yenchips

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hate that smt i go back to being 9, lost and left out

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The best book I’ve read so far this year is Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar.

When poets write novels I always get very excited because they enter into their contract with words in a different way to other writers, with a certain level of distrust of language’s abilities, with an understanding of the disappointing paradox in metaphors, and with a playful abandon for convention.

This book is a great example of all of those things. It tore me open so many times and put me back together again, too. It’s got everything — family, identity, death, nationality, history, death, art, politics, death, love, war, did I mention death, and dreams where the dead speak to cartoon characters

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- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

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Kaveh Akbar, from Martyr!

[Text ID: Love was a room that appeared when you stepped into it.]

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Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.

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Deeply enthralled with how The Fifth Season uses second-person narration around Essun and third-person when it comes to Syenite and Damaya. Fuck I love a good change of literal perspective.

I'm maybe a sixth of the way through and this one's already completely captured me. Miss Jemisin's prose is full of voice and flavor and should be an inspiration for many authors-to-come.

I'll probably have a lot to say later but I can't help but just say that this is really great.

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“Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.

N.K. Jemisin "The Fifth Season”

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Alabaster………………. Alabaster grown up alone basically creating a new horizon of possibilities of what orogeny can do Alabaster who has kids he didn’t want lost in the most horrible way Alabaster!!!! So powerful he can stop venom inside of him from killing him yet Alabaster who is already crazy (maybe) and broken, broken under pressure. Alabaster who was happy just looking at the sea, at things, one kid with him who did not know pain, two people who loved him and held him, a village who knew that he wanted to be comforted and touched without him asking because he has grown up learning to cry silently and alone… what could he do after he was hurt again? At that point he was already hurt beyond repair

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― Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights

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Isn't it funny? How none of them ever stood a chance? Isn't it hilarious? How none of it could've been prevented? Isn't it comical? How it was all so much bigger than themselves? Isn't it just hysterical? How it was always gonna end like this?

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i will NEVER stop talking about “you’re hurting me”. there couldn’t have been better or more devastating last words for kitay. for so long he endured the pain every time rin called the fire. he never said anything. rin saw how much he was hurting, constantly asked him if he wants her to stop, but he always said no, always said he was fine because he never wanted to deny her anything. because he knew how important the fire was to her. the only time he denies her is at the very end, when rin loses her mind. and even then, at her worst, as she tries to overpower kitay, the SECOND he says “you’re hurting me” she stops. and not only does she stop, but it stops her descent into madness and she has one final moment of clarity. because “rin couldn’t hurt kitay and not worry about it. if she could, she’d be lost.”

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absolutely genius of rf kuang to elaborate on virtually nothing about speer's culture. the only things said about speer are "speerlies are mindless savages" and "speerlies are most definitely not mindless savages". there are no deep dives, no explanations of their way of life, nothing beyond the glimpses that disproves nikan's belief that they are nothing but a violent group. we saw that they had leaders that cared about their people and children. we saw that they are people who found joy in life. but that's really not much.

this emphasizes the horror of genocide. millenia of culture and history, individual lives filled with love, pain, and passion, just completely wiped away. there were only two surviving speerlies. one of them was too young when he was taken away, and probably doesn't remember much. the things he did remember was also probably buried under years of abuse and drugs people were plying him with. the other one didn't even know she was from speer until the last few months of her life, and there was really no one around to teach her about their culture. and if there was, life as she knows it was falling apart. learning about her dead people's culture probably didn't even cross her mind.

without saying any of these things and by intentionally leaving readers in the dark about what speer was truly like, rf kuang said so much about the horrors of genocide. by not saying anything, she said everything. she did the "show me, don't tell me" tip for writers and it was brilliant.

we will never learn most of speer's culture and history and that was the point.

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i finished the dragon republic today... whatever the pic says

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THE POPPY WAR AS MITSKI LYRICS

rin-altan: “i don’t know what to do without you. i don’t know where to put my hands…” “i look up at the gaps of sunlight… i miss you more than anything.”

francis forever

rin-altan: “i don’t smoke except for when im missing you…” “being with you makes the flame burn good.”

i don’t smoke

rin-nezha: “there’s a hole that you fill, but it’s just that i fell in love with a war… and nobody told me it ended.”

a pearl

rin-altan/vaisra: “so if you need to be mean, be mean to me. i can take it and put it inside of me. if your hands need to break more than trinkets in your room, you can lean on my arm as you break my heart.”

i don’t smoke.

rin-kitay: “you’re the sun. you’ve never seen the night but you hear it’s song from the morning birds. well im not the moon. i’m not even the star.”

your best american girl.

rin-kitay: “you’re an angel, i’m a dog. or you’re a dog and i’m your man. you believe me like a god. and i destroy you like i am.”

i’m your man

rin-kitay: “it’s always been just him and me together” “at least in this lifetime we’re sticking together.” “and i am the idiot with the painted face, in the corner taking up space. but when he walks in, i am loved, i am loved.”

me and my husband

rin-hesperians: “your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me, but i do, i think i do.”

your best american girl

chaghan-altan: “then i wouldn’t have to scream your name atop of every roof in the city of my heart. if i could see you. once more to see you.”

once more to see you

rin: “crack baby, you don’t know what you want, but you know that you had it once, and you know that you want it back

crack baby

rin: “and i was so young when i behaved 25, and now i find i’ve grown into a tall child.”

first love/late spring

rin-the cike: “and one warm summer night, i’ll hear fireworks outside. and i’ll listen to the memories as they cry, cry, cry.”

fireworks.

rin-the cike: “my baby, my baby. you’re my baby say it to me. i bet on losing dogs. i know they’re losing and i’ll pay for my place by the ring, where i’ll be looking in their eyes when they’re down. i’ll be there on their side. im losing by their side.”

i bet on losing dogs

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Altan: I am at a loss for words

Ramsa: Despite being lost for words, Altan continued to yell at us for the next forty-five minutes.

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it's always so fascinating and heartbreaking when a character in a story is simultaneously idolized and abused. a chosen prophet destined for martyrdom. a child prodigy forced to grow up too fast. a powerful warrior raised as nothing but a weapon. there's just something so uniquely messed up about singing someone's praises whilst destroying them.

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the empty feeling of not having a youth like it's shown in kdramas.