i actually do remember how to draw him

If you're looking for a scene that best captures the complexity and nuance of Shadow the Hedgehog's character, look no further than this scene.

The reason why I love this scene is because he's not just saying these things to hurt Sonic, but more to express the hurt he feels in seeing Sonic take after him.

His facial expressions and the way he speaks (god bless you Keanu Reeves!)are not expressing pure hatred, saditisc revelry, or callous indifference. He's disgusted, dismayed, AND DARE I SAY HURT that Sonic would go down the path that he himself took, and that he would do so despite having so much to lose (i.e. the people he cares about)!

He's not saying "we're not so different you and I", he's saying "I'm disgusted that you would become just like me!"

It really drives home just how deeply the pain, loss, and trauma he experienced 50 years ago affects him, and not only that, he harbours a toxic hatred for himself because of the terrible mistakes that pain inspired him to make, and that he would do ANYTHING TO BE FREE OF IT. And now that hatred extends to Sonic for making the same terrible mistakes that he made!

Never getting over how differently howl's moving castle book and movie treat the scarecrow

I keep hate-reading plague literature from the medieval era, but as depressed as it makes me there is always one historical tidbit that makes me feel a little bittersweet and I like to revisit it. That’s the story of the village of Eyam.

Eyam today is a teeny tiny town of less than a thousand people. It has barely grown since 1665 when its population was around 800.

Where the story starts with Eyam is that in August 1665 the village tailor and his assistant discovered that a bolt of cloth that they had bought from London was infested with rat fleas. A few days later on September 7th the tailor’s assistant George Viccars died from plague.

Back then people didn’t fully understand how disease spread, but they knew in a basic sense that it did spread and that the spread had something to do with the movement of people.

So two religios leaders in the town, Thomas Stanley and William Mompesson, got together and came up with a plan. They would put the entire village of Eyam under quarantine. And they did. For over a year nobody went in and nobody went out.

They put up signs on the edge of town as warning and left money in vinegar filled basins that people from out of town would leave food and supplies by.

Over the 14 months that Eyam was in quarantine 260 out of the 800 residents died of plague. The death toll was high, the cost was great.

However, they did successfully prevent the disease from spreading to the nearby town of Sheffield, even then a much bigger town, and likely saved the lives of thousands of people in the north of England through their sacrifice.

So I really like this story, because it’s a sad story, because it’s also a beautiful story. Instead of fleeing everyone in this one place agreed that they would stay, and they saved thousands of people. They stayed just to save others and I guess it’s one of those good stories about how people have always been people, for better or worse.

It gets better.

Here’s the thing. One third of the residents of Eyam died during their quarantine, but the Black Plague was known to have a NINETY PERCENT death rate. As high as the toll was, it wasn’t as high as it should have been. And a few hundred years later, some historians and doctors got to wondering why.

Fortunately, Eyam is one of those wonderful places that really hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years. Researchers, going to visit, found that many of the current residents were direct descendants of the plague survivors from the 1600s. By doing genetic testing, they learned that a high number of Eyam residents carried a gene that made them immune to the plague. And still do.

And it gets even better than that, because the gene that blocks the Black Plague? Also turns out to block AIDS, and was instrumental in helping to find effective medication for people who have HIV and AIDS in the 21st century.

Here is a lovely, well-produced documentary about Eyam and its disease resistance. It’s a little under an hour. Trigger warning for general disease and epidemic-type stuff, but also, maybe it will help you have some hope in these alarmly uncertain times.

[Image 1: a photo of Eyem’s abbey and graveyard.]

[Image 2: a photo of a stone basin.]

WARNING 18+

I've been seeing a lot of posts about piracy lately and in light of this i do need to say something because I've been seeing a lot of misinformation.

anti-viruses, vpns, ad-blockers- none of these are going to help you here.

the first thing you're going to need is a good solid boat (preferably oak wood). you will also want some cannons and a plank depending on the sort of shenanigans you plan on getting into.

Also! Not once have i seen any of you talking about the importance of citrus fruits and vitamin C. antivirus doesn't prevent scurvy. come on you should know this by now.

this sort of misinformation is wildly dangerous and irresponsible.

Sometimes i feel like younger queer kids are getting a bit to bold with openly talking to people they don’t know In The Context Of:

More than once i have had a younger/same age queer person come up to me in public settings and say something about “finding other gays” or clearly clocking me as nonbinary and I’m like :)))))))) hey buddy I’m here with my conservative parents can you fucking not out me :))))))))

Just say you like my outfit or hair and move on, fuck even tell me you like my shoelaces. Don’t call me gay and limp your wrist at me when you don’t even know me? Especially when there’s a bunch of ppl around?

i was out with my ex once when three *very* young queer kids, like thirteen years old, came up to us and asked us “are you guys, you know…” and did the limp wrist thing at us. one of them loudly exclaimed that it was so cool to meet other queer people in real life. this was in public in an unbelievably conservative area - we didn’t even feel safe holding hands because we were surrounded by Mormons. we got lucky that day, but I’m begging y’all to remember that the world doesn’t work like the internet. other queers are real fuckin people. don’t do this shit. OP is right; tell me you like my jacket, or my patches, or the rainbow spokes on my wheelchair, but don’t out either of us!

This used to be standard operating procedure not even ten years ago: NEVER OUT OTHER QUEERS, even if they’re supposedly already out. Never assume that it’s okay to let third parties know that so-and-so is queer. Ever. You never know when you’ve found the one uncle with the heart condition that they can’t bear to risk telling, or the one neighbor who’s just threatening enough that they don’t mention it around, or even the grandma that they haven’t gotten around to mentioning it to yet. You might have just ruined a very important milestone for someone, or you could have put them at actual risk of harm.

Also… stop freaking assuming. If you don’t see a pride flag on them, please don’t just assume. You can’t tell ANYTHING about a person’s gender or partner preferences by what they’re wearing on any given day, what their hair looks like, or whether or not they’re using makeup. You legit cannot, and you look like a jerk when you try.

this is even more important now that Trump is in power.

some people will be choosing to live in the closet and it is not your job to pressure them one way or the other.

protect your lgbtq siblings - honor their choices - and never talk to cops, collaborators, and snitches.

Younger queer people have grown up in a better world, but we’re in a time of backsliding right now. Do NOT out other queer people. Also, I’m not gonna tell you how to present yourselves in public………..but please, I am begging you to re-evaluate HOW safe you are in the current climate.

Talking with writers online

Their stories: Amazing grammar, soaring vocabulary, beautiful imagery and prose which flows like a river.

In chats: no capitalisation or punctuation, swears like a sailor, misspellings everywhere, acronyms and abbreviations every five words, idek

#listen #listen do u know how much braining it takes to make the words go? #it is a lot #it’s like wearing fancy clothes all day #and then when you’re at home and comfy #u just put on ur pj’s ( @feynites)

I have never related to a statement more than “do you know how much braining it takes to make words go?”

still amazed that like. 7 years later. this post is still going. it gets like 5-12 notes a day

it’s a heritage post, is what it is.

If it’s about personal information I’ll give an irrelevant answer, but mostly yeah

"red-pill" "snowflake" everything about v for vendetta...fascists really do love to steal and bastardize culture from the queer people they are trying to destroy

"snowflake" was popularized in Fight Club, a novel by a gay man. "red-pill" is from a movie created by two trans women and is a metaphor for estrogen and gender transitioning. those same women adapted V For Vendetta from the original comic (written by a polyamorous man who may or may not be queer but certainly has something going on); in both versions the titular protagonist "V" is implied to be transmasculine, and a survivor of torture and imprisonment for the crime of homosexuality.

because that's what they see in us, these bigots who are happy to consume and quote and corrupt queer-created media, as long as they can erase every beautiful root. they see criminals, commiting the crime of being queer. and they are doing their damnedest to bring back the laws that made it so.

It's the end of the movie! Everyone get in for a group photo!

(Art challenge- draw yourself in)

Hehehehehehe

Just popping in to say hi!

2 BEES

Well, three including you!

OITEIOTSRUISJYFS

You okay?

I exploded. I'm fine

Nods nods. Exploding is always an. Experience

It's the end of the movie! Everyone get in for a group photo!

(Art challenge- draw yourself in)

Hehehehehehe

Just popping in to say hi!

2 BEES

Well, three including you!

OITEIOTSRUISJYFS

You okay?

It's the end of the movie! Everyone get in for a group photo!

(Art challenge- draw yourself in)

Hehehehehehe

Just popping in to say hi!

2 BEES

Well, three including you!

It's the end of the movie! Everyone get in for a group photo!

(Art challenge- draw yourself in)

Hehehehehehe

Just popping in to say hi!

oh also

@tameable50 @irusanw4

I want a story about a king whose son is prophesied to kill him so the king is like “whatever what am I supposed to do, kill my own kid wtf is wrong with you” so he just raises him as normal, doesn’t even tell him about the prophecy, and instead of some convoluted twist of events that leads to the king’s murder the son grows up and when the king is very old and dying and in excruciating pain the kid is just like alright I'mma put him out of his misery.

The king’s son becomes the new king, and is prophesied to defeat evil and bring an age of prosperity. His generals and knights all crack their knuckles but he pretty much ignores them and focuses on strengthening the infrastructure of his kingdom. Forty years later he is old and sick but still hearing his subjects’ grievances, and a general’s like “how will you defeat the prophesied evil now? You’re old and weak.” Another visitor, a teenager fresh out of the kingdom’s public education system, looks at the general like he is an ignoramus. The king eradicated poverty, housed the homeless, taught the ignorant, ended class exploitation by abolishing the nobility and imprisoning the corrupt, and established a highly respected guild of doctors that recently figured out how to cure the plague. There are no brigands because there is enough wealth for everyone to live comfortably; hiding in the woods and taking trinkets from people simply doesn’t make any sense for anyone but the desperate, and the people are not desperate. Evil is a weed, explains the teenager. It grows in cracked roads and crumbling houses and forgotten corners, rooted in indifference and watered by suffering. But the king demands that broken things be mended and suffering people be made well.

No evil lives in this kingdom, says the teenager. It starved to death before I was born.

Every once in a while, when I’m feeling down, I go and look at the notes on this post and they make me feel a lot better. This is the energy I want to carry into 2018.

For those who need to carry it into 2019.

And on to 2022

And into 2025