#//The book was not about safety

[messiahzzz]

it’s been almost a year now… is the bg3 fandom finally ready to talk about how gale’s “hubris” is the sole product of actively feeding his insecurities further and straight up denying him help & guidance when he was at his lowest and needed it most. it’s not one of his core traits and never was. he isn’t some closeted power hungry monster that is just waiting to be enabled. what he wants is admiration, recognition and acceptance. which is also what he sought from mystra before the orb disaster happened. he had no desire whatsoever to become a god himself or challenge her rule, he simply wanted to be seen as sufficient in her eyes (“to serve her better”). to be as equal as he could possibly be in a relationship with a literal deity. he has a deep passion for magic and knowledge that affects almost all areas of his life and enjoys the display thereof. he wants to be the smartest person in the room and enjoys when his work is recognized. he may be perceived as arrogant when it comes to his skill, but he IS NOT hubristic. it truly takes so little for him to be wholly content.

[confused-stars]

shoutout to Jake Animorphs for being kinda uninteresting for like forty books and then hitting you so hard when he fully snaps and steps into his role as a hardened military leader at the age of sixteen

and then suddenly that sweet, stressed-out kid is just gone. he only exists to win wars anymore. it makes you realize too late what was lost

[philsmeatylegss]

I will never fear undocumented immigrants anywhere near as much as I fear Republican law makers. And that is something that will never change.

[bitchthefuck1]

I feel like people sometimes have a tendency to paint Inej as a little too wide-eyed and borderline naive and I feel like that's such a misread and disservice to her character, because her faith and hope for a better future isn't some misguided assumption that everything will be okay or that the world isn't so bad. She knows exactly how bad things can be and exactly what kind of evil people are capable of, and she's saying "fuck you, you can take my autonomy and my childhood and maybe I'll never see my family or home again, but I will literally die before I let make me think that the shit I've been through is all there is. The beauty and love I experienced was real and valuable and nothing you do or say will make me let go of that or believe it's not possible for me to have again," and it is genuinely the most incredible and real thing in those books.

Inej has fought tooth and nail for every ounce of goodness she has and she'll keep wringing it out of the world because those things are real and possible no matter what, and there's nothing naive about it.

[glorious-spoon]

the thing about buddie that no one wants to admit is that they are exactly the kind of wholesome couple who would earnestly fill out kink negotiation worksheets together

[twstjam]

Book 7 Spoilers ahead!!!

hmmmmm Lilia x Reader where you're a member of the Silver Owls but you have no loyalty to them so you betray them by secretly playing spy for the fae in exchange for peace, quiet, and safety if you help them win. The fae don't really trust you, especially Lilia, but he knows opportunity when he sees one. They just have to be careful about how much they trust you.

Because of the nature of your agreement you end up meeting up and exchanging letters with the Phantom General of the Briar fae a lot to relay information. At first it's just that and your meetings are all really just pure business, but then Lilia complains about Princess Malenoa and everyone pushing jobs onto him. This spurs you on to complain about Henrik and how all he does is order people around and lounge around all day. The two of you end up bonding over your demanding and tiring jobs and gradually grow closer each letter.

Aside from exchanging information, the two of you begin to exchange stories and tales and knowledge. You begin to know each other on different facets that no one else knows and confide in each other your deepest thoughts, fears, and insecurities. The two of you have a lot in common and understand each other so well that it just makes it so easy and natural and comfortable to be open like this. No one else have ever made either of you feel safe enough to share your most deepest secrets (not even Malenoa and Revan in Lilia's case. They're his best friends but they're also his superiors. There's just some things he can't talk about with them.) so it's so nice to finally find someone that does.

The two of you fall slowly, but you fall hard.

Neither of you admit this to each other of course. A war is no time for something as silly and trivial as love and romance and you both know that neither of you have time for a relationship. So you both pine and yearn in silence, either from your fortresses miles away from each other, or several feet apart on the rare occasions you meet up in person—so close yet still so far.

In one of your letters you relay to Lilia your worry that someone might be catching on. Lilia's heart twists in fear and his mind races with paranoid thoughts and possibilities. He doesn't show any concern in his response aside from acknowledging your worry, but he does tell you to be careful. He reasons that it would be unfortunate for the fae if their most valuable informant were to be discovered. (he activated tsundere mode to cope)

He sends the letter and goes about his duties. Days pass. Weeks. He realises during some off-time that he hasn't heard from you in a while. More time passes. No sign of a response from you.

Lilia says to himself that it's fine. It's nothing. It's no big deal. You're probably just occupied, or finally realised how dangerous it was to keep associating with the enemy. It's fine. The fae forces have managed before without your assistance. It's fine it's fine it's fine

he's not fine

(Part 2)

[vampire-lord-garfield]

Thinking about that scene where Sebastian was impaled by the Undertaker scythe and then collapses in the boat after fighting off strange dolls.

Imagine if (for some reason) the roles were switched and it was Claude and Alois.

Ciel was shaken but handled the whole situation pretty good for a thirteen years old.

Absolutely won't fly with Alois. He would have like three brakedowns in the span of 15 seconds.

[girderednerve]

my INTERLIBRARY LOAN on safety orange by anna watkins fisher came in!! yay!!!

here's the summary; if this sounds fun, you can read along via the open-access version: Safety Orange first emerged in the 1950s as a bureaucratic color standard in technical manuals and federal regulations in the United States. Today it is most visible in the contexts of terror, pandemic, and environmental alarm systems; traffic control; work safety; and mass incarceration. In recent decades, the color has become ubiquitous in American public life—a marker of the extreme poles of state oversight and abandonment, of capitalist excess and dereliction. Its unprecedented saturation encodes the tracking of those bodies, neighborhoods, and infrastructures judged as worthy of care—and those deemed dangerous and expendable. 

Here, Anna Watkins Fisher uses Safety Orange as an interpretive key for theorizing the uneven distribution of safety and care in twenty-first-century U.S. public life and for pondering what the color tells us about neoliberalism’s intensifying impact often hiding in plain sight in ordinary and commonplace phenomena.

[cienie-isengardu]

"If you're going to make a habit of abduction, Kal, we really need to invest in a jail."

Walon Vau, Republic Commando: True Colors

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Well, at least Fukuzawa got his wish granted, I guess.... he's finally inside Fukuchi <3

[call-me-copycat]

As someone who's always loved microbiology and public health...

WHAT IS THIS??

I have wanted to work in public health pretty much my entire life, but it's genuinely getting scary now

This is horrible, is this true? If anyone knows anything else then please please please let me know!!

I have a personal fear of ebola, after having read tons of books on it that were given and (heavily recommended) to me by my favorite teacher in highschool. Not only that but it was the virus I was assigned to study and present and I worked on that research for an entire year as well

Also please absolutely read this book for more info on Ebola! You can read it free here!

If you don't have the time at least watch this video!

[extrasweetcoffee]

K so I just got the twst anthology manga and like:

I totally forgot THIS specific moment was in this volume.

[fictionadventurer]

"If the structure of your world ever evaporates, I will still be here."

I think The Q might contain one of the greatest declarations of friendship/love ever.

[birchbow]

I feel like Karkat Vs. The Evil Gods is a spiritual successor to Saviors of the Universe even tho it was never fully complete. I have been a fan of your world building since then and I am SOOOO here for it!! I love that we really do seem to have everyone and I can't wait to finish it and then read it all again!

Oh my god same brain cell, I genuinely was just in the car yesterday listening to a song I used to imagine a SoTW music video to, musing like "man I wonder how much of my old plot could be reused" haha. "Spiritual successor" is so true actually. Saviors was SO the project of a teenager/college student. The Saviors team were being brought into the larger world by their ancestors directly, learning to use their powers, leaving their overbearing parental figures and finding new mentors, discovering themselves. VERY college. Whereas KVvTEG takes a lot of the same ideas and vibe--superhero universe, interpersonal drama underlying grander plot, some of the humanstuck designs being similar--but their age and history together is a huge part of the premise itself! Written by a grown-up with a job, lmao.

...I am very entertained by the thought of the crossover tho. Reparenting your much more explicitly superpowered younger self... Just don't let the Gamzees meet. 😬😬 Eesh.

[stromuprisahat]

The first thing they'll tell you, when teaching you first aid, is that you always have to keep yourself safe first.

Don't jump for a drowning person, when torrent's too strong or you can't swim. Don't touch person touching live wire. When helping after car accident, make sure nothing's gonna hit you and put on reflective vest.

So yeah, giving us details about Zoya's aunt just made me less sympathetic.

“I … She tried to help me when the darkness came. She pushed me out of the way so that I could run. If not for her—” ... Brave Liliyana. Of course she had run toward the docks when the screaming began, ready to help. Why couldn’t you be a coward this one time?

King of Scars Chapter 25

Liliyana's basically a civilian running inside unstable, burning building, when even trained firemen with protective geat would be in great danger. That's far beyond the line of brave/stupid, pretty clearly in the stupid area.

If the author wanted me to feel for Zoya and her loss, she should've keep it vague. Or at least refrain from further deductions, because either Zoya's jumping to conclusions, or she's right and her aunt's an (brave) idiot.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Maybe the truth at the heart of Shadowstruck is the importance of family. Because the most compelling stories in this universe are about what happens when you tell parents that some of their children have no right to their love, care, and protection. It destroys what should be the strongest and most natural bonds of love, and that simple horrible thing leads to all the complicated problems in their oppressive society.