I Know SEVERAL Afab Nonbinary People Who, As Soon As They Came Out As Nonbinary - Immediately Began Dressing

the kids are alright 🏳️‍⚧️

self discipline is so hard like. i know the sucker who's in charge...a pushover who hates authority and loves hedonism

Terry Pratchett started his career as a crypto-monarchist and ended up the most consistently humane writer of his generation.  He never entirely lost his affection for benevolent dictatorship, and made a few classic colonial missteps along the way, but in the end you’d be hard pressed to find a more staunchly feminist, anti-racist, anti-classist, unsentimental and clear-sighted writer of Old White British Fantasy.  

The thing I love about Terry’s writing is that he loved - loved - civil society.  He loved the correct functioning of the social contract.  He loved technology, loved innovation, but also loved nature and the ways of living that work with and through it.   He loved Britain, but hated empire (see “Jingo”) - he was a ruralist who hated provincialism, a capitalist who hated wealth, an urbanist who reveled in stories of pollution, crime and decay.  He was above all a man who loved systems, of nature, of thought, of tradition and of culture.  He believed in the best of humanity and knew that we could be even better if we just thought a little more.

As a writer: how skillful, how prolific, how consistent.  The yearly event of a new Discworld book has been a part of my life for more than two decades, and in that barrage of material there have been so few disappointments, so many surprises… to come out with a book as fresh and inspired as “Monstrous Regiment” as the 31st novel in your big fantasy series?  Ludicrous.  He was just full of treasure.  What a thing to have had, what a thing to have lost.

In the end, he set a higher standard, as a writer and as a person.  He got better as he learned, and he kept learning, and there was no “too late” or “too hard” or “I can’t be bothered to do the research.”  He just did the work.  I think in his memory the best thing we can do is to roll up our sleeves and do the same.

Et voici un fanart, cette fois de la série de romans de Pierre Pevel Les Lames du Cardinal (aux éditions Bragelonne ou SF Folio). Je viens de terminer le tome 1. J’ai mis un peu de temps à rentrer dans l’histoire, car il y a beaucoup de personnages à introduire, mais une fois qu’on plonge dans l’intrigue, impossible de le lâcher ! J’ai hâte de lire la suite ! Alors de quoi ça parle ?! Eh bien, les lames du cardinal sont un groupe d’espions du cardinal de Richelieu qui vont reprendre du service. Au premier abord, on se dit que c’est un roman de capes et d’épées mais pas que !! Car Pierre Pevel mêle aussi à ces intrigues une dimension fantastique, car les humains vivent étroitement avec des dragons !! J’ai beaucoup aimé ce mélange de capes et d’épées et de fantasy (un peu comme dans la Rose écarlate, quelque part…). Pour ce fanart, j’ai décidé de dessiner un des personnages qui m’intrigue beaucoup : Saint Lucq ! Je suis dans ma période “beau ténébreux mystérieux,”, haha !! Avec un petit dragon noir ! Voilà, je lirai la suite des aventures des lames avec beaucoup d’impatience en tout cas !! 

Willing sacrifice~

So here's a little thing I wrote for the Cardinal's Blades. I have never found anything written for it but I'm absolutely in love with these stories and this universe :) It turned out way softer than intended, but that's good too! 247 words

---

Saint Lucq enters the room where she is reading. She lifts her head slowly as her eyes trail on the page for as long as they can and he can’t help the corner of his mouth lifting at that. When she meets his eyes, she answers his smile in a radiant way. Her enthusiasm in everything she does is very endearing, but Saint Lucq is especially moved when she’s smiling at him like that. Saint Lucq takes the few steps separating them and grabs the hand that has just put the book away. He lifts it gently to his mouth without breaking the gaze they’re sharing. And as his cold lips touch her skin, he can hear her low and steady exhale. As he peppers her hand with kisses, she reaches with her other hand to take away his hat, and then undo the clasp of his cloak. He stops as she reaches for his glasses, her hand floating mid-air as she awaits for his consent. He nods shortly and she gently takes his all-time protection away from his eyes. Suddenly all is a bit green and the loss of this barrier gives him shivers. Maybe she felt them, or maybe she just knows how delicate this is for him. Either way, she squeezes reassuringly his hands and St Lucq feels a wave of warm gratitude for her. One of his hands lifts to brush her jawline and her smile brings another wave of warmth to him.

My problem is that I keep playing RPGs and Murder Parties in dark gritty universes like INS/MV or Vampire the Masquerade when instead I should be playing in universes like Good Omens or WWDITS.

Detail of Portrait of Princess Sibylle of Cleve, 1526, by Lucas Cranach the Elder  (1472-1553)

something I find kinda interesting about radfems is that because they believe that womanhood is characterized by universal experiences of trauma and oppression, and because they believe that only they and people who agree with them correctly understand the nature of this oppression, they end up sounding like they believe that the only reason women would like things that they think are bad is if they're somehow being tricked into liking it

does a woman like wearing makeup or revealing clothes? patriarchal brainwashing. a cis woman who identifies as a lesbian dating a trans woman with a penis? she's doing it out of guilt or pity, or she was pressured into it. afab people coming out as non-binary or trans men? that's just internalized misogyny making them want to escape womanhood. hijabi women keeping their heads covered and dressing modestly? obviously they've been pressured into it by their oppressive islamic upbringing. women who are into kink, particularly if they're submissive? abuse victims who don't realize their male partners are taking advantage of them

women aren't allowed to like things under radical feminism. every aspect of a woman's life is either a political statement or a decision made under duress. women have free will and agency unless they disagree with me, in which case they're helpless victims who can't recognize how oppressed they truly are.

don't get me wrong, I think it's worth examining why you enjoy doing the things you're doing. the modern state of corporatized pop-feminism has found a way to frame nearly every act, regardless of how harmful to one's self or others, as feminist, and that's a trap that you certainly don't want to fall into. but the vision of womanhood that radfems paint is so bleak and joyless that it can never adequately act as an answer to that problem

very frustrating to not indulge my every whim