Month: September 2023

“Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill monsters and feel quite…”

“Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill monsters and feel quite proud of themselves. Even a girl who carries spiders outside instead of stepping on them, a girl who once fed a tiny fox kit with an eyedropper every two hours until wildlife rescue could come and pick it up–that same girl can kill and be ready to do it again. … She can look at her brother and believe that together they’re a knight and a bard who battle evil, who might someday find and fight even the monster at the heart of the forest. A little girl can find a dead boy and lose her dog and believe that she could make sure no one else was lost.”

- Holly Black, The Darkest Part of the Forest.

The author of the Charlemagne book I’m listening to puts a lot of emphasis on the difference between…

elucubrare:

The author of the Charlemagne book I’m listening to puts a lot of emphasis on the difference between modern people and medieval people, and how we can never really enter into a medieval mindset. and to a large extent, I think he’s right.

I mean, I think there are at least two levels:

First, there’s “people have always been people”: people have always had petty complaints about shopkeepers, and loved children and siblings, and made toys and left graffiti. Modern apartment-dwellers can understand many things about Romans living in insulae - annoying neighbors, fourth-floor walkups, absentee landlords.

But second, there’s a larger mindset that we can try to understand but never share: medieval people lived in a world that was much less certain than ours, in many ways. Not only practically uncertain - you don’t know if the harvest will fail, so you don’t know if you’ll have enough to eat that winter - but uncertain in that there are so many more unknowns about the world - if the harvest fails, you don’t know why. You can’t predict the weather; you don’t know what causes the weather. That has to affect your decision-making, and the way you live your life, in so many ways I can’t even begin to speculate on.

In the end, I think it’s important to remember both - these are people, with people’s quirks and faults and desires, both large and small – but they’re people in a context, with points of view, and in circumstances that are completely different from ours.

Autumn makes me want to live in a small town with tons of history and character. Leaf-strewn…

alatteofautumn:

Autumn makes me want to live in a small town with tons of history and character. Leaf-strewn cobblestone streets. Old buildings and homes that range from small cottages to large estates. Maple, oak, and pine trees line the streets and cluster in yards, and when they all turn orange and gold in the fall it’s the most beautiful sight. Small local businesses thrive. It’s walking distance to your favorite coffee shop or diner. There’s an ancient library on the edge of town with the greatest selection of books, comfy armchairs, tables, and big windows to read by. Time moves slower there. Everything is safe.

You know what we don’t talk about enough in the aromantic community? That moment after you accept…

herbirdglitter:

You know what we don’t talk about enough in the aromantic community? That moment after you accept yourself as aromantic whre you suddenly realize that you have no goals.

Like sure maybe professional goals and stuff, but personal goals? It feels like everyone else has a plan. Like they’re all going to get married by 25 and have kids by 30 etc. and you don’t have any. You’re future is suddenly feeling very empty, because even though you didn’t necessarily want that future, at least it was a plan.

A plan that revolved around having someone who loved you unconditionally and promised never to leave you.

And now that you’ve realized that that promise comes with stuff you might not want, and the whole idea is scrapped, well your future suddenly starts to look very, very lonely.