thereisnolumos

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the world is running out of glassblowers and yet you want to become a fucking doctor

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And this is how religious people should react when someone comes out to them

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‘bread is bad for you’ ‘rice is bad for you’ sorry im not subscribing to the idea that staple grains that have been integral to cultures for centuries are evil. i love you carbs

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One of the biggest mistakes ACOTAR fanbase made was letting tamlin fan girls and gwynriels become a group that HAS to be accepted in the general spaces as genuine voices to listen to even if everyone fucking knew they where a damn shitshow and unfortunately that includes elriels playing nice

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Morgan (on a date): "Oh, sorry- I've gotta take this call, it's work stuff. Gimme a minute."

Morgan: "Hey Princess, light of my life, sun to my moon, one true saviour, God Given Solace, sweetheart, hot stuff, babygirl, goddess. What's up mama?"

His date: "...Work stuff. Right..."

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So uh….some dude apparently recreated Adobe Photoshop feature-for-feature, for FREE, and it runs in your browser.

Anyway, fuck Adobe, and enjoy!

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In the absence of shadows

I've been reflecting on Azriel's shadows while working on a piece of writing, naturally reminiscing about what SJM has given us so far. This is nothing new, but the behaviour of his shadows is to me one of the most beautiful ways in which SJM has shown just how much Elain means to Azriel.

Because, is it really a coincidence that Azriel uses his shadows to hide, to conceal his inner world and emotional state (“the shadows, whatever the hell they were, hid too well. Too much,” as Rhys said), and yet around Elain, they behave differently? She is the one around whom his shadows tend to vanish, and who understands his emotional state without him having to put it into words (“Elain’s large brown eyes flickered, well aware of all that. Just as he knew she was well aware of why Azriel so rarely came to family dinners these days”).

And is it a coincidence that Azriel’s shadows serve as his source of intel—“the news brought to him on his shadows’ whispers,” and so on—yet around Elain, they tend to vanish? That with her, he doesn’t need them to understand her?

His understanding of Elain isn’t born from the observational skills honed through his magic or his role as Spymaster. He isn’t just Azriel the Spymaster doing his job. It has nothing to do with duty, the duties that stand in the way of his happiness and well-being.

When it comes to Elain, it’s simply Azriel the male, stripped of magic, powers, and titles, seeing and understanding Elain the female. No shadows. No duties. No veil. Not Azriel the Spymaster, nor Azriel the shadowsinger. Just Azriel.

None of this is coincidental, of course. SJM didn’t accidentally write such a beautifully poetic circumstance. I think it’s a testament to how important Elain is to Azriel, and how his character development is wholeheartedly tied to her.

Without Elain, he is stagnant. He has been stagnant for over five hundred years.

The vanishing of his shadows, the absence of his need to hide and his need to stay informed about his surroundings, shows just how much peace and quiet she offers him. A kind of peace and quiet I don’t think he has ever known.

I often focus on the Elain part of Elriel, her choice and agency, but the Azriel part is just as beautiful. They fit together like notes in a chord. Because it is quite frankly monumental for the shadowsinger, who has kept everyone at arm’s length for centuries, who has never truly felt he belonged anywhere, to not only let his guard down but to be received the way Elain receives him.

As if he belongs there, unhidden and exposed before her.

When she, who sees the version of Azriel unhidden by shadows, looks at him, she breathes “beautiful,” at the sight of what he’s most insecure about. Whereas others have only ever said “scarred” or “brutalized” about his hands. When she looked up at him on Solstice, he saw someone so “trusting and hopeful and open” he was stunned anyone could look at him like that.

And here’s another beautifully poetic circumstance—because SJM becomes a poet when she writes Elriel:

We all love the image of Azriel, the boy robbed of sunlight, being chosen by Elain, who is basically the sun incarnate—glowing like the sun at dawn, in his eyes. But there’s more to it than that.

How did Feyre describe Azriel when she saw him bathed in sunlight, free of shadows? “More human than I had ever seen him.”

The first time we see Azriel and Elain together after she's Made, he flies her to the townhouse, “no shadows to be seen”, and takes her to the garden, “sunlight bathing them”. Elain experiences beauty again, after the trauma of being Made, when she breathes "beautiful" about his outstretched hand.

Elain, the very embodiment of the sun, who was traumatically robbed of her human life, gets to see and be cared for by the truest, rawest version of Azriel. The version of him that appears almost human.

Because his shadows vanish in her presence. Because he doesn’t need to hide when he’s with her. Because he doesn’t need his shadows to understand her. Because he finally belongs and is safe.

Azriel’s final destination is Elain.

Elain. Elain. Elain. Elain.

Elain.

There’s nothing else for him. No more satisfying or complete resolution of his character arc. She isn’t just part of it—she is his whole character arc.

And together, they fit into each other’s stories like the entwined stems of a flower crown. To me, they are the two most stunning character arcs SJM has ever woven together. Which is why I’m still thinking about them, seven years after I started anticipating Elain’s book. Because I just cannot let them go until they’re finally home.

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He really went and fixed his hair before meeting her in the forest, and y’all wanna tell me he wasn’t stupidly in love with her??? Oh please.

I just know he was in that bathroom fully losing it while trying to make his hair look perfect for his crush…

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just rewatched avengers endgame with my mother and i cried because of steve's ending (not in the way the writers intended) and my mother just looked at me with knowing in her eyes bc she knew i'd go nuclear. now in our house we call him the bad writing boogeyman.

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I'm not even like deaf or hoh but if you're adding subtitles to something I think you should always transcribe foreign languages too. None of that [Speaks Spanish] shit. You don't need to translate it to english. But you need to at least give the option for a deaf person to read it and understand it themselves. I don't care if it's not important to the plot. I don't care if it's just them saying like Okay or Damn or whatever the fuck. Write it down

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Wanted Dead or Alive - (2022)

I asked people on Twitter what they wanted to see from me next and a lot of answers were “Sam & Dean Winchester as cowboys”. Ok! Enjoy then! 😁

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david lynch telling people in 2017 that you should accept trans people or kill yourself. he was so real for this.

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I’m a huge fan of yours (requested by Anonymous)

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Not only would I laugh my ass out, I'd be roasting them for the rest of time for it

People are wayyy too hard on Feyre for making fun of the BOE name.

Like...you're telling me if your guy best friend came to you and said he's now moved in with 2 other people and they call themselves the "Legion of Outcasts".... you wouldn't laugh??

Idk but I'd smack my friend immediately like "stop acting like an angsty theater kid- you're 29 years old"

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"oh wow i thought this fandom was dead" you ignorant slut no fandom is ever truly dead. there will always always always be at least three mentally unwell freaks on the internet irrelevant-posting about their little blorbo(s) who have not been relevant for fifty years. this is the way of the world and they are stronger than you will ever be you FOOL