"Don't use Libby because it costs libraries too much, pirate instead" is such a weird, anti-patron, anti-author take that somehow manages to also be anti-library, in my professional librarian-ass opinion.
It's well documented that pirating books negatively affects authors directly* in a way that pirating movies or TV shows doesn't affect actors or writers, so I will likely always be anti-book piracy unless there's absolutely, positively no other option (i.e. the book simply doesn't exist outside of online archives at all, or in a particular language).
Also, yeah, Libby and Hoopla licenses are really expensive, but libraries buy them SO THAT PATRONS CAN USE THEM. If you're gonna be pissed at anybody about this shitty state of affairs, be pissed at publishing companies and continue to use Libby or Hoopla at your library so we can continue to justify having it to our funding bodies.
One of the best ways to support your library having services you like is to USE THOSE SERVICES. Yes, even if they are expensive.
*Yes, this is a blog post, but it's a blog post filled with links to news articles. If you can click one link, you can click another.
Height gap romance except the shorter one is frequently depicted in situations where they are contextually taller. The taller one sitting while the shorter one looms over them. Both of them lying in bed with the taller one’s head pressed to the shorter one’s chest. The shorter one straddling the taller one’s lap and leaning down for a kiss. The taller one on their knees as the shorter one tilts their head up. Please, it makes me go feral
I know we all laugh at Jon for taking one look at the Arachnophobia statement (MAG016) and going "DRUGS. POPPYCOCK. HUMBUG." but like-
This is early s1 Jon who has stated out loud that he believed his colleagues might try to haze him, who is afraid people might knowingly try to get to him.
Jon's prissy, high and mighty attitude after the statement ends might just be him performing confidence to the people he knows has free access to the tape - his fellow archive workers. Especially after his earlier slip ups (wondering about hazings and oh, wanting to personally screen every new statement before the research department can even start working on them).
If you think about the statement as a fake planted by a coworker who wants to humiliate him, it's chilling. It has so, so many details that run parallel to Jon's own life, that we can safely presume nobody at the archives should know about given how private Jon seems to be.
Even disregarding the obvious - that would be the supernatural childhood spider trauma - there's the lonely, workaholic existence, the smoking, the childhood wandering, the feeling of having your body controlled by an outside force, a goddamn cat named after a military rank.
Who knows what other details fit perfectly with Jon's life that we as the audience don't know about.
And the statement giver is looking into getting psychiatric help. He's trying to establish if he's in need of anti-psychotic medication. To the audience this might seem as a pretty grounded and potentially positive way to try to move past the trauma of the spider haunting.
But to Jon? Who is holding a piece of paper in his hand with something that could represent proof that someone is looking into his life? It might as well be calling him insane.
Jon was deeply marked by the Spiral by the end of it all, wasn't he.
imagine two mated wyrms twisting around each other, possessing an uncountable number of limbs, each claw of good or evil interlocked with its opposite, the coil twists further around itself into a skein of flesh. how i would describe DNA to a wizard