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Bro, we are cooked. The knight that dogs the prince's shadow like a dark and silent wraith just knelt to press his forehead to the prince's hand. Yeah, now he's uttering a prayer whose recipient is ostensibly God but in reality is the deified version of the prince that exists only in his mind. Aaand the prince just caressed his cheek to preemptively grant him absolution. I gotta... I gotta get out of here.

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If we are to truly reach a moment where we might be finished with England cleared away to make room for something else there most certainly lies a dark moment between here and there. A moment of terror where everything appears to be without hope. I know this.

James Flint Appreciation Week Day 2 >> Most Memorable/Favourite Quote

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Rose water production, Qamsar, Iran

City of fragrance

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Supermoon. Temple of Poseidon, near Athens, Greece. July 3, 2023, by Alkis Konstantinidis

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Great Tit on Paulownia Branch - Tit on Wild Grapes, 1925-1936. Ohara Koson. Ink on paper.

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birth year of ASOIAF characters if AGOT took place in 2025:

a lot of the characters in ASOIAF were aged up for the show (with good reason in a lot of cases) but one thing that always strikes me about the books is how YOUNG most of them are.

so here are what their birth years would be if the books started in 2025 (pretend their birthday this year already happened).

this based on ages in AGOT- if we meet the character later I added a year or so depending on the book (also I split groups by decades for ease of reading).

Aemon: 1926

Tywin: 1970

Jorah: 1985

Davos (if ACOK is 2026) and Oberyn (if ASOS is 2026): 1986

Robert Baratheon: 1989

Ned: 1990

Stannis: 1991

Catelyn: 1992

Jaime, Cersei, and Lysa: 1994

Drogo: 1995

Littlefinger: 1996

Sandor: 1998

Tyrion: 2001

Viserys and Renly: 2004

Theon: 2006

Shae and Brienne (if ACOK is 2026): 2007

Loras: 2009

Jon, Robb, Samwell, and Margaery: 2011

Daenerys, Joffrey, and Meera (if ACOK is 2026): 2012

Sansa: 2014

Jojun (if ACOK is 2026): 2015

Arya: 2016

Bran and Myrcella: 2018

Tommon: 2019

Robert Arryn: 2020

Rickon: 2023

please comment if I got anything wrong/forgot anyone! (characters whose ages are too ambiguous I didn't include)

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love having blind faith in my fallible king #MyFallibleKing

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I think it would be really fucking funny to write a piece of fiction set entirely in real life but using lazy fantasy worldbuilding talk. I gather coin* for the road west** - I will need it to enter the Capital.***

* two quarters and two dimes

** Interstate 64

*** Richmond, Virginia

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Bruce Springsteen visiting his childhood home in New Jersey. 1980s | 2025.

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i think it's extremely unfair for you to say the actors are spineless. the producers and directors, yes. but the actors were literally having their livelihoods and future career prospects threatened if they spoke out or refused to perform.

grennell, the president of the kennedy center said, “Any performer who isn’t professional enough to perform for patrons of all backgrounds, regardless of political affiliation, won’t be welcomed. In fact, we think it would be important to out those vapid and intolerant artists to ensure producers know who they shouldn’t hire - and that the public knows which shows have political litmus tests to sit in the audience. The Kennedy Center wants to be a place where people of all political stripes sit next to each other and never ask who someone voted for but instead enjoys a performance together.”

and, i want to point out, that acting in Les Miserables is a job, not a life commitment or a political statement.

I stand by what I said: every single person involved in putting on the Les Miserables Kennedy center performance was either a spineless coward or a Trump supporter, and they should ALL be utterly ashamed of themselves. They're an insult to the novel's legacy. I'm shocked people are defending it. I used to sometimes wonder whether Victor Hugo's actions-- speaking up against Napoleon III's attacks on democracy-- were genuinely that important. After all, it's not like Hugo literally shot Napoleon III in battle or raised barricades against him with his own two hands-- he just used his platform to publicly criticize Napoleon III's attacks on democracy, knowing that he was doing it at a great personal risk. And he was right about the risks-- publicly speaking against Napoleon III did radically change Hugo's life, it did radically alter the course of his career, he did lose a lot of the power he used to have, and he was forced into exile away from everything he knew.

And Les Miserables was the product of that sacrifice. it is the novel he wrote from exile, and it is thematically about his exile. It is a novel that was written as a defense of the principles of a democratic republic, and as an encouragement for people to speak truth to power and stand against tyrants even when it came at great personal risk. But like... I'm honestly starting to respect Hugo's sacrifice a lot more now that multiple people have reached out to me claiming that it's ridiculous to ask that people starring in a musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel accept any level of personal discomfort to stand up to a modern dictator. I'm obsessed with the idea that Les Miserables shouldn't have to mean anything-- that these performers can cosplay as revolutionaries Risking it All to stand Up to Powerful People, while also being spineless cowards claiming they can't accept any personal discomfort/risk whatsoever to stand up to an actual modern dictator. Even when- again!-- they are starring in a story that is literally the product of Hugo's personal sacrifice standing up against Napoleon III! No, I wouldn't care as much if it were some piece of hollow corporate trash like "Back to the Future the musical" or some other garbage. I wouldn't' even care as much if it were another hollow "stick it to the man musical" like Wicked, where all the revolution theming is just hollow window dressing. I do care when it's Les Miserables, because the original novel was written by a man who WAS willing to make that personal sacrifice, and wrote the novel ABOUT that sacrifice. I care that now these people are making their living off of Victor Hugo's legacy-- but start crying about how "they're just poor smol beans who can't do anything uwu" when asked to make even a fraction of the sacrifice that he did, the sacrifice that Les Miserables is about, the sacrifice it exists to encourage. Thousands of people were out on the street demonstrating this weekend to send a message to Donald Trump-- and when this group of artists had a direct line to make a statement to him, the thing thousands of people are out on the streets trying to get, they cowered in fear and refused. Instead they sang to make him feel good, like he was the Hero of the musical--something he already believes-- all while playing pretend as brave revolutionaries making big risks. A democratic lawmaker was shot to death this weekend, but asking a performer to care about the meaning of the art they're profiting off of is "too big of a sacrifice." give me a break. Despite everything, I do think art means something. I think art is more than "a job," I think art is more than a hollow corporate product and vehicle for profit. Les Miserables means something, and it's important that it means something.

But that means it's also important to call out the shocking hypocrisy of what the story has been warped into. The novel does have meaning and even the musical does have meaning-- and that's why I am so outraged that people are dismissing that meaning as irrelevant. It's like Orwell's description of art in dystopia as being a simply "a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces."

Honestly, if the actors wanted to sing songs about how it's ridiculous to ask them to take any personal risks or sacrifices to speak truth to power.... they shouldn't be in Les Miserables. Instead they should just get onstage and sing this song from The Sound of Music about compromising with Nazis for three hours:

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Il Nome della Rosa (The Name of the Rose)

Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 2025

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the tiktok itself is funny but i’m deeply obsessed with this dog

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I am re-reading The Left Hand of Darkness and unfortunately, my brain is too rotten for this, because all I can think about is an alternate timeline where the girlies got absolutely sauced on this book and instead of inventing the Omegaverse, people just wrote Kemmering AUs instead.

to be clear, Ursula K. LeGuin would hate this

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Well, you know what they say; Rome was built in a day, and if you're going any slower than that, you're basically fucked with no hope at all

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Unicorn Hunt Cowl.