#THIS THING IS LIKE TWO FULL BOOKS

[hellenhighwater]

wait, you're a lawyer? for real?

I got an associates in stage tech, a double BFA in Graphic Design and 3D Design, and then went to law school on full academic scholarship, booked twelve classes, fell asleep during the Bar Exam three times (but passed with flying colors before the curve), and the motion for my admission to practice (put forward by my brother, also a lawyer), started, "My sister has many issues, but the one before the Court today is that of her admission to the State Bar of Michigan."

And somehow yes, they do let me practice law.

[raplinenthusiasts]

BTS x Major Arcana

for @dearedwardteach 🖤 {cr. namuspromised / psd / cards}

[goldkirk]

hey this isn’t aimed at anyone in particular but I’m saying it for the record here: if I tell you no, please stop messaging me about fundraisers and mutual aid.

I get enough messages that it’s impossible for me to keep up without devoting at least half an hour each day, when I’m not even on tumblr that long most days. Me having a boundary about this isn’t a moral failing, it’s a lifeboat for me on my own blog.

In my personal life I’m already advocating and donating literally as much as I can spare. This is not me not caring, it’s just me not willing to interact with that on the one place I go online to not interact with irl news and world events for the most part.

I cannot be upset all the time. I cannot be upset everywhere. I cannot use all my emotional and mental energy fielding my own upset from ongoing events. My options are to hold boundaries about this or stop coming online at all.

I’m all for sharing information and signal boosting to reasonable extents, but the scale of it this year is so large and so enduring that it is literally not possible to for me to participate on every account I have. I’ve previously shared links to Gaza eSIM donations and a major hub of verified Go Fund Mes here and elsewhere online. We, the online humans, know how to look those things up ourselves by now. There are many, many people choosing to do advocacy work, and right now, I can’t be one of them.

If you’re extremely upset when I tell you I can’t share/donate right now about a Gaza family or personal fundraiser you ask me to share here, just unfollow and block me. That’s what those buttons are for. Protect your own emotions and energy and get me off your feed instead of staying upset and continuing to engage with online people or content that upsets you.

Please don’t send repeated angry messages based on manufactured purity politics and moral outrage into my messages and inbox when I exercise the right to run my own blog.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

A Dark and Drowning Tide

gothic fantasy romance

a folklorist is chosen as the co-leader of an expedition to find a fabled magical spring for the king, along with 6 nobles

when her mentor, the other leader, is found dead on their boat in the middle of the night, she has to figure out who did it; while continuing the mission through the wilderness and navigating the potential political fallout

and the only one she can probably trust is her academic rival, a naturalist, who she hates

dark folktales & creatures

Jewish lesbian MC

arc from netgalley! out sep 17

putting both covers here because they’re both so beautiful!! (artists: Audrey Benjaminsen, & Erica Williams)

[themyscirah]

Ok game time which 3 series would you just DIE to get a run on ? I'm talking full creative control, can be as a writer or an artist + plotter if that suits your vibe best

My 3 are

Suicide Squad

Wonder Woman

Green Lantern Corps/Green Lanterns

(in that order)

[gayabeilles]

me giving cooking advice: always go by the recipe the first time you make something so you have a control. you can always change things next time but it’s important to have a baseline.

me trying a new recipe: so I’m actually gonna put four five cloves of garlic, add a serrano pepper (they don’t even call for anything Spicy?????), and I’ve got this shallot that’ll go bad soon so I’ll throw that in too, plus there’s those scapes from last weekend I should try to use up,

[longagoitwastuesday]

I am liking Jujutsu Kaisen, way more than I imagined I would, but I foresee it will let me down and it's keeping me from enjoying this as much as I could haha

I think the characters and dynamics are well set, and I think many of them have an incredibly good and deep potential, but I would be willing to bet they'll not get a proper development, enough for them to really hit. A well assembled set of gears is not enough to make the movement go, you have to wind the clockwork.

I think Gojo and Megumi have a fascinating and very complex dynamic, but I doubt it will be given the time and care that imo it needs to actually work. And it is going well enough for now! One could see the intimacy between them was deeper than the one Gojo had with, say, Yuji and Nobara ever since the very first few episodes despite the fact Fushiguro too was a first year. But the pieces forming what they have are extremely complex, and it just wouldn't be realistic if it doesn't show, even if in a not showing way, or if it doesn't have consequences or implications.

It's one of those dynamics that shape one's life, the way one regards the world, the way one establishes or not relationships with other people. It's one of those dynamics that could be full of fondness, gratitude, resentment, admiration, trust, and that imply intimacy, the good kind or the bad, even if in just the knowledge of someone who's been a constant through your life. It could, and would, imply a myriad of feelings, and probably in such a mix it could imply contradictory feelings too. Even the nothingness would weight, even the nothingness would be significant and meaningful.

Gojo took Megumi and his sister under his wing, the son of a man who murdered him, because of both selfish and selfless reasons. Megumi looks like Toji. What does Gojo feel about this? How does Gojo deal with this? How does Gojo go about taking care of Megumi? Would he walk him to school? Make him breakfast? Celebrate his birthdays making him blow candles? Did he take him to the zoo? Does the relationship between them feel professional or is it something more? Gojo appreciates his students, but is Megumi to him just another student? When Gojo faces Sukuna in Megumi's body, did he see the kid he raised, or does he just see Sukuna in one of his students' body? Did he have one faint wavering instant? And how does Megumi feel about this? Is he resentful of him? Resentful of the situation? Of the selfishness behind his actions? Does he feel like a pawn? Is he grateful? Does he resent feeling grateful? Would he rather not? Does he love Gojo? Does he feel nothing about him other than what he could feel about a teacher that sort of annoys him but knows he's reliable in his strength? Does he think it unfair, cruel or unfeeling that Gojo is close, closer perhaps, with Yuuji or Yuta, considering their story? When Sukuna slices Gojo in two, does the remnants of Megumi's soul tremble?

And not just Megumi and Gojo. Yuuji and Nanami, Gojo and Nanami, Yuuji and Fushiguro, Nobara and the boys, or Nobara and Maki, Todo and Yuuji or Yuta, Gojo and Yuta, Megumi and his sister. Gojo and Geto, even! If the pieces are well set, the dynamics are intriguing, interesting, and have potential to be deep, but then the characters have like two plot relevant scenes that punch you hard, but little more, it's not nearly enough. Especially not nearly enough for the enormity that is shonen dynamics and situations. And the potential existing at all, and then not delivering, makes it all the more frustrating when you're left with something mediocre that could have been so good.

The development of dynamics through not only a few plot relevant gut wrenching moving scenes, but also the smallness of life, is important. The friend who recommended this to me said that those things were just unnecessary filler, but I disagree. I think there's a big difference between a large amount of anime-only filler episodes whose existence is based on the fact they had run out of manga chapters to animate, and moments of quietness. The low stakes character-driven moments of quietness can be so telling and so insightful, and they are so satisfactory when brought back later in higher stakes situations. My friend teased me there was no scene of Gojo making breakfast to Megumi, that it would be an idiotic idea, but it would be so telling. How he makes breakfast, what they eat, if he tries hard or if it's all mechanised, if they have personal bowls or if they use whatever, if he just buys them some pastry on the way to school, if the way they have breakfast changes through the years, or if he doesn't make them breakfast at all! All that would be very insightful on their dynamic and its evolution. All that would give a glimpse on how they regard each other and why, even in the present. All that could become meaningful in tense situations and high stakes scenes.

These moments also let the plot breath; if a lot is happening all the time, if every character is always experiencing trauma after trauma, the entire story is so emotionally draining that at some point you don't even care all that much. Besides, these nothing moments or low stakes plot arcs, besides deepening and developing dynamics, also let some in-world time pass, which would make the intimacy and bond between characters more believable imo; between Yuuji eating Sukuna's finger and their last confrontation in December how much time has passed? A few months? Am I truly to believe these characters are so everything to each other in only a few months?

Without some smallness, some repetition, some daily life, some low stakes not plot-centric development, the dynamics don't hit, they don't truly feel fleshed out, and dynamics as complex as the ones Megumi and Gojo have, or as supposedly meaningful as the one Megumi has with Yuuji or his sister, should be fleshed out if they're going to exist at all. Otherwise they'd risk making the writing feel awkward and fake. Besides, if the dynamics felt well fleshed out and realistic, they would shape the way the characters interact and act, and how they deal with situations, thus being plot relevant.

The shonen genre has so much happening all the time, the stakes are so high, the dynamics are so rooted in big events and the relationships carry enormous weight and implications. Yet they barely get developed, and it feels so stupid, so plain, the absence of something so important noticeable like a constant void, a shapeless nothingness present in every scene. It makes the characters feel like cardboard figures. Jujutsu Kaisen is already getting a better job than many, but I doubt it will do enough for what I've heard, and I fear I am bound to feel let down, and bound to feel unmoved.

After all, if not enough time and care has been given to develop a dynamic, I am not going to feel pressured by the high stakes; if not enough time and care has been given to develop the dynamic between Megumi and Yuuji, as good potential as it has I am bound to feel little for this last confrontation between Sukuna and Itadori, and his effort in getting Megumi back.

[cream-and-tea]

pallas in book one is definitely at it-cannot-possibly-get-worse-than-this ABSOLUTE rock bottom but god. there is such a specific flavour to their despair in book two that only happens because of the realization they have at the end of lay me down. like. how do you move on after admitting that everything you believed in was a lie. how do you live with what you’ve done (with what has been done to you). is it possible to pull yourself up out of the pit you’ve dug. what do you do if it isn’t. what do you do if it IS. and once you look at the damage how do you stop looking. past the first layer of hurt there’s just more and more hurt and you were used by the one person who was supposed to keep you safe to cause even MORE pain and no matter how deep you go none of it means anything! it never meant anything at all!! motherfucker your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[libraryleopard]

Young adult dystopian/horror novel

A trans boy on the run from an eco-fascist Christian cult that decimated the population by releasing a deadly virus is rescued by group of teens from a local LGBTQ+ center and agrees to help them take down the cult–but he's hiding the secret that he's slowly being transformed into a monster via the bioweapon the cult infect him with

Compelling, intense, and gorey

Explores religious trauma & trans/queer rage

Gay, trans main character; gay, autistic love interest; various queer side characters

[puppyeared]

save me old flipnote studio MVs.......

[faaun]

a while ago i accidentally bent a g.pangolin electrode (those things are made of gold) the world was covered in conductive gel time is passing unreal lvls of quick they know my heart is yours

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I just looked at the price on the back of a book I’ve had for a bit over a decade and it was four. fucking. dollars. Just four with no taxes. No extra 97cents or something before taxes. Just a round number that you would add taxes to.

I googled the price of a new edition and it was almost thirteen! Not an even thirteen, it was like 12.96 or something. Close enough that it’s basically thirteen but if you’re adding multiple items together to try and get the price on a purchase with more items it would add more confusion.

[thelastspeecher]

This may come as a bit of a surprise, but I don't often cry at books. Even the ones that hit me the hardest and most deeply, I don't cry.

But the ending of The Sun and the Star of all things got to me and now I'm crying at work bc I decided to finish it on my lunch break.

[brittlebutch]

finally found a place to read With the Light online and i'm thrilled; if you haven't read this manga i do Legitimately recommend it

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

Aw, cute.

[sengawolf]

Some other post (can’t remember whose) was making a case for Crowley having been a powerful archangel due to the ways he seems weirdly in tune with/aware of reality compared to other celestial figures, and they used his ability to sense demons approaching him/entering Earth as an example. And listen it was a GREAT post and I WILL be reblogging it once I find it again

But like…I’m also thinking that Crowley is a demon who doesn’t always act like a demon and canonically used to get, like, spontaneously nabbed by Hell to be punished whenever he did something too kind. And that’s not even getting into how constantly vigilant he is over Aziraphale. This guy has been looking over both shoulders for the last several thousand years and with very good reason

Idk. Anyone think that his demon-sensing abilities (contrasted with other angels’ and demons’ apparent lack of ability to track each other down) might have less to do with his original power level as an angel and more to do with the worst case of hypervigilance humankind has seen to date? I mean damn if I and my only loved one were at constant risk of being dragged off for torture I’d get real good at recognizing the warning signs too lmao