#babylon's ashes

[fishing4stars]

History, Michio believed, was a long series of surprises that seemed inevitable in retrospect. And what was true of nations and planets and vast corporate-state complexes also applied to the smaller fates of men and women. As above, so below.

~Babylon's Ashes, James S.A. Corey

[anexperimentallife]

I try to remain as optimistic as I can, but I totally feel this quotation at times:

"My life has become a single, ongoing revelation that I haven't been cynical enough."

--Chrisjen Avasarala in Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse, book 6), by James S. A. Corey

[mobiusstripper]

Filip calling out Marco in front of everyone in Babylon's Ashes is such a good moment. It sucks how many people shit on Filip as a character. Yeah, he did some really, really bad things (or, at the very least, was extremely complicit in them), but he was still a CHILD who was manipulated from birth by a man he (almost literally) looked up to as a god. (Seriously - look closely at the language in Filip's early POV chapters when he talks about Marco. It's almost Old Testament.) He was given life-and-death responsibility that he lacked the maturity to really even comprehend at his age and was saddled with moral injury that lasted the rest of his life. Seriously, think about the dumb shit YOU said, did, and believed at fifteen, sixteen.

There's no way he didn't know the consequences of standing up to Marco like that, especially in front of other people. I don't really give a shit about the "were they redeemed/weren't they redeemed/can they be redeemed" conversation around fictional characters because redemption is a subjective moral judgment. All I'm saying is that took real courage. And walking away took real courage. And it takes real courage to find an open door when someone else has already shut so many of your doors for you before you even knew they were there.

[youwontbelievethethingsiveread]

Rosenfeld is clearly quite smart, and also possibly thinks Marco is an idiot (no Filip, I don't think that's what Rosenfeld hunching means) - so what is he doing there? 🤔 He can't just be Marco's loyal follower just for the sake of it

[mikimeiko]

I'm reading Babylon's Ashes very slowly and you might think it's because I'm currently travelling through Montenegro but no! It's because every time I reach a Filip chapter I keep finding ways to stop reading and do something else.

[geekynerfherder]

'The Expanse' by Piotr Cieśliński. Cover art for the Polish editions of 'The Expanse' series written by James SA Corey (aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck), published by MAG Publishing.

Available as prints through Piotr's Inprnt store.

[princessamericachavez]

"They took the tube back to the dock, filling up almost half of a car just themselves, still a little tipsy, still talking too loud, laughting at nothing really. Alex's Mariner Valley drawl got thicker, and Bobbie mimicked it, egging him on until they sounded like parodies of themselves. Jim, least involved with the hilarity and still somehow central to it, sat back against the rattling wall of the car, his hands behind his head and his eyes half-closed. She didn't really understand what she and Jim and all the others were reacting to until they were at the ship. Seeing the Rocinante locked in the docking clamps was like falling into a familiar pair of arms. They were giddy because Jim was giddy. And Jim was giddy because, for once, he'd just avoided being responsible for the future of the whole human race.

It seemed like a fair thing to celebrate."

—Naomi Nagata, Babylon's Ashes

[fluorescentwolf]

Happy Season 6 premiere day!

The Expanse tarot series part 1: https://fluorescentwolf.tumblr.com/post/664531145453600768/the-expanse-fanart-tarot-card-series-part-1-part

The Expanse tarot series part 2: https://fluorescentwolf.tumblr.com/post/664531422669864961/the-expanse-fanart-tarot-card-series-part-2

The Expanse tarot series part 3: https://fluorescentwolf.tumblr.com/post/670842695102660608/the-expanse-fanart-tarot-card-series-part-3