#GIVE THEM THEIR OWN BOOK

[rufousnmacska]

[ffcrazy15]

There's this way of doing female-ness in Christianity that I call "pastel flower journal Christianity." I've got nothing against pastel flower journals per se, but for some reason people believe it's the end all and be all of female spirituality, and I think it's a real disservice towards young Christian women.

One of these days I'd like to start a prayer-and-reading group or something for young women, but there would be no floral themes or over-focus on how "God thinks you're beautiful even if the world doesn't" (a true statement, but it's wayyyyy too often the focus in women's spiritual reading). Instead we would be reading:

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

Sheed's A Map of Life

Portions of Pieper's book on leisure

Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life

Guardini's The Lord (or something similar)

Therese's Story of a Soul

and some select portions of the Nicomachean Ethics.

(Also they're all getting the porn talk. I don't know why we give the porn talk to young men but not young women. There's this idea that women don't use porn and they only need the talk about "guarding their heart." Bullshit. There's porn on the YA shelves of Barnes and Nobles and before that there were bodice rippers. Young women need the porn talk too.)

Every young woman needs to be getting a basic grounding in virtue ethics, logic, natural law, scholastic philosophy and Biblical hermeneutics if they're going to get by in today's spiritual landscape. Enough faffery and emotionalism in young women's spiritual education! Give them real food to chew on, not pasty sentimentalism!

[rosefires20]

My brainrot today is thinking about just how incredible for a character Eowyn is.

Genuinely. The series might not have many female characters but the ones we do get go so fucking hard.

To me, Eowyn is literally the definition of defining being a woman for oneself. She rejects the roles she is given despite acknlowdging the importance and its mostly because she knows part of the reason is that she is a woman.

The reason why she is obsessed with Aragorn isn't because she loves him but because she wants what he has. She wants the freedom and courage and bravery that Aragorn has at every turn. She literally has multiple conversations during the Two Towers about how what she fears most is a cage. All this girl wants is the freedom to be and not be forced into a role. The best thing is that she literally gets that.

The segment of Return of the King about Eowyn and Faramir is literally about her piecing together what she truly wants. She doesn't want Aragorn. She wants freedom and the ability to choose. Faramir does nothing but encourage that in her. Their love story is literally one of the healthiest love stories I've seen in a long time because at the heart of it, their love is a place to return home to for both parties. Both go off to lead and help their people for a considerable amount of time before returning to each other but that does not diminish their bond. Even Faramir, I believe, falls in love with her bravery and dedication to her loved ones. The reason she went to Pelenor Fields and Gondor with the troops of Rohan was because she had things she wanted to fight for. She wanted to fight for herself, her people, and her loved ones. She is the one who protects Theoden after he is killed so that his body gets the treatment it deserves. She encourages Merry and helps him go to the battle because she sees her struggle in Merry. They feel helpless standing around when there are things to be doing.

Let's also not forget the fact that she was around Grima Wormtounge just as much as the King was. She was exposed to the same poison and awful words that eroded the king. It's even implied that her care for him is part of the reason why Theoden was savable when Gandalf showed up. She had the same power and bravery as everyone else even if she didn't see it in herself.

Then at the end of the day, SHE decides where she wants to go and what path she wants to walk. She walked the path of a warrior. The path of a princess/ruler. The path of a caretaker. But in the end she decides which elements truly mean something to her outside of gender definitions. That is what makes her character so incredible to me. In this she literally kills one of the biggest enemies in that battle with such a badass line.

[casscainmainly]

I headcanon that Jason, Cass, Barbara, and Duke are the major lit lovers in the Batfam, but they have very different tastes. Jason's taste leans toward British literature, stuff like Shakespeare and Alexander Pope (and Austen of course), but he also enjoys dystopian novels like Brave New World, 1984 etc.

Cass loves contemporary novels, including romance (stealing this from Shadow of the Batgirl!). She prefers stories with happy endings, and she also loves detective fiction, specifically British/American Golden Age - I think she'd adore Agatha Christie's cosies.

Barbara has the most diverse reading taste, and is the only one who can discuss books with the others without it devolving into a fight about whose taste is better. Her specialty is feminist fiction, stuff like Virginia Woolf, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Audre Lorde. She's not big on poetry, though.

Duke is THE poetry fan. He's a big defender of contemporary poetry, particularly poetry by POC authors, and loves Hanif Abdurraqib, Toi Derricotte, and Ocean Vuong. He does love Harlem Renaissance too, but makes fun of Jason if he brings up Langston Hughes (along the lines of 'oh is that the one Black poet you know?'. Jason, as a genuine Hughes fan, hates this). Duke, like Cass, loves detective fiction, but he prefers hardboiled noir over cosies. Cass and Duke get into tons of fights about this.

Duke and Jason both loathe BookTok, while Cass enjoys it. Barbara is neutral but prefers BookTube. They tried to form a book club once but Barbara didn't show up (she knew what would happen), Duke left halfway (he can be very elitist in his literature views), and then Cass threw Jason out a window (he insulted her reading taste).

These are just my thoughts, feel free to disagree/add on with any of your own!

[tea-cat-arts]

I simply think this fandom doesn't give Wei Wuxian enough credit for the various ways in which he saved Lan Wangji

[orpheus-lament]

if you squint they look like cats

[batcavescolony]

A Batfam AU where instead of going to get Dick to be Robin again Tim uses necromancy to bring Jason back from the dead. He just leaves Jason on the Wayne doorstep with a 'do better this time' sticky note. Batman can't find out who did it and Tim stays his little latchkey self with semi ok but distant parents (cus canonical they weren't really abusive just not there which isn't good but they could be worse). His parents bring him along on trips but again they love him but they just leave him to do as he pleases. so in Paris he ends up still getting trained by Lady Shiva. This keeps going and Tim just keeps reviving batfam members, if they fake their deaths and Tim tracks them down to check on them. They still have no idea who their shadow is, they can't find him, Tim likes it this way. Bruce goes MIA and Red Robin happens just minus Tim actually being Red Robin. The JLA doorstep gets a passed-out Batman with a 'I can't believe I have to keep doing this shit' sticky note on his head.

[fictionadventurer]

I keep thinking about Lewis' review of The Hobbit, because he claimed that the main thing contemporary reviewers compared it to was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Was fantasy in that poor of a state that Alice was the closest thing they could think of? Comparing that chaotic fever dream to Tolkien's intricately crafted world? Lewis does specify that the comparison is that both books are by an "Oxford professor at play", but they're otherwise so different that putting the two in the same category baffles me.

[hajimedics]

welcome home persona AU, aka mostly an excuse for me to draw my human designs in classy children’s fairytale-inspired outfits

[cashweasel]

Some of you really need to get a grip and stop with this hypercritical bullshit on pb and associates I’m sooooo sick of it.

“The new candlelight project sounds just like the elementalists, nothing about this concept is original :/“ aren’t you the same ppl begging for a fantasy story and the old choices back?

[deoidesign]

vampire and werewolf sitting in a tree

time trav e l i n g

first comes. trying to kill eachother then comes... learning you're his dead ex-lover then comes marriage!

(you can buy the book this scene is from for $15 it's really good. it's the fan favorite of the series!)

[queenerdloser]

i just finished dark heir

[videogamelover99]

Bill, honey, go to therapy.

[p4nishers]

thinking about the relationship between mightily oats' "the worthwhile [words] don't burn" and constable dorfl's "the words in the heart cannot be taken"

[bayetea]

I'm a strong "percy would get a job in education/outreach to underprivileged kids in the future" truther but I don't necessarily agree with people who say that him taking on marine biology as a college major doesn't make sense at all

"why would he study marine biology he can already work with sea animals to his heart's desire" I don't know maybe because he wants to get paid???????? he wants a normal job???? percy grew up poor and unsafe. why is it weird that he craves stability with a career that enables him to do something that he loves? or maybe he wants to go into the system and help bring about lasting reform that will actually improve care for sea creatures??? yes he can save sea animals on his own time but think about it. is it better to abandon his life in the middle of the night to go help a trapped sea creature Every Single Time it happens or is it better to enter the system and make it so that capitalists stop polluting water or disturbing sea ecosystems for profit. his powers as a son of poseidon are a band-aid not a lasting solution to systemic environmental neglect and decay. he has an established precedent of caring for bringing about systemic change (see: turning down immortality) and for me this is no different (I just personally headcanon him wanting to bring change for disadvantaged kids but whatever)

to me this logic is like telling an exceptional artist that there's no point in going to art school to become a professional when they can already just do art on their own time for fun. like yeah....... if you're content with doing that as just a hobby. but what if you want to become an even better artist and learn new skills. what if you want to do it as a job that pays you and gives you health insurance and social security. then what

for me the main logistical issue of him majoring in marine biology has never been that he would never do that it's that the intersection of new rome college accreditation to the Actual Real world isn't all that clear/logistically sound. like I guess the mist can handle anything but what impact is new rome going to be able to have on the realm of mortals. this would be a nice thing to discuss actually (more in tags)

[avelera]

I’m re-listening to The Vampire Lestat audiobook right now, and it has in it a stunning and timely reminder that Armand is one of the most powerful telepaths of all time amongst vampires.

… which is to say that at no time while Daniel was clumsily pretending to be taking notes instead of messaging the Talamasca (something even a non telepath could have spotted DANIEL YOU ARE BAD AT THIS) or when Daniel was getting ready for his big Columbo-style “Just one more thing” reveal of the stunning extent of Armand’s betrayal, at NO POINT would Armand not have seen that coming.

Daniel has no telepathic defenses. Louis casually invades his mind at will but Armand is literally so powerful that at his level you are just constantly receiving ambient thoughts unless you block them out. When Armand goes into people’s memories he can see stuff from YEARS before with absolute ease. If Louis is a microphone, Armand is a goddamn satellite dish, the kind they use to listen for sounds coming from space.

My point being that we’ve all followed Daniel’s reasoning throughout that Armand’s far too powerful to not be lying when he said he couldn’t prevent it. Indeed, he was the director of the tragedy, all while wearing a stunned, slightly saddened expression when the tragedy finally occurred as (he) planned.

An expression much like the stunned, slightly saddened one he wears when he is “caught” in his lies by Daniel, who poses about as much threat to a vampire who can read every thought in your head back to the day you were born and can actively puppeteer humans to say whatever he wants or even stop time for them, as Sam the Vampire was a threat to Armand with his theater prop scythe.

Armand is not caught off guard by Daniel’s reveal. He knew what Daniel was going to say before Daniel said it. Quite possibly weeks or years before he said it, because IMO Armand is once again the director of his own violent breakup with his companion(s) of decades, because that’s how this motherfucker rolls.