#Before We Were Yours

[travelinglibrariansdesk]

New idea for a blog

New idea for a blog: circulation assistant who enjoys talking about the books she checks in and out every day. I have no idea if anyone would find my opinions of books interesting: I'm mainly writing for me. Last fall, after the library hired me, I began keeping a list of good-looking children's books for my mother, who says she's going to start reading books to little kids somewhere, as soon as she's settled into her new apartment. The list mushroomed right away.

Can I start a blog this way? I'd love to keep notes on the books I see every day. For instance, today someone returned Jenny and the Cat Club, a book my grandmother used to read to me. So dear to my heart, little black cat Jenny with her red scarf and silver ice skates, and her wonderful friends. I'm overjoyed that someone is still reading it!

Also, a really funny edition of Frankenstein: Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds. Worrisome, isn't it, to think that someone seems to want to encourage scientists to...um...duplicate Frankenstein's research? Not sure if that is what is intended by the title.

Just read an adorable book called It Came in the Mail. Little boy loves getting mail, so he writes a letter to the mailbox asking it to send him things. The first thing that arrives is a dragon. All the art is letter/postcard art, with appropriate and adapted post office stamps: "oversize" on the elephant, and "pearishable" on a giant pear.

Every day I'm amazed at the dazzling and creative art used in children's books. Yesterday I read a sweet Native American myth, called The Girl Who Loved Horses, a Caldecott winner from 1978 by Paul Goble. His Native American-style art is colorful and gorgeous, and sweeps across the pages in a way that suggests wild mustangs in motion.

The popularity of graphic novels has freed both adult and children's book authors from the either/or of "text" or "picture book". I nabbed a book today that I'd like to read called Trial by Jury Journal. I opened it to find that the story is told by all kinds of print media - the usual paragraphs, letters, newspaper articles, etc. I love creative flights like this. It reminds me of that beautiful series of books done as letters and postcards: Nick Bantock's Griffin and Sabine romance. I love the zing I get when I can connect two authors and think, I wonder if the older book(s) had an influence on the newer ones? Did Bantock's books pave the way for others of this type?

Update on Trial by Jury Journal: Good but not great. Kids will probably appreciate the character name puns more than I did - over several pages it wears a little thin (e.g., Anna Conda, Rhett Tyle). Still, the narration style keeps switching, which both keeps it interesting and develops individual characters. However, I think she could've gone further with the character development. They're not flat, but they don't have a full three dimensions. Still love the pen-and-ink art, reminiscent of Joseph Schindelman's original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Lemony Snickett.

Then there's Kaz Windness's If Ur Stabby, about a psycho anti-unicorn. Definitely NOT for kids under 12. A nice old man handed me the book the other day because (I think) his granddaughter had pulled it off the (presumably) adult graphic novel shelf, and he thought it might not be for children. Which it is NOT. However, the dark (one might say sick) humor of a depressed unicorn depicted largely in black and white is pretty funny if you've had a little too much princess literature, or the Pinkalicious series, come across your desk.

Just did a deeper dive into Stabby, who is apparently a graduate of Mother Goth Rhymes, which I can't put on hold right now because I have too many other books out that are overdue. (Just can't get myself to read enough. Very frustrating.) Fascinating stuff, though - "Stabby the Unicorn" is a meme, and apparently a game - "Unstable Unicorns", which would be a great name for a band, don't you think? But the game - "a strategic card game that will destroy your friendships" - is a little to manga for my taste. Even though they're "unstable", they're too cute and marshmallowy. More on that some other time, I think. Stabby is not manga. Original artwork - lots of curly, swirly letters and piles of skulls.

On a more serious, but still dark, note, I saw a book today entitled The Midwife of Auschwitz. My first reaction was YOW, this sounds horribly depressing. I was intrigued enough to read the blurb on the back, and it depicts exactly the story you'd expect of the title. However, I expect it would be an interesting take on the Holocaust, if you're in the right frame of mind. It turns out that among the atrocities the Nazis committed at the camps, they took the most Aryan-looking babies and gave them to German couples wanting children. Just like the Irish nuns and the evil folks in Before We Were Yours did.

[thepointofoblivion]

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[cupidthewriter]

watch me literally start writing fanfic for Queenie and Briny because i need them to be happy so bad

ur telling me NO ONE has ever drawn ART for this book???/

[dustybookcorner]

In my multifold years of life, I have learned that most people get along as best they can. They don’t intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible by-product of surviving.

Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

[maeamian]

Part of the reason that Republicans are so desperately acting like they will never lose again is because they are deeply terrified that this is their last real chance to win. The big orange dipshit came in and gutted the party of everyone who wasn't a loyalist, which left it full of nasty little gremlins who have gaping voids where charisma and human decency is supposed to go.

They still hold a lot of power, but if we stop them this year the next presidential election may not be the Most Important One Of Your Life™, that's not a guarantee or anything, but if they don't win here and now their future looks grim, this dipshit is the only guy they have left and he's extremely diminished and has his brains leaking out of his ears at this point. We can beat him into the ground.

So that's what we're gonna fucking do. We're gonna break these fucking fash. They will crash upon us and we're gonna break their fucking necks. When they come for us they will lose because they're fucking losers and we have each other's backs which is something they fundamentally are incapable of comprehending.

[bioethicists]

it's very important to understand how a personality disorder diagnosis functions in the psychiatric system, even if you identify with the diagnosis or find it useful.

personality disorders on your medical record will be used to discredit anything you say or do. they indicate "don't bother listening to this person; apply treatment regardless of their wishes but also they're probably manipulating/attention-seeking so maybe don't bother treating them". needing support becomes attention-seeking. behaviors that would be treated + supported in someone without this diagnosis are ignored or treated as manipulative. providers are instructed to "withdraw warmth" (a real thing in the DBT provider's manual, btw) in response to self-injury or suicidal ideation.

if you have been dx'd with a personality disorder professionally, you likely understand this.

now, here's the important part: this is not an issue of 'stigma' against a politically neutral, pre-discursive True Disease which is being Unfairly Maligned. these diagnoses were formulated based on the idea that some patients cannot be trusted, that some patients seek care too much. they are applied to patient charts as a justification for withdrawing care or as a dismissal of someone "not getting better" fast enough. in the uk, they are often employed by the nhs to shame or problematize people who use large amounts of nhs resources, arguing that receiving a lot of care through the nhs is a negative behavior stemming from a disordered personality.

there are elements of personality disorders which resonate strongly with many people, including myself, but you need to be clear-eyed about the origins + functions of this diagnosis. as a whole, they were created + function as ways to discredit + mistreat noncompliant or "difficult" patients. 'reclaiming' them is not going to change how they function systematically- it is going to make it easier to engage in this systematic neglect by evoking 'ableism' or 'stigma!' when people question the utility or application of the diagnosis.

[ryssbelle]

Drew a bunch of Marinettes in a bunch of different artists styles it was a lot of fun!!

Artists who's styles I mimicked: @buggachat @hamsternamedmarinette @ladybeug @sabertoothwalrus and @anna-scribbles all epic artists 🤟😎

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Burning Rotten Bridges

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[lefthandarm-man]

COUNTDOWN TO STEVE'S 106TH BIRTHDAY posting my favorite steve things to celebrate

day 1: his fighting style includes flipping around and being dramatic and destroying motorcycles for no reason

[gabelew]

tender face touches.....

[bshocommons]

"A woman’s past need not predict her future."

Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

[bixels]

Why the hell, shit, you damned bastard son of a bitch

[cupidthewriter]

i read Before We Were Yours for school

im fine just bawling my eyes out

time to write about how heartbroken i am about Briny and Queenie and Silas

IM FINE

(this book broke my heart and i enjoyed it)

[pockethep]

Asa and guilt have been VERY prevalent in Part 2 thus far and when I heard Asa and Yoru talking about guilt earlier, I assumed Yoru would use Asa's survivors guilt and guilt over CSM 167 as a way to make some very powerful weapons.

I also thought the strength of a weapon being proportional to the guilt felt about making said weapon was a limitation/adjustment from Asa hosting Yoru, rather than hybridizing like Denji.

But THIS is why the gun and tank weapons are more powerful. Chainsaw man has always been about family and how people use familial bonds for self fulfillment. Yoru killed her own children for the chance to strike Pochita down. Yoru deciding that that slim chance she could win or even turn the battle in her favor is worth the very lives of her children, children who she sees and uses as an extension of herself.

The guilt of such an action is unparalleled.

Even the act of tying motherhood to war, sacrificing your body and life to raise someone and therefore owning said child is GENIUS.

Fujimoto cooked.

[sergle]

Aw man I love city folk so much