armsmen are generally retired military men, twenty-years or twice-twenty years men who are looking for things to occupy their time, so it is entirely possible that some of Ezar’s armsmen had served with Serg, or that their sons were serving under Serg, and really all it takes is one young lieutenant or captain sending cryptic and highly alarmed messages home to his parents from the Escobar front lines for the vorbarra armsmen to make some very correct assumptions about what Serg’s doing out there. they saw the way he treated Kareen. they know what Serg’s like.
and they know that Ezar’s on his death bed, it’s kind of hard to miss. and they don’t really talk about it but occasionally they float the idea of just… not renewing their oaths, officially retiring and letting Serg completely restaff his house but it’s never serious, their oaths mean to much for that, but the idea is floated (and there’s Gregor to consider, Gregor trusts them) and when Escobar turns out to be a clusterfuck and Serg dies, they get drunk. just. shitfaced. and there’s no singing of for he’s a jolly good fellow or the like, there’s not really mourning, but it’s not a celebration either, they just sit and drink and feel like they dodged a bullet. the armsmen’s wives suddenly find that one good kitchen knife that had disappeared some weeks ago, because Ezar and his armsmen had that weird telepathy that happens when you work with someone for long enough and no one ever said anything, no one even thought about it for too long, but Serg could not be allowed to be emperor and the armsmen are so glad they they won’t ever have to face that possibility
but that leaves them swearing oaths to Gregor, who’s five, and just had all of his family die, and it’s entirely possible that some of the armsmen have children or grandchildren that age and here they are kneeling at his feet and swearing their undying loyalty to a newly orphaned child who just had the weight of three planets put on his shoulders. and it’s pretty clear that Gregor doesn’t really get why they’re putting their hands between his hands, and he’s pretty bored by it all because there’s 20 armsmen to renew their oaths plus all of the counts and it’s super boring and he’s five (Gregor swearing to protect them is almost laughable). they also know that the Vorbarra armsmen are pretty much a vanity guard, what with ImpSec completely controlling the emperor’s security, and if something is bad enough to have gotten through to Gregor then it’s probably too much for them to handle, but sometimes protection means so much more than being a human meat shield,
the emperor’s birthday and winterfair are huge ceremonial ordeals (and the presents are fit for an emperor, not a pre-pubescent boy) but the day before that Gregor always has an unsigned pile of gifts that are actual toys, and games and books and occasionally homemade hats/scarves/sweaters, and it takes him a while to realize there’s always exactly twenty five (armsmen+the vorkosigans+the vorpatrils+the botharis). Cordelia and Aral or Drou always know when he has nightmares (because the night guard always politely raps on their door in a special pattern). Gregor meets every stray kitten or puppy or cute-enough-rodent that the armsmen stumble across and they smuggle in candy to hide in Gregor’s school desk or show up for their shift weirdly early with something hot and friend and too much for them to eat by themselves, really
and the Vorbarra armsmen are grim faced and stern and last line of defense for the Emperor-Count-Vorbarra and professional to a fault (because those damn ImpSec spooks are always breathing over their shoulders #oldmangrumbling) but they have so many Opinions on how children should be treated and manage to turn into a weird collection of hands-off doting uncles to Gregor the boy, at least until he starts the military academy
you know, this was a good post. I really like this one. I should reread shards of honor
so in 2007, there was a law passed that said if you have student loans
and you worked in public services & made student loan payments on time
for 10 years, you’d get loan forgiveness. fast forward to 2017, and guess what happens under this admin with Betsy Devos?
out of 30,000 public service applicants, the Devos/Trump team only forgave the loans of 96 people. imagine 10 years ago deciding to work in public service with shitty pay to pay off loans the govt promised they would and then 99% of applications get rejected. thats absolutely despicable. wtf.
couldn’t post the links since this website is hell and won’t let it show up in searches anymore, but here’s the links. apparently there IS a class-action lawsuit going, and here’s a link to a petition being done by the same union who filed the lawsuit (it’s at the bottom). not sure how much it’s helpful but it’s worth a shot i guess
If I were a billionaire I would absolutely tell my secretary to send wedding gifts to anyone who sent me an invite regardless of if I knew them, because- A. I know how expensive that nonsense is. B. I would be a billionaire and when else am I gonna do with that much money? Honestly… and C. I would totally make showing up at random weddings with crazy awesome gifts my new stress relief hobby. “Congratulations random strangers! I admire your daring and stratigic planning. Here’s that 700$ tea set you wanted but assumed no one would ever buy.”
Can I just say, uh, I’m pretty sure noticing you’re asexual is harder than noticing you’re gay, straight, pan or otherwise. Like, I just read someone’s desciption of hitting puberty and, like, there’s nothing like that. There’s no sudden ‘boob’ moment, no sudden ‘fuck, I’d fuck that’ moment, not sudden anything. You just, like, plod on through life as usual going ‘oooh, that’s pretty, I’d like that hair’ or ‘oooooh, they’re nice, I’d like to be close to them’ but there’s no like, ‘oh, someone would want to fuck that but I don’t’, you know? You just- you don’t notice, you don’t realise everyone else has ‘had a moment’ but you haven’t, you just- keep going as you always have.
And then, much much later, you start to wonder why people are getting so caught up in drama for romance or sex, like, why bother? It’s not worth it, they’re not worth it, why are you doing stupid things for something that’s so- and then you wonder if there’s something wrong with you, start mentally over compensating. Like ‘uh, okay, um, who should I date? Who can I stand to date? Who could I stand to fuck?’ like- it’s not, it’s not something you want, but you want to fit it, to be normal.
Sometimes you don’t even know that you’re doing it.
Sometimes you don’t even know asexual’s a thing.
I dunno, I guess, I just feel like, uh, people should understand more?
It’s called the foot-in-the-door method. First, you propose something that is slightly outside of allowable norms: denying gay people wedding cakes on grounds of “religious freedom”. Then, you slowly ramp up how extreme your demands are, coercing the other side to giving a tiny bit of ground each time, until you’ve shifted the entire fucking playing field. Conservatives are also very fond of the door-to-face method, which is demanding something completely outlandish that you know will be refused, and then asking for something less ridiculous by way of compromise, again resulting in a gradual shift in norms until views that were once considered moderate or reasonable become unthinkably liberal by destroying people’s sense of standards. The combination of these methods is called the “foot-in-the-face” method, which sums up where this whole thing is headed quite nicely.
Thank you for posting this. I was arguing with a relative who had taken the “I don’t think you should NOT make cakes for gays, but why not just go to a vendor that will happily sell to you” stance and I couldn’t quite explain why this was still a bad idea. This sums it up perfectly and correctly.
Site Title 