I’ll never understand why anthropomorphic animal cartoons like Robin Hood and Zootopia will go to the trouble of creating character designs that are meant to be understood as “attractive” or even “sexy” to the human audience but explicitly avoid showing interspecies romances between anthropomorphic animals. Why is THAT weird but, like, trying to make rabbits recognizably sexy-coded to humans isn’t?

Sometimes, sure, but why was Maid Marian a fox in Robin Hood? There wasn’t anything particularly “foxlike” about her personality, and it would make more sense for her to be a lion. They made her a fox only because Robin was a fox and making her something else would be “weird”, but I don’t think the wolf cop or the chicken maid or the lion prince were actually meant to represent race.

The best inter species couple is Kermit and Miss Piggy as the Cratchits in A Muppet Christmas Carol, because all their sons are frogs and all their daughters are pigs, as God clearly intended.

there are only two genders: frog and pig

I’ve pointed out to my friends that the fact that Kermit and Miss Piggy’s kids are like that means either

1) they reproduce asexually and the children are clones of each parent OR

2) Kermit and Miss Piggy are members of the same sexually dimorphic species, hence the split between their male and female children

yes I have spent too long running about potential muppet biology

oh god

Third option, when they want kids they get some fabric and make one, and hope a Hand inhabits it

Do you think there’s a ritual for inviting An Inhabiting Hand to possess the empty husk of your muppet baby?

Just wanted to show u guys that in Muppets Most Wanted, Piggy fantasizes about her and Kermit having babies and this is what they look like

So do with that what you will

Recall that in The Great Muppet Caper, Kermit and Fozzie are brothers. And this was their dad (right):

Thank you for specifying, which one of the two individuals in the picture was the dad haha

I, for one, think Shrek handled interspecies coupling the best. By this I am of course talking about the Dronkeys.

In season 3 of BoJack Horseman, we learn Diane (middle) has been impregnated by Mr. Peanutbutter (left). The fetuses are confirmed to be puppies.

This is the worst addition to this post

I am reminded of Treasure Planet.

In which Captain Amelia (left), an extra terrestrial anthropomorphic cat, had hybrid babies with Doctor Doppler (middle), an extra terrestrial anthropomorphic dog, whom also gave birth to the babies

I always thought that in muppet movies like muppet Christmas Carol the characters are played by the muppets (so kermit is acting and playing the role of Bob rather than being him) so the kids in that film would just be other acting muppets right?

Or is that just something my brain made up?

Last time I saw this post (YESTERDAY) it stopped at the second Eggman

Last time I saw this

post (YESTERDAY) it stopped at

the second Eggman

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

anyone in this thread smoke weed

In Leo the Lion (2005) a lion and elephant have the most cursed hybrid children and I think yall should see them

(also Matt Mercer voices the villain, Maximus Elefante and I think that’s very important)

I think that what they are talking about is perfectly clear.

pop culture intertextuality is just so damn *fascinating*

today a parody movie (50 shades of black) comes out, based on the 50 shades of grey movie, which was based on the 50 shades book, which was based on twilight, which was somewhat based on interview with the vampire (which anne rice based on an earlier short story she wrote), which was based on Dracula and other vampire stories, which originally came from Dr. John Polidori’s The Vampyre (even though Vampires were a thing in folk tales before then, he was the one who made them all classy, etc.)

so really, like so many things, this is all Lord Byron’s fault.

It is kinda funny how two different staples of the horror genre (the vampire and the mad scientist/monster combo) both have their origins in the horrifying experience of being trapped in a cabin with Lord Byron.

Computer programming comes from the horrifying fear of your daughter ending up a poet like her father, Lord Byron

Oliver then proceeded to detail how with $50 and knowledge of the law he was able to successfully apply online to create a debt buying company named “Central Asset Recovery Professionals,” or as Oliver put it, “CARP” named after “a bottom-feeding fish.”

After setting up a rudimentary website for CARP, the satirical, but still real company was offered a $15 million package of medical debt for $60,000.

Oliver explained that the debt was out of statute, which means it is the kind of debt that a collector can only continue to collect, but not sue the debtor for.

Then, instead of chasing down the 9,000 debtors in the debt package as a normal collection agency would, Oliver decided to stage the largest one-time giveaway in television history and work with the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt to forgive the $15 million with no consequences for the debtors.

Okay but now I know what I want to do of I get rich?

You dont have to be rich to do a bit of this actually

RIP Medical Debt is a charity (and therefore takes donations). They buy the rights to medical debt and then forgive them. So far they’ve forgiven over 1B in medical debt.

So a little ray of hope for someone out there today.

Donating $10 buys $1,000 of medical debt. This is real, it works, and we’ve done it ourselves. You can too.

It has come to my attention that some of you have not actually seen the music video for Ghengis Khan by Miike Snow so I’ve taken it on myself to end your ignorance of this piece of cinema

The greatest cinematic experience of 2016, weren’t you watching?

AND a race one since the most affected regions will be Africa, Asia and Oceania

as a friend pointed out, this headline makes it sound like supply will be dwindling. supply is fine. people will be *priced out*.

this is fucking MURDER.

insulin has been mass produced (from animal extracts) since -1923-. slow acting insulin has existed since the ‘50s, and ‘human’ genetically engineered insulin (derived from E. coli bacteria) has existed since 1982.

insulin treatment for diabetes is not some new or ‘unproven’ treatment. according to beyondtype1, “Humalog rapid-acting insulin came on to the market with a list price of $21 a vial in 1997.” adjusting for inflation, a vial these days should cost about $34 at most. instead, it costs over $300. there is NO reason for it to be steadily gaining in price to the point that diabetics are unable to afford their lifesaving medication, other than the sheer inhuman greed of pharmaceutical manufacturers.

let me reiterate: life without insulin (for Type 1 diabetics in particular) is a slow and painful death sentence. the ability to treat diabetes is a relatively modern phenomenon that has allowed countless people to live full, healthy lives. we should be expanding full covereage and access to insulin to diabetics the world over, and it should be FREE.

Have y’all heard about Open Insulin Foundation?

“ We’re a team of biohackers with a variety of backgrounds, and skills, and relationships to insulin and diabetes from many cities and countries around the world, including Oakland, California; Baltimore, Maryland; Paraiba, Brazil; Dakar, Senegal; Yaounde, Cameroon; and Puerto Rico. We’re working to develop the first practical, small-scale, community-centered model for insulin production to make insulin accessible to all. We envision a world in which communities in need have local sources of safe, affordable, high-quality insulin, and where people living with diabetes and their communities can own and govern the organizations that produce the medicine they depend on to survive. 

What We Do

We are creating an open-source (freely available) model for insulin production that centers on sustainable, small-scale manufacturing and open-source alternatives to production. We are developing protocols to produce short-acting (lispro) and long-acting (glargine) insulin, working on developing open-hardware equivalents to traditional production equipment, are researching sustainable regulation pathways to bring our insulin to the public, and are building capacities for local, small-scale manufacturing.

How Do I Participate?

Our work would not be possible without the support of volunteers, interns, and community advisors. We welcome people of all backgrounds from all over the world to bring their enthusiasm, time, connections, and experiences, both in life and in work. Our volunteers promote us on social media, build equipment, run experiments, write reports and blog posts, facilitate meetings, connect with other organizations and groups, meet with experts in the field, run virtual events, and contribute in designing tools, resources, and methods of all sorts.

Potential Partners

We welcome collaboration with other groups that share our mission―community labs, academic institutions, patient advocacy groups, and NGOs.

Donate

Your donation will help us get closer to our goal. With a healthy financial situation, we can pay for lab supplies, acquire lab equipment, recruit scientists, and pay for consultation fees for regulation and manufacturing experts.”

Open Insulin Foundation

fuck a zodiac sign, i want to know if you were a demon what kind of horns would you have

egyptian singer amira selim sings ancient egyptian verses at the pharaoh’s golden parade, in which the mummies of egypt’s ancient royalty were transported to their new home. 3rd April 2021.

this a hymn to the goddess isis btw

reblog if its friday and you made it

It’s INSANE to me how controversial romance novels are. Romance novels. Like, being openly a fan of them immediately opens you up to people constantly coming at you like “but don’t you think it’s ~limiting- and ~juvenile~ to have a genre of books with happy endings for women?”

Like.

No?

Why is it such a big deal to want to read stories where women have sex and then don’t die at the end? Jesus Christ.

Why is the concept of female characters being happy seen as less creative than female characters suffering? (Trust me, creating a world where women win in the end takes a lot more creativity and artistic vision lmfao)

Anyway, literary bros will pry my romance novels with their happy endings from my cold dead fingers.

Or die in the very beginning of the book. But no one calls out James Patterson for writing another formulaic thriller in which a woman is horrifically killed after getting laid and then some man solves her murder. Every. Damn. Time.

But hey, those romance novels where women get happy endings are so limiting, eh?

Real talk: realizing how common it is for female characters to be punished for on-the-page sex with death was a big part of my embracing the romance genre. Once I noticed it I couldn’t unnotice it. It’s everywhere. A woman having sex in literature or non-romance genre fiction is the literary equivalent of a red shirt on Star Trek.

It’s not just the sex thing, though that’s a key element. It’s that, in romance novels, the heroine gets to be cared for the way she normally would care for everyone else. It’s wish fulfillment in that her romantic partner will do emotional labor, spend a great deal of time thinking about her, or sacrifice his desires or fortune or reputation to be with her, or spend days nursing her back to health, or risking his life to save hers. In romance novels, you’ll find men taking care of children, talking about their feelings, putting effort into their appearance—even if they are adorably bad at it. Watch how many romance novel protagonists fall in love with a man who happens to be rich or handsome, but she didn’t give in until his behavior changed and he starts mentoring her, or providing for her, or being gentle toward her, nourishing her, listening to her, appreciating her… I suspect romance novels are looked down upon not for being juvenile formulaic “beach reads” but because they paint a fantasy world that leaves men feeling uncomfortable or even emasculated. But whether you’re a Midwest housewife or a big city CEO, women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty. Great sex they don’t have to die for is also a huge bonus, but the *romance* part of the novel is genuinely more about the woman being appreciated (for her beauty or spunk or intelligence at first, and then for all of her by the end).

“women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected to love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty.”

THANK YOU.

According to the website smartbitchestrashybooks, which analyzes romance novels to a great degree, one common element of the average romance novel is what they call the grovel.  That is, there’s a turning point near the climax of the book where the leading man says, in effect, “I hurt you.  I had my reasons, but they don’t make it right.  I am devastated that I hurt you, and I will do whatever it takes to make it okay again.  Leaving you is completely on the table even though I find the prospect horrific.”

And that’s a very important fantasy.  To have your feelings, your pain, be made so absolutely central to the narrative, to someone else’s world.  You could call it a power fantasy, but I don’t think that’s exactly right.  It’s a significance fantasy.  A romance story is a story in which the woman is the most significant damn thing in the book.

And when you think of it like that, you realize why some people are really, really threatened by it.

“What did you say of me, that I did not deserve? For, though your accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence.”

 "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.“

– Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

Come on, pretty baby, kiss me deadly!

CAROL DANVERS and MARIA RAMBEAU in CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019)

Hospitals are struggling for nurses right now because people are leaving the profession entirely or leaving for temporary travel contract positions that pay well. They have been treated poorly, underpaid for the work they do, and inadequately protected this year, and they’re done.

My brother in law said they’re advertising for a position in his normal unit, offering twice his salary. But they won’t offer him extra to stay after risking his life working in the COVID unit for months, so he’s out. It’s absolutely insulting, and so many industries are going to have a major reckoning coming up.

My father retired early because they refused to hire just one person to help with the work load. They had to hire 5 people to replace him.

This is a common occurrence amongst his retired coffee group.

One lady was a head nurse that ran two floor at her hospital. They wanted her to take on more work. She agreed to do so oy if they gave her a small raise and hired an assistant for her. They refused so she retired early. They had to replace her with 20 people.

You are NOT replaceable!!! They tell you this to make you complacent to their exploration of you.

Fun fact! This sort of reckoning happened after the Black Plague, also! I'm no historian, (and history side of tumblr, please come in with the accuracy) but I did look into the history of the Black Plague for writing purposes, and in that case, it was because there were so few people left that peasants started agitating for better treatment and fairer wages, and because there were so few people who could do the work they had been doing that they were able to gain better wages and better hours. Historically, the labour shortage created by pandemics means a heightened bargaining capacity for workers of all sorts - an if there was ever a time to take advantage of knowing history, it's now. Because the thing is, in these "unprecedented times" there are precedents, and the precedent leans toward workers. During the Black Death, villages emptied, fields were left, and people migrated to find work that paid them better and offered a better way of life. Wages for lower-class workers rose drastically. In Oxfordshire; a plowman who had earned two shillings per week before the plague could command 10 shillings per week afterward. Pay rates for artisans increased, too. In Paris, wages for masons quadrupled between 1351 and 1355.

This isn't to say that the elites just let this happen, either. Laws were passed to limit wage increases, and threats were made, but the workers had economic bargaining power on their side. Labour was in such short supply that employers and landlords had to take what they could get. The people held out - and so can (and should!) YOU.

This was the start of peasant revolts, popular rebellions, and - ultimately, more labour protections, political representation for the lower classes, lower taxes, and an end to serfdom. People could afford to own their own land, the feudal system vanished, and eventually, the Renaissance would rise. In these unprecedented times, there is a precedent, and that precedent is that when workers know their worth, agitate for better and for more, when they hold out and unite, they force the elites to loosen the reigns, giving more power, autonomy, rights, and profits back into the hands of the workers, and with that freedom, society improves.

Know your worth. Know that you have bargaining power. Let's make this pandemic part of the precedent. <3

👆 “Historically, the labour shortage created by pandemics means a heightened bargaining capacity for workers of all sorts - an if there was ever a time to take advantage of knowing history, it's now. Because the thing is, in these "unprecedented times" there are precedents, and the precedent leans toward workers. “

A few years ago I listened to a podcast exactly about how the Black Plague was the catalyst for sweeping social change throughout medieval Europe, and this was something I brought up to my husband when we discussed what the aftermath of Covid would be. Hopefully we'll see the death of modern serfdom.

hey writers if you want to make a metaphor for racism, please maybe remember that racism is literally based on nothing. Africans weren’t enslaved en masse because the Robo-Musa threatened to destroy the world, they were enslaved because it was economically rewarding and politically convenient. If at any point your allegory for racism includes “so <oppressed group> did this major catastrophe and” then you have not only missed the point but you are literally reinforcing the ideas that racism have let racism self-perpetuate (that e.g. black people are naturally dangerous and violent and must be contained or begrudgingly accepted by the Nice White People)

Just a personal note on this, ‘cause I’ve had some folks ask me how orogenes in the Broken Earth trilogy can be an allegory for oppressed groups, given that orogenes actually are dangerous.

I was completely aware of the Unfortunate Implications of orogenes as black people/Jewish people/closeted queer people/neuroatypical people and having Special Powers. That was the point, actually. At the time I was early in THE FIFTH SEASON, I was watching Ferguson unfold, and listening to Darren Wilson’s bullshit about how Mike Brown seemed superhuman (or subhuman) to him.  And the whole time I kept thinking, “So-the-fuck-what if he was a demon? He was still an unarmed 18 year old whom you shot 10 times while he was running away.” From that to stories of doctors assuming black people aren’t capable of feeling pain to the same degree as white people – I was just done with it.  Fucking done.

Because it should not matter if we are big, or dark-skinned, or wearing “villain clothing” like hoodies, or whatever. All that shit’s just an excuse anyway; racist white people are scared of us when we’re small and light-skinned and wearing business suits.  The problem isn’t us. The problem is chickenshit white people and the imaginary monsters they carry around inside them.

And over the course of the Broken Earth trilogy I poked at this notion. The society of the Stillness could at any point choose to accommodate orogenes in a way that is safe for all… but it chooses not to. Orogene parents have no trouble raising orogene kids. Orogenes in communities police each other the same way non-orogenes do – because at the end of the day, they’re all people. Even if some of those people are extraordinary, they can live together if there is respect.

Black people are extraordinary in so many ways. Not superhuman, obvs – but we aren’t white, which is what this society insists upon calling “normal.” We will never be white, and that’s fine. We will never be “ordinary” in the eyes of racists – and we shouldn’t have to pretend otherwise. We shouldn’t have to stoop if we’re naturally tall, or speak softly if we’re naturally deep-voiced, just so that small-minded people will be less afraid in our presence.  Our children shouldn’t have to think and act as if they’re older than they are, just because white people misjudge their ages. The problem isn’t us. And a good, diverse society, one that actually accommodates and respects all of its members, should be able to handle both the ordinary and extraordinary with no trouble.

So: I agree with the OP; don’t reinforce racist notions in your worldbuilding. Or if you do, make sure you interrogate the fuck out of them, and make it clear that the problem is still racists, not race.

Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham’s “A League of Their Own” TV series was picked up for a full season on Amazon Prime!!!

“The Hollywood Reporter noted that the show would ‘begin with the formation of the league in 1943 and follow the Rockford Peaches season to season as they struggle to keep the team alive through close games, injuries, late night bar crawls, sexual awakenings, not crying, and road trips across a rapidly changing United States.’“

I'm sorry... WHAT?!?!

Catastrophize Benedictine

Apathy Crackers

Forgetful Raspberry

Hypersomnic Revels

Mood swing bagel

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria California Roll

Intrusive Thought Salad

Night Terror Fettuccine

Or as I like to call it

Fettuccine Afraido

Dissociation Pizza

Anxiety Cereal.

Fearios.

Scratching Jaffa Cake Cake

Manic Jelly Bean

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun 2nd Season - New key visual. Anime to begin on 17 April 2021.

I've only had my idiot demon children for a day and a half but if anything were to happen to them I would kill everyone in this room and then myself. 😭❤️