I saw a post about tumblr user ages...

Reblogs are welcomed for that sweet, sweet increased data pool (aka getting more than 20 responses 😅)

I fully understand that the preponderance of evidence is that George Lucas put absolutely zero thought into what Naboo’s culture was actually supposed to look like outside of what we see on screen, but as far as unintentionally effective worldbuilding goes, establishing that Naboo a. has a tradition of electing literal children as figurehead rulers of its planetary government, and b. apparently also has a tradition of assassinating these children with sufficient frequency that dressing up a bunch of other children as decoy targets has become standard operating procedure by the time of Padmé Amidala’s reign suggests that maybe the fact that this random backwater is a breeding ground for Sith Lords isn’t as unlikely as it initially appears.

#yes! this is what i’ve been saying! #i’ve always headcanoned that the reason they have child monarchs in the first place #is to try and discourage the assassination attempts #like #alright i know you’ve poisoned our last five queens #but this one’s an adorable child! #you wouldn’t poison a CHILD would you? #and even if you would no you wouldn’t #because ACTUALLY you’ve poisoned the decoy

#and like… headcanon part 2: if I were trying to discourage assassination attempts #you know who I’d recruit to be my handmaids and decoys? #that’s right: the daughters of my political rivals #you thought you poisoned the queen? #psych you idiot that’s the minister of finance’s niece #fuck it maybe that’s YOUR niece

#sure you haven’t seen her since the Queen ‘invited’ her to join the Royal retinue #but are you really gonna risk it? #better to just cool it on the poisonings for a bit isn’t it? #try out this fun new thing called ‘diplomacy’ i really think you’ll like it!

#and like– maybe they did cool it and Naboo as a society moved on from that era #and kept the trappings as a reminder of how far they’ve come #or maybe they didn’t and the whole system is just threats behind smiling faces #who knows! certainly not us outsiders! I’ve heard Naboo’s a peaceful society and very fond of diplomacy actually #and what a quaint little government they have! their queen’s fourteen i hear #how very… sweet (via @allogrim )

not your dad's tube socks

These babies are comfy af and go for miles.

They have flat toe seams and extraordinary stretch (26-27" at the cuff), and they'll fit nearly any size foot.

Today thru Sunday (April 21st) use code TOTESTUBES at checkout for a 20% off discount. Happy stripeys!

Extraordinaryily Longer Gradient Striped Tube Socks

As a kid, when your parents are poor, you're poor. If they don't have money, that means none of you have money. But if someone's parents are rich, that doesn't necessarily mean the kid is. Sometimes rich peoples' kids aren't rich kids, they're just some rich freak's exotic pets that can talk but aren't allowed to.

That’s… not how class works

OK, so- my partner was adopted by a rich woman when he was a baby. She's from a prominent family, practically royalty where we're from. She certainly had the means to send him to fancy private school, give him good food, nice clothes/toys, premium healthcare... she chose not to. According to her he was lucky to be "adopted out of poverty" at all and should have been content with what she deigned to give him. And she reminded him of this constantly, all through his childhood.

She dangled the promise of uni in exchange for good behavior and good grades- with terms and conditions, of course. And filling her laundry list of demands was something like pulling teeth whilst jumping through hoops. In the end, did he get to go to uni? Of course not. (And certainly being queer/trans on top of it all did not help things whatsoever).

He cut her off after high school, and when I met him a year ago he had been working as (the equivalent of) an UberEats driver for a living for the last few years, including through the pandemic. (Sixteen hours a day for the equivalent of $6 (six) USD, not including the gas for his shitty rundown scooter; caught COVID twice, suffers from chronic fatigue to this day).

And to this day he still has to be selective about which of our ~leftist anarcho-commie~ friends he divulges this part of his background to- cos all they hear is "raised rich" and then suddenly he's not One of Them because "well teeeeechncially :^) you're from the oppressing class...". Like.... shit, man!

Social rules don't mean shit when it comes to abusive parents. Even rich ones.

Probably especially rich ones.

people are totally on board with the concept of "sufficiently rich people are above the law, and this is bad" but refuse to connect that to the concept of "this also includes laws that protect children from abuse and exploitation"

like we understand "the ruling classes get and maintain their wealth through cruel exploitation of those less powerful" and we can't wrap our heads around "a lifetime of this cruel and merciless behavior being valorized by your peers probably doesn't predispose you to suddenly changing gears once you have a helplessly dependent child that's totally under your control."

like yeah the rich are our enemies in this ongoing class war, absolutely, it's an Us or Them situation to save the planet. but if you don't give a shit about saving the enemy's children too, i don't think very highly of your motivation or your methods.

if he was still alive I know in my heart that Terry Pratchett would have done a bit about Igors and Igorinas doing gender confirmation surgery by now. going into a lab full of bubbling vials and picking out a penis from a tank the way you pick a lobster. that one, please. you gotta be careful though because they'll really try to upsell you into getting two or three installed. people going to the clinic as pairs and just having parts swapped out for a discounted rate. maybe you actually just trade brains, that's even easier. Igorth have already been doing that thurgery for thenturieth.

#one day an igor forgets the lock the cage and a pack of penises escapes into ankh-morpork#the watch spends the next three weeks rounding them up

how DARE you leave this in the tags (affectionate)

Everyone knew it was best not to look too closely at Igor's jars.

Vimes was beginning to wish he had looked more closely at the most recent additions before Igor came lurching up the stairs to inform him:

"They have ethcaped, thir."

"Escaped. What has escaped, Igor."

"Thome of my.. appendageth, thir."

"Appendages."

"Yeth, thir. Of the... intimate variety."

"Of the intimate..." Vimes trailed off as the dawning horror overwhelmed his vocal cords.

He rallied. "Igor. HOW have they escaped? They are not known for their... perambulatory abilities."

"Really, thir? I've alwayth found them to have a mind of their own at timeth."

Vimes was staying calm. Yes. That was it. He was staying very calm. Definitely NOT thinking AT ALL about how Vetinari and... Good lord, The Times, would react to marauding pack of penises. Would it be a pack? Or would they go off on their own?

"I wath exthperimenting with cuthtom grown oneth, you know. For thothe who cannot grow their own."

"Err... what? Of course you were. I mean. Very good."

Pictured: An Igor harvesting appendages

#[a loud crash is heard from the lab] #[another igor runs past with a giant butterfly net. stopping briefly at the door to shriek 'THE VULVATHS''] (via @the-wave-finally-broke)

It turns out to be a brilliant feat of advertisement, as the people too shy or uncertain to go visit Igor rightaway effectively get a chance to discretely window-shop in public.

An unfortunate side effect being that a small girl, denied of her rightful need to be a Horse Girl by the limitations of being a native Ankh-Morpork child[1], would have adopted one of the larger Appendages of the pack and named it Free Willy. Her insistence that she could understand her pet through a bond of mutual sympathy was both touching and troubling, as was her announcement that Free Willy did not want to be attached to a governing body and forced into service, saddled with clothing, or made to perform tricks for audiences. With no Igor having the heart [2] to take it from her, the child was allowed to keep Free Willy, who lived for five healthy years in her family’s pigeon loft and eventually passed away from natural causes after a battle with another fighting cock. The child went on to write a well-acclaimed children’s book, The Willy that Would Be Free, which was, necessarily, a pop-up book.

[1] where an ordinary working class child CAN form a magical bond with a horse, in the form of a pie, labeled as beef.

[2] ha

Reverse Robins // Damian, Jason, and Dick at least

Flame-faced Tanager (Tangara parzudakii), family Thraupidae, order Passeriformes, Colombia

photograph by @jainymariak

This is part of a series, read these first! (pt 1) (pt 2) (pt 3) (pt 4)(pt 5) (pt 6)

HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES part 7 - man of action

this is part of the Watson's sketchbook series!

(slight nsfw under the cut)

More slight nsfw under the cut bc I couldn’t stop drawing last night, I hate them (affectionate) for monopolizing my entire brain and being

"But helping poor people should be voluntary."

And even when it is, people still have a problem with it.

I went back and did some digging, because it occured to me that I didn't know the date reference of this story and, sadly, there are way too many stories about school lunch debt that they're easy to mix up.

This particular story was from July 2019 (I reblogged it Sept 2022).

There was a relevant update within a week of the scandal: public outrage was swift, the embarrassed school board redacted the outrageous allusions to indebted students ending up in foster care, and it accepted the CEO's $20k donation.

It doesnt change the fact that the very concept of "school lunch debt" is disturbing and inhumane (and there are still stories about children...with lunch debt...). And clearly, the district changed it's tone because it didn't like the bad PR. But figured it was helpful to have more info and context.

Here are some of the relevant sources; each offer bits of info unique to each specific source:

1) "Pennsylvania school district turns down local businessman’s offer to pay off student lunch debts"

2) "Pennsylvania district sorry it warned that lunch debt could lead to foster care, accepts $22K donation"

3) "Pa. School District Reverses Course And Will Now Accept Donations To Cover Lunch Debt"

4) "Pennsylvania school lunch debt furor ends with an apology and an announcement: free lunch for all"

Remember: Public outrage can and does solve problems.

Queen of the Dead part 2, 27

See hi-res version here: patreon.com/posts/102443112

Updating every Tuesday and Thursday Chapter 7: Epilogue of Lone Emmet and Cub AU !

// Previous Chapters //

Chapter 7: Epilogue  First {{ Prev { Page 6 } Next

@thepersonaking56 We're about to find out!

Zora gets to be Balto? Does this comes with the well-earned retirement in Pokemon!Cleveland?

[...]

Another Update Regarding "No Fandom" tags

AO3 Tag Wranglers recently began testing processes for updating canonical tags (tags that appear in the autocomplete and the filters) that don’t belong to any particular fandom (commonly known as No Fandom tags). We have already begun implementing some of the decisions made during the earliest discussions. By the time this post is published, you may have already noticed some changes we have made.  Several canonical tags are slated to be created or renamed, and we will also be adjusting the subtag and metatag relationships between some tags to better aid Archive users in filtering.  Please keep in mind that many of these changes are large and require a lot of work to identify and attach relevant tags, so it will likely take some time to complete. We ask that you please be patient with us while we work! While we will not be detailing every change we make under the new process, we will be making periodic posts with updates on those changes we believe are most likely to prove helpful for users looking to tag or filter works with the new or revised tags and to avoid confusion as to why changes are being made. 

"The unit voted UNANIMOUSLY - with 100% participation - to authorize a strike if management does not reach a fair new contract before their current agreement expires this Friday, April 19."

Southern Screamer (Chauna torquata), family Anhimidae, order Anseriformes, found in wetlands in central South America

photograph by Martin Lammertink, Phillipe Wolfer, Luiz Carlos Ramassotti

Also, there is a reason they are called 'screamers' in English. They are *loud*.