#i should just make a tag for books I'm reading

[5five5five5five5five5five]

please old man/bookclub five headcanons, I loved ur last post about him!

hope you're feeling okay :]

Gasp!

I'm going to assume normal bookclub bc idk what s4 "bookclub" is. But I can totally ramble off about him in a casual club for books.

*he reads the books too fast and gets more peeved at the others who end up going very very slow. If someone doesn't finish a book, he admittly makes a comment "why are you in a book club if you can't finish a book is beyond me but-" old man shrug. It's not a fight worth having, he's just being a dick.

* brings the members strawberries and other fresh produce when he can. He likes showing off the stuff he grows and brings snacks.

*gets REALLY into the books. It's like he gets a micro fandom to be in every month. He reads it though like 3 times and then listens to the audio book once. Looks up if there's anything else. Maybe even discovers fanfiction...but he tries not to get that desperate.....he's read a few for particularly addictive books.

*has given a huge ramble about how the Great Gatsby would have been better and a lot of stuff settled if Gatsby and caraway kissed. He does it so casually too like he's not trying to make a progressive point or spark bigger queer discussion. He just genuinely thinks that's the answer to the book. More man kissing.

* speaking of, the more queer books they end up reading, the more he questions his everything. He probably has gone up to Viktor about stuff in these books and try to weasel out a "no it's not like that. Your totally a normal cishet man five." but neh it's ALWAYS "yeah that seems very realistic to the queer existence. Why so curious?" And he ends up not being able to admit he connects with said books. Viktor knows but he's not going to hound his brother any time soon. Five knows once he leaves the closet,there's people waiting to be supportive.

*the old ladies there can't stop babying him. He tries very hard to be as old man and as mature as he can but they don't listen and pinch his cheeks and pat his head. He is trying to do less sudden grandma wrist breaking to he takes it for the most part. They can be wrong. He will keep doing what he does. And he hates to admit the attention from women in his age range is nice. Sad he can't make any moves.

* for the holidays the bookclub goes caroling. Five isn't a fan but tags along. They most likely end up at one of his siblings houses and he gets cold feet. They can't see him in a dorky sweater and singing. Last Christmas he threw a fit about sweaters. But if he doesn't move, the club will leave him in the snow. Ruthless old farts.

Allison answers the door. Around 5 old people, 4 local parents and......five??? They stare daggers at eachother as five poorly sings oh holy night with the group. Then leaves. The other members noticed the tension but didn't want to say much.

*Lila tried to join once to get 'in' with the parents that are involved but was so booooored. "Five, no one should be having this much fun talking this much about a book. Period. Im almost concerned that you have finally gone senial."

*if five didn't like a book, he makes a PowerPoint on why and how. He is very detailed in his opinions. He wishes the others would do the same but no body can match his freak.

*he brings mr. Pennycrumb with him bc service dog and everyone there loves him.

* I think everyone assumes five is just a very lonely mentally or physically ill young man and try there best to be nice. He isn't fond of there borderline pity but he enjoys there company none the less.

* Diana from the PTA makes the best lemon cookies. Five eats more than he should.

*on top of book club, they like to take outings together to walk around and see the community. Do easy elderly friendly geocashes and eat at local cafes. Five likes when they go to the library because then they can snoop around for more books.

I hope you like these :3

[spursthatjinglejanglejingle]

Waaaghhhh they're FAMILY

[deoidesign]

Thinking about vampires, death, life, and the space they occupy in between

[they-didnt-last]

anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??

[utane]

Ideas for little chibi charms of Trazyn and Orikan?

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

motorcycle sketch featuring cross!! >:)

[doom-dreaming]

okay i'm still very awake so you're all gonna have to deal with me red-stringing about character bullshit until i fall asleep. i Know i'm making a big post about this but i don't care

why. this is the first instance of mark being designated as the one in charge when a higher-up (fred, in this case) isn't present. but why. they were only trapped in the slipspace fuckeryzone for a few days relative to normal space-time and i don't think anything drastic happens (with these guys) in glasslands? at least according to the wiki it doesn't. why did being integrated into blue team suddenly disrupt team saber's former command structure?

did they plan to kill mark off at the very start of this? was this all a long game to give mark enough of a foothold as an Important Character to make his death have more impact? does troy denning just like him more? how much weight did his personal preferences even play in this? why do the gammas suddenly start bantering when they're in danger and alone with a woman they just met? why do mark and ash seem to switch personalities every other chapter? why is this worse than i remember it being when i first read it a few months ago?

[fictionadventurer]

I went into Ruth expecting a dreary read. How could a Victorian "fallen woman" story be anything other than dark and depressing? So I was shocked right from the beginning to find a sweet, gentle, romantic story. The dressmaker's apprentice who sits in the coldest, darkest part of the workroom because that's where there's a panel painted with flowers that remind her of her country home? How could I not adopt her as a favorite character? Ruth's innocent, romantic outlook on life gave us some beautiful descriptions of the scenery of both city and countryside, and my imagination went on overdrive to create very vivid images of the story. Even the love story, which we know is going to go very wrong, starts out sweet, with a kind, charming love interest who only shows flashes of just how wrong his character is going to go.

Even after Ruth's fall, the story is so gentle, putting Ruth among kind people who are willing to risk and sacrifice a lot to help her. And then the story gets almost too gentle--after some initial struggles with depression, Ruth resolves to bear her troubles patiently and work toward virtue, and her sweet, too-innocent character gets flattened out into someone who's just Good. Life just goes on, with things generally going well, and every potential turn toward drama results in someone deciding to be reasonable, which can make the story drag.

But, in a story like this, the lack of drama becomes the plot twist! It is refreshing to see characters who don't always jump to the worst conclusion or take the worst action, who pause and consider the whole story and act like decent human beings.

And in the places when the drama does kick in, it's good drama. Painful drama. It's also (especially in the last section of the story) melodrama. There were sections of the book where I was rolling my eyes at the cookie-cutter Victorian path the story was taking--but then there'd be one line or one moment that would just stab me in the chest because of how beautifully specific it was to this story. Just enough to elevate it from something bland to something unique and fascinating.

I often had the thought that this book could be about a third of its length without losing anything--yet it should also be just as long as it was. If the story cut all its repetitive musings about Ruth's regret, and used that space to develop the side characters and and show the plot instead of telling us about it, it would be a much deeper story. I found myself wishing Gaskell had reworked this one later in her career--the way that North and South was a more skillful reworking of the issues explored in Mary Barton. In a way, she sort of did in Wives and Daughters, with the story of Molly the quiet innocent getting tangled up in the intrigues surrounding her headstrong, flirtatious stepsister Cynthia serving as a more layered, personality-flipped version of the story where headstrong, sheltered Jemima gets tangled in the story of quiet, sweet Ruth and her past romantic intrigues. (The doctor at the end of the story also feels like a proto-Mr. Gibson).

Yet I'm still fascinated by the themes specific to this story. Contrary to expectation, this "fallen woman" story isn't about sex, or gender, or how unfairly women are treated (though it does touch on that in the end). It's about sin. It's not questioning why Ruth's behavior is considered a sin or looking to dismantle the society saying that it's a sin. It comes from the Christian perspective of saying that sin is real and harms people--so how are we going to deal with that?

The story shows lots of people struggling with temptation, failing, and dealing with the consequences (or harming others with the consequences). Sin is always a case of either not caring enough to do the more difficult, good thing, or a case of "the ends justify the means", where people rationalize their bad behavior as something necessary in this specific case. It always leads to harm, but some people--and some sins--suffer greater consequences in the eyes of the world, whether or not they deserve it. I wish the story had developed and resolved this theme better in places, but the raw material there is fascinating food for thought.

This book is Gaskell at her preachiest, but also Gaskell at her kindest. It explores deep, difficult issues in a very loving way. As a story, there are ways it could be better, but I'm very glad I read it. Perhaps I'm making a point to be kinder to it because I know it's the type of story that today's readers tend to judge harshly. But amid my issues with the story, there are some lovely images, some great messages, and some wonderful characters that going to be living in my heart for a long time.

[idaaadivock]

not to talk about dune on main but like. lisan al-gaib became an instant meme in the theater i was at. like great acting amazing music (thank you hans zimmer you're a real one) phenomenal photography and setting and fight choreography

but stilgar's LISAN AL-GAIB in every circumstance possible was so funny it made the whole theater erupt into laughter directly after the fight with feyd-rautha which is supposed to be like. poignant ig and powerful and an overall vibe

y'all hit the wrong vibe besties 😭😭

[kaurwreck]

do you have a favorite literary ref in bsd or is that a cruel question to ask

This is so hard! I like lots and lots of them, for different reasons. If I had to choose only one, and if I were to be sincere, Gin might be my favorite literary reference. I really love how much her namesake short story reframes Akutagawa's character, especially when comparing his Beast iteration against the version of him in bsd's main timeline. O-Gin also just really neatly and cleanly encapsulates what I love about Akutagawa's Kirishitan mono, including his affection for the Holy Fool trope.

To be more silly, I really love when Atsushi tell Tanzō Tonan that he has to feed his chameleon to escape the conversation with Tonan upon realizing Tonan wasn't being forthright (just ahead of the Decay of Angels framing the Agency). There are two references here that I adore (1) the reference to Chamelon Diary, in which Nakajima Atsushi semi-autobiographically recounts receiving a chameleon from a student and also his epiphany on how to live absent objective existential meaning; and (2) the reference to Tonan-sensei, a short story by Nakajima Atsushi about his beloved uncle, whom I also adore.

Rather than attempt to write an essay on Tonan-sensei and his influence on Nakajima Atsushi, I'll simply include a roughly translated version of the short story's Wikipedia synopsis:

The story depicts the protagonist, who secretly harbors self-loathing resentment towards his uncle because he shares similar mental characteristics with himself, but through his interactions with his uncle as he faces death, he gradually sorts out his critical view of the coexistence of love and hate and comes to realize the deep love he has for his uncle that lies dormant within him.

I will also include below a snippet about Tonan (referred to also as "Tan") from Nakajima Atsushi: His Life and Work, a dissertation submitted to the University of Hawaii by Nobuko Miyama Ochner in May 1984 (the date is relevant, because Ochner-sensei was able to speak to some of Atsushi's then-living family and friends to piece together his biography):

[Nakajima Atsushi's grandfather's] second eldest son, Tan, was also a scholar of Chinese. A bright boy, he was able to read the Chinese classics at the age of six and compose poetry and prose in Chinese at thirteen, according to the Japanese system of reckoning age. He was a proud, uncompromising, and impatient man, who never married, and who seemed to be always pursuing the impossible. In a short piece entitled "Tonan Sensei" (Tonan was Tan's pen name), Atsushi describes his uncle as having the virgin's beautifully clear, pure eyes— "the eyes of a man who is always dreaming an impossible dream." Tan, who revered General Nogi Maresuke (1849-1912), was an "amalgam of fervent patriotism and the temperament of a traditional Confucian scholar." He was greatly concerned about the future of Japan and China, as well as of Asia in general, confronted with the onslaught of the Western colonial powers.

...

In his articles he laments the ignorance of Chinese culture and tradition on the part of the Japanese diplomats in China, and criticizes their excessive reliance upon Western sources of news information. He felt that the peoples of Japan and China must unite in their efforts to repel the outsiders from East Asia; he went to China at least two times to try to enlist Chinese support for his vision. One of the prominent men he met was the scholar Lo Chen-yii (1866-1940), who later wrote an introduction to the posthumously published collection of Tan's poetry and prose, Tonan sonko. Atsushi is said to resemble this uncle most.

[thatonecrookedsmile]

More progress being made. I finished re-reading The Illusion of Living this past Friday. It's a nice book. 👍 This was the last of the Bendy books in this "marathon" that I'm doing which I had already read previously and now I'm rereading, meaning that I'm kind of up to date when it comes to rereading all the books that were released until December 2021. But the race is not over yet. Soon I'll start Fade To Black, and (technically) I'll finally be up to date.

Just to continue my chain of posting about the books I finished (at least, the main ones that I really wanted to read) here it is…something I did at the beginning of March, on the night when shit went down. (I hope you know what I'm talking about). I saw the tweets first hand, I was there! Right at the damn moment. And it was..something reading those tweets alright. If the image above doesn't show it, my mood that night and the next 1-2 days wasn't so… great. You might read this and think I'm exaggerating, but that night especially I, uuhhh, I didn't feel good! And this image (and maybe 2 more posts I made that night) are the results of that. (And to think that a week before this happened, I had finished rereading DCTL after a long time. Talk about better/worse timing than this)

At least, if you want the bright side of this, it's that even after that day, I decided to continue with my book marathon, and I don't regret it. I was down that day, but I wasn't out yet damn it!! and I'm still not. (I don't know if this sentence makes a lot of sense, but you get my point)

As a bonus, here's something I did the night I got to the part where Henry is first mentioned in the book (you can consider this as a representation of my reaction when he's first mentioned, both for when I read TIOL for the first time in 2021, as now in this rereading)

Feat. canon Henry design and my fanon design for him (I wanted to include him here + I still read this book with my fan-designs in mind)

[kimikitti]

Ok I am bad with social media. But can someone explain to me like what exactly you are supposed to do with mutuals? Like I follow them and then they follow me back. Are we... supposed to do anything after that? Do I DM them afterwards? I'm very confused.

[lilyharvord]

I started reading EragonxRed QueenxFrom Blood and Ashx--oh, shit sorry.... 4th Wing today, because everyone in my reading group said I had to, and... I'm 7% of the way through and I'm already so tired. Did no one edit this book? Did no one... read this book out loud?

Me currently finishing chapter 1 and going through the 5 stages of grief because I know this whole experience is going to RUIN my reading for 2024.

Anyway, I'm writing a whole ass review that is pretty much line by line my thoughts XD If I make a google doc of it I'll let people read it. Might be more entertain than the book. 🤷🏼‍♀️ plus I'll only put like 0.1%-1/4 of it on Goodreads so think about what you might miss out on (me being upset and cranky and rutheless (((: ) Updating that doc might actually help me get through reading it faster.

[longagoitwastuesday]

*reading a thesis about the evolution of the concept of infinity in China with a large amount of tabs open with diverse articles or word combinations to further look for information, all the while seething, blood boiling* I wish Satoru Gojo would fucking cease to exist

[inke-ri]

y'know I really wish people would start tagging negativity with the proper tags in the djats side of tumblr. people are complaining about how the show did this and that but they never add tags to be blocked or filtered. I've seen 5 different posts about negativity about a ship (mostly in regards to the show adaptation but some about the book) thats tagged just with the ship tag and without any sort of anti- something.

Y'know what, I watched the show and I bought the book, but the way people are going about criticizing the show without the proper tags is making me VERY annoyed. I dont really feel like picking up the book now, if it means I'm gonna end up like that :/

[izzy-b-hands]

Didn't think the 1989 version of The Woman In Black would be scarier than the one with Dan Radcliffe in it

I was Wrong flkjdsafkldsja, but I'm delighted to have been wrong. I had missed getting scared with more practical effects/careful timing of things in the background of shots appearing and disappearing, and this one scratches that itch well.