#retaining-walls

[charlotteconcretenc]

Charlotte NC's Trusted Partner for Retaining Wall Projects

https://charlotteconcretedesigns.com/hardscapes/retaining-walls/ - In Charlotte, NC, Charlotte Concrete Designs prides itself on constructing retaining walls and hardscapes that are functional and add a significant aesthetic element to any landscape.

[eiraeths]

ghost: don’t worry we’re laughing at you not with you

soap, covered in soot: i hate it here

price, staring at the crumbled wall: you’re working this off

soap, now miserable: this has to be a labor law violation

gaz: cheer up mate. it’s nice outside today

soap: you’re all relishing in my self caused misery

[kagooleo]

aside from my rice here’s a doodle dump of my timeskip johto kiddos all scribbled during classes! forgot to upload this some time ago but it's a mix of silly doodles, profile studies and outfit ideations 📝

[brother-emperors]

Crassus, Caelius, Cicero, Catiline, Conspiracy

boy howdy these four sure are something. not featured in this soup of C names, Caesar! what on earth happened here.

Plutarch, Crassus

Sallust on Crassus, Ronald Syme

Patron and Client, Father and Son in Cicero's "Pro Caelio"

Crassus' New Friends and Pompey's Return, Eve J. Parrish

Catullus and His World, T.P. Wiseman

Cicero's Catilinarians, D.H. Berry

[starryluminary]

If I posted these would anyone watch them

[torra-and-the-toons]

I just had a thought that woke me in a cold sweat from a nap...

Since EEnE and KND technically exist in the same world, what if the adults from EEnE are always gone because they're busy terrorizing the KND?

This is not at all a serious headcanon, but it's funny to think about.

[ive-got-you-clovered]

[pallanophblargh]

Cecropia caterpillar saga update: we have reached the 3rd instar! All 7 cats are eating and growing and I’m so proud of them.

The inchworm stowaways have/are pupating, so that’s been an interesting micro distraction. Hopefully I can ID them if they both eclose, as I don’t know anything about them other than being geometers.

Hungeeeee!

[tenspontaneite]

Scug oc!! She would like to know where these weird spears keep coming from.

[spotsupstuff]

Hello! I come to ur inbox once again, but with a question.

This has been on my mind for like months and my brain won’t shut and I need a second brain to tell me I’m stupid XD

Do you think ALL the Ancients just… left off the face of the earth. Never to be seen again, or could there be at least that 1% that decided to stay? Of course there was the religious thing that most of them followed and the fact they were stuck on the dang soil of the earth until they went into the void sea.

But it couldn’t be all of them… right?? Or am I just stupid. I’m not so leaned in on Ancient lore, so I’m kinda blind in the mind when it comes to them.

I’m sorry for the paragraph I go back into shadows now(;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)

hey man! don't call urself stupid, nasty talk about yourself is banned, at least in my inbox. we r nice to ourselves in This house. not even as a joke, else i'm taking out the rolled up newspaper 🗞️👁️👁️

my personal theory is that yes! everyone is pretty much just Gone. main reason why i think that is is cuz it's strange to me that the Iterators wouldn't try n do Something about having some Ancients still around. like deals n treaties when it comes to benefits of them/their systems, especially the comm ones, getting fixed up

there is, of course, also the theory that some Ancients Did survive n proceeded to evolve into the scavengers. it's a fun theory, especially when taken into account Moon's n Pebbles' relationships with both species (Pebs adorin the Ancients n then sendin Arti @ the Scavs), but idk. i personally don't vibe with it much n with my designs it wouldn't make much sense too

what i personally imagine has happened was a systematic manipulation of the society to get All the Ancients into enclosed spaces (-wink wink nudge- it's not "Retaining" walls for nothin -wink-) + slow deconstruction of the lower circles by replacing the farmer duties by machines n therefore forcing the weak to die (n reincarnate into the Iterator cities or as different species which would no longer make it the Ancients' ""problem"") or just move up there out of basic need. this goes on for a while, void baths r happening while the watch over the population falling to the second Sin becomes more strict n so the population starts to slowly shrink while reliably concentrated on top of the Itties

flashforward to some time before the MA, to the time of my sillies Preacher n I.T., lower circle is completely gone, the rules r getting more n more strict. some people start to try n figure out how to rebel against it, like the two aforementioned sillies. they gather, they plan, all the while the government makes the Iterators' overseers look for them n possibly spy. that ends up being a sort of "decoy enemy" for the rebels, cuz turns out the religious nutcases have the whole population under tracking control via chips (it fits aight, the shrinking + concentration in one place stuff). n so even those who would have stayed r found n forced to get dissolved in the Void ✨👍

hurts like a motherfucker n then yoink Echo time

[breadandblankets]

if Bruce "has a guy" for all his adoptions it would be hilarious/cute if his "guy" is social worker Elaine Thomas, to which he owes about a dozen fruit baskets and 1.5 million dollars

[charlotteconcretenc]

Enhance Your Landscape with Quality Retaining Walls in Charlotte, NC

https://charlotteconcretedesigns.com/hardscapes/retaining-walls/ - In Charlotte, NC, Charlotte Concrete Designs prides itself on constructing retaining walls that are functional and add a significant aesthetic element to any landscape. Retaining walls are specially designed structures that hold back soil in areas where a change in ground elevation can lead to soil erosion or movement.

[vintagehomecollection]

Desert Oasis. Defined by the brick edging, and rear retaining wall, this semi-circular, sunken pool makes a subtle statement at one end of the wooden deck.

Garden Pools Fountains & Waterfalls, 1989

[movingtothefarm]

[coquelicoq]

it's interesting, a few people on my post yesterday about the dandelion dynasty told me they were taking it as a rec for the series, but i didn't actually recommend the series in that post. it's making me think about whether i would rec it to people, a question i hadn't fully considered yet (as it is a very different question from "do i like this book?"). so this is me figuring out the answer to that question. i'll keep it spoiler-free (though i make no promises on brevity).

i just finished book 3 (of 4) and each installment has left me more invested than i was before, but the series started out very slow, and i didn't really get into it until halfway through book 2. i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people bounce off the first book; i didn't, but only because 1) i almost never give up on a book that i've started (it's a character flaw of mine 😕) and 2) my trust in ken liu is ridiculously high because the other stuff i've read by him is so beloved to me. so my reaction to feeling kind of meh about book 1 was "okay, let's see where he's going with this" rather than "i guess this just isn't my cup of tea."

i should say that the problem might just be my own ignorance/lack of familiarity with the form. i don't read a lot of epic fantasy - in fact, lord of the rings is the one series that i have given up on reading a couple of times because it just left me totally indifferent. so if you like epics, you are starting out way ahead of me and can maybe just ignore the rest of this post lol, but i think i had to adjust to what the form is asking of me and what it's best suited to accomplish before i could get fully on board.

the main thing i struggled with is the writing, like the actual sentence-level mechanics of voice and style. this surprised me, because i usually find his writing very beautiful, or, when not beautiful, i can get a sense of the effect he means to achieve by employing a certain style. but in this series, the writing came across as kind of awkward and one-note to me at first, and i couldn't see a reason for it to be that way.* the dialogue especially - different characters don't really have different ways of speaking, they all feel pretty much the same. this was one of the main things i had to adjust to, but i do get it now. i don't just mean that i got used to the style and it doesn't bother me anymore, though that is true; i mean that i now understand the effect he means to achieve by employing this style, which gives it purpose and inextricably ties it to the story he's telling (this becomes especially clear in book 3, as it's directly related to a major theme of that book). if the style were different, he would be telling a different story; that's the sign of a successful execution, i think.

i said in the tags on yesterday's post that one reason the series doesn't have much of a fandom on here might be that the characters aren't natural blorbos. of course every character is probably the blorbo of somebody somewhere, but i don't know that these characters were designed to be blorbos, if that makes sense. not that they're plot devices either! every single one of them is conflicted and complicated and compelling, and most of them are followed over a period of many years, so we see them develop as people over time. but there is no protagonist, for example. you could also say that every character is a protagonist. the "list of major characters" at the beginning of book 3 is six pages long, and there are stories to be told about each of these characters, and none of them are told in isolation. but in a way, the characters themselves are not the point, or if they are, it's in aggregate - it's in the ways they're all complex, the ways they all have motivations that make sense to them (and that make sense to us, once we get to know them). and it's about power and the roles that the characters play in their society, rather than the roles the characters play in the story. or maybe those are the same thing! because ultimately, the main character of this story is the society. and the plot is the history of this society, rather than the journey or life of a single person or handful of people.**

(sidenote, there will be a period during book 1 when you will think to yourself, "wow, all the women characters are super one-dimensional and the narrative doesn't seem to respect them." this is on purpose. just keep going.)

the plotting is intricate while also feeling very organic. he's got dozens of plates in the air at once, he's maintaining them over a long period (these books are MASSIVE), and he's somehow making it seem like a real history, not like an author pulling strings. i haven't finished it yet, but my guess is that he's going to pull off a very satisfying conclusion that's at the same time very open-ended. definitely looking forward to it.

and the worldbuilding. oh, the worldbuilding. this is some of the most detailed, complex, realistic*** worldbuilding i've ever encountered, and he covers SO much ground. you want linguistic worldbuilding? you got it. philosophy? it's here. psychology of empire? coming right up. the nitty-gritty of everyday governance? buddy, pull up a chair. mechanical engineering? how much time you got?? (it better be enough time to read 3504 physical pages, because that's how long this series is.) and he's drawing on chinese history and cultural narratives rather than slapping lipstick on a tolkien clone (see his comments here, but stop reading at "In this continuation of the series" if you want to avoid spoilers). he WILL go on for a hundred pages about a single invention, but it's SO interesting that he is allowed. this is a story about how technology (including language, and schools of thought, and agriculture, and...) shapes, and is a product of, its time and place and people, so again, this is all to purpose. but it's also just. really cool.

the last thing i'll say, and this is mainly for other ken liu fans, is that one of the things i most love about his short stories is how they tap into emotions i didn't even know i had, as though they're reaching inside of me and drawing to the surface ways of experiencing consciousness and love and mortal life that i had no idea were in there. this series is not causing emotional revelation for me in the way his other stories do, which isn't a bad thing - i don't mean to say the series is not engaging or that it inspires no emotions! i just mean, iykyk. if you've read the paper menagerie and are expecting that experience, you will have a better time here if you leave those expectations at the door. i am invested in this book because it's engaging my intellect, curiosity, sense of wanting to find out what else the characters will learn and what's going to happen next...less because it's turning my heart inside out inside my chest. and like thank goodness, because i don't think i could survive four entire 900-page books' worth of that! but anyway. word to the wise.

tl;dr: yes, i recommend it, especially if you like epic fantasy. if you're a fan of ken liu's other work, this is quite different, so just know that going in!

*this opinion is of course subjective and not universally shared. for instance, see this review of book 3 (full of spoilers, so don't actually read it lol) which says "There's Liu's voice to hold onto, though — beautifully deployed here and fully in command of the language of his imaginary universe." so ymmv. maybe it's an epic fantasy thing.

**this is making me realize that the story is commenting on this very thing through a tension between bureaucracy (founded on interchangeability) and monarchy (informed by a specific personality). dude. that's so meta!

***though sometimes i'm like, "really? you scaled up that invention to use untested on the battlefield in the span of like two weeks? sure, jan." so sometimes he falls down a little on translation of ideas into logistics, but it makes for such a great story that i'll allow it.

[bomberblondie]

nah this is fine fyodor could never win against the combined power of soukoku