#its just baller the book is just . so good

[undercoverangell]

i think that part of the reason i love the penelopiad so much is it gives me so much to work w for penelope in terms of nonhuman/odd features. like. mother is a water nymph so she can have pointier ears, and on top of that her mom is also described as having sharp pointy teeth so she can have little fangs if i want !!! like !!! its great !!! waiter!! more naiad penelope please!!!

[sleepyhouse2art]

this is an old drawing of joey from i think 2021, the year i started seriously drawing. its the first one of him i did. before that i did some zines and posters for shows but i never drew for myself after i was 12, although before that i had really loved to draw. when i was 12 i had to go move in with my dad in seattle because after a bunch of stuff tbh i wont go into it but the precipitating incident was one august my mom socked my grandpa and went walking naked down their street. so my grandparents drove me halfway to washington, and my dad picked me up and drove the rest of the way. i hadnt seen him since i was 8 -- we got in a car accident and he never came again. when i moved in, he had a girlfriend who lived with him. and i had never even ridden a city bus before except as a very little kid in providence.

my dad signed me up that summer, because i liked to draw and i didnt have any friends and i think he didnt know what to do with me, to this fancy atelier program for kids. it was every day at this really pretty private catholic school. they used one of the buildings in the off-season. anyway, i went there and i worked hard on my little cartoons. but very quickly i found myself very embarrassed, because all the kids were leagues better than me. they could draw hyperrealistically. a pretty girl i had a crush on lent me a book on the anatomy of trees, which i studied for her but never returned. gradually i grew to hate it there, because i felt too low to belong even though the kids were nice to me. one of the grownup artists who helped out gave me her gaia online username.

the time came for the end of program show, and i lied to my dad. i told him that the show was canceled when it really wasnt, and i went by myself and skulked around. after that i didnt draw anymore, except for sometimes little punk zines and posters for shows, but never just to draw. i think i broke my own heart by not being good enough. it was really all my fault.

i was always mentally ill i guess -- ive had an ed since i was 12, and ive always had problems, like id tried to kill myself before and stuff, but when i hit 20 i started getting really sick. that was the year i first got involed. it was very, very bad. it fucked me up. my therapist told me they did things they shouldnt have done. i am super scared of hospitals because of that and some other times ive been in the hospital where really fucked up things happened to me. i have developed a crazy fear in particular of being restrained and having people sit on me. i think the next time i go they will rape me and kill me (the hospital emergency room down the street from my house has holes in the ceiling), and when my psychiatrist and my therapist tell me its time to go now, i cry a lot and beg them not to send me and that i will be raped and killed, and so they let me stay at home where my husband takes care of me. its safer for me here and nobody can do bad stuff to me. i get to be with my cats who are healers and from god. my life is pretty baller now, even if we are poor. i draw a ton because there isnt much expected of me and we dont need much. we own our house. my husband has a small job. really the only really bad thing in my life is getting sick like i do, or i guess being sick like i am. i hate my schiz, but i cant really do anything about it. also i hate sleeping, which people tell me doesnt help. i have a lot of symptoms and take a lot of pills. its ok tho.

so i draw. i write and i draw A LOT. often i sit and i draw for 14 hours straight or longer. making stuff makes me fee normal and happy and useful. i talk to my best friend all day, the one who i write the kirche street pharmacy stories with. they are the best.

anyway, thats why this drawing is a little special to me, i guess. im glad i made it. im glad i picked back up drawing. im glad you guys like my drawings sometimes!!! thank you thank you thank you. i hope you like this very old drawing of my very loud slutty one-legged son from brooklyn

[tobiasdrake]

Do you think that optimistic stories are gonna be needed more than ever in these incoming dark times?

Probably. Art tends to reflect culture and also, to some degree, shape it.

It will be interesting to see what sort of media this new political landscape produces. I'm expecting a lot of "Fascism bad" that gets derided as preachy. "Do we really need to be told for the eleven billionth time that Nazis are evil?" people will ask aggravatedly while literal Nazis march in the streets behind them.

There are a lot of people who are shocked, scared, and horrified about what the right has become. Who were maybe willing to give it a pass when Americans elected Trump the first time, that maybe they just didn't know better, but saw the writing on the wall when Americans eagerly rushed back to Trump for a second serving of racism, violence, and misogyny.

And I'd expect to see that shock and fear reflected in the art that the evolving culture produces moving forward.

But I'm also expecting a lot of "Jack and Jill have different political beliefs, but it's important that they be able to come together as family and community." Because Americans think politics are as inconsequential as which set of jerseys wins the Super Bowl. A lot of people really are just out there to win it for the Home Team and don't think policy actually shapes our lives in any meaningful way.

To many Americans, being upset about the election is worse than electing the wrong guy. The problem is you for taking it so seriously, for actually caring about the consequences. They see themselves as enlightened for thinking that the government does nothing, all politicians are the same, and who you support says nothing about you personally. Why let something so trivial as voting MAGA break up a friendship? Or a family? Or a marriage?

And I'd expect to see that centrist condescension and "Why So Serious" trivialization reflected in the art that the evolving culture produces as well.

What I don't expect to see is a lot of pro-fascism stuff. The Right's cornered the market on news punditry but have never been very successful at mainstreaming their fiction. Because.

Well.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Alt-Right fiction sucks. They've written books and produced movies and TV shows, and it all sucks. Because it isn't made creatively. It's created in anger. The Alt-Right is just angry. Fascists are just angry. They don't want to participate in culture. They're mad at culture and want to shoot it with verbal guns.

And that gets reflected in their media, which is too often more focused on trying to dunk on somebody than on telling the story that they're ostensibly here to tell.

There is good conservative media out there. Hell, live-action Sonic the Hedgehog is surprisingly conservative. It's a story about a cop learning to appreciate small-town rural living and stop yearning for the glamour of the big city, while being harassed by Big Government Overreach. There's a lot of conservative values in their interpretation of the video game.

But there isn't any good Alt-Right media out there, because they're too angry to write. Lady Ballers is an offensive piece of shit, but it's also a bad movie. Its story is flat and self-defeating, its characters are uninteresting and fail to grow or change in any meaningful way, and its comedy wildly misses the mark.

Because that's what happens when the only thing you're interested in as a creator is, "How many people can I offend with this?" You end up writing a protest sign stretched out to the length of a novel. The audience for Ben Shapiro's "teen girl goes Die Hard against a school shooter and proves the merits of gun ownership" action movie is very niche.

So the Alt-Right will be encouraged to keep producing furious dogshit, and it will continue failing to gain any real ground among the mainstream entertainment market. But we can probably look forward to a lot of antifascism and a lot of condescending centrist finger-wagging in media to come.

That's my prediction, anyway.

[missdrummond]

Album 78 reaction 3

Wow I think I hate multiparters now. I forgot this was going to be 3 and not a 2, ack I hate it. This album is going to feel so empty.

You know I don't have this reaction to multiple part club episodes. Maybe it's because they actually have 12 episode albums making it feel more evenly disbursed. (Yes there is something illogically psychological going on here) You can also fool me into not caring if you have single parters that continue eachother with different titles. I don't get mad at sudden cliff hangers for some reason.

This is such a corny title. I love it

No, you cannot try out that fall was you're own clumsy fault, looser.

You know he says this isn't about the doughnuts but...

A disappointment like... bagels?

I forget are he and Braden still friends?

Blind Goat Park is an Excellent name!

I'm trying to come up with a pun for sports church but I just can't... Something with the word ball? Baller Study? That's basketball. Hoop Group? Also basketball. Buck why don't you pick up basketball I can make better jokes about that

PTA? Katrina!!!!!!!!! Katrina how are you doing? Are you planning on substitute teaching again? Hi!

Katrina!!

For a moment I forgot Katrina was a Christian because I've been listening to so many episodes where the parents are not believers but then I remember and was like she'd absolutely should join that prayer group. (If they're chill of course)

I'm so bad with names. Is Michah the kid Buck talked to?

Oh good he is.

Oof. What happened at the other churches?

Hands of velcro is good!

And she hit him right where it'd catch his attention

Oh come on he's not going to ambush baptize you. The pastor's house is safe. (Ideally, again if they're chill)

Bucks tone! 🤣😅😭 He's so judgy

I know! I know where he got the idea. Wait actually that probably Jules. I don't think he and Wooton hung out. Nevermind.

Is that a real book or a From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler reference?

L-o-o-s-e-r OK but is that not how that's spelled?

Sports. Buck trusts sports people.

It makes so much sense that they live in an apartment but it's not what I was imagining last episode.

Katrina in head: be cool. Be cool. Don't blow this

This feels kinda unfair. Just because he's a good kid doesn't change the reason you said no.

He coached football, yes he knows the names, he's a geek, he memorized the playbook before getting on the feild.

Is Michah going to be a spoil sport and throw Buck the cold shoulder or will take the straight and narrow and walk after the foot steps of our lord? Find out next week! Same Od-time! Same Od-station!

This better be worth being a three parter. I'm already a bit in its favor because I like the slice of life stuff. We'll see. Who's been working on this storyline? Kathy?

Yep.

[intertexts-moving]

still thinking abt what happens next. its such a good dissection of blame + morality+ perpetuation of cruel cycles. however i have to admit i don't particularly subscribe to the main body of commentators ' "everyone is scheming and has awful intention" take. i mean. hanlon's razor.-- milo obviously dismembered a dead body. which frankly in no world sounds better than saying he killed her. like, he is obviously culpable of that + incapable of processing that culpability but it's jarring to see everyone immediately locking onto gage as some kind of evil and actively manipulating from the start mastermind. they seem pretty obviously to me to be a preexisting Type Of Guy: isolated, miserable, (obsessive) parasocial relationship w/ people who Do, in fact, Exist, and aren't fake characters in a story (haha). his treatment of milo seems way more in line w/ that kind of "genuinely ignorant of how normal friendships and relationships work" than "secretly plotting your demise "-- the weed & crossbow thing read as familiar to me. pressuring, yes, but not actively so. thats just like... the way people are? the way u act when you're kind of awkwardly acquaintances/frienfs w someone and u invite them 2 partake in ur hobbies. just sucks that gage's hobbies are literally only stalking murderers + getting high w the nastiest bong u havr ever seen + shooting white monster cans in the woods with a crossbow. the effect is negative, obviously, because milo is a fucking basket case on a ton of medications with a criminal record for sawing off a girl's arms and the looming threat of inpatient if he doesnt behave over his head. not downplaying the other thing btw that's in a different category imo & while the kiss itself wasnt inherently a Bad Thing to Do imo their reaction & justification absolutely was.. still kind of weird 2 me that it appears like there's a bigger sympathy for claire (dealt with the trauma by becoming a transphobic turning point usa girlie who uses her sister's notoriety to advocate for punishing minors in the justice system even worse & treating her gf like shit) than gage (obviously fucked in the head minimum wage worker with no bar for what a normal interaction or relationship looks like at all.) OR vikki (trans woman of color whos career! is to stir up shit! even if she was kind of a cunt!) anyway the milo / claire parallels are baller i love when people fucking hate each other but are so similar... girl its been nine years stop sticking your fingers in your own bloody wounds stop it stop it stop it! when will u stop reliving the trauma ever day for its own sake. (claire's self harming actions here are obviously infinitely worse because she is like,,, Actively Hurting So Many People. and for what! so she can wear awful dresses and get hit on by oily white senators and drag the bleeding dead weight of her sisters body around everywhere she goes?) ahhh what ever. good book i have to pack now.

[doyouevenshipbr0]

10 strongest earthbenders

i did this with waterbenders a little while ago and while i dont feel AS passionately about earthbending as i do waterbending, i still wanna give my thoughts bc i love atla and i love yapping duhhhh

rules: not including avatars and not including anything from yangchen or kiyoshi (havent read those) and honestlyyyyyy i cant think of a character from the comics in general that would make this list but im not gonna include ppl we meet in the comics either bc to be so honest 1 i havent read the lok comics and 2 i have only read the atla comics once and i read them as they came out so it was years ago. STRICTLY GOING OFF THE SHOWS!

realizing i def shouldve made this list right after my most recent lok rewatch (its been a couple months atp)

ANYWAYS lets go

honorable mentions: tbh the only one i wanna say here is the dai li. they probably could be like number 8/9 but idrk how to rank a whole group of ppl? but the way they use earthbending is super cool. in general, im realizing there are not nearly as many overwhelming earthbending forces as there are in waterbending? so this list starts a little shaky.

10. xin fu/master yu- so like. not sure what to say/how i would even differentiate. they are both masters. duh. we didn’t see much of them but we know they are easily outclassed by the rest of this list soooo… sorry! moving on

9. general fong- alright u might be wondering “who is this” so its the guy in the episode where they try to force aang into the avatar state in the beginning of book 2 to try and make him fight the firelord sooner. literally nothing of interest to note EXCEPT when he does that super baller move where he makes katara sink into the earth?!?!!?!?! logistically i dont think this makes much sense bc how tf did she not get crushed and i think this method would make earthbending kinda super broken lmfao so they literally only ever used it this one time (from what i remember) but it is suchhhh a cool move and it is SCARY! so props to this guy for being the only earthbender we see do this super sick move!

8. wei and wing- HEAR ME OUT!!!!!! they are soooo much more useful than u remember them being. they always are holding their own with their mom and aunt and all the other amazing earthbenders around them. theyre nothing super spectacular and are not given much time to shine since theyre such minor characters, but if u pay attention to the screen time they do have, they are really really good. the fact that they can earthbend so easily alongside their mom and keep up with her is really all u need to know. they WILL pull up!!!!!!!

7. bolin- so like. its tricky right bc he is THEE earth bender in the legend of korra but honestly he really is not THAT great. obviously he is great and that’s why he makes this list but yknow what i mean. he has lavabending!!!!!! which is super sick. he also has tonsssss of raw strength and agility which is probably his biggest strength. but honestly i think what keeps him low is his lack of skill, finesse, and honestly meaningful fight scenes that go in his favor. feels like his character maybe suffers from a littttttle bit of being sidelined bending wise bc he was SUCH the comedic relief. its almost like the writers didnt have time to make him a super fleshed out earthbender because they were too busy trying to make him funny?? idk im rambling but bolin is just a tricky one. still amazing! just not as amazing as the rest of the list.

6. lin- dont fight me istg. i can FULLY admit that my biases are coming into play here but im still gonna defend my point. here are the facts: i kind of cant stand lin and i LOVE su yin. i do understand that realistically, the fact that lin is the chief of police and has dedicated pretty much her entire life to it would make her crazy strong, and it does! shes the chief of republic city police for a reason. she has a fuck ton of combat experience which helps her to be as strong as she is. i just cannot, in good faith, have her any higher. from what i have seen from numbers 5-1, they seem better than lin.

5. su yin- ah su yin. i love su yin. and if im being logical, lin would be a stronger earthbender because she has (from what we know) farrrrrrrrrrr more direct combat experience. but if im being honest, when i look at them earthbend, su yin’s earthbending looks better. its more interesting, she looks like she uses more skill, shes more creative, she seems more resourceful, and she seems more adaptable as well. she killed p’li!!! also she was kicking lin’s ass in their 1 v 1 but it feels wrong to count that bc lin was like on her deathbed lmfao. still, although lin seems like she has more experience and probably a greater battle IQ, su yin just seems better. maybe its the bias! (it def is)

4. ghazan- lava bending. he is the best at it. just everyone in the red lotus is scary strong. i rly dont need to tell u why he’s this high. it is so obvious.

3. bumi- mf took back omashu all by himselffffff. i feel like bumi is by far the earthbender we see across both shows that has the most raw strength. hes also wise and shit!!! absolute beast. i know a handful of people think hes number 1, and i know MOST people think hes at least number 2, but he’s just not in my opinion. obviously still one of the best of the best.

2. kuvira- i just. wow. i feel like on my most recent rewatch i realllllyyyyyy saw how EXCELLENT of an earthbender she is. like ok first of all yes she was the villain of this season so she was definitely going to be strong but she is literally just beating the shit out of everyone for the entire season. like no one, not even korra until the last couple eps, can even compete on the same playing field. (i know korra was dealing with a lot of personal beef but STILL). the amount of skill and precision and effectiveness she has is the best we see in earthbending in legend of korra. she genuinely seems like she isnt even giving it her all in most of her fights and she is still just mopping the floor with everyone. she was a dictator for a reason ok like who is beating my girl?!?!?!? (other than thee mother of all of earthbending ofc).

1. toph- i mean. i dont want to even explain. no earthbender has a better connection, understanding, and natural ability with earth like toph. her bending is an extension of herself to the very fullest. invented metalbending. cultivated metalbending into the martial art it is today. was (kind of) a self taught master by 12. and the stuff that she DID learn she learned when she was practically a toddler from the original benders, the badger moles. i feel like some people try to argue her spot bc she isnt always as flashy as other earthbenders (bumi, ghazan, kuvira) but she is by FAR the most effective. and not just in a day to day basis, but in fights too. hence why shes the strongest. i dont think many would argue this position but yeah. GOAT.

[crystallizedday]

You know

Fusionfall’s universe is actually kinda flexible when it comes to what different types of games you could theoretically make for it.

I know that sounds weird, but like

Imagine Fusionfall but as like a sort of

Chao garden style game where you’re assigned by Dexter during the war effort to take care of nanos that are left at the nano stations

Basically just as a way to keep them stimulated & prepared for battle when the time is right.

Like

You have all these different virtual environments & snacks & doohickeys to make very specific nano happy

Like maybe you can give a bone to a Courage nano to keep him content, or give a Bubbles nano a stuffed animal to play with.

Obviously, not all these nanos are gonna act like lil bbies since you’ll have like

Maybe Dexter & Mandark’s nanos just wanting to keep themselves stimulated with work or puzzles

Or maybe do very specific activities with them like helping them train for battle or just chilling out with em.

& if you do a good enough job, Dexlabs allows you to create your own nano as a permanent companion to help you tend to the other nanos, & THIS nano will follow you around.

I like to think your relationship with your companion nano influences its behaviors around you & the other nanos

Like if you treat them & play with them & keep them fed, they’ll wanna stick by your side.

But if you neglect them, they’ll either keep their distance or wander off.

Y’all know me. I would LOVE to have a Demongo nano as my lil companion, feeding him lil snacks & giving him all the affection he deserves…

The idea made me draw these shitty doodles on my phone one day & I love them so much OWMWOSMSODM

Bro can float, but he still wants uppies just cause KANAOSMOSMXOSMX

I love him so much…

… but uh

This post isn’t JUST to pitch a chao garden style fangame.

Cause like I said

Fusionfall’s universe is HUGE

& you could make a variety of different games out of it.

For instance

Ya know how the Book of Bill has people binging GF recently

& some fans are re-experiencing the silly lil Grunkle dating sim made forever ago?

…

Don’t judge me, cause I know some of you would LOVE that idea.

Obviously, the selection of who you could grow closer to would be kinda small since well

Most of the cast are teenagers, & I ain’t about that…

The Ace situation in the og game still pisses me off, & I’m so glad Retro retconned the shit out of it…

But you still have very notable characters like

Ya know

Professor Utonium, Him, Father, Mojo, Demongo, Hoss Delgado, Grim, Grandpa Max, Demongo, Samurai Jack, Vilgax, the Scotsman, Demongo

Look

I may be biased, but it’s at LEAST for a good reason, cause bro is like one of the VERY FEW VILLAINS I’ve seen where a redemption arc could GENUINELY work & feel SATISFYING with how he’s written in Fusionfall!

& I’m JUST saying

It would be REALLY sweet to see that unfold & YOU be the one to help him get to that point, ya know??

It may be incredibly self serving, but come on. I just wanna see this man be genuinely happy for once in his life KAKWOSNSODMDOCMDOFK

But ya get what I mean now though, right???

With such a huge crossover of characters in a universe where everyone just

Coexists with each other

& their backgrounds & history have been most likely altered in ORDER to co-exist,

You get this EXTREMELY unique universe that stands out from ANYTHING that’s EVER been done by Cartoon Network, let alone other big companies.

& regardless of if you factor in the fusion war into the story or not

You can create some BALLER content using this universe as a template.

& I’d LOVE to see how creative people can get with it!

Also

If any of y’all seeing this have any cute lil hypothetical fangame ideas of your own

I wanna hear em!!

[ilikereadingactually]

The Imperial Radch Trilogy

hoooo boy, do my mismatched covers annoy me! so much that i ordered lightly used copies of each book with its other cover also, and will soon have a full set of each, because i am one of those people.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

picking up a book that's as exquisitely written as this is like slipping into a warm bath. like i can just relax, because i'm in skilled hands. the amount of trust that precise, compelling prose can win from me in just a few pages is astonishing, and has rarely been misplaced.

and this is one that requires a little bit of trust! like many of my favorite speculative books, there's no soulless infodumping about the world here--background is given when it fits and serves the narrative, and otherwise you learn the world by experience. through the distinct and fascinating experience of Breq, in fact, who used to be the AI of a military spaceship with many ancillary bodies (human bodies that house its consciousness and crew the ship) and now exists as only one lone ancillary on a revenge mission. i love Breq's very specific and unusual perspective; i love jumping back and forth in time to see the past and the present and wonder how they're going to collide; i love weird space politics and religion and the exploration of emotion as a part of sentience. also!! i love many of the side characters!! Breq is really the focus, but everyone else who enters the story, even briefly, is clear and interesting, and some of them made me cry.

and i love the way gender is presented in this book SO MUCH. Breq comes from a society that doesn't distinguish gender, and uses "she" as the default pronoun, which i already love. and the book doesn't give many clear visual descriptions of anyone--so we're fully inside that perspective. Breq does take some notice of class, through accents and clothing, but just isn't at all concerned with markers of gender, and actively has difficulty identifying gender in other languages and cultures she encounters. i think this takes a lot of skill to write, and it's frankly baller to read.

also! i fucking love that the standard of not only beauty but high class and privilege in this society is dark skin!!!!!!!! dark is fashionable! dark is aristocratic!! i mean im never gonna be like "this fantasy imperialist classism is actually the good kind" because that's missing the whole point of the books, but it's so REFRESHING to visualize.

a line i really liked: AI to AI communication

"You still had your ancillaries," said Mercy of Kalr. "Yes." "I like my soldiers, but I miss having ancillaries." That reminded me. "They aren't doing maintenance as they should. The hinges on the airlock door were very sticky." "I'm sorry." "It doesn't matter now," I said, and it struck me that something similar might have delayed Anaander Mianaai's attempts to open the lock on her side. "But you'll want to have your officers get after them."

books 2 and 3 under the cut!

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

LOVE a second book in a series that delights me just as much as the first but in new and different ways!! Leckie's prose is still gorgeous, that's a given. but this book, as with many good speculative series, heightens the stakes and broadens the world. where the first book was a somewhat more intimate story about a few connected characters and the pursuit of a personal goal, the second book brings in more complex political intrigue, addresses more widespread injustices, and introduces an array of excellent new characters. the first book held on to its tension by moving back and forth in time; this book takes advantage of the wider spread and Breq's particular kind of perception to tell multiple stories happening simultaneously, through glimpses at what other characters are doing "offscreen." it's a fantastic tactic!!

it's also clearer in this book how unreliable Breq's narration is, specifically about her own state of being. she thinks of herself as not human, and so as less important--she doesn't take the time to narrate or even notice her own physical state or emotional needs until she's totally overwhelmed, at which point we start to get little flashes of what everyone around her sees: a person of incredible kindness and integrity and intelligence, beloved by those under her care. there's a specific kind of intimacy between characters in these books that fascinates me, i love every acts of service bitch in this bar.

a line i really liked: why is every book series i love actually about grief

"Citizen, I am in mourning." I had not had time to clean the white stripe off my face for the night. And she could not possibly have forgotten the reason for it. "But surely, Fleet Captain," she replied sweetly, "that's all for show." "It's always for show, Citizen. It is entirely possible to grieve with no outward sign. These things are meant to let others know about it."

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

wow. ok. so. i drafted the section on Ancillary Justice above after finishing just that book; wrote the section on Ancillary Sword after reading all three books and listening to the first two audiobooks; here i am to write about Ancillary Mercy after reading the series once and listening to all the audiobooks twice. so...my descent into obsession will be palpable.

i'm actually a little mad that i didn't have these books on my radar before, but i was deeply embedded in the children's lit world at the time they were coming out, and maybe would not have enjoyed them as much as i did. which is something i loved in this series--the persistent idea that people not only change over time, but that in each moment, all the choices you have made up to that moment have created you specifically, and if you had made different choices, you would be a different person. i'm not the person i was then, five years out of grad school, busting my ass for $10/hour in children's bookstores, reading mostly middle grade because middle grade reliably is not romantic and i did not yet know i was aroace. so, overall, i'm grateful these books have come to me now (thanks to my best friend, who sent me Ancillary Justice for my birthday and kept telling me i would love it).

but let me talk a little about this third book in particular. once again, the stakes are incrementally raised: threats that were at a little distance before finally arrive in a bigger way, or come back again after a tense reprieve; the question of who is a person, what a "person" even is, becomes both more muddied and more crucial than ever. through it all, Breq continues to move doggedly forward with stubborn compassion for everyone but herself, keeps throwing herself in front of danger, and makes a more enormous impact on the world around her than i ever expected. this book is like everything i ever loved about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (the best Trek don't come at me) but with oodles more gender fuckery.

it's also the really beautiful culmination of my other favorite theme of these books: that you can't know what effects your choices will have, and maybe you'll never know, but the chain of those effects will go farther than you imagine. it's so wild, on a second and third read, to see both the ripples of ruthless and self-centered choices, and the ripples of choices that come from an ethic of care. Even inside a terrible, imperialist system doing terrible, imperialist things, a single compassionate person persistently doing what she feels is right can change the course of someone else's life, and in doing so change the course of the universe.

a line i really liked: everything happening here is a blessing

"Thank all the gods," said Sphene. "I was afraid you were going to suggest we sing that song about the thousand eggs." "A thousand eggs all nice and warm," I sang. "Crack, crack, crack, a little chick is born. Peep peep peep peep! Peep peep peep peep!" "Why, Fleet Captain," Translator Zeiat exclaimed, "that's a charming song! Why haven't I heard you sing it before now?" I took a breath. "Nine hundred ninety-nine eggs all nice and warm..." "Crack, crack, crack," Translator Zeiat joined me, her voice a bit breathy but otherwise quite pleasant, "a little chick is born. Peep peep peep peep! What fun! Are there more verses?" "Nine hundred and ninety-eight of them, Translator," I said. "We're not cousins anymore," said Sphene.

the combo deets

how i read them: i read the first as a physical book (thanks B <3), started the second as an ebook, happened to be at a bookstore and picked up the second and third, and so read them all physical in the end. also, highly rec the audiobooks!! i don't know how they'd go as a first read, but they're extremely fun as a reread. lots of great accents and really interesting tonal choices.

try these if you: dig hard SF and examinations of artificial intelligence and personhood, are weak for self-sacrificing main characters, want that sweet aspec rep, or fuck with gender! or, and this may sound weird, love people bonding with dragons in your fantasy books--there are a lot of relationships here that feel similar to me.

maybe not for you if: you really need to avoid depression/suicidality, drug addiction, or genocide in stories. none of these things are here in a degree that i found too difficult to handle, but i like an uncomfortable read, so ymmv.

i'm reading Provenance, the next book set in this universe, right now! so more Imperial Radch reviews to come.

[wandringaesthetic]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love❤

The Dark Blade - this is a fic about my headcanons regarding FFIV Dark Knights and is a little window into Kain and Cecil's youths. It also serves as a preview for my larger FFIV fic novelization

Servant and Served - this is IMO the best writing I've done in a fic. I set out to do something. I did it well IMO, and I made up some cool stuff to flesh out the universe and used some cool turns of phrase on the way. Unfortunately, it's for a tiny fandom (Jupiter Ascending) and not even the most popular characters or pairing in that fandom

Reassurance - Trephacard OT3, aftermath of trauma, blood-drinking. It's sweet, I swear. This is my most kudos'd fic and while that's mostly because of timing (I dashed it off directly after Castlevania season 3 in a fit of high spirits), it's pretty good and serves as opening for a longer piece that is these 3 idiots having feelings in a castle. I would have to turn it into my own personal rewrite of season 4 if I continued it, but idk maybe I will one day

Four Things That Didn't Happen on the Day of Guts' Departure (and one that did) : this is an exploration of imo every possible outcome of Guts' and Griffith's duel on the hill, a moment which fascinates me because IMO it's the last time Griffith had a real choice in what happens. One is self-indulgent, one is bittersweet, and in the others I murder them. Berserk is, as always, its own content warning.

Sing the Azures : I wrote this for an Animorphs big bang and it has the slightly depressing honor of being the longest piece I've ever finished. It is an AU regarding The Ellimist/Toomin, so it is WAY OUT IN THE WEEDS of Animorphs fandom, which is already a bit in the weeds. If you haven't read Animorphs and want to read this, you could just read The Ellimist Chronicles and get it 100%. Or not read anything and get it 90%. Also, the title is baller and from a beautiful passage from the book.

[ramshacklefey]

Oh yes, and in general, these books are an excellent example of "if your characters act like the world is normal, the audience is probably just gonna roll with it."

There's a lot to be said about how/why to make that work, but it mostly boils down to, "Is this something the average reader of this genre is familiar with?" and/or "Is it similar enough to real-world concepts that they'll get the point?"

Governor Module... Hm don't know that one, but 1) it was hacked, so it must be a computer thing and 2) its purpose is pretty obvious from the name and what the character said it can do once it's hacked.

The feed? That's a new word, but okay, it says "entertainment feed" and you can watch shows and stuff with it. That sounds like a kind of internet thing, I know how internet thing works.

Streaming media at work? Everyone knows this! Oh, we can stream media directly in our brains here? Baller.

Giant sand worm? Everyone knows giant sand worm!

There's that feed thing again. Oh we can also send messages using it! Definitely an internet thing.

Laser guns? We fuck with laser guns. Laser guns in arms? Gotcha, character is either a robot or a cyborg, let's keep reading and find out which.

Hopper? New word but obviously a flying vehicle based on what they're doing with it.

Etc.

And really, we see this all over in fantasy and science fiction writing!

Star Trek didn't get around to explaining how warp drive works until TNG, but it's clear from the beginning that it's how spaceships go fast (and remember, this was a pretty new idea at the time).

Teleporter? Ok we've seen stuff where people disappear from one place and reappear somewhere else, now we have a device that does it.

Light saber? No idea how that works, but I know sword and I know light and it's glowing so ok cool.

If something is really new and really strange and really important to the plot, you can go back and give more explanation later. But you can get a loooong way by just. Showing characters using and interacting with things to explain what they are and how they work.

And if you really do need to explain something, a couple sentences will often do, and we can discover more about it as the story goes on.

Jedi?? No idea, but everyone knows knights. Yep and these are good knights, got it. Ohhh, there are evil knights too.

The force? Oh, it gives these Jedi people "powers," so like. Makes them superheroes or wizards. Some kinda magic field. That's neat!

Ah ok, this Darth Vader guy is one of the magic knights. Oh shit he just choked a dude out from across the room! So that's one of the "powers" the Jedi have.

(Martha Wells takes this to an extreme, but also by almost never explaining exactly how anything works, she leaves herself open to just go, "Oh yeah it does this too, but it can't do that" later on in the story.)

An important writing lesson I'm taking away from Murderbot is that you don't always have to ease your readers into the world and the characters and speculative concepts. Sometimes you can just start with the fun part where there's a sandworm trying to eat someone and that's fine too.

[rumastokevyre]

The truth is

This and this of this is the army knife Swiss missing riechers Mateo beaten down ball hogs

And the the Louis ville thuggers anthem didn’t show up for the gala and the balls of the tor startups aren’t taken any names and aren’t purchases and caskets

The troops just dig the holes then fill the holes with the corpses and stack the jet fuel in there and light it with whatever religious literature they can get their hands on over there

Tall tails and twin peaks and leave her in loose leafs and lay paper and stake it out, fet a new stater, say her old prayer

Call up her soul’s Frayer I mean the holy Fayrn. Break the shoals fair up

Can’t refuse the study of the liar old painted up half old school half twenty three classic can’t believe you can fly either last minute Hail Mary Layup.

Can’t reduce pay cuts

Can’t seduce saint rumas

Can’t reproduce the same star dust

Or the gusto of angered angels hanging up their hair nets to dry out in the last link skies of the Armageddon of tomorrow

Best get your blackest black on black in Taylor’s chuckles long socks for filing files of Brandon’s handgun don’t get cold like that it’s anondized. His dick is made or ferrilium. It’s a desolate place of miners where the minors trade stoked stones of fed ice Fyre slag to get the oushiest bitch in the pit to put them out of their misery with a little grotesque baller rambling propaganda gang fandom only fans gang damn dang double dog damn dancing ding ding gang gang gandland the only gang they got in Louis is Vitton and cargos got the ballist taking the bealingschifteds to the gunners freedom hoisting.

But let’s be real here

What’s the goddamn damn dang helium healed us right up chilled is to the damn double dog damnit man double down dubbed it up didn’t get enough of this dick to know if the nuts are attached or not but you want me in tits and showing my cock to everyone like when I was in heroin.

No goddamnit. I just love you however you wanna goddamn double dog dang be damnit

Don’t do it

Don’t you dare shoot it

That’s my prized possession there

At the bottom of that tree three free of the one in the painters clothes forever now

Together we go to history books

And the Bible doesn’t respect us at all now because we broke all its rules so we just do anything else now to say it isn’t that bad like threesomes and foursomes and we nasty infront of the sons and daughters. And they get nasty

And they invite annihilating upon themselves

They ignite degradation and poison their own well

She isn’t pure either she likes him as a transvestite. M

Well transvestite is kinda a shitty word even if it is factual and that’s not what she said.

She said your dick is beautiful but I think you’re beyond it

I don’t kind your little belly but I love you long smooth legs. And I don’t kind your shaggy beard in fact I want it their where I have made myself hairless for only only only once maybe baby? Only my days are number like pages in the okay book of the erasers way to Macon and you got a new man named babe anthem

Actually his name is Banner Anthem Reign.

They just released that information it’s fresh and hot of the presses

Get your latest and greatest here

Get you new bartender in the rear of it.

Nope we kill people who advertise sex of others now

Good they deserve it.

I actually just don’t want anyone but him and am trying to figure out what he likes and if I can do him with someone else. I want to because I think I can do anything for him and still love him.

But his titties on his girl version are so goddamn pretty.

This is how it goes for us

Sending and the I’ll come back to edit.

[sapphirecrook]

Having run a session of Slugblasters, I can safely say it lives up to the hype. It's a game conscious of itself and its theme and hams it up with some good dev commentary/sidebars instead of trying to be a dry ass heap of lies.

Like, I still love this shit from Ironclaw, it's top tier "we know what you're doing" and it shows you care.

Although Ironclaw 3e better get out of that shitty rut it's clearly unhappy with an adopt more of Urban Jungle's mindset. Because that D&D mechanical flair ain't working. The setting needs support for overly dramatic systems and political intrigue hooha it so clearly daydreams of.

Overconfidence is a really good sign of what the system can be if it just goes there already instead of having several pages of weapon tables or 3 Gifts that are Just Weapon Finesse for different Traits.

Like, I get it, ironclaw 1e is a different beast from a different time, and Ironclaw 1e? Kinda fucking baller. It's daring, it's bold. But 2e has a shift I want to see continued. Preferably with an actual editor and a guy who helps with keywording shit and a glossary cuz, oof.

OOF.

I didn't write Ironclaw into my own person SRD cuz the core book's good. (the 2021 update added bookmarks to the PDF at least)

Anyway, Slugblaster is great. Give it a go. It has fillable PDFs for all the things and done in a good way like we're actually living in the 2020s, even if I don't mind the project of making my own Google Sheets version.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 How You Get the Girl Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD If you could get a tattoo today, what would you get (and what's the meaning behind it)? ❓

[ Find my review below. ]

🦇 While coaching East Nashville High's girl's basketball teen, Coach Julie Parker expects passionate players and quick springs; not for the star of her fantasies, ex-WNBA baller Elle F*CKING Cochrane, to show up with the niece she's fostering. Despite being all heart-eyed and tongue-tied, Julie convinces Elle to become her assistant coach, allowing Elle to keep an eye on her niece. Neither expects sparks to fly along with basketballs shooting across the court, even as Elle helps Julie navigate the unfamiliar terrain of dating. Will they continue sitting on the sidelines of their own lives, or finally take a shot?

💜 Dear Anita Kelly. Thank you. Thank you for a story about two beautifully, vulnerably queer women who are so real and authentic and layered. What easily could have been a trope-filled sapphic sports romance is instead a stunning exploration of identity, mental health, and personal growth. Bear with me, bookish bats, as I try to find my words. This story started with Julie's megawatt heart-eyed celebrity crush and a little forced proximity, but it became so much more. Between her queer twin and best friend, Julie always thought she was a little behind in defining her queerness, but there's no timeline, no deadline. She always struggled to find her label, her place (only to realize they're just...whatever!), and it's not until Elle steps into her life and throws her out of her comfort zone that Julie gets the chance to grow into herself. I also adored that Jules couldn't fully pick one label ("15 percent general queer, 10 percent lesbian stereotype. 20 percent ace, 55 percent dumbass.") because identity is in fact a spectrum. She does mention the possibility of being demisexual at one point, which my gf identifies as, and honestly...I don't think I've ever seen a character recognize that as an option before. To say it brought tears to my eyes is an understatement.

💜 In a way, Elle has been stuck in a comfort zone, too, until she starts fostering her niece and coaching alongside Jules. Elle is so patient with Jules, so willing to step back and give Jules the chance to process her own thoughts, recognize her own needs. There's a give and take to their relationship--when one falters, the other steps in to help them find their balance again. There are so many layers to this story--"There's this idea embedded into our culture of getting over things," "Maybe all love is a surprise, followed by practice," "You can be happy and still feel like you don't really know what you're doing."--so much to appreciate in the little lessons these women learned. Together. (If we're keeping track, I cried three times while reading this book: when seeing "demi," at the news clipping, and during Jule's speech. I need more tissues now, thank you.)

💙 There is one topic I wish received a little more attention, namely because it isn't discussed often enough. Elle meets with the school's weights guy, who assumes all the players on the team are girls: "the ingrained hierarchy and immovable binary of most sports." Elle and Julie made a "space for any player who wanted to put in the work, regardless of their identity." Kelly mentions fighting for equality in sports within her acknowledgments, but I do wish we'd seen a little of that fight as a source of conflict within the book.

💙 The story is a bit slow at the beginning, but once it finds its momentum, it GOES. I will say I wasn't aware this was a duology when I grabbed this ARC, but the references to the previous story weren't so heavy that you can't enjoy this one as a stand-alone.

🦇 Recommended to all readers, whether you're looking for a sports romance, sapphic romance, or simply a good book with lots of mental health love. This one is going to stay with me for a long while.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🌈 Sapphic Ship - Lesbian/Demi 💞 Fake/Practice Dating 🏀 Sports / Workplace / Forced Prox Romance 🏆 Mental Health Rep 📚 Part of the Nashville Series 🏆 Contemporary Romance 🏀 Dual POV 💞 Smut 🌈 Queer Main & Side Cast

🦇 Major thanks to the author @anitakellywrites and publisher @readforeverpub for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

💬 Quotes

❝ Any relationship that’s worthwhile, whether it’s friendship or romantic or sexual, only really works when you try. ❞

❝ But that when it came to identity, when it came to queerness, the whole point was that there were no tryouts. If you were even thinking about it, you were already on the team. That labels weren’t meant to confine, only to bring comfort to those for whom they were useful. That Julie didn’t need to ascribe to any of them, if she didn’t want to. ❞

❝ “You’re not behind on anything...There’s nothing, and no one, you have to track your own life by.” ❞

❝ Maybe all love was a surprise, followed by practice. A step out of comfort zones, followed by hard work. Lurking in all the places you didn’t expect, places that become a forever part of you. ❞

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

*checks the author*

So a short-story only type of deal... Those are usually talentless hacks from my experience with the Heresy Omnibus Volumes. Like, don't get me wrong, short stories as a concept can totally slap, but they are so, so, so much harder to get right.

Short story done by an author who also got full-lenght releases in the Heresy? High chance to be an absolute baller, you will have a great time - and if not, quality will still be fine and it will not overstay its welcome. Author you only see pop up for a short story and then never again? Good chance it will be a slog to get through and just ruin your reading pace by killing your motivation to even open the book.

So yeah, probably going to skip that one - currently busy with starting Vulcan Lives anyways...

Do not read Longshot, it has the nasty Tau @askrobouteguilliman40k talked about it.

What the hell is a "Longshot"?

[holytrohmanempire]

Oh! Oh! I volunteer! What's your all time favorite vampire media and do you have links?

Thank you anon I'm so delighted you took the bait!

It is with deep bemusement and slight dismay that I inform you and the world at large that the best vampire story I have ever read is called "temperance" and reader, "temperance" is an NSYNC fanfiction.

Yeah you read that right this is a fanfiction about the men in the boyband nsync (and the backstreet boys, and elvis' manager? for some reason?????) and it's 64,000 words long with two short sequels and listen. I don't want this to be the best piece of vampire media ever any more than you do. But my god, it is. The vampire rules are well thought out. The world is built richly but without Dune-style infodumps - you just learn to understand what the universe is like so organically as the story progresses. The romance is sweet, the debate regarding the souls of vampires is explored thoughtfully. The prose is beautiful and it's easy to sink your teeth into. It's equal parts beautiful and horrifying, the way vampire media should be, but the beauty is of a southern gothic cottagecore nature and the horror is feral and toothsome, as opposed to the genteel nature of most vampire stories. I genuinely believe you don't have to give a shit about NSYNC to enjoy it, either. Cannot sing its praises enough - link to the first story is here: http://www.nopseud.org/nsa/fic/temperance.html

My second fave piece of vampire media is the Carmilla webseries. Picture it: the year is 2014 and you have come to terms with being a bit of a lesbian and someone takes The sapphic vampire story of all time and turns it into a college au romcom (ft some gorgeous leads, by the way.) Laura only drinks from a tardis mug. Carmilla eats cereal with blood in it. Black cat/golden retriever dynamics. It made my cry. The theme song ("Love Will Have Its Sacrifices") is baller and I've put it on every playlist for THWTH I've ever made. I have, to be fair, only finished season one, but god, I fucking love Carmilla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uPd3g5wi1A

My third fave piece of vampire media is a little more traditional and it is the book "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown" by Holly Black. Holly Black as in author of grimdark fae novels for teenagers, yes. "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown" is excellent and on my list because it is, in spite of being written for teens, probably the sexiest piece of vampire fiction I have ever read. Gavriel is such a hot lead and we finally get an author unafraid to make the blood drinking sexy as well as gory and alarming. 10/10 would recommend this book to literally anyone, and it has shockingly good trans rep for being released in like 2013: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-coldest-girl-in-coldtown-holly-black/110465?ean=9780316213097

Lastly, I think the Fright Night remake from 2011 is amazing. Like, look. I know it's not "good" as in well-written or anything, but like. It's funny, it's sexy, they play into the ridiculousness. I fully believe Fright Night walked so that Renfield could run. It's star studded for literally no reason. The CGI is terrible. The vampires are ridiculous. The soundtrack to this one is also way better than it had any right to be. It comes in fourth because it is kind of sexist and I think we should have had more characters fully soaked in blood a la Evil Dead Rise, but c'est la vie. Please please please note that I do mean the 2011 remake the one from the 80s was, like, fine, but the 2011 one was camp: https://letterboxd.com/film/fright-night-2011/

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 10/11/22

in which i read a book but completely fail to discuss it

listening Bloody! Bloody! by Junie & TheHutfriends. self-described indie pop, incredibly fun chorus! the same sort of frantic plinky..banjo? undertones that i liked so much in my absolute favorite song of hers, The Consequence of Imagination Is Fear.

very good spooky halloween song. i truly do love this band so much for how fucking Weird it is.

And you’re driving with your hands, not believing all the bleeding, and they’re calling you- Bloody! And the knife sits gleaming in the red back seating, and they’re calling you- Bloody! And they’re all still screaming in your head, and their lips dead, calling you- Bloody!

there are a couple creatives where i'm like "yes i WOULD like a new Frog Detective/twine novel/something every year, where i have a marvelous time for forty minutes and it's a little self-contained experience". this band goes in the same brain bucket, bc it feels like it is as much an excuse to collage and make felt puppets as it is to release a new single once every few months. now i am projecting bc i do not know this lady or her process, but i would like more people to be able to make art where i the art enjoyer get a little thing every once in a while, without the artist feeling the crushing need to be a professional artist hitting it big in order to make the art and any sort of living also.

-

reading The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick.

i had to think really fucking hard about if i wanted to talk about this book, bc like a lot of older scifi it critiques the problems of its time but is also very much a product of its time. and i then i remembered that i'm going to do what i want forever until i die :) and then i didn't really have time to even discuss this book much at all :)

let's yoink the description straight off wiki

The Man in the High Castle (1962), by Philip K. Dick, is an alternative history novel wherein the Axis Powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the political intrigues between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany as they rule the partitioned United States. The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is a novel-within-the-novel which is an alternative history of the war in which the Allies defeat the Axis.

i do enjoy how scifi, especially older scifi, often refuses to resolve neatly or at all. this one left me unsettled. this is not a bad thing! it is unsettled in a way that is un-fan-ficcable. it is unsettled in a way that even though Philip K. Dick planned a sequel, he couldn't bring himself to write one bc the research for this book was so depressing. i do think i gotta let this one percolate in the back of my brain a bit, bc i don't have any useful thoughts aside from "wow yeah this series of events is totally plausible and plays out in a very 'yup i can see that happening' way". this entry is more setting down a marker to myself that i can in fact read full length books. maybe even do it again

how did i find it: this entry came about through a perfect confluence of events: i read this all in one sitting (rare) after seeing it in a thrift store earlier that day (also rare) and thinking "this probably isn't a book i'll reread, does my library have it" (near-miraculous).

-

watching Ōtomo Katsuhiro, director of Akira, has done three...whatever the animated version of a book of short stories is. is it just an anthology also??? anyway i watched Memories (1995) back in july, adored it, half the soundtrack is on my regular roulette wheel of data entry music, and i finally looped back around and watched the other three anthologies he was part of this week.

didn't like them as much! it is eleven forty three pm as i write this so i will not be going into great detail. overall impressions only.

robot carnival (1987) i did not care for very much at all. i think it is the weakest overall of the four both in animation and in story. it did give me this baller screenshot.

neo tokyo (1987) absolutely off the fucking chain with animation flexes. stories overall were not as strong as memories (i am going to be thinking about the first short in memories until i die probably). i have never seen such a perfectly animated cat that nobody seems to have really giffed? unrelated in a different short, i have never seen fire animated like that and now all other animated fire looks wrong.

short peace (2013) i liked much more both on strength of animation and strength of storytelling. "possessions", wherein a wandering samurai takes shelter from a storm in a shrine to...discarded objects? charmed me the most.

-

playing Card Cowboy by a large assortment of people and published by Luckshot. available PWYW on itch and it's like three american bucks on steam. you're out seeking "Revenge against the Gunman who killed your dad, wooed your mom, and kicked your dog" in a procgen fashion gathering cards board-game-style to progress along a web of little location options. and the little opening animatic has the best royalty-free morricone i've ever heard

this is a very polished game with all the quality of life features and smooth art one expects from a card game. it wants to be a phone game really badly.

this is not a moral judgement or a dig at how fun it is, bc it's very fun, but the whole time i played it i thought about how much fun it would be to play on my phone.

at one point i had three bandits, a wife, a baby, a baby horse (the game did not call it a foal don't @ me), and a gold lasso. the next turn i got Blood Money from sending the foal off to compete in the rodeo.

the below is how i got a baby

the below is how i lost the baby

this game is very easy to tell stories about like "oh yeah did you get the blood money from sending the foal off to the rodeo???" which is always super fucking helpful in both game discovery and selling the damn thing. extremely streamable bc it is procgen. i hope it sells a billion copies.

-

making having a fancy bathroom makes me feel like a rich bitch so i got a new shower head. the shower head of course did not fix the abysmal water pressure in this house but it does have an additional detachable head so possibly i will actually clean my bathtub more often. got to use a big fuckoff pipe wrench to take the old showerhead off which was fun. other than recaulking the little escutcheon to the shower wall (annoying) this was a fairly quick and painless process. suspicious. shower head here except i did not spend seventy five dollars on it, that’s ludicrous, i found a new in box one on eBay for thirty bucks.

in other news, acquired the Perfect double breasted trench coat in the Perfect length, it’s got the belt, the wool lining is intact, it’s in decent shape except for the horrible stain on the front. so it’s at the dry cleaners to see if anything happens. the armscyes are just a hair too tight for me in a thin tshirt to lift my arms over shoulder height without looking stupid as fuck so i may find a tailor if i ever want to wear it with a sweater or something. i cannot stress enough how much it is the perfect cut and the perfect length for me. i am willing to invest some dollars in a good classic trench coat i will hopefully have for the next twenty years.