I know a lot of people can’t stand this stupid royal wedding nonsense, but for me this really is sickening to watch. Prince Harry gets to marry his Canadian finance while my partner and I have been separated by immigration laws for 4 years and counting. Never allowed to marry or even LIVE TOGETHER IN THE SAME COUNTRY.
What makes their situation any different from ours? Money.
In order for me to immigrate with my British partner he is required to me making an income of over £18,900 per year. (Which might seem reasonable to americans but Only 14% of British citizens make enough money to meet the spouse immigration requirements!)
Of course, because the royal family are wealthy nobility they can bypass any immigration requirements and live happily ever after, while tens of thousands of families are separated by the insane financial requirements of British marriage immigration visas.
I don’t mean to “reblog beg” but it would really help if you reblogged this to get this information out there. One of the reasons these visa restrictions are still in place is because people aren’t even aware they exist.
These restrictions were brought into place less than six months before ETD and I were due to be married (5 years ago now) and we were told our spousal visa would be denied because I didn’t make enough money to support him. We had to completely change our wedding plans, as well as our life plans.
At the time I was earning over 16k a year with over 10k in savings, well over the UK minimum wage. But that, I was told, was not a “living wage” therefore I could not sponsor my partner, whom I had been with for 7 years, regardless of him already having paying work lined up. I have friends and family in the UK whose entire families are expected to live in less than 9k a year, but the govt deems that acceptable.
They deem a lot of things acceptable. Provided they only happen to the vulnerable and poor.
Honestly this would be the most terrible situation. This is a bad timeline sort of thing.
I can only think that Dipper would just…freeze. He’d explode at first, come out raging at the sense of blood, and then he’d realize and everything would outright stop.
Another difficult part in this is figuring out just why or how a Mizar would end up in the sort of life and situation and worldview where they would willingly sacrifice another human life to a demon. If it’s under duress, then Alcor would have more viable targets for his rage. If it’s Mizar’s own decision…well…I don’t even know.
hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Weird Biology! today, I’m going to give you a fresh look at a really weird bird you may have heard of before. so get ready to learn some badass new facts about this scrappy little football!
so say hello to:
*HEAVY METAL SCREAMING*
all right, so there isn’t much badass about a hairy, nocturnal, flightless, island-dwelling bird a little bigger than a chicken. or so they’d like you to think.
Kiwis live in New Zealand, which is fitting because they’re the Hobbits of birds. (bear with me a minute and put down the torches, please)
I swear I’m going somewhere with this
like Hobbits, Kiwis live in burrows. also like Hobbits, Kiwis are short, stocky creatures; they grow to be about eighteen inches tall and 7 pounds. (this is just slightly larger than the average chicken and probably larger than you thought they were) like Hobbits, Kiwis are voracious omnivores and eat basically anything they can fit in that ridiculous beak. and finally as I’m sure you’ve noticed, Kiwis are prodigiously hairy. like Hobbits.
and finally, the Kiwi would absolutely carry a cursed item to the ends of the earth and throw down with a Ring Wraith. (but they’d do it out of spite)
spite is the only emotion the Kiwi can feel
see, Kiwis are aggressive, territorial, and extremely tenacious. they defend their territories and burrows against anything and everything, including humans and probably also marauding armies of orcs. which, since Kiwis have squat muscular legs and extremely sharp claws, is no joke.
it’s a lot less funny when you realize that they’re at least as fast as you are.
adding to their sheer tenacious badassery is the fact that Kiwis are even still around. I don’t know if you guys are super familiar with what usually happens to flightless island-dwelling birds when humans and non-native predators show up, but it’s not good. (HINT: starts with an E and rhymes with “distinction”)
hundreds of years ago, humans first arrived on New Zealand. and they brought dogs and rats with them. these predators have been taking huge tolls on the Kiwi population for a very long time, but Kiwis are fighty tenacious bastards and against all odds they’re still here. for comparison: the Kakapo (New Zealand’s other largish flightless bird) has faced the same problem with introduced predators and is now damn near extinct.
Kiwi resilience is in large part thanks to New Zealand’s conservation programs, but also Kiwis are just tough little bastards who don’t know when to quit.
but I’ve saved the most thrashtacularly metal feat of the Kiwi for last. Kiwis form bonded pairs for life (awww), and lay one to two eggs together per year. which, okay, does not sound like a lot. however, there is an important fact that needs to be brought into consideration:
yes, that’s a REAL FUCKING XRAY. HOOOOOLY SHIT.
the egg is fucking huge. like, up to 25% of the mom’s body weight huge. that’s completely fucking ridiculous and it’s upsetting to even think about.
but that big egg makes a big, well-developed chick who comes out of the shell ready to stab you in the shin and sprint into the bushes. they’re literally born ready to throw down and are basically mini-adults. but still adorable.
continuing the family tradition!
unfortunately despite their badass ways, Kiwis are currently still under threat from introduced predators. the good news is that Kiwis are loved, celebrated, and protected by New Zealanders. (who are justly and rightly invested in their national bird, shin-kicking quirks and all)
there are many conservation programs in place for the embattled Kiwi, and its weirdness is a light that won’t be going out anytime soon.
shine on, you little weirdos, shine on.
thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series here.
if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee so I can caffeinate myself into the 5th dimension.
This was a joy to read
😘
The ranger at the national park that my parents visited last year described the Kiwi as “We had the ecological need for bagders, but no mammals, so the birds evolutionarily squished themselves into a badger-shaped hole out of sheer rage.”
If Alcor the Dreambender had been bothering with something as pointless as keeping track of time this particular decade, he would have said it was about three o’clock when the summons didn’t arrive.
It was small, with a clumsy feel to it – a child’s first summoning, from someone nine to twelve years old – and he never would have noticed it not arriving if he hadn’t been both himself and completely unoccupied. As it was, he had just enough presence of mind to recognize the fury rising at someone else taking his summoning before he found himself in a child’s bedroom, watching invisibly as said someone answered the call.
(No wonder it had never gotten to him, he noted clinically. The circle was a total mess.)
The candles flickered. Blown by a nonexistent breeze, the smoke went sideways, and then a long shadow stretched away from the circle and up the wall. Pale golden light shone through its closed eyes, and in the hollow of its chest, a tetrahedron winked into existence.
>g͢r͟eet͞i̷nģs<
“…You’re not the Dreambender,” the child (Ben Ryman, eleven, nearly twelve. Has an enormous crush on Rois Della, who’s way too good for him. She’ll ask him out on January 21st, after breaking up with her current partner. They’ll last about two months) said.
>no̶,< the demon agreed. Except – oh, this was interesting. With the amount of energy he gave off, even the biggest demons (and this must be an incredibly minor demon, if he couldn’t recognize it) trembled in Alcor’s presence, but this one didn’t even seem to notice him.
(He could repay its insolence after figuring out why it wasn’t cowering.)
Imagine r!Hank in denial about being the Emperor, too. “I don’t actually rule anything, I just give advice sometimes and make suggestions, but others have as much input as I do, and they don’t have to do what I say!”
there’s a special place in my heart for tabloids that are straight up slander
It all makes sense now… Iron Man and Spiderman both have the same last name…….
the proof is out there
Rhodes tells all is my absolute fave part bci love the idea of rhodey eating a pizza on the couch in avengers tower, taking revenge on tony for screwing with his suit, TMZ on speaker, going: ‘ya, the kid’s his son [chewing] who’s the mother? [more chewing] uhhh black widow [chewing] they’re both spiders, you see. [taking a sip from his soda] why it didn’t work out? well, tony cheated on her with uhhh [steve walks in, waves at rhodey] with captain america. yeah it was very bad for team morale.’
okay, so here’s the thing. i’ve got a student prime account and netflix. comes to about $15.91 a month. if i added the commercial-free version of hulu, it would come to $27.90 a month.
basic cable before internet is $64.99 a month. which includes commercials. and infomercials. about a quarter of all television is commercials. which is about $16.25 a month to have someone selling shit to you.
explain how it’s my and my generation’s fault that we’re not falling for the same scam our parents are.
backup 