Wholesomely Voluptuous

librarian, fic writer, queer, ridiculously shy; imaginary_golux on AO3

[swsource]

#there is literally no heterosexual explanation for that lip bite

[ser-william-the-third]

It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your squires are?

[berlynn-wohl]

a marriage of humankind's two greatest design achievements: the illuminated manuscript and the cool S

[blignick]

[historical-nonfiction]

A beautiful coffee cup and saucer, made to look like a water lily and its lily pad. And a visiting butterfly. Crafted from porcelain, it is hand-painted and hand-gilded.

Made by the Moore Brothers, in England, circa 1880.

[thisauthorisscreaming]

Does it count as 'sword in the stone' if it looks more like 'sword in the cairn'...?

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

cr 大同云冈蛋雕-凯哥

[frostedmagnolias]

Gala Dress

c. 1959

by Molstad & Co.

The National Museum of Norway

[bunjywunjy]

What the heck is a Falanouc and why does it look like that?

okay so I saw the search summary art first and was like "interesting style choice"

However,

looks like their faces are shaped like that because they shove them into the dirt all day hunting for worms. american robin type of animal.

<art src Lilya Butenko>

[littlestpersimmon]

Free Ornamentation II. This work is dedicated to the public domain.

[rain-sleet-snow]

So the Drazhada are represented heraldically by cats, right...

And the nesecho - representing a Barizheise animal - which Maia receives with Ambassador Gormened's message, as a token of support, before he's even crowned, is...

"Is suncat," said Oshet.

"We beg your pardon?" said Maia.

"Little animal is suncat. Live along southern coast. Friendly. Always curious. Kills snakes and rats. Many ships have suncats. Is very good luck."

you cannot tell me there aren't one thousand Barizheise cartoons of Maia as a suncat killing Tethimada/Clenverada rats and snakes. I want to see all of them.

[sunderwight]

Mulan AU where she does get caught by the other fresh recruits while she's bathing but Mushu helps her spin it like the lake is cursed by an evil lizard demon and will turn men into women if they stay in it for too long.

From there it's not actually difficult to get the other soldiers onboard with covering up the fact that poor Ping took one for the team and got afflicted by the vagina curse, especially since it would have been all of them if they hadn't gotten the warning ahead of time. So they agree to help him cover it up, because obviously the army's not going to understand.

Shang is... tentatively glad that the men are bonding and getting along, even if they continue to be deeply weird about it.

[great-art-and-a-purple-tongue]

Ling: Hey man, what's up— you've got boobs?!?!

Mulan: Uh, what boobs? Huh? Where did these come from?

Mushu: *facepalms and thinks quickly* (speaks from the shadows) I AM THE SPIRIT OF THE LAKE! BEWARE MY CURSED WATERS FOR THEY WILL TURN MEN INTO WOMEN!

Ling, Yao, and Chien Po: Oh no! The spirit of the cursed waters!

[metazanni]

I love tumblr's dedication to solving problems in the funniest way possible.

[ymutate]

Zulu Imbenge baskets are woven entirely of recycled telephone wire in the heart of KwaZulu-Natal, a province of South Africa. In the 1990s, Zulu women began repurposing discarded telephone wires, weaving them into intricate patterns to create colorful and durable baskets while preserving traditional weaving techniques.

[amnhnyc]

Here’s a critter you might not recognize: the ring-tailed vontsira (Galidia elegans)! Found in the forests of Madagascar, this small carnivore weighs up to 2 lbs (0.91 kg) and has a varied diet that includes insects, eggs, fish, and small mammals. The ring-tailed vontsira is an agile critter, an excellent climber, and is known to be playful.

Photo: sympiotr, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

[enter-the-bogman]

Reading through the Tortall books in publication order is funny because you start with Alanna “the village healing woman taught me all she knew” going off to become a knight, and end with Numair “world’s most powerful mage” as young Arram Draper first learning magic at the Carthaki university. Because of the 40 intervening years and five(?) different series further developing the Tortall universe, the magic system is now SO much more complex.  Arram is learning an elementally-based, heavily theory-dependent form of magic where conceptual power is applied to physical objects or energy constructs. His teachers make him develop skills in non-magical areas like juggling, jewelry making, and gardening so eventually they can safely guide him through complicated applications of magic. In comparison, Alanna complains that Duke Roger is spending too much time on theory in order to prevent her and her peers from learning “actual magic” and becoming his rivals. And then she throws purple light at things until they explode or she passes out! We also learn from Arram’s misadventures that most of “magic” is creating methods of applying, storing, and accessing power so the user doesn’t drain their own life force and pass out or die. Alanna uses NONE of these techniques; instead, she pulls her magic directly out of her own life force, thinks about what she wants it to do, and hopes she reaches that goal before draining herself. She even (sometimes) factors in the impact of magically draining herself of energy while attempting tasks that require both magical and physical endurance (such as when deciding how much magic to spend warming herself when making her blizzard hike to claim the Dominion Jewel.)

For one thing, this makes Alanna insanely powerful. In In the Hand of The Goddess, she breaks open Roger’s magically locked door (presumably designed by Roger himself– an immensely strong and well-trained sorcerer) by shoving her own magic into it until it MELTS. This builds an Alanna who decided magical theory was useless at age 12 because she has an immense access to magical potential energy, and who never learns the basic life-preserving models of magic usage that are taught in intro-level classes. She doesn’t have an interest in learning more sophisticated forms of magic, except in healing, which she cared about enough to learn non-magically. So when she heals, she uses magic as a guide or a supplement, rather than depending on it and then draining herself.  Since she isn’t attempting complex magic, most of the time the limitations of drawing directly from her own life force doesn’t impact her that much. The things she does magically all have much more efficient alternatives, but they require an understanding of magical theory and ability to store energy that Alanna never learned! If she wants to do larger spells, she just keeps feeding energy into it until it breaks or she does. 

The intervening series and Numair’s story makes Alanna’s simultaneously more and less believable. It now makes sense why everyone with even a slight understanding of Alanna’s type of Gift gets angry at times and tells her she’s using magic irresponsibly. (Before, we only understood Alanna’s side of the argument: “Well, I didn’t die and it worked, so calm down.” !!!) The fact that she never actually dies and only rarely is seriously harmed through her own magic use now requires some suspension of disbelief!

[starry-glades]

[thoughtfulfangirling]

I know to some extent that, inevitably, this evolution of the magic in the Tortall means it’s not in the same form it was when Alanna first came out, but this works for me hahaha. Because that is 100% Alanna!

Just because Alanna turned out to be right about Roger’s plans and machinations doesn’t mean he wasn’t like, actually teaching good magical theory. But Alanna would absolutely decide that nothing he could offer would be of value to her and ignore it.

Not to mention she was also still scared of her magic at that point and like… maybe no wonder??? If she’s sitting on stores of it like that.

Stubborn, bullheaded Alanna TO A FAULT. LOVEEEE

But it all makes that last graphic like sooo 10000% valid. Numair must pull his hair out when Alanna really gets going with her magic LMAOO

[berensreverie]

Spinosaurus Swimming with Fishes!

[lurrlonde]

its a heavy burden, having a heart as big as a city. and heavier still when it loves you back

prints