gmornin yall

The card deck company has been taken to court by a local self-appointed guardian of public morality, who insists that despite of no laws being broken in the creation of the deck, such lewdness should nonetheless be deemed illegal. He does not care that the models were paid well for their portraits and gave their full consent to their use, nor that they are in fact satisfied with getting free advertisement from them. He does not care about the rights nor consent of sex workers, he simply wants the cards gone.

The judge eventually deems that the cards are indeed too indecent for public sale and distribution, and the artist who designed the cards agrees to re-draw them according to the limitations dictated by the court (which sadly include prohibiting the aforementioned impressively flexible pose), on the grounds that no additional limitations are given retroactively.

It takes a year for a new card deck to be drawn and go into print, and it doesn't take long before the same people are in the courthouse again. This time the Defender Of Public Modesty is suing the card print company for personal slander, as every single drawing in the new art of the corrected deck features a man who looks unmistakably like himself, harrying and bothering the ladies of the previous deck portraits, whether by judging skirt lengths with a measuring tape, covering an exposed bosom with a folding fan, or placing a tablecloth over the infamously impressive no-knickers-hand-stand.

The Morality Warrior is enraged by this distribution of slanderous images of himself interacting with any women of questionable repute. The judge agrees that drawing an entire series of portraits of this guy harrassing these women does count as spreading false accusations of him, and agrees that the second deck should also be taken out of rotation. The artist who drew both decks consents to making a third version with the same conditions as before: no additional retroactive rules. No depictions of women in lewd poses, and no depictions of the man who sued them posing with sex workers.

The third deck is once again taken to court, as it depicts the exact same uncensored themes, outfits and poses as the first deck, except this time instead of the local Ladies Of Occupation, every card instead depicts the Public Morale Defender. The print company had to hire a trapeze artist from a passing circus to pose as reference for the most famous subject, as no other man could be found who could do a hand stand like that.

KANAYA: The Collection And Mixture Of Genetic Material That Is Processed Through The Mother Grub Into Millions Of Eggs

LAIOS: Wow!! Has anyone ever tried adding non-troll DNA to the slurry?

ROSE: I understand you're a student of the dark arts, Marcille.

MARCILLE: Hey, they're only called that because of short-sighted elven laws! Magic is just magic.

ROSE: Oh trust me, I couldn't agree more. In fact, I may have dabbled once or twice in the practice of forbidden majyyks myself. Have you ever seen the birth of a universe?

MARCILLE: N-No?

ROSE: Would you like to?

JANE: --and then you whisk until the egg forms peaks when you lift it up, like this see?

SENSHI: Mm mmm.

JANE: But the real chef's secret to a meringue is this, my patented Crockercorp Lemonator Concentrate. The essence of 10,000 lemons in a single drop!

SENSHI: That would pair very well with living armor, perhaps in a soup made of dragon bone broth...

JOHN: i like your cat! she gets annoyed when i stop scratching her chin haha.

MARCILLE: That's weird... Usually Izutsumi only lets girls pet her...

TEREZI: SO HOW D1D YOU TWO M33T 4NYW4Y? >:]

CHILCHUCK: Online dating. We matched on Fapr.

Guy tied up in chair: uh…theres just one guy over there.

Mafia boss: Yeah. That’s Lil’ Tony. He’s got one of dem conditions where he’s got multiple mooks n’ his head. But when Big Tony fronts you’re gonna be in big trouble.

Gladly!

A bit more complicated, but sure!

this book is out now!!! it's a short read, less than 200 pages, and it's SO good. i literally had to pause halfway through just to send the author a message about how much i liked it. definitely leans more utopian than scientific, but that makes sense given the format, and i think it has a lot of good things to say.

Pretty much, my parents are doctors. We lived in the UK for a while, and my dad has had a Black trainee before, and I’d assume both of them have had the health and lives of Black patients in their hands before*… but both of them are comfortable with saying the N word. Or at least were before I confronted them about it.

Today dad made a joke about it without using it today, and I gave him the silent treatment for that. He repeatedly confronted me about it without me wanting to, eventually violently I called him a snowflake, and he repeatedly started calling me the n-word and a snowflake to prove a point that I’m a snowflake.

These guys have had the lives and trust of Black people in their hands before. Maybe I shouldn’t even be sending this ask, but I have no clue what to make of this. And it’s not like I’m old enough to cut them off either.

And he’s threatening me as I type this with “breaking his trust”.

Well first, I'm sorry that he treated you that way. You didn't deserve that, no matter what you did.

That's not a liberal racist. At all. Nothing liberal about casually tossing around the n word. And if he's willing to treat YOU like that- his own kid- with that word, it goes to show how little he cares about those Black patients he has. Because to him, the n word is a way to show how much less he perceives the person he's talking to, and that includes all of us. These are doctors who we have to trust our lives with 😅 so much for "broken trust".

I'm going to be honest, if you're not willing to just have an all out fight about it (I was a crashout as a child, he'd have been called every insult under the sun) your best bet is to keep educating yourself, and make steps to eventually separate from these people when you're grown. "Why are you reading that book" because I don't think saying the n word or treating Black people poorly is okay, and I don't want to be like that. "You're a snowflake!" And you're being a racist, and I'm not having this discussion anymore.

If there's a safer place for you to spend your time, maybe spend more time there. If you're at home, and you don't feel safe talking about things, then don't. You don't have to fight, but you don't have to just accept the behavior as inevitable or unchangeable. You actively reinforce your mindset against it. You do what you have the power to do, rather than nothing at all. Maybe one day, when y'all are calmer, just ask him outright- how can you say that word, knowing there are Black people who trust you with their lives? Just asking is enough to shake the foundation.

So, if any trans men are being told about this, it’s not true!! Smoking will not change your voice, at least not until you’re about forty years down the line and you’ve already irreparably destroyed your lungs and throat and mouth and pretty much every other organ in your body. When you hear heavy smokers with deeper, scratchier voices it is literally because their vocal cords have been ruined. This is not a passive effect of smoking, it is a very very damaging one!

It’s simply not worth it! There will be no meaningful changes except terrible ones. Voice training will do a lot more for you than cigarettes will, I promise that the people urging you to start smoking as a voice training method do not have your best interests at heart!

(And you know what, this also goes for not eating due to the idea that starving yourself will decrease your chest size. Like with smoking, there will be no meaningful changes except terrible ones. Your body is worth so much more than that and there will always be healthier alternatives!)

(Btw, afaik smoking only has this effect on estrogen from HRT. Estrogen that AFAB bodies produce naturally is not affected, so smoking is still bad for trans men)

I think also in that conversation, I had a couple people tell me that the book The Easy Way to Quit Smoking is, despite the gimmicky title, genuinely helpful.

If quitting for yourself seems too abstract and it’s hard to care, think about everyone around you. Someone with asthma or migraines will breathe easier if they’re not risking an attack from standing near you.

Lastly, some queer history: a 90’s tobacco marketing campaign that targeted gay men was literally called Project SCUM. That’s what they think of us. Don’t give them your money.

He’ll make you bread

*(people keep poiinting out that sans and stan won who are not skinny suit wearers. i am not saying they did not win. i'm saying it's the common stereotype of what a tumblr sexyman is. sans and stan winning only further proves my point that senshi can win)

@watchanddream Sure! This got a bit lengthier than I intended, but I wanted to try and be thorough.

Put far too simply, xenia is the practice of hospitality, but it's also a ritual and in a sense a contract between guest and host. When a stranger arrives at your doorstep, you're expected to feed them and give them a gift as the host. Typically, you're not even supposed to ask them their name until they've finished their meal. Once you've done this as the host, the guest is now expected to share stories and information about themselves, and not burden you or your household. Typically, people focus on how hosts violate xenia, but guests can also violate xenia.

This is called a guest-friendship, and once it's established, you are expected to offer the same to your host should they ever visit. It's a ritual of hospitality, yes, but it's also used to establish alliances and can be passed down through generations. For example, in the Iliad, when Glaucus and Diomedes discover that their grandparents were guest-friends, they decide not to fight, but rather exchange armor.

Theoxeny is a common story you see in myth where a god (typically Zeus) disguises themselves as a mortal and requests to be hosted by someone. Should the host follow the rules of xenia, they'll be rewarded, but if they fail, they'll be punished or killed.

This is important to the Odyssey, as it comes up multiple times, but in particular, the cyclops, and the suitors. In both these instances, Odysseus arrives disguised and gives a false name, the practices of xenia are failed, and Odysseus reveals himself and punishes the one that failed to follow xenia. The suitors in particular fail xenia, as they both fail as hosts, AND as guests, for burdening Odysseus's household.

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.