#quib rambles

[qqquib]

[themsource]

Billford Fanchild - Lydia Annabelle Pines

Unexpected, but Loved

When Ford had said that what he had to show him was something that he wouldn’t believe, Stan had been skeptical. He’d been everywhere, from the cold mountains of Colorado to Timbuktu, and had seen more than he’d ever thought possible—some of which he knew would have driven his weirdness obsessed twin right out of his mind with excitement.

Whoever this Bill guy was that Ford had been rambling on about and the confusing speech about portals and journals didn’t sound like anything to be shocked about. He’d been here before, got tangled up with the wrong people and messed with the wrong things, it wasn’t something that he couldn’t help his brother handle, he was sure.

Especially with how much detail Ford was going into as they took the elevator down to what was apparently his private study. Information was power, they could figure something out.

But as (ugh) usual, his brother had been right.

Because even though Stan was looking right at it, his mind was struggling to register what exactly it was that he was seeing through a thick, bulletproof looking glass dome atop a small white bassinet from which various cables hooked to several different machines led away, with an ethereal subtle blue glow ominously shadowing the surrounding walls.

A small bundle moved beneath the reflection of his furrowed brows and slack jawed expression as his heart thundered in his ears, so loud within a stillness that had snapped over the room the moment he set foot inside it, that felt painfully physical and suffocating.

He had to remind himself to breathe.

“...you had a kid?” Stan finally croaked, throat raw and cracked with disbelief.

Ford was quiet for a long time, unable to bring himself to look at him and instead choosing to keep his gaze on his feet. Eventually, however, he slowly looked up, a lifetime of regret and remorse in the bloodshot depths of his eyes glistening with unspent tears as they turned glassy and threatened to overflow.

“He was… very charismatic. Said all the right things and flattered me into believing that we were equals, and to take a risk under the guise of scientific innovation just as I had done constructing the portal,” he whispered, the words hardly more than a thin wisp of air. 

There was a pause.

A faint click as Ford swallowed down hard before reluctantly continuing.

“Bill reminded me of you… Stanley. He got to me in the one way he knew best… used the endearments, made the familiar crude and sarcastic quibs. Lured me into the belief that two worlds could be joined harmoniously despite the differences between them…”

Stan’s hand clenched tight into a fist as he looked down at the child, its tiny little hands working free of its blanket to reach towards him with a soft coo on its tongue.

Ford followed his gaze with a small flicker before looking back over at him.

“...I was a fool.”

The brothers were silent, the air between them thick with a decade of feelings still left unsaid, feelings that would remain as nothing more than ghostly echoes they’d dare not say out loud given the chasm between them.

A fact they both knew and secretly acknowledged with broken hearts.

There was nothing that could be done but to deal with what was happening now.

“What are you going to do with it?” Stan finally asked.

Ford’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“If you’re hidin’ the journals, what about the kid, Stanford?” He clarified as he finally met Ford’s gaze with an expression sharp enough to cut glass, a hard and cold judgmental shadow in his eyes.

The older twin slowly looked down at the child, and quickly turned away, putting his back to the both of them.

Ford’s answer was monotoned, resolute and detached.

“Dispose of it.”

Stan’s eyes widened.

The implication of his brother doing something like taking a life was so out of character that it felt physical how Stan’s world flipped on its head and turned inside out. Unnatural and surrell, because he could never picture his nerdy genius of a twin ever sparing a thought to something ‘barbaric’ (as Ford’s younger self would’ve said) like that.

He was still trying to process and get his mouth to work when Ford continued, “Given the offspring’s lineage, it poses a threat. If allowed time to grow, who's to say what the creature might do or powers she might harness? There is a reason that throughout history anyone suspected of originating from the coupling of a human and demon were… for lack of a better term, euthanized.”

Stan only heard one thing.

“‘She’s’ a girl?” He murmured, turning to look at the baby one more time.

The way she looked at him made Stan curl a hand against the center of his chest.

Ford spared a glance over his shoulder before responding curtly as he began to walk out of the makeshift nursery set in the corner of his study back towards the elevator, “Come, we have more important matters to deal with at the moment further down. Time is not on our side.”

Stan stared at the baby for a prolonged, awkward moment, trying to not think about the warmth he felt in his chest—mixed with the ugly dark feeling of jealousy—and how he both wanted to linger in it and get as far away from it as possible the longer he stared at the girl.

‘Ford’s child, his baby girl…’

He slowly raised a trembling hand, and gently rested it against the glass.

The baby’s eyes lit up as they darted from his face to his palm and back, the little tyke breaking out a sun bright and open mouthed, toothy grin.

Stan felt his lips begin to hitch up—

“Stanley!”

And just like that, whatever had come over him, vanished.

He let his hand fall away before sliding it back into the pocket of his hoodie, and turned on his heel with a bitter frown to follow after his brother. Why Ford felt he had to get rid of the kid was still a mystery to him. The whole nature vs nurture thing.

Stan was sure they could figure this out too.

All they had to do was talk, a lot.

[quibliography]

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor

Synopsis:  This novel is about RobertJohansson and the future he didn't expect to have. Bob was thrilled to be part of the cryogenic program that would freeze his brain upon death for reanimation in a more technologically-advanced future; he just didn't expect to wake up suddenly a century later as a digitized version of himself. But with the emotional settings turned off, he's able to take all of it in stride. Especially when he's suddenly jettisoned from the planet on a mission that will hopefully save humanity from itself.

My Quibs: This is my kind of book - heavily nerdy without being overbearing about it, lightly philosophical without being too biased, cheeky, and a bit self-deprecating. Granted, don't take this book very seriously. It's more like a stupid sit-com you turn on for some entertainment. Firstly with the characters: there really is only one character replicated a hundred times over, who is also our tour guide and narrator. The author is a self-proclaimed software engineer (much like Andy Weir who wrote The Martian) and so the character development is pretty standard: Bob is a self-assured but self-aware human who thinks his dad jokes are funny. I think he's fun to ride with but another reviewer described him as obnoxious. I could see that to be true if you think giggling at nerd references is obnoxious. It's true, Taylor nor Bob are witty, but we can both be five-year-olds pointing and laughing at a stupid fish face. That's who you're stuck with for 500 pages. [Edit: Having started the second book in the series, i must say that I fully agree with how tedious his humor is now. As an adult, it's fun to play on the same with a five-year-old but after a couple hours, I really want to have an adult conversation with an adult again.] Secondly with the world-building, or should I say universe-building: he paints an interesting scenario and then proceeds to play his own version of make-believe. Again, another reviewer commented that Bob gets lucky a lot but I didn't focus so much on how Bob solved the problem. I was more interested in the problems that Taylor created. How would you react if you woke up the next day and you were a bunch of data in the cloud? That everyone and everything you knew had been long gone for a century? 🤔 Bob realizes his "endocrine simulation routine" is disabled and basically represses his emotions for the first several chapters and when he does choose to turn it on, we don't see his reactions/process. Which is fine by me. I'm more curious how I would write that story if my character was given this situation. How would you feel if the only way to fulfill a functional necessity and social desire was to make a version of yourself? 😬 Bob's lucky that he got along with most versions of himself and that those he didn't get alone with could leave for other parts of the universe. I suppose this concept ended up being more like a parent-child relationship than a self-reflection idea, but if I were to write it... Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed the thought exercise that was We Are Legion and I'm looking forward to other hypothetical situations that Bob gets himself into. [Edit: I made it about a fifth of the way into For We Are Many and Taylor doesn't really open up any new themes or scenarios. It's starting to read more like rambling except because he has so many more new Bobs to cram in, each Bob chapter is only four or five pages long. I feel like I'm just reading reports from coworkers. This will be a DNF unfortunately.]

Should you read it? It’s like a beach read for nerds. (But just the first one...)

Similar reads? As another reader mentioned, this is clearly in the genre of Smart Guy Talks Nerd Directly To You ala The Martian by Andy Weir and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

(Spoiler Alert!) I went into the story 100% blind and so I didn't want to list more thought questions before the spoiler warning in case others wanted some plot points to still be a surprise. For instance, after Bob reaches his initial destination, the book really branches out into several stories. Normally I would struggle with tracking multiple unrelated story lines, but luckily the writing is simple enough that it wasn't as difficult as I expected. 1. Bob goes back to Earth to see if humanity is okay. 2. Bob goes further and discovers a planet with sentient life on it. 3. Bob goes further and finds viable uninhabited planets. 4. Bob goes further and encounters a hostile probe that was launched from a different country. #3 and #4 didn't really interest me so much. But #1 and #2, while really exposing the god-complex of nerds and scientists, still posed an interesting question. How would you handle dictating the remaining world population as it's least-biased savior? Would you know how to mediate a group of desperate world leaders? And this is my bias here, but I like seeing science-driven civilians being forced into a military-esque command position. (It also happens in Stargate: Atlantis.) And finally the other question: Could you be an in-actionable observer to nature? Should you be? If you were motivated to take action, how far would you be willing to intervene? This reminds me of a BTS clip of Planet Earth where the film crew in Antarctica, who normally promise not to intervene in any natural situation, ultimately did help a young penguin out of a hole in the ice. I guess it had fallen in and would've been left behind to starve but the crew, after weighing the pros and cons, decided to quickly pop the penguin out of the hole. There are other examples in Planet Earth where a small mistake like that will ultimately kill an animal (I think an elephant wandered off and got lost and was presumed to ultimately die) and it's portrayed as a consequence of life. But this time, they intervened. Bob's study of the Deltans reminded me of that again. Although Taylor exaggerates everything ten times over for the sake of literary drama but the question still exists.

What did you think of We Are Legion (We Are Bob)?

[fruit-of-infidelity]

Somehow, Scarlett made her way into Ryuuto’s house. Maybe the few black feathers under the open window was enough of a clue… However, she spotted him earlier than expected, his silhouette sitting on an armchair (reading? Sketching? Pondering?) with his back facing her forced her to freeze in place for a whole second, but she couldn’t back away now!

And so, assuming he already felt her presence anyway –either by instinct or by her perfume–, she simply walked over to him. Quickly. Soon enough, a pair of gloved hands covered the Vampire’s eyes from behind, “...hello~” the soft voice of the redhead Ghoul greeted him, “ha~ppy birthday~ Did you miss me? Well, you don’t get to see me just yet—” Admittedly, there was something she ultimately regretted bringing along, but it was too late to get rid of. In the meantime, she gently but firmly covered his sight from her spot behind the seat, trying to add some mystery while she still could.

“... it is a little embarrassing. I haven’t come bearing gifts this time, but… you see, the bakery was closed, I don’t know how to cook, there’s no way I’d bring a whole musical instrument all the way here by myself to play something, and—… sigh. Gifts are getting harder and harder to make, and it’s all your fault.”

Despite the pouty tone of her ramble, there was a little disappointment hidden in that sigh, directed to herself for the most part, of course. Nevertheless, she quickly recovered. The hands that held his face tilted his head back just as gently, enough to ensure that her eyes would be right above his when she finally allowed him to see again.

“...But I won’t let that stop me from trying. So, I thought…” looking into an upside down version of Ryuuto’s green hues, she offered a cheeky smile, “...what if I spoiled you myself today~? You get to choose how, but don’t make me regret this and take too much advantage of my special gift, okay? It so happens to be something I rarely do for anyone, as well... fufu, so? Do we have a deal? Or should I come back tomorrow with a cinnamon roll instead?”

Her hands slowly lowered to rest on his shoulders. Her own hair, despite her attempts, did not completely hide or exhibit the particular choker she decided to wear for that occasion...

[ Ryuuto's head lifted as he sensed her movement. Dropping by without so much as a warning? How inconsiderate~. Still, his patience served him well; As she covered his gaze, in anticipation of what was to come next, a smile snuck upon his lips. ]

"I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me."

[ Despite this taunt, he didn't interrupt her further as she spoke thereafter. Instead, he was willing to sit back and let her explain herself, and this surprise visit. There was oh-so many quibs that danced on the tip of his tongues at her excuses, but he repressed his desire to be a complete pain-in-the-ass, and - instead - found himself without any need to speak as he was directed to gaze into those all-too-familiar purple eyes. ]

"Ambitious~. You think you can spoil me... all on your lonesome? I'm a hard man to please, you do realise? Fufufu."

[ His eyes flickered down to that choker the very moment she let it come into view, and he drew in a breath. Not because he needed to breathe, oh no... But something about the sight before him suddenly urged it from him. ]

"You know, I rarely say no to a cinnamon roll..."

[ Biting at his bottom lip oh-so softly, pretending to contemplate her offer - although he doubted he was fooling her - he finally found just the right words to answer her. ]

"But, I suppose that depends on how you taste."

[the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee]

@ my moots: why do you all have dark blue pfps you’re all merging together on my dash

[b-rainlet]

You made me ship Lunya T.T but as a Allison stan this kind made me ship her with Diego... headcanon about the neglected couples? :O

Tbh, there are a lot of ship possibilities that could be seen as neglected couples since there are 7 main people who could be thrust into about 21 ship dynamics - not counting poly ships and not counting ships that aren’t sibling ships - like Klave or Vanya/Helen or even still incest stuff like Gracexthe sibs.

So you see, endless possibilities but there are only about 4 ships who are really popular? Klave, Kliego, Fiveya...maybe Horrance? And even then, most Horrance or Fiveya shippers still see their ship as a rarepair because compared to Klave or Kliego it more or less is.

Which may have to do with the fact that if you’re an anti but wanna ship something you have pretty limited options, so Klave it is.

So you probably want some Allison/Diego hcs but I’m gonna do a little more because Allison is less popular in general so her ships are not that often talked about.

I’ll leave out Alluther because I did some OTP asks about them, but y’all know I ship them because it’s the sweet story of childhood sweethearts meeting again and falling in love all over again and it’s just...*sighs dreamily* lots of possibilities.

Allison/Diego: A fun ship! At first you’d probably say: ‘We have a pretty much functional adult with a child and a guy who eats raw eggs to seem edgy’ so it’s easy to fall into a Hermione/Ron relationship interpretation where you have a dumbass and someone done with their shit - and I can see it being like that occasionally but not always!

When I think about them I mostly think about teasing. They totally do some competitive shit just because they wanna best each other but where that same dynamic could quickly turn into arguments for Luego I can see it staying mostly light-hearted with Allison/Diego.

(Quick question, do they have a ship name? Asking for tagging purposes).

And Allison would take none of Diego’s shit. Oh, Diego has one of his mood swings and tries to be an emo boy and pull that ‘I don’t need anyone shit’? Boy, Allison is a single mother who’s been through a divorce already, she doesn’t have time for your angst.

Lmao, Allison being like: “We’ll sit down and talk about our feelings now” after a fight and Diego complains the whole time but sits down like a good boy.

Also, Allison would do the vigilante thing from time to time because she may pretend to be an adult and above that kinda stuff but it’s fun and they definitely argue over who took out more people.

Give me that power couple pls.

Allison/Klaus: One of my favourite ships! Can be real whole-hearted or angsty depending on the angle you take.

Like, Allison who keeps busting Klaus out of prison with her status and her rumours and who pays for his rehab stay every single time, at first still telling him that she’s gonna fix him with that Hollywood ‘You can do it’ attitude - slowly getting more and more annoyed by her no-good brother, feeling like a babysitter - maybe even refusing to keep indulging his brother, to keep giving him money he’s only gonna use on drugs anyway.

And Klaus who despises Allison’s glamour lifestyle, her polished image and her nuclear family - we could even throw some biphobia in there because Klaus remembers their talks about how pretty girls are but Allison pretends that never happened because it wouldn’t do her career much good. (Just like being seen with her junkie brother, “isn’t that why we can’t meet anywhere that isn’t a back alley? Why you can’t talk to me without sunglasses and a hat? Why you keep your voice down even when I scream at you?”)

Plus, some added angst: Patrick telling Allison to just drop her brother already, he’s just gonna self-destruct and take her with him and that creates tension between the two of them, could even be one of the many reasons for their divorce.

And just like that, Allison loses all of it. And Klaus is there with a cheap bottle of Tequila, already high and grinning at her: “Welcome at the bottom, sister dearest!”

*insert the 30k story about the two of them slowly learning to understand each other and finally being able to heal - with the help from the other but also because they wanna change for themselves. I vote for added bed sharing and sleepovers and them doing each other’s nails but also them fucking once and not talking about it because they were both really hurt and not really thinking when it happened but it staying in the back of their minds until they realize that they could actually work together*

This got angstier than it was supposed to be, sorry! I love them, I swear!

Allison/Five: Probably the least popular one out of all the Allison ships!

I have to admit that I don’t think about Five ships much? Which probably has to do with the whole child body thing but I’m not opposed to ships involving them! (Especially when they’re enby, y’all know my brand).

Allison/Five would be that kinda snob couple who knows they are superior to you and they’re not above showing you. Lots of quibs, lots of sarcasm.

But also probably one of the more mature ones? I can see Allison being unsure at first because Five is- no, looks like a kid and who knows when that will get fixed? And maybe it’s because she’s a Mum but sometimes she just treats them like a child and Five hates it.

(Five probably has to do a lot of courting before Allison considers a relationship. Which is bullshit. They both know there’s tension there, why the fuck is Allison drawing back from that? Just because Five’s trapped in this body? Does Allison think they want that?)

Five aggressively flirting while Allison to herself is like: ‘Hoe, don’t do it.’ but eventually giving in.

And of course, depending on your take of Five’s body, things are gonna be weird. Like, a popular hc is to have Five in a 20ish body but even then, just imagine the headlines.

Allison Hargreeves, world star, dating a guy 10 years younger!!! Is she getting over her divorce with a boy toy?

(Not to mention the pseudo-incest part).

They’d get a lot of shit I’d say.

And Five would be furious about that. How dare they imply that their relationship with Allison is just some fling? They’ll show them. So they make a game out of proving the paparazzi wrong. Makes it their mission to treat Allison as right as possible.

(Also I have feelings about the whole Five - Claire - Allison thing. I mean, just Five mentioning wanting to meet Claire? Knowing her name? I am soft).

And I know I am rambling a little but whether you think Patrick was/is a nice guy or not (I personally think he is), I can see Allison being so obsessed with seeming flawless and having the picture perfect family - as opposed to her own family - that she felt like she could never really be herself? Like she had to hide a lot of her more ‘ugly’ sides to be desirable.

And Five doesn’t care about that shit. Five also doesn’t care about courtesy. Five will jump into her room at the beginning of their relationship, watch her scramble around to try and change into something nicer than her pajamas and apologize for her messy hair and her pimples- “I just woke up, I didn’t have time to put on my make up, can’t you come back later Five?”

And Five’s like: “You look like someone who just woke up. Your hair is sweaty and you have a pretty big pimple on your nose. Also, your morning breath is horrible. Can we cuddle now?”

(Five is the first partner Allison burps in front of. It’s pretty freeing).

Five on the other hand has someone they can be insecure in front of. Where they don’t have to pretend they know all the answers. Be dismissive with. (They’re trying to let all of their siblings in but it’s a process, okay?)

I’m sorry, I’ll stop now but I gave myself feelings.

Allison/Ben: This feels like an easier couple. Like, more normal, lmao. Just a couple of adopted sibs falling in love the old-fashioned way - after one of them gets brought back to live and they survive a near apocalypse their sister caused.

I like to spin some tale of being in love as kids (like with Alluther) but for me the two of them really work better as just being friends as kids and then once Ben comes back, Allison realizes how much she missed him and she’s like “What is this???? Am I....crushing on him??” (imagine the Beauty and the Beast song where they realise they like each other while playing in the snow).

Just...some good and nice slowburn. Maybe some added angst with Ben thinking Allison is confusing her relieve of him being alive with being in love or believes she’s looking for a rebound after her divorce.

Or maybe he believes he’s just touch-starved and that’s why he clings to Allison?

(Imagine the two of them chilling at the mansion together, just picking up where they left off, pretending to still be kids. Allison all excitedly showing Ben what he’s missed during all those years and what he only gets to experience now - let’s be honest this mostly boils down to Allison making him eat a bunch of stuff, not even waiting until he takes a bite himself but just putting it in his mouth because she wants to see whether he likes it).

(I hc that Allison can’t cook for shit but Ben has no real frame of reference unless you count blurry memories of what food used to taste like so it’s heaven to him and Allison is giddy).

They’re just cute, okay?

Allison/Vanya: ANGST. GAY ANGST. I mean, the guilt over what happened, Allison feeling like it’s her fault and treating Vanya all nice but Vanya stilll flinches everytime she sees the angry red scar across Allison’s throat. Plus, if Allison still can’t speak and will never speak again and Vanya tries her hardest to learn ASL with her so she doesn’t have to write down everything all the time.

Young Allison/Vanya with Vanya realising she’s queer and sneaking glances at Allison and immediately feeling guilty because she shouldn’t be looking, it’s wrong and dirty and Allison will hate her and-

Whereas she is completely missing the way Allison is looking back.

Also this ship can easily turn toxic with either of them - or both - getting overbearing after all that happened. And tbh, that’s just as exciting to write/think about.

That’s all I got for now but you’re welcome to talk more Allison/Allison ships with me!

[awwchibi]

i just saw a post about ava+josh friendship and wanted to write yall my thoughts! i've been wondering for a some time how it kinda bothers me  to never see healthy relationship break-ups and specific to druck newgen that it would be unrealistic to see all relationships survive longterm. so i've been thinking, josh and nora are a beautiful couple but both found eachother in a time of emotional co-dependancy. sooo, the next druck season might be at least half a year away lemme propose the following:

josh and nora's relationship comes to a conclusive arc, as in that they both develop emotionally to a point in which they realise their relationship was less founded in mutual love but more in availability, attraction and a mirror to one's own situation. i'd really love to see josh grow from his pleasing and diminishing characteristics to setting firm boundaries and can see nora help him in doing so, since that is what she is too learning. For her i think it's important to come to a place where she doesn’t depend on a stead-fast (romantic) relationship for her emotional balance except the one to herself.

So I do see the both of them breaking up, but in good + mutual terms.

circling back, i do see ava and josh develop a friendship. in her season, i’d like to see nora & josh turn their relationship to a friendship early so josh keeps being around quite often without it being awkward. ava and them stay friends too obviously, and then ava’s lovejourney starts, she’ll have multiple love interests. my thoughts flow as follows:

while she is questioning wether or not there are romantic feelings for huelk. there is the mysteryelement of love again, which like she did in s5, now all, cashqueens + zoe& josh will discuss juicely. it’ll be excitement, joy and rose-tinted glasses. a lil love adventure and everyone is celebratin with her. the point is we’ll get a lot of talks about relationships, at some point either nora, josh or both talk with ava about their relationship and how it ended and how yes, in the end often people leave/ hurt but it is not neccessarily in the way we expect them too. since yes, her unhealed trauma will still be adressed, just not in hellweeks kinda way, but in healing.

ava’s journey of romance or not with huelk will continue. i think at times she’ll retract to her old coping mechanisms again, in her time of non-communication and attempted isolation, josh will be able to relate to her cuz our girl continues sharing the songs she’s listening too & self written lyrics. he too processes with music. seeing as she is self-isolating from her friends and she does not consider josh to be that kind of part of her friendcircle yet, she’ll allow herself to continue to talk with him. even if it’s just cryptically and music-related but they both understand what the other one is saying. long story short, season continues and the idea of her and huelk will move forward but SURPRISE ava realizes she isn’t in love with huelk but with JOSH. and guess what JOSH IS IN LOVE WITH AVA TOO. everybody is happy, black love for the win, the end!

also they’d have the possibility to adress and explore racism & colorism through conversations between all three black characters. would love a scene at a party (if we’ve left the pandemic behind us), where maybe the three of them end uo together just vibing about music and maybe at that point somebody plays some white gen z music but they all are still vibin and get into a conversation about their love of all kinds of music but in which way racism even messes with that. maybe they all realize how when they were younger all of them had this extreme love of white ppl songs because of pressurres to assimilate. they’ll throw in quibs like, we know our ppl invented or revolutinied all these music styles, and yet it was and still is such a difficult journey to find love and empowerment in their music taste just because racism messes so heavily with it.

bonus points if they’ll talk about miss e. badu, because most of us at some point will experience a rite of passage by being introduced to baduizm.

i do wanna say tho, I WANT AVA TO HAVE A HAPPY SEASON !! please do not be her season be a lecture about racism or colorism, yall did this in fatou’s season. ava suffered this season so much off-screen. why?

anyways the end of my ramblings.

[qqquib]

WHY ARENT WE TALKING ABOUT SANS AND TORIEL CANONICALLY FUCKING???

[quibliography]

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Synopsis:  This novel is about the relationships that develop between a failed bank robber and an unlikely group of hostages from a nearby open house. Eight strangers didn't realize how attending an open house that day would change them. Although, really, who has an open house on New Year's Eve?? Zara, a wealthy bank director, is there just to secretly observe how ordinary people live. Roger and Anna-Lena, an older married couple, are there as house flippers, a hobby that sustains their fragile relationship. Julia and Ro, soon-to-be parents, are there to find their first family home if they could ever agree on something. They all think they're there for an apartment, but under the pressures of a hostage situation with such an impossible group of people, they realize something even greater.

My Quibs: I was not prepared for the style of a Fredrik Backman book. A thick helping of wacky characters that conceal a small but very serious acknowledgement about humanity. He has a frenetic style, going from one POV to another very quickly. With so many characters to juggle, my brain was racing to keep up with whose story I was reading. And not only does Backman keep a light-hearted and zippy tone, but his characters do too. You have the rambling real estate agent, the snippy bank director, the squabbling young couple. It comes off initially as a comedy. ...except then there's also suicide. One especially important one that connects a lot of the characters. And between these two levels, I got severe whiplash. That's not to say I don't love a dark comedy, but I dunno, the Swedish sense of humor (or is it just Backman?) is really steep. A high high and a really low low - I just don't have the emotional wingspan to stretch between both these points. In the end, I had to pick one over the other. And since it's also a locked door mystery, there was a lot more space to enjoy it as a comedy. A story about a bunch of bumbling misfit strangers who help each other out in the middle of a strange and unfortunate situation.

And just as a minor footnote comment. I need a glossary of interpreted Swedish terms. I had so many questions like "What and why is a cashless bank?" and "What does 'Hows tricks' mean and why is it funny?" and "What's with all the jokes about Stockholmers?". I think a decent chunk of the book was lost in translation.

Should you read it? If you've read other Backman novels and enjoyed them.

Similar reads? I'm not entirely sure I know any. If anything, this has made me think that I need to broaden my repertoire of modern European novels - besides British, I mean.

(Spoiler Alert!) There's really only one secret in the whole of the novel and that's the identity of the bank robber. And chasing that thread really diminishes the theme of Backman's story about humans and our connections to each other. This might be repetitive of what I said earlier but when part of my brain is trying to decipher who the bank robber is and how they managed to escape the apartment, I'm distracted from connecting to the cast of characters. Whom are *also* focused on the identity of the bank robber, both in obscuring it and revealing it. And when we finally do get the reveal that the robber is a her and not a him, I did a real double take and had to flip back in the book to check that I hadn't mistaken things earlier. But no, Backman does a full deceit, using all kinds of male terms and then just slaps us with a "AHA! But she's actually female!". Which is not subtle and not cool. I give a tiiiny benefit of the doubt that this could be a loss in translation. Maybe Swedish is more lose with their pronouns and there wasn't a better way to communicate genderlessness in English? Dunno...

I do give a little credit as to the reveal of her escape. Backman dropped really random and dismiss-able bread crumbs, like "Oh, you know those neighbors were always squabbling and just couldn't stand to live together anymore". Then no more mention of the neighbor. That Estelle once received a key from a man in the elevator, but nothing else really about this man. It was a bit rushed, but it wasn't faster than the pacing of the rest of the book.

What did you think of Anxious People?

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tubbo saying that dream’s brain has been, for lack of better phrasing, miss-wired from being stuck in a sphere of hate for four years is so accurate!

you see it today in people falling into alt-right pipelines for being called hated on relentlessly, mainly in a lot of cishet white men. they tend to follow people who see them being hated and support them and tell them they’ve done no wrong. it’s a huge echo chamber, and they tend to end up hating the other people back. this is just an example, (i haven’t seen dreams full VOD), and i’m not claiming that he is a trumpie.

being as online as dream has been, while also being wildly popular, is bound to make him see things differently. i’m not saying it’s right, i’m saying it makes sense.

think about it. i’ve been surrounded with people who also read fanfic for my whole life, and when i do something that isn’t perceived as normal it’s generally because of people i hang around, and content i interact with. it’s how people exist and grow.

he should however take the time to learn to see things from other peoples perspectives—despite his anger and his own emotions. he should learn how to step back and recollect before responding with pure emotion and anger.

he is trying to make people see his whole point while bringing evidence and bringing up old/past issues to make it more “sympathetic” in his eyes. that’s just defensive. and yeah, he has been able to prove certain things, or say that things are incorrect and be correct. he is good at disproving bad claims about him. (the truth video, and proving that he is not a pedo. there has been so much back and forth between what actually happened there i am not certain of anything, but for the purpose of hearing him out im going to say he was able to beat the allegation)

but, he has not disproven that he is just an asshole.

he has every opinion to be upset and distraught about people calling him a pedo and all of these others things when generally the people around him and the whole “the truth” video. he has disproven that.

but, he just sounds like an asshole for not being able to see from other perspective, and with the way he acts (very volatile) people aren’t going to want to listen to him. with him constantly deleting tweets and messages and everything! it’s a way of hiding what he has done.

i just don’t see what he wants to achieve here, or what he is trying to do. state your shit, apologize for what you have done, and do better. i’m trying to hear him out, and not be unbiased here. but wow, a lot of this is just. crazy to me, the things he is saying and the actions he has taken are arguably bad. say sorry, and move on.

anyway, idk anything. all of this should’ve been handled behind the scenes from the start, from 2020.

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this is a great time to remind everyone to go offline, to talk with your friends, to engage in content that's fulfilling, to go outside. to live a life that has meaning away from the internet.

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so real! why does dream think people can’t make their own opinions! why is he acting like tubbo is not a grown adult who can make his own decisions and opinions!

“i think tubbo is just misguided”

why does dream get to say that? i don’t. understand. i’m really trying to be so unbiased here but the way he keeps implying that people can’t have their own opinion bc it’s not his, it’s not cool.

it feels so, as tubbo said, infantilizing. these people aren’t kids, they aren’t below below dream, they’re on equal footing.

i don’t like it :/

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why tf is tim drake trending #1 rn

IM NOT MAD JUST CONFUSED DID SOMETHING HAPPEN😭😭

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watching this all happen (dream situation) makes it really obvious that dream is projecting onto tommy. hear me out here, he’s saying what he thinks tommy is doing or feeling (mainly here talking about the QSMP and the skit tommy made, saying he did it just for money or just to be away from “dream’s losing side”). it just makes me think that it’s something DREAM would do, which is why he thinks tommy is doing it.

idk! just a thought.

stand on business tommy, i too can’t imagine treating a 16 year old like that at my age now.

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dear dream,

intention does not make what you said feel any less sexist.

tysm, have a lovely day

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oh my god rouxls kaard is in an auspictice relationship with elnina and lanino