this started as a joke but then i started actually thinking about it and now im really annoyed that IDs have this one letter that doesnt mean anything for cis people and is a huge pain in the ass for trans people when we could instead have literally lifesaving information so emergency medical services could just check ur wallet to see which blood to give you so you dont die or whatever But No
replace genders with blood types
Waterdance Painting - Waterdance Fine Art Print
Waterdance by Kelly McNeil
the thing is the king charles portrait is genuinely incredible and exactly how I would execute a portrait of a member of the british royal family but also I literally cannot fathom why the british royal family would have it made
like yeah if I were going to make a portrait of king charles I would absolutely have just his smugly smirking face leering out of a mass of red that could only be read as blood and gore, and have his military uniform fading ambiguously into the same background to lay bare the brutality of imperialism concealed by the pomp and ceremony of the british state, and make the entire thing sort of look like it was decaying to indicate the rot of the empire. like I really struggle to imagine a better visual metaphor for the nightmarish history of a dying empire than the king's spiffy military uniform and saber and sash and rows of epaulets being literally made out of a rotting field of blood and gore. but like why did he have it commissioned... why did he have it MADE and then say Looks great I'm putting it on the wall... HE EVEN LOOKS LIKE HE'S IN HELL
i think every remaining monarchy should be torn down. completely forgotten. the king is just a guy now, no more notable than any other. if he wants to attain celebrity he can do it on his own; if he wants to buy a house on the outskirts of leeds and take up gardening and substack book reviews, he can do that. if, God forbid, he wants to go into industry, rise to the ranks to become the director of developer relations or the VP of sales or some other such neo-baron, the option is open to him, and he can apply to oxford and cambridge and the university of birmingham on a business track like anyone else. not out of any republican principle, not to free the people from the dead hand of a spectacle they're free to ignore, but to free the king.
can you imagine? you're born with the sole purpose of trying to outlive your parents. until then, you're a minor character in the tedious celebrity you and they were born into. if you die before them, which can happen, your life was a waste: born a side character in a drama that once was a kingdom, banned by custom from anything but the stage, you never made it to the stage. if you don't, you become... the king! the protagonist of the global media, shuttled from bournemouth to belfast to stand and be the king, your every object transformation kink sext with your lover printed in every tabloid in the world. to play the role of King forever, not for money, not for fame, not for fun—not for anything at all, but because you were born into it.
the windsors are not a family business; they're older than business, more inescapable, from a time of primogeniture, inheritance, and caste. the king is born a prince and if he lives he's crowned the king. even if he abdicates, like Edward the Married-to-an-American (for whom he left the throne), he's still the former king. he was still born into the royal family. you can't choose your parents. nor can you ever shake them off. he tried.
i'm not surprised that his painting looks like hell, you know? it must be hell. the american press will float, from time to time, stories about malia obama smoking weed, or some such tedious thing, but for the most part they have discretion: if you don't seek out celebrity, it won't come to you. not so for britain and its king. some people are born into things they didn't ask for and don't want, born into a life that must forge itself into an instrument in service of goals they neither want nor can escape.
there goes Charles the Odd, chief lolcow of the world. of course his painting looks like hell.
It is so so important to show that queer people have always existed and are allowed to live long, happy lives. Young queer people–especially those in conservative areas–need to know that being queer is not a death sentence. Despite the many struggles we have faced, throughout history there have always been queer lives filled with joy and love. and you will find yours.
Beautifully, I’ve just discovered the photographer has all of these images available on their website to view:
Bilbo barely passed Old Took's record lifespan after having a supernaturally-life-extending ring for 60 years. which begs a question. what the hell did Old Took do
I have a theory that somewhere back up the line gandalf fucked a took. This sounds like complete crack but hear me out. The tooks are rumored to have “fairy blood” which in LOTR terms means either elves or maia. There is an ancestor who’s unusually tall and many of them are noted to live unusually long lives unless they meet with illness or injury, same as the numenorians did. They don’t hve extra pointy ears and elves don’t have a special interest in the line. But who DOES have a special interest in looking after tooks (and bilbo who is a took on his mother’s side/his adopted son frodo)? Gandalf. That dude is ALWAYS fussing over some silly little guy. He regularly brought the old took birthday presents.
Back in the day some bold hobbitess decided to climb that old man and ever since then gandalf has been looking after his line of tiny crazy bastards and no one will convince me otherwise.
Gandalf's attitude towards Pippin just took on a whole new layer.
Changing my belief system from "this is the hill I'll die on" to "this is the hill I'll kill you on" has done absolute wonders for me 10/10 do recommend
"you really gonna die on that hill?"
"someone is."
