#that reading it took over people's lives

[ajarofpickledtears]

is it just me or is the marketing on this kinda... not great?

like, there is no info about the story except that it's a dystopia. goodreads or amazon ratings tell me nothing. yeah, I could click the link in hopes to find out more, but there isn't even an incentive for me to want to find out more.

this was posted on October 28th and has only 4 notes, so... yeah idk.

and while the review thing is valid, I feel it's kind of... out of place or random? the post hasn't made me want to even look up info, let alone even consider buying it, so reviews aren't even on the edges of my mind.

edit: posting like this bc even though I'd like to give the author constructive feedback I don't know if they even want it and can't put my thoughts into words properly rn. don't want to come across as mean or passive-aggressive.

[faunandfloraas]

Lee know becoming Guy Who Eats Boring Chicken Breast for The Protein ™️ is my villain origin story

[javierduffy]

I have been having... a very bad day. Any spare fluffy headcanons for the boys? (and maybe some nsfw ones if you're up to it-)

ohh no my dear helena !!! its unfortunate that you’re having a rough day today :( remember that everything is temporary and that this day, like every other hard day before (and all following after), will pass in its own time.

i can absolutely spare some fluff ! that’s all i’ve got !

• javier goes to bed at about the same time that kieran is waking up every morning, right before dawn, and it’s a common occurrence that he will forget to untie his hair before laying down for bed, especially after a long night of guard duty. kieran will notice every time, and knows himself how easily long hair can get matted, so he will beckon javier over so that he can untie his bow. usually, he’ll also take the time to run his fingers through javier’s hair to detangle it as well, so that he’s even less likely to wake up to knots. javier adores it, teetering with the weight of his head and leaning hard into kieran’s legs on each side of his shoulders- sometimes kieran will even indulge himself in giving javier a head massage. javier never sleeps better, and coincidentally, he began forgetting to take his hair down a lot more after moving out to clemen’s point ….

• javier snuck kieran his first bowl of pearson’s stew after ‘making a social call’. john kicked kieran off his horse at the entrance of camp and javier watched as the latter dredged himself through the brush to what would become his usual resting place behind the rock by the horses. he looked miserable, dead on his feet, and javier knew by then he’d been weeks without a meal. he was a dirty, disloyal, unholy traitor of an o’driscoll, but something about his sunken eyes, the shake in his hand as he lit his first cigarette as a free man again- likely to quell off the hunger- it urged javier to act in a way that he’d never felt before. javier could kill a man in cold blood easier than he could stand to watch fear starve a man even after his hands are free to reach for the bowl. the study for learned helplessness in psychology will come years later, but javier understands himself now through watching kieran’s instinctual desire to survive be beat out of him by the gang javier dedicates his life to. with a healthy amount of spite to himself, he scoops a heaping amount of fresh stew into the cleanest bowl he can find, and sets out to add a fresh layer of flesh to kieran’s prominent bones.

• following this, cooking for kieran is one of javier’s favourite things to do when they get together. javier will cook for him traditional mexican dishes from home (as best he can. both with his limited skills and also with his limited accessibility to the proper ingredients. (probably for the best that he can’t get authentic chili peppers from home and has to use a less spicy chili native to this northern climate. kieran does okay with spice but it isn’t in his genetics to truly have a high tolerance.)) and not only will it be an unknown love language from javier, to feed kieran and make sure he is full, but it will also be a love language from kieran, to let javi share a piece of home with him.

• ^ also applies to modern au javieran ! javier loves cooking, and especially for kieran. they would cook together, but kieran struggles to cook with other people in the room, and javier gets so absorbed in it that he’d likely be running into kieran or otherwise being unhelpful in aiding in making sure the dish is being cooked correctly because he’s too Locked In to guide kieran LOL but they’re more happy to simply keep each other company, anyway. kieran on the counter/table/floor, watching javier sing and dance to the music he’s blasting from their speaker. cue dancing in the kitchen when the love songs come on (here’s a good one (rip javier escuella you would have loved dannylux)). the parallel play and quality time with these two is off the charts

• come mid/late clemens point, the way javieran make most of their money for the camp is by going on days-long fishing dates, laughing and laying close to one another in the grass under a tree on the riverbank in the shroud of darkness. they come back to camp flushed as all get out but with stacks of cash in their hands wadded up so thick no one dares to ask where it came from. kieran will get excited at even the smallest of fish, perking up and sharing/asking javier for tidbits on the species. they never miss a bite, either. one time one of the bells on their bobber rods rang once and they both broke out of a very hot and heavy make-out sesh so fast that javier tripped on kieran and nearly broke both of their wrists. they laughed so hard about it, javier was certain that by the time he arrived to his rod, the fish had already successfully ripped the bait off of his hook. he reeled in a boot, at the end of it all. he never lives it down.

• kieran is ambidextrous, and javier is fascinated by it. javier stumbled upon kieran writing on one rare occasion, and noticed immediately that he was writing with his left. “left handed, huh ?” kieran cocks his head at him in thought. javier wonders why on earth he would have to stop and think about a question like that. “uhh, not really ?” well, now javier is simply confused. “right, then ? is something wrong with your dominant hand ?” “um … no, that’s not it either …” and at this point, javier is demanding kieran explain what the hell he’s talking about, and why he’s pulling a prank on him. cue kieran explaining and javier making him do all kinds of silly “tests” like writing, shooting, playing guitar (as if kieran is going to any better with either when neither of them can do it right to begin with) because he finds it so cool.

• modern au kieran gets overstimulated incredibly easily, so he’s got a pair of noise canceling over-ear headphones that he often wears to dampen sensory input and ground himself when there’s a lot going on. when it’s cleaning day, generally no matter what he’s doing, he HAS to wear his headphones. javier is left to dodge him the same way he has to dodge the cats when they’re weaving in and out of between his feet. it also leaves him to dance to his own tunes when kieran suddenly swoops or sways or dips him to the music only he can hear- though just as often, javier will catch kieran dancing by himself and he will simply be unable not to join him, even though he can’t hear what it is he’s dancing to. as overwhelming as they can be, cleaning days for javieran somehow always end up feeling more like a date than anything.

• on a similar note, kieran also wears his headphones to bed, and listens to asmr/white noise to sleep. the pressure helps him feel safe, and the silence of a room makes him anxious. he also has a terrible bedhead and rbf in the morning. both of these things javier finds incredibly charming, and if he ever does wake up when/before kieran does (incredibly rare), this is his pov (right before he tries to kiss kieran’s face off and gets shoved away with a sleepy giggle that only bolsters his aggression);

nsfw under the cut !

and how could i resist a chance to finally talk about this ;3€ ?? i’ll try to keep them fluffy !

(context, i hc both of them as tguys usually (though im content with writing javier as amab too), with both of them being absolute, unabashed switches. they have little preferences anywhere in terms of bottoming/topping, though kieran has a preference for subbing, and javier has no qualms with domming more frequently.)

• as much raunchy, animalistic sex that javieran have, they have double as much slow, loving, tender sex. and most times between, they’re having raunchy, loving, animalistic sex.

• javi loves to turn kieran’s brain off, he loves more than anything to make kieran feel so overwhelmingly pleasured that he forgets everything that ever has, ever could, or ever will happen to him. nothing gets javier off quite like seeing the face of bliss kieran makes when all he can think about is javier’s mouth/hands/cock working overtime just to make him feel good.

• both of them i think are quite vocal when they’re able to be, and kieran tends to be vocal whether he’s supposed to be or not. both of them often dissolve into whimpers and “i love you”s and praise like “you feel/sound/taste so good” by the end. their love for each other has a carnal grasp on every aspect of their sex lives as well <3 so they’re always speaking so sweetly to each other, even if the way they growl it seems violent

• javier LOVES love bites. he loves to mark kieran up and he especially loves to bite and lick and suck on his neck, not only because of the primal aspect of his jugular being so close (as well as the warmth of his pulse thrumming against his mouth), but also because it arouses kieran to the point of making him shiver nearly every time. javier has permission to bite him hard, but it’s pretty rare that he ever does, and it’s only late into their relationship does javier feel like it will be more pleasure for him than it would just be pain. sometimes he can’t help it though, he’ll get so worked up that he just latches on and the way that kieran tightens around him is mind-numbing.

• unironically i think kieran is a GREAT soft dom, and that is something that javier generally had never experienced prior to getting with kieran. javi thinks it’s hot to be man-handled and roughed up, and kieran can do his very best (despite the constant guilt and fear) if javier is really feeling it, but where he really excels is soft domming. once the nerves melt off, he’s so gentle with javier that it makes the latter’s skin hot all over. constantly praising him, cooing at him, asking him nicely, rewarding him for good behavior, all the while touching him oh-so-gently, it all makes javier feel so awkward but so, so good. kieran makes him feel so loved and worshipped that the world in which he has anything to question simply just fades away, and all he has to think about is doing what meager tasks kieran asks of him.

• they find so much peace in each other’s bodies. in every rib and wrinkle and sunspot, these two will spend hours simply exploring and enjoying the body of the other in whatever the closest form of “privacy” they can manage to acquire. turns out, kieran has sunspots all over him. turns out, javier has a keloid scar on the back of his bicep. turns out, kieran has a mole on his scalp right where his part is (this is canon btw i saw it once when i was studying him in photo mode like a specimen in a petri dish), and javier has back dimples, and kieran’s ribs stutter and dance beautifully when he laughs, and the flex of javier’s thighs warps his skin like a marble statue. javier escuella and kieran duffy love like artists, and they spend hours just learning and looking and studying each other, like a painter with his muse, like a writer with his words, like the last things they want to see while they’re dying are all the hours they spent learning the beauty of the other.

i could honestly come up with more but it would never leave my drafts, so i hope u like these that i came up with as quick as i could :’) ! i hope you’re feeling better and have gotten some good rest !! thank you for the ask !!!!!

[mushed-kid]

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[quirkle2]

oh nooo that's quite a bummer :( but i'm very glad that i helped brightening up your day :") tbh your writing brightens up my day too (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

AND WAIT I'VE BEEN ACTUALLY QUITE THINKING ABOUT WHETHER ZOMBIE MOB HAS FOUGHT OFF A ZOMBIE WHEN I ASKED IF HE HAS EVER BITTEN SOMEONE and since you brought it up, well, would be okay to ask about the details of how it went 👁️👁️ (also him fighting off a fellow zombie to protect tome got me sobbing)

- 🪻

aww im glad my silly little words brighten ur day!! ur so sweet :]

and yes, it went horribly <3! tome prolly wasn't paying attention as closely as she should've been and got herself surrounded by a crowd. to be clear, that's not Always dangerous, since zombies arent like,, after ur brains in this constantly. but these zombies did look quite hungry, and human or not, she looked like a good meal,,

she had wandered off a bit from mob n ritsu, but mob heard the commotion first. tome has a big fucking baseball bat in this au that she likes to swing around, but a baseball bat can only get u so far in terms of self defense. she thins the horde but there's simply too many of them

mob lets exactly One zombie grab her and yank her toward them before he goes ballistic

watching zombies fight is a lot closer to watching wild animals fight than anything else, and it gets quite horrid sometimes. since their bites aren't rly "dangerous" to each other beyond the typical Oh No a Chunk of Flesh is Gone (not even painful for them, since their nerves r.. less than functional), the fight is a lot more close up and gruesome than a fight against a zombie and a human would be. humans usually back away from zombies immediately and try not to touch them at all in fear of getting bitten; zombies don't need to care abt that

most of the horde realizes that this meal isn't going to be easy and they wander off, but a few more hungry, more desperate ones try to rip into mob's throat at the first sign of defiance. it's not exactly a fair fight; it's like 1 against 4, so he's sorta bound to lose

thankfully ritsu shows up and shoots two of them down (he's Terrified of shooting mob by accident, but either way he'll probably die, so) and tome gets the last one with a good swing to the head. ritsu rushes to mob and is horrified by the amount of blood dripping from his neck and his arm; tome is equally as shocked, but she's mostly thinking, "ive Never seen a zombie defend a human before"

mob's neck is thankfully mostly just scraped up and clawed, but there Is some gruesome punctures where canines sank in and tugged. it's a lot worse along his arm that's bitten and gouged beyond belief. he loses a lot of blood here, but the whole nerves-no-longer-work thing is a blessing in disguise atm; he'd be in a lot of pain otherwise. while ritsu and tome are patching him up w shaky hands he simply glares beyond their shoulders like he thinks he's still in danger, even when they tighten the bandages. it's like he barely notices what they’re doing

his strangely alert behavior makes them think abt the possibility that maybe mob Knows he could've easily been shredded apart there, and he's a little scared and worked up abt it. the only reason he managed to fight as long as he did without dying is prolly bc the other zombies weren't as well-fed as mob—they were kinda weak and shaky from days of no food, but mob has humans taking care of him and keeping him fed 24/7

they're all shaken up by it pretty good.. tome is still reeling from the fact that mob defended her so valiantly, and ritsu is quietly horrified by the idea of another zombie killing mob instead of a human. he doesn't know which is worse

[running-in-the-dark]

my niece stayed with us last night. it was pretty fun this time, probably because I was feeling better (if I'm already in pain or exhausted, I can't handle it). after we dropped her off, we talked to my mother for a little bit, and then drove to my in-laws. we were there for a few hours and because the guys were busy outside, i ended up talking to my mother-in-law for most of that time. it was... kind of good? I don't know. she actually showed some real emotions, just a little bit, but hey that's more than ever before! I even gave her a weird little shoulder squeeze/side hug, it was so weird.

anyway, I almost fell asleep in the car on the way home because I was so tired, and actually did fall asleep immediately on the couch.

[stillfruit]

i love not knowing if i'll ever be healthy again i love all of the time i've used to move my body become nothing i love spending my adulthood wasting away year after year for various reasons baby!

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Endless Sea Between Us

sapphic fantasy romance between a witch who lives in a sea cave after her family died and was cast out from her village, and an banished mermaid who’s curious about humanity

they create a magical rune to swap species, both desiring the freedom each other’s homes promise

but when they start to grow closer the mer-turned-human is kidnapped by a witch-hunting prince and taken to his castle, and the witch must chase them down to save her

f/f, demi MC

[the-irrelevant-trumpeter]

barely into the nativity goes wrong (tngw? that’s what i’m calling it now) and already some excellent lore, despite only two cornley characters being in it)

[bluebellhairpin]

Ngl one of my biggest pet peeves on here is when writers reblog their own work with some tag like "oh I thought this would do better and expected this to get more notes but oh well" etc, and then you look down past the tag to how many notes the fic has and there's like. 300+ notes. when it hasn't even been a live post for more than 24 hours. like damn I should make you man my blog for a while and see how you react when a fic posted there barely gets 30 notes in a week.

[vague-humanoid]

At the California Institute of the Arts, it all started with a videoconference between the registrar’s office and a nonprofit.

One of the nonprofit’s representatives had enabled an AI note-taking tool from Read AI. At the end of the meeting, it emailed a summary to all attendees, said Allan Chen, the institute’s chief technology officer. They could have a copy of the notes, if they wanted — they just needed to create their own account.

Next thing Chen knew, Read AI’s bot had popped up inabout a dozen of his meetings over a one-week span. It was in one-on-one check-ins. Project meetings. “Everything.”

The spread “was very aggressive,” recalled Chen, who also serves as vice president for institute technology. And it “took us by surprise.”

The scenariounderscores a growing challenge for colleges: Tech adoption and experimentation among students, faculty, and staff — especially as it pertains to AI — are outpacing institutions�� governance of these technologies and may even violate their data-privacy and security policies.

That has been the case with note-taking tools from companies including Read AI, Otter.ai, and Fireflies.ai.They can integrate with platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teamsto provide live transcriptions, meeting summaries, audio and video recordings, and other services.

Higher-ed interest in these products isn’t surprising.For those bogged down with virtual rendezvouses, a tool that can ingest long, winding conversations and spit outkey takeaways and action items is alluring. These services can also aid people with disabilities, including those who are deaf.

But the tools can quickly propagate unchecked across a university. They can auto-join any virtual meetings on a user’s calendar — even if that person is not in attendance. And that’s a concern, administrators say, if it means third-party productsthat an institution hasn’t reviewedmay be capturing and analyzing personal information, proprietary material, or confidential communications.

“What keeps me up at night is the ability for individual users to do things that are very powerful, but they don’t realize what they’re doing,” Chen said. “You may not realize you’re opening a can of worms.“

The Chronicle documented both individual and universitywide instances of this trend. At Tidewater Community College, in Virginia, Heather Brown, an instructional designer, unwittingly gave Otter.ai’s tool access to her calendar, and it joined a Faculty Senate meeting she didn’t end up attending. “One of our [associate vice presidents] reached out to inform me,” she wrote in a message. “I was mortified!”

[kyofsonder]

It's been several days and I'm still bothered by the many 3 (out of 5) star ratings for a book I just finished reading because

1) I enjoyed it a lot, and admire it from a craft perspective. I feel naturally defensive of my own enjoyment when I see others calling this work annoying or boring or meaningless. It was the first book in months I've been able to read through to the end without getting distracted and letting my library loan lapse partway through, it was genuinely compelling to me, and it had plenty of meaning about mortality and humanity and choice -- and what it means when the choice of life and death is in your own hands. People saying they didn't see any of that... I know it's honest to their experience, and it's fair in its own right, but it still bothers me that so many people said it on the book tracking app I use.

2) Several of the reviews hate the lead character, specifically, and I'm bitter about the inaccuracies of WHY they hate her -- I almlst want to reply to one reviewer in particular, "If you're going to have problems with a major character, have problems that are actually there on the page and don't invent them out of thin air." Some also hated the romantic sub-plot and said it had "unnecessary bodice-ripping" when I, personally, found it way less romance-focused than other fantasy novels I've read in the past. Again, this is probably a personal perspective thing, but compared to the books that faded to black or had a graphic sex scene every other chapter I'd say 2.5 scenes that involved so much as kissing and only 1 short bedroom scene through the entire book is pretty tame. It's fine to be upset that there was romance and/or sex, but at least be accurate about how much there was and how it was handled.

3) While I know this one is specifically due to my being a writer and that the issue it brings up is more nuanced than just "be so kind to everyone that you lose all your critical reading skills and/or ability to resonate emotionally with books and other forms of fiction," and that the average person is in fact unaware of what it means to write a whole novel or series, any review that says a book was bad or just wasn't their thing without acknowledging the work that the author put into it has the potential to discourage that author and/or others from ever making or sharing their work again and that can decrease the number of books in the world. Which sucks. It's hard to avoid, but it sucks. Sometimes I think I just shouldn't read book reviews at all, before or after my own reading of a novel/novella/series.

[nicenight]

if having a fat clit is misogynistic then i'm so so sorry for the damage it has caused to the feminist movement 😞

cis women should take a lil testosterone and grow that Thang out too. don't be afraid to evolve.

[spacespore]

im so over it with high school and especially with math class !!!!!

[thetangibleghost]

I gotta confess it is so much more fun talking to Sal as if he is a separate person like he wants and not a member of the system. He's super creative like. Its just fun.

[neverendingford]

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