#listened to a few too

[moashdeservedbetter]

I'm at over 30, and the only reason why is because I discovered audiobooks, which I can listen to even when I'm completely stuck with vertigo and need to keep my eyes shut. Thank you to all authors and narrators and people who make audiobooks accessible to the world <3 Here's a few: Mistborn, Stormlight Archive, and Frugal Wizard's Handbook - so much love there, but also some big mixed feelings about some of the themes

The Binti Trilogy - I love these books so much. I love my protective and murderous alien jellyfish Okwu <3

The Count of Monte Cristo - <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Future Home of the Living God - !!!!!! oh my this book is stunnnnnning

The Immortal Soul Salvage Yard - (mental illness + poetry = <3)

Legendborn and almost all of Bloodmarked - I love Legendborn, I felt frustrated with Bloodmarked, it'll be interesting to see how the third goes

Wild New World - our dwindling biodiversity :'(

Howl's Moving Castle - !!!!! <3 <3 <3

A Snake Falls To Earth - so so so so sweet and beautiful

The Changling - AHHHHH. The kind of book I read and think, I could never write anything so beautiful but I'm so glad to have read it. Also haunting.

Twilight Territory - This book. It broke my heart. It was beautiful. I recommend it ten thousand times.

The Black Count - about Alexandre Dumas' father, Alex Dumas. This book is so good. It adds so much pathos to the Count of Monte Cristo, and just has so much compelling story and history in its own right.

Wings of Fire books - geared towards children in a way that everyone can love. I love them. They're lovely.

Also now reading the Realm of the Elderlings and it is my newest bestest comfort tragic heartthrob.

And no. Long fanfics don't count as books!

[modmad]

shout out to Scooby-Doo for raising several generations with the trope of 'they take off the mask and it's always the greedy rich white bastard who wanted even more fucking money' even if they get made fun of for it because at the end of the day? damn. it really always is some greedy rich white bastard who wants even more fucking money.

[whetstonefires]

You know what I realize that people underestimate with Pride & Prejudice is the strategic importance of Jane.

Because like, I recently saw Charlotte and Elizabeth contrasted as the former being pragmatic and the latter holding out for a love match, because she's younger and prettier and thinks she can afford it, and that is very much not what's happening.

The Charlotte take is correct, but the Elizabeth is all wrong. Lizzie doesn't insist on a love match. That's serendipitous and rather unexpected. She wants, exactly as Mr. Bennet says, someone she can respect. Contempt won't do. Mr. Bennet puts it in weirdly sexist terms like he's trying to avoid acknowledging what he did to himself by marrying a self-absorbed idiot, but it's still true. That's what Elizabeth is shooting for: a marriage that won't make her unhappy.

She's grown up watching how miserable her parents make one another; she's not willing to sign up for a lifetime of being bitter and lonely in her own home.

I think she is very aware, in refusing Mr. Collins, that it's reasonably unlikely that anyone she actually respects is going to want her, with her few accomplishments and her lack of property. That she is turning down security and the chance keep the house she grew up in, and all she gets in return may be spinsterhood.

But, crucially, she has absolute faith in Jane.

The bit about teaching Jane's daughters to embroider badly? That's a joke, but it's also a serious potential life plan. Jane is the best creature in the world, and a beauty; there's no chance at all she won't get married to someone worthwhile.

(Bingley mucks this up by breaking Jane's heart, but her prospects remain reasonable if their mother would lay off!)

And if Elizabeth can't replicate that feat, then there's also no doubt in her mind that Jane will let her live in her house as a dependent as long as she likes, and never let it be made shameful or awful to be that impoverished spinster aunt. It will be okay never to be married at all, because she has her sister, whom she trusts absolutely to succeed and to protect her.

And if something eventually happens to Jane's family and they can't keep her anymore, she can throw herself upon the mercy of the Gardeners, who have money and like her very much, and are likewise good people. She has a support network--not a perfect or impregnable one, but it exists. It gives her realistic options.

Spinsterhood was a very dangerous choice; there are reasons you would go to considerable lengths not to risk it.

But Elizabeth has Jane, and her pride, and an understanding of what marrying someone who will make you miserable costs.

That's part of the thesis of the book, I would say! Recurring Austen thought. How important it is not to marry someone who will make you, specifically, unhappy.

She would rather be a dependent of people she likes and trusts than of someone she doesn't, even if the latter is formally considered more secure; she would rather live in a happy, reasonable household as an extra than be the mistress of her own home, but that home is full of Mr. Collins and her mother.

This is a calculation she's making consciously! She's not counting on a better marriage coming along. She just feels the most likely bad outcome from refusing Mr. Collins is still much better than the certain outcome of accepting him. Which is being stuck with Mr. Collins forever.

Elizabeth is also being pragmatic. Austen also endorses her choice, for the person she is and the concerns she has. She's just picking different trade-offs than Charlotte.

Elizabeth's flaw is not in her own priorities; she doesn't make a reckless choice and get lucky. But in being unable to accept that Charlotte's are different, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Charlotte.

Because realistically, when your marriage is your whole family and career forever, and you only get to pick the ones that offer themselves to you, when you are legally bound to the status of dependent, you're always going to be making some trade-offs.

😂 Even the unrealistically ideal dream scenario of wealthy handsome clever ethical Mr. Darcy still asks you to undergo personal growth, accommodate someone else's communication style, and eat a little crow.

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[eye-merely-jest]

hrrghgghbmnnmm x-men evolution nightcrawler….

i actually didn't care for him when i first started watching evo 'cause i thought him annoying as shit but now that is PRECISELY why i'm obsessed with him. Weird Kid™ kurt is just such an endearing concept and it's like he's just like me and I FUCKING LOVE THIS GUY SO MUCH

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

The collective CONFUSION from everyone in the chat when "Penelope" said daughter instead of son

[overtake]

Max and Daniel always trying to take each other to a secondary location

(last vid from @blamemma 🫶)

[royalarchivist]

Richarlyson: This is a good ship that never came to fruition.

Mike: This ship is better than Hideduo. Shut your mouths.

[...]

Fit: Very cool artwork! DELUSIONAL, but very good artwork nonetheless.

Ramon: delulu

Mike and Fit's VERY different reactions to Pacmanduo art (Pac & Etoiles) in the fanart museum.

[nyaskitten]

It's so funny seeing post-Crystalized Harumi designs knowing damn well her post-Crystalized outfit is some variation of this

[probably-undead-void-creature]

Tfw your name is Martin/Martyn and you're at the mercy of an all-seeing god-like being that really likes eye imagery.

[scoriarose]

She came up with a new activity

[chronologically-challenged]

I think that the party's communication issues can be summed up as "man, is it awkward to tell someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with them if you've only know them for a few months? Probably."

[travelling-hydaelyn]

Lahabrea possessed Thancred before this questline even started which means these are back to back Laha interactions. Here is how he greets the WoL in the Waking Sands immediately after his Disney villain introduction.

Meanwhile in Minfilia's solar:

presumably he took a brief break from running Alphinaud's errands to go dramatically laugh at the WoL

[t4tadrienette]

She likes to act like she's annoyed at Shinichi for being a "Holmes otaku," but at the end of the day, she does listen to him, and even remembers the things he says to her. That's so cute

[mueritos]

a little strange to get dms from other trans people saying they agree with biden's dumb statemet that he doesnt want minors getting gender-affirming care. if you really think its such an epidemic that 13 year olds are getting their knockers blown off by surgeons every other day, then please point me in the direction of said 13 year olds that are somehow accessing gender-affirming care that literal trans adults can't even access.

like please be fr. we literally have privatized healthcare and insurance where not even people who go through the appropriate avenues can get approved for care they need to stay alive. what makes you think a trans minor is getting phallo or vaginalplasty. feel whatever you want about 13 year olds who want gender-affirming care, but dont parrot transphobic rhetoric that is based on no facts and a moral panic. they second they legitimize barriers to care for trans minors is the second they start finding ways to do the same for trans adults. dont be a buffoon.

[remorner]

where you go i go