#book cult club

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

please sir can i have a housewife character whose problems are unrelated to housewifery

[spurgie-cousin]

for the people who asked, this was the video a Brown sibling told me they liked btw 😭

(edited for clarity bc my first caption was worded weird)

[starlightphil]

*insert drumroll here* …The DNP Book Cult Discord server is now live! Here's the link!

"What the fuck is the dnp book cult?" I hear you ask. Simple: the dnp book cult is a Discord server dedicated to both Dan Howell & Phil Lester and books. We’ll discuss our favorite books, authors we love - literally anything bookish - and Dip and Pip at the same time.

A huge shout out to my friend moons for testing everything and helping me fix my mistakes! Please tell me if you have suggestions, questions, or notice any issues in the server. I might be a millennial/gen z cusp but I'm a bit of a boomer when it comes to Discord lmao. I have ideas for more channels, roles, etc so stay tuned!

[millerflintstone]

One year ago today I put in my notice at the last corporate job I held, which was a large auto manufacturing company. It was a mess. I got hired in as a support database developer working on special projects and then on my 78th day they had a reorganization that changed my job function.

I specifically asked in my interview if there were other database developers because I didn't want to be the only one (yes) and if I would have to be on call for anything (no). That changed. I went from having 2 other people to help to no one. I hadn't even been there a full 3 months. Barely knew the code base and was expected to be able to solve any database related code issues for 3 separate internal web applications related to dealers that were a big deal. My boss asked another department if they could loan out their database developer as needed since he "had to work of three database developers and just one database developer". That manager said sure, but he owed her an ice cream sundae.

I was so fucking disgusted, among other things.

While the pay was nice, it wasn't 3 database developers worth of pay. Not even on a low end of 75K per developer, and it wasn't like they were going to revise my pay. I was also expected to be in charge of a whole nother application and be on call for it / be the Subject Matter Expert and I was also supposed to train the junior JAVA developers on how to be database developers to "help me out"

In my last one on one with my boss, I mentioned that this was no longer the job I interviewed for and he kind of laughed and said, "Yeah". I had also mentioned that I had some type of work PTSD from my past job and at first that also struck him as funny but he regrouped and attempted to be empathetic. This sounds like he was malicious but he seemed more completely clueless and awkward. Though I did get the sense that he was passive aggressive and held grudges based on some other things I observed. It was not good.

So, after talking with Unfriendly about it and our finances, I quit. Whatever fucked up cost cutting that was going to get higher ups a nice bonus surely did not affect me in the slightest. It went from being a nice place to land and get my bearings after healthcare health plan hell to just more shit.

I was disappointed because the gal who referred me really loved working there. She had wanted me to work there but at the time, their only office was in the heart of Atlanta. Later on that changed and she had gotten promoted to management herself. She was either too blind / part of the problem or she knew the shit show that was coming. We weren't close or anything. Just LinkedIn friends at that point, though we had bonded over the crap job we worked at together my first year in GA.

Today I learned that my supervisor on the team I was supporting in AZ got affected as part of layoffs that affected everyone who worked in that location. She was really nice and I could tell from her facial expressions in meetings that she was not on board with how their reorg negatively affected me. She and her team were really gracious about me leaving and they all gave me compliments and online rewards which I cashed out when I left. I hope she finds something that doesn't stress her out like this company did.

I re-read the day to day journal that's in my drafts that started the day I decided I was going to quit through my last day and I do not regret my decision at all.

[powerbottomblake]

love how the men in yellowjackets (mainly jeff and walter) are just. extremely cool with their girlfailures having committed murder they're just THAT down bad. jeff is like oh cannibalism? ritualistic murder? idc babe whatever you need I love you so much while walter is like *desperate for mistussy voice* it's fine it's FINE that you're a serial killer my grandma was a killer too see we can even bond over it here take all my compensation money can I hit now can I hit. pretty please 🥺🥺🥺🙏🙏🙏

[mollywog]

This and this had me thinking about intergenerational cycles of abuse

In her post @periwinckles asked: if you didn't want to name her Valancy why didn't you choose something else?"

Because Valancy’s parents were just as trapped by the Stirling Clan’s rules and hierarchy as Valancy is.

Valancy's name origin by her own account:

Her full name was Valancy Jane. Valancy Jane was rather terrible, but she liked Valancy, with its odd, out-land tang. It was always a wonder to Valancy that the Stirlings had allowed her to be so christened. She had been told that her maternal grandfather, old Amos Wansbarra, had chosen the name for her. Her father had tacked on the Jane by way of civilising it, and the whole connection got out of the difficulty by nicknaming her Doss. She never got Valancy from any one but outsiders.

First I’d like to note the name came from her maternal grandfather (not a Stirling)

But either way: an elder selected the name and the parents felt they had no agency in the matter except to select a ‘tame’ middle name and awful nickname.

The entire Stirling Clan is trapped in this bullshit.

This is not an excuse, just an observation, because while Mrs. Fredrick Stirling also likely feels miserable and trapped, she does nothing to make Valancy’s life more bearable when she clearly has the power to do so.

[funnuraba]

Anyone who tries to tell you that fandom used to be chill before Kids These Days came along is lying to you, because I've been in the trenches going through old zines from the very beginning of organized science fiction fandom in the 1930s, and let me tell you, it was the autism Thunderdome. They were calling each other Hitler, getting into physical fights, writing into letter columns suggesting that other fans kill themselves.

To give the briefest of summaries: the first convention happened in 1936 with about 9 guys, and within three years they and all of sci-fi fandom had split in two over who got to plan the cons and who was a card-carrying Communist. By 1943 they'd had the first attempted fandom cult and the first faked suicide. Two different sex offenders were exposed, one the attempted cult leader and one a major player in the Communism feud. Another sex offender was only exposed in the 21st century after his death; in the 1940s he publicly proposed to a lesbian Satanist in the pages of A FANZINE and she had to politely suggest that this was best discussed in private. Everyone kept making fun of a teenage Ray Bradbury for being a terrible writer. They would tear their own friends' work to absolute shreds in public if they didn't like it!

Two young men got to the Chicago Worldcon by stowing away on boxcars and riding in the freezing cold for 30 hours (they got an award and cash prize for doing this). All this is taking place at a time where there were maybe 50 genuinely active fans, and they all knew each other and had to pay money to mail their fights to each other. It was wild out there, my friends.

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

“You did not live in a house of horrors. I was raised to believe in hellfire; now that was bad!” Okay and impending global genocide of any culture that disagrees with your beliefs isn’t? Being raised mentally preparing to withstand torture at the hands of police in a “do it to Julia” situation isn’t? Being socially isolated from your peers on the grounds that they’re evil uneducated dumb worldly heathens controlled by Satan isn’t a bad thing? No. Those are all good things which every child should be taught in order to experience “the real life.”

The legitimate truth is that we are all in “the real life” right now and in “the real life,” the Governing Body is doing the very best they can to cover up the fact that they’re a cult by relaxing the cult’s rules in a futile attempt to prevent the prosecution in the numerous ONGOING child sexual abuse cases from handing their non-tight-pants-wearing asses to them. And the other legitimate truth is discovering this fact to be the legitimate truth while having to navigate a sea of lies and high school is extremely traumatizing, especially when you feel the need to take a hard stance against the cult to prevent others’ children — children like you — from befalling the same fate by dressing up as some miserable wretch who cooked and ate children, hoping the way you look and carry yourself and stare into the parents’ eyes will scare them away. And even more traumatizing is that your tactics worked; proving that you are just as bad and scary as your preexisting OCD made you out to be. Yes I did it to myself; but consider the reason why I felt so compelled to sacrifice the entirety of my mental health to sabotage you with what little tools I had. I wouldn’t have done it had I not had a very good reason, and my very good reason was that I was a child who loved children. You were trying to protect me and it was a sacrifice; but I was also trying to protect children. My endeavor is not — and was never — a selfish one. It is not that I don’t care about you; I only prioritize the class which is most oppressed, and you are not a part of it because you are adults. Your feelings, unfortunately, are expendable in my mission to end religious child labor. I will not support your corrupt religion to make you happy when I know what it’s done to others and to myself; it is wrong, and you are wrong for supporting it. I, as a paraprofessional, refuse to support a religion which hides the sexual abuse of children for its own gain. By law I am now a mandatory reporter; I must report child abuse when I see it under penalty of law. Therefore it stands to reason that I must report your cult from the top of every mountain for the entire inhabited earth to hear so they may not even take so much as one step in your direction. I am sorry if I seem like I hate you; if the fact that I reject your ideals of theological expectational fascism disturbs you so much, then maybe you need to re-evaluate your choices.

“Your actions affect others.” I know my actions affect others; I know how they affect others as well. You’re crushed and demoralized and suffering physically from all the emotional stress; I’ve likely dug you both early graves. I know what I’ve done and I can live with it — Not easily — but I am not defeated because I know I’m in the right, and have always been in the right. No. The real question is: Do you know how your actions are affecting others? In exquisite detail? Have you listened to the victims? Have you allowed yourself to hear both sides of the story with your human ears, not ones made of tin and thought-blocking strategies and “I had it worse than you” excuses? No? Then you’d better start because the key to healing yourself is to aid in the healing of others. We are all connected as one body; and I refuse to be a cancer cell. Sorry I’m aiding in your downfall but it’s got to happen at some point.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Spin the bottle - Seventh Virtue

The fun part about early Seventh Virtue was writing Lonan & Harrison meeting each other for the first time all over again. Here’s an early section where they prove they cannot have a single normal conversation!!!

Their meet-cute is when Harrison gets caught thieving (by Lonan) and they almost kill each other. ❤️ Soooo on brand.

Seventh Virtue, circa 2021.

Text transcript under the cut!

“So you cut me, arrest me, throw me down here, and now you want to dine with me?”

“Yes,” Lonan said. He ripped open his cutlery packet, slipped out the black fork. As he unloaded bouts of fried rice, mounds of glossed orange chicken, and a generous helping of black pepper beef, he added, “And I didn’t cut you. You did that yourself.”

Harrison snorted. Oh god, he was starving. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep up the façade before he started drooling.

“That’s because you were going to stab me in the gut,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to stab you.”

“So what were you going to do with the knife? Use it to play spin the bottle with me?”

Lonan arched a brow. “Would you like to play spin the bottle with me?”

“If you’re the one I’d kiss, then sure.”

[babyskunkdoll]

creepy&pouty creatures,

go watch my new video >.<

And subscribe!!

[vamprlestat]

i played a concerning amount of cult of the lamb today

[spurgie-cousin]

Meri dropped Kody and picked up the art of cursing and you know what? I'm living

[starlightphil]

Long shot but would anyone with experience with Discord who is interested in the dnp & books server I’m working on like to volunteer to be a “beta tester” for it? Basically I just need a few people who can give me feedback and maybe help with small technical issues lol. My lovely friend Moons has been helping but I don’t want to put it all on her and I think the more help the better! Thank you so much! 🫶🏻

[fungi-maestro]

Vic Sage getting scared on hallucinogens any% speedrun

[lepakonpaska]

[happy rambling in the tags because i love my job so much ✨️🌻]

[golden-doves]

Okay, so no art here but fuck it, The Rose has me at gun point to share this so oh well.

Azami, as discussed before, is like Shamura in the wisdom aspect, and she often reads with him.

ANYWAYS, she also writes short stories. And now I am going to share one once a day to fill up some space when working on the story.

<3 Day one:

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Meaningless words pierce my ears and I'm left useless on the floor. A shaken mess of nerves, the voices around me are spinning angrily as I attempt to calm myself, yet I'm still left shaking.

Maybe I deserve this fear, after all I merely sat there lazily watching as the walls collapsed around me.

My minds a mess. And I have no support for it, maybe I should give up. Maybe I should let them win.

Yet I have to keep going, for if I submit to the chains holding me down it will be evident that I am the one who has shackled myself to this misery.

I can feel the broken wings of others who have suffered the same fate I would have been left it as I fly away.

Yet the chains around me pull taught, and I struggle against them, angry tears fill my eyes as I attempt to escape, and I fall to the floor once again, broken.

Misery is my only company in these times of sadness, yet I look up to see a light shining before me, beckoning me to break free of these chains.

I can hear them clink behind me as I stand once again, taking a step forth and running to the light, words of encouragement from my friends wrapping around me like a shield against the words of all who try to harm me.

My weight is thrown forth as I stumble, the chain lay broken behind me. I am pulled into the warmth of those I love as I finally find myself free.

The lights come on around me and I find myself laying down, my lover beside me as the babble of children playing down the halls fill my ears. And I'm left reminded to keep going. For her. **For Them**

I find myself free as I lay beside her, watching the peaceful breaths she takes as she sleeps, and finally, at last. *I'm Free*

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Shamura cried when reading this the first time because he was so proud of her for writing it <3

Garden, Signing off