#with the others being nonviable

[swan2swan]

Thinking about Ankylosaurus ovulation and honestly I need more arguments for and against clutch sizes.

[teratheo]

Broke: arc of a child fearing to go in footsteps of their parent (repenting for the sins of your father even though you are a completely different person. )

Woke: arc of a clone fearing to turn out like the original person (real nature vs nurture, I am the same yet different because of my experiences)

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

It's been only a day since a Texas court ruled that people with complicated pregnancies were exempted from abortion bans. The Texas Attorney General has already paused the ruling. Because he and other forced birthers want people to:

be forced to give birth to nonviable pregnancies, then hold their babies as they died hours later, like Texas forced Samantha Casiano and Kylie Beaton to do.

go into sepsis before being allowed an abortion even though the water broke far too early, like Amanda Zurawski (nee Eid) and Elizabeth Weller.

be held prisoner in the hospital, not receiving an abortion but also not allowed to leave after their water breaks far too early, then be forced to give birth to a stillborn baby, like Kierstan Hogan was.

be forced to leave the state for fetal reduction surgery when one fetus endangers the life of another and the mother, like Ashley Brandt and Lauren Miller had to do.

be forced to leave the state for an abortion of a nonviable pregnancy, like Austin Dennard, Taylor Edwards, Lauren Van Vleet, Lauren Hall, and Jessica Bernardo needed to do.

be forced to leave the state when their water breaks early, risking sepsis along the way, like Anna Zargarian.

[wellmetmat]

There's a post from a couple of years ago which I was reminded of and wanted to add to today, about nobody wanting to take the supplicant role in courtship, but it's unrebloggable due to some constraint the OP put on it, so I'll just quote my bit:

Being attracted to someone is distressing. I think the largest part of it is hunger to know someone (?); but when you can’t get to know them well, it ends up a stunted obsession: all that drive-to-know - enough to build a deep, detailed model of another personality - chewing over scraps of phrases and trivial actions, until you’re snappishly bored with your own mind. Your skin feels hungry and there’s nothing you can do about it: “touch starvation” is a phrase that comes to mind. The person’s absence and their presence both hurt: absence obviously, presence because once you’re there you find that there’s still distance, you still miss them. It’s rather like homesickness. Courting someone is wretched. It’s frightening and humiliating and full of agonising waiting periods and jarring mood switchbacks. It feels something like being dragged along on a fishhook, with the line attached to another person’s little finger. Liking someone more than they like you is a position of low power. The incentives are to be servile. You have nothing to bargain with: whatever they decide, you agree to with a smile. You always try to sound happy, because that’s what’s most appealing. You give up on areas of confusion instead of trying to understand, because asking questions annoys people and any annoying act pushes you closer to the cliff-edge of losing them. Any small disagreement feels like a large risk, so you distort your own opinions a bit. You can’t be spontaneous; your inner voice is always tallying accounts: how many days since the last message, too few, you mustn’t bother them yet / how many days since you came up with something interesting, too many, they may forget; don’t intrude so much, but simultaneously what have you done for them lately, how can you provide value to justify remaining in their life. It seems bad that we’re like this. I don’t imagine humans are especially badly formed or anything, it’s probably just as subjectively rotten for every animal that does courtship displays. But if anyone eventually makes robots with emotion-like motivational systems, they shouldn’t include anything like attraction. It’s so silly.

I feel like resurrecting this today to celebrate being out of it. In the last two weeks, somebody has given me the double gifts of liking me and of having the generosity to say so, and show so. All I want to do is be glad and be grateful, and try never to cause this person to experience anything described above.

But I stand by the description, it is a correct description, and we are so badly made it is infuriating. @nohoperadio's good post on the tragic stupidity of pain incidentally also works as a discourse on eros: if there'd been any intelligence involved in the design process, distress signals would come with an off-switch! (Hence my blog tagline.) But instead, evolution is a pitiless idiot, love is humiliation, nonviable attachments take years to starve to death, and there is no moral of the story. Absurd. A baboon could design a better emotional constitution.

Delightfully, this week ACX introduced David Pearce ("For centuries, philosophers have praised suffering as a necessary part of the human condition. For decades, David Pearce has told those other philosophers that they are bad and wrong"), who is doing his best to make a better emotional constitution available, and I approve of such a project so highly that it's been necessary to stack new levels of approval above my previous maximum to encompass how right he is. It's really exciting that any intelligent and active person considers progress of this sort possible and is working on it.

[ovaruling]

listening and learning. the future has always been female

by Michael Roppolo

June 8, 2023 / 1:32 PM / CBS News

Researchers have identified the first known case of a crocodile making herself pregnant — and producing a fetus that was genetically identical to herself. The findings were published Wednesday by a team led by evolutionary biologist Warren Booth from Virginia Tech in Biology Letters, a journal published by the Royal Society.

In 2018, officials with the Parque Reptilandia in Costa Rica found 14 eggs in a female's enclosure. The crocodile had been in isolation since the age of 2, yet she still managed to lay a clutch of eggs at 18.

"Given the period of isolation from mates, these would normally be considered non-viable and discarded," the researchers wrote. But the officials gathered seven eggs that appeared viable and kept them in an incubator.

There were several signs that one of the eggs may be viable, Booth told CBS News.

"Viable eggs are often bright white, whereas infertile may be more yellowish," he said. "When held up to a flashlight, viable crocodile eggs will have a distinct band, whereas non-viable will simply glow yellow."

Costa Rica officials reached out to experts in the U.S. for consultation — ones that specialized in parthenogenesis. The term is derived from the Greek words "parthenos," meaning "virgin," and "genesis," meaning "origin," according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

Booth, and co-author Gordon Schuett of Georgia State University, had published multiple papers on the topic. As such, they were the "go-to people," Booth told CBS News.

Once considered rare, so-called virgin births have been documented among various species — including sawfish, snakes, sharks, and birds. The process, which is more common in the plant and insect worlds, allows a female organism to replicate itself without fertilization from a male.

In 2021, a study found that California condors can have virgin births. Researchers with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance said genetic testing confirmed that two male chicks that hatched in 2001 and 2009 from unfertilized eggs were related to their mothers. Neither was related to a male. In 2019, an anaconda housed with two other females gave birth. DNA testing would later confirm that the anaconda babies were reproduced through parthenogenesis.

In the case of the crocodile in Costa Rica, three months after workers found the eggs, none had hatched and only one egg was found to have a fully formed but nonviable fetus. DNA analysis would later determine that the fetus was 99.9% genetically identical to its mother.

Virgin births could be happening in crocodiles without anyone realizing, according to the researchers.

"These findings, therefore, suggest that eggs should be assessed for potential viability when males are absent," they wrote.

The authors suggest that in these cases among reptiles, birds, and now crocodiles, there may be a common evolutionary origin.

"This discovery offers tantalizing insights into the possible reproductive capabilities of the extinct archosaurian relatives of crocodilians and birds, notably members of Pterosauria and Dinosauria," they write, referring to flying reptiles that have been described as "close cousins" of dinosaurs.

Booth told CBS News that crocodiles are at the base of a lineage known as the archosaurs, with the most recent members being birds. All of these creatures use the same complex form of parthenogenesis, or terminal fusion automixis. It is unlikely they all developed independently.

"The cool aspect is that in between crocodiles and birds are the pterosaurs and dinosaurs," he added. "Given that all of these lineages use the same mechanism, it is highly likely that pterosaurs and dinosaurs also had the capacity to produce parthenogenetically."

[itshazzyx]

Not my usual post but this is urgent

—

As the 2025 election comes to a close here in the US, it’s evident that the outcome of this election isn’t in the favor for many people who live here in the states.

People of color and other ethnicities, women, disabled individuals, LGBTQIA+ community members, as well as a plethora of minorities are at risk under the upcoming presidency.

The future of American citizens that don’t fit the narrative of a Straight, White, Christian, Conservative, cisgender male are all at risk. Under the future system imposed by the 47th president, many progressive laws that help protect minorities as well as the rights of women will be taken away.

As a transgender individual, I am in fear for my life. I am in fear that my rights to my own bodily autonomy are in play of being stripped away. Just because I’m a transgender man, I am aware that I’m born female, due to this, I’ve always looked at women’s right to healthcare my own reproductive rights as well.

It is beyond my comprehension as to why an individual should or would even want to put restrictions on the female body and her right to make a decision. Two women in Texas have died from being denied access to basic healthcare, and this number will only continue to grow more and more as individuals are forced to carry a fetus to term only under the acceptation that the mother’s life is at risk, and even then sometimes it’s too late. These individuals will be forced to give birth to a child even if it was a result of SA, Incest, or even if the fetus is nonviable.

As a victim of SA, it pains me that if something was to happen and I ended up pregnant, that I would have been forced to carry that unwanted child to term as a child myself.

To my fellow members of the LGBTQIA+ community, never stop being proud of who you are. Never forget what people have went through to give us the rights we have now. Always stand out, never hide yourself behind closed doors just because you’re told to. No matter what, the rights of the community were always deserved. It had taken years to earn the recognition that we deserve. Hiding your identity is what the future wants. Do not let them decide who and what you are. Always stand out and remember to be yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks or says. We will always come back stronger and better than before.

My page will always be a safe space for everyone of the LGBTQIA+ community. I will fight for our rights as much as I can. However, as a single individual, that’s not a lot. I did vote in favor to protect and preserve the rights and safety of individuals like myself. I will never change my opinion on the subject of abortion being health care, the fact that lgbtqia+ rights are human rights, and so many other things that help bring minorities into the spotlight and help us get the recognition and support that is deserved.

Regardless if you’re black, white, Asian, indigenous, mixed, European, gay, trans, nonbinary, straight, Christian, Muslim, etc, we are all human and all bleed red in the end.

[follow-up-news]

Texas’ abortion restrictions – some of the strictest in the country – may be fueling a sudden spike in infant mortality as women are forced to carry nonviable pregnancies to term. Some 2,200 infants died in Texas in 2022 – an increase of 227 deaths, or 11.5%, over the previous year, according to preliminary infant mortality data from the Texas Department of State Health Services that CNN obtained through a public records request. Infant deaths caused by severe genetic and birth defects rose by 21.6%. That spike reversed a nearly decade-long decline. Between 2014 and 2021, infant deaths had fallen by nearly 15%. In 2021, Texas banned abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy. When the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights the following summer, a trigger law in the state banned all abortions other than those intended to protect the life of the mother. The increase in deaths could partly be explained by the fact that more babies are being born in Texas. One recent report found that in the final nine months of 2022, the state saw nearly 10,000 more births than expected prior to its abortion ban – an estimated 3% increase. But multiple obstetrician-gynecologists who focus on high-risk pregnancies told CNN that Texas’ strict abortion laws likely contributed to the uptick in infant deaths. “We all knew the infant mortality rate would go up, because many of these terminations were for pregnancies that don’t turn into healthy normal kids,” said Dr. Erika Werner, the chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Tufts Medical Center. “It’s exactly what we all were concerned about.”

[anotherhorrorslut]

The World Is Going Backwards And Women Are Under Threat:

Women in Afghanistan have been stripped of their rights to wear what they want, own businesses, go out on their own etc. The latest being their right to speak to eachother, or at all, in public. Their voices have been taken and they are being kidnapped and beaten if they try to defend themselves.

Violence against women has been declared a National Emergency in England and Wales. 1 in 12 women suffer cases of stalking, harassment, sexual assault and domestic violence; that's roughly 2 million victims per year.

Women in America are quickly losing the rights over their bodies, being forced to birth babies they dont want for whatever reason (rape, incest, baby trapping, financial insecurity or simply if they don't want them). Whilst others are being forced to keep a nonviable pregnancy until they're nearly dying of sepsis because doctors are unable to do so due to anti-abortion legislation spreading state to state.

Women in South Korea are being treated so deplorably by men and the government that they have retailated with the 4B movement. No marrying, dating or having sex with men over the past 4 years has caused the birth rate to decline rapidly. This year 150 elementary schools in different areas have not had any first year students.

And now in Iraq, the government is proposing to lower the age of constent from 18 to 9 years old. There will be old men marrying and raping 9 year old girls, who will not have any right to divorce these "husbands" (I think dirty fucking child rapists is a better word), nor will they or women as a whole have a right to child custody or inheritance if they are divorced.

These are dark times for women, and I fear they're going to get worse. Do what you can to protect yourselves and never give up fighting for your rights.

[its-a-ducky-mess]

Facts: Ages

Many official series descriptions, like the ones present on Cbeebies and the official Sarah & Duck Youtube page, state that Sarah's age is seven years old.

[Source: cbeebies.com/shows/sarah-and-duck]

Seeing as this is an overview for the whole series, it's safe to assume the episode The Mouse's Birthday makes Sarah eight years old from that point on.

[Source: Series 2, Episode 5, The Mouse's Birthday]

However, there are two other episodes that feature birthdays of other characters. These are Cake Bake for Duck, and Birthday Buoy for John.

John's birthday is noteworthy in that it is the sole conclusive confirmation for an age that is not Sarah anywhere within the series.

[Source: Series 3, Episode 7, Birthday Buoy]

Present on John's cake given to him by Cloud Captain Parkside are candles, specifically eight of them, which is shown more clearly in a following shot of the cake after being eaten. The candles are piled together and very visible.

Using this, John can be assumed to have turned eight during Birthday Buoy. More interestingly, this can be used to prove that John was also seven years old before this episode took place, being the same age as Sarah.

To be a little speculative, if we assume the episodes air in chronological order within the show's universe, it can be assumed that Sarah is older than John, as The Mouse's Birthday aired before Birthday Buoy.

[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sarah_%2526_Duck_episodes]

Using this, Sarah would've been born on August 15, and John would've been born on November 1, making Sarah approximately three months older than John. I do recognize the nonviable nature of using air dates as diegetic dates within the show, however, and this should not be taken as fact.

Duck's birthday is interesting in that it's inconclusive in regard to his age. On the card Sarah gives Duck at the beginning of Cake Bake, there is a button/sticker with the number two on it.

[Source: Series 1, Episode 4, Cake Bake]

While this may seem clear evidence that Duck is two years old, it speculatively may have a different interpretation. As Duck was "adopted" an unknown time before the series proper, seen during the flashback in Duck Flies, his true day of birth is unknown. In real life, some households with adopted stray pets celebrate their "birthdays" on the day they brought said pet into the household, as they may not know their exact birth date. My household has personally done this for a few stray cats we've adopted. Following this logic, Duck has been a part of Sarah's life for two years, with an unknown age of at least more than two. Following the air date system, Duck would've been born/adopted on February 21. This is only speculation, however.

Just for fun: Using these speculative exact birthdays for astrology purposes would make Sarah a Leo, Duck a Pisces, and John a Scorpio.

[sonicasura]

Goliath Virus

Here we are folks with some Resident Evil stuff! This time it revolves around Leon being infected by a modified G Virus that I will call Goliath. I'll be going over both its creation and how it infects our protagonist. Let's get started.

Goliath is an evolved G Virus that unknowningly develop inside Leon Scout Kennedy after injuries inflicted by William Birkin. Unlike other viruses, this strain occurs naturally over a span of time. It lays undetected as the genetic structure is different enough from the G Virus to avoid destruction by vaccines.

Goliath remains dormant at the beginning of its life cycle. It feeds only on viruses, parasites and germs that are detrimental to the host. This strain is symbiotic in nature as it can't survive should Leon perish.

Goliath will continue until it's large enough to enter Stage 2. This is the stage where subtle mutations will occur inside the host. Effects include slow aging, slightly boosted healing factor, minor decrease of cell death in skin, and minor increase in muscle growth.

Goliath would remain in Stage 2 indefinitely for the rest of the host's life. Unless a pretty potent virus or parasite is introduced such as Las Plagas for example. This will cause Goliath to go into Stage 3 and where the true horror takes place.

It takes approximately 4 hours for the virus to enter this stage. Signs of Goliath entering Stage 3 are: heightened aggression, increased appetite, pituitary gland doubling in size and start producing growth related hormones. Only when the virus truly reaches this stage does mutation begin.

Some potential traits of Goliath mutations depend partly on the catalyst (virus/parasite) that triggers Stage 3. Las Plagas generates aspects related to insects or reptiles such as exoskeleton w/o wings, chitin carapace, segmented/jointed limbs, scales, etc. Average traits for Goliath are similar to its progenitor such as multiple eyes and increased growth.

Unlike the G Virus, hosts fully retain their identity albeit with slight feral behavior added in. The need to reproduce is still present within Goliath but it's watered down into a mostly harmless base instinct. Infection only occurs if the host choses to do so otherwise physical contact and bodily fluids are nonviable. Although offspring of a Goliath Virus have a chance at being carriers with varied levels in dormancy.

Should a host fail to take proper care of their body then Goliath will possess them and perform the task itself. The virus has no qualms when it comes to feeding as even rotting meat is on the menu. Whether it's dead or still moving doesn't matter. Further mutation are plausible through introduction of more potent viruses/parasites.

There is a Stage 4 to the Goliath that only activates should the host be under extreme distress. How fast the transition is depends solely on the cause with near death(mortally wounded) occurring within 30 seconds and fear/rage induced stress being 20 minutes. The transformation from Stage 4 is more extreme that the host's mentality degrades to near primality.

Regression can be undone with proper mental therapy although it's heavily advised that those close to the host be present. This is to prevent potential attacks as behavior in Stage 4 is similar to a wild Grizzly Bear. (One wrong move could trigger them.) Stage 4 is a temporarily evolution which will become permanent if overused.

G!Leon stands around 10'3 in height when his virus is at Stage 3. Half his body is covered in a dark blue carapace with a thin grey layer of hide that extends 6 inches outwards from underneath and knits into his flesh. It mainly covers his entire enlarged left arm, upper torso(includes shoulder blade), lower waist(down to the kneecaps), back.

A long spindly dark blue segmented tail comes from his lower back that ends with a two prong stinger. He has a total of 8 different sized eyes across his body that range in size from 2.3 cm to 10 inches in diameter. Three can be found on his left arm, two at his left upper chest, one in the left shoulder and last two hang across the tail.

Leon's left hand has been reduced to large dexterous finger like claws that extend from a 'stump' almost if the carapace eaten his palm. While his face seems untouched, the man's jaw can disconnect and widen grotesquely similarly to a snake. Leon has razor sharp long fangs that function similar to a pen, the points can retract to mimic normal human tooth.

He tends to crave sugar and meat very often. This has led to hunting or foraging to become part of Leon's routine as how much food he needs to consume daily has tripled. He can eat normal human food although the man might dump an entire box of sugar over it if you don't have a sugary condiment.

Due to his unforeseen mutation, Leon has developed a vagabond lifestyle after RE4. He spends his days trying to find a possible cure for the Goliath virus. This has often led to Leon breaking into Umbrella or other bio-research facilities.

He is hunted by people from all sides with their own reasons. Most obviously mean harm to Leon since he's a carrier for an unknown yet powerful virus strain. Whether it's for weaponization or destruction is a mixed bag.

Although he makes it very difficult for any allies to find him either. Leon rather not put the few people he cares about in grave danger. Especially since Goliath would coerce him even harder to stay by their side for his mental health.

Saying goodbye was already difficult enough.

[thebiscuiteternal]

Republican officials insult women nearly killed by abortion bans.

A recent filing by the office of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan T. Skrmetti, a Republican, captures the dynamic all too well. Skrmetti has been fighting a lawsuit filed by a group of Tennessee women denied emergency abortions under the ultranarrow medical exception to that state’s ban. The women plaintiffs suffered an appalling range of trauma, including sepsis and hemorrhaging, because they could not terminate their pregnancies. The attorney general’s response to their complaint is a scathing, shockingly personal broadside against the victims of the ban. He accused them of attempting to draw “lines about which unborn lives are worth protecting” by imposing a medical exception “of their own liking.” He mocked them for asserting that ostensibly minor conditions like “sickle cell disease” might justify an abortion. And he insisted that the lead plaintiff, Nicole Blackmon, lacks standing, because she underwent sterilization after the state forced her to carry a nonviable pregnancy and deliver a stillborn baby. The attorney general viciously suggested that, if Blackmon really wanted to fight Tennessee’s ban, she could have tried for another doomed pregnancy.

Perhaps Skrmetti deserves half credit for candor, because he did not even pretend to treat these plaintiffs like compelling moral human beings. Instead, he wrote that Tennessee may allow different standards of care for pregnant and nonpregnant women. A pregnant woman, the attorney general averred, may be refused a treatment if it “has the potential to harm unborn lives—an issue not implicated” when treating nonpregnant women. “No equal-protection rule,” he concluded, “bars lawmakers from acting on that difference to protect unborn babies.” In other words, once a woman is pregnant, she becomes a vessel for “unborn babies,” giving the state authority to cut off her access to urgently necessary health care. Since nonpregnant women don’t immediately suffer the consequences of abortion bans, those bans don’t discriminate on the basis of sex.

I hate, hate, hate, hate this rat bastard. In every possible category pertaining to maternal and lgbtq issues, he has proven himself to be a horrible, vicious, vindictive little shitstain.

[tc-doherty]

The Basic Logic of Sword-Fighting

@caffeine-bee​ @outpost51​

The thing that you really need to know about writing fight scenes is that fighting is about control, and that control takes two routes. The 1st is controlling the distance between you and your opponent and the 2nd is controlling what moves your opponent can make.

Now both of these things sound very obvious, and most people probably even know them to some degree, but you don't necessarily think about what it actually means until you've done it. Knowing the names and specific poses of different attacks and guards is not nearly as important for an author as just understanding the logic behind them.

I’m putting it under a cut because it did get a bit long. But these really are just the basics. I included photos too ^__^

Controlling Distance:

Every weapon has a specific range that it's good in. If you’re too far away you won't be able to attack, and so what you need to do is try to lure your opponent in closer. If you get too close, then your primary weapon isn't going to be of any use offensively or defensively, and that's when you switch to grappling.

In a starting position you can have a bit of a length between you or you can have the tops of your swords being able to touch each other, you wouldn't want to be much closer than that to actually start something since most attacks require you to step forward.

This is a bit far, but still viable especially if you intend to bait (I talk about that later, for baiting you can start even further away than this but too far is still a hassle):

This is slightly close, but still perfectly viable:

Most fights are a bit of a give-and-take as attacks bring you slightly closer and guards take you slightly farther away, if you back off too far then one or the other of you will need to get closer in order to continue. And if you get too close it becomes a totally different style of fighting.

A lot of sword moves will end up with you being about this distance from each other, you can still attack well but you are just out of hand reach of your opponent:

If you get too close say goodbye to your sword:

I can also talk about close combat in more detail if you want to know. Grappling is definitely useful as a finishing move! As you can see from these pictures showing me getting my shit wrecked. I got too close, my opponent was able to gain control of my sword hand and then pull me in even closer to get me off balance before putting me on the ground (still with control of my sword hand). You can probably tell it would be really easy for them to slit my throat or stab me once they have me on the ground. It would also make sense for a confident opponent to switch to a dagger at this point in time because it would be harder for me to then regain control since it's smaller and faster.

Restricting Movement:

Starting from a blank slate, there are a lot of attacks that an opponent can make. These are the cutting attacks that you can make in Bolognese sword fighting (+ you can also do a straight thrust forward, generally cuts are to the limbs and thrusts are to the torso but not always):

How are you going to guard against that? You have no idea what they're going to do.

The purpose of the various guards and positions that fighters stand in is not only to defend themselves, but also to limit the options of their opponent.

If you stand in a certain position that makes all attacks from the right nonviable, then you’ve significantly narrowed the number of the things that you need to defend against.

Another very important thing that you can use to control your opponents movement is called baiting. Essentially you stand in a position that makes one particular attack seemed very tempting. You want to bait your opponent into doing that attack so that you can defend against it because you know exactly what they're going to do and you know exactly how to retaliate.

The natural response to that from a fighter who knows what they’re doing is to do a feint - pretend to do the attack the opponent is waiting for and then do something else. A feint will generally not be as deep or strong as a real attack because naturally you need to be able to pull out of it quickly to go for the attack you are actually intending to do.

You can also do what's called a beat, which is where you beat somebody’s sword out of the way with your own. It's possible to do this with so much force that you fling their arm completely out and leave their whole chest wide open. But if they’re waiting for you, they will be able to mitigate some of that. Beats can look very flashy though!

I mentioned in my other post that the top half of the sword would be sharpened and used for attacking while the bottom half is dull and used for blocking. The bottom half of the sword is called the strong, and the top half is called the weak. When you want to do a beat you have to make sure that you hit the weak of their sword, otherwise you won't get the momentum that you need. And you will usually hit it somewhere using the top middle of your sword or else you also won't get the momentum that you need. If all you do is push your opponent’s sword out of the way they can recover quickly, you really need a lot of force to throw it completely out of whack.

A beat will generally push your opponent's sword off to their dominant side, or down. Pushing it in front of their chest obviously isn't going to make it much easier for you, and if you push it up it's pretty easy to gain the momentum to turn that around into a descending attack.

There's not really any such thing as combos in an actual battle, but in training you generally do learn “if your opponent does attack A, you respond with defense B” and repeat it a million times so it becomes muscle memory. That’s why baits and feints can work so well, because you’re relying on the muscle memory of your opponent to be their undoing.

Fights in general have a give-and-take (again) as you and your opponent both try to trick each other into making a move that will be the most advantageous to respond to.

If you do want to know about specific kinds of move sets I can tell you about them! But knowing why things work should also make the choreography easier for you.

[mariacallous]

Texas’ abortion restrictions – some of the strictest in the country – may be fueling a sudden spike in infant mortality as women are forced to carry nonviable pregnancies to term.

Some 2,200 infants died in Texas in 2022 – an increase of 227 deaths, or 11.5%, over the previous year, according to preliminary infant mortality data from the Texas Department of State Health Services that CNN obtained through a public records request. Infant deaths caused by severe genetic and birth defects rose by 21.6%. That spike reversed a nearly decade-long decline. Between 2014 and 2021, infant deaths had fallen by nearly 15%.

In 2021, Texas banned abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy. When the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights the following summer, a trigger law in the state banned all abortions other than those intended to protect the life of the mother.

The increase in deaths could partly be explained by the fact that more babies are being born in Texas. One recent report found that in the final nine months of 2022, the state saw nearly 10,000 more births than expected prior to its abortion ban – an estimated 3% increase.

But multiple obstetrician-gynecologists who focus on high-risk pregnancies told CNN that Texas’ strict abortion laws likely contributed to the uptick in infant deaths.

“We all knew the infant mortality rate would go up, because many of these terminations were for pregnancies that don’t turn into healthy normal kids,” said Dr. Erika Werner, the chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Tufts Medical Center. “It’s exactly what we all were concerned about.”

The issue of forcing women to carry out terminal and often high-risk pregnancies is at the core of a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, with several women – who suffered difficult pregnancies or infant deaths shortly after giving birth – testifying in Travis County court this week.

One witness became so emotional while testifying Wednesday that she began to vomit on the stand.

After the court called a recess she explained that the reaction is a response to the emotional trauma she endured: “I vomit when there’s certain parts that happen that kind of just makes my body remember.”

Another sobbed as she described feeling afraid to visit a Texas doctor after receiving an abortion out of state. A third spoke tearfully about waiting for her baby’s heart to stop beating so her doctors could provide an abortion she desperately needed.

Prior to the recent abortion restrictions, Texas banned the procedure after 20 weeks. This law gave parents more time to learn crucial information about a fetus’s brain formation and organ development, which doctors begin to test for at around 15 weeks.

Samantha Casiano, a plaintiff in the suit filed against Texas, wished she’d had more time to make the decision.

“If I was able to get the abortion with that time, I think it would have meant a lot to me because my daughter wouldn’t have suffered,” Casiano told CNN after testifying Wednesday.

[sillymickel]

Abortion Bans end up Killing More Babies, More Babies Dead, NOT saved

So REPUBLICANISM KILLS BABIES.

the abortion ban is also creating unrelieved & torturous suffering for mothers who without Roe's protection are being forced to bring dead fetal tissue to term

just to keep themselves and their doctors out of jail.

Which legally enforced, enslaved, & horrifying carrying of nonviable fetal tissue sometimes results in the death of the mother, as happened recently, in the case of Amber Thurman.

So if you're Republican. I wish you the hell you're creating for others.

[le-fils-de-lhomme]

The reality that women and girls have to live under in America is why I don't care about a male loneliness "epidemic", or women not having children for the "wrong" reasons, or women not getting married. When half the population has rights that are in doubt depending upon where they live all of that other garbage is meaningless. You expect me to care about all of that when women are being imprisoned for miscarriages or are being forced to carry nonviable pregnancies.

[kazeharuhime]

Bubblia (& Perloa)

Directly adjoining the Storm Dimension from beneath, there appears to be a previously unknown area of air sea. The air is so thick here it acts similar to a low-density ocean.

The first species to be recorded in this new area is the Bubblia. It would appear that the plant's smaller bubbles move about the surface of its larger one.

In some specimens, these bubbles followed a strict ring pattern, gliding about the surface of the nucleus bubble as a whole with the angle of this movement changing at random intervals. Whether the bubbles move clockwise or counter-clockwise seems to be connected to the water-air currents, switching when there's a shift in the current.

In other, larger specimens, these satellite bubbles were observed to each have their own path, which like the previously documented specimens, only switched their clockwise/counter-clockwise direction when the air-water currents shifted.

The the first type of specimens have been dubbled Ringia Bubblias. These were observed to have smaller central bubbles than the larger specimens with freer satellites.

Whether Ringia Bubblias are their own separate species or merely a juvenile version of the larger specimen type is still a topic of much debate, as there has yet to be observed any juveniles behaving like the larger specimen type.

On the one hand, there has been no noticeable change in behavior pattern of the known Ringia Bubblia specimens since their initial discovery. This does not discredit the notion of a maturation event still being on the horizon for any one of them, nor does it negate the possibility that the larger specimens are genetically nonviable offshoots of the Ringia Bubblia species, as it has yet to be observed how these larger specimens reproduce.

On the other, there are many indicators that Ringia Bubblias are the descendants of the larger specimens and not the other way around. For one thing, the larger specimens show evidence of being much older than the Ringias. The large specimens often have a somewhat central position in their patch, and tend to only exist in the singular per patch. This would give credence to the idea that the Ringias are desendants.

However, it still does not explain the behavioral differences and the fact that no Ringia has been observed maturing into the larger specimen type.

One hypothesis states that the larger specimen type acts as a sort of a queen or ruler over the smaller Ringias. This would explain why there can only be one large specimen type per patch.

It is also hypothesized that each satellite bubble on the larger specimen type corresponds to the movement of a ring somewhere in the patch, but this has yet to be sufficiently backed up with evidence.

Other than these two primary specimens, there has been another feature observed in Bubblia patches, and that is the presence of one of a third type of specimen, the Perloa, in every patch.

Unlike the first two, Perloas do not appear to be too closely related to either specimen type. They grow an opaquer, solider sphere in lieu of bubble nucleus and appear to maintain petal-like bracts even after fruiting. No external flowers were observed in either of the two Bubblia specimen types, and the primary bubble in each one seemed to form almost in place of sepals just below the base of flowers. Bubblias are thought to be related to Aquabulla genus by various points of evidence, and it is currently hypothesized that Perloas may be a hybird of the Perloa Alnia and Yura Aquabulla based on its appearance. However, this is at best speculation, and it is not yet clear if there really is a direct connection between the two species, or if they merely bear a resemblance to both and have a more indirect connection to the Aquabullas, much less the Perloa Alnias.

The fruit of the Perloa is not thought to be edible, but from their shiny appearance, it is thought they could become a collector's item in the future. This difference in taste is sometimes brought up as an argument against their being closely related to the Perloa Alnia, despite them both sharing the word "Perloa" in their name.