Archduchesskittycat - Exploding Crumpets

Daily Mirror, England, January 22, 1909 Image © The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved.

More favourite tropes:

“Unfortunately, [thing that would ordinarily be described in much stronger terms than ‘unfortunate’].”  

“Fortunately, [thing that is in no way fortunate].”  

“Unfortunately, [thing that would be fortunate in nearly any circumstance except the particular circumstance at hand].“  

“Fortunately, [very minor benefit that absolutely does not offset the considerable drawbacks of whatever just happened].“  

“Unfortunately, [the exact, word-for-word thing that somebody just expressed that they hope won’t happen].“  

“Fortunately, [complete non sequitur].”

Amazon is being sued by the FTC and 17 states for being an illegal monopoly

AP News

Amazon sued by FTC and 17 states over allegations it inflates online prices and overcharges sellers

The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorney generals filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon on Tuesday, alleging the e-commerce be

The original percy jackson series is about cycles of abuse and neglect, right. Were introduced to percy as a kid who has clearly been left behind by a school system that has given up on him, restless and unengaged and self-defetist because hes been given nothing that works for him and no one even tries to meet him where he is. Then hes told no, listen, your neurodivergence is amazing and you just need to be given something that actually utilizes your unique palatte. And thats obviously the uplifting idea rick wanted for his kids, right. But once we get to know chb the same cycles are happening there too. There are kids "left behind" there too for one reason or another, because their parents dont want to claim them, because their parents werent important enough to get a cabin. Do you get it, all the kids who dont fit the most common neurotypes get shoved into the same closet. Kids are being left in a cruel world to fend for themselves without the tools they need. Theyre dying because no one bothered to accommodate them. Its such an obvious parallel that the first chapter introduces a teacher whos written to be especially hard on percys disability and she turns out to literally be one of these monsters trying to kill him. Meanwhile sally jackson tells him she named him after Perseus because she wanted a redemption for a hero whos story ended in tragedy. Meanwhile every book in the series replicates a greek myth step for step until the moment they break the cycle. Annabeth, playing Odysseus, is talked down from her hubris and grounded by her friends. Percy, playing Heracles, meets someone wronged by the original Heracles and rights his wrongs by refusing to go down the same selfish path as him. Monsters are reborn because they are--as the books explicitly call them--achetypes. These kids are stuck inside the cyclical nature of mythology because thats what happens to mythology, it gets retold over and over again. But these are the kids who have to live it. The series ends with percy being offered immortality and he rejects it because he wants to use his godly favor to force them to break their cycle of neglecting their kids. The series ends with a declaration that we cant keep letting this happen. The very first book offees the same choice. It ends with percy refusing to keep the head of medusa as a spoil of war, refusing his heroic reward. He lets his mother have the head and use it to kill gabe. Isnt that fucking crazy for a kids book? Gabe wasnt a Monster. He wasnt going to Turn to Dust and Disappear in a narratively convenient way. He was a living breathing mortal dude and percy and his mom killed him without remorse. Break the cycle of abuse!!!! Dont let this happen again!!! Anyway thats why the original percy jackson series is Hey where are you going with our breadsticks

I just wanted to make a joke about how I seem to have a type when it comes to ND Stevenson characters, but then I accidentally put way too much effort into it so I did a non-shitpost version too lmao