#so I think it's pretty manageable

[bookwyrminspiration]

Hi, Quil! I have a question about ACOD: what is the like big content warnings (aka is there sex scenes, graphic depictions of violence, mental health discussed, etc)? So like if you were tagging it as a fic or something, if that makes sense. My book club is looking for a new book, and I want to recommend that one but I wanted to know if there is anything that I should be cautious about

Sorry if this doesn’t make sense!

Hello! Don't worry, you make perfect sense. The series is adult and does have several significant warnings. I probably should've mentioned them sooner given how much I talk of it, so thank you for asking.

The author herself actually has an ao3 style guide here: link.

A few clarifications beyond that: there's sex (most scenes are fade to black style, but two are on-page), including dubious consent, intentionally violating boundaries, intoxication, sexual slavery, and minor/adult (the main character is taken advantage of).

The violence includes: killing, murder, ritualistic sacrifice (including ritualistic suicide), physical/mental/emotional child and domestic abuse, and cannibalism (one character).

There's also grooming (non-sexual), and mentions of incest (both sexual and non-sexual). And potentially more I'm missing.

Given all the shit they go through, mental health does come up in both casual and significant ways.

So while I adore the series, I would be cautious recommending it to a book club. Not that you can't! But you'd need the right group of people. If your book club isn't the place, we could read it together <3

(also, if you or anyone else have further questions or want more clarifications, feel free to ask!)

[humming-fly]

I love how Gerald was trying to keep Shadow from spoiling anything about the future meanwhile literally everything Shadow says and does around Maria is the biggest death flag ever

[hyakunana]

"Did you… also have someone taken from you right before your eyes?"

[mbirnsings-71]

Madi actually not procrastinate on stuff challenge- see I had plans today, but then those got cancelled and like in any good neurodivergent fashion I'm like "Well shit what do I do now?" and well! That answer is this silly meme for my Wedding planner AU. Yes Jimmy and Grian are parasites on Joel's Netflix account- No he's not gonna kick them off. That's not what Family is about.

I swear one of these days I need to like do proper ref sheets for people in my AU just DFKVNFKBN GOD OKAY- I'll stop rambling but just know I have a lot of thoughts in my brain you guys are gonna get fed next year trust-

Close ups and the post that spurred this on are down below after the keep reading! just for efficiency and all that jazz!

Close ups:

The Post that inspired this:

[potionbarrel]

science team-tober day 24: xen

prompt list | science team-tober sideblog

[kitamars]

listen. hijikata has TWO HANDS

[solcarow]

seafood trio portraits !

+ some alts. with spoilers !

[canisalbus]

Have you considered selling merch? Some stickers pins or patches of the boys would go hard

.

[realpokemon]

You must get a lot of asks, how do you decide which ones to answer?

‎

[scificrows]

i like to make fun of murderbot for being all "i hate everyone, i don't care about anything or anyone, fuck off" while simultaneously caring very much about the people around it and the situations it finds itself in. i love how it "accidentally" ends up caring quite a lot about the friends it makes along the way. but i think something that i tend to forget is that murderbot actively decides to care - at least at some point in its story.

idk, as a person that struggles with depression, this paragraph from artificial condition really resonates with me. prior to all systems red, murderbot had contracts. it had routine and it had protocols. it knew what it had to do to just get by, how to perform so no one would notice it had disabled its governor module. it was deeply depressed, yes, but it was functioning (for lack of a better word). in artificial condition, murderbot's routine is gone. it cannot go on in that state of numbly going-from-contract-to-contract, putting in as little effort as possible, consuming media to cope. that option is gone because it escaped (and note that escaping the company was not an active choice, it kinda happened to it). murderbot has two options now: it can either gather all its energy; actively do something new and difficult and distressing; change something in its life and try. or it can let the numbness and the emptiness take over and stop trying. if murderbot wants to survive as a rogue secunit, it has to try. no matter how difficult that is. the wording in that paragraph really hits home for me. the way the non-caring sees an opportunity to slip in and to take over. does murderbot even care? does anything really matter? is anything really worth the hassle? wouldn't it be so much easier to just let your mind slip away a little, to go numb, to be passive, to watch media and wait for things to happen to you? wouldn't it be nice to stop thinking and struggling and feeling complicated things? to stop making an effort? you've been dealing with a lot lately and maybe it's time to just shut down. maybe you'll just take a little break. just slip deeper into this chair and start the show. time flies when you're not paying attention. trying is exhausting. who cares if you don't do the things you wanted to do, you were supposed to do. it'll be fine. let's just ignore those things for now. just let the non-caring take over. just stop thinking. you can deal with the aftermath later. just watch your shows. who cares. but murderbot cares. it decides to care. it decides to fight with all it has and i think that is so brave. and i think in the later books caring is less of an active decision for murderbot. once you start caring, it's easier to keep going than to stop; and murderbot, for all its "i'm a grumpy rogue secunit, leave me alone" behavior, knows just how important caring is. so it's not that it doesn't know what's happening; rather, it lets itself care. tl;dr: caring is not the default for murderbot, it's just the more difficult of two options. and it decides not to take the soft option. it decides to struggle. it decides to care. and so it does.

[the-crooked-library]

The intimacy is important to show the contrast between Thomas and Orlok in the movie. Thomas repeatedly fails throughout the movie. He fails communication and understanding test with Ellen, he fails self-imposed masculinity test in general, he fails sex and intimacy test with Ellen. He even fails fully acceptance and full love test with Ellen because till the end he expects that Ellen can be somehow cured from her powers, and killing Orlok should do the trick, meaning he’s incapable of just accept her fully the way she’s without trying to correct it. The part that Ellen was happy for awhile with Thomas because for that time her powers were blocked is a big giveaway, that it’s already in fact wasn’t working between them from the start because if she could only be happy with him while suppressing huge part of herself, then such foundation was bound to crumble. Orlok meanwhile fulfilled the crucial basics for Ellen - understanding and acceptance of her nature and powers in full, intimacy and sexual realisation the way Ellen wished and imagined.

yessss exactly - as much as I do like Thomas as a character, and as much as he might care for Ellen, he's not a good fit for her, and she knows this!.. She wants, desperately, the sort of emotional connection that he will never be able to give without first unpacking the prejudices and insecurities that instruct his entire life and his opinion of her; and while that is not impossible, it is still quite unrealistic, given his background and societal context.

The reason Orlok is able to think outside those bounds, despite also being a man from an even older society, is because he exists in opposition to its restrictions. His attitudes are not reflective of whatever people around him would've thought of women or queerness or neurodivergence when he was alive; they are, however, directly informed by his making "covenant with the devil." Unlike the proper, god-fearing, Rational people that dictate Ellen's daily life, he accepts and desires every aspect of her that is considered "sinful" - her sexuality, her lack of deference, her eccentricities; and it is this fundamental understanding that she craves.

TL;DR -

"you could never satisfy me the way he does" was about emotional connection, not sex - and, of course, Thomas went straight ahead and proved her right

a relationship that is blocking her powers and allows her to be "happy" as long as she acts normal and hides her real self is not a good relationship. regardless of how one may interpret her connection with Orlok, Ellen's marriage to Thomas is an allegory for being in the closet/masking - and I personally think she deserves better

[namakes]

One extremely flattering angle of Big Man for you

[tomaturtles]

IT'S KAWOSHIN DAY!!! As well as the last day of Kawoshin Week :') It's been such a blast, gonna miss it when it's over

Kawoshin Week Day 7: Cuddling/domestic fluff! + Sleepover and Spinoffs (again)! Based on the Campus Apocalypse sleepover chapter ☺️

[theusernameiwantisntavailable]

Art of the absolutely phenomenal @introspectivememories au based off of that one veil!redraw that's been floating around for a while!! You can find their og post here!

The way the write is absolutely incredible!! I would highly highly recommend checking them out if you haven't already :DD

You can find more of this specific au under their veil!au tag!!

Bonus Tam + ver with overlay under the cut!

Acghshshddeu ik the Tam and whole bonus is super messy n rushed, but I was SO ready to share this haha

[m1ssunderstanding]

People have probably already seen this because apparently it's been on YouTube for a week but I hadn't so here you go if you want! Spoilers (I guess) in the tags so for people that don't want to watch this sneak peak and ruin their movie experience, don't read my tags :)

[puppppppppy]

started stardew valley for the first time. born to remember villager likes and dislikes forced to immediately forget it the moment i take my eyes off thw wiki