But why is a raven like a writing desk? I'm Cat, I'm 19 I post anything that I find vaguely interesting, e.g. fandom stuff, funny shit and god knows what else. yeah
for some reason i’ve always enjoyed seeing bruises, bug bites, paint marks, ink stains on my skin. scars and stretch marks and calluses. scabs and smears of dirt. evidence that i’ve been somewhere and done something. that i’ve lived and grown and experienced. it just makes me feel satisfied in some way.
Today a 16 year old boy was brought into the clinic by his aunt to ‘have the talk’ because his school didn’t teach sex ED and his mother wouldn’t talk to him about sex.
She spent 40 bucks so he could get tested for the first time.
I spent an hour talking to this young boy about sex. I got to have the sex talk with him. I showed him how to properly use a condom and protect himself and his partners. We talked about STDs and pregnancy prevention. We even talked about pubic grooming and ways to avoid razor burn. This poor boy has never had someone talk to him about anything related to the changes his body is going through.
And then we spent 20 minutes talking about consent and how important it is.
Growing up I never, ever had someone talk to me about consent and its importance. I even had sex ED in school!
This shit is important ya’ll.
Planned Parenthood is important
It is the parents’ duty to have “the talk” with their kids, not a government funded organization that murders babies.
First of all fucktruck: I am not a government employee. My wages are not paid by the government.
Second: zero babies have ever been murdered in a planned parenthood.
I didn’t say a god damn word about abortion but you had to get your fucking tighty whiteys in a bunch because an organization that you know nothing about is doing good things for millions of people and you hate it.
Shut your face up about shit you don’t understand you fucking dump truck.
Abortion is murder, just because they’re in the womb doesn’t change the fact you’re killing an innocent human being.
As I said, it’s not a faceless organization’s job to provide sex ed while simultaneously killing unborn children.
Listen up kiddo:
Abortion isn’t murder. Murder is illegal. Abortion is not illegal. IE abortion is not murder.
As i said (and we’ll go with what i said as not total bullshit because it’s obvious you have absolutely no real knowledge when it comes to sex or reproduction and i think we can thank your parents for that) this young man had a single mother that didn’t feel comfortable talking to him about sex. So i did it. I provided medically accurate and up to date information unlike so many parents today.
And by the way, planned parenthood isn’t some shadowy faceless organization.
For example, this is my face. The face i made while reading your stupid ass response.
Get em, Damien
Not that abortion has anything to do with your organization, but it is murder. At just two weeks the baby in the womb can feel the pain of a pin prick, and recoil. Abortion is the murder of an unborn baby. It doesn’t matter if it’s at two weeks, or if it’s seven months along. It’s still murder. It’s murdering a child. It means that that child will never have the chance to grow up, go to school, fall in love, get married, have children of there own, have a job, and so many other things.
Hi, this is damien, the OP and you can literally suck the shit out of my asshole if you think anything you just said is even remotely scientifically accurate.
At two weeks of development it’s barely even considered a pregnancy. It has no muscles, it has no brain, it is literally a clump of cells. And I’m talking like… only a few cells. In some cases it may not have even come out of the Fallopian tube. Since your knowledge of reproductive health seems to be about as developed as this other fuck truck: the Fallopian tube is the tube that connects the uterus to the ovary in which the egg travels to become fertilized.
And on top of how monumentally stupid you sound, you’re also carelessly ignoring the pregnant person. Who may be 12 or 13 years old. Why doesn’t that person get to be a teenager and have a life? Why doesn’t that person get to make their own choices?
How about you keep your shitty ass opinions to yourself.
“Suck the shit out of my asshole”.
Yes. Yes. More.
Plus also, fuck YES consent education. Consent education should be a focus in schools, how to make sure the person you’re with genuinely wants this and isn’t just doing it out of a sense of pressure and obligation. And also so that the person knows THEY can say no, any time, even if you initiated, doesn’t matter. It’s never too late to say no.
You are a guard in a fantasy world. You notice a man in elegant armor kick a chicken in the streets. In your lawful rage, you manage to kill this man in the name of justice. To your dismay, you realize you just killed The Chosen One. You just doomed the world.
In my defense, it was self-defense.
I saw him saunter through town in his expensive, fancy armor, nearly bowling over Granny Fairchild when she didn’t get out of his way fast enough. I didn’t think much of him - no one did, that I knew - but what was I going to do? The man was clearly some sort of lord or higher, and I’m just a guard. Not even a captain or sergeant! Just a normal, everyday run-of-the-mill guard.
In short, there’s nothing special about me. No special training, no special knowledge - unless you count laws, which I memorized - nothing whatsoever.
I didn’t say anything when he demanded prices to be lowered, and forced his “goods” on us. Spoils of adventures, he said. You can’t get them anywhere else. What are we going to do with forty preserved wyvern eyeballs! It’s not something any of us can use. I don’t care how much some wizard in a city we’ve never been would pay for them.
I didn’t say anything when he aggressively flirted with all the women, to the point that little Maria started crying and her brothers looked for sharp objects. Thank the gods that Maria’s wife is so quick-thinking, and got his attention elsewhere! It would have been a very ugly, very deadly brawl, and Maria would have lost her brothers.
I didn’t say anything when he co-opted the blacksmith’s forge to make a few daggers to push on us - because his skill is so legendary, however were we to survive without his priceless daggers? Ahmed was unable to fulfill his orders that day, and will now have to work twice as hard to catch up! And I wanted him to look at my gauntlet, too, because it was starting to look a little warped at the wrist.
But when I saw that man start to kick around Granny Fairchild’s chickens, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer. Those chickens are all she has! Every morning, Granny Fairchild comes to market with a basket of fresh eggs, and we all buy some - even if we don’t need eggs - to make sure she doesn’t go hungry. Like most of us, she refuses handouts and charity, preferring to get by on her own.
“You can’t do that,” I told him, using my sternest voice.
“Do what?” he asked, kicking a hen and sending her scuttling.
“That,” I said. “Kicking chickens. Or any animal. You can’t do that.”
“Who’s going to stop me?” he asked arrogantly. He looked me up and down, mockingly. “You?”
And just to be an ass, he took out his sword and killed one of the chickens right then and there.
Now, killing someone’s animal isn’t necessarily an arrestable offense. You get a fine, you pay it, and you go on your way. Especially something small, like a chicken. A cow, now, or a horse, that’s a different story. But a chicken - no.
But by this point, I was so tired and so fed up with his attitude. Who was he to walk into our village in his fancy, expensive armor and harrass our people? Making our shy girls cry, assaulting our widows and grandmothers, nearly robbing us blind by forcing his “goods” on us in exchange for ours, and putting good people out of work for his barely average daggers? An entitled ass, I tell you.
So I took out my sword and intended to bash him at the back of his head to bring him to his knees. It’s not a very brave act, to attack someone from behind, but you must understand that even then, he was some mighty adventurer while I am a lowly village guard. In a fair fight, I had no chance.
Apparently, I hit him too hard, or just right, because he went down like a sack of potatoes and didn’t get up. I looked him over, then call for our healer. When she arrived, she pronounced him dead and congratulated me.
Imagine that, being congratulated for being a murderer.
Well, we gathered his things and I sent out a report to my sergeant in the next village over, who must have forwarded it to the captain, because the next thing any of us knew, we had an entire garrison marching on us. The captain demanded to see me, and I reluctantly made my way up.
I murdered a lord’s son, I thought. They’re going to arrest me for murdering a lord’s son! There goes my career!
I hadn’t murdered a lord’s son, of course. I did something much worse.
“You killed Adam Draxon, Hero of a Thousand Lands?” the captain demanded. He looked me up and down, much like the man did, but less mocking and more incredulous.
“I never knew his name,” I managed, nearly biting my tongue in two I was stammering so bad.
“He wore the Crest of King Ellifry!” the captain said. “How could you not know?”
“Is that what it was? I thought it was a fat eagle…”
The captain and all his men stared at me for a long moment, where I was certain that time must have stopped, because it lasted an eternity.
“He was on his way to slay the vicious dragon plaguing Balewood Forest! And you killed him!”
“It was an accident!” I protested. “I was trying to arrest him.”
“Arrest him?!” The captain was apoplectic. “You were trying to arrest the Hero of a Thousand Lands? For what? What could he have possibly done to make you arrest him?!”
“He, ah, well, you see… Hm. It was like this…”
“Go on, I’m listening. I’m very eager to hear your reasoning.”
I took a deep breath. “IwasarrestinghimforkillingGrannyFairchild’schicken.”
“What?”
“He killed Granny Fairchild’s chicken,” I said again, slower. I didn’t dare look up. The captain wears some nice boots. Shiny. Tailored. “So I was arresting him.”
“You murdered Adam Draxon, Hero of a Thousand Lands, Defender of the Free People, for killing a chicken?”
“It was an accident!” I protested again. “I was just trying to… subdue… him…”
“And who, pray tell, is going to slay the dragon plaguing Balewood Forest?” the captain asked me scathingly. “You?”
“I can’t kill a dragon!” I said. I’m pretty sure I squeaked, too.
“You killed the Hero of a Thousand Lands,” he told him, sarcasm practically dripping from his voice. “You must be a mighty warrior, so a dragon can’t be too difficult a task for you.”
I stared at him in disbelief for a long moment. In that moment, I saw something. Okay, a lot of things, but mostly the one. I saw fear. Not of me, gods no. The captain was afraid. I had - accidentally or not - killed our only hope against the forces of darkness in our world. Who was going to slay the dragon? Certainly not me; I’d be lucky if I got close to the beast. And certainly not the captain. Really, there was only one person who was capable of such a feat, and he was moldering in an unmarked grave in our village cemetery.
The next few hours went by in a blur. I was given the Hero’s old things - things we had carefully packed away and inventoried to prevent theft - to protect me. I was told some of it had magic, like protection against evil and the like. It looked pretty, but ultimately worthless. What would a shiny ring do against a dragon, except make it envious and eat me for the ring?
Really, what else did I expect? If I had stayed, I would have been hanged for murder, at best. At worst, I would have been drawn and quartered in some public place while my entire family was arrested and enslaved for my crimes. In a way, the captain was saving me. This was a chance to redeem myself - albeit a very small, very dangerous, and very, very stupid chance. But it would keep me from a very public execution, which was generally better.
It’s not like the thought of chucking all of the Hero’s things the minute I got out of sight and running never occurred to me. It did. Numerous times. I thought about it as I lay awake at night. I thought about it as I heard story after story after story of the Dragon of Balewood Forest. But someone had to try, damnit. Someone had to at least try.
I never did get my gauntlet fixed.
When I had finally made it to the dragon - which, by the by, involved talking wolves and a bargain with a witch that I’m pretty sure she now regrets as you can’t exactly extract a dead person’s first born if they’ve never had children - I was tired, and hungry, and terrified out of my wits.
The mountain wasn’t as big as I pictured. It was a large hill, at most, with a shallow cave. I climbed up - a feat, I assure you, that sounds more daunting that it was. I mostly walked, and like Balewood Forest, it was a pleasant walk. And when I reached the mouth of the cave, I mustered all my meager courage to shout my challenge to the Dragon of Balewood Forest.
“H-hello?” I called out. “Anyone home?”
A roar echoed from the cave - a massive sound that had me quaking - and smoke curled out. I felt a blast of heat roll out of the cave.
“Look, I’d just like to talk for a bit,” I said. “If you have time, that is. I can come back tomorrow, if now’s not a good time for you!”
Heroic bravery at it’s finest, I tell you.
I felt an impact that was like being hit by a mountain. I thought at first it must be some sort of cave-in or avalanche, but not. Just dragon. I rolled down the hill a ways, losing the sword and shield almost instantly along with my bearings. I had barely stopped moving when a clawed paw pinned me to the ground, and I was face-to-face with a wall of long, sharp teeth and sulfuric breath.
“Adam Draxon!” the beast roared at me. “You murdered my parents! You have left me an orphan! Do you have anything to say for yourself before I kill you?”
“Um, I’m not Adam Draxon,” I said.
“What?!” the dragon screeched. It pulled back just enough to look at me with one beautiful sapphire eye. Really, if you get the chance to look at a dragon’s eyes, you should.
“I’m not, um, I’m not Adam Draxon,” I repeated. “I’m not anybody.”
The dragon pulled away, glowering at me. “You’re wearing his armor. You’re wearing his Crest!”
“I still think it looks like a fat eagle,” I muttered as I took the Crest off and tossed it aside. “Look, I know you were expecting Adam Draxon, and I’m sorry, but I’m here. So can we talk, please?”
“Where’s Adam Draxon?” the dragon demanded, arching itself up to look bigger. For all the stories I’d ever heard, the dragon was really about the size of a large draft horse. Certainly not the size of a house, like I was told. And it’s scales - while very bright - weren’t exactly what you’d call shiny.
“Um, he’s, uh… well…” How do you explain that the Hero of a Thousand Lands is dead? Especially to someone who wants to cook and eat him? “He, uh, he died.”
The dragon cocked it’s head to look at me with one eye. “Dead? You expect me to believe that the Slayer of a Dozen Dragons and Terror to the Dark is dead?”
“Yeah, I was surprised, too,” I admitted. “It was an accident.”
“Accident?” the dragon roared. “An accident?!”
“Well, how else was he going to die young?”
The dragon lowered itself and stared at me for a long, long, long time. “You don’t smell like you’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“But you don’t smell like you’re telling the truth.”
“It’s… complicated.”
“Tell me.”
I took a deep breath. “I was trying to arrest him. His back was turned, and I hit him too hard with the pommel of my sword.”
“… he’s really dead?”
“He’s really dead.”
“But he killed my parents!”
I walked up and patted the dragon on it’s shoulder. “I know, I’m sorry.”
And that’s how I “defeated” the Dragon of Balewood. He told me his story, and I listened for a while, and when night fell, he invited me to stay with him. A dragon lair is surprisingly clean and comfortable, and we talked most of the night. The dragon - Lorcanthan - was in need of a permanent home. The terrorizing was merely to get Adam Draxon to his location, so he could get revenge for the murder of his parents. There was very little terrorizing, I learned, as Lorcanthan mostly showed up and bothered the horses and maybe burned a field by accident.
That morning, I decided to go to the villages around Balewood Forest. For the better part of a season, I went to each village and spoke with the people. In truth, very little actual damage occurred, and even then, it was mostly by panicking animals. The mayors and headsmen were very reluctant to speak with me about the matter, at first, but slowly listened to what I had to say.
Later, I went to Lorcanthan and had him come with me to the outskirts of Balewood, where the mayors and headmen were waiting. I helped negotiate a deal for them, between the dragon and villagers. And so the Dragon of Balewood went from plague to protector.
Really, that’s how it started.
Afterwards, I went to speak to the witch about the bargain, and she was willing to wait. Being as the bargain was struck when I was under extreme duress, I managed to talk her down to shared custody. We’ll figure out the details when I do have a child, I guess. She sent me to talk to her sister, who was across the country, about a matter involving kidnapping.
That was a horrible, horrible case, where I discovered the the Wicked Sorceress of the North was being blamed for the actions of a vile man. The less said, the better, but when I had settled that matter, word go around.
And when a Horde of Orc Barbarians led by Thorid the Bloodthirsty threatened, I was sent to deal with them. I don’t know how, exactly, it happened, because I had a few drinks with Thorid, but I ended up accidentally challenging his eldest to a duel and - purely by chance, I promise! - killed her. Which made me, by Orc law, Thorid’s heir. Somehow. And second-in-command.
When Thorid died from gangrene from an untreated injury by boar, I became the leader of the Horde of Orc Barbarians.
From there, things got complicated fast. And now I’m the Leader of the Dark Forces, and it’s the eve of war. I sent King Ellifry a letter asking that he meet with me to negotiate this matter, but I haven’t heard back yet. I’d really rather avoid the whole war thing, but honestly, when you actually sit down and listen to the Dark Forces, you learn that there’s a lot of inequality and oppression that really needs to be addressed.
And as a guard sworn to uphold the law, it’s up to me to see that it is addressed.
Never did get my gauntlet fixed.
Are you Terry frickin’ Pratchett?? This is awesome omg
So THIS is what happens when Captain Carrot doesn’t end up in the Ankh Morpork leg of the Trousers of Time.
i’m so done with the way girls in twenties are treated. i’m so done with people who literally create timetable for us. 20- 24 find a guy, 24-26 make him propose to you, 27-29 get married. i’m so done. i’m do not want to get 2 a.m texts from my best friend who is freaking out that she is gonna die alone. i do not want see my 20 years old friend wasting her time on some guys who are not even interested in her. i do not want see us falling for every nice guy who does not look creepy. i do not want to see girls get sad or paranoid just bcos they do not fill in the schedule. you are ok. you should enjoy your life at its fullest and one day you will find 10/10 so do not pursue 6 just because you do not want to be single. it is ok and one day you will find someone. do not split your love with people who does not deserve it. keep it for yourself and when time will come you will know. i know it hurts. i know you wish u could just open part of yourself and release the buzzing love. but not every kind of love is romantic. show it to your family, friends, plants, yourself.
I love Queen because half of their songs are mind-blowing pieces about life and death and love and humanity’s inability to live together without destroying ourselves, and the other half are like “I love my bike”
actually there’s a third kind and it’s called “I’m Freddie Mercury And There’s Nothing You Can Do To Stop Me”
A renowned house of worship in Egypt. The famed Nabataean city in Jordan. A Neolithic settlement in Lebanon. These historic sites, along with thousands of others in the Middle East and North Africa, are currently at risk. The threats they face are numerous: armed conflict, looting, tourist traffic, construction, and more. To highlight the sheer scope of the problem, a team of British researchers have launched a detailed database cataloguing 20,000 archaeological sites at risk, Claire Voon reports for Hyperallergic.
if your girlfriend fucking bans you from talking to certain people; that is a controlling relationship, it’s not healthy, that’s abusive behaviour. if she doesn’t let you have friends who are women, that isn’t right, that’s not normal. if she’s so controlling that it’s getting in the way of you enjoying a social life, that is a big problem.
so let me get this straight: the UK is very pointedly saying ‘please do what you have always done in these situations where a terrorist attack has happened on British Soil and keep the sensitive intelligence we entrusted to you quiet until we give you the go ahead.
and trump’s government has leaked pretty much everything to the press, thus hindering the investigations here to the point where our home sec has had to censor intelligence we’re now giving the US, our closest ally
w o w
okay a lot of people don’t know what i’m talking about, so here’s a link
but the main gist is: trump’s government has leaked to the US press, and thus the world:
- the name of the bomber - the fucking forensic photos from the investigation
these may seem like small things but first off:
- our government didn’t want to name the bomber until thursday/tuesday, so they could continue their investigation without alerting anyone he may have been working with - they also didn’t want the media hanging around his family or his flat, which they ended up doing - they’re the fucking forensic photos of evidence, still covered in blood, is there no such thing as tact
our home sec has been forced to now censor all further intelligence we give to the US on this matter, and has released [what i may call, light heartedly, the most british angry political statement i’ve ever read]
“The British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of information in order to protect operational integrity, the element of surprise. So it is irritating if it gets released from other sources and I have been very clear with our friends that should not happen again.”
so in the past two week slaone, trump’s government has managed to reveal intelligence from israel and the uk, two of their closest political and military allies.
several months ago we had a cat with mysterious skin allergies that we couldn’t find the cause of. he was adopted as a “special needs” cat with the adopters understanding the circumstances
we just got an update and they had decided to get him a full allergy panel to find out what he’s allergic to
