hi hello hey im gonna need everyone, especially queer people, double especially aspec people, to read this immediately

cw for assault on page two

axolotl pin from Ray Starshine ( @raystarshine )

space ace and chaotic ace from thisishannako ( @thisishannako-real )

ace flag button was handmade by a friend

https://youtu.be/xhQt-7yI-wM

Animated short film about asexuality. Thought it was neat. You’re the only ace person I follow on here so I thought I’d share 🤗

omg that you even thought to send this to me in the first place is sooo sweet of you.

Here's the embedded link if anyone else wants to watch!

This is so fucking good! and the animation is adorable too!

the way she feels like she has cracks and is broken because when she looks around it seems like everyone has something that she doesn't... but when she sees there's an entire community of people just like her, she realizes she's not actually broken after all.

I'm not crying, what are you talking about.

WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING ME WITH THIS ON A RANDOM THURSDAY?? (I'm just kidding thank you so much for sharing this! 🥺)

Natsume: You didn't sleep a wink last night. Why not go and grab a few now? Natori [sparkling]: I'm just fine. It takes more than sleep deprivation to dull my dazzling self, so don't you worry your fussy little head. Natsume [concerned]: Nonsense like that is exactly what someone suffering from sleep deprivation would say! Sensei: Oh really? Has he been sleep-deprived every day of his life?

so i've been watching the natsume dub -

"Oh it would have been more satisfying if the humans had invented a technology which defeated the Martians rather than have them killed off by accident just when humanity's impotence in the face of disaster seems to be confirmed". I

To me that's just a fancy way of saying "Yeah but humans could totally handle the Martians and the writer has a duty to reassure the audience of that!"

Sir we cannot even handle climate change and I'm sorry to tell you that it's not entirely due to a lack of technological expertise

Also the bookmark poll just reminded me that I got my spouse two books for Christmas but I bought them while out shopping with the friend we were staying with in New England, and the only reasonable bookstore to get to was Barnes and Noble, and I forgot to take out the little "Join our rewards club!" slip from the receipt they'd tucked into the book, so he opens it up to read it and went, "GASP. You went to Barnes and Noble? BETRAYAL."

This is how genuinely ride or die my household is for indie bookstores.

Did you say you recently read/re-read Anne of Ingleside? What did you think of it?

Anne of Ingleside marks a change for me in the AoGG series, kind of a "before" and "after" marker. Before, every book focused on Anne's perspective throughout, with the exception of the first. In Anne of Ingleside, the focus of the story begins to shift from Anne herself to her children. Anne still features prominently in the book--unlike say, in Rainbow Valley--but her children get their own voice and narrative attention. This splintered attention only grows more prevalent in the remaining books of Rainbow Valley and The Blythes Are Quoted. (I didn't include Rilla, as Rilla of Ingleside has Anne, but also, it's about Rilla).

The introduction of the children means that much of the plot of Ingleside focuses on Anne's role as a mother and a wife. Looking at goodreads, this rubs a lot of readers the wrong way. Brilliant Anne Shirley, reduced to yet another happy wife happy life stereotype. I don't really agree with this conclusion, but I understand it. While I think choosing motherhood shouldn't be looked down on as a lesser choice, I think it's valid to find it less interesting from an entertainment perspective. (It's also impossible to separate from the historical context flavoring similar stories with "the home is where women belong!" although I don't think we really get that with Anne--in fact Gilbert explicitly acknowledges feeling guilt over the fact that he stole Anne's talent from the world in TBAQ). I also do think complaints of this ilk can be somewhat silly, because LMM novels are romantic slice of life books about young women on PEI in the late 1800s thru early 1900s--what did you expect the book was going to be about? There's a discussion to be had about female characters deserving more than what the time period they were written in afforded them (ie Jo March), but I think LMM does her characters justice most of the time. Anne isn't Emily, and Anne doesn't need to be.

Personally, I find Anne's new stage of life interesting, but I can find the focus on her children boring. Although I love the Blythe children as they grow older, half of them read too similar to Anne in this book for me to care about them as a unique voice (looking at you, Nan and Di). There are moments I do love--the glimpse at Walter's and Gilbert's relationship, Walter helpfully saying "his bottom," (all time favorite LMM moment), Jem flooring a playmate by saying dog's legs are supposed to reach the ground--but squinting at the children-focused parts of the book overall, I can't say they captivate me.

I do, however, love Anne's role as matchmaking matron who provides guidance to her children, the tension between her and Gilbert at the end of the book, Anne laughing at how women flirt with her doctor husband, her and Diana discussing the ups and downs of motherhood (someone here described them as wine moms and I loved it), and overall our look at a more mature Anne. LMM provides an engaging look at an older Anne and Gilbert with her delightful brand of whimsical realism. Sure, Anne and Gilbert got their happily ever after (ish, considering TBAQ and Rilla), but you know, happily every after can put you in a rut, and sometimes it comes with nasty in-laws, and it always comes with great loss to share. I enjoy the continuation of Anne's story; I less enjoy the handing off of the story to her children.

Where Ingleside really shines for me, though, is its foreshadowing. Ingleside was written last of all the Anne books, barring TBAQ (which really isn't an Anne book, but it so directly continues the storylines I count it as one). Rainbow Valley was published in 1919, Rilla was published in 1921 and Ingleside in 1939. That's a pretty significant gap of time, and it shows in Ingleside. As I've written before, WWI is foreshadowed in Rainbow Valley but it's from the perspective of a childhood daydream, albeit a chilling one, about a pied piper. Anne of Ingleside is much more blunt in foreshadowing the war. Diana tells Anne her son wants to be a soldier, and Anne laughs it off and says war is a thing of the past; Anne sees the shadow of the cross over Walter's bed and wonders at it in the future as she grieves; there's our subtle poppy moment, where Walter spills poppies, the symbol of WWI, and Anne muses on how they only have a day to live. Anne of Ingleside reads like one last happy summer day before the long gray winter of WWI, which saves it from being too humdrum a story.

called my sister and she told me she’s read twelve books this year and her new favourite food is pickled gherkins and i told her today me and two of my friends had a group nap in my little double bed and i think your twenties are good actually

saw this template on twitter and of course I had to make it about rote

I am seriously about to give the Sharpe books a second chance now thanks :)

(hopefully this time around I will not picture a permanent marker in a uniform when Hakeswill calls him "sharpie")

(omg it has been almost 10 years and I still remember that jerkface's name and how much I hated him from...the first 3? chapters. I can't imagine how they portray him in the show)

have fun! I've not read the books yet (a recent trip to a used bookstore that usually has full shelves of sharpe turned up nothing, so clearly there is someone else around here also newly obsessed) but I might give them a try as well!

I need to write two characters with the most unhinged enmeshed nonromantic relationship imaginable. and I need to do it right now

season 2 haters I see you and I get it but I'm honestly having a ball in this bitch

Pet peve of mine is ppl who genuinely call Akechi stupid. Like yes he makes some Real stupid mistakes & yes he faked most of his "solved" cases. But his wit in Sae's palace is real, & also he's like top of his school lol u can't forget that.

Akechi's smart, he just has a terminal case of Being A Fucked Up Teenager

This is.....dang.

This is a very weak novel slate.

emily st john mandel u r insane

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

something something about ismene believing women should defer to the authority of men and antigone believing men should defer to the authority of the gods