ouuuuttt

[grimae]

Books are now available in my store. Thank you all so much for the support, this was probably the biggest thing I've done in my life so far. It's 535 books of which half were already sold via crowdfunding. Each comes signed and numbered. I also have a few leftover prints from crowdfunding, as I ordered more for safety's sake. Those are also available as bundle, for a very small quantity.

[windwyrm]

[reasonsforhope]

"The number of teenage abortions in Finland fell by 66% between 2000 and 2023, its public health institute THL said on Monday, attributing the reduction to the offer of free contraception to adolescents and compulsory sex education in schools.

Finland also passed a law in 2022 liberalising abortion, at a time of deep divisions over abortion rights in Europe and court rulings in the U.S. that restricted access to terminations of unwanted pregnancies for millions of people there.

The number of abortions among women under 20 rose during the 1990s in Finland, which led the Nordic country to respond at the start of the 2000s by making morning-after pills available without prescription from 15 years of age and sexual education compulsory in all schools.

"We can assume that sexual education plays a significant role," THL's research professor Mika Gissler told Reuters, adding that increased access to contraception from a young age was another factor behind the change.

The number of abortions fell 66% to 722 in 2023 from 2,144 in 2000 among all teenagers aged 19 or younger in Finland, while the drop was even steeper at 78% among those under 18 in the same period, THL's statistics showed.

"Since the latter half of the 2010s, the decline in the number of young people's abortions has also been influenced by the introduction of free contraception in many welfare regions," THL wrote in a report...

Under the 2022 liberalisation, Finland from September 2023 stopped requiring women to give a reason for having an abortion, making it available upon a pregnant person's request during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

[Note: That's actually not a very long window for abortion! Many conservative states in the US have actually instituted 12-week bans, and it's caused terrible upheaval and limits to medical services. Sounds like Finland should liberalize further, imho! Still, important progress!]

THL said it was too early to conclude whether the legislative change, which took effect last year, will have an impact on the number of abortions."

-via Reuters, June 3, 2024

[mannequinswithkillappeal]

might as well put these in a separate post, actually

[tortibomb]

Johan & North | Fourever You | Episode 11

So that was 1,000, right?

[passion-rising]

Tried out a lineless style.

[merrybandofmurderers]

it's actually kinda driving me insane seeing ppl talk about "the north and the south" as if they're wildly different places of equal standing. like. you DO realize that The North is just tevinter? it is literally Just tevinter (and seheron and par vollen which we dont see). the southern chantry in fact takes up the MAJORITY of thedas

the free marches (where we spent da2, where the inquisitor was from) borders both antiva and nevarra, and nevarra shares a border with ORLAIS; yeah they have the whole lich kingdom thing going on, but they still have to pay lipservice to the southern chantry. the anderfels is described as being the MOST devout nation. rivain has always been where the southern chantry's hold was weakest, but they've still suffered THREE exalted marches, and only a year before inquisition their circle was annulled becuz it was discovered they allowed their mages to leave

it is fucking ridiculous to act like it WOULDNT MATTER who was made divine. it's fucking ridiculous to act like we've travelled to one of thedas's stupid moons. "the circles are different in The North" the circles are different in TEVINTER. it is literally just tevinter. when you talk about The North, you mean tevinter, becuz honestly par vollen and seheron are an entirely separate thing, and rivain is the only country that exists more in-between, but they are STILL claimed by the southern chantry. circles still exist across antiva, the anderfels, and even nevarra. ITS JUST TEVINTER

[serpentface]

WARDI WRITTEN LANGUAGE (BASICS).

Couya's full name (properly 'Haidamane Couya') written formally and with common handwriting conventions.

The Wardi written language derives from earlier proto-language systems consisting exclusively of logograms without direct phonetic meaning or grammatical structure. These symbols gradually became simplified and abstracted to the point of many having little intrinsic clarity, and combined to communicate abstract concepts.

The development of a full written language did not occur independently (as very few written languages do), and its phonetic elements (namely its use of syllabograms) were largely derived the 'ancient' Burri writing system, gradually synthesized with native writing conventions, and in the contemporary forms a wholly distinct system. The language's Relatively universalized form is a very recent phenomena, developing within the past two centuries with the region's conquering/unification into a single entity.

The contemporary written language is a mixture of logograms and syllabograms. It is read from right to left and arranged in horizontal columns. The most formal variant of this system contains each character within a square outline, usually separated by a small space. This outline confers little phonetic or symbolic information beyond making distinction between syllables exceptionally clear, and can be (and often is) omitted in handwriting. The separation of words is conveyed through a narrow rectangle or line in formal contexts, and again often omitted in handwriting (instead indicated instead by a wider blank space).

The pure logograms that have been retained in this writing system tend to be those of very common words or specific concepts (most logogram characters for types of livestock, key crops, water, major body parts, etc are widely recognized and in common use). There has not yet been any attempts to fully 'formalize' the language and omit potentially unnecessary logograms, and they remain frequently used as shorthand while conveying the same semantic information.

Many of the syllabogram characters are directly derived from logograms that depicted monosyllabic words. For example, the spoken word 'gan' means 'cow', and the character for the syllable 'gan' is identical to the common logogram for 'cow'.

The name Gantoche (literally "cow-eye") could be written either fully with syllabograms as:

or through logograms as:

Both ultimately communicate the same meaning, but the former clarifies pronunciation (the words gan and atoche are contracted, it's gantoche and not gan-atoche).

It is a relatively easy written language to learn, as the pure syllabogram characters indicate their own pronunciation with little ambiguity and often have consistency to their construction (ie the character for the syllable 'man' contains most of the same elements as that for the syllable 'wan'- the dot placement in particular has indication of the vowel sounds).

The inclusion of logograms in general and many of the syllabic characters being directly imported From logograms complicates matters. These characters lack visual consistency, and can be confusing to the large swath of the public who know common logograms but not the full written language itself. Ie: the word 'ungande' meaning 'liver' will be composed of logogram-derived syllable characters for 'un' (which alone means 'hand') and 'gan' (which alone means 'cow'). Someone who is only semi-literate in common logograms may be confused at the meaning, especially since these same exact same characters may be used elsewhere on their own to indicate 'hand' or 'cow'.

One major exception to this tendency is that current religious doctrine requires established logogram characters describing God to be used in place of syllabic characters. The word for god is 'Od', and has its own unique character (as do each of the Faces, the capital F 'Face', and Its deified pronoun). The syllable 'od' [oʊd] is very common in the Wardi language, and a wholly separate character is used for the phonetic sound when it is not a reference to the deity (ie 'lion' (odo [oʊdoʊ]) does not contain the same character for God in spite of its first syllable having the exact same pronunciation). Names are a bit of a gray area (ie: the name 'Odabi' is very common and carries the meaning of 'gift/blessing from God'). Religious leadership is currently experiencing a mild schism on whether the written character for God is separated due to being wholly sacrosanct (and thus inappropriate to include in the written form of a personal name) or as more of a functional delineation of the sacred and mundane.

[cestacruz]

Beach time's about to begin!

[rking200]

If Simon gets shot in Stratford Tower, he can be calmed down (shown with his yellow LED) by Markus being the one to check on him and help him up. If Josh does it, his LED stays red for the rest of the chapter. The yellow LED changes to red if he gets shot again.

I made some of these gifs in other sizes. You can find them on the Simon page of my GIf Archive.

[an-ruraiocht]

so i'm trying out the app "say something in..." for welsh and it essentially gives you phrases to repeat and combine in different ways, interspersed with a nice welsh man telling you facts about brains and how they learn, reminding you that your brain is amazing and that you definitely can learn to speak welsh, and encouraging you to "learn a little bit more welsh for me"

it's very different from the duolingo shame/guilt motivation and also i have to say. i don't personally have a praise kink but if you do and you want a gentle-voiced welsh man to tell you you're doing really well all the time. well

[sisalrian]

roma & his grandsons, 1943 (pt.2)

[thealexandriaarchives]

FeydPaulChaniIrulan is fantastic OT4 with absolutely killer harem drama nonsense but we're missing out on the golden path if we don't call it The Paulycule