rereading squire... kel's dislike of jonathan is genuinely so special to me especially having reread wild magic recently and seeing how charmed daine is by him at first <3 thing is jonathan iv is the greatest king the realm has ever seen he IS working towards social progress and some of the most powerful people living love him and call him their lord. but he fucked this up so baddd she'll serve him she'll obey him but she's never going to like him. FUMBLED! jon has turned so many strange & remarkable people into assets to the throne he's surrounded by the cream of the crop when it comes to the exceptional & the gods-touched. and while kel is for sure an asset to the realm she Actively Dislikes Him. that's the distinction, see, she's an asset to the realm not to him. it's such an L. imagine what you could do with someone like that if she was loyal to you personally instead of just as a concept! and like i think in time she will be an asset To Roald because roald likes and trusts her & his future queen does too... genuinely jon shot himself in the foot by allowing that probationary period. kel is on very good terms with his heir his daughter-in-law his knight commander his CHAMPION his spymaster his greatest spy his most powerful mage... and she cant stand him. how embarrassing your majesty

may be a hot take but i think the fact minors can access 18+ content by just clicking a button that says 'yes im totally over 18 trust me' is like. totally fine tbh. its a non-issue. i dont care if curious teenagers are looking at porn. they've been doing that for as long as porn has existed. id rather teens explore their sexuality through images on the internet than rush into real life experiences when they're not ready for it yknow. the UK is trying to put stricter age verification in place (which in turn is becoming an online privacy nightmare) and like. for what. who is it helping. why is this a problem.

People panic about "But what if kids pick up bad ideas from it???"

When I was a kid, Power Rangers got banned at school because we all thought it was incredibly cool and kept trying to kick each other in the head. No-one bothered explaining "Those are trained actors and it's all practiced, they don't *actually* hurt each other, and you're not good at that yet", they just banned it.

So we went to the park after school and read Kim's smuggled copy of the Power Rangers magazine and kicked each other in the head there instead.

(This is a metaphor, but it's also literally true. So much kicking in the head.)

God forbid parents actually talk to their teenagers.

Darth Vader sends Imperial officers he's annoyed with but not enough to kill them (or when he's not allowed to kill because of their political connections, or because he's already used up his Emperor-imposed allowance of officer strangulations for the ten-day) to hunt down (and be humiliated by, looney-tunes style) Hondo Ohnaka and his pirate gang

via christianmhull

Ok so it's clear to me that some of y'all are having issues with this video. As someone who understands breed specific behaviors and dog body language this shit is objectively hilarious to me. Lemme explain why:

Beagles are a very vocal breed. They are hound dogs, specifically hunters, so their job is to communicate and be extra loud when excited or a "treat" is found.

Due to their nature as hounds, and in part genetically predisposed health issues, they get fat often. They're prone to eat too much and need exercise. Old beagles tend to get over weight.

This dog is not biting, frustrated, or aggressive. He's wagging his tail, licking his owner, and engaging in hunting behaviors (barking, sniffing, pointing, and nipping.) This dog is trying to catch his treat. He's working for his reward.

TLDR: The dog is having fun. Don't take it seriously. Using a crunchy mic with a beagle makes his barking sound so funny. Enjoy the humor.

"Good girl" is nice and all, but someone just told me "you serve me well" and I felt neurons fire I didn't even know I had

japanese first person pronouns appeal to me on a pure information conveyance level. you're telling me with just the word "i" i could be communicating that I'm an adult man and an asshole?

Looking at what national news outlets are up to right now, one might not realize a whole major US metropolitan area is, you know, sort of under attack by paramilitary forces. Wild.

im sorry the What is being What now???

While it's not going unreported entirely, what's been happening in Minnesota and in Minneapolis–Saint Paul in particular since Renee Good was murdered is not getting the attention it should be.

There are already 2000 gangsters from DHS deployed, and "hundreds" or "1000" more are on the way, depending on which Trumpland person you ask. As a point of reference, the Twin Cities' actual police total just under 1200 (600 in Minneapolis and 590 in Saint Paul according to the depts' sites).

The feds there are more or less attacking people at random. They've gone door-to-door for "citizenship checks" (completely illegal). They've knocked doors down when residents haven't complied (obviously also completely illegal). In addition to abducting and brutalizing the immigrants they come across during their rampages, they've done the same to US citizens of color and are also harassing, stalking and physically attacking observers.

Here are some local sources:

ICE intensifies Twin Cities operation after killing of Renee Good, protests (MPR News—link won't embed)

Privacy advocates: ICE using private data to intimidate observers and activists (MPR News—link won't embed)

Below are some videos from observers. I'm linking to Bluesky because that's where I saw them, though many are originally from/also available elsewhere. I apologize for the rancid formatting below but it was the best I could do quickly-ish. The images are previews; click the links in the timestamps to watch.

Elliott Payne (@elliottpayne.org) January 12, 2026 at 10:49 PM

Mickey Kuhns (@mickeykuhns.bsky.social) January 12, 2026 at 10:58 AM

Dumb Meg (@dmbmeg.bsky.social) Jan 11, 2026 at 6:10 PM (You need to be logged in to see this—while it's unclear what happened to the victim in this one, there's no reported death so far; CW for heightened violence)

Dom Ervolina (@dominicervolina.com) Jan 11, 2026 at 8:42 PM (You need to be logged in to see this)

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 12, 2026 at 4:37 PM

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 12, 2026 at 7:22 PM

Sundae Gurl (@sundaedivine.lol) January 10, 2026 at 4:39 AM

Sherrilyn Ifill (@sifill.bsky.social) January 12, 2026 at 9:19 PM

SaltyBitchables (@saltybitchables.bsky.social) January 11, 2026 at 4:19 PM

News2Share has more on YouTube:

I also recommend checking out this guy's work:

Costumes from The Pacific Northwest Ballet's Sleeping Beauty,

Preston Singletary and Paul Tazewell

Luther DeMyer and @audreymalek as King and Queen Papillon. 📷: @angelasterlingphoto

These images are so arresting I had to go find more about them. These were designed by Paul Tazwell based on the work of production and set designer Preston Singletary.

I got to work on this production! Another coat I really liked (this one is worn by the steward and is missing its cuffs in these photos):

Y'all also need to meet Carabosse:

I have to share this on the ground reporting of what’s happening in Minnesota from former Buzzfeed journalist Ryan Broderick:

October 3, 1992:  Sinead O’Connor appeared on Saturday Night Live singing an  acapella cover of Bob Marley’s song “War”, changing some of the lyrics to include references to child abuse, and ending the performance by tearing up a photo of Pope John Paull II and saying “fight the real enemy”.

This ruined her career and she was telling the truth, as we all came to find out years later.

Please remember she didn’t consider it as a career ruiner. 

To speak on how it “ruined” her career ignores her own feelings on it. Please acknowledge how she felt about it, instead of how you see it.

From a Doylist perspective I understand why Gregor made Aral Viceroy of Sergeyar - LMB needed to get him & Cordelia out of the narrative. Aral being available in Memory ESPECIALLY would have made it a VERY different book - imagine Haroche not letting Aral Vorkosigan, the greatest man of a generation and Simon's long-time colleague, not see Simon. See also: if Cordelia had been easily available at the BEGINNING of ACC, there's no way Miles would have been permitted to fuck the Ekaterin thing up so bad.

But about running Sergeyar from OJ&RQ.... that job is fucking hard! The last guy begged to come home! Dumb ass shit is always happening! Bullshit politics! Stressful, long-term-ramification decisions to make! Many competing factions with upsides and downsides! Gregor, this is NOT!!! a job for an old man who had a massive cardiac event and needed a new heart!!!

(At some point I will make a post about how Aral worked since he was 11 years old until the day he died and this is an incredibly impactful narrative structure for the books as a whole.)

#I also think it's possible that if Aral is not given a demanding job he will find something even worse for himself#Gregor gives him and Cordelia a two month long vacation and Aral ends up pulling some sort of Miles#he and Cordelia come back with like#new contacts on Earth#info about a secret bioweapon#rumors about another lost planet#some bewildered hastily-acquired retainers#a five refugee families interested in emigrating#plans for a new space station in the jumps between barrayar and sergyar#and some flowers for Alys that Cordelia thought were lovely and biologically interesting

These tags pass peer review, especially when you consider Gregor let Simon recover a little too long and then the ImpSec building sunk.

the OP turned off reblogs, but I think this post is great so I'm honorably stealing it. they're right. it should matter. wouldn't it be hilarious and just if somehow it mattered.

I guess there was a part during Connor’s and Hudson’s presentation where Connor had to act uncomfortable because everyone had seen him naked? Lol. Ok. The globes writers didn’t even try huh.

Actually like. It’s really kind of gross to me that Connor and Hudson took on and gave their all to these roles in this show that is becoming an extremely important work of queer media, that they not only obviously have no qualms about people seeing their bodies, and shouldn’t have to have qualms about it, and currently can’t escape sexual harassment from fans or interviewers or even other celebrities, and on top of all that, the globes decided you know what, if you’re not going to be ashamed about it we’re going to ask you to pretend to be. Because not only can we not imagine not being embarrassed by what you’ve done, people would think it’s hilarious if you were. And because Connor and Hudson have only just made it, and are having their dreams come true, and at this point, are aware this is all part of the deal and something they just have to live with, they do it and everyone loves them for it. I am this 🤏 fucking close to becoming a domestic terrorist.

Never forget that in 2007 the Academy Awards asked Heath Ledger to joke about Brokeback Mountain in an opening monologue at the ceremony. Heath Ledger refused. He refused to even attend the awards that year in protest. What's happening to Connor and Hudson right now is inextricably connected to a long legacy of award shows making a spectacle out of and mocking queer media. They are subtler about it now than they used to be, but it's still there.

your aversion to anything earnest or sincere has affected us in the following ways 1. youre annoyinggggggg

i just wanted you guys to know theres a porn parody of the force awakens and just when this storm trooper dude starts feeling this bitch up, kylo came in and started doing his usual tantrum shit in the background unprovoked, meanwhile oblivious to all thats happening and let me tell you no porn has ever cut me so off guard and brought me to tears in .01 seconds until now