elzebrook:

Scalzi just wrote his Twitter is “a single, unbroken string of testimonials” about Ursula LeGuin and I’m sure tumblr is too, but i’ll throw mine on the pile

Here is a story:

In my junior college creative writing class, we read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. I had read it before, years ago, and knew the shape of it, but at 20 I knew a bit more about hard choices and dark places and the difference between Doing What’s Right and Doing What’s Easy than I did at 9. So it hit me anew.

Even now, every time I read it, it hits me anew.

The professor was a man perhaps a little too satisfied with himself in the way fundamentally insecure people are. He was unhappy in his marriage, in a vague sort of way, and he insisted we call him Doc, presumably to remind us that he was both Cool (not stuffy like those other professors) and Better Than Us (he had a PhD). He was so on point as a middle aged English professor stereotype you would almost think it was on purpose.

In class, we eventually got to the discussion question you always do with Omelas:

What would you do?

The professor indicated he would not leave, and professed doubt that anyone really would.

I remember being mildly aghast that anyone would say they’d stay, that anyone would choose personal comfort at the cost of someone else’s blatant and obvious suffering. Firm in my knowledge of Right and Wrong and perhaps a little self-righteous, I declared that I would leave. Immediately.

“Would you really?” he asked, patronizing and amused at my naiveté.

“Yes!” I said. “If that was all it boiled down to? If it was really that simple? Yes! Of course I would leave!”

The discussion moved on, and I never trusted that professor’s opinion on anything again, because men who patronize young activist women ought to be eaten by hyenas but apparently feeding them to hyenas is illegal or something. But the conversation stayed with me.

If that was all it boiled down to

If it was really that simple

Outside of the story, it is not that simple. I know too much about globalization and privileging profits over people on the one hand and the difficulty of setting up a working self-sufficient commune farm on the other to believe that realistically I could walk away from this society. I know too much about the history of this country, soaked in blood and writhing with unacknowledged hypocrisy, to ever be comfortable with staying.

My professor, I think, tried to make the story complicated, to make us students examine the dark and selfish parts that must be lurking just below our surface. But the beauty of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is that it is not complicated. It is simple.

When you realize Omelas rests on the unloved child, do you stay, or do you go?

The beauty of Omelas is that it winnows your choices down to this:

When faced with a society built on the suffering of fellow human beings, do you accept it, or do you do something?

In the world of the story, what you can do is walk away. Decide you will not be complicit to this anymore. Realize that comfort is not happiness, joy resting on the suffering of others is hollow, and a utopia without justice is no utopia at all. Walk away.

In the world I live in, the country I live in, I cannot walk away. There is nowhere to walk to. Everything is intertwined. Walking away is not a choice I have.

The choice I have is this:

Do I accept it, or do I do something?

Ursula Le Guin died and I am having an emotion

drowningbydegrees-fanworks:

In This Life or Any Other - Chapter 9

FIC RATING: E
WORD COUNT: 63482 (total)
RELATIONSHIPS: Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian
WARNINGS: Graphic Depictions of Violence TAGS: Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Trauma, Politics, Intrigue, BAMF Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Angst and Humor, Additional warnings/tags in chapters as needed

SUMMARY: When his reconnaissance mission makes it clear that the Qishan army is marching on Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian knows they don’t stand a chance on their own. He reports in requesting military support, but instead of the backup he hoped for, all Wei Wuxian gets is an order to return home. He doesn’t actually know anyone from Gusu, really, but they’re still people. With destruction inevitable and every kingdom turning a blind eye, Wei Wuxian makes a choice. The only choice, as far as he’s concerned. If no help is coming, Wei Wuxian will just have to save them himself. Fooling Wen Ruohan’s soldiers into arresting him so he can stage a prison break? That’s definitely on purpose. Setting events in motion that could reshape the world as they know it? That… might have been an accident.

Read on AO3 here

(Warning for this chapter for death and graphic description of injury. The version on AO3 has indicators of what parts to skip and a summary of those scenes at the end of that kind of content makes you uncomfortable <3)

At least now he knows, Wei Wuxian guesses, that Wen Chao chose practical instead of petty.

He arms himself with smooth, practiced motions, clinging to what parts of the job he was prepared for that he can accomplish uncontested. He can put on armor with his eyes closed, but battle plans might crumble when faced with a real enemy. An attack is a possibility he’s trained for since he could hold a sword, but no one’s ever truly tried to do it.

In the chaos, Wei Wuxian reluctantly sets aside his previous intention to send Lan Zhan a message. There’s no time now, what with an army bearing down on them. It’s not as if they’d even committed to anything or the sort. Which is… also the reasoning he’s been soothing his concerns over Lan Zhan’s silence with. There’s probably a lot to do returning to a home that was burnt to the ground.

None of that stops the creeping sort of guilt that settles in the pit of his stomach at the idea of leaving Lan Zhan in the dark, but Wei Wuxian pushes it aside for the time being. When it’s over and Lotus Pier is safe, he’ll send a message. If he’s lucky, maybe Jiang Cheng will be too tired to laugh at him about it.

Keep reading

ambular-d:

ambular-d:

I was putting together a list of active or recently active Good Omens blogs for a friend, and thought I might as well post it here in case anyone else is interested.

This is not an exhaustive list.  If I missed your active most-or-all-Good Omens blog or another you know about, please reblog and/or comment and let me know so I can add it to the list!

The few here that haven’t updated very recently or that that contain significant other content, either seem like they stand a good chance of reviving when Season 2 drops, or are owned by artists whose work IMO is just too good to leave out.

Links in the notes as usual, because Tumblr throws a rod when you try to post them normally.

aethelflaedladyofmercia
alintheshitposter
androgynousflow3r
an-ineffably-pale-oracle
aziraphale-rights
aziraphales-library
azirasbookshop
bartzabell
be-kind-to-each-otter
book-omens
books-and-omens
cassandralie
charlottemadison42
contraststudies
dubiousduckears
erraticopeninghours
flaming-like-anything
forineffablereasons
fuckyeahgoodomens
good-omens-classic
goodomensedit
good-omens-meta-library
gotagoat4free
great-good-omens-essays-lmao
guardian-of-soho
hasturswig
i-am-having-a-moment-here
ii-vegas-ii
inconveniently-discorporated
ineffablecooking
ineffable-endearments
ineffable-houseplants
ineffableomenshusbands
infinitevariety
lookitsstevie
mielpetite (nerfed adult/NSFW content)
mirjam-writes
naefelldaurk
neamh-in-heaven
neil-gaiman
notachaconne
nuzzo208
on-stardust-wings
peacefulomens
perfectlyineffable
pinkpiggy93
politeanarchy
sadlynojellybeans
skelligiri
sushiandstarlight
theyreineffable
trailingoff
tweedfeather
twilightcitysky

Here are some other active Tumblrs that are posting Good Omens content AND other cool stuff, possibly waiting for Season 2 to drop!

anonymousdandelion
copperplatebeech
dubiouslynamed
inhonoredglory
joyandotherstories
kitcat-italica
losyanya
mirkwood-spider-express
ngkiscool
ri-writing
sarahthecoat
stressedwalnut
saretton
tsilvy
thebright1
whispsofwind
zadusk
zaxal

Thanks so much to everyone who’s been reblogging and suggesting Tumblrs to include!