#walden family

[kitkat4sims]

through the years

[pipizhi]

☀ fam evening

[writermuses]

[figofswords]

I started watching the last of us and I’m having a struggle because there’s the half of my brain that will do anything to watch some good found family and then there’s the other half of my brain which is: deeply squeamish. hypochondriac. freaked out by disease/epidemic (this far predates covid). freaked out by gore. freaked out by any plotline that involves people being eaten. can’t do horror At All. and dislikes almost all zombie media. I’m just sitting here watching this feeling increasingly stressed but unable to stop send help

[wing-shot-first]

SCREAMING CRYING ROLLING AROUND ON THE FLOOR CYPHER WAS ONCE A GOOD MAN AT ONE POINT IN HIS LIFE BUT WAS JUST COMPLETELY BROKEN IM CRYING

[graphicpolicy]

Skybound Comet Reveals New 2025 YA Graphic Novels

Skybound Comet Reveals New 2025 YA Graphic Novels #comics #graphicnovel

Skybound Comet has announced its star-studded lineup of all-new original graphic novels launching in Summer and Fall 2025 everywhere books are sold.   The latest round of Skybound Comet titles promises heartfelt and heart-pounding YA adventures starring three unforgettable female leads. Clementine Book Three, the highly anticipated and heart-wrenching finale of the Eisner-Award nominated YA…

[galavantmedia74]

Bridge to Terabithia (DVD, 2007) Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Patrick @ Galavant Media Emporium

[inkskinned]

for a while i lived in an old house; the kind u.s americans don't often get to live in - living in a really old house here is super expensive. i found out right before i moved out that the house was actually so old that it features in a poem by emily dickinson.

i liked that there were footprints in front of the sink, worn into the hardwood. there were handprints on some of the handrails. we'd find secret marks from other tenants, little hints someone else had lived and died there. and yeah, there was a lot wrong with the house. there are a lot of DIY skills you learn when you are a grad student that cannot afford to pay someone else to do-it-for-ya. i shared the house with 8 others. the house always had this noise to it. sometimes that noise was really fucking awful.

in the mornings though, the sun would slant in thick amber skiens through the windows, and i'd be the first one up. i'd shuffle around, get showered in this tub that was trying to exit through the floor, get my clothes on. i would usually creep around in the kitchen until it was time to start waking everyone else up - some of them required multiple rounds of polite hey man we gotta go knocks. and it felt... outside of time. a loud kind of quiet.

the ghosts of the house always felt like they were humming in a melody just out of reach. i know people say that the witching hour happens in the dark, but i always felt like it occurred somewhere around 6:45 in the morning. like - for literal centuries, somebody stood here and did the dishes. for literal centuries, somebody else has been looking out the window to this tree in our garden. for literal centuries, people have been stubbing their toes and cracking their backs and complaining about the weather. something about that was so... strangely lovely.

i have to be honest. i'm not a history aficionado. i know, i know; it's tragic of me. i usually respond to "this thing is super old" by being like, wow! cool! and moving on. but this house was the first time i felt like the past was standing there. like it was breathing. like someone else was drying their hands with me. playing chess on the sofa. adding honey to their tea.

i grew up in an old town. like, literally, a few miles off of walden pond (as in of the walden). (also, relatedly, don't swim in walden, it's so unbelievably dirty). but my family didn't have "old house" kind of money. we had a barely-standing house from the 70's. history existed kind of... parallel to me. you had to go somewhere to be in history. your school would pack you up on a bus and take you to some "ye olden times" place and you'd see how they used to make glass or whatever, and then you'd go home to your LEDs. most museums were small and closed before 5. you knew history was, like, somewhere, but the only thing that was open was the mcdonalds and the mall.

i remember one of my seventh grade history teachers telling us - some day you'll see how long we've been human for and that thing has been puzzling me. i know the scientific number, technically.

the house had these little scars of use. my floors didn't actually touch the walls; i had to fill them with a stopgap to stop the wind. other people had shoved rags and pieces of newspaper. i know i've lost rings and earring backs down some of the floorboards. i think the raccoons that lived in our basement probably have collected a small fortune over the years. i complain out loud to myself about how awful the stairs are (uneven, steep, evil, turning, hard to get down while holding anything) and know - someone else has said this exact same thing.

when i was packing up to leave and doing a final deep cleaning, i found a note carved in the furthest corner in the narrow cave of my closet. a child's scrawled name, a faded paint handprint, the scrangly numbers: 1857.

we've been human for a long time. way back before we can remember.

[flowerytale]

Henry David Thoreau, from Walden; or, Life in the Woods Leonora Carrington, from The Hearing Trumpet Florence Welch, from Useless Magic: Lyrics & Poetry Mary Oliver, from “How I Go to the Woods”, Swan: Poems and Prose Poem Franz Kafka, from Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors

Ivan Ivanovič Šiškin (1832–1898), Covert (detail) William Trost Richards (1833–1905), Woodland Landscape (detail) Bright Star, written and directed by Jane Campion

[duckprintspress]

Let’s Go Lesbians! 32 Books for Lesbian Visibility Day

TODAY! is Lesbian Visibility Day, the first day of Lesbian Visibility Week – April 26, 2024. We are, I’m sure you’re shocked to discover, celebrating with LOTS of lesbian books! 15 people contributed to making this list, all of us sharing our absolute faves, from graphic novels to epic novels, from memoirs to horror fiction, with explicit rep and implied. With this many awesome books to share, we’re prepared to guarantee that everyone who loves wlw lit can find something new to them on this amazing list!

Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel

Belle of the Ball by Mari Costa

Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable & Ellen T. Crenshaw

She Wears the Midnight Crown Anthology

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake

The Scapegracers & The Scratch Daughters by H.A. Clarke

Spinning by Tillie Walden

The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag

The Ruin of Angels by Max Gladstone

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

She Gets the Girl by Rachael Lippincott & Alyson Derrick

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

Those Who Wait by Haley Cass

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

Into the Bloodred Woods by Martha Brockenbrough

From Here by Luma Mufleh

Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel

A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Female General, Eldest Princess by Please Don’t Laugh

Clear And Muddy Loss of Love by Please Don’t Laugh

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone & Amal El-Mohtar

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

Can’t get enough books with lesbians? Yeah, us neither – this new list for 2024 is on top of THREE rec lists of titles featuring lesbians that we posted last year.

Lesbian Visibility Week Recs Part 1

Lesbian Visibility Week Recs Part 2

Duck Prints Press Short Stories with Lesbian Characters

You can also view this list (along with all our other wlw faves!) as a shelf on Goodreads!

See a book you want to buy? You can grab it through the Duck Prints Press Bookshop.org affiliate shop!

What are YOUR favorite reads with lesbian characters?

[kitkat4sims]

inspired by this illustration

[pipizhi]

my Henford

[makingqueerhistory]

Any queer webcomic/graphic novel recommendations?

Yes!

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the "Fun Home." It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden

A ragtag crew travels to the deepest reaches of space, rebuilding beautiful, broken structures to piece the past together.

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker with Jules Scheele

Activist-academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Julia Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel.

Boyfriends. Volume One: A Webtoon Unscrolled Graphic Novel by Refrainbow

Jock, Goth, Nerd, and Prep are all juniors in college. But studying is the last thing on their minds as they are mainly interested in getting a boyfriend. Or multiple boyfriends.

The Tea Dragon Society by K. O'Neill

The Tea Dragon Society is the two-time Eisner Award-winning gentle fantasy that follows the story of a blacksmith apprentice, and the people she meets as she becomes entwined in the enchanting world of tea dragons. 

[chatonarya]

I've talked about Karlan Trio a decent amount, but I can't help but still feel that there isn't enough conversation about how inherently funny it when you look at it through the lens of Degenbrecher foremost.

Degenbrecher's besties are Enciodes Silverash and Gnosis Edelweiss. These are the two people she trusts the most, cares about the most, and is open with the most. This is not speculation: this is canonical and textual.

Enciodes is the CEO of Karlan Trade and best known for being a wily schemer adept at manipulating his opponents to gain capital and political power for himself; Gnosis is just as cunning and even more ruthless and radical than his partner and has spent most of his life an outcast. They're also both generally fairly emotionally isolated and have problems with their family and only seem to trust and rely on each other for company...

With the exception of Degenbrecher.

Enciodes and Gnosis are good people at heart with noble motives even if they go about it in less than noble ways; and while Enciodes is admired and liked by the Kjerag populace and his employees, and Gnosis has regained a degree of general respect by the time of RS, and while they aren't evil per se, to anyone who knows them even slightly on a personal basis, their methods (and personalities) make them disliked and distrusted...

With the exception of Degenbrecher.

Degenbrecher willingly chooses to hang out with them. She likes them. She knows them better than anyone else, and even knowing that personally they might be total disasters, she sticks around anyway. Degenbrecher could hang out with literally anybody she wanted to, but she chooses to hang out with the two people who are probably some of the least hang-out-able people in the country. Look at them: Enciodes blathers on enough that Degenbrecher has repeatedly told him to shut up and explicitly says she hates overly-chatty smartasses (except him); Gnosis is, well, Gnosis, who uses insults, affectionate they may be, with almost every other sentence.

Yet it's implied that they regularly go out for dinner together and even have their own in-jokes and running pranks with each other. Degenbrecher says Gnosis has lousy taste and prefers Enciodes to pick the venue; Degenbrecher offers to take them both sightseeing in Leithanien; Degenbrecher tells them they can come spar with her (and she'll kick both their asses at once with one hand behind her back). They're the best of friends.

And you know what? That's really funny. You'd think, surely Degenbrecher can find better company than these two. Surely Degenbrecher doesn't lack for friends, given her popularity in Kjerag. But no, she picks these two. I hesitate to call them "losers" because I'm very fond of them and it's undeniable that they're extremely successful people, even if it comes at the cost of their personal lives, but one could very well call them that.

She also willingly chooses to take care of them. She carried their drunk and broke asses home in the snow after Walden's instead of just dumping them on the side of the road and letting them fend for themselves; she continues to carry medicine for Gnosis and fetches papers for Enciodes when he forgets them. She doesn't have to do any of that, but she does it anyway, because she cares that much about them. This immensely powerful woman has chosen to take of these two walking arguable messes and has done so for ten years. Her EP is explicitly about her desire to protect them. She loves them a ton.

These two might be trash, but they're her trash. Degenbrecher is the superpowered possum guarding the dumpster that is Enciodes and Gnosis and she's perfectly happy doing it.

[mimi-0007]

Eva Beatrice Dykes (13 August 1893 – 29 October 1986) was a prominent educator and the third black American woman to be awarded a PhD.

Dykes was born in Washington, D.C., on August 13, 1893, the daughter of Martha Ann (née Howard) and James Stanley Dykes. She attended M Street High School (later renamed Dunbar High School). She graduated summa cum laude from Howard University with a B.A. in 1914. While attending Howard University, where several family members had studied, Eva was initiated into the Alpha chapter of Delta Sigma Theta. At the end of her last semester she was awarded Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated's first official scholarship. After a short stint of teaching at Walden University in Nashville, Tennessee, Dykes attended Radcliffe College graduating magna cum laude with a second B.A. in 1917 and a M.A in 1918. While at Radcliffe she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1920 Dykes began teaching at Dunbar High School, and in 1921 she received a PhD from Radcliffe (now a part of Harvard University). Her dissertation was titled “Pope and His influence in America from 1715 to 1815”, and explored the attitudes of Alexander Pope towards slavery and his influence on American writers. Dykes was the first black American woman to complete the requirements for a doctoral degree, however, because Radcliffe College held its graduation ceremonies later in the spring, she was the third to graduate, behind Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (1921, University of Pennsylvania) and Georgiana R. Simpson (1921, University of Chicago).

After her graduation from Radcliffe in 1921, Dykes continued to teach at Dunbar High School until 1929 when she returned to Howard University as a member of the English Faculty. An excellent teacher, Dykes won a number of teaching awards during her 15 years of service at Howard University. Her publications include Readings from Negro Authors for Schools and Colleges co-authored with Lorenzo Dow Turner and Otelia Cromwell (1931) and The Negro in English Romantic Thought: Or a Study in Sympathy for the Oppressed (1942). In 1934 Dykes began writing a column in the Seventh-day Adventist periodical Message Magazine, this continued until 1984.

In 1920 Dykes joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and in 1944 she joined the faculty of the then small and unaccredited Seventh-day Adventist Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, as the Chair of the English Department. She was the first staff member at Oakwood to hold a doctoral qualification and was instrumental in assisting the college to gain accreditation. Dykes retired in 1968 but returned to Oakwood to teach in 1970 and continued until 1975. In 1973 the Oakwood College library was named in her honor and in 1980 she was made a Professor Emerita. In 1975 the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church presented Dykes with a Citation of Excellence honouring her for an outstanding contribution to Seventh-day Adventist education. Dykes died in Huntsville on October 29, 1986, at the age of 93.

[sleeplesssmoll]

Finding the moment Schneider and Vertin's dynamic shifted.

This scene inspired me because we see Schneider's anger emerge, albeit subtly.

It almost seemed like Schneider was planning on letting Vertin live once again, like in the beginning when they first met. She was going to give Vertin a chop on the neck during their duel to knock her out.

But then Vertin repeats the lie that Forget-Me-Not Me Not told her. After hearing Vertin promise her a shelter, she turns her gun on her instead. Why would she trust the words of someone from the Foundation who rejected her and her family?

Hearing this proposal must have hit a nerve. It's important to note that at this point in time she only likes Vertin's looks and she respects her fighting skill. She has absolutely no reason to trust Vertin's words and every reason to resent the Foundation's dog. It's easy to forget since she's such a flirt in the main story but there is a lot of anger in her. She is a Mafia Boss. She provides for her 11 sisters and her parents in a world that constantly takes from her without giving a shred of mercy. If you’re curious about this, the link below has Schneider's snippets from the atlas, but for my purposes I'll only use a small section.

The Opportunist and the Sticky Gum

“Her figure might be frail, but her eyes are filled with cold anger. Maybe she had been rejected just now or even insulted. She walked up to the square center with a firm step, like a warrior.”

This is Schneider as she watched Sonetto take the mission capsule she tampered with back to Vertin. In the Walden, we see this warrior fighting for her family and Vertin is now an obstacle.

Also, she seemed genuinely annoyed at the lack of concern Vertin had for the wounds she inflicted. Her voice starts off in that same playful, flirty tone when she says “that's really annoying” and then she sounds genuinely pissed when she talks about shooting Vertin in the thigh (I'd place a clip here but there's a limit. Would recommend going back and listening to get the full picture). She is getting frustrated.

However, things change when Vertin and the others help her sister. I think the true turning point in their relationship is when Vertin pushed Sonetto out of the hole to escape Druvis and Schneider did the same for Marian.

Earlier when Schneider was talking to Forget-Me-Not, she mentioned the importance of family and brotherhood. We also know she loves her family dearly which is why she's in this mess.

Schneider and Vertin sacrifice themselves for the people they love. She's finally met someone who gives a damn about loyalty and they are on the same side as her.

While they're fighting together, Schneider is heavily injured and Vertin covers for her. If Vertin, the one with the gunshot wounds, is in better shape than Schneider then it's a very rough situation. Nonetheless, she respects Vertin's fruitless attempts of resistance and considers her brave. She tells Vertin to shoot her in the chest when the time comes. Here, she is putting her faith in Vertin because she has no other choice. This is her only chance.

Later on in Popular Literature Vertin brings Schneider a healing potion and food she stole because she assumes Schneider must be hungry. You know what she brought?

Cake!

If we ignore the horrors of hindsight where Schneider is a human so the cake must not have looked like cake due to Storm Syndrome, it's a very sweet gesture. The healing potion tastes awful, so maybe she chose the cake over other foods as a way to make it easier to deal with. This is the climax where Vertin follows through on her promise and proves she is someone Schneider can trust. The cake also shows Vertin's empathy, something we see Schneider doesn't receive often. She's trying to make her as comfortable as possible instead of treating her as a pawn in her greater plan. They're working as a team, not as lord and subject.