pickledandjarred - Tumblr blog

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the problem with griddlehark is that Gideon desperately wants to be a well used chewtoy but Harrow has carefully put her up on the shelf like she is a limited edition funko pop still in the box

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WAKE THE FUCK UP I JUST SAW BOTTOMS IM SHITTING MYSELF IT WAS SO GOOD IM CRYING

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WAKE THE FUCK UP I JUST SAW BOTTOMS IM SHITTING MYSELF IT WAS SO GOOD IM CRYING

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random little jason grace hcs:

thumb rings. he wears thumb rings

huge physics nerd. like, he's not particularly good at it. but he loves it!

obviously transmasc aro

proficient in like every weapon, like every weapon. bow & arrow, battle-axe? yeah sure. but also, mace and chain, bagh nakh, gauntlets, deer horn knives, flails... fuck, he can even use a shotgun.

can run like really really fast. he's a runner. that being said he can also run really far. (like, roman soldiers walk up to 20 miles every day. with full armour. his endurance is fucking off-the-charts.)

most obscure music taste ever

very iffy about using his powers beyond the occasional electricity stuff, just because how much people in CJ would be terrified/rumour-y/plain weird about it.

loves drawing

actually a nerd in everything, not just physics.

has definitely bashed in someone's head with a shield at least once

huge fan of rollercoasters, hates horror movies

before fights he like to clean his glasses, for no reason at all.

people have told him countless times to not wear glasses during a fight because that won't end well if you're punched in the face but he keeps them on regardless. his reflexes are too good to get punched anyway 🤷

obsessed with barbie

no like. he and apollo do matching "i am Kenough" hoodies all the time

also besties with literally half of the gods across multiple pantheons

scribbles with pen on his hand all the time

chronic migraines guy

he goes feral in a fight then one second later he's like 🥺 'hey guys glad we got out of that one unscathed. y'all saved my ass'

he's never received any proper sort of love or affection (specifically during his younger years), so he deals with that by showering all of his friends with unlimited love <3

all the demigods and all the minor gods and some of the major ones too love him. hence he has a bloody huge, well-deserved protection squad

HE'S THE BIGGEST SWEETHEART EVER

he tore out krios's neck with his teeth and then smashed him to literal pulp with his own armour

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I think fandom seriously underestimates patroclus. he may sound whimpy because of how he tells the story - always selling himself short and being generally an unreliable narrator. but when you pay attention to what he actually does, it's like... he kills a boy with his own hands when he was nine. he mouths off the Prince of the family that's taken him in. he runs away to be with said Prince. he manipulates the King into telling him the secret location of the Prince. he sleeps with the prince's wife. the Prince does everything patroclus asks him to. he's fiercely protective and snarls at odysseus because achilles was splattered with blood which wasn't his own. slave girls whose villages he helped raid fall in love with him. he has no problem slicing his own wrist to get what he wants. he beats the trojans back to their gates. it turns him on watching his boyfriend murder 25 people at once.

meanwhile achilles is like that weird lonely kid in school that has a weird hobby, a tender heart, is strangely gifted in one area of expertise which everyone (begrudgingly) admires, doesn't really get along with anybody and only likes one person.

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BITCH SHUT TJE FYCK UP I’M NEVER SHUTTING UP ABOUY THIS YES THEY DIDN’T WIN UGH BUT THIS ITSELF IS A WIN FOR US OH MY GOD LOOK AT THRM I’M ACREAMING SHAKING CRYING THROWING UP BANGING THAT HEAD ON THE FUXKING FLOOR WHEGGTDGYGUYFYFYFTFTYFFYFYTFYF PLEASE GOD LET THIS SHOW COME BACK WE NEED SEASON 2 NOW MORE THAN EVER

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reblog if you think sign language should be taught as a language in schools.

🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣

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AU where the fact that ghosts are real is a closely guarded secret (the numbers are greatly reduced and it means technology is closer to the modern level) with DEPRAC organising the secret response with covert teams of teenagers only Lockwood found out ghosts were real and decided he wanted in on the action.

To stop DEPRAC from being able to quietly shut him down or have him arrested, Lockwood decided to make himself a public figure so he, George and eventually Lucy end up with a ghost hunting YouTube channel which they use to explain why they keep going to these supposedly haunted locations. In between fighting ghosts, they film themselves messing around Ghost Files style with Lockwood branding himself as a strong skeptic that has been dragged into 'ghost hunting' by believer and scientist, George. It enfuriates Barnes no end but because they don't ever show enough of the real ghosts to give out conclusive proof they exist, he is forced to let the trio continue.

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you’re actually so skilled pls keep writing!!! excellent dash content when i am in a car

hi i just want to say your writing speaks to the catholic child in me

ahh tysmmmmm <3333

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I’m absolutely going to post another rant about the mistreatment of Meredith Dardenne because I’m rereading and I am so angry for her. Fuck you Oliver. Fuck you Gwendolyn. Alexander baby I love you. Fuck you Richard. Filipa you’re good. Fuck you James.

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You might have seen this on Twitter, but we're posting it here as well!

Remember, the way forward is through positive passion and, when necessary, cheerful and respectful disagreement.

We're not here to make enemies -- the more allies we have and the more positive press we can give CF, the better off we are.

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what i have gathered from lockwood & co. is that george likes milfs??

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I’ve seen quite a few people discuss TSATS specifically in the manner that it’s supposed to be a middle-grade book, and I’d like to throw my two cents into the hat.

Particularly, I don’t think it’s reasonable to excuse the failings of TSATS just because it’s supposed a middle-grade book. The failings of the book are primarily structural, both narratively and just in basic writing structure, neither of which are excusable of a middle-grade novel - Especially given this is Mark Oshiro’s first major foray into middle-grade, as they typically write YA. It also seems that TSATS’ rating is actually upper middle-grade, so there’s even less excuse for the quality of the book. The problem isn’t that the book is bad to a non-middle-grade reader, or even bad as a middle-grade book, the problem is that the book is bad in general. So much of the book’s quality and execution feels just so poor in ways that you would typically expect to get caught very early on by the editorial team. Being middle-grade doesn’t excuse it being structurally bad for any reading level. It feels like the editorial team didn’t care about the quality of the book at all. There’s an unreasonable amount of places where the sentence and paragraph structures are poor, the writing is unclear, there’s basic continuity errors within the same sentence, the pacing is bad, and an overall lack of grammatical consistency (you can actually tell which portions of the book are written by Rick Riordan versus Mark Oshiro based purely on the use of s’ or s’s - if you see something like “Hades’s palace“ then it’s Riordan, and if it’s something like “Hades’ palace” then it’s Oshiro - this type of inconsistency should have been made consistent by the editing team).

The book also completely fumbles its attempts at handling its intended themes with any kind of grace or respect to the reader. TSATS being middle-grade (particularly upper middle-grade) doesn’t mean it can’t feature heavy themes, or that it has to dumb them down for a younger audience! I speak as someone who is extremely familiar with the Animorphs series - which is actually lower middle-grade. It’s basically like the poster-child for presenting complex themes and ideas appropriately in a middle-grade series. The way middle-grade is formatted is it’s about the writing structure (how simplified vs complex it is and so how easy is it for a middle-grade reader to understand) and how the concepts are presented, not about the actual concepts themselves. Animorphs is a really good example of this in that most of the books are less than 300 pages and the language is very simple. However, it doesn’t shy away from strong topics or dumb concepts down for the audience. It balances heavy topics with jokes in stride (see: The entire book about psychochemical warfare and the ethics of that, but the psychochemical warfare in question is dumping instant maple and ginger oatmeal on space slugs). And a lot of Animorphs books are actually ghostwritten! I would also argue the Warrior Cats books are another good example, particularly the novellas. They’re a similar length to TSATS, again written by a team of authors, are middle-grade rated, and don’t shy away from some pretty graphic stuff. They’re not the best books in the world, I mean, they’re rapidly churned out cat books for middle-schoolers. And they also tend to be full of errors. But at the very least most of the errors in the Warrior cat novellas aren’t basic structural stuff that you’d expect an editor to comb out within the first couple of passes or major basic details for a very prominent character or worldbuilding. Something equivalent to the types of errors in TSATS would be like a warrior cats novella about Brightheart not remembering how she got her scars or who Swiftpaw was or what Shadowclan is called, and every three chapters you read the jankiest sentence you’ve ever seen.

There are absolutely ways for the types of themes they were trying to handle in TSATS to be presented to a middle-grade audience appropriately, effectively, and with respect. TSATS was not even close to that. Again, I point to Animorphs! You wanna talk about writing PTSD for a middle-grade audience? Animorphs is your series. Animorphs gets into some heavy shit. But the way it’s presented is always appropriate for a middle-grade audience. Middle schoolers can handle more than people give them credit for (have you ever read middle-schoolers roleplaying warrior cats? I have. they do not hold back.) - they’re at the exact age where that type of stuff is not only interesting to them and they want to read about it, but that it’s important for them to begin to be introduced to those types of concepts in a way that’s appropriate for their age so that they’re prepared for when they encounter those topics or themes when they’re older.

The first Percy Jackson series actually does this really well! Percy has PTSD in the first book from Gabe! This is very clearly acknowledged and referenced throughout the first series (and even into Son of Neptune!) - and it’s specifically from Gabe, not being a demigod. We see characters grapple with grief and witnessing death and being in shock from that (the “dam” scene post-Bianca’s death, and the explicit acknowledgement that all the characters are so emotionally exhausted and harrowed from witnessing Bianca sacrifice herself for them that they get all giggly over stupid “dam” jokes). TSATS refuses to allow any emotional pay-off from the scenes. The Gorgyra interludes are the only thing keeping the pacing from being absolutely abhorred for half the book. There’s tons of narrative set-up that goes nowhere. There’s sentences that are so disjointed you wonder how they got written in the first place. This book shouldn’t have gotten past the editors, honestly.

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book recs for aapi heritage month 🕺🕺

a bit late, but happy aapi heritage month! i’ve been getting back into reading this past year after my pandemic slump, so here’s some books that i really enjoyed by aapi authors 

the poppy war trilogy by rf kuang - this series is a fantasy based on 19th-20th century china. it’s hilariously written with some of my favorite characters of all time, and deals with some really heavy topics like colonialism, the effects of warfare, and classism in a brutally honest fashion. i have so much to say about it but that’s for a much longer post-

babel: an arcane history by rf kuang - at this point i will read this woman’s grocery list, she is such a skilled writer and genius storyteller. babel is set in an alternate 1800s oxford university, in a world which the british empire’s power is built upon magic silver. babel unpacks the intrinsic ties between academia and empire from the perspective of someone on the inside and the concept of resistance. it also really hits home to the feeling of disconnect from your native language as a bilingual/third culture kid- overall just brilliant book imo. the magic system is also really interesting (as is that of rf kuang’s other work)- she builds upon the real world to create a fantasy that is engaging, but also very representative of the motifs of her work?? idk how to explain it but 🙏rebecca🙏

you’re the only one i’ve told: the stories behind abortion by meera shah - you’re the only one i’ve told is a collection of stories about abortion entrusted to shah, a medical practitioner who works as an abortion provider. the book humanizes these people and their experiences from a variety of different backgrounds and circumstances, and is a really compelling read. 

we have always been here: a queer muslim memoir by samra habib - we have always been here is a memoir about  habib’s experience growing up as an ahmadi muslim in pakistan, coming to canada as refugees in their teenage years, and grappling with queer identity within an environment where their body and personhood was thought to have been needed to be controlled. habib discusses faith, sexuality, and love through a lens of self discovery and finding community that you didn’t know existed. 

the henna wars by adiba jaigirdar - this book is set in dublin, and follows a young bangladeshi girl named nishat. nishat has fallen for an estranged childhood friend, flávia, who just so happens to be her rival in an upcoming school business competition. and by some luck, they both have chosen to create the same business; henna tattoos. i’m a sucker for fluff so this book got me, but it also deals with appropriation and queer romance (particularly from a 3rd culture experience) quite delicately. nishat’s relationship with her sister was also so well written, and i think was one of the most compelling bonds in this book!

this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar - okay i’m still in the process of finishing this book, but it has been so good so far! this is a story about two rival agents moving through a war that stretches across time, fighting tooth and nail for their own victory in a vaguely apocalyptic world. they begin a correspondence that spills into something that could change the course of time extremely literally. the writing style and descriptions are gorgeous, and the fragmented format of letters jumping across thousands of years is a really interesting reading experience. very cool book!

on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong - god this man is such a talent- everything good you’ve heard about his work is true and you should go read it rn. on earth we’re briefly gorgeous is written in the form of a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, and tells a story that crosses over 3 generations with it’s epicenter rooted in vietnam. the narrator unpacks how the effects of warfare, immigration and generational trauma have shaped his relationship with his mother and his own life. i’m not doing it justice (not for any of these rlly i cannot elevator pitch books), but vuong’s writing is so beautiful and intimate yet quiet? 💃💃🙏🫶👍🙏👌💃

that’s all i have for now, if you have any recs pls do tell!! to my fellow asian/pacific islander americans, your voices and stories deserve to be uplifted and celebrated without being fetishized, appropriated or pigeonholed. have a great may!