#locale: france

[about-suffering]

The Rehearsal [La Répétition], 1936 Marie Laurencin (1883-1956)

I recently got to see an exhibition of Laurencin's work, and while I loved it, photography really doesn't do it justice--the delicacy and the nuance of the colors is often lost in photography. This piece wasn't in the exhibition but it was in the exhibition catalogue, and I really wanted to share it. While Laurencin is often cited as a Cubist artist (which she was) it's her later School of Paris work that I find most exciting.

[ladyystardusst]

she truly is one of the most beautiful women i've seen.

[neolxzr]

you know aira as a mixed race character could have been made SO much more interesting with this story if it was written. like the exact opposite of how it was written

so aira in japan was often assumed to be a foreigner because he's blonde and (supposedly) racially ambiguous looking. this bothered him because he didn't like people assuming that he was so much different from them when, in reality, he had pretty much the same childhood as any other japanese kid.

but imagine for this story, they travel to france but instead of immediately being mistaken for a local for some reason (how white is this boy supposed to look), he's instead ALSO assumed to be a foreigner while in france. he doesn't dress like a local, he's not speaking french, and his group of friends is a lot more obviously not white than he is. this should make him happy, right? since they're not assuming he's something he isn't, like they did at home. but it makes him instead just feel really... othered. if he doesn't fit in japan and he doesn't fit in in france, then where does he fit in? why is he too much of something for one group of people, but not enough of it for the other?

but does this not make him even more fit to stand at the side of alkaloid, the unit who's united by their shared experience of being othered? so maybe its alright if a lot of the people around him don't make him feel like he belongs. because he's already found where he's supposed to be.

[stephaniesblogxx]

Courtney & Melissa after their show in Japan January 30 1995

[wizzard890]

And I saw another beast come up out of the earth...and he spake as a dragon. (Revelation 13:11)

.

The Coronation of His Majesty King Bastian I - The Hour of Wolves

When he was born he was a small thing. A screaming infant, a second son, destined perhaps for military greatness, but never dukedom. Never inheritance. Never conquest.

But at the inception of the light, the birth of the world, the moment between silence and splendor when The Glory breathed across the scope of creation: he was no small thing then.

Even then, he was coming.

His rise runs with blood: knives in the back, poison, betrayal, kidnapping and vengeance.

His rise burns with greatness: glory, family, rescue, love and ferocity.

The secret world recognized him before he knew himself. A fairy witch marked his passing and offered her slender wrist for his talons. A dead sun opens its mouth for him, a vanished Christ is his counterpart, a death knight worships before him, a raven-haired little girl holds the hand of her doting and beloved father.

The world we know calls him king of France, the monarch of a seized throne, a general who has promised the great lords England on its knees.

The Devil, in his own tongue, may call him son. The Glory has said nothing.

Would you know him if you saw him? Would you recognize what he is?

Bow, while you consider, and kiss his ring. There is a crown of flame upon his brow.

[dandelion-coffee-bear]

Live footage of the hetalia fandom watching @hetalia-club 's polls

[tireditaliannsstuff]

FrUk spy AU inspired by Despicable Me 4 where Arthur and Francis are retired secret agents who live in a town in the middle of nowhere, adopted two kids and live peacefully until one day something happens and they have to go back to active duty (bringing their kids with them).

[jasmine-sketchbook]

Dahu (part 1)

Ford detected some anomalies in Europe...

Next

[hetaletmego]

To be a fly on the wall when France found out that Prussia's new son little brother that he's so proud of even though as with many of the old empires replacement means death to nations is actually the revived corpse of the dude he just killed and dismembered with his own hands

[ireton]

Paris, France - 1000's of tractors are BLOCKADING all of Paris

The French farmers are saying NO to climate policies.

15 000 police have been mobilized to stop the farmers from entering the city.

[smitemeister]

Maybe I'll scanlate the zorglub tomes some time.. testing out with some select panels

[about-suffering]

Vase Marisa, designed 1927, crafted 1932-1947 Serpent Vase, 1928 René Jules Lalique (1860-1945)

[ladyystardusst]

[teleport-warning]

[frankenbolt]

An offering to my fellow ShriekingCarnage fans out there. I see you. Your mass likes remind me of my OTP in these dark, Shriek-dead-in-canon times.

Do be sure to call me when she’s revived in comic, please and thank you.

Movie!Cletus and Movie!Frances continue to be my faves and I will stand by them for ever. Middle-age, desperately in love and manic losers that they are.

[tanadrin]

The total land area of all US states is around 9.14 million square km; the US has 3134 counties or county-equivalents, and in most of the country these are a pretty consistent size. there are a few weird states: Alaska has very big boroughs because of its low population, and much of the state is not organized into any borough. Virginia has a lot of independent cities (38 out of 41 in the entire country; most other states just consolidate city and county governments if a city gets very big).

Among all states east of the Mississippi, excluding Virginia, counties are about 1,423 km square (1369 if you include Virginia and count its independent cities as counties). If you include the states just across the Mississippi River, which mostly have counties about the same size as the states just to their east (here I am including Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, the Dakotas, etc.; but nothing further west than the Texas/North Dakota axis), average county size rises only to 1,762 km square. Just within those states of the "nearer west," county size is about 2,220 km square, which is bigger, but not crazy bigger.

Further west, especially in states like Nevada, Utah, and California, counties get very big. Among all states west of the Texas/North Dakota line, counties average around 10,300 square km. But among all states, average county or county-equivalent size is 2,921 km square.

"County" as administrative division descends of course from English counties, which were originally feudal divisions. So how big are U.S. counties compared to their European predecessors? About the same size! England has a land area of ~130,000 km square and 48 ceremonial/historical counties (it has many more local government areas in the modern era). English counties are 2,700 km square on average, about the size of U.S. counties--in fact, maybe a little bigger than most U.S. counties. Ireland has an area of 84,421 km square (not sure what percentage of this is land) and 32 counties, for an average county size of 2,638 km square.

The U.S. state with the fewest counties is Delaware, which has just 3 (1,682 km sq each). The U.S. state with the most is Texas, with 254 counties (2664 km sq each--just a little bit bigger than Ireland!). The state with the biggest counties (again, excluding Alaska, because the unorganized borough messes things up) is Arizona, whose counties are on average 19,614 km square--just seven Arizona-sized counties would cover all of England. The state with the smallest counties is Rhode Island, whose counties average 536 km sq--at 3,144 km square in total, Rhode Island itself is smaller than the average county in fourteen states.

In terms of population, of course, the size of US counties probably varies even more wildly than their land area, but on average they compare reasonably to the local administrative divisions of other countries (some of which are third-level and some of which are second-level, depending on their size). U.S. counties have a population of about 108,000 on average. In the Republic of Ireland (so, not including the six counties of the North), counties have an average population of about 192,000. In Germany, local government areas (Kreise) have an average population of about 207,000 (though the three city-states of Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen complicate this picture somewhat). The actual on-the-ground local government scheme in England is complex, and it is not clear to me what the modern U.S. county or German Kreise equivalent would be.