this is the most aggressive i’ve ever seen him get and i for one am positively LIVING for this kind of cold wrath
Is your back not aching from bending to punch so fucking low?
go off king
[ID: A quote-retweet. The original tweet is by Graham Linehan (@Glinner) and reads: “People who parrot meaningless meme speak like ‘Trans rights are human rights’ (who says they aren’t? No-one) while ignoring the abuse received by woman who speak against speak out against gender ideology… you have no use. You are li…”
Hozier (@Hozier) replies: “You won’t drag me into your weird, obsessive little culture war, mate. I wrote a message in solidarity of a group who’s life expectancy ranges in the 30’s solely due to murder and suicide (is it any wonder). Is your back not *aching* from bending to punch so fucking low.” End ID]
[Text transcript: The colored text reads: “Is your back not aching from bending to punch so fucking low.” End transcript]
[Image description: Three images. Image 1: A tweet by James Bradley (@/CityOfTongues) that reads ”’Mathematica, analysis of the electrical signals fungi seemingly send to one another has identified patterns that bear a striking structural similarity to human speech.’” Below that is a link to an article from The Guardian. The preview image shows some fuzzy brown mushrooms growing on wood. The article headline reads “Fungi seeks similar: scientist investigates mushroom ‘chat’”.
Image 2: a two panel comic. A person is lying down on a couch. They then raise their head, look to their right, and ask, “Oh shit, for real?”
Image 3: a screenshot of a messaging app. It’s been edited so that the reviver is “mushrooms”, and the message being sent to them reads “tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit”. End description].
ID: Stop saying OCD when you mean organised. Stop saying depressed when you mean sad. Stop saying ADHD when you mean easily distracted. Stop saying traumatic when you mean inconvenient. Stop saying anorexic when you mean skinny. Stop saying phobic when you mean uncomfortable. Stop saying bipolar when you mean moody. Stop saying schizophrenic when you mean unpredictable. Stop saying psychotic when you mean irrational. Stop saying sociopathic when you mean cruel. Stop saying autistic when you mean foolish or strange. Stop saying triggered when you mean upset or offended. end ID
I’m not lying when I say this tweet brought a tear to my eye
Thank you Jorts
[ id: a tweet by Jorts (and Jean) @/JortsTheCat reading “If you make a mistake, so what? You never think mean stuff about me when I make a mistake”, along with a photo of Jorts, an orange striped cat lying on his side with his paws crossed and face squished a little by the carpet. / end id ]
So, for anybody looking for a run down of what’s gone on for this election, it’s basically:
1. Sinn Fein had a good night and are now the largest party.
Sinn Fein is a Nationalist/Republican party that wants to unify Ireland. Hence the Irish Unification memes. As others have pointed out, the system was essentially set up with a Unionist/Loyalist (staying with the United Kingdom- yes the terms are confusing) majority in mind, though I’d argue that there wasn’t an attempt to manufacture one, it just relied on a pre-existing majority which is atthe very least much weaker today.
This is a big win for Nationalism, although it’s also not that big a win. Really, it’s as big a win as you think. But it doesn’t mean Irish reunification. Certainly not 2024 (Star Trek assumed the Troubles would still be ongoing by then and that the UK would have thrown in the towel, which is. dark).
Why it’s not such a big deal- this wasn’t some swing of Unionists coming over to a Nationalist party this was Nationalist voters from the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) voting for Sinn Fein and Alliance in pretty incredible numbers- we’re talking a 2.9% loss for SDLP, but in a system where there’s five seats to a Constituency, that hits hard- they lost a third of their seats. In fact, the Nationalist seat share in the Assembly has dropped, so again, mixed bag on a stats level.
But still, huge for Nationalism as a bloc.
2. DUP had a bad night. A very bad night.
The Democratic Unionist Party has been the largest party since 2003. Now, they’re second place. That’s not fun for them, and quite understandably, given Sinn Fein immediately published a 5-year roadmap to a reunification referendum.
Their electoral strategy seemed to be “tell every Unionist that if they don’t vote DUP, they’ll get a Sinn Fein First Minister.” What happened was that Unionists didn’t listen and voted in droves for TUV (think DUP but even more right wing) and Alliance, resulting in DUP and UUP (Ulster Unionist Party, more moderate than DUP or TUV) dropping in votes and seats.
But Nationalists listened. They heard DUP’s fear mongering, raised an eyebrow, said “so there’s a chance for a Nationalist First Minister?”
The electoral fear strategy lost DUP their top spot, it fractured Unionism, it’s created a lot of bother, and the only thing DUP can do now is choose whether to crash the Assembly or not.
This isn’t like the Nationalism thing where it could be a good thing or could be a neutral thing, this is just all bad for Unionism- not least of which because they’re becoming more extreme. While it feels good to push as hard as you can, I can tell you, the less attractive you make NI in the UK seem, the more people are going to turn to Irish reunification.
It’s worth noting that Unionist Parties polled 40.47% of the first preferences, where Nationalist Parties polled 40.93% (if you count PBP), but that the two independent Unionists who ran got about 1.5% of the first preferences. Basically, no matter how you slice this, it’s razor-close. As close as it’s ever been, as far as I’m aware
Hey, that’s only about 80%. Where’s the other 20% gone?
3. Alliance had a fantasticnight.
In terms of votes, TUV grew more, but TUV didn’t earn even a single extra seat, whereas Alliance? They gained nine seats, more than doubling their Assembly representation. There’s 90 seats in the Assembly, so imagine getting ten extra Senators for your party in the US Senate. That’s the kind of vibe.
Alliance is a party that designates as ‘Other,’ meaning it is neither Nationalist or Unionist. They got the third largest first preference vote share, the first time an Other party has done so ever.
Sinn Fein’s campaign and Alliance’s bore a lot of similarities, which makes me think that focussing on the cost of living crisis was a good move for getting elected. DUP did the doom and gloom, but they were competing with TUV, and nobody does doom and gloom like Jim Allister.
SDLP and UUP- the two more moderate parties of Nationalism and Unionism- did poorly, mostly because they couldn’t convince voters that voting for them would change much. Their most politically courageous move in the last decade was leaving the Government and forming an Official Opposition, which Alliance was also in, and which didn’t do much. Greens, the other Other group in the Assembly (aside PBP), lost a number of their votes to Alliance, and this led to the loss of one of their two seats.
So, when you saw SDLP lose some votes to Sinn Fein, they lost more to Alliance. When DUP and UUP lost votes, many of those went to TUV, but a substantial number of them went to Alliance. Alliance got approx 1.6% extra from Nationalists, and 2.9% extra from Unionists.
Alliance was the only party to end up with more seat than it started with.
So, what does this all mean?
Well. Probably we don’t get a Government, since the largest Nationalist and largest Unionist party need to sign off on it. Which DUP said they won’t.
Probably no United Ireland, either, at least not by 2024 (that’s not on the cards in anybody’s guesses). By 2040… yeah, it’s possible. Before Brexit, people would say “not within my lifetime,” and while they’re usually older, they’re not that old. “Within my lifetime” seems like a genuine prospect, now, and Nationalists are a little bit terrified along with their lots of excited, a bit like if you’ve decided to undertake a big personal project and you really really don’t want it to fuck up and you’re terrified people won’t like it, but that you’re in love with and really want to do.
This election has seen the continuation of a few trends. DUP declining, Sinn Fein hanging on to where theyve been since 2007, Alliance increase. The Nationalist community is growing faster than the Unionist one, and the current Unionist ascendancy is maintained by an older crop of very active voters, compared with a younger Nationalist crop, who either can’t or tend not to vote.
We did see smaller parties decline this election- I mentioned Greens earlier- but we also saw two very powerful Independent candidates win, so there’s that. Perhaps Unionism’s priorities aren’t being met inside traditional party lines, because these are people who’ve left their party.
So yeah. That’s the insanity. Sinn Fein did ok, DUP did shit, Alliance did fantastically, and everybody else was disappointed in some way. We’re not going to meet the Data Deadline. We probably won’t have a Government for at least the next month, probably longer.
[image description: Three images. Image one: The “they don’t know” meme, which shows simplistically drawn people dancing in a room as a neutral-faced man wearing a party hat stands apart from them in the corner. The man says: “They don’t know Northern Ireland is having the most insane election of all time.”
Image two: Screencap from Star Trek: The Next Generation showing Data telling Jean-Luc Picard, “the Irish Unification of 2024”.
Image Three: a tweet by wing (@/dril) that reads “Hardcore becoming that guy who thinks the covid virus will be “not good”, overall, but on the bright side it might inexplicably unite Ireland”. It was made on March 18, 2020. End description]
Plain text: Their electoral strategy seemed to be “tell every Unionist that if they don’t vote DUP, they’ll get a Sinn Fein First Minister.” What happened was that Unionists didn’t listen and voted in droves for TUV (think DUP but (italics) even more (end italics) right wing) and Alliance, resulting in DUP and UUP (Ulster Unionist Party, more moderate than DUP or TUV) dropping in votes and seats.
3. Alliance had a (bold) fantastic (end bold) night.
Alliance was the (italics) only party to end up with more seat than it started with.
So, what does this all mean?
Well. Probably we don’t get a Government, since the largest Nationalist and largest Unionist party need to sign off on it. Which DUP said they won’t.
Probably no United Ireland, either, at least not by 2024 (that’s not on the cards in anybody’s guesses). By 2040… yeah, it’s possible. Before Brexit, people would say “not within my lifetime,” and while they’re usually older, they’re not (italics) that (end italics) old. “Within my lifetime” seems like a genuine prospect, now, and Nationalists are a little bit terrified along with their lots of excited, a bit like if you’ve decided to undertake a big personal project and you really really don’t want it to fuck up and you’re terrified people won’t like it, but that you’re in love with and really want to do. End description].
[Pictured is a tweet from user at anya volz which reads, “Adulthood is making the same meal forty times in a row until you are done with that meal and it’s time for forty of a new meal.” End ID.]
[ID: tweet by Angelica Love Ross @ angelicaross which reads, “Being anti-trans won’t free you from patriarchy or racism. How small of you to be seduced by the opportunity to oppress others for a taste of power while remaining powerless in your own life.” It’s time stamped 7:54 AM on 4/29/22. End ID]
God, I remember when I started sixth form (last two years of high school in the UK, seen as a more university style learning environment) and the teachers kept complaining about how quiet we were during lessons.
We wouldn’t talk. They’d tell us to do something and we’d just sit there quietly and do it, until eventually they just said “hey, guys, it’s okay to chat while you work!” and then everybody would start talking.
One teacher described it as creepy.
And I just remember thinking, what the fuck did they expect to happen? We’d all been taught from the age of four or five onwards that talking in class was bad. That if we did it, we’d be told off, or punished, or in some instances maybe the entire class would be punished along with us, just to make sure we really got the idea. It was a whole thing.
But now, because we were sixth-formers and therefore ‘grown ups’, we were suddenly expected to flip a switch and be able to talk as much as we liked? The whole reason we were in sixth-form was because we had worked hard, done well at school, and generally followed the rules— but still the teachers couldn’t understand why we didn’t just talk to each other.
Now I’m at uni, and seminar tutors are having a similar problem. People will talk in seminars, but a lot of them will insist on raising their hands and waiting to be called upon first. “Don’t put your hands up, just shout at me!” the guy keeps saying. But they keep doing it anyway.
Like, I really don’t know how to tell these people that you can’t train somebody to act in one way for over half their lives, and then suddenly expect them to start acting differently just because the expectations have changed.
[image ID: a tweet by Elliot Stewart. The tweet reads “I just got laughed at during a meeting for raising my hand to ask a question? Sorry for being polite and applying a technique that was forced on me for 12 years” End ID]
[Image description: An infographic of five alternate ways to lace shoes depending on what issue you are experiencing. Each graphic is titled with the issue. Directly below the title is a proposed solution and a visual depiction of the lacing.
1: High arches. Solution: Open up the middle. The lacing is mostly standard criss-cross but with gap lacing (threading only up the sides with no crossing) in the middle.
2: Shoes feel too tight. Solution: Trust in parallel style. The lacing depicted is straight bar lacing, where the laces run parallel to each other through the eyelets.
3: Heel slipping. Solution: Secure the top and leave the rest. The lacing is criss-cross lacing with lock lacing used at the part which would be closest to the ankle. To do lock lacing, take the left lace and thread it through the topmost left eyelet to create a loop. Repeat for the right lace and eyelet. Cross these two laces and thread them through the opposite loop, then tighten and tie your shoes as you normally would.
4: Black toenails | toe pain. Solution: Get your shoe (all caps) off (end caps) your toe. The lacing depicted is toe cap lacing. To do toe cap lacing, take one end of the shoelace and thread it from one eyelet closest to the toe diagonally to the opposite eyelet near the ankle. Then take the other end of the shoelace and do regular criss-cross lacing over the diagonal lace.
5: Wide forefoot. Solution: Leave some space. The lacing is mostly standard criss-cross but with gap lacing at the very front of the shoe where the toes would be. End image description.]
Plain text: Hey runners (and walkers)! Thought this might be helpful (smile emoticon).
posting a tiktok here bc she really said it all!!!
edit: i don’t have very many followers so i didn’t expect this to get any notes or anything but now it is! and it’s mostly from terfs! and i want them to know: FUCK YOU. THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. MY BLOG IS NOT FOR YOU. GET OFF.
[VD: A TikTok stitch made by user @staceyismom from user @citizenattorney1’s original video. Citizenattorney1, a white man, says, “The [Asian women] that are here are like, not cool, not nice, I rarely meet a sweet one.” It then cuts to staceyismom, an Asian woman, doing a bunch of exaggerated cutesy poses. She says mockingly, “… Hey, guys, do I seem cool, nice, and sweet enough yet? I just really want this 60-year-old guy to like me. Anyway.” (Cut to a shot where she’s holding the camera closer to her face.) “Pedophilia’s all about like power dynamics and control because it’s so easy to take advantage of like seven-year-olds. And it’s so weird because whenever white men with Asian fetishes talk about Asian women, they always talk about us like we’re babies. East Asians are known for kind of having, like, a babyface, and not having a lot of body hair, and there comes the whole submissive trope. This is also why so many Japanese and Korean people hate weebs and Koreaboos, because—” Cut to a shot where she is once again farther away from the camera and doing cutesy poses. She continues, “—because whenever white girls Asianfish, they always put on, like, this stupid little baby act where they’re like ‘Oh my God, I’m just a cute little Asian babygirl.’” (Cut back to her holding the camera.) “They play into fetishization and add on to negative stereotypes by making themselves look more Asian and then becoming a little uwu baby.” (Cut back to her posing. She addresses citizenattorney1 again:) “Just because no one wants to suck your dick here doesn’t mean you get to go to Asia and then prey on young women, just die alone like you deserve.” End VD]
[ID: A graphic of a skull and crossbones with the words “Terfs fuck off.” End ID]
[ID: A cropped part of a wikipedia article. It reads “In 2002, Pope John Paul II requested that the media stop referring to the car as the popemobile, saying that the term was “undignified”. [1] In 2007, the popemobile-“. The article is cut off mid-sentence. end ID]
Text reading: I 2002, Pope John Paul II requested that the media stop referring to the car as the popemobile, saying that the term was “undignified”. In 2007, the popemobile
a tweet by ethan hardy that says “You say it’s fucked that gingerbread men live in gingerbread houses, but to a gingerbread person, gingerbread is as fundamental and inscrutable as carbon. The people and homes are no more like than humans are to diamonds. Only we, their gods and creators, can see the horror”
IN A WORLD WHERE BEAUTY AND ATTRACTIVENESS HAVE BECOME SO COMMONPLACE AND MUNDANE THE EXCEPTIONAL UGLINESS HAS BECOME DIVINE
I SAW AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR A CAR THAT LOOKS LIKE EVERY OTHER CAR AND THEY COMPARED IT TO A UNUSUAL UGLY LITTLE VEHICLE AND ITS STRANGENESS WAS FAR MORE CAPTIVATING THAN THE SLEEK BORING CAR THE AD WAS ACTUALLY FOR
[image ID: Text reading, “Beauty is, in some way, boring. Even if its concept changes through the ages… a beautiful object must always follow certain rules. A beautiful nose shouldn’t be longer than that or shorter than that, on the contrary, an ugly nose can be as long as the one of Pinocchio, or as big as the trunk of an elephant, or like the beak of an eagle, and so ugliness is unpredictable, and offers an infinite range of possibility. Beauty is finite, ugliness is infinite like God.”
The phrases, “a beautiful object must always follow certain rules.” and “Beauty is finite, ugliness is infinite like God.” are underlined in red
/end ID]
[Plain text: In a world where beauty and attractiveness have become so commonplace and mundane the exceptional ugliness has become divine.
I saw an advertisement for a car that looks like every other car and they compared it to a unusual ugly little vehicle and its strangeness was far more captivating than the sleek boring car the ad was actually for].
Image Description: A Twitter post by @lukeisamazing reading ‘that’s right’ followed by a screencap from Scooby Doo of Velma crawling on the floor looking for her glasses. Yellow text over the image reads 'My subtitles. I can’t hear without my subtitles…’ end Image Description
[ID: a meme of Sponogebob Squarepants where he is standing on a bench, yelling enthusiastically with his mouth open, his eyes bulging out, and his hands in fists in front of his face. There are other people sitting around him on the benches, watching him with concerned looks on their faces. The text above him reads, “I fucking love subtitles,” and the text beneath him reads, “I want to fucking completely understand a film’s dialogue as it is being said.” End ID]
