#it was difficult and I died like 120 times

[daeley]

[yinyuedijun]

hi I am testing out whether or not I'm shadowbanned. however I don't want to spam the main tags w irrelevant posts so I am offering this snippet from art of the bedchamber part 2 \o/

tw soggy sfw danheng (pre-1.2)

Dan Heng remembers when he assumed his human form for the first time.

It is a difficult scene to forget: the wreckage of an IPC ship, engulfed in the red glow of emergency lights. A robotic voice signalling the steady loss of air: Attention, attention, the system had blared in a pleasant, sunny tone. Attention to all passengers. The Altair has experienced irreparable damage to its seal. There are 120 minutes until complete oxygen depletion. Please make your way to the lifepods. The Vega is on standby to receive all survivors. Attention, attention.

The PA system said nothing of the vengeful ghost who’d wrought all that destruction—both upon the ship and its passengers. Probably everyone who could have made such an announcement was dead.

Yinyue Jun, the wraith had called him, mara-poisoned eyes shining as his gaze fell upon his features. The same features that Dan Heng was now studying in the broken mirror, fragmented by cracks running through the glass. Dan Feng. Sinner. You’ll never escape your karmic debt. You'll never escape your punishment. I’ll find you whenever you are, no matter how far you run. Even if I forget everything else of my mortal life, I'll never forget your face.

His face.

Dan Heng had never seen much of his own face in the darkness of the Shackling Prison, but he'd been strung up and whipped for its likeness. Punished for whom it once belonged. This is simply the weight of your karma from your past life. It was you who buried your beloved. It was you who nearly destroyed your homeworld. It was your fault, Dan Feng, that she died. How could you do that to her? To your friend? High Elder, do you know how the Vidyadhara suffered for your pride? It is you who is at fault for the deaths of so many of our kin. You, you, you. This is what you deserve, Yinyue Jun, for your arrogance. it matters not if it was your past life, it matters not if you're now a child, you have no right to shed those tears—

Seeing his face—Yinyue Jun's face—for the first time then, with its gleaming irises, its jadeite horns, its otherworldly glow—

—Dan Heng hated it.

His features were a curse, one not unlike the powers he'd inherited. You should never be allowed to roam free, Dan Feng. You cannot be trusted with the powers of a High Elder. Not with how you lost control in your last life.

You are a danger to us all, Dan Feng.

This is what you deserve.

Dan Heng was eager to sculpt a new face for himself. Relieved to lock away his powers. Anxious to paint into existence a dream he’d long imagined as a child. The dull green of his eyes, the short clip of his dark hair, the only hint to his past a cinnabar stroke along his lashline—these were features he’d long envisioned for himself growing up in the Prison, devouring countless novels about worldly life on the Luofu. All those stories about human men and women, leading quaint and romantic lives unfettered by destiny. All those tales about mortals far removed from his existence as a disgraced High Elder.

Looking like this—plain, unassuming, without the marks of a Vidyadhara elder—Dan Heng could pretend to be one of those mortals. He could act like he'd never felt the bite of shackles in his wrists. Like he'd never felt the burn of a welt slashed across his back. Like he'd grown up in sunlight, not the darkness of a cell.

He could act as if he were in control of his own destiny.

It would be impossible, of course, to truly entertain these delusions. But he still likes to imagine it every now and then—particularly with you, nowadays. He thinks of it when he stares at your reflections in the mirror in the early morning, brushing your teeth side by side. He thinks of it when sees the photos that March 7th has taken of the two of you, pinned up conspicuously on your bedroom walls. He especially thinks of it when he catches himself looking at the selfies that you always insist on taking with him—which is very often, given how you like to snatch his phone and update his lockscreen with them.

To the uninformed eye, all of these scenes make the two of you look like a simple, human couple—one right out of a novel.

Dan Heng thinks about this most often: a normal life with you, in which he is not burdened with the title of Yinyue Jun. In which there is no chance of staining your future with the transgressions of his past. In which you’ve never once been hurt because of his relation to Dan Feng, and where you will never be hurt again.

If paradise is but a dream, he thinks, gazing at the contours of your soft expression, then I wish to sleep forever.

dividers by @/cafekitsune!

[muzaktomyears]

George Harrison remained an enigma to many people, even those who were close to him. For a man who lectured passionately about karma and the meaning of existence, he seemed self-protective and closed off. Witty when called upon, there were also moments when he could be quite boorish. Perhaps it was because he was only twenty years old when the Beatles became a global sensation. That might not seem particularly young in today’s world of social media fame, but at the time, it was uncharted territory for the kind of adulation he was experiencing.

It was also difficult living in the shadow of Paul and John. In the beginning, they were openly dismissive of him. Paul said he always thought of George as a little brother. At first, John pretended not to know his name and sardonically referred to him as “that kid’’. Ironically, one of George’s compositions, Something, became the most covered song in the Beatles catalogue.

This interview was conducted at George Harrison’s palatial home, Friar Park, in Henley-on-Thames, on November 5, 1980. George was gracious but cool. He made a pot of tea in the drafty, vast kitchen of his 120-room estate, and spent two hours lecturing about Transcendental Meditation and the details of a limited edition of his autobiography, I Me Mine, which is certainly how he must have felt getting out on his own.

In 2000, George was diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer. George died on November 29, 2001, in the company of his wife, Olivia; his son, Dhani; musician Ravi Shankar; and Hare Krishna devotees who chanted verses from the Bhagavad Gita. He was 58 years old and left nearly $100 million in his will. George told Olivia that he didn’t want to be remembered for being a Beatle, he wanted to be remembered for being a good gardener.

‘It was a transcendental experience that was beyond the mind’

On taking LSD

LSD was just such a violent, big experience. Before it I was totally ignorant, and afterward I knew I was totally ignorant and I was now on my way to having some sort of knowledge. I related it to the childhood experience of Catholicism and going to church on a Sunday and seeing all that phoney baloney. The moment I’d taken LSD, it just made me laugh because I understood it inside, just in a flash. I understood what the whole concept of God or religion was just by seeing it. I could see it in the grass in the trees.

It was an absolute truth; like a light going ching. I took three very powerful trips — big, very important — and then it left me a bit unsure because I had to try and figure something out. By that time I had gotten into Indian music and spent time in India, [and] there was so much about it that felt like home to me. Not the surface that you see — all this poverty and the flies and the shit everywhere — [it] went beyond all that. Smells in the atmosphere and the people’s attitude and the music, the food, the religion, everything about it … home.

‘I’d hear his voice wailing at five in the morning’

On the death of Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones

I liked Brian a lot, and later on, I realised it was probably because we were both Pisces. We both had similar natures. He was also similar in that he had a Keith and a Mick, whereas I had a John and a Paul. We both had that problem of two mighty egos to deal with in order just to try and survive. I was very susceptible to dope, and Brian [Jones] was even more susceptible. He’d come [to my house], and I’d just hear his voice wailing at like five in the morning: “George, Geeooorrgggeeee.” So I’d wake up, see what was going on, and I’d look out the window, and he’d be all white and just shattered walking around the garden — just looking for somewhere to be.

I would always meet him at that time of day and just try to calm him down. And I saw him a lot before he died in that sort of circumstance. The last time I saw him, I think, was when I’d been in hospital to have my tonsils out and he came to see me in hospital and the next week he was gone. He was like all of them who kicked the bucket — it was sad because there were too many pressures, really. Not just the pressure of being famous and having the press hounding you day and night and young fans hounding you day and night. Plus the drugs hounding you day and night.

‘F*** it — I could do better than that’

On his childhood inspiration, Cliff Richard

I remember being a kid of about twelve, dreaming of big motorboats and tropical islands and things which had nothing to do with Liverpool, which was dark and cold. I remember going to see Cliff Richard and thinking, f*** it — I could do better than that.

‘I think being Elvis was lonelier than being one of the Fab Four’

On fame — and Elvis Presley

We kept realising we were getting bigger and bigger until we all realised we couldn’t go anywhere —you couldn’t pick up a paper or turn on a radio or TV without seeing yourself. I mean, it became too much. We became trapped, and that’s why it had to end, is what I think … We were like monkeys in a cage. I think it was helped a bit by the fact that it was four of us, who shared the experience. I mean, there was more than four of us, there was Peter Brown and Brian Epstein, but there was only four of us who were actually the Fab Four — whereas Elvis had an entourage and maybe 15 guys, friends of his, but there was only one man having that experience of what it was like to be Elvis Presley. I think that was far lonelier than being one of the Fab Four because at least we could keep each other laughing or crying or whatever we did to each other. It was definitely an asset being in a group.

(source)

[ragnarokhound]

can vamp Tim give Jason a blood transfusion if needed? 🤔

in your vamp/wer verse I mean

Oh, that's an interesting question! In my vampire!Tim/werewolf!Jason verse and the accompanying fic, Tim drinks almost exclusively off of Jason because a) Jason loves it and b) Tim would near-starve himself otherwise :') (and he kind of does anyway, Jason has to bully him into feeding). So the only blood inside Tim at any given moment is usually Jason's original blood anyway. But can Tim give that blood back in an emergency?

tldr: yes, under certain conditions. lol

My reply was getting long because this kind of speculating is my favorite game to play, so if you're curious about what those conditions are and how I reached that conclusion, more details are under the cut:

In this verse, Jason is the kind of werewolf who doesn't have a lot of control/retained personality when he shifts, but he DOES have a lot of meta powers. (As a treat for becoming a mindless, violent monster lol ur welcome Jay)

One of those powers includes rapid healing ala deadpool/wolverine (unless the wound is inflicted by silver, ancestral or otherwise) so it would be remarkably difficult for Jason to reach the point where he even needs a blood transfusion. But let's consider that worst case scenario, in which Jason has suffered enough silver-inflicted wounds that his healing factor breaks and he needs blood, yesterday. Wuh oh.

Tim is the #1 candidate to consider for a Jason blood transfusion because that's his gamer fuel of choice - but for Tim to be a viable donor, it would depend on the length of time it's been since Tim drank from Jason, and how much. They're on a time limit because Tim's body doesn't replenish blood on its own, he has to steal it.

Brace yourself for the suspect use of rough science facts in the middle of supernatural fantasy speculation about vampire/werewolf AUs, lmao

So supposing Jason has about 12 pints/5.7 L of blood in total, he could lose maybe 5 pints/2.4 L of blood at a time without dying (and that's a high estimate, he'd start going into shock way before that lmao), AND it would take him weeks to restore that blood - if he were human.

Luckily for Tim, he can steal quite a bit from Jason without killing him because of the handy dandy werewolf healing factor that restores Jason's blood almost as fast as Tim's dusty ass can absorb it. (Tim's veins @ Jason's blood: 𝔪𝔬𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔦𝔷𝔢 𝔪𝔢). Unluckily for Tim (and Jason), Tim has about a zillion hangups over drinking that much all at once. Aw.

A brief google search tells me that in an average human body, red blood cells live about 120 days. For simplicity, we'll say that Tim being a vampire and having weird vampire powers counteracts Jason being a werewolf and his blood having weird werewolf properties - so when Tim is full (and I mean full) of Jason's blood, he's good for somewhere just under that 120 days.

The blood isn't immediately starving in Tim's stupid vampire body because it's strong, sexy werewolf blood; it stays hydrated for a million years and could thrive like a dandelion in a crack in the sidewalk, let alone a perfectly good, albeit abandoned, vascular system. (Jason's blood @ Tim's veins: 𝒾𝓉'𝓈 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓁 𝑒𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓉𝑒)

That being said, Tim starts getting very hungry near the end of that time frame as the blood is used/dies, and that time frame shrinks every time he bleeds (which is often, RIP Tim). But he'd still have a solid month or so of healthy, viable Jason blood pumping through his undead ticker. (unless Tim gets REALLY beat up lol, which is not unlikely OTL)

SO all this to say: can Tim give it back?

I would say yes, IF Tim has fed recently, and he's fed A LOT. Otherwise, he just straight up might not have the blood to give anymore because his stupid husk of a body already used it all.

If he tried to give Jason blood around the time he's getting hungry again, when Jason's blood is on it's last legs after sustaining an active vampire without reinforcements for weeks to months, it wouldn't be as effective as a blood transfusion from someone who can make their own blood and therefore has a fresher supply.

tldr (again lol); Tim could become a blood donor for Jason, but only once he's regularly letting himself drink from Jason, and drinking until he's full.

[xkaidaxxxx]

Yusei Fudo x Chubby Reader pt.1

Sorry for errors

I accept story requests.

You met Yusei in the middle of the night. You moved back into town once again. You hated moving then coming back to the same town. It was very annoying and frustrating. People come and go. “I didn’t ask to come back to this fucking place so don’t act like the decision you made was for me!” You yelled at your parents. You grabbed your purse and left the house. It was late. The street was wet and there were no stars in the sky. You continued walking. You weren’t lost. After all this is your home town you left and came back like 10 times already. It’s been 2 years since you’ve been there. At a distance you heard motors. A gun went off and the race began. As you crossed the street you paused seeing two duel runners pass by. You locked eyes with a guy a gasp leaving your throat. Once the moment happened you were shocked on how easily you could’ve died especially having an argument with your parents. Not getting a chance to say I love you nor Goodbye.

The following day

As you roamed the halls you bumped into many people. You were short and chubby. Not a good combination you thought. You finally got to your locker. “….excuse me your blocking my locker.” You spoke to a guy with blonde hair. He ignored you. “…excuse me sir.” You said once again. He looked down at you then went back talking to his friend. You’re a short tempered person. You’ve been working with patience. “ EXCUSE ME YOU’RE BLOCKING MY LOCKER.” Kicking his shin as you yelled. He groaned kneeling down rubbing his leg. “ you fucking fat ass that hurt!” He responded. Wherever you went people bullied you. They saw you as an easy target. You frowned putting your science and art journal away. “ you don’t get to be upset ugly. You kicked the living hell out of me. Do you have any idea who I am!?” Jack said. You held your tears back. You dominated your feelings. “Hey leave her alone. It’s not a big deal Jack.” Yusei commented. As you looked at each other everything went silent. It was him. The guy that was dueling. “Yeah whatever. You better watch your back loser.” Jack said leaving to his class. You noticed he put a box in his pocket. His dueling deck? “Sorry about him..that’s Jack Atlas. Not a very friendly guy. Do you need any help finding your way to class?” Yusei asked. “No I know where Ap Spanish Language is at. Thanks for standing up for me I appreciate it.” You said and ran along to class.

You sat down at the desk near the window. Loving the warmth of the sun. The last bell rang as the teacher told everyone to settle down and take out their journal and textbook. Yusei walked in, “ Yusei porque llegas tarde?” The teacher asked. You turn to face Yusei just as everyone did. “ Olvide mi libro.” He responded. He sat next to you. A group of girls whispered and shot a few glances. “Hoy van a responder las preguntas de las páginas 120-135 con su compañero.” The teacher said then sat down at his desk. “Alright…uhh?” “Oh I’m y/n” you responded. “I’m Yusei. Alright Y/n. Let’s get stated.” He replied. You both began the assignment. It was easy and difficult at the same time. You guys exchanged a few jokes. It was a fun class.

Days went on and these stupid group of girls wouldn’t stop bothering you. Of course you always end up crying or being saved by Yusei.

“You should stay away from Yusei. He doesn’t like girls like you. Like you being a blob of fat and with really ugly glasses. Word of advice stop eating and wear contacts.” Emi said soon after releasing the grip off your hair. You cried. This was every morning and evening. You walked home. Alone. Crying. “Hey y/n!” Yusei called out to you. You turned and waved. “Hey come with me. I’m dueling today. Come watch me. It’s so much fun.” He said dragging you along to the where the duels happen. Many people were there. “Don’t say Hi to anyone. Stay close alright.” He ordered. Walking through the crowd was scary. Some guys had tattoos or piercings or both. Girls were dressed up like they don’t own jeans or regular tops. They all looked like they had their own gang. You were correct. Yusei was one of the best and most popular duelist around. His is why girls were so jealous of you. Walking with the Yusei Fudo and your holding onto his arm.“Yusei?” You said holding his arm. “Stay quiet.” He said. Almost scolding you. You nodded after what felt forever you both reached your section. His friends all greeted him. You stood behind him feeling shy. “Yusei why did you bring his blob of fat here?” Emi asked with an angry tone. Everyone tolerated her due to how much money she has. Daddy’s money to be exact. “Don’t talk about her that way. She’s my friend and she’s very beautiful.” He responded. “Yeah…anyways you’re up.” She responded moving out of the way. You saw his duel runner. “Woah. This is yours?” You loved the red color. “Yes it’s mine. Do you want to ride?” He asks handing you an extra helmet. Before you knew it you were on the runner with him racing. You held onto his waist. “Relax, feel the wind blowing.” He said after making his move. You relaxed a bit then fell in love with the feeling. You giggled. “THIS IS AWESOME!!” You yelled as the speed picked up. He looked back at you. He loved your rosey cheeks. How your eyes sparkled. The way you giggled. After a few minutes the Duel ended with Yusei as the victory. “That was such a ru-“ you said being cut off by many girls surrounding him. You got pushed back getting comments such as “move fatty.” “You’re taking up so much space.” “Ugh piglet get out of here.” “What do you eat. Move it.” “How did you mange not to make him lose control of his runner you hippo.” Once you were all the way back tears ran down your cheeks. “You should lose a lot of weight and I mean ALOT of weight. Y/n no one will ever like you looking like that. You have a big stomach..your thighs can basically break anything. Your arms look…ugh. I’d die if I woke up looking fat one day.” Emi said making you cry. Your feelings were hurt. You walked away looking for an exit. “ Need a ride home?” Jack asked. You wiped your tears. “ N-No I don’t need your help.” He rolled his eyes making you sit on his runner. “You were about to walk into another groups section. Being from our team and alone. You’re an idiot. Fat added on that. You need my help.” He drove fast. “873 Asher drive.” You said crying. He’s helping you and being an asshole. “Quit crying loser. Toughen up. No one likes a baby cryer.” He said speeding up like never before thinking it would scare you. You smiled enjoying the rush. “Faster!” You yelled letting go of him raising your arms to the sky. He was shocked but listened to your command. Jack smirked. “Alright fatty see if you enjoy this!” He yelled driving faster. You saw the bridge that was broken in the middle. He jumped over. “ YEAH!!” You yelled laughing. Once you got home your hair was an ugly tangled mess. “I thought I’d scare you.” Was all jack said. “I love the rush. It makes me feel alive. Nice try.” You walked inside. Your parents looked at you upset and worried. “It’s late!! Where the hell were you?”your mom yelled and then embraced you. “Who was that guy you were with?” Your father asked. “I was watching my friend duel. I’m okay. It’s fun.” You replied with a smile on your face. They were shocked.

[accirax]

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 16

... is Derek really an incel? like, at the very least, shouldn't him being with Kristal prove that he isn't an incel? i have no qualms with Emily insulting Derek, but she should at least be accurate.

ooh, Emily going full villain mode? we stan :D

girl how would you possibly think this would work

so Ally has resorted to playing a fully emotional game, huh? you either get eliminated a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the Jake.

the music in this scene cracked me up. also, i think aleriya is (canonically) dead after this scene, if it hadn't already died beforehand. (i say canonically bc fans can do whatever they want)

d-does he still...? also, obligatory "just because Connor loves Riya doesn't mean she has any obligation to love him back, villain or not."

i really can't tell if this part of Ally's character arc is meant to be viewed as good or bad. like, the show is obviously telling us that Ally's overall trajectory is bad, and being needlessly cruel to other people for the sake of putting your own emotional wellbeing first could certainly be a part of that. but, there's also been a lot of commentary about how hard it is to be under the scrutiny of social media (likely from the crew's own experiences), so Ally learning to stand up for herself and what she needs could also be a form of wish fulfillment. hopefully it'll resolve as a multi-layered predicament in the end, but i'm just trying to figure out how Ally will respond to her edit in All Stars in either the finale or the Loser's Motel episode.

...can't you just wait, like, two more episodes to directly state the point of your character arc, essentially then concluding it? then i could be sure that you'd win.

HELP

lmao of course the nerd can't rock climb. he can carry 120 pounds on his back but he cannot ascend.

Connor is really fucking strong goddamn?

Ally really can't fight this, because this is the exact rationale that she was trying to use on Jake for their entire games.

i want to see people draw buff Grett in the style of the buff Natsuki meme from DDLC. but, also, go Grett!!!

the intense difficulty of a twelve piece jigsaw puzzle. Venus noted that it really sounded like Kristal was describing a slide puzzle, but I understand why that would've been really difficult to storyboard.

Connor you can't be this stupid (/j)

in-universe, i don't really understand how she beat Alec (he was really good at the block puzzle in s1 and it fits his vibes), but yay Grett! i knew she wasn't going home tonight anyway.

what else could it have possibly been, Ally? regardless, we're definitely setting up the pieces for Grett's downfall soon.

can you really count the TikTok challenge as a "Jake immunity win"? literally everyone except Gabby and Grett won immunity in that challenge.

for a moment, i really thought Connor was going to pull the Kim Possible "out there... in here..." thing.

so true Jake

this feels like a fanfic line

you know Jake's having flashbacks to his last final 6 experience.

well, while i certainly thought that it was Riya's time to go in terms of the cut, it does actually make more sense for Alec to go home here, no plot armor involved! (other than arguably the plot armor of not letting Alec win the challenge.) Alec is much more threatening in a final 3 situation because of his greater athleticism and intelligence as compared to Riya, and Grett is closer to Riya than Alec. it sucks to see one of my favorites go, but it's entirely logical.

Riya out here projecting ("little toy")

this was such a good moment. i especially love the storytelling without dialogue going on with Connor's reaction. anyways, if Riya wasn't going to win before, she's definitely not going to win now. you don't get hit with the "look at what a sorry state you're in" three episodes before the final and then snatch the W.

maybe you shouldn't have fired and humiliated your employees live on TV, then.

is this season going to end with Kristal resigning from the show? i thought that might happen to make way for Emily as the new host, but now that she's going more villainous, i don't think that'll be the cast anymore. maybe Derek and Trevor will take the show back over, as (I think) the more popular hosts in the fandom?

anyways. a solid episode! i think a good number of people saw the Connor idol play coming from a mile away, so it wasn't all that surprising that one of the major villains was going down. still, we had interesting strategy and some great character moments, especially for Connor. they're really making the best of his extended time in All Stars. and, hey, there are only two guys left, so maybe he'll make the finale! it doesn't really matter, though, because it's gonna be Jake. i'll keep riding the Jake winner train until he gets eliminated. not that i think that's going to happen ;)

see you next week!

[cagemasterfantasy]

Shadow Magic Ranking (5e)

Guide

1=useless

2=often useful

3=sometimes useful

4=perfect

Eyes of the Dark 4 Darkvision is important in a game that often includes a lot of dungeons caves and other poorly-lit locales. 120 ft. Darkvision means that you can safely attack other enemies with Darkvision while remaining outside their vision range. In places that are well lit (like outside, if that’s somewhere that you go for whatever reason), casting Darkness using Sorcery Points means that you’ve got a fun little bubble where you (and often ONLY you) can see normally. Darkness is a 2nd-level spell and converting a 2nd-level spell slot to Sorcery Points gives you 2 Sorcery Points so all that it costs you is the Bonus Action to make the conversion

Strength of the Grave 3 this might keep you going if you’re dropped by an attack that doesn’t deal a lot of damage but against abilities which deal lots of damage all at once like breath weapons or spells it’s going to be very difficult to make the saving throw

Hound of Ill-Omen 4 rven at high levels when the Dire Wolf stat block won’t be threatening forcing Disadvantage on saving throws means that you can easily hit the target of your hound with a save-or-suck spell immediately after summoning the hound. The hound also moves unerringly toward the target so if they become invisible you have a great way to locate them. The hound can move through objects (though it can’t fly) so even solid walls won’t stop this thing once you summon it and it has enough hit points that it can suffer a few attacks before it dies. In essence this is Heightened Spell attached to a very determined set of teeth and unlike Heightened Spell the target suffers Disadvantage on all saves against your spells rather than the first save for an affected spell. As an example: you can target a creature with your hound then hit it with Hold Monster and it will make every save against Hold Monster at Disadvantage. Even better your wolf will attack it with Advantage and score automatic critical hits (provided that it hits which is still a problem against high-AC foes) since the target it paralyzed. Curiously there’s no limitation on how many hounds you can have beyond the Sorcery Point cost. If you want to summon a hound every turn until you run out of sorcery points you’re free to do so. If you want to get multiple hounds on the field then upcast Hold Monster to paralyze a bunch of things that’s a thing you can do. Now your foes might decide to try killing the hound but any attack against the hound is damage not taken by your less instantly resummonable party members. One more fun little tidbit even though it’s called “Hound” you can just decide it’s whatever you want. A black cat bringing bad luck a totally rad dinosaur a horrible goose. Flavor is free

Shadow Walk 4 free teleportation as a Bonus Action! The range is pretty good and in a pinch you can cast Darkness to create an area in which to teleport. You can even use this while travelling allowing you to move roughly 5 times as fast as normal by combining a comfortable walking pace and frequent teleportation

Umbral Form 4 what if Rage let you cast spells and walk through walls instead of hitting things really hard? That’s kinda how this works. The Sorcery Points are cheaper than casting many spells which let you walk through walls and creatures like Etherealness. Hopefully you won’t need the damage resistances because you have great defensive options like Improved Invisibility but you might be able to use Umbral Form before polymorphing and maintain the damage resistance

Final Ranking (do I even need to say it?) 4 powerful and versatile with a good mix of abilities Shadow Magic is at its best in the dark. Even in areas of bright light the magical darkness rules will give you a massive tactical advantage over anyone except devils and the handful of warlocks who have the Devil’s Sight invocation. Hound of Ill Omen makes Shadow Magic an ideal save-or-suck caster providing an easy and relatively inexpensive way to impose Disadvantage on targets’ saving throws. While your spell selection isn’t so broad as subclasses Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul the sheer incredible power of Hound of Ill Omen allows you to thrive with a very small spell selection

[making-a-killing]

"The K in hippocratic oath stands for Kimiko, now please stop questioning the syringe of fluid in ny hand. I promise it's good for you."

Character details:

Letter: K

Code name: Kimura

True name: Kimiko Kujo

Pronouns: She/Her

Age: 17

Birthdate: March 21

Orientation: Bisexual

Home country: Japan

Likes: lizards, microbiology, helping people she deems "worthy"

Dislikes: horror films, minimalist decor, "difficult persons"

Extra: K arrived at Wammys fairly young and had been pursuing a medical career prior to the L program. Her parents were both doctors and died in a lab accident while working on a top secret infectious disease program. K had been given extensive private schooling and was far above any other child her age. Subsequently, Mr. Wammy, who had been good friends with her parents, brought her to Wammys House so she could continue her studies. K genuinely believes in the Wammys House system and L program, even though she is not at all considered a proper successor. Brilliant and loyal as she may be she is headstrong in her sense of justice and should never be left alone in a lab.

Appearance:

Hair color: Light brown, long and straight, often kept in a tight bun or pony tail but occasionally let down

Eye color: Black

Skin tone: Warm beige

Height: 5'7 (170cm)

Weight: 120-130lbs (54-59kg)

Fashion sense: Extremely formal. Usually wears black or white and rarely dresses in color but typically wears muted blues or greens. Often wears her lab coat around during busy weeks.

Extra: Sometimes wears a small peice of jewelry, but nothing to flashy. Her appearance is fairly sterile overall.

(=Rules under cut=)

Mun:

The man behind the muse is @artificial-ascension

That's my main personal blog and everything about me is in the pinned post. If you don't feel like going there:

Michael

19

He/they

My other rp blog is @fairweather-fangs I made a separate blog for my other muse because I like theming my blogs

Activity:

I am very active on Tumblr and try to be here

If I have alot of asks or RPs going on at once it may take a while to get to all of them, but trust me I do see everything.

I may get writers block for some things but I will try to get around to everything.

I'm very open about what I'm working on so if you have questions or concerns feel free to message me. If for whatever reason I will not be responding to your ask/response I will inform you

I'm in the Eastern U.S. but may be active anywhere from 5am (my time) at the earliest to 3am at th latest. (I have a terrible sleep schedule) However I am mich less likely to be writing or responding super late or super early. I may also be late to things if I'm away from my phone because I do that sometimes

Rules:

I don't mind most things, if you feel like you need permission to do something to K I almost certainly don't care

K often goes by Kimiko and her full name is probably available if you dig enough. If you're character is willing to find it they're free to use her real name.

NSFW is very much allowed but I require you to be 18+ for sexual material. Otherwise go crazy.

I don't like writing much... you wouldn't be able to tell because I'm quite long winded...

Really just try and not speak for K. That's my job, also I may do so on my other rp blog, but most K will go here.

And also don't be a dick. I try to be friendly but I don't fuck with any sort of bigotry in or out of character. And don't be rude to me I'll block you. I came here to have fun.

Trigger warnings: Comically absurd medical malpractice?? There's not alot here, pretty much just the average edgy wammys rp here.

Rules and warnings to be expanded upon as things come up. I'm new here.

[year1fmprvpart2]

Game Research 5 - Death Stranding / Subnautica

in death stranding, there is an event called timefall. To summarize, timefall is theorized to be clouds containing chiralium which freak out gamma radiation that are made by lightning. This essentially causes acid rain, which while trying to get from one location to another, the cargo that you are holding starts to break down and you need to move faster.

In my game, there isn’t acid rain, but there is poisonous air which limits the time you are able to spend outside until your player dies. You are 120 seconds ( 2 minutes ) to go around the map to find clues or a plant, then you need to retreat back to the observatory to regain air.

Subnautica

Here is the subnautica air tanks that you can find and upgrade. I have chosen to specifically research air tanks across multiple games. In my game you will most likely need and air tank so you don’t die from the poisonous air, but you can only stay out for a certain amount of time. 

I researched air tanks to see how they are coded ( to see how complicated it is ) and how that are made ( to see how difficult it is to model ) Neither of them seemed too difficult, so hopefully this and an upgrading feature will be active in the final product of the game.

[miens-reading-nook]

But You Have Friends by Emilia McKenzie

Pages: 120 Published: 8 Aug 2023 My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Content warnings: suicide, loss

This is a story about loss, struggling with mental health and about suicide. But it's also a story about friendship, healing and moving on. Charlotte was the author's best friend who passed away back in 2018, and this is the story of their friendship, Charlotte's death and Emilia's life after Charlotte.

I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a honest review and hoowee, this was a heavy one.

Before I move on to the sadder parts, I just want to mention how sweet the beginning of their friendship is. A lot of times I feel like deep emotional connections in stories are reserved for romantic relationships, like people have forgotten how exciting it can be to make a new friend, to feel understood and seen by another person, to look at someone and think "yes, we are meant to be" in a entirely platonic way. You can be in love with someone without loving them romantically. Your soulmate can be your best friend. That's the beauty of human connection. And that's Emilia and Charlotte. Two girls who felt misunderstood and displaced everywhere they went except for when they were together.

And friendships evolve, people move away and life gets harder. You can't spend your days playing with your friends like when you were kids, but I was happy to see that they kept in touch the whole time and made an effort to see each other even when they were living in different countries.

I knew going in that this would be a difficult subject for me, but as the author explains in the beginning, this is not a comic about depression and suicide, it's a comic about friendship, so it's not as heavy as it could be. But it's authentic. It's very genuine in its portrayal of loss and grief, which means it was impossible not to tear up. Emilia's anger, her despair and how helpless you feel when you lose someone. All of it was so sincere. "If we can't or won't save each other… What's the point?!" Emilia wonders i the middle of the night. "It's so weird being here and trying to care about stuff that is ultimately pointless." She thinks when she goes back to work. Grief consumes you and makes you question everything. "I thought grief would put things into perspective, but instead, everything seems difficult and terrifying." I feel like the author managed to put down in words a lot of things I've felt but never managed to articulate.

One scene that really hit me was when Emilia dreams about Charlotte. "She doesn't know she's dead." That line broke my heart. There's nothing sadder than waking up from a dream where the person you miss wasn't really gone.

"…like she's from an earlier time. I hate that feeling." This line made me think of how weird it is to think about people who have died pre-covid. To look back and think, oh yeah, this person is from the "before" times. This also happens to your life, and that's more what the author was talking about, there is a before and an after a loss, but I hadn't though of how the pandemic also affects this.

I thought the way they honored Charlotte was really beautiful. I hope when I go, people gather around and tell stories about me that made them laugh. I want them to remember me with a smile on their faces.

And this story raises a lot of questions this subject always raises for me. How much influence do you really have over someone else's happiness? Can you ever really save someone? How much can it come from you, and how much does it have to come from them?

Anyway, I think this is a really beautiful story, it's heartbreaking, especially when you remember it's based on a true story, and I think it was told with a lot of respect.

The only thing I didn't enjoy as much was the art. I've never been someone that thinks art needs to be perfect or realistic to be considered art, but there were a couple of panels that completely pulled me out of the story. Namely when Emilia is saying something serious/sad and her eyes are completely exotropic, making it seem like she's pulling a funny face. I don't think it would be hard to go over it in the end and correct all these little mistakes.

And lastly, the title is incredible. That was what made me want to pick this up in the first place and I think it really works.

Many thanks to IDW Publishing for the ARC!

[mothwantstoswim]

I did eden again today solo, and properly took the time to check out all the changes. And you know what? I liked it!

1. The statues have more emotion, and a lot of them are together now.. they died together 🥲 as you can see in my picture. And yeah even completely crispy dead you still stand up for the screenshot pose!

2. And there were more lamps through what used to be the continuous red rain zone. I ran eden last week with a buddy and it was really neat how we could sustain each other almost to the end of the map 🥰 But it’s still very possible to solo it successfully which is nice. The rain felt a bit lighter

3. The crawl was difficult, and the more wl you have the faster you lose it, but I think it balances out in the end. I almost made it to the last statue and I went in with maybe 120 wl. If I had my full 165 I could’ve done it

4. Sometimes it took forevvvvver for my lamp prop to become useable again. I like to stick it on a wall while I shelter but I think if a red rock destroys it, the cooldown is super extra slow.

After getting clobbered last week (though we did make it in the end) I feel confident in navigating eden again. This was almost a perfect run. And most importantly I enjoyed it!

[musings-from-an-elder-goth]

Being Goth in the 80′s

“Beware!  I live!” - Sinistar

“What was it like in the 80′s?” the baby bats often ask as their dark forms flutter about me, eyes wide and ready to drink up every last, minute detail - “The music from the 80′s is sooo amazing; if I had a time machine I’d be so there,” they’ll gush. “OMG, tell us EVERYTHING!”  Very well then - here’s everything:  No internet, no cell phones, no texting, no email, no streaming, no downloads, no Uber, no apps - oh my!  If you had a time machine, the 80′s might be a fun place to visit, but trust me, once you saw your cell phone had zero bars, you wouldn’t want to live there.  

Of course, to those of us living back then, we didn’t know what we were missing as those things were still science-fiction.  So had anyone been asked how they liked the 80′s, they’d probably think things were going reasonably well, myself included.  But lets zoom in and focus on what it was like being a goth in the 80′s.  Yes, the music was amazing - but you had to find it first.

 First off, getting any information about the goth scene was like blood from a stone.  Rare, infrequent, and treasured.  For most of the 80′s, we lived and died by Propaganda magazine.  It represented about 90% of all the info you received regarding music / fashion / trends / style and it only came out 4 times a year.  Ever wonder why there are so few Propaganda magazines copies floating about now?  Because you read it and re-read it and then re-re-read it.  Your friends read it and re-read it, and then their friends.  Beverages were spilled on it.  Photos were cut out of it and pinned to walls.  Concert schedules were torn out.  And it’s not like they were printed on the best quality of paper to begin with.  It boggles my mind that any still exist today at all.  By the time the new issue arrived in the mail, the previous one looked as though it had gone through a blender.  The other big place for music info was the local record store.

For me, those record stores were Camelot and Sam Goody and yeah, they really looked like that.  If you were lucky, someone who worked there was a sage and knew a little bit about everything, including goth music.  I was lucky - very lucky.  Michael, the assistant manager at my Camelot, was like a bio-Alexa.  “I’m looking for something...dark,” I believe I mumbled at him one day.  “Have you listened to this?” he’d ask, handing me a Bauhaus album.  I shake my head ‘no.’  “Here”, he’d say, “Put on these headphones and have a listen.”  And that was that.  He hooked me up with The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees,  Xmal Deutschland, and Joy Division, just to name a few, so I was all in from the early days.  He knew when all the albums were going to be released and he’d order them for you (since those mainstream stores rarely carried them).  I must admit, there was a tiny bit of cred to be had when you walked in and the person behind the counter recognizes you and says the special album you ordered has arrived and hands it to you.  The third place to learn about music, was on telephone poles.

As far as I know, this hasn’t changed much as I still see band flyers stapled up around town, but back then, this kind of direct marketing was essential.   Propaganda magazine and Michael at Camelot didn’t know when a smaller band like Strange Boutique was next playing at The Metro, but those flyers did.  And wise was the person who stapled up several flyers at a time in the same place, because he knew we would tear them down to put up on our refrigerators at home so we wouldn’t forget.  And while it was easy to see the small, local bands play live, it was difficult to see the big bands play live.  The tours never seemed to come near where you lived.  I didn’t even see Siouxsie & the Banshees play live until 1991 even though I had been listening to them throughout the 80′s.  Your best bet to actually see the big goth bands was on MTV’s 120 Minutes.

Now, MTV was super mainstream and you’d rarely see a goth band on there (at least in the US), so the 120 Minutes program was progress. You might only see one or two goth bands on each episode, but that was better than nothing.  I would record each episode of 120 Minutes on my VCR while I was out or sleeping.  The next day, I’d fast forward through the show and find the goth bands and watch them a few times, and take my VCR to a friends so we could copy the good videos to save and share.  Then the next week, I’d use that same VCR tape to record the next episode and so forth and so on.  Eventually, 120 Minutes seemed to run goth stuff less frequently and I stopped watching.  But by that point, I’d discovered that just like with music, you could order VCR tapes with hours worth of videos of Siouxsie or The Cure or whoever and I just mail-ordered those.  And these videos were not cheap.  I recall my Siouxsie VCR tape set me back $60, plus shipping.  And this was in 1986, so that was big money.  But what about the rest of TV?

In general, TV didn’t have much to offer to goths in in the 80′s, so I consequently didn’t watch much.  Some shows that come to mind are ‘Tales from the Darkside,’ ‘Monsters,’ ‘The Hitchhiker,’ ‘Friday the 13th, The Series’, The Twilight Zone,’ and ‘Elvira’s Movie Macabre’.  Most of these shows were syndicated and tended to be on quite late, so I’d record them and watch them later.  In general, I might watch just a few hours of TV a week.  I’d be curious to see stats for 80′s TV viewership among goths, but I bet it would be low.  They just didn’t make many shows for us back then. 

  The video game market may have crashed in 1983, but arcades didn’t go away and that was a godsend since they were great places for goths to loiter.  Remember Michael from Camelot?  When he left Camelot he became the manager of the arcade at the other end of the mall (yes, we really did spend a lot of time in malls).  He was less useful for music, but now he became gaming useful.  He’d let a select few of us into the arcade on Sunday when it was closed - and we played for free.  With fresh batteries in my Sony Walkman, I’d spend hours at a time in the dark listening to my fav goth albums while racking up crazy high scores on games like Tempest, Wizard of Wor, Battlezone, Defender, Stargate, Berzerk, and Sinistar.  Why would he let some folks play for free, you might ask?  Because we would set the high scores others would kill themselves trying to beat for the rest of the week.  There was method in Michael’s madness - that arcade was always packed.  It broke my heart when I moved away in 1985 to leave that kind of privilege behind, but I’m sure Michael had no trouble replacing me on his weekly roster of ringers.  I played a ton of home video games as well, and huge swaths of my free time were spent gaming away while goth music drifted out of my cassette player.  It had auto-reverse, so I didn’t even have to flip the cassette!

Magazines were much more popular in the 80′s than now, and many of the goths I knew read things like ‘Heavy Metal,’ ‘Omni,’ ‘Creepy,’ ‘Eerie,’ and ‘Vampirella.’  Although not specifically targeted at goths, magazines like these had stories and art that were very dark and resonated well with darklings.  At any given time, I might have subscribed to a half-dozen magazines and picked up more occasionally, which was fairly typical.  Compare that to now when most folks don’t subscribe to any and even I only subscribe to one.  As the 80′s wore on, you began to see more dark, mainstream magazines and graphic novels creeping out of the woodwork like ‘The Dark Knight Returns,’ ‘Watchmen,’ and ‘Sandman.’  The late 80′s also saw the beginning of ‘Zines that folks would self publish on their home computers and hand-distribute about town, I recall quite a few unsung ‘zines that were very goth, but they rarely lasted more than a few issues before vanishing.  In addition to magazines, I read vast numbers of books in the 80′s since that was the best medium for finding darker fare.  Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles books were stupid popular among everyone I knew, as were things like William Gibson’s “Neuromancer,” “Count Zero,” and “Mona Lisa Overdrive.”  Unlike other mediums, there were so many great books available, most goths I knew had their noses buried within a book whenever you’d visit them, and folks’ personal libraries tended to be quite extensive.  Movies were a different story.

Goth films were so rare in the 80′s, you can just about count all of them using only your fingers and toes.  It would be forever between goth films and I would often wonder if I’d ever see another one again.  If there were so much as 2 in a year, that was a great year - I’m looking at you, 1988, when we got both “Beetlejuice“ and “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark!”  Horror films and dark sci-fi largely filled the void, and fortunately, there were a decent number of those, so all was not lost.  I still recall seeing “Aliens” and “The Fly” as a double-feature and that made for a good evening of dark entertainment.  As far as fashion went, well, you’ve all seen the pictures online.

In the 80′s, casual goth was how you usually saw goths dressed.  Everyday goth tended to be plain, compared to now.  The most goth girl I knew in the 80′s, Ginny, usually wore black jeans, black Doc Martins, and a black t-shirt.  In the winter, she’d throw on a long coat, a black beret hat, and a black & white checkered scarf - she always looked sharp!  The pic above is representative of the fashion I would generally see in the 80′s.  I believe this particular photo is from 1984, and this general style was common right through the decade.  The girl on the left being more everyday goth while the girl on the right is more going-to-a-show goth.  Hair was not always spiked up and depended on laziness.  By the later 80′s, I didn’t see anyone doing it anymore. Tattoos and piercings existed, but they were not as frequent.  Leather jackets and leather long coats were also seen, but not as often since they were expensive and most goths (myself included) acquired their clothes in second hand shops. 

And there you go - I’m sure my goth 80′s were fairly typical, although individual experiences may vary.  The modern ability to pull a cell phone out of your pocket and bring up any goth song, album, or music video ever made and watch it on the spot, then to check what bands are playing at any club, at any time, anywhere in the world, and then review the photos taken from that same club just last night to see exactly what they’re wearing in that neck-of-the-woods, is a wonder.  Plus, goth music is easier to make and distribute now, so good bands are found faster by far more people to be enjoyed than ever before.  There are more goth TV series, movies, and video games available than I can shake a broken VCR tape at, and again, I can watch or play them whenever I feel like it.  I enjoy seeing current goth fashion as it’s so much more sophisticated and sublime than it used to be and goth decor exists in multitudes undreamt of in the 80′s.  

So if you were to pull up to my place in your time-traveling 1982 Delorian, I’ll be happy to visit the 80′s with you to catch a show or two, but be sure to bring me back to today.  There’s never been a better time to be goth, than now.

creaturesfromelsewhere 12/31/2021

[gofancyninjaworld]

Hi, not sure if this had been asked before, but I'm curious about your opinion. Assuming he won't die during a battle, how long do you think Genos will live? I think a lot of people view him as some (semi) immortal being, who will surely outlive Saitama. But somehow I always thought the opposite, like isn't living in a combat cyborg body puts a lot of strain/stress on your brain? There's probably a significant brain disease development risk. I'm not a doctor or anything, obviously, just my thoghts 😅

Also, another similiar question: how long do you think it took Genos to fully adapt to his cyborg body and be ready to use weaponry?

No, it's not been asked before. This is the sort of question that really is above my paygrade to answer seriously, but let me take half a stab at it. Remember that I am oversimplifying a very complex subject matter horribly.

When you take all of life's insults out of the equation, and even inherent matters like genetic defects out too, then what governs ultimate age is a race between how long the fabric of our body lasts and how long our key tissues can self-renew for. The fabric of our bodies, the extracellular matrix that comprises the scaffold of our tissues is generally laid down ONCE! and then it just gets repaired as best possible but never renewed. Our lungs are generally good for about 110 years to give one example and likewise, our other tissues have a limit to how long they last. The other side of the equation, self-renewal, is especially critical for blood cells. When super-aged people die (110+ years), typically all their blood cells are found to be clones of what was literally their last hematopoetic stem cell. The upper estimate of how long a human being can live runs somewhere between 120 -125 years, but no one's been attested to have made it to 125 years yet (see note 1).

That's under perfect conditions. There are many many things that shorten lifespan. Trauma and infections are obvious ones, as are non-infections diseases, environmental exposure to harmful materials, and cancers, but chronic stress is a huge, huge life shortener. Whether it comes from the mere fact of being socially disadvantaged, difficult to resolve emotional or psychological distress, a sense of isolation, a sense of irrelevance (huge killer of older adults), a part of illness or starvation, ongoing financial difficulty, whatever its source, all of it accelerates ageing, depending on how intense, how prolonged, and when it comes into one's life. The right kinds of stressors can steal lifespan before one is even born, but again, that's outside the remit of this ask.

So, let's get to Genos. If tomorrow, his problems were to be resolved satisfactorily and he's in a good place socially, financially, and emotionally, how long could he live? A big part of that depends on what body he has. If he has 'only' his brain, then his life expectancy is on the order of 1 - 2 months as there's no possibility of renewing the all-important blood cells. But if that were the case, leaving the lab for more than a few days at a time would have been impossible. If he's built on the same sort of terms as Erimin and Destro (with just under a tenth of their bodies left), then he may have enough body to self-maintain and self-renew and then he'll have the regular constraints of a human life, barring any accident due to being a cyborg.

But there's more. Stress-wise, Genos has been burning through his lifespan at a terrifying rate. It doesn't help either that he grew up poor -- childhood poverty is a big thief of lifespan. Hard to say, but if things get better for him soon, somewhere between 50 and 70 years should be achievable, if nothing goes wrong. Which is not bad for a guy who was supposed to have died at 15.

And say what one likes, no one can accuse Genos of taking tomorrow for granted.

Asides

A reasonably accessible review on the matter https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00070-1

The influence of childhood experiences last a lifetime https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/07/us/nuns-offer-clues-to-alzheimer-s-and-aging.html

Increasingly, you'll not just hear of lifespan, but healthy lifespan, the length of time one can expect to live before experiencing life-limiting chronic illness. There, environment and social standing make a huge difference. For example, in England, people living in the least deprived areas can expect nearly 20 years more healthy life than those in the most https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthinequalities/bulletins/healthstatelifeexpectanciesbyindexofmultipledeprivationimd/2018to2020

A more popular (https://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/10/chronic-stress) and more scientific (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3428505/) overview of the influence of stress on ageing.

Finding a reasonable article on the influence of the extracellular matrix (the scaffold that makes up our tissues) on ageing and organ function that's neither woo nor excessively scientific eludes me for now. In the meantime: WEAR SUNSCREEN! EVEN IF YOU'RE BLACK! Your skin will not recover from the extrinsic ageing of sun damage and your future self will thank you.

[wfuanthrotheory2022]

Structural Functionalism as a Biological Metaphor

Something that I found to be extremely interesting was the metaphor that structural functionalism compares humans  to an individual cell in the human body, each a part of a larger organ system. As a student of biology and anthropology, this was a comparison that made a lot of sense to me and I began to think of it as a metaphor that could be developed more when viewing structural functionalism, and what that would mean in our society today. 

In the human body some cells have more decision making power and operate more functions than other cells. For example, a singular nerve cell may be about a meter long and be vital in the body's decision making process. Similarly the individual cells that make up the brain have much more power to control the decisions of the body, as the signals that they create drive things such as the heartbeat and breathing. The cells of the brain are also very picky about their energy source, requiring glucose energy. If there is a lack of glucose in the body, the brain cells will divert this energy from going to other tissues because they need the energy in order to run the more important functions. 

Other cells such as the red blood cells work in such a way that as they develop they lose organelles that allow decision making as well as  DNA. The sole function of the red blood cell is to pick up and circulate oxygen throughout the body. The turnover rate of a red blood cell is also very great, only lasting in the human body for about 120 days and the body is producing these cells at a great rate. 

In these examples the brain and nerve cells which are fewer in existence than other cells in the body, function to represent the elites of society, the ones who have money and are the main policy makers. These people, though they are still only a part of a larger system, have more ability to make decisions and control what is happening in society. They have money and are able to divert the resources to themselves and whoever else they deem deserving of these resources. These people are, in reality,  given the ability to decide whether or not the society lives or dies. In contrast the red blood cells represent the working class and the poor who have very little ability to decide what they do, much less what the society does. If a red blood cell stops doing its job, it will nearly immediately be eaten by a macrophage. Similarly if someone in the working class stops working, they no longer have means to live and will likely die. Just as the red blood cell has a short life span in the body, because of the difficult working conditions that these workers put up with, their lifespans are shorter. Another similarity exists in the idea that red blood cells are performing the manual labor of the body. While the brain cells sit in the executive office making phone calls and decisions, the red blood cells are the ones running around carrying things. If the red blood cells collectively stopped working the entire society would fail. In our society today, if the manual laborers stopped working, things would begin to fall apart. 

Structural functionalism’s idea of each part working as a part of a greater whole, does a good job in recognizing the reliance of each person on each other. I think that it is important to specify however that this involves the reliance of each group on the other as well, but in this I think that it is even more important to note how structural functionalism can show the disparities that exist between different groups and systems that contribute to the whole. In the human body, the red blood cells don’t actually have feelings or families, and the brain is really functioning to do what is best for the body as a whole. However in real life, the working class are people with the ability to feel, and they have people that they care about, while most of the time the elite and the executive class of people tend to do what is in their own best interest and not that of the society that they are controlling. 

[swanlake1998]

Excerpt from Chapter 5: The Unbearable Whiteness of Ballet - Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers Is Saving Ballet from Itself (2021) by Chloe Angyal

Aesha Ash found that it was too much as well. Ash, who is forty-two, graduated from the School of American Ballet in 1996 and won a prestigious prize for promising student dancers on her way from the school into the corps of New York City Ballet. She was the only Black woman in the company at the time, and that remained the case throughout her seven-year tenure with City Ballet.

Ash grew up in Rochester, New York, and started ballet on the late side at age eleven, after excelling in jazz and tap classes and competitions. That late start, combined with her only-ness in the company, made for a difficult and isolating experience. She felt like she was working “120 percent every day,” she told me in a 2019 interview.

Once she joined the company, Ash felt othered and excluded: as Nardia Boodoo found with her tights, Ash found that while the company provided white dancers with a full supply of performance makeup, she was only given lipstick. Ballet critics singled her out for criticism of her body; one called it “distracting.” “That is not talking about missing a turn or being overweight or that your hair is out of place,” Ash told the New York Times in 2020. “That’s talking to who you are. That chips away at your identity and your self-worth as a young adolescent coming into yourself.”

While she was in the company, her sister died of pancreatic cancer, and soon after, her father died of colon cancer. “And so it started to become very hard” to keep working, as the maxim goes, twice as hard to get half as far. “And I started to ask why—‘What is this all for?’”

(“When Aesha left,” says current New York City Ballet soloist Georgina Pazcoguin, whose father is Filipino and whose mother is Italian, “I went into all of Aesha’s corps spots. So there’s one. It’s not the first time or the last time that I’ve been the token or been made to feel like the token.” Pazcoguin is the only woman of color in the upper ranks of City Ballet.)

Ash retired from ballet early, at thirty. “I had a good number of years left in me as a dancer,” she said in 2019. After leaving City Ballet, she danced for Alonzo King LINES Ballet and then in a well-respected contemporary ballet company in Switzerland (where one young dancer admitted to her that he had been afraid to talk to her for the first year she was there “because all the images [he] ever saw of Black American women seemed so scary and intimidating, and [he] just assumed they were all like that”).

And it took her a long time to come back to ballet, first as a community activist through her organization the Swan Dreams Project and then as a guest ballet teacher. In 2020, she became the School of American Ballet’s first full-time Black woman faculty member, “an incredible full-circle moment” and also “this tremendous responsibility because it is a first.”

Wilmara Manuel remembers the first time her daughter Sasha had a Black ballet teacher, at a summer intensive in California. Wilmara picked her up at the end of the day, “and she kind of whispered, ‘Mom, my teacher was Black.’”

“I don’t think she even realized the magnitude of what she was saying,” Wilmara says. “But to be able to see a Black ballerina who was successful and had done it all, that’s huge.… It’s growth. It’s making sure that they’ll achieve. It’s making them aware of those little things that pertain strictly to what a dancer of color has to deal with. Those things are monumental.” That teacher? It was Aesha Ash.

[justforbooks]

Fifty Great Classic Novels Under 200 Pages

We are now end of February, which is technically the shortest month, but is also the one that—for me, anyway—feels the longest. Especially this year, for all of the reasons that you already know. At this point, if you keep monthly reading goals, even vague ones, you may be looking for few a good, short novels to knock out in an afternoon or two. So now I must turn my attention to my favorite short classics—which represent the quickest and cheapest way, I can tell you in my salesman voice, to become “well-read.”

A few notes: This list will define “classic” as being originally published before 1970. Yes, these distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, but one has to draw the line somewhere (though I let myself fudge on translation dates). I did not differentiate between novels and novellas (as Steven Millhauser would tell you, the novella is not a form at all, but merely a length), but let’s be honest with ourselves: “The Dead” is a short story, and so is “The Metamorphosis.” Sorry! I limited myself to one book by each author, valiantly, I should say, because I was tempted to cheat (looking at you Jean Rhys).

Most importantly for our purposes here: lengths vary with editions, sometimes wildly. I did not include a book below unless I could find that it had been published at least once in fewer than 200 pages—which means that some excellent novels, despite coming tantalizingly close to the magic number, had to be left off for want of proof (see Mrs. Dalloway, Black No More, Slaughterhouse-Five, etc. etc. etc.). However, your personal edition might not exactly match the number I have listed here. Don’t worry: it’ll still be short.

Finally, as always: “best” lists are subjective, no ranking is definitive, and I’ve certainly forgotten, or never read, or run out of space for plenty of books and writers here. And admittedly, the annoying constraints of this list make it more heavily populated by white and male writers than I would have liked. Therefore, please add on at will in the comments. After all, these days, I’m always looking for something old to read.

Adolfo Bioy Casares, tr. Ruth L.C. Simms, The Invention of Morel (1940) : 103 pages

Both Jorge Luis Borges and Octavio Paz described this novel as perfect, and I admit I can’t find much fault with it either. It is technically about a fugitive whose stay on a mysterious island is disturbed by a gang of tourists, but actually it’s about the nature of reality and our relationship to it, told in the most hypnotizing, surrealist style. A good anti-beach read, if you plan that far ahead.

John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (1937) : 107 pages

Everybody’s gateway Steinbeck is surprisingly moving, even when you revisit it as an adult. Plus, if nothing else, it has given my household the extremely useful verb “to Lenny.”

George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945) : 112 pages

If we didn’t keep putting it on lists, how would future little children of America learn what an allegory is? This is a public service, you see.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) : 112 pages

A people-pleaser, in more ways than one: Sherlock Holmes, after all, had been dead for years when his creator finally bent to public demand (and more importantly, the demand of his wallet) and brought him back, in this satisfying and much-beloved tale of curses and hell-beasts and, of course, deductions.

James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1933) : 112 pages

A 20th century classic, and still one of the best, most important, and most interesting crime novels in the canon. Fun fact: Cain had originally wanted to call it Bar-B-Q.

Nella Larsen, Passing (1929) : 122 pages

One of the landmarks of the Harlem Renaissance, about not only race but also gender and class—not to mention self-invention, perception, capitalism, motherhood and friendship—made indelible by what Darryl Pinckney called “a deep fatalism at the core.”

Albert Camus, tr. Matthew Ward, The Stranger (1942) : 123 pages

I had a small obsession with this book as a moody teen, and I still think of it with extreme fondness. Is it the thinking person’s Catcher in the Rye? Who can say. But Camus himself put it this way, writing in 1955: “I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: “In our society any man who does not weep at his mother’s funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.” I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.”

Juan Rulfo, tr. Margaret Sayers Peden, Pedro Páramo (1955) : 128 pages

The strange, fragmented ghost story that famously paved the way for One Hundred Years of Solitude (according to Gabriel García Márquez himself), but is an enigmatic masterpiece in its own right.

Italo Calvino, tr. Archibald Colquhoun, The Cloven Viscount (1959) : 128 pages

This isn’t my favorite Calvino, but you know what they say: all Calvino is good Calvino (also, I forgot him on the contemporary list, so I’m making up for it slightly here). The companion volume to The Nonexistent Knight and The Baron in the Trees concerns a Viscount who is clocked by a cannonball and split into two halves: his good side and his bad side. They end up in a duel over their wife, of course—just like in that episode of Buffy. But turns out that double the Viscounts doesn’t translate to double the pages.

Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899) : 128 pages

I know, I know, but honestly, this book, which is frequently taught in American schools as an example of early feminist literature, is still kind of edgy—more than 120 years later, and it’s still taboo for a woman to put herself and her own desires above her children. Whom among us has not wanted to smash a symbolic glass vase into the hearth?

Leo Tolstoy, tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) : 128 pages

Another classic—Tolstoy can do it all, long and short—particularly beloved by the famously difficult-to-impress Nabokov, who described it as “Tolstoy’s most artistic, most perfect, and most sophisticated achievement,” and explained the thrust of it this way: “The Tolstoyan formula is: Ivan lived a bad life and since the bad life is nothing but the death of the soul, then Ivan lived a living death; and since beyond death is God’s living light, then Ivan died into a new life—Life with a capital L.”

Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar (1968) : 138 pages

Brautigan’s wacky post-apocalyptic novel concerns a bunch of people living in a commune called iDEATH. (Which, um, relatable.) The landscape is groovy and the tigers do math, and the titular watermelon sugar seems to be the raw material for everything from homes to clothes. “Wherever you are, we must do the best we can. It is so far to travel, and we have nothing here to travel, except watermelon sugar. I hope this works out.” It’s all nonsense, of course, but it feels so good.

James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) : 140 pages

Another early novel on the subject of passing—originally published in 1912, then again under Johnson’s name in 1927—this one presented as an “autobiography” written by a Black man living as white, but uneasily, considering himself a failure, feeling until the end the grief of giving up his heritage and all the pain and joy that came with it.

Thomas Mann, tr. Michael Henry Heim, Death in Venice (1912) : 142 pages

What it says on the tin—a story as doomed as Venice itself, but also a queer and philosophical mini-masterpiece. The year before the book’s publication, Mann wrote to a friend: “I am in the midst of work: a really strange thing I brought with me from Venice, a novella, serious and pure in tone, concerning a case of pederasty in an aging artist. You say, ‘Hum, hum!’ but it is quite respectable.” Indeed.

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) : 146 pages

If you’re reading this space, you probably already know how much we love this book at Literary Hub. After that excellent opening paragraph, it only gets better.

Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man (1964) : 152 pages

Isherwood’s miniature, jewel-like masterpiece takes place over a single day in the life of a middle-aged English expat (who shares a few qualities with Isherwood himself), a professor living uneasily in California after the unexpected death of his partner. An utterly absorbing and deeply pleasurable novel.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Notes from Underground (1864) : 154 pages

Probably the best rant ever passed off as literature. Dostoevsky's first masterpiece has been wildly influential in the development of existential and dystopian storytelling of all kinds, not to mention in the development of my own high school misanthropy. Maybe yours, too? “It was all from ENNUI, gentlemen, all from ENNUI; inertia overcame me . . .” Actually, now I’m thinking that it might be a good book to re-read in pandemic isolation.

Anna Kavan, Ice (1967) : 158 pages

The narrator of this strange and terrifying novel obsessively pursues a young woman through an icy apocalypse. You might call it a fever dream if it didn’t feel so . . . cold. Reading it, wrote Jon Michaud on its 50th anniversary, is “a disorienting and at times emotionally draining experience, not least because, these days, one might become convinced that Kavan had seen the future.” Help.

Jean Toomer, Cane (1923) : 158 pages

Toomer’s experimental, multi-disciplinary novel, now a modernist classic, is presented as a series of vignettes, poems, and swaths of dialogue—but to be honest, all of it reads like poetry. Though its initial reception was uncertain, it has become one of the most iconic and influential works of 1920s American literature.

J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World (1962) : 158 pages

Only in a Ballard novel can climate change make you actually become insane—and only a Ballard novel could still feel so sticky and hot in my brain, years after I read it in a single afternoon.

Knut Hamsun, tr. Sverre Lyngstad, Hunger (1890) : 158 pages

The Nobel Prize winner’s first novel is, as Hamsun himself put it, “an attempt to describe the strange, peculiar life of the mind, the mysteries of the nerves in a starving body.” An modernist psychological horror novel that is notoriously difficult, despite its length, but also notoriously worth it.

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (1956) : 159 pages

Still my favorite Baldwin, and one of the most convincing love stories of any kind ever written, about which there is too much to say: it is a must-read among must-reads.

Willa Cather, O Pioneers! (1913) : 159 pages

A mythic, proto-feminist frontier novel about a young Swedish immigrant making a home for herself in Nebraska, with an unbearably cool and modern title (in my opinion).

Françoise Sagan, tr. Irene Ash, Bonjour Tristesse (1955) : 160 pages

Sagan’s famously scandalous novel of youthful hedonism, published (also famously) when Sagan was just 19 herself, is much more psychologically nuanced than widely credited. As Rachel Cusk wrote, it is not just a sexy French novel, but also “a masterly portrait that can be read as a critique of family life, the treatment of children and the psychic consequences of different forms of upbringing.” It is a novel concerned not only with morals or their lack, but with the very nature of morality itself.

Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor (1924) : 160 pages

Bartleby may be more iconic (and more fun), but Billy Budd is operating on a grander scale, unfinished as it may be.

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) : 160 pages

Everyone’s gateway to Pynchon, and also everyone’s gateway to slapstick postmodernism. Either you love it or you hate it!

Franz Kafka, tr. Willa and Edwin Muir, The Trial (1925) : 160 pages

Required reading for anyone who uses the term “Kafkaesque”—but don’t forget that Kafka himself would burst out laughing when he read bits of the novel out loud to his friends. Do with that what you will.

Kenzaburo Oe, tr. John Nathan, A Personal Matter (1968) : 165 pages

Whew. This book is a lot: absolutely gorgeous and supremely painful, and probably the Nobel Prize winner’s most important.

Djuna Barnes, Nightwood (1936) : 170 pages

In his preface to the first edition, T.S. Eliot praised “the great achievement of a style, the beauty of phrasing, the brilliance of wit and characterisation, and a quality of horror and doom very nearly related to that of Elizabethan tragedy.” It is also a glittering modernist masterpiece, and one of the first novels of the 20th century to explicitly portray a lesbian relationship.

Yasunari Kawabata, tr. Edward G. Seidensticker, Snow Country (1937) : 175 pages

A story of doomed love spun out in a series of indelible, frozen images—both beautiful and essentially suspicious of beauty—by a Nobel Prize winner.

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) : 176 pages

This novel, Rhys’s famous riposte to one of the worst love interests in literary history, tells the story of Mr. Rochester from the point of view of the “madwoman in the attic.” See also: Good Morning, Midnight (1939), which is claustrophobic, miserable, pointless, and damn fine reading.

George Eliot, Silas Marner (1861) : 176 pages

Like Middlemarch, Silas Marner is exquisitely written and ecstatically boring. Unlike Middlemarch, it is quite short.

Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means (1963) : 176 pages

The girls of Spark’s novel live in the May of Teck Club, disturbed but not destroyed by WWII—both the Club, that is, and the girls. “Their slenderness lies not so much in their means,” Carol Shields wrote in an appreciation of the book, “as in their half-perceived notions about what their lives will become and their overestimation of their power in the world. They are fearless and frightened at the same time, as only the very young can be, and they are as heartless in spirit as they are merry in mode.” Can’t go wrong with Muriel Spark.

Robert Walser, tr. Christopher Middleton, Jakob von Gunten (1969) : 176 pages

Walser is a writer’s writer, a painfully underrated genius; this novel, in which a privileged youth runs off to enroll at a surrealist school for servants, may be his best.

Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) : 179 pages

Read for proof that Holly Golightly was meant to be a Marilyn.

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958) : 181 pages

A powerful, clear-eyed, and haunting novel, which at the time of its publication was transgressive in its centering of African characters in all their humanity and complexity, and which paved the way for thousands of writers all over the world in the years to follow.

Leonard Gardner, Fat City (1969) : 183 pages

Universally acknowledged as the best boxing novel ever written, but so much more than that: at its core, it’s a masterpiece about that secret likelihood of life, if not of literature: never achieving your dreams.

N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (1968) : 185 pages

House Made of Dawn, Momaday’s first novel, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and is often credited with ushering in the Native American Renaissance. Intricate, romantic, and lush, it is at its core about the creaking dissonance of two incompatible worlds existing in the same place (both literally and metaphysically) at the same time.

Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945) : 186 pages

Himes’ first novel spans four days in the life of a Californian named Bob Jones, whose every step is dogged by racism. Walter Mosely called Himes, who is also renowned for his detective fiction, a “quirky American genius,” and also “one of the most important American writers of the 20th century.” If He Hollers Let Him Go, while not technically a detective story, is “firmly located in the same Los Angeles noir tradition as The Big Sleep and Devil in a Blue Dress,” Nathan Jefferson has written. “Himes takes the familiar mechanics of these novels—drinking, driving from one end of Los Angeles to another in search of answers, a life under constant threats of danger—and filters them through the lens of a black man lacking any agency and control over his own life, producing something darker and more oppressive than the traditional pulp detective’s story.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) : 189 pages

All my life I have wanted to scoff at The Great Gatsby. Usually, things that are universally adored are bad, or at least mediocre. But every time I reread it, I remember: impossibly, annoyingly, it is as good as they say.

Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin (1957) : 190 pages

Still one of my favorite campus novels, and short enough to read in between classes.

Charles Portis, Norwood (1966) : 190 pages

Portis has gotten a lot of (well-deserved) attention in recent years for True Grit, but his first novel, Norwood, is almost as good, a comic masterpiece about a young man traipsing across a surreal America to lay his hands on $70.

Philip K. Dick, Ubik (1969) : 191 pages

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and A Scanner Darkly have more mainstream name recognition (thank you Hollywood) but Ubik is Dick’s masterpiece, filled to the brim with psychics and anti-psis, dead wives half-saved in cold-pac, and disruptions to time and reality that can be countered by an aerosol you get at the drugstore. Sometimes, anyway.

Clarice Lispector, tr. Alison Entrekin, Near to the Wild Heart (1943) : 192 pages

Lispector’s debut novel, first published in Brazil when she was only 19, is still my favorite of hers: fearless, sharp-edged, and brilliant, a window into one of the most interesting narrators in literature.

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962) : 192 pages

This novel is probably more famous these days for the Kubrick film, but despite the often gruesome content, the original text is worth a read for the language alone.

Barbara Comyns, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead (1954) : 193 pages

Comyns is a criminally under-read genius, though she’s been getting at least a small taste of the attention she deserves in recent years due to reissues by NYRB and Dorothy. This one is my favorite, permeated, as Brian Evenson puts it in the introduction of my copy, with marvelousness, “a kind of hybrid of the pastoral and the naturalistic, an idyllic text about what it’s like to grow up next to a river, a text that also just happens to contain some pretty shocking and sad disasters.” Which is putting it rather mildly indeed.

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) : 194 pages

In 194 pages, Janie goes through more husbands than most literary heroines can manage in twice as many (and finds herself in equally short order).

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome (1911) : 195 pages

To be honest with you, though it has been variously hailed as a masterpiece, I find Ethan Frome to be lesser Wharton—but even lesser Wharton is better than a lot of people’s best.

Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967) : 198 pages

The mood this novel—of disappeared teens and Australian landscape and uncertainty—lingers much longer than the actual reading time.

Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop (1967) : 200 pages

“The summer she was fifteen,” Carter’s second novel begins, “Melanie discovered she was made of flesh and blood.” It is that year that she is uprooted from her home in London to the wilds of America, and it is that year she comes to term with herself. “It is often the magical, fabular aspects of Carter’s stories that people focus on, but in The Magic Toyshop I responded to the way she blended this with a clear-eyed realism about what it was to live in a female body,” Evie Wyld wrote in her ode to this novel. “In a novel so brilliantly conjured from splayed toothbrush heads, mustard-and-cress sandwiches and prawn shells, bread loaves and cutlery, brickwork and yellow household soap, the female body is both one more familiar object and at the same time something strange and troubling.”

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