#i say as though i am not also an adult

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Okay I have my interview for head dance coach in 3 hours and 40 minutes so any good vibes you can send my way would be greatly appreciated.

[bricky-brikson]

Thinking about the "trilion and 12 years old" joke about Bill and thinking about his psychological development after the Euclydia massacre

In the show, we see that while he can plan ahead and manipulate people, he's often foiled by his own impulsiveness/anger/emotions. His ultimate goal is to escape the Nightmare Realm/Dimension 0. And sure, he says this is because he promised the Henchmaniacs he'd help them, but ultimately as others have pointed out, Bill is terrified of death. He wants to live forever - have "a party that never ends with a host who never dies". All he cares about is himself, his own survival and hedonism

All this to say, Bill has the emotional development of a teen. He hasn't gotten past the self-centredness nor the reward/adrenaline seeking behaviour, but has emotionally evolved enough to be able to manipulate people and such (and be able to feel guilt, even if it's just a picogram). Though his immaturity shows when he doesn't get his way.

One might think that, being a trillion years old, he would've developed a bit, but here's the thing - major traumas can "freeze" people at certain developmental stages. We don't know how old Bill was when Euclydia was destroyed - though considering his behaviour I would bet he was a teen.

(Or whatever the equivalent of that stage is for his species. They have exoskeletons- do they have instars then? Whatever, that's not on the topic of this post)

Seeing his entire dimension destroyed after (what was probably) a well-intentioned attempt to show them what he saw ("They'll see. They'll all see.") permanently emotionally stunted him. However it was he got his powers, he was a teen/young adult with powerful abilities who had just erased an entire dimension from existence and was now accountable to no one but himself while also being deeply traumatized. His constant partying and implied substance use were probably the only coping mechanisms he could think of, dissociating because he has no idea how to actually confront what happened. The way he talks about the massacre - he detaches himself from it yet still admits guilt ("A monster."). Only post-divorce does he implicate himself in the event, though still obscuring its true nature ("I liberated them.").

Being surrounded by individuals who are similarly maladjusted for most of his trillion-year lifespan certainly didn't help things. The Henchmaniacs are likely somewhat stunted as well, or at the very least don't offer much in the way of mature/emotionally adult conversation, especially since Bill reacts so poorly (read: homocidally) to any sense of malcontent.

Which is to say, I think part of why Ford was important to Bill was because, compared to him, Ford was more emotionally developed (Ford is emotionally stunted in his own ways, but not as severely as Bill IMO). Subconsciously, their relationship was reaching a hand out to the scared teenager in the centre of Bill's psyche and offering him someone to lean on- someone who had their shit a little bit more figured out. A kind of figure Bill hadn't had since he killed his parents.

Of course, such vulnerability probably felt so alien that Bill tried to distance himself. I always wondered - why didn't Bill just lie to Ford about his plan to take over Dimension 49'\ ? Ford would've believed him, finished the portal, and Bill's plan would've been fulfilled. Well, I think it was Bill trying to burn the emotional bridge. In his own impulsivity, his own desire to dissociate instead of confront, he would rather make sure that he would never be able to be vulnerable to Ford than fulfill his grand plan.

...

I don't remember where I was going with this. There's no conclusion. I'm spinning this triangular multidimensional tyrant at physically impossible speeds in my mind and if I didn't write something about him my skull was going to turn into a fine powder. It's almost 2 AM, so it's entirely possible this post makes 0 sense, in which case feel free to inform me of that in the notes.

[sallymew4]

kids when they hear that their dad is back in town VS. kids when theyre hanging out with a conman that accidentally stole their wallet once

im not even joking btw

bonus heres me being crazy about them in dms ^^^

[bougiebutchbinch]

Im sorry but what about pro-ship? ...You would also cheer people who create it?

And by pro-ship i mean incest, pedophilia, rape, abuse and glorifying all of these things.

I just want to know, no vitriol, no hate.

Okay, so, this is a MASSIVE topic and my thoughts are complex. So, just for the purpose of answering this ask, I'm gonna focus on the biggy here - fictional depictions of pedophilia.

Under a cut because this got long!

I don't wanna read anything that glorifies fictional child sexual abuse in a completely played-straight way. That's a big ol' nope.

But there is a world of difference between depiction and glorification. And I don't think people writing about a horrific situation have to constantly shove it down your throat that Pedophilia Is Bad? This sort of thinking leads to incredibly cringey moralistic fiction that is, frankly, dull.

I love dark fiction! I love gothic novels, and horror, which include rape and incest and abuse and child sexual abuse and all sorts - not all of which is demonised! Some of which is wholeheartedly glorified in order to disgust you!

Some content is meant to disturb you and gross you out and make you look at your own internal 'ick' reactions! Or it's designed to give you the 'fascinated horror' people often get from looking at a car crash with multiple fatalities. That sense of intrigue when faced with taboos is a natural part of the human experience. So long as it is only engaged with in a fictional setting, it's a helluva lot less harmful than rubbernecking out the window of your car at a crash site and causing another accident.

Playing with people's disgust can be very interesting and fun, from a writerly perspective! You can create all sorts of really disturbing horror for the precise purpose of making your audience uncomfortable, and no one is actually being hurt!

Art isn't just about happy emotions, y'know? Lolita isn't pro-child-sexual-abuse despite being written from the perspective of a pedophile, and I'd wager that very, very few people who paid to watch The Human Centipede actually have a scat fetish. They're drawn in by their disgust and revulsion - like many people are to darkfic!

Now, if someone is legitimately creating content that seems to be glorifying fictional child sexual abuse, I won't interact with them for personal trigger reasons. But at the end of the day.... I don't know their story? I don't know why they're doing that.

What I know is: when I went through the worst, most traumatic experiences in my life (which, no, I will not be discussing further x) reading about the same horrible stuff happening to my blorbos legit helped. And not just the stuff where it was depicted realistically, as a horrible traumatic experience, but the stuff where it was 'glorified' too, because it made me feel less alone and awful for having lived in that situation and for having told myself it was normal and healthy.

When you're in a situation like that, sometimes you legitimately cannot tell you are in deep shit. Fics that try to point out that you are in deep shit, invariably feel like they're preaching. A balance of fics that try to point out that, y'know, Abuse And Pedophilia Are Bad - delivered alongside fics that depict that sort of relationshp as ay-okay, actually helped me come to terms with some of the shit in my life. Reading both sorts of fic together, it didn't feel like I was being constantly told I was a Victim.

I think, at the end of the day, fiction affects reality. Just look at propaganda and the affects of white supremacy and homophobia on Western Canon! But it's not a 1:1 impact.

It's more important to encourage readers to use critical thinking when engaging with fiction, than it is to harass writers who have created content that disgusts you.

You don't know why they're creating that content, and you don't know how many people it's helped - and, so long as it's properly tagged, people who need to avoid that content due to triggers can do so!

Obligatory: if someone uses a fic with an underage pairing to groom someone, that is incredibly fucked up and disgusting. But literally anything can be used to groom kids, sadly. You could point at literally anything, and at some point, it will have been used to further a child's horrific and very real abuse.

Overall, if you actually give a shit about protecting kids, I think there are far more important things to focus on. Such as:

Educating communities about how the vast majority of child sexual abuse comes from close family friends and family members, not strangers sending kids fanfic on the internet.

Educating communities about how the word 'pedophile' has been purposefully corrupted by right wingers to demonize completely innocent queer people because think of the children. This isn't to say there isn't a very real problem with child sexual exploitation & abuse, but we should perhaps be a little wary about throwing around a word grounded in serious reality to refer to fictional scenarios, and enforcing the very Right-Wing idea that 'thinking about [x] act is the same as doing [x] act'.

Focusing on children themselves. We should support good sex & relationship education, so children know their bodies and understand appropriate cultural norms. We should educate children about their rights, and give children broader community support structures so that they feel empowered to disclose abuse. Offering time or money to shelters is a great way to actually support survivors.

Ensuring there are safe and free refuges for children who are being abused IRL, places where they can stay away from family & other potential abusers - i.e., public libraries, community centres, etc. - or at least know there are other witnesses. Volunteering at your local library and donating can genuinely make a difference to abused kids - and all kids in general!

Dismantling cultures of silence around abuse in your personal community. Do not just tell the women in the group to avoid Joe because he has wandering hands. Tell Joe that his behaviour is inappropriate and will no longer be tolerated.

TL;DR - personally, please keep any/all sexual content involving fictional underage people FAR away from me, and do not send me any rape or abuse scenarios (unless we're brainstorming whump as friends, in which case, you can just gimme a warning).

But I am also against harassing artists and creators unless they are harming real children in measurable ways.

[kacievvbbbb]

Watching Dressrosa and seeing Zoro watch Luffy's colosseum battle on the screen I was suddenly hit by the fact that in a Modern AU he'd probably be the most obnoxious kind of soccer fan.

You know the one that probably picks a new favorite team every match and is only a soccer fan when they are actively watching soccer. I can honestly just imagine him screaming at the screen and being all dramatic at the team talking about honor and shit. No actual practical knowledge of soccer though.

I just think he and Mihawk would just be the kind of people that like sport in a Modern AU they are athletes themselves but they also just like competition and adrenaline and so sports. Except Mihawk atleast attempts to possess a basic knowledge of the rules and plays of sports he watches while Zoro will watch a sport he's never heard of in his life, chooses a random dude that's "got guts" and root for them so wholeheartedly you'd think he's supported them all his life.

All this to say that goth family watches the World Cup as part of "family bonding time" and

-Mihawk is rooting for 3 separate countries, the 2 that his data says are statically most probably going to win and his home country cause he has some "patriotic pride". He watches intensely but never actually reacts to anything.

-Zoro is rooting for whichever team is playing against whatever team Mihawk is repping at the moment. He has no stakes in this longterm whatsoever exceot that he gets his fill of trolling Mihawk, sports adrenaline and on the rare occasion his team wins he gets to be a smug asshole to the man who raised him 😌. He screams at the T.V so much you'd think he had money on the line.

-Perona liked the idea of styling cute matching jerseys so much so that she forgot how much she hates watching sport. She is very bored and unhappy and hopes that somehow both of them lose. She judges the outfits (the jerseys) of different countries and their coaches on a scale that only she really understands but all must suffer through.

-Shanks is there because this is the only time Mihawk will hold his hand even though he is squeezing so hard his bones might be ground to dust. (the only indicator that Mihaw is affected at all by what is happening). He's bar hopper he's used to seeing random sports he doesn't understand played on green fields running in the background of his mild buzz to drunken fool binge. He's just glad to be included.

[mars-ipan]

Hi, it's me again. I decided to follow your advice and try to seek out your 'actually serious' analysis, which led me to your komahina bible, the most easy to find compilation of this supposed analysis. Here are my thoughts-

1) Overview

- Most of this 'analysis' isn't analysis but a summary/overview of the game. It's not so much a 'bible' as a children's book summary of the bible, which at that point it would be better to play the actual game itself. It's clear it was made for a presentation on the 'uninitiated' if you will, but if that's the case, you shouldn't be advertising it as the literal bible on the subject.

- When you are not regurgitating points from the game beat by beat, the screen is halfway filled with either manga panels or fanart. My gripes with manga panels are, that even though they do depict the events of the game, the way they can be depicted by the artist can be pretty subjective due to the freedom of the medium in comparison to sprites, and that the role of one character can differ depending on whose pov manga it is (chiaki vs nagito). Fan art therefore should be scrutinized even more since it fully depicts abstracted and even the fandomified version of events, leading to situations where it's either unclear what is actually happening or betrays your more shallow view of the characters (i talk abt this later.)

- When you do use pictures directly from the game it's either a possible screenshot from a memorable moment or dialog from the wiki, limited almost exclusively to the freetime events. This leads me to believe that you haven't actually played the game(there are other factors hinting towards this) or watched a Let's Play of it, but going off of merely information that's already widely known and circulating within the fandom, and easy to search on the wiki.

2) Incorrect/Questionable information

Here I'll compile a lot of information that's either plainly wrong or baffling to having come to that conclusion , leading more credence to the theory that you either haven't actually played the game or your memory of it isnt as good as you think.

-"if Nagito's plan went off of without a hitch, he would have killed anyone that was closes to him at the time" plainly wrong. Komaeda's goal from the start was to make himself the victim, so by dying this way his death could have meaning and help the others. For somebody that keeps talking about Komaeda's "Martyr complex" this is truly a weird take to have.

-"Nagito...got the nurse for sure sick" is there any proof that specifically points to Komaeda for this? I believe the takeaway should've been that Mikan got sick because she was around all of them AND she overworked herself trying to take care of them. Is this just an awkwardly phrased attempt to make more of a connection between Tsumiki and Komaeda? I don't think you needed more than the ones that already existed.

- "he helps Junko brainwash a bunch of students" Kamukura at neither point in the anime or Danganronpa 0 was ever specifically implicated in the brainwashing. He never 'helps' Junko, especially in that way. If you meant, participates in the student council killing game, you should've said that, but even then his agency and influence is limited.

-"they found the Remnants and captured them!"...no, they didn't. The Remnants presented themselves as survivors and the Foundation took them in. They handed themselves over willingly. It was a pretty big piece of the final part of the game...

3) Komaeda and Komahina

- "Nagito's habit of putting people on pedestals" Where. Sure, he certainly parrots the belief that the "Ultimates" as a unit are at the top of the food chain and should be prioritised, but its clear that doesn't exactly carry over to his classmates like teruteru, Kuzuryu and even Souda sometimes. Just because of a few positive comments refering to them as Ultimates and the trial which he literally breaks down in, this is a hard position to support.

-"Nagito manipulates Hajime into playing the game" How. He literally just told him to play it. How is that manipulation. Also, isn't it a bit unfair to put the blame on Koizumi's death to him as well? I think they were multiple factors playing into this, but sure, how else are you gonna convince people that Komaeda is a twisted fucking cyclepath that loves leading people to their deaths.

-The way that you say the Kuzuryu/Pekoyama relationship mirrors Komahina as 'I will give up my agency for you/ I just want you' is also confusing. Unless of course you mirror Peko's struggle with her agency and harmful beliefs the clan enforced on her with Komaeda's own belief system, in which case, idk man, i feel like you are giving a bit too much credit to the supposed severity of Komaeda's views and trying too hard to make Hinata the 'rational' and 'grounding' one in the relationship.

- Again, the amount of times you refer to Komaeda as a freak for doing something 'weird' or even being drawn weirdly doing it , mostly in the manga, makes me belief this isn't just an affectionate tongue in cheek joke as you claim, but an actual way in which your interpretation of Komaeda is colored.

-"it doesn't excuse his nonchalance towards tragedy and murder but explains it" what needs to be excused here exactly? Komaeda doesn't need to immediately bawl his eyes out when someone gets killed or else he's suspicious and...bad? I am confused with what you mean by this. If you mean that Komeada shouldn't be so nonchalant about murder because he's constantly trying to kill someone else, that is plainly incorrect and i explained above why.

-Posturing about Komaeda's 'black and white thinking' while in the next exact slide you show fanart of him smugly explaining he has Borderline. First, i want you to explain to me the black and white thinking in a way that isn't "oh, the friends and classmates i previously liked turned out to be fucking terrorists". I think that's a pretty justifiable situation for your thinking to go from white to black. Also, if that is enough credence to assign Komaeda BPD, you really don't know how BPD works, especially since you assigned it to the one character you constantly talk about being a freak (and also lust...pseudo lust? after).

- The insistence with Hinata not really understanding Komaeda and running away, even if he wants to understands him is pretty suspect, especially when compared to the game. Hinata is confused and overwhelmed yes, but it's not just that he wants to understand Komaeda but that he still feels fondness for him, he still follows his advice and puts his faith in him and the way he mourns him in Chapter 5 is also pretty indicative of this. It's just another part in the pattern in you making Hinata the confused, rational, 'morally pure' man that's 'tempted' by 'corrupted' manic pixie mentally ill demon Komaeda. Something tells me your priest AU isn't so much playing with dolls as much as...what you actually believe these characters dynamic is.

- The whole page where Servant is basically made into a joke about how hot and sexy and freaky he is doesn't help your point either.

-The most damning evidence of course is a drawing in the second to last slide, wherein Komaeda is supposed to be analogous to 'guy who has something wrong with him' (distorted, freak, mentally ill) and Hinata is analogous to the guy that 'is the only one that understands them' (the rational one, the relationship of understanding doesn't go both ways).

- Your slide with sources is pretty vague and unclear. Also the way that you credit "Your superior mind" before the game itself when all you've been doing is repeating and misinterpreting the plot of the game is ...ironic

So yeah, that's all I got. Feel free to 'debunk' my observations as much as you please, I just want to know if there's actual basis behind everything you just said or I should go digging for 'the actual serious analysis' yet again.

i think you forgot that fandom is meant to be fun

[tinystepsforward]

ngl it makes me want to die a little bit that it's so often trans people who feel that sex is mutable but oppression is always-forever based on asab in ways that allow them to demand that information from other trans people. like it feels fucking bad. it feels bad when it's people holding up someone who posts a lot of selfies as transition goals to a degree they have to clarify what they have or haven't done or what "direction" they're going in, it feels worse when people are out there like "caster semenya is not tma" or whatever the fuck. i am, as always, not a trans woman, but here's a sentiment echoed by many of the trans women around me who log the fuck off, quoted directly from one: "people who draw a clear line where they say that semenya or khelif are tme and then call me tma are just calling me male at this point".

like i get it. i really do. we seek community and shared experiences, and we feel betrayed when people have less in common with us than we thought they did. [*more on this later.] but that's not those people's faults and my god in the case i'm seeing play out on twitter rn this poor person did absolutely nothing to intentionally mislead people, just posted pictures of their actual kid self. who looks a lot like i did, because shockingly enough "we can always tell" doesn't fucking work for trans people either!

on the one hand i move in intersex circles which are unapologetically welcoming in cis "dyadic" people with pcos, because it serves nobody to draw a clear line where mutilation or genetics or some ineffable childhood suffering are what make somebody intersex, especially when most of us (esp in places like nz) have never been karyotyped and are being treated for symptoms without a pinned-down cause anyway. the more of us there are the stronger we are, the more pressure we can exert on a medical profession which doesn't like to consider how common outliers are, how uneasy sex is at all. and then on the other hand there's dyadic trans people on the internet who've yelled me out of spaces because a couple of traumatised incarcerated trans women i worked with as a prison abolitionist assumed i was also a trans woman and i didn't immediately tell them my entire csa-involved history of being sexed in varying ways as an infant and child and/or exactly how big my phallus was at birth or where in my junk config my urethra lives so they could decide i was tme or whatever.

returning to the * for a related but not identical thought: i think presuming shared experiences leads to some fucked shit in general! "oh we all had a radfem phase" or "oh we all were channers" no we fucking weren't and it's particularly obnoxious when me & mine are trying to build trans community locally to organise and resist the growing wave of far-right backlash against our existence, and there's just white people in there on a spectrum from "straight up being antisemitic and trying to get the n-word pass" through "handwringing about how they need to make space for people who aren't politically correct" to "handwringing about how brown people are right to be mad at them but doing shit fuckall". and then the other fucking brown people in the space are on some identity politics shit where they're like "trans joy inherently excludes those of us who could get deported" or "big city white queers are killing us by being visible instead of going stealth bc it stirs up the discourse" or whatever the fuck i've heard pulled out this year. there's a bunch of reasons i primarily organise outside of trans spaces and that's one of them. i've never felt more alone in spaces where people claim we're all the same than being left as the brownest moderator or organiser in a space full of people to whom "this is a safe trans space" apparently means they get to abdicate all other responsibilities not to lapse into presumed shared patterns that are fucking racist or otherwise alienating. i've never felt more alone than surrounded by exclusively trans people who sort people into boxes and assume everyone in those boxes has the transition goals they have. like i was on cypro until it disagreed with me to the point of endocrine crisis and now i'm on t and at both those points people were so fucking presumptive or entitled to my reasons or journey or personal relationship w my body

literally just submitted on (and was invited to consult on) the nz law commission's review of the human rights act and like. it's straight up fucked how many nz trans people fully do not comprehend that any "sex assigned at birth" type definitions fundamentally exclude migrants who have no way of proving it and many intersex people who happen to have been reassigned later or many times or never assigned at all as a baby. we can't make law with this shit and that's why we have to have symmetrical protections for all genders/sexes/expressions/presentations, bc naming and defining a protected class here often leaves the people who already are left out from those shared experiences of marginalisation out in the cold when they face violence

[mumblesplash]

the fact that doctors can just Recommend Weight Loss with no instructions beyond ‘eat healthier/less’ is actually insane to me, i lost weight on purpose ONCE and it took me like 6 years to recover a semi-normal relationship with food and hunger

[skunkes]

talon's issue is he never wants to be treated like a child ever again but is always looking for community/family and every kind gesture or attempt to to help him is for some reason interpreted by him as being patronizing, belittling, but in the familial, Parent to Child, Authority to Child way. dis is why its difficult to get anywhere with him. He himself still sees himself as Person With No Agency, Meant to Be Harmed and Talked Down To

[tleeaves]

The art is lovely and now I'm gonna ramble because that's what I do when I care about something.

For the love of women, please PLEASE can fan artists remember to add muscle to their Shadowhunter ladies? I'll commend Bowater for cleverly giving James that sculpted and lean look without making him a beefcake (nothing against beefcakes, I'd love to hug them), but Cordelia is once again suffering from Arms And Shoulders Too Slender It's Hard To Even Imagine Her Picking Up A Sword. There is some there, yes, but artists shouldn't be afraid of giving particularly Female Main Characters weight and toned muscle. Cordelia is supposed to be nearly the same height as James as far as I can remember, and she's curvy, and full, and she wields a sword like it's second nature to her. Please explain why she looks so tiny in James' lap.

Also I'm pretty sure marriage runes are supposed to go over the heart whenever possible (thinking about Will's parabatai rune being over his heart instead -- he didn't get Tessa to draw over the scar, did he??) and... either I'm looking at the picture wrong or James' rune is not over where his heart should be.

For the matter, where are their other runes and scars?? James' Voyance rune isn't even on his hand. And I'm pretty sure he's right handed. I could have that wrong though.

Another thing: no one can ever decide what Cordelia's hair looks like and it's the funniest thing to me. This is what happens when all you do is vaguely say the colour is like fire but also like rose petals but also a flowing river of those things but also is Red (probably for redhead, but then from there I never understand where the rose petal analogy comes from considering the typical rose is a deep bloody colour -- I do acknowledge the existence of those light orange varieties though which might more closely resemble red hair). In the end, I'm glad readers can infer what they want and imagine the characters how they like.

Anyone else think James looks like he's built like a tennis player? Oddly specific, maybe, but it was a thought I had. Mostly the arms and somewhat narrow body.

James' hair is nice, his eyes are an interesting take on gold in the shadows. Bowater managed to also make him look closely related to his father, so bravo for that.

In the end, the focus is obviously on the marriage runes and not other physical aspects outside of it being clear that this is James and Cordelia. Bowater's style is very beautiful and elegant. Love the way fabric and lighting is done too. I'll add also that it is possible to be a smaller person who is slender but still strong so I mean Cordelia's not necessarily done wrong, I just interpret her appearance differently. Obviously, they're both hot and they're both attractive and I have my qualms with the series, chronicles, and author -- the fandom I am so-so on, though I'm still here, aren't I? And I'm taking the time to ramble about my thoughts on a piece of fanart -- but this is good. Gorgeous, even. Both James and Cordelia are beautiful.

[nikki-tine]

Hi guys! Sorry I haven’t been posting as much lately. Been prepping for artfight and juggling irl stuff on top of it.

[wutheringmights]

hi! i’ve read in the dream house and speak bc of your reviews and Loved them. i find your analyses to be really insightful, i trust that when you recommend something theres Something of value i’ll get out of reading it. are there any books you’ve loved that you haven’t posted abt here yet? and how do you find new books to read? thanks for being so thoughtful abt your own writing and the books you read that it inspires me to study and improve my own work 🫡💞

Aw thank you! I always feel like I am yelling into the void whenever I make posts about the things I'm reading, so I'm glad you enjoy reading my thoughts <3

For books I haven't posted about yet... I just finished Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid (and will make a post about it soon). It's not a perfect read, but if you like horror and fairytale tropes, you'll get something about this.

Besides that, I recommend The Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath, and the works of Robert Cormier (I Am the Cheese and The Chocolate Wars are two of my favorites). If you like war stories, All Quiet On the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is required reading.

I really enjoy the works of Octavia Butler. Kindred is my absolute favorite, but Parable of the Sower is very relevant to the current political moment. Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich also scarred the fuck out of me, but is a great work on reproductive rights.

I did an entire seminar on Virginia Woolf. Besides Mrs. Dalloway, I think Into the Lighthouse and Orlando are very good.

For the classics, I love Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. One of the first classics I ever fell in love with was Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, though Great Expectations is also exceptional.

One of my favorite books of all time that I never discuss with anyone anywhere is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, for obvious reasons. Read this book for two reasons. One, it will fuck you up. Nabokov's work with perspective and unreliable narrators is fucking insane. Second, Nabokov does something with the English language that I have never seen before and will probably never see again. If anyone has a command of the English language, it's him.

How do I find books to read? Some of the books I read before they are recommended to me by friends or by someone online. As long as you avoid romance/romantasy, BookTok/BookTube/Bookblr is a great place to get recs. I watch a lot of CariCanRead on Youtube because she reads a massive amount of books I have never heard of and is generally really honest about what books she liked/hated and why. I also windowshop at bookstores and libraries and just check out what is available on the shelves.

Honestly, the best advice I can give you is to let go of the idea of every book being impeccable art. You do not have to always be reading the Great American Novel. You can read books that are silly and outright trash. Once you shed the idea that books are some higher form of art, you remember that they are made to be entertainment. Like movies, there are going to be days where you want to watch post-modern French films or Oscar-winning movies about the turn of the century. There are also going to be days where you want to watch a silly comedy, or a trashy reality TV show, or you just go to the movies for something to do.

It's healthier for you if not every book is life changing. I have read some really bad books (some on purpose), and I have read some books that were just aggressively mediocre. Even if they didn't transform me into a better writer/reader/person, they were still worth reading. And when you give yourself permission to read books you might not necessarily like, it gets easier to try new genres and take risks on unfamiliar works. That's where you get new experiences. That's where a book sneaks up on you and smacks you on the back of the head with something that will absolutely make you change the way you see the world.

If anything, just try reading things you normally wouldn't read, be it sci-fi, memoir, historical epic, classic romance, etc.

[everypanelofizuku]

Chapter 96 - Home Visits

[electric-friend]

i never REALLY cared one way or the other wether or not ed was illiterate but by the time they revealed he could read i was honestly a bit annoyed by it, for no other reason than that i had gotten really fucking sick of people saying it was racist or classist to assume that ed couldn’t read because they were conflating illiteracy with stupidity and saying it was an insult to ed’s intelligence which was always so frustrating to me. ed can be very smart and still be illiterate. maybe he wasn’t able to teach himself because he was too busy trying to survive or because he had trouble reading for some reason and he didn’t have the money to access the education for it as a kid. there are adults who can’t read or write in the world and that doesn’t make them stupid and it was never racist or classist to assume that ed might not be able to read or write. at first i didn’t care but the fandom’s attitude towards illiteracy made me hope that ed was illiterate just so people would stop treating illiteracy as a sign of ed being stupid or people being bigoted in their interpretation *because* it was being seen as a sign of ed being stupid. so that when it was revealed ed could read, just because of the fandom’s attitude, i was like “well that’s annoying”. cause now nobody is going to talk about how dumb the attitude towards illiteracy was in the fandom.

[jankwritten]

yall wanna know how fucked up my anxiety is about some shit

i scroll past a post that's about a topic i don't like. whatever, it's fine. i scroll past a video that's a topic i don't care about. that's normal.

i scroll past a video that's a topic i don't like or care about but the person presenting it is a person of color? i IMMEDIATELY feel immensely guilty and need to "compensate" by "proving" it wasn't because of race by also skipping other random posts, JUST IN CASE someone thinks I'm racist because I didn't want to watch a video on a topic I didn't like or care about, that happened to be presented by a person of color.

this just in on: the police in my brain are loud and i'm scared of them

[doubleedgemode]

I wanted to go on a drawing spree yesterday, but I could only muster these two before dozing off.

First one, even if I'm not that sure about how I drew her face shape in this angle (and most importantly I forgot her neck and torso bandages OOPS) I do really like how most of the drawing came out. And at least it isn't a bland bust this time, though I'm pretty sure I've already drawn a pose like this before. (Oh no the next drawing is a 3/4 bust again..)

Second, yesterday I saw an artist draw some of the coolest redesigns ever for a different media piece, and thought about the many awesome gg redesigns I often see so I wanted to give A.B.A a spin... Except I was out of ideas so most of this drawing is her regular design haha. I got too tired to even try to attempt to draw the rest of the body and half-assed the key but I like the vibes and pose (even if I.. think I made her neck a bit too long? Old habits die hard... Necks are my enemies when drawing!)

I like the idea of her having a key take on the classic frankenstein bolts (though wait, her head key is referred to as a screw. Would this also be a screw or key shaped bolts??-)