Most beautiful quote of all ASOIAF
—and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.
[image description: An elegant black cat with a long tail sits in profile on a block of black marble, blocking the view of Assless Chaps behind them. Text reads, “55, Obsidious ~ The Small God of Occluding Cats”] ____________________________________________________________
The cat is in the way.
This is a basic fact of the universe, simple and immutable. The sun is shining, the wind is blowing, the cat is in the way. The world is spinning, the atomic structure of the universe is decaying, the cat is the way. The faithful pray, the apostate condemn, and the cat is in the way.
How is the cat always, inevitably, unavoidably, in the way? When did we get a cat, anyway? How did that cat get in here? Hey, is anyone willing to take responsibility for this cat? Can someone tell me whose cat this is?
No.
No, no one can tell you whose cat this is. No, no one is going to take responsibility for that cat. No, no one let the cat in, and the cat is in the way because it is the nature of cats to be in the way. If the cat were not in the way, something much more terrible than the cat might rise in its absence. The cat occupies space to ensure that the space is occupied, because the space will be occupied, whether it is by the cat or by something far more terrible. The cat is doing you a favor. Do not count the cat’s eyes. The cat’s eyes are none of your concern. The cat can see you. Isn’t that enough?
Isn’t it enough that the cat is being generous enough to protect you from the terrible thing that would be looking at you with some uncounted number of eyes if the cat were not there? Isn’t it enough that the cat is soft, and the cat is purring, and the cat is in the way?
Isn’t it enough?
Let it be enough.
The cat loves you. The cat will love you even into the void. The cat will forgive you for your frailties, and the cat is in the way.
The cat is always in the way.
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Artist Lee Moyer (Trident of Aurelia, 13th Age) and author Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children, October Daye & InCryptid series) sincerely appreciate you, but wonder if you could scoot just the tiniest little bit to the left?
Fuckyeah Terry Pratchett!
O: You’re quite a writer. You’ve a gift for language, you’re a deft hand at plotting, and your books seem to have an enormous amount of attention to detail put into them. You’re so good you could write anything. Why write fantasy?
Terry: I had a decent lunch, and I’m feeling quite amiable. That’s why you’re still alive. I think you’d have to explain to me why you’ve asked that question.
O: It’s a rather ghettoized genre.
Terry: This is true. I cannot speak for the US, where I merely sort of sell okay. But in the UK I think every book— I think I’ve done twenty in the series— since the fourth book, every one has been one the top ten national bestsellers, either as hardcover or paperback, and quite often as both. Twelve or thirteen have been number one. I’ve done six juveniles, all of those have nevertheless crossed over to the adult bestseller list. On one occasion I had the adult best seller, the paperback best-seller in a different title, and a third book on the juvenile bestseller list. Now tell me again that this is a ghettoized genre.
O: It’s certainly regarded as less than serious fiction.
Terry: (Sighs) Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy. Guys sitting around the campfire— Was it you who wrote the review? I thought I recognized it— Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus.
Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown. Up to a few hundred years ago no one would have disagreed with this, because most stories were, in some sense, fantasy. Back in the middle ages, people wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing in Death as a character who would have a role to play in the story. Echoes of this can be seen in Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, which hark back to a much earlier type of storytelling. The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest works of literature, and by the standard we would apply now— a big muscular guys with swords and certain godlike connections— That’s fantasy. The national literature of Finland, the Kalevala. Beowulf in England. I cannot pronounce Bahaghvad-Gita but the Indian one, you know what I mean. The national literature, the one that underpins everything else, is by the standards that we apply now, a work of fantasy.
Now I don’t know what you’d consider the national literature of America, but if the words Moby Dick are inching their way towards this conversation, whatever else it was, it was also a work of fantasy. Fantasy is kind of a plasma in which other things can be carried. I don’t think this is a ghetto. This is, fantasy is, almost a sea in which other genres swim. Now it may be that there has developed in the last couple of hundred years a subset of fantasy which merely uses a different icongraphy, and that is, if you like, the serious literature, the Booker Prize contender. Fantasy can be serious literature. Fantasy has often been serious literature. You have to fairly dense to think that Gulliver’s Travels is only a story about a guy having a real fun time among big people and little people and horses and stuff like that. What the book was about was something else. Fantasy can carry quite a serious burden, and so can humor. So what you’re saying is, strip away the trolls and the dwarves and things and put everyone into modern dress, get them to agonize a bit, mention Virginia Woolf a few times, and there! Hey! I’ve got a serious novel. But you don’t actually have to do that.
(Pauses) That was a bloody good answer, though I say it myself.
Bathrobe if ya nasty. USA English. Honestly, I think I use mine for the purpose of a “house coat”
RB to see how others think-- also, what territory you're from and version of English you speak! (this is to settle a thing I am pondering)
Klingons are integrating new words for the cat slow-blink into Klingon. They have specific words for a when a Klingon/cat exchange a slow-blink and a different word for when a parent/child exchanges a slow-blink.
My kitten tried to kill my stuffed tribble. My roommate remarked that my tribble killing cat would make a great Klingon pet… and she’s right.
Imagine a Klingon ship having a cat that protects them from tribbles & vermin. They have to get the cat from a shelter run by humans and they’re like “This is the honorable Mr. Chonks”.
“Yes, our ship also has an earth feline. Her name is Carrot and she fights like a warrior.”
There’s absolutely a Klingon out there who lost an eye to a feral cat that he then adopted.
Klingons who go “pspspspsps” to get the Ship Cat to come hang out during break.
Orange Ship Cat that gets lost in the jeffires tubes and Klingon whose sole job is to go fetch the orange cat. He acts like he hates his job but he actually really adores his feline co-worker so much.
Klingon that always hands things to the Ship Cat so it can sniff it.
Klingon that intentionally grabs boxes to enrich Ship Cat’s little life. Sometimes they get multiple boxes and the crew bets on which box will be deemed “best box” by their fluffy little warrior.
Klingon that starts his work shift saying “Qapla’!” to Ship Cat who meows in return.
Newly Minted Ship Kitten climbing up to a Klingon Captain’s shoulder with her tiny needle claws while said Captain is attempting to be intimidating on the viewscreen.
Klingon who gets a head bunt from Ship Cat and gives it a head bunt back.
Gods forbid we are proud to grown and learn
you arent going to be capable of any meaningful kind of solidarity with anyone if your response to new perspectives or information is to pretend you already knew.
if you cant say things like “i hadnt thought about it that way” or “thats a good point” (or even, god forbid “thanks for checking me on that”) when theyre appropriate, consider whether youre actually interested in developing your understanding or if youre just invested in your political self image.
Origami books/diagrams are wild, if they do have written instructions they include lots of beautiful and baffling phrases like “mountain fold” “valley fold” “crane base”, etc. What is this code?!
As a 90′s kid, it blows my mind that origami youtube videos exist. You can look up any model and watch a pair of manicured hands assemble the thing in real time, in full color, in 3D, with cheerful flute music in the background. When I was little, you had a library book with no words and these esoteric little dotted lines and arrows and it was just you, your hands, your paper, and the cruel, uncaring eyes of God.
Happy Thanksgiving
praise the rain by Joy Harjo
Some women are, “built like linebackers, the people so tall they develop back issues hunching over from trying not to be the biggest person in the room, the people who can’t even find well-fitting clothing at big and tall stores, the people who “thigh-highs” barely go above the knee, the people with broad shoulders and high hairlines that bangs can’t hide. And yes a lot of these features aren’t seen as feminine or cute or beautiful.”
All these women are beautiful. I hope we can all find love and peace in our bodies.
Turns out that in real life it’s not just the tiny skinny ones who end up actually being trans women. Sometimes it’s the people who are built like linebackers, the people so tall they develop back issues hunching over from trying not to be the biggest person in the room, the people who can’t even find well-fitting clothing at big and tall stores, the people who “thigh-highs” barely go above the knee, the people with broad shoulders and high hairlines that bangs can’t hide. And yes a lot of these features aren’t seen as feminine or cute or beautiful. I’m sorry that I resemble stereotypical transphobic caricatures a bit too closely, and I’m sorry that acknowledging the existence of people that look like me might make getting trans acceptance from cis people a lot harder. But frankly I’m one of the lucky ones who realized things before I started balding, one of the lucky ones who has many years of youth spent taking hormones in my future to somewhat alleviate the problems that make me hate my own body. And I don’t think any of these issues makes me or anyone else less of a woman, and if no one else wants to even try to depict people like us in a flattering manner then I’ll do my damnedest to do it myself
This is not justice. Please do not ruin this boys life.
She/her; ASOIF Fan Dany Stan; All colors for all kids; Trans Rights are Human Rights
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