#cousin's supporting each other

[tianalaurence1]

A wet afternoon at Buckingham Palace as the Prince of Wales hosts a garden party on behalf of the King. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie, Zara and Mike Tindall, and Peter Phillips are also present. 📷 @YuiMok

[fishwikipedia]

bcc the one currently kinda stagnant wrestling stable that i’m fully ok with remaining together indefinitely bc despite them not really being involved w anything important at the moment i like them being together on principle

[bliz-lol]

They usually behave like this

But there is a time when Nate needs to support Buzz and sympathize with him. :<

[tbookblurbs]

Ancillary Mercy - Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch, #3)

5/5 - Just the right mix of battle and political intrigue; i deeply love these characters and this premise

This novel took on a very appropriate goal for the end of the trilogy. Too often, I read a novel with incredibly high stakes that is unable to wrap itself up nicely (or at all) because there is simply too much to deal with. Ancillary Mercy is an exception to this pattern. Having Breq aim only for the safety of one or two systems in the face of a tyrant who's been around for two thousand years makes sense. It's realistic. It feels achievable.

The characters themselves are fascinating - I can't say that I've read something in recent memory which treats AIs as something "living" and "breathing" that changes over time. Indeed, the last book I read outside of this trilogy that discussed AI made the AI seem static and unyielding across time. Anyway.

I think the conclusion, while quick in some ways, makes the book feel all the more like a part of a real universe. Nothing is wrapped up quickly. Our main characters are still going to have to sit in meetings for months to figure this out and I loved it! We need more open-ended stories!

On a final note, the Presger and Translator Zeiat are two of my favorite pieces of the book. They're just so, well, alien! A treat to read to be sure.

[verywolf589]

This relationship or nothing at all. 

[rawliverandgoronspice]

for no fucking reason: real life dictatorships in the 20th and 21th centuries are almost always allowed to thrive because of some empire's interests. If not, they get heavily demonized then dismantled by said empire over a relatively short period of time (unless exceptional circumstances, tho it's almost always applicable). the examples are countless; please read declassified reports and interviews from the CIA/KGB/other intelligence agencies across the world to lose your mind about it, especially those involving what happened during the Cold War and what happened in the Middle East (and still does).

characters like ganondorf are the epitomy of the fantasy that colonized/"exotic" countries naturally spawn evil incarnate and must be controlled/stumped/imprisoned/destroyed by the "responsible ones" while the perfect good place is perfect and utterly blameless about what went down and how the local population suffered (which, in real life, the empires of the world are most definitively not that --the amount of dictators that were ushered into power by western interests is staggering and we fucking love to see it don't we). And also, a blameless victim to whichever retribution eventually comes back their way.

It is a rethoric that denies interconnectivity and historical responsibility.

this is what I criticize about the narrative choices of a fictional conflict that *does not exist in real life* and has been entirely made up by human beings: the cowardice of blamelessness, and what little this kind of narrative brings to the table --especially today when we should be looking at the root cause of broken systems of violence instead of endlessly scapegoating minorities.

and well, especially given how effective this narrative apparently seems to be.

[ginalinettiofficial]

played the game ok boomer at my family party today, ended up explaining to a room of ~20 of my relatives what fanfiction is so they could understand the question, “in fanfiction, what does AU stand for?”. and then the card’s definition of “AU” was wrong so i also had to get into the concept of “canon”.

can u believe. in front of my whole family. a room full of people, aged 3 to 80. all staring at me intently as i explain the difference between an alternate universe and canon divergence. at one point my mom was like “daina i think we get it” and a cousin and two aunts were like “wait no we’re interested please continue” and i had to say to my own mother in front of god and my i am kenough sweatshirt “sorry but unlike you the rest of them DON’T have to listen to me talk about fanfiction on the regular”. my uncle is a retired judge. my one cousin worked for the federal government in a job that was so classified that for years he literally couldn’t legally tell us about ANYTHING he was working on. and today those men sat and patiently listened to me define “coffee shop AU”.

also, not one, not two, but THREE of the answers for the young folks, i knew solely because they were either plot points on stranger things or they were things i found out whilst reading stranger things fanfics. and then i was the only person in our age bracket (10 people, ranging from ages 9 to 42) that knew who anne rice was, and had to explain yet again that the reason i had this knowledge was because… fanfic.

it was surreal. also my aunt, aged 68, may or may not begin attempting to read fanfic now because, according to her, “there are so many stories where there are these small side characters and i’d just KILL to hear their backstory or like what was going through their minds during the main action!” i’m very happy for her. today was wild.

[talkfastcal]

that catfish episode reminded me of my weeworld days

[eddis-not-eeddis]

There is some small part of me that cannot be satisfied unless I am allowed to lean rather heavily on someone else's arm.

[moe-broey]

@felikatze OH nothing LMFAOO (not that I know of anyway haven't caught up) I'm just rotating them both in my mind and desperately attempting to illustrate the parallels 😅😅

[levil0vesyou]

Having a post get popular enough to be independently reblogged by someone you follow but aren't mutuals with is. Wild

[pentacass]

me getting a single scrap of alwinarwe lore like

[gay-nidoking]

Genuinely wishing her the best

But knowing that side of the family has only made me more bitter about my own circumstances multiple times, and this is just one more example

[celestialjoys]

recently started the process of moving into my own place (!!!) and as always I'm just. so moved and touched by people's generosity. not just friends, of course, although they've all been so supportive and offering help in every way possible (from things like budgeting to physically moving things) but. coworkers and their families offering to give me furniture. online friends I've just met sharing their stories of when they first moved out and giving advice. the aspect of human nature when you hear someone is in a situation you've been in before and offering a helping hand even if you have nothing to gain from it? it humbles me every time.

[ajarofpickledtears]

tfw my sister is chill with our (half-)brother and also texting and whatever

meanwhile I regularly forget he exists, have no sibling connection to him at all, nor am I interest in it, and if I think of him I get upset lmao

[the999thstar]

Did the commentators just call Sarah Nurse Darnell's sister because unless it was 💅sister that's not right