Teach ME A New Word, Please! Make It One Nobody Has Said Before.

A GUIDE FOR YOUNG LADIES ENTERING THE SERVICE OF THE FAIRIES, by Rosamund Hodge

I.

This is the lie they will use to break you: no one else has ever loved this way before.

II.

Choose wisely which court you serve. Light or Dark, Summer or Winter, Seelie or Unseelie: they have many names, but the pith of the choice is this: a poisoned flower or a knife in the dark?

(The difference is less and more than you might think.)

Of course, this is only if you go to them for the granting of a wish: to save your father, sister, lover, dearest friend. If you go to get someone back from them, or—most foolish of all—because you fell in love with one of them, you will have no choice at all. You must go to the ones that chose you.

III.

Be kind to the creature that guards your door. Do not mock its broken, bleeding face.

It will never help you in return. But I assure you, someday you will be glad to know that you were kind to something once.

IV.

Do not be surprised how many other mortal girls are there within the halls. The world is full of wishing and of wanting, and the fairies love to play with human hearts.

You will meet all kinds: the terrified ones, who used all their courage just getting there. The hopeful ones, who think that love or cleverness is enough to get them home. The angry ones, who see only one way out. The cold ones, who are already half-fairy.

I would tell you, Do not try to make friends with any of them, but you will anyway.

V.

Sooner or later (if you serve well, if you do not open the forbidden door and let the monster eat you), they will tell you about the game.

Summer battles Winter, Light battles Dark. This is the law of the world. And on the chessboard of the fairies, White battles Black.

In the glory of this battle, the pieces that are brave and strong may win their heart’s desire.

VI.

You already have forgotten how the mortal sun felt upon your face. You already know the bargain that brought you here was a lie.

If you came to save your sick mother, you fear she is dead already. If you came to free your captive sister, your fear she will be sent to Hell for the next tithe. If you came for love of an elf-knight, you are broken with wanting him, and yet he does not seem to know you.

Say yes.

Keep reading

(by @SarcasticRover on Twitter, I think)

The commendable desire to reduce conflict with bears has a long and distinguished pre-history.

As recently as three weeks ago Google had an image search function that let you search by type of Creative Commons license, so finding free to use/no attribution required images was so easy. Now it looks like they’ve sabotaged that function and limited it to just Creative Commons/Commercial and my job has suddenly become exponentially harder.

the dopest thing about horses is that they’re basically grass engines

like, grass goes in, fast comes out

most things that produce fast (like cheetahs, and cars) use much more heavily processed grass, like horses, and oil

and yet here horses are, producing The Fast with only The Grass

anyone who says “the bible is clear” about an issue, is 100% of the time wrong. the bible wasnt clear once. the bible couldnt be clear about how to make a table if it came in an ikea box

Elder poverty is real

I get grossed out by how often things online suggest all older people are wealthy because I’ve seen time and time again poor old people being fucked over.

 Old women losing their homes because their husbands die and their lower social security can’t pay for rent or taxes.  Or old people whose spouse helped them manage things like health problems or memory difficulties not having any financial means to replace that support with care workers. 

Old people skipping meals and going hungry.  

Old people whose families have liquidated most of their assets because the family has guardianship and there’s far too little protection.

Old people whose medical bills have totally bankrupted them or who are losing medical care needed to stay in their homes instead of an institution for financial reasons.  

Old people whose age related disabilities mean that navigating the bureaucracy of the welfare system is impossible for them.

There’s so much suffering of the elderly poor swept under the rug in favor of focusing on the very small group of wealthy old people.  No serious anti-poverty movement or measure can exclude elder poverty from their work without harming millions.  Old people aren’t disposable.

I can’t stop watching this 😂

edinburgh, 2019