sine lucro friget ludus

Hello! I got your message and I’ll respond shortly — I’m currently in the middle of eating a Peach, which is a delicate operation and thus I cannot type right now. Hope you understand!

From Hondo and Fabian, illustrated by Peter McCarty, first published 2002

you know you are really being very solipsistic and self-centred right now. the universe is vast and you are not the protgaonist of every story. have you considered that from some prespectives, the radiator is being handcuffed to you?

I've always loved that descriptor "exquisite" for Philippa Somerville". Not beautiful, or even lovely, but exquisite, a word that connotes craftsmanship. She looks the way she does because she was made (forcefully) aware that it was possible, and she could have very justifiably rejected everything she learned in Topkapi, but she chose to keep it, and build on it, and USE it. And Dunnett doesn't make a huge deal out of it, but there's just enough detail ("Philippa rose, and cleaned and tinted her face") to remind me that Philippa puts work into this every day. Exquisite.

the thing that bewilders me about a lot of fantasy readers is that they read about settings and plots featuring imperialism, war, and slavery and then call the inclusion of violence, abuse, and sexual exploitation "edgy" and "gratuitous" and it's like what did you think was happening. why were you under the impression that you were going to get a cozy story about fascism or something. far be it from me to criticize anyone for not wanting to read about torture in their spare time, and there are certainly cases where heavy subjects are poorly executed, but is it not equally insulting to sanitize them for a feel-good adventure.. like no one put a gun to your head and forced you to give your fantasy novel an enslaved protagonist. sometimes writing is supposed to make you feel bad

free use is kind of a funny kink bc it relies on the idea that everybody wants to touch you and have sex with you but what if they don't. what if you tell everybody at the party you're free use but they all ignore you and mind their own business

if theres one thing that really pissed me off from my 3 years of architecture i took in high school it's learning about how we used to have all these little techniques to maximize or minimize heat or warmth and now we just merrily abandoned all those to have the same copypaste style buildings everywhere that are often INCREDIBLY unoptimized to the local weather and climate so we can just throw more money at our heating and cooling bills

where i live it is hot as balls approximately 80% of the year. i do not want a massive butt-ugly grey mcmansion with a huge echoey open-concept kitchen-livingroom-foyer-diningroom-staircase that has huge windows so i can have an hvac unit the size of a barge heaving and straining to keep it at a constant 72 the grees. i want a north indian traditional style home with small windows to force the airflow to cool, decorative grates to limit the amount of sunlight, and a COURTYARD with a POND *smashes unspecified large object*

I hate learning about instances of "oh yeah we know how to do that, we just don't".

THIS IS SO TRUE

free my girl she did all that and that’s what makes her such a compellingly complex character. that’s her essence

Yeah okay Ill reblog that!

Not a scholar at first, but the guy who wrote Jaws hated that people used it to justify hating sharks so much he dedicated the rest of his life to shark research and advocacy.

The woman who popularized gender reveals wishes she hadn't, afaik.

(afaik- the woman who popularized gender reveals did so because she had a long history of miscarriages. The reveal was a celebration of the fact that one of her pregnancies had gotten far enough that there WAS a physical sex to reveal. It was never intended to be like... *gestures at modern gender reveals* all that. That same kid later came out as trans and yes, the family had a second gender reveal for that lol.)

This whole thread is so beautiful to me that I can explain it