Thoughts On Estraven's Death: The Image Of The Grieving Mother. Genly Holding Estraven Is A Callback

ok so one of my Hungarian faves has released this new song today and their songs are always very spiritual and philosophical

so I was listening to it and I almost exploded because of this lyrics (translation mine and wonky)

Nothing is turning you

You are the wheel

And you are turning yourself

well. guess who came to mind

reading The Matter of Seggri rn and I thought back to the night when I couldn't fall asleep bc of the insect-like inhabitants of Rocannon...

the Hainish were something else fr

as Merriment put it:

My ancestors must have really had fun playing with these people's chromosomes.

BOY the ancient Hainish messed with so many human planets’ genetics.

IVE ꔫ 'EMPATHY!' Trailer

reading the dispossessed and having some kind of mental breakdown or something

Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:

A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin

A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans

A clock that isn’t 24-hours

More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know

Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain

Multiple moons/no moon

Planetary rings

A northern lights effect, but near the equator

Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks

Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals

Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands

The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage

No concept of virginity or bastardry

More than 2 genders/no concept of gender

Monotheism, but not creationism

Gods that don’t look like people

Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats

Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot

Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom

“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls

A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language

A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)

I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.

genly: i don’t trust estraven, whose motives are forever obscure; i don’t like him; yet i feel and respond to his authority as surely as i do the warmth of the sun—it is plain that no tolerable relationship can exist between estraven and myself—his presence is a complication and an embarrassment—i cannot give my trust, my friendship to a man who is a woman, a woman who is a man…

estraven: you wanna kemmer with me so bad it makes you look stupid

a while ago I read this sci-fi short story from the 50s where a guy is kidnapped and interrogated by aliens using a very sophisticated lie detector, but he realizes that the lie detector works off technical truth, and with some careful phrasing and misdirection, he manages to make them believe that humans are a race of immortal, overpowered, omniscient telepathic beings. and it works.

my favorite part is when he tells them that humans are "capable of transportation without the aid of spaceships or any vehicles, just by using mental power to control physical matter". it's true, we can. it's called walking.

"The prophesied"

its christmas eve and look whos on tumblr

all of us