#this book goes HARD

[liesmyth]

The utopian premise of the Genocide Convention had been that a moral imperative to prevent efforts to exterminate whole peoples should be the overriding interest animating the action of an international community of autonomous states. This is a radical notion, fundamentally at odds, as so much of the internationalist experiment has proven to be, with the principle of sovereignty. States have never acted for purely disinterested humanitarian reasons; the novel idea was that the protection of humanity was in every state’s interest, and it was well understood in the aftermath of World War II that action against genocide would require a willingness to use force and to risk the lives of one’s own. The belief was that the price to the world of such a risk would not be as great as the price of inaction. [...] And I wondered: Can we imagine such an outcome today?

Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families

[sarasa-cat]

Octavia Butler - Parable of the Sower

[disappointingcabbage]

I have always hated footnotes as a general formatting choice but now I’m reading House of Leaves and suddenly I appreciate them immensely

[nyaa]

アニメ美術から学ぶ《絵の心》 Kobayashi Shichiro

[benevolenterrancy]

Scholarly peak is catching up on recent literature

[morporkian-cryptid]

I'm reading The Murderbot Diaries (Network Effect, so, spoiler alert), and man, Murderbot's relationship with ART makes me insane. It's like, you're an insufferable asshole. You're my best friend. Saying that word makes me retch. You're the only person in the universe who could possibly understand what it's like to be me. I can't possibly understand what it's like to be you. I must look like an ant to you. I've put my unconscious body in your hands and let you alter it. We both love our humans to the point of destruction. You've killed people to protect me and my friends. You only did it because you were between two jobs and bored. We watch TV shows together. I saw you have an emotional breakdown about a historical drama. You could kill me in a hundred different ways. I've brutally murdered several people to avenge you. You were ready to kill all my friends to save yours. I've brought you back from the dead. You're keeping us prisoner. I'm your only chance of saving your friends. I've lived and traveled inside your body, and you've been a passenger in my brain. We don't even know each other's real names.

[secretnimh]

It's movie night, and they're watching The Princess Bride. If you don't think Eddie would have a DC Blue Beetle popcorn bucket, you're mistaken

[gin-juice-tonic]

I deleted that last post because frankly I got embarrassed. But ultimately, I really would like to know if the new journal pages are suspicious on purpose.

Them being fake pages made by Bill is a theory I believe quite heavily in, and in my opinion there's a decent amount of evidence for it. It feels percentage-wise very few people agree. But I guess I just want to say, it's not that I'm just out here grasping at straws to discount a book I didn't like. What we know Ford to be like, what we know Bill to be like, and most importantly what we know journal 3 to be like, those are what the theory is driven by.

When I first looked at TBOB for myself, I got to the second page of the journal pages and the perception that I was reading pages written by Ford himself was shattered instantly. It was not repaired through the entire rest of the pages. When I was sitting around at work later, the next day after I had finished reading, I was struck in my mind by a bit in Ford's final message. "He's making it all up as he goes along." I know people have different readings of the meaning of that line, but for me that's what made me feel like maybe there's something to all this.

Suddenly it wasn't just "This book sounds nothing like Ford..." But rather "Maybe this book sounds nothing like Ford... because it isn't supposed to." And I started realizing stuff. Like "Hey... wasn't Ford drawn super incorrectly here?", or "Could this part really have happened?", or "Does this page make sense to even exist?". "What is it that creates such a strong sense of dissonance to these pages?" I have kept digging into more and more of what felt wrong ever since.

If you read through them without feeling like anything was off, or if there was it wasn't something you felt to be important, it makes sense my theory would not be for you.

But I believe in it.

And if I had my own chance to ask Alex, I would.

(Update: if you haven't seen the additions I made to this post, I ask you read them too)

[evviejo]

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY - S5E8 Labyrinths

[mossiestpiglet]

If you have only watched the Ouran High School Host Club anime I really cannot recommend reading the manga enough. There is (at least) twice as much plot as the anime has and it delivers so much more character and relationship development for every club member. You deserve to see more of them!

[ofswordsandpens]

"the Gabe and Sally dynamic in the show is abusive" and "the way they've portrayed Gabe in the show is distinctly different from his book counterpart and fans can criticize that" are two discussions that can coexist

[wtchgrrl]

i swear to god i fuckin hate being an intersex horror fan sometimes

like. you’re telling me that most of us were literally split open before we were given names yet the only “intersex horror” people seem to think of is “ewww this monster has a penis AND a vagina!!!!”? im gonna hurt someone

[thr3ap3r]

carrie beavis SAVE ME CARRIE BEAVIS

[parkercore-69]

i was a victim of the gravity falls to transgenderism/buzzfeed unsolved (+watcher) pipeline and i made a visual representation for it.

[wynntermelon]

I really admire the scum villain fandom for surviving this long through sheer willpower and delusion alone

[avnasace]

no but the way viserys continues to haunt the story through rhaenyra and alicents conflict, which gets passed down to both of their children, is crazy good content.

the irony in that viserys the peaceful was the one who started this war, and the downfall of the dragons/his family in the first place.

viserys and daemon had their own conflict, but when viserys alienated rhaenyra initially by marrying her best friend, he then ignored his and alicents children, eventually later his actions leading to rhaenyra marrying his brother (who he'd also taken for granted and ignored).

he then kept doting on rhaenyra up until the moment he died, further seperating himself from his own children by alicent.

alicent knows of rhaenyras affairs, grows hateful and takes that resentment out on her own children instead, while her father otto is further poisoning her and them for his own ends to scheme for the throne.

so then alicents children learnt to grow up disliking rhaenyra's. the only time you see them even remotely amicable is when theyre bullying aemond, another bond made through cruelty instead of kindness. this is ironic considering at laenas funeral you can see that aemond actually thinks about trying to offer comfort to i think baela and rhaena (if i remember correctly?)

aegon and helaena couldnt care less, which to me makes it even more sad. if aemond had, he might not have then been so quick to rub his claiming of vhagar in their faces, and he might not have lost an eye.

the taking of the eye plus viserys' incompetence reignites and cements alicents hatred for rhaenyra even more. viserys takes rhaenyras side, not defending his hurt child at all, even going as far as to shout at aegon for even the mention that he might have said something against rhaenyra. this causes alicent to attack her, and later making her then double down on her efforts to pressure aegon into hating rhaenyra, further distancing him from her.

later we see with aegon that his mothers pressure leads him to find affection in other very unhealthy and harmful ways, assaulting his maids, excessive drinking, brothel going, and assumably fathering many bastards, leading him tho the child fighting rings as well. aemond too starts going to the brothel and avoiding alicent, but for platonic affection instead of anything more.

helaena is the one who received the most of her mothers love and the least of her cruelty, however their relationship is similarly screwed up because shes the only child that doesnt actually want affection from her...

meanwhile rhaenyra is a very loving and fiercely protective mother to her children, fighting for them above all else, especially when their parentage is concerned. she does anything for them, and it shows in their natures that their upbringing, other than the scrutiny from other nobles about their father, that they were raised kindly and wisely.

whats also completely different is that rhaenyras children have not one but three father figures, all of which love them in different ways, which is three more than alicents children have. you could make an argument for cole being a prominent male figure in their lives but he is also quite cruel and hateful.

we see team greens children grow up to be anxious, affection starved control freaks, with mummy and daddy issues, with not one of them knowing how to be a leader even though they are all in some way forced to be one.

aegon is an incompetent drunkard of a king who knows nothing of court or war or politics, not even high valyrian. he is only a figurehead, but is strangely empathetic towards his subjects and loves his children.

aemond is cruel and objective, a fierce fighter and being the most studied and educated of them all, but with no care to his subjects and far too willing to disregard or maim his own blood for his own ambitions.

helaena is the gentlest but she herself has no ambition to rule, she is kind but also an outcast of their society because of her prophecies. she also does not particularly care for her subjects, even being scared of them and their willingness to get to know her.

meanwhile in complete contrast jacaerys and lucerys are kind, more than willing to learn, theyre fluent in high valyrian, they are very interested in their histories and heritage and they learn sword fighting from harwin and assumably laenor? later probably daemon too.

they stand in the war council room with their mother and learn, and even baela and rhaena are involved by rhaenyra to both take part and learn.

the generational trauma goes crazy in this show, but all these characters are so compelling. i dont think there is a single main character that doesnt interest me. yes most of them are bad people and have done awful things, but its also so interesting to see how they got that way and see how one fathers actions, or lack thereof, caused so much destruction.