#see an opportunity and take it etc etc

[etoilesombre]

The age difference between Silver and Flint came up earlier, and now I'm thinking about it.

I think we are supposed to see Silver as somewhere in his mid 20s. Flint is at least 10, and probably more like 15 or 20, years older, and has been one of the most famous and feared pirates for the past 10 years. And I'm just thinking about how we make fun of Silver for thinking such crazy things about Flint, but, assuming Silver had been in or familiar with the American colonies or the West Indies, he would have been hearing stories about Flint since his adolescence. He very possibly *thinks* of Flint as a competent adult to his child, even if that is no longer the case. Is it really such a stretch to think that he controls the weather? Literal legend.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Pages from trying to keep a little sketchbook-scrapbook type thing going for two weeks lol. I gave myself specific rules in hopes they might all end up more cohesive/consistent seeming, but alas, scribbly chaos reigns, it seems

[batw1nggg]

i think one of the biggest pitfalls of the way danganronpa is formatted is the lack of opportunity to worldbuild the tragedy. what effects does it have on society. i want to see why and how people who never even got brainwashed fall into despair alongside their brainwashed peers. i want to see the graffiti on the walls. i want to see what happened to all the local stores and homes and the public transport and all the mundane pleasures youd lose. did we lose all the cell towers? how is the future foundation operating and what specific areas do they focus on? what is life like in the countryside, where there arent any air purifiers and clean water? how long does it take for everyone to forget junko? how long does it take for everyone to forget izuru? to forget hopes peak? how do the next generation of children manage? how do people feel about talent now, that its ripped apart human civilization? i want to see the art people make. the poetry they write. the weeds growing in the cracks of the sidewalks despite it all. the death and the heartbreak and the hope.

[mactiir]

I am tired of being in the DSM-V, please put me in another book. am i irritable, hyperactive and and forgetful because i have adhd or because i am a werewolf on my lunar week. is it the depression or my ancestral curse coming to bear. Is it anxiety or am I haunted by the ghosts of the city around me. let's keep some whimsy in the world plz and not make literally everything about how we're incorrect in some way.

[noblereason]

Listen man, I vibe with everyone, canon and OCs. You show up at my doorstep I open the door. I rp with everyone equally.

[taamlok]

deleting my vent posts when i clock in for the regular tumblr shift

[depresseddepot]

they rejected my application :(

[orcelito]

Remembering that a 4 hour psychological test means 4 hours under the examiner's microscope. I hope they let me listen to music during a written test, but idk if that would defeat the purpose or not. I... really don't know what to expect tomorrow, and it's kind of making me a bit nervous. Lol.

[badcountryofficial]

goodnight world. shoutout to the people who complimented me today and helped me on my journey. shoutout to myself for all i do. i'm following the pink pony i'm following her WISDOM. I WILL FIND HER WHEREVER I GO. THANK YOU PINK PONY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[fideidefenswhore]

I hope this isn't stupid, but did Henry really do the Great Matter the right way? I just feel if he'd used a normal argument instead of making it a religion problem it'd be easier for him. If he said "I have no son, so I want to make a new marriage and get one, to protect my people from war" then wasn't that a reason other kings had, and they got annulments? That would be just a fact and everyone at the time knew no son had problems. Sure Catherine would still fight but she couldn't really say he was wrong. But instead if he says it's all Leviticus and God's mad it gives her the out to say she never slept with Arthur so God's not counting that as a real marriage. Then Henry has to say she's lying and so she looks the injured party and right to be offended, and nobody knows what to believe so it just drags out hoping someone dies.

Precedentially and in hindsight, making it a "religion problem" might not have been the best course; but I think it was genuinely his belief and also he had been so highly respected as "Defender of the Faith" (literally) up to that point that he saw an opportunity for fame and acclaim in (what he believed to be) the "righteousness" of his case, and a way to shore up the image, power, and prestige of the English monarchy; even when it became clear it would be one from a position of defiance. We have to place his belief in the context of his acclaim as a scholar and theologian up through the 1520s...it was bold, but so was Henry, and while the common narrative is that his case was facile; after further reading I found that to be reductive:

"In Henry’s obsession with an idiosyncratic interpretation of natural law and his apparent indifference to the strength of his own case on Deuteronomy we may discern a litigant who seems determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of possible victory. Nevertheless it is hard to resist the conclusion that the biblical texts themselves support Henry’s claim that his marriage contravened divine law as expounded by Moses. [...] In the field of legal codes Henry’s view, whether treated as a matter of divine or human law, held a strong position. Among other examples the Council of Neo-Caesarea and the regional Council of Agde followed the Levitical injunction by forbidding the marriage of men to their brothers’ widows. Faced with such arguments, Bishop Fisher usually asserted that the prohibitions did not specifically forbid all dispensations – yet nor did they specifically allow any. As on the Leviticus/Deuteronomy dilemma, Fisher reasoned that in cases of ambiguity the pope should interpret the matter. Yet such a papal interpretation had been given by Innocent III in a rider to his judgement on the Livonian issue discussed below: that, whatever the validity of pagan marriages to which the Deuteronomical exception might apply, a man’s marriage to the widow of a deceased childless brother should not be permitted to baptised Christians." HADWIN JF. Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Henry VIII. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 2019

I don't think there's really anything he could've done to assure a 'secure' outcome, tbh (besides the possible counterfactual of applying for an annulment circa, say, 1520 rather than 1527, he did seem to have a better understanding and alliance with Leo X). The final judgement from Clement was that Henry had lived too long in matrimony with Catherine by principle of the dispensation granted to be able to legitimately protest the dispensation.

Precedent ran against Henry in the specific matter of Popes erasing former dispensations. That was not something they had done; but arguably Popes did reverse decisions of their predecessors in other matters, or sometimes reverse their own decisions-- there are many cases, for instance, of Popes granting annulments and then reversing them. This can make better sense of Henry's decision to reify the legitimacy of both his annulment with Catherine and his marriage with Anne via Parliament, even before the Pope has made declaration (because, even if he had made one in his favour, it might not have stuck...the sands were always shifting, too, even if, say, Clement had died without declaration and his successor had been an anti-Imperial candidate, like the later Paul IV, that did rule in his favour, was it not possible he himself would die and his successor reverse that decision? It is plausible to consider, also, a counterfactual where Henry made his application late 1525 or 1526, had it granted January 1527, and Imperial troops stormed as they did by May, pressurizing Clement to reverse...):

"And here it must be acknowledged that, while a substantial case could be built to support Henry’s challenge on the issue of the bull, the fact of that issue had significantly changed the situation and the canonical context within which it might be viewed. On the question of possible rescission of the bull the critics seem to have been right: on balance, precedent would appear to run against the king. Neither a dissolution nor an annulment would seem likely to have been granted. No previous marriage had been ended on the grounds that a pope had acted ultra vires; nor, as David d’Avray notes, ‘was any dispensation to my knowledge … ever revoked because the alleged political ills that it was meant to cure were later shown to be imaginary’. The application of the principle of dissimulatio – the turning of a blind eye to the legal weaknesses of a long-standing union in view of the greater good that would accrue by leaving well alone – could also have favoured the queen’s cause; a similar canonical rule held that ‘doubtful cases ought to be resolved in favour of the marriage’. Most significant of all might be the maxim asserted by Gilles Bellemère in the count of Armagnac’s case, that if the pope asks for advice before taking action, he should be told that the dispensation should not be granted; however, if he has already acted, then he should not be opposed. Thus, even if Henry had succeeded in convincing an impartial court of the impropriety of Julius II’s granting the dispensation, all [of his] lengthy campaign might well have gained him not that triumphant solution for which he had striven but merely the cold comfort of a Pyrrhic victory." HADWIN JF. Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Henry VIII. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 2019

And, that's actually a misconception; it was probably the predominant of his arguments/case, but hardly the only one or aspect:

"Like many other litigants, Henry adopted a ‘scatter-fire’ approach to his task of seeking an annulment, attacking a vast array of targets, hoping that at least one shot might reach its mark. His opponents tended to follow suit, thus a comprehensive analysis of each pellet might seem desirable to do the parties full justice. This has not been attempted in the present study. Instead it has seemed best to concentrate on three of the most serious and most often cited defences of the queen’s case, those based on the questions Henry asked of the universities in 1530-1, thus setting the agenda for the debate. The first of these was that, while forbidden by the texts of Leviticus, marriage to a brother’s widow was prohibited by the Church only if the previous marriage had been consummated, whereas Katherine insisted that she came to Henry 'virgo intacta'. Secondly, it was argued that the Levitical prohibition should be interpreted as being limited by the command in Deuteronomy requiring a man to marry a childless brother’s widow, exactly what Henry had done. Lastly, the king’s critics cited a number of what they considered relevant precdents for the dispensation granted to Henry and Katherine by papal bull in 1503.

Each [argument of the Queen's side] appears to have serious weaknesses. The strict application of canonical procedures in the case would appear to favour a verdict that Arthur and Katherine had indeed consummated their union. On Deuteronomy, not only had the Church generally regarded the command as obsolete and inapplicable to Christians but the contentious verse does not on close examination cover Henry’s case at all. Finally, none of the oft-cited papal dispensations involved a clear-cut breach of the Levitical injunctions: the bull really does seem to have broken new ground and might not have been issued had all the facts been known." HADWIN JF. Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Henry VIII. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 2019

Royals being anti or pro papal tended to be a matter of political timing, and this wasn't unique to Henry VIII. Hell, Mary I's spouse was excommunicated (not just threatened with excommunication, as her father had been circa the Great Matter era) by Paul IV because he had sent the Duke of Alva to occupy the papal states in retaliation for his alliance with France, and deprived her councilor and Archbishop of Cantebury, Reginald Pole, of his legateship and ordered him to return to Rome to answer charges of heresy ; and she chose to defend them rather than repudiate them in kind.

So, for the matter of claiming Catherine wasn't a virgin when he married her...I don't think he anticipated that she'd confess otherwise to Campeggio and unseal the confession; or use the trial of Blackfriars for the opportunity to repeat her own claim otherwise and then refuse to attend the rest of the hearing of evidence. For the hearing in Dunstable in 1533, she refused to attend, as well, and so did her supporters, so there's some revionism in the narrative that the Henrician side of the divide refused to hear her own evidence and supporters. They clearly did not regard it highly; arguably they gave it short shrift, but the political tactic of refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of any proceedings or hearings outside strict papal jurisdiction (not that all of Catherine's supporters adhered so strictly to that, when it suited them...see: Trial of Zaragoza) by Catherine and her supporters precludes the accusation, reified by Marian Parliament, that Henry and Cranmer "refused to hear evidence" from oppostion. This was a convenient fiction, underrating agency and choice and emphasizing a narrative of corruption vs "godly truth".

But at the same time, I think that aspect of it was a matter of principle for both of them and yet a nothingburger both legally and politically: it was impossible to prove or disprove. There was ambiguity on the matter because the dispensaton covered any possibility ("forsan"); even Clement's declaration did not really fully vindicate her side because he didn't comment on the matter of her virginity upon her marriage to Henry. It was, ultimately, a non sequitur. Henry pursued it because he vehemently believed it was true, and that the proof was in his deceased children by the marriage, that they had died because of the Levitical 'curse', for lack of better word...

And Henry had legal/canonical precedent on his side (see excerpt from JF Hadwin's excellent article on the case above, and this one: "[...] the canonical procedures for determining non-consummation suits would have worked against her. As in any such dispute, witnesses were questioned. Not surprisingly, their stories differed according to their nationality: like the decisions of the universities this was a case of what Hans Thieme delightfully described as cuius regio, eius opinio. English ones remembered a raunchy young prince boasting of his having ‘been this night in the midst of Spain’. Most of the interrogation records of the queen’s Spanish servants have been lost, but they seem to have agreed with the implications of the leading questions that they were fed by recollecting only an immature wimp. Canonical rules, however, held that in such controversies, the husband’s view was to be preferred to the wife’s. Furthermore, in the absence of sound evidence to the contrary, in any marriage that had lasted more than a few days, consummation [would] be presumed. This is why neither Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, nor his successor, Chapuys, was enthusiastic about Katherine’s claim and probably why Campeggio felt relief that the question was not to be argued at Rome. As Gardiner had warned the queen earlier, presumption would run against her: rightly or wrongly, in any court operating under standard canonical rules and procedures, she would probably have lost this argument."), but not circumstance.

My unpopular judgement is that Henry was actually far more judicious in his timing of the Great Matter than he's given credit for; as early as 1529 he's saying he's "about to undertake the annates", he delays the cessation of paying the annates until Easter 1533; he waits to pass the Act of Kings alone nominating Archbishops and consecrating bishops until Cranmer is elected Archbishop by the Pope (a fait accompli, because it does mean that Cranmer's annulment of his marriage can be viewed as an act of the papacy, by extension; and forces Clement's hand...arguably this backfired, but not fully, he did not excommunicate Cranmer, probably because doing that to someone he had so recently promoted would call his judgement into question); and he doesn't pass the Act in Absolute Restraint of Annates until 1534, after Clement declares for the validity of his marriage with Catherine. Was the timing different (annates are forbidden by law irrevocably, and then Clement declared for the marriage), one could argue otherwise (that Henry had been too hasty); but Clement could've secured annates from England for the rest of Henry's reign had he done the opposite, or possibly delayed their total annihilation had he just continued to not declare on the matter.

[elegyofthemoon]

actually scammers taking advantage of the genocide to make money are The Worst People

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent imageys

[do-what-the-knight-tells-you]

@ prev, You're Not Wrong. I totally get it. I don't care for or trust Harris particularly, either.

However, a good way I heard this framed recently:

Either Harris or Trump will win. Barring something very very unexpected, like an assassination, Harris or Trump will be inaugurated president in January.

At the worst, we can expect the Harris administration to be more of the same on Gaza, but it seems possible to move her, and that a lot of her behavior is a cold political vote-getting calculation + not feeling like she can contradict the current Administration which she is VP of.

At best, we know Trump admires dictatorial and fascist behavior, gave donors who were backing his campaign more than they asked for last time ("we just asked for the capitol- we didn't even ask for the Golan Heights!"), and so we can expect him to back fully annexing Gaza for Israeli resettlement, fully expunging Palestinians, and the same for the West Bank.

So the questions are:

Which of the two candidates is worse?

(And for folks who, I think incorrectly, think Harris is gonna be As Bad as Trump on this front, then it's a wash- so who is better on any other subject? Bodily autonomy, access to healthcare, access to healthcare for trans folks, climate/renewable energy, upholding democracy, infrastructure investment vs tax breaks for corporations, regulating industries like enviro and food, anti-trust behavior, etc.)

And chiefly:

Which one would you rather protest?

Protest will be potentially more effective and Certainly less dangerous under one administration than the other.

.

For my part:

I do not care for most Democrats, for most politicians at that level. (I also understand Stein to be particularly disingenuous) I know either Harris or Trump will win. I know that voting third party at the national level at this time, or not voting, has the effect of me saying I do not care which candidate takes office and would be fine with either.

I do not view voting as a Seal Of Approval or a moral choice at all- it's a strategic one.

I know that setting aside Gaza, a Harris administration will be better for me, for me friends and family, for friends overseas, for the climate, for all kinds of things, as compared to Project Goddamn 2025.

I also believe that Harris may be better than Trump on Gaza. I believe that Harris can probably be pushed by public opinion/protest/etc. I know it will be less dangerous to protest under a Harris Administration than a trump one.

Therefore: I intend to protest, to work towards ranked choice voting, to call my Congress people, to vote for my ideal candidates where available... The other 364 days of the year.

And on Nov 5, I intend to suck it up, and do my duty and vote strategically for the candidate (Harris) with the best chance of beating the worst candidate (Trump).

It's just harm mitigation, particularly if I live in a swing state (which I do).

I'm sure many people have already shared this here, but I think it's important that people here on Tumblr need to see this.

"I disagree with Kamala's position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?" by US Senator Bernie Sanders

[zorthania]

A piece about survivors guilt.

This comic isn't perfect. I started it back in October 2023, and every time I picked up my pen, I wept.

I bring this to you today, on 9/11, in hopes that you reflect on this day a little differently than how most Americans would. Let it move you to continue to boycott, protest and challenge your family, friends and colleagues. You have a bigger impact than you would believe.

Thank you for reading this with an open heart.

From the river to the sea...

I'd like to bring to attention the fact that the figures depicted above are a gross undercount of the actual number of deaths. I scoured the internet high and low to source my findings and not a single one could break down the devastation that befell an individual ethnicity. Instead, they lumped a bunch of ethnicities together, provided a general timeline, and called it a day, reinforcing the sheer scale of dehumanization propagated in the west. The only consistency between all the articles I looked up was the 4.5 to 4.7 million figure I've included above, and even then, they were all published by western media news outlets... the very same that have been so unreliable and complicit in the genocide of Palestinians today. So I have to take everything they say with a grain of salt.

We are not just numbers.

All of us have ambitions and desires and lives worth living.

With that said, this is your friendly reminder to:

Donate an e-sim

Donate to PCRF to provide Palestinian children aid

Donate to Pious Projects to provide woman with feminine hygiene kits

Donate to CareForGaza to provide food to displaced families in Gaza either through their Gofundme or their paypal

Donate to any of the vetted gofundme campaigns on GazaFunds to help Palestinians trying to flee Gaza.

And if you or someone you know sees or experiences a hate crime and can afford it, SUE. This is a more effective use of your money than most realise. The reason zionists act with impunity is because of the normalization of white supremacy and oppression of ethnic minorities. Challenging that in any capacity tells them that there are consequences to their actions and makes them think twice before engaging in hate crimes and helps raise all of us up against the systems currently in place that let them get away with it.

If you can't donate or spend any money, you can:

Do your daily clicks.

Boycott targeted companies on the BDS list (if you're like me and you don't want a single dollar to go towards anything supporting Israel right now, you can use Bdnaash to double check what products are okay to buy, but the BDS list is sufficient as it is a strategic attack and proven very effective thus far)

Flood your representatives emails and voicemails with how you won't be voting for them unless their politics align with an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Attend a protest, be LOUD.

Challenge your circle of friends, family and colleagues with conversations about Palestine. (THIS IS THE MOST UNDERRATED AND MOST EFFECTIVE THING YOU CAN DO)

and if you're really up to, be disruptive in any capacity that you can think of towards major corporations benefiting from this onslaught. (i.e. halting military manufacturers from production + shipments, sticking boycott stickers on products at your market etc)

And finally, if your country wasn't mentioned in the above excerpt, it was no deliberate omission on my part and I encourage you to come forward and tell your story about the suffering of your people so that this may be a learning opportunity for everyone.

You are seen.

You are not alone.

Thank you again if you've read this far.

From the river to the sea...

[calilk]

i need a day where i do nothing and intend to do nothing STAT (i havent had one in like a month) or i WILL EXPLODE. EMOTIONALLY. BIG TIME

[inseparabiles]

the most amazing part about this story so far is that it's been 50 000 words and Lucilla still has less than 0 intentions of having anything to do with the twins, however,

Acacius on the other hand is slowly discovering that he could genuinely like Geta as a person, if it wasn't for all of that, and he's picked up a habit of deliberately pestering him just to get him on the defensive in order to challenge his idiot world views and force him to think about how he's acting. I think this is the same kind of entertainment to him as a pumpkin filled with meat is for a tiger who gets to maul that thing to bits. Like hey remember all of those shitty things you did to me and everyone I love? Yeah. Time to collect on that.

And, though it's been that 50 000 words by now, the only person in the world who can stand Caracalla is still just Geta, full stop. He is NOT making himself any more likeable and at this point I think that's just how he wants to have it.

So I guess it's less Lucilla ruining Acacius's life with politics and more Acacius ruining Lucilla's life by accidentally voluntarily adopting an idiot son with a disaster attachment, and Lucilla's just forced into this deal by a combination of her Rome first attitude and her love and patience for Acacius who's finally found himself a hobby pre-retirement.

Lucius is also about to sniff some dirt nearby, which should decently mess her life up all over again. They're getting so many sons all at once and nobody asked for any in the first place - this was supposed to be an insurrection, not a sitcom

(And it so still is. There's so much politics and war happening around all of this, and there isn't one minute in a day that someone isn't actively worrying about getting murdered or invaded or sparking a civil war that devastates the whole of the Empire and destabilises a continent and a half in its wake, etc. All of the above is happening in the five, ten, twenty minutes a day that people have left over from fighting for their survival and trying to keep everything they love from collapsing around them. That's the actual funniest part, that in all of its ridiculousness and for the whole of its insane premise, this story still fails to be a crackfic.)

unhinged concept (I'm entering that stage): Lucilla actually does adopt Geta and Caracalla which ruins Acacius's life but also makes him their step-father and they finally get an actual father figure who teaches them how the fuck to hold swords and not be the worst people ever.

and we just cancel Macrinus entirely, which, I don't know what the hell happens to Lucius but that's someone else's unhinged concept to worry about.

And we put Caracalla on a leash because the boy cannot behave. That's no way to treat your mother