graceandabsurdity

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I feel like tariffing the "entire world" is literally just functionally sanctioning yourself

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i'm kind of like if a girl was an empty train at night

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every time someone complains about cardan's tail, oak's hooves, or wren's teeth an angel loses its wings, a baby cries, someone stubs their toe, a bird stops singing, a squirrel loses its acorn, et cetera

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Henriëtte Ronner-Knip, A dog and her puppies

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Yeh Tsai Wei - Spring Equinox, 2024 - Eastern gouache on paper

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by Yaroslav Chaadaev

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i just do not seriously believe that you have a vested and politically sound interest in preventing sexual violence if your solution in any way relies on a criminal justice system so rife with sexual abuse that every usamerican over the age of 5 has heard and/or told a "don't drop the soap" joke

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Not what I expected coming from John Green

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the online phenomenon that drives me the most crazy that i never see people talk about in my circles is the tiktok shop ecosystem

for those who don't know because you don't use tiktok (i don't blame you, i only learn about these things through my boyfriend): you can sell things on tiktok. but because it's a video platform, this means you have to make videos promoting whatever you're selling. so basically what this means is you get a bunch of people in their early 20s going "omg look at this, you NEED this in your life" about some bullshit they bought in bulk as part of a drop shipping scam

for a while it was freeze dried skittles. that was the trend. a bunch of people would do videos where they try freeze dried skittles and act like they're the best snack ever that you NEED to try RIGHT NOW—and oh, would you look at that? they have a shop link where they receive commission. recently there's been this shirtless guy who's trying really hard to sell people on some overpriced low calorie meringues, including multiple videos where he puts them in a bowl with milk and tries to pitch them as a healthier alternative to sugary cereal. there's also a LOT of people trying to sell mouth tape right now—not as a (questionable) way to stop snoring, but specifically due to claims that if you stop mouth breathing in your sleep it'll lead to some kind of miraculous transformation of your jawline

it's just an insane ecosystem all around. online grifting in its purest form. some straight up flimflamming. they'd sell literal snake oil if they could. we're gonna run out of electricians because people wanna become tiktok shop influencers instead

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"You can be strong without him."

Power sur Eater, Flamefall

just some more Fireborne fanart

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The Aurelian Cycle, Flamefall, pages 430-432

Power's Character arch is my favorite in this series. And this is one (of many) of my favorite power moments.

This is also good practice for me because I hate drawing people 🙃 so trying to draw the same person over and over was interesting.

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I feel like The Aurelian Cycle's obscurity in comparison to other dragon-related YA books (*cough* a certain romantasy whose sequel just recently came out *cough*) is partly because it's not heavy on the romance at all, the author almost never describes the more romantic scenes in detail, it's more focused on the nature of the relationships and how the charactere reflect on it

I mean, think about the tropes in Fourth Wing. Enemies to lovers where one's parent killed the other's. War college. Dragonrider military. Politics. The regime hiding secrets. All of these are present in The Aurelian Cycle, albeit with much, much better execution.

Fireborne did start slow, but I feel like that benefited the story. We're introduced to the status quo and established the world–this series is heavy on politics and questioning the government, less so on action and death.

The tropes are present, but not how most mainstream YA normally does them. It's not their lives at stake, it's their freedom, their identity, their values. It understands that death does not necessarily raise the stakes; they could lose more than that. Annie and Lee in technicality are enemies turned friends to lovers, but there's layers to their relationship. Even Power, the bully character, has layers. The Guardian school simultaneously gave and stripped them of freedom, instead of being straightfoward good or evil. It's all complicated, but it all works together to serve the theme of trying. "The point is trying."

I'm upset the series has ended, but I look forward to more of Rosaria Munda's work!

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GODSFUCKING DAMMIT POWER

Whyyyyyyyyy

Why did he die?!

I don’t care how much of a conceited ass he was sometimes, I still loved him

Perhaps even a little bit more than lee, but can you blame me? He was there for her every step of the way. When lee was busy snogging cressa’s face off, he was there. When lee was busy lying to her, he was there and just he was there.

But ok fine I did forgive lee for being such a big idiot and I love him to death but power did not deserve what happened to him

And I can’t even talk about it with anyone because no one has read this and if I talk about it, it would be a spoiler and I literally can’t cope up with this.

I just know this is going to live in my head rent free for years 😭😭

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fireborne is such a beautiful book... "if it is our fate to die then by my own hand let me earn it" and "your choices are your own. my conscience is not your keeper. bring what fury you have and i will answer it with ours" and "it becomes a struggle to peel the layers back, to probe for weakness, to expose a mistake. a performance of something intimate. these are the things I alone can find in her, and she alone can find in me" and "the boy who mattered to me only because in a world where we had no one, he was kind" and "i know annie too well not to recognize the sound of her anger" and "as though he's holding me together so that i can fall apart" and "dance with me? / you don't like dancing / i'd like dancing with you" and "this has been a dream in the fabric of my longing for as long as I can remember. less a desire than a need. i've lost everything else from the old life, but this i can keep. this i’m still allowed to want" and "our fathers may be dead, but their blood runs in our veins. we were born to this" and "this is the refrain she must play for herself, on bad days and after nightmares; this is her refrain, and like mine, it is never enough" and "an old desire wells up within me, its pain so familiar, it returns like exhaustion. i would give anything to ease the hurt on this girl’s face" and "i look down at this boy, vulnerable, at my mercy, and think, to the ends of the earth i will protect you" and and and. there is so much.

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We've reached the bounds of reason and have come to the thresholds of belief. I would not do her the dishonor of imagining that her beliefs have been any less hard-won than mine.

Fireborne - Rosaria Munda