Fanart of Jemis Greenwing, the goodest boy of them all!
being knightcore doesn't mean you have to be pro-monarchy. you can just swear your undying fealty to your best friend or your crush or something
Merjune 01 - Commander ⚔️
Jawhar, Commander of the secret services in the Queens’ employ, the most prestigious position. Frequently disguised as a regular soldier or a captain, he and his partner Kou investigate the most interesting cases of corruption inside the forces. It’s work that never stops, so sometimes his men get to see him in his more laid-back state…. or is that also a disguise?
I really love the watercolor brushes now…. such softness!
remember when kip sailed through a wall of storms for [redacted] years???? he really did that…
fic ask meme: what is the Vorkosigan-HOTE crossover or fusion fic that lives in the back of your brain? (and if you don’t have one, what would it be?)
ooooh, GOOD question...
- if we wanted to make Gregor's life even sadder (why) we could throw in some touch taboos and whatnot, but that's sad, moving on
- not HOTE, but Miles at Morrowlea could be fun. who is he when he's not Lord Vorkosigan, but he's not outright lying about his identity either?
- GREGOR at Morrowlea. Gregor and Hal being friends!!! yeah, there it is, I found it
- yeah Clary Sage is basically Gregor's whole [gestures] thing. except he runs away to screw in lightbulbs instead of going off to an anonymous radical university like a sensible person
- does Gregor know how to take off his own boots? these are the hard-hitting questions of our time
- veering hard left, I bet Kip and Cordelia between them could institute UBI and a planet-wide electrical grid on Barrayar in about three years
- now, in a fusion fic where HR is emperor of Barrayar, imagine the look on Kip's face when he finds out he's going to be the first person granted a new Vor title in like two hundred years. Lord Auditor Cliopher Vormdang...
“My friend told me a story he hadn’t told anyone for years. When he used to tell it years ago people would laugh and say, ‘Who’d believe that? How can that be true? That’s daft.’ So he didn’t tell it again for ages. But for some reason, last night, he knew it would be just the kind of story I would love. When he was a kid, he said, they didn’t use the word autism, they just said ‘shy’, or ‘isn’t very good at being around strangers or lots of people.’ But that’s what he was, and is, and he doesn’t mind telling anyone. It’s just a matter of fact with him, and sometimes it makes him sound a little and act different, but that’s okay. Anyway, when he was a kid it was the middle of the 1980s and they were still saying ‘shy’ or ‘withdrawn’ rather than ‘autistic’. He went to London with his mother to see a special screening of a new film he really loved. He must have won a competition or something, I think. Some of the details he can’t quite remember, but he thinks it must have been London they went to, and the film…! Well, the film is one of my all-time favourites, too. It’s a dark, mysterious fantasy movie. Every single frame is crammed with puppets and goblins. There are silly songs and a goblin king who wears clingy silver tights and who kidnaps a baby and this is what kickstarts the whole adventure. It was ‘Labyrinth’, of course, and the star was David Bowie, and he was there to meet the children who had come to see this special screening. ‘I met David Bowie once,’ was the thing that my friend said, that caught my attention. ‘You did? When was this?’ I was amazed, and surprised, too, at the casual way he brought this revelation out. Almost anyone else I know would have told the tale a million times already. He seemed surprised I would want to know, and he told me the whole thing, all out of order, and I eked the details out of him. He told the story as if it was he’d been on an adventure back then, and he wasn’t quite allowed to tell the story. Like there was a pact, or a magic spell surrounding it. As if something profound and peculiar would occur if he broke the confidence. It was thirty years ago and all us kids who’d loved Labyrinth then, and who still love it now, are all middle-aged. Saddest of all, the Goblin King is dead. Does the magic still exist? I asked him what happened on his adventure. ‘I was withdrawn, more withdrawn than the other kids. We all got a signed poster. Because I was so shy, they put me in a separate room, to one side, and so I got to meet him alone. He’d heard I was shy and it was his idea. He spent thirty minutes with me. ‘He gave me this mask. This one. Look. ‘He said: ‘This is an invisible mask, you see? ‘He took it off his own face and looked around like he was scared and uncomfortable all of a sudden. He passed me his invisible mask. ‘Put it on,’ he told me. ‘It’s magic.’ ‘And so I did. ‘Then he told me, ‘I always feel afraid, just the same as you. But I wear this mask every single day. And it doesn’t take the fear away, but it makes it feel a bit better. I feel brave enough then to face the whole world and all the people. And now you will, too. ‘I sat there in his magic mask, looking through the eyes at David Bowie and it was true, I did feel better. ‘Then I watched as he made another magic mask. He spun it out of thin air, out of nothing at all. He finished it and smiled and then he put it on. And he looked so relieved and pleased. He smiled at me. ‘'Now we’ve both got invisible masks. We can both see through them perfectly well and no one would know we’re even wearing them,’ he said. ‘So, I felt incredibly comfortable. It was the first time I felt safe in my whole life. ‘It was magic. He was a wizard. He was a goblin king, grinning at me. ‘I still keep the mask, of course. This is it, now. Look.’ I kept asking my friend questions, amazed by his story. I loved it and wanted all the details. How many other kids? Did they have puppets from the film there, as well? What was David Bowie wearing? I imagined him in his lilac suit from Live Aid. Or maybe he was dressed as the Goblin King in lacy ruffles and cobwebs and glitter. What was the last thing he said to you, when you had to say goodbye? ‘David Bowie said, ‘I’m always afraid as well. But this is how you can feel brave in the world.’ And then it was over. I’ve never forgotten it. And years later I cried when I heard he had passed.’ My friend was surprised I was delighted by this tale. ‘The normal reaction is: that’s just a stupid story. Fancy believing in an invisible mask.’ But I do. I really believe in it. And it’s the best story I’ve heard all year.”
— Paul Magrs (via yourfluffiestnightmare)
Pour one out for all the stories you'll never find again, that you barely remember in totality, but that left an impression on you that you'll never forget.
The short stories from standardized tests that you only had a few minutes to read, but those minutes will last a lifetime.
The books on the library display shelf you used to occupy time until your mom could come pick you up from school.
The graphic novel you picked up when you were first getting into comics and could never find again.
The single lines or themes from stories you otherwise don't remember, save for the one thing that you saw and internalized as a new part of your personality.
Let's pour one out for the books that built us, even if we never could find them again, and couldn't of we wanted to.
“our teeth and ambitions are bared” is a zeugma
and it’s a zeugma where one of the words is literal and one is metaphorical which is the BEST KIND
I didn’t know about zeugmas until just now! That is so awesome, everybody:
zeug·ma ˈzo͞oɡmə/
noun
- a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses (e.g.,John and his license expired last week ) or to two others of which it semantically suits only one (e.g., with weeping eyes and hearts ).
ISN’T THAT AWESOME??
She dropped her dress and inhibitions at the door.
What’s this? My favorite rhetorical device showing up on my dashboard?
IT HAS A NAMEEEE!! OH MY GOD!!!
I LOVE THIIIIIS!!!
One I’ve loved was “on their weekend trip they caught three fish and a cold”
I love these they’re like a pun and a metaphor wrapped up into one neat phrase
I love Zeugmas SO MUCH
So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.
I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.
See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.
I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.
Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.
In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.
They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.
Conservatives lost their damn minds.
Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.
When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.
Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America.
Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”
Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.
The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.
This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.
Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.
The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.
I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.
Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.
Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.
The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.
That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.
They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.
So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.
We have! To keep! Pushing back!
Stained glass bathtubs are impractical at best but that doesn’t mean I don’t still want one
You know the problem with reading a book? You get hooked and then it ends and you feel sad
This post is cancelled, I have found a new book and everything is all right again
By Talos this cannot be happening
Has Fitzroy found socks?
One of the many quests that is in progress at the end of TRoFA is the hunt for more socks. Let’s track his progress so far.
Conju’s sister’s college/commune: it’s technically possible that he found some while separated from Pali, but highly unlikely. Culturally similar to Jullanar’s town so sock availability would seasonal.
Sardeet’s town: again technically possible but unlikely. another small town that they [presumably] leave quickly.
[insert missing space between books here]
return to Jullanar’s town of the way to Basil’s: still not sock season.
Sky Ocean: No.
The Marwn’s tower: didn’t take ghost sock souvenirs.
Gorjo City: our best chance so far. Now, socks would certainly not be a staple of the region. I’m sure if other Kip found some socks in his Gorjo City he would toast marshmallows on the little candle flame they made. However, Gorjo City’s sheer size including known transplants from other regions and who know how many people coming to the local palace and maybe hikers of the nature preserves means that socks could be available. The problem is Fitzroy absolutely forgot about the socks because it’s been a wild month and he’s busy thinking about acquiring furniture and in-laws
The Great Bazaar: YES.
🛌 <- there’s a guy in there. shh. he’s sleeping
🚶♂️…………🛏
oh…. he got up and walked away
🛏……🚶♂️oh it’s been a while… he’s coming back
🛌 all tucked in once more
🛌..... 👻 uhm i think there may be a ghoul of some sort
a ghostie… scary. thankfully he now has a stuffed animal to ward the scaries away. 🛌 🧸
'average person experiences one life-changing revelation every few years' factoid actually statistical error
Cliopher Mdang, who lives on Zunidh and experiences one revelation every thousand years, and Jemis Greenwing, who lives on Alinor and experiences about six a month, are both outliers adn should not have been counted




