In my own fiction, I don’t think in terms of redemption arcs. There are no redemption arcs in hell. I like to think about moments of grace, and I think of them as these shocking moments of piercing clarity where a character’s situation and circumstance become clear to them and they are able to hold that self-knowledge without recrimination or judgement from themselves or the reader. A brief, glancing moment of wholeness, where they comprehend all they are and have been and will be. Sometimes, it’s just a glimpse, sometimes it’s more than a glimpse, but every character, I try to afford some small shard of grace. Where all judgment is suspended and they float just a little bit. My grandpa used to say, even sinners in hell get thirsty. And I think that thirst is a lot like grace. That no matter how accustomed you are to your circumstances, no matter how inured to it you are, there is a part of you, some human, gentle part, that is capable of feeling. And I think of my moments of grace as letting that human, gentle part of my characters for just a brief instant become the dominant aspect of their nature.
Moments of grace to me are more crucial than redemption arcs because a redemption arc requires a character to move from one phase of being to another. From a moral debt to moral solvency. Repaying something owed. But a moment of grace is just a bolt of clarity where judgement is suspended and they are how they are and that is okay. A moment when you stand by your character and accept them and they accept themselves. It’s not always positive. Sometimes, it’s brutal. Sometimes it’s painful. But I do think it is always beautiful, when a character is just seen and when then they see themselves.
we dont talk enough about how awesome folders on the computer are
Some younger people may simply never know their majesty.
DEATH ON THE LION
Thomas Teichmann
Central Franconia, 1513
Limewood, iron, traces of polychromy
Assigned from the former convent at Heilsbronn in 1866
This figure once was the crowning feature of a monumental clock which originally stood in the church choir of Heilsbronn Abbey. On the hour, with a bone, Death struck the bell in the lion’s neck, reminding the faithful of the transience of all earthly things. Remains of the iron mechanism that once controlled the movement of Death’s jaw and right arm as well as the lion’s tongue have been preserved inside the figure.
Bavarian National Museum
Round 2, Side A2: Softboots (Puss in Boots) vs SamSam (FATT)
I checked the bracket and if samsam manages to win this, they’ll be up against Judas/Jesus which is the ultimate matchup. the only acceptable way for samsam to go out is at the hands of Judas x Jesus. the fated divorce battle
what’s great about beren son of barahir is that he’s at death’s door approximately 75% of the time, and the rest of the time he spends making sweet sweet love to the most beautiful woman in the world, ever. sometimes he is both at death’s door AND making sweet love. and they say a perfect man doesn’t exist
Crow Time - Statue 1
unexpected delays on the morning commute.
Wish there was a specific day Estraven got exiled so all the girls could celebrate the start of this fucking journey
Calculating this because i have some time to kill this morning. There are many possible dates depending on how you slice it. TL;DR I like May 15th best but it’s not the only option.
Genly writing on the parade: “Odharhahad Tuwa or the twenty-second day of the third month of spring in the Year One”
Exile decree against Estraven signs off: “Odguyrny Tuwa, Eighth Hour, in the Palace in Erhenrang: ARGAVEN HARGE.”
Estraven is exiled in the 23rd day (Odguyrny) of the third month of spring (Tuwa).
Gethenian months are 26 days, so the 23rd day of the third month of spring would be the 75th (26+26+23rd) day of spring.
(Note: you could also pick the 23rd day of the third month of spring on your calendar if you don’t want to fiddle with month lengths. The only caveat is that the Gethenian calendar is lunar and has 14 months. You could also, alternatively, align 01/01 on your calendar with Getheny Thern on the fictional calendar and do it like that. They’ve got 364 days to our 365-ish. You don’t have to do it my way and there’s no wrong answer since no Gethenians are going to object.)
Gethen’s seasons are caused by the whole planet’s proximity to the sun on an elongated ellipsoid orbit, not by axial tilt. So even though Ehrenrang is in Gethen’s southern hemisphere, the seasons in the calendar follow a pattern similar to the northern hemisphere pattern. Namely, the year starts in winter, and summer is in the middle of the year.
I will be calculating Estraven’s exile with the northern hemisphere date of the start of the first month of spring, March 1st. Even though spring equinox is March 20th, I still consider March a month of spring since spring starts late in March. Also, starting on March 20th gave me a date in June, which feels wrong to my intuition.
75 days after March 1st is May 15th
(But 75 days after March 20th is June 3rd if you want to start counting at northern hemisphere spring equinox)
A shout out to the southern hemisphere calendar enjoyers:
Your spring equinox is September 23rd, and your first month of spring is September.
75 days after September 1st is November 15th
75 days after September 23rd is December 7th
HAPPY ESTRAVEN EXILE DAY!
Citrus trees create fingerprint-like patterns on the landscape near Isla Cristina, Spain. The climate in this region is ideal for citrus growth, with an average temperature of 64° F (18°C) and a relative humidity between 60% and 80%.
See more here: https://bit.ly/3sgNoWn
37.241136°, -7.294464°
Source imagery: Maxar
it’s Paree
short-hair lesbians
obsessed with villains who you just KNOW are aware deep down in their heart that they’ve done something unforgivable, but the only way to never admit that or face the guilt is to keep doing it over and over again until they don’t feel guilty about that first time anymore
my controversial metric system opinion is that the meter should be 0.0692285593% shorter. This would have no practical benefits, but it would make the speed of light be 300,000,000m/s instead of 299,792,458m/s