THE QUOTES 😭😭😭

New Sketch-a-wish illustration, voted by my wonderful Patreons for January!

Featuring Shin and Mina from The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh! I absolutely ADORE this book, and was happily re-listening to it while I worked on this piece! There’s a funny quip about this scene intending to be where the ‘land meets the sea’, and instead is described where the 'mountain meets the sky’. But as Mina and Shin respectfully represent land and sea, I managed to squeeze all four in here, with a sea-like sky!

Ugh the composition is just so *good*. The color story, the movement, the angle. Gorgeous.

This is not a drill. Our new Community Guidelines are here. 

We recently introduced Community Labels to give everyone more control over their dashboard experience. With this new feature, you can adjust your feed to your preferred comfort level by setting the types of content you want to see. It was our first step toward a more open Tumblr. 

Today, we’re taking the next step: We now welcome a broader range of expression, creativity, and art on Tumblr, including content depicting the human form (yes, that includes the naked human form).

So, even if your creations contain nudity, mature subject matter, or sexual themes, you can now share them on Tumblr using the appropriate Community Label so that everyone remains in control of the types of content they see on their dash. 

We have updated our Community Guidelines to reflect these changes; the rest of our content policies remain the same: We still don’t allow hate, spam, violent threats, or anything illegal, and visual depictions of sexually explicit acts remain off-limits on Tumblr (if you want to know more about that, our CEO Matt recently explained why it’s not feasible for us to safely and successfully support porn communities at this time). If you come across these types of content, please continue to report them to us.

Similarly, if you come across content on Tumblr that doesn’t appear to be appropriately labeled, please let us know. This is how we’ll work together to create safer spaces for everyone on Tumblr, whatever their interests and needs. 

We hope this shift creates more room for artistic expression to flourish on Tumblr while empowering each of you to craft your own experience and safely explore and discover the things you love.

TITS ARE BACK ON THE MENU BOYS

(and girls and folks who don’t prefer gendered labels)

Alecto the Ninth wild theory

There’s been a lot of wild theories about Alecto the Ninth (the book and the character) being thrown around, and I’d like to throw my own theory hat into the ring.

At the end of HtN, Mercymorn vaporizes John. And yet he comes back, completely unscathed, after about a minute. He tells Augustine that he can’t be killed, at all, period. John is actually immortal.

Obviously this can’t be true, simply for plot reasons: if John can never die, then there’s not much point to the third book. In order to have a remotely interesting plot, your main villain must be defeatable. 

We know that Alecto is John’s weakness, somehow. Otherwise he wouldn’t have entombed her on the Ninth. But why is he so afraid of her? Is it because he pissed her off so bad that he’s afraid of her revenge? Or is it because Alecto is his weakness?

I propose that John can only die if Alecto dies. His life is tied to hers. (And yes, Alecto is often described as dead, but she also wakes up, so she’s either not really dead or not that dead.)

There’s a common fairytale trope that the villain has hidden his heart in a secret location (sometimes an object inside of an object inside of an object etc.) and is therefore ‘immortal’ unless his hidden heart is destroyed. It shows up in the Russian fairytale Koschei the Deathless. The horcruxes in Harry Potter are a version of this trope as well. And Muir likes fairytales. She’s already written her own Sleeping Beauty spin-off with Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower.

Is Alecto John’s heart? When John says that he cannot die, is that because he assumes that Alecto will always be safe and entombed in the Ninth? John’s perception of Alecto’s security is his blindspot; despite Harrow presenting excellent evidence that she broke into the Tomb, John refuses to believe her on principal. 

If Alecto’s death equals John’s death… That could be a very interesting pickle for our heroes to solve.

cool cool got this one right too

So on her Reddit AMA, Muir said that Alecto the Ninth would feature a heist “undertaken by idiots”. Assuming this is performed by only the living characters (which is actually a big assumption since death doesn’t seem to prevent most activities in this series), who are the biggest idiots in the books?

GIDEON AND IANTHE. Dumbasses both of them. 

What if Gideon and Ianthe are forced to team up for the shared goal of rescuing Harrow? 

Like, how amazing would it be if Ianthe and Gideon had to set aside all their loathing and animosity to rescue the one person in the universe who they both like?

See, I assumed at first that said heist would be performed by BoE dumbos, but then Camilla would be involved and Camilla Hect is the opposite of idiot.

So it has to be Ianthe and Gideon. I so badly want to read about the terrible and reluctant adventures of Gideon Nav and Ianthe “The Worst” Tridentarius.

NONA SPOILERS

Okay no one on Tumblr that I've seen has been talking about the wine and cheese thing, but that means no one is reflecting on the absolute weapons-grade hilarity of Boris Johnson trying to inchworm his way out of trouble by claiming that he didn't know about it

Like... that wine and cheese party was the Downing Street works Christmas do. Not just any old social, the Christmas social. There were invitations. There was music. Every single worker in Downing Street was invited, even Debbie from accounts. People who didn't work there but were important to the government got invited.

And Boris is therefore claiming that all his mates got together and had a party and DIDN'T INVITE HIM.

Not only that, but they deliberately kept it a secret from him, because no one wanted him there to ruin the party because no one likes him, and I just...

The key difference between Johnson and Trump always came down to this: Johnson wants to be liked. He genuinely does. Trump wanted to be respected and feared and obeyed, he wanted to be seen as powerful and suave and cool. But he didn't care about how liked he was. Johnson, though, really fucking does. He's a deeply pathetic little twat, and he wants people to like him.

So, his choices currently are

His popularity is now nosediving in the polls, and it really cannot be stated how much that will be burning him.

Also, pro-Brexit Tories are even pissed off with him now. Which is a bit like someone buying a cake called a pus cake with pictures of pus all over the box and a warning sign that says This Cake Contains Pus and Other Bodily Fluids, and then crying because when they tried to eat the pus cake they found it was filled with pus. But also really funny.

Anyway, I'm placing the bet now: we will see a vote of no confidence, OR he'll jump before he has to experience that (because it would kill him), and our next PM will be Rishi Sunak

And don't forget

THEY HAD THIS PARTY IN THE HOUSE HE LIVES IN!

He's trying to claim that all his friends and colleagues hosted a party IN THE HOUSE HE LIVES IN while he was upstairs apparently totally oblivious!

He really thinks we're that stupid to believe that a party could be happening literally TWO FLOORS BELOW him and he not know?

Omg omg I forgot that part and you are so right

They had a secret Christmas party that was so big that they were sending out invites to non government members which they didn't want him at, so they... what, had his mistress drug him with hefty amounts of antihistamines? He went out for the evening (also illegal at the time) and they partied hard on cheese and wine for precisely two hours and 46 minutes, then everyone went silent and snuck out when he came back?

A whole team of cleaners had to tiptoe about for four hours so they wouldn't wake up the clown upstairs.

What a cover story.

Okay well this story has... Wow.

So, let's update for those who don't know. Bear with me, I may get a couple of dates slightly wrong. First, shout out to the incredible investigative journalism and absolutely chessmaster-level shrewdness of Pippa Crerar for both digging up this story and for picking precisely the right moments to release it, morsel by morsel, to bring down Boris Johnson and possibly the whole damn government.

So after Johnson claimed he didn't know about it, then the Mirror published photos showing he was there and hosted a quiz. So, undeniable, Boris was at the Christmas party.

The Metropolitan Police declare that, even though they are investigating and fining people up to £12,000 a pop for lockdown parties, and doing so is literally their job, they will not investigate the government because "there isn't enough evidence". ACAB etc

Then, the Guardian reveals photos of Boris Johnson, his mistress, and Dominic Cummings eating cheese and drinking wine in the sun (with others around them) in the Downing Street garden, not allowed at the time (we were literally not allowed to leave home at the time). That day, Matt Hancock urges people not to have cheese and wine parties in their own gardens in spite of the nice May weather.

Then the Mirror reveals that there was actually another whole ass party - in May 2020, where 30 gathered in the garden of Downing Street (at the time we were not allowed more than 2 households meeting outside). Boris denies that it was a party, and claims it was merely a weirdly well catered work event that included his gin-drinking mistress and baby for some reason.

Then, the invites to the party were leaked by ITV. Turns out, 100 people were invited "to make the most of the lovely weather." It also told attendees to "bring their own booze."

Then an inquiry begins, carried out by Sue Gray. She is in fact a member of Number 10 staff, but no idea how independent she'll actually be one way or the other. Either way, the police are still literally refusing to investigate so lmao that's what we've got. She did get Damien Green fired for that porn thing, though, so that's encouraging.

Then this week, Johnson goes on Prime Minister's Questions. He sort of apologises, and claims that he was only there for 25 minutes but implies he then left because it felt more like an illegal social than the work event he was expecting, which is interesting, since his mistress was necking gin next to him the whole time. He should have just asked her, like. She could have clarified.

Then the Times reveals a source at the party who says that no, Boris stayed WAAAYYYY longer and spent his time wandering around and 'gladhanding' people (side note, posh people have weird words).

Then yesterday, even though we now have evidence and a confession of criminality, the Met Police announce that they will not investigate unless/until the Gray Inquiry finds evidence of criminality, which is just...an astonishingly open display of corruption, really. A real quiet-part-loud moment.

THEN, within hours, it's revealed that there were ANOTHER TWO PARTIES, except... Okay you're going to want to sit down, because shit hit the fan yesterday.

These two parties happened on the day of Prince Philip's funeral last year, aka Put Philip In The Floor Day. At the time, restrictions meant just 30 people could attend that funeral.

Which means, the Telegraph ran this headline and image:

I know we all hate the royals on Tumblr, but you have to understand just how hard that headline, and that image, and that message, hits British society. The Queen, beloved monarch, "forced to grieve alone" while the government danced and drank the night away. You cannot imagine how much power that image holds. You cannot begin to imagine the social power of it.

Boris Johnson can. He was polling only one point above Theresa May's all time low within the hour. That is a devastating popularity drop for the man who needs to be loved, who came to power on a cult of personality.

So, he went on PMQs again, to apologise to Lizzie Two. It's a really funny apology because he kind of can't apologise without admitting it and there's an enquiry going on so it's real vague, but he does cop to the parties on Put Philip In The Floor Day. Keir Starmer, in a rare display of actually providing some opposition, put the boot in quite nicely:

Which brings us to today! How is the Prime Minister coping with the situation?

Well, according to a leak from the Independent, he literally spent today working out which senior officials he can force to resign and take the blame in order to save himself in a move that he, a grown man who has fathered six or possibly seven children who is Prime Minister of the country, is without irony calling, and I am not making this up...

Operation Save Big Dog.

Big Dog is him. He is Big Dog. He has called himself Big Dog. He chose to call himself Big Dog.

Except, the Independent leaked it, as I say, so now he looks EVEN WORSE.

The Mirror's front page for tomorrow is revealed.

They have a photo of a wine fridge (capable of holding up to 34 bottles of wine) being delivered to Number 10.

Because, they reveal, these parties were not special events only.

Downing Street has been holding what they called Wine Time Fridays every week during the pandemic. They used to hold them before as well; but apparently, they've been particularly popular during lockdown.

Current polling as of 14th January 2022:

Labour 41%

Tories 27%

Those figures would translate to the Tories losing over 126 seats. Labour's largest lead since Tony Blair.

Side note to finish off for now:

Interesting how we now know a good 100 people who was at those parties, complete with photos, and yet Rishi Sunak is not in any of them. One might almost call it suspicious. And wonder at who the main source is.

HOO BOY THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN THIS WEEK LADS

I will try to keep this concise, and I will put in a Read More because fuck this is like... metres of political intrigue. Although first, quick housekeeping because I’m fed up of seeing some stuff turning up in the notes:

With that out of the way, it’s the 20th January 2022, let’s watch the elephant stand on a ball!

Earlier This Week

Let’s check the polls, after the fun of last week!

70% think he’s lying about the May 20th party, 63% think he should resign, 80% think he has not been honest, and 81% think the ‘work event’ that Big Dog described was unacceptable anyway.

But, how does that translate to politics? Well! The Police and Crime Bill is a monstrous piece of fascist legislation that the Tories are currently trying to get passed. This week it passed to the House of Lords. This would normally have been a very straightforward run through to the Queen to sign off, but LOL SOME PEOPLE ARE VERY BITTER ABOUT THE CHEESE AND WINE because instead the Lords have literally thrown out three of the worst elements.

Yes, you read that right. That Bill we’ve all been terrified about?

The Lords have rejected:

And then, just to rub salt in the wound, they approved two non-Tory amendments, including making misogyny a hate crime. In practice, those two amendments will now go back to the Commons to be debated more, but those three central pillars up there are just gone now. The Lords described the proposals  as “draconian”, “a wider assault on our democracy”, and “reminiscent of Cold War Eastern Bloc police states”.

Never thought I’d see the day...

So, Boris the Big Dog realises he’s in serious trouble now, because that means that even MPs who supported him now hate him because his actions are costing them the fascist laws they wanted to put in place. So he has a meeting with the one Tory you can absolutely count on to blindly and incompetently support Boris Johnson regardless of literally anything he ever does - enter, Nadine Dorres.

She suggests a zippy new ploy. he needs to shore up support from the backbenchers if he’s to survive it, so she suggests he give them everything they’ve been asking for like a gift wrapped Christmas gift of shit, and they call it Operation Red Meat, because neither of them is bright enough to consider not naming their illicit backroom plans to let them go undetected, and also, they learned nothing at all from Operation Save Big Dog. Here’s the problem: Tory backbenchers are fucking lunatics. Like, this is your mad Tory uncle who thought the highlight of 2021 was that we put a picture of a crown on beer glasses again TAKE THAT EUROPE. So what bones did Big Dog throw these people?

Except cutting the BBC alienates a chunk of the core Tory votership, which is old people.

(Remember Ghana, it’s going to be relevant in a sec)

And, it turns out, while the BBC has been very effectively muzzled by the Tories, if you then try to take away their funding anyway... they just might remember they have teeth after all.

THE CIRCUS CONTINUES, let’s see some acrobats!

“If you want to see hell, I’ll go with you”

Commission for @yeopsmith 💖 inspired by Umineko

fuck me right in the feels, why don’t you