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Your regular reminder that trickle-down economics is a cruel joke designed by the wealthy.

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My most referenced meme is actually this sign from a furniture store's going out of business sale in my hometown.

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what's my biggest pet peeve well it's when someone makes a text post on tumblr dot com in which they are trying to romanticize the notion of the livestock guardian dog but they don't know the distinction between a livestock guardian dog and a herding dog and also they've never met a livestock guardian dog and do not realize what their attitudes towards the sheep that they protect actually are

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we need to stand up stop being ashamed of our lightning powers and start killing people with them indiscriminately

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fuck hussle culture, the toad to success is to sleep well, eat well and have fun

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[gripping the sink] perfectionism does not help me avoid embarrassment or shame. perfectionism is in itself a form of shame. when i struggle with perfectionism i struggle with shame. when i struggle with perfectionism i struggle with shame. when i struggle with perfectionism i struggle with shame

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Harrowhark but she's Blood of Eden and her name is Spooky Scary Skeletons Send Shivers Down Your Spine. Is this anything.

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my best tip for anyone trying to get back into reading is to remember that you can read books to avoid other responsibilities in ur life and it can become a vice if you play your cards right

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You are offered $1000 if you can perfectly sing a random, popular karaoke song - it doesn't matter if you sound good, you just have to get all the words right, but no cheating! lyrics are not provided. spin the wheel and determine your fate...

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i had to back out of the BG3 fandom almost altogether because i felt like no one else was seeing the characters i was seeing. wym professor daddy dom Gale? what the fuck? that’s my unemployed hobosexual boyfriend who sleeps on my couch bc he got fired for having an inappropriate relationship with his employer and now he goes “babe i need you to get me a snickers so bad. no i can’t myself. my blood sugar. babe please”. and i get him the snickers

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⭐Commission me here nananarc.art/Commission ⭐Give me a Ko-fi here ko-fi.com/nananarc

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April reading log

A lot of short fiction and novellas last month

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022

ed. John Joseph Adams and Rebecca Roanhorse

Why 2022? Because it was the most recent volume my library had on Libby. This was all work that was published in 2021 , so there were definitely running themes about pandemics, isolation and environmental collapse.

Particularly notable stories:

"The Colors of the Immortal Palette" by Caroline M. Yoachim

Centuries of creating art. Changing pigments, experimenting with styles.

"L'Esprit de L'Escavalier" by Catherynne M. Valente

Walking corpse Euridice goes home with the worst version of Orpheus, one who doesn't doubt.

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

Nghi Vo

Continuing the Singing Hills reread. This feels like the point where the series kicks off in earnest -- Cleric Chih is trapped on a mountain with shapeshifting Tigers who will eat them unless they tell them everything they know about a famous historical Tiger... and have a lot of corrections for the human version of the story.

Rose/House

Arkady Martine

This thriller had some tasty vibes and beautiful imagery, but it suffered in (unfair) comparison to Private Rites, the LAST literary horror I read about women coming to terms with their inheritance from narcissistic architect father figures

By far the best thing in this book was the house and its AI, which sat in a delicious space between haunted house and fae.

Strange Beasts of China

Yan Ge, trans. Jeremy Tiang

Read this on my sister's recommendation, and it's definitely strange. It starts out feeling like LeGuin-style anthropological fantasy (e.g. Changing Planes) but the narrator character steadily gets more involved, both in the narrative and with her subjects.

The Chosen and the Beautiful

Nghi Vo

"Magical Great Gatsby from Jordan Baker's POV."

This was one of my favorite books the year I first read it (2021 iirc), and it was just as good on reread. I'm always obsessed with worlds that treat magic as mundane, and this is the pinnacle of the trope. In Prohibition New York the wealthy indulge in forbidden booze, sex and magic in equal measures. And I just love Jordan as an alternate narrator -- if you're coming in knowing the story (and who isn't?), it's great having the keeper of everyone's secrets as the story teller.

Don't Sleep With the Dead

Nghi Vo

Novella sequel to The Chosen and the Beautiful. At the start of world war 2, Nick Caraway starts hearing Gatsby's ghost. This series lets Nick be gloriously queer, both as in "bisexual" and "odd", and this book is at its best when it digs into Nick's past -- I found the investigation into Gatsby's afterlife less interesting.

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emma ir abelas / souver'inan isala hamin / vhenan him dor'felas / in uthenera na revas

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Darshen is so me

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(computer version of the poll)