#reading this here

[swan2swan]

It’s only when I’m seriously exhausted that - for about half a second - I wish I were just an ordinary Rachel. Like when I’ve been going on no sleep for forty-eight hours. When I’ve been slashing and shredding the enemy and leaking blood from my own gaping wounds until I can hardly breathe without it hurting. When the very thought of sleep seems totally foreign. Sleep? Huh? I don’t wish it after a typical, everyday kind of mission. Just after the really annoying ones. The ones where we lose more than we gain. The ones where we fail to do any serious damage to the Yeerks. Then, I wish - for about half a second - I were nobody special. That I’d never stumbled onto the tragic sight of a dying alien warrior prince. That he’d never told us about the Yeerk invasion of Earth. That he’d never chosen us - me, my cousin Jake, my best friend Cassie, Jake’s best bud Marco, and this shy, compelling kid named Tobias- to adopt the noble Andalite mission. 

That he’d never given us the gift and curse of Andalite morphing technology. The ability to touch an animal and absorb its DNA, all for the purpose of becoming that animal when necessary. To fight off the invaders. To stave off the fate that has befallen so many other worlds through-out the universe. A fate worse than death. Total subservience to a mind-controlling master race.

Okay, has there EVER been a book series more obviously written for “BUY US AT THE SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR, TAKING PLACE IN YOUR SCHOOL STUDY HALL ROOM RIGHT NOW!!!”?

[happyheidi]

𝖠𝗋𝗍 𝖻𝗒 𝖠𝗇𝗇𝖺-𝖫𝖺𝗎𝗋𝖺 𝖲𝗎𝗅𝗅𝗂𝗏𝖺𝗇 | 𝖨𝖦: 𝖺𝗇𝗇𝖺𝗅𝖺𝗎𝗋𝖺_𝖺𝗋𝗍

[loveaankilaq]

People online (white) will create so many conspiracy theories that just boil down to "Asians aren't complete human beings with their own thoughts and autonomy" like maybe Chinese people are just going about their day to day life. Maybe a video of a North Korean person like chilling is just a person chilling, who isn't going to power down like a robot once the video is over. Stop being a fucking creep.

[dendrochronologies]

maya angelou saying the funniest thing anyone has ever said about editing, which i can never let myself forget EVER AGAIN [x]

[throesofincreasingwonder]

"A story doesn't need a theme in order to be good" I'm only saying this once but a theme isn't some secret coded message an author weaves into a piece so that your English teacher can talk about Death or Family. A theme is a summary of an idea in the work. If the story is "Susan went grocery shopping and saw a weird bird" then it might have themes like 'birds don't belong in grocery stores' or 'nature is interesting and worth paying attention to' or 'small things can be worth hearing about.' Those could be the themes of the work. It doesn't matter if the author intended them or not, because reading is collaborative and the text gets its meaning from the reader (this is what "death of the author" means).

Every work has themes in it, and not just the ones your teachers made you read in high school. Stories that are bad or clearly not intended to have deep messages still have themes. It is inherent in being a story. All stories have themes, even if those themes are shallow, because stories are sentences connected together for the purpose of expressing ideas, and ideas are all that themes are.

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[mikurinkuwu]

they're girlfriends your honor

[hattersarts]

>>> Risk ineffable husbands, 7 pages

here's a little comic, it's not completely show!gomens compliant but its headcanons i enjoy

comic notes under cut :)

I enjoy Az already realising he likes Crowley by the time Adam appears but hasn't yet worked out what to do with that information bc acts-of-service Crowley Can't Talk, Wont Talk.

Crowley on the other hand has been VERY GOOD at ignoring why he spends so much of his time around Az so only on the crux of YOU'RE GOING TO LOOSE HIM did anything manage to force its way through to his brain. (i did not enjoy crowley being told he was in love with az in s2, i think he could have worked it out himself)

i rly enjoy hcs where they started sleeping together and with humans for fun (i mean the ox ribs scene sets some v good precedent for this) az sleeps with humans bc he indulges! he likes pleasure! crowely on the other hand is very bad at catching feelings and doesnt like it when they die so has mostly only slept with az (did i mention he's VERY good at ignoring his feelings) but they probably haven't slept together for a few hundred years when adam pops up.

my compliant show!hcs are still that az knows he loves crowley (i mean the scene with jim where he leaps out of the chair to attempt to protect crowley saying no he defo doesnt know ANYONE who he feels that way with, don't look closely at anyone he is with) and is just sort of sitting on it still, waiting for any hint from crowley, planning a ball definitely only for humans and no other reason. Crowley is obviously very protective of Az but he still hasn't clicked why he's worried about him but he doesn't have the excuse of heaven or hell anymore so it wouldn't have taken much for him to work it out (hello one of his first lines in s2 is "you ever think, what's the point?" the point is love you idiot)

(book!gomens is just they're already married and have been fucking for centuries but the book just doesnt mention that.)

[louisegluckpdf]

the irony of this year's met gala theme being based on a short story about cloistered, decadently-dressed aristocracy desperately pillaging the natural resources at their disposal to hold the advancing tide of the restless underclass at bay is honestly baffling

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

I remember discussing Tintin casting choices with a friend from Germany and remarked how it was odd he often has an English accent in adaptations rather than a Belgian one, and my friend just replied "that's because Tintin gives incredibly strong English boy energy (derogatory)"

Here in the UK there's a lot of weird classism tied into accents. Today accent diversity and representation in broadcasting is actively pursued but in Tintin's time there certainly was a preferred accent to have.

imagine this exchange happens between pages 28-29 in The Crab with the Golden Claws

[mangozic]

archivist be upon ye

[jadenvargen]

free online james baldwin stories, essays, videos, and other resources

**edit

James baldwin online archive with his articles and photo archives.

---NOVELS---

Giovanni's room"When David meets the sensual Giovanni in a bohemian bar, he is swept into a passionate love affair. But his girlfriend's return to Paris destroys everything. Unable to admit to the truth, David pretends the liaison never happened - while Giovanni's life descends into tragedy. This book introduces love's fascinating possibilities and extremities."

Go Tell It On The Mountain"(...)Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves."

+bonus: film adaptation on youtube. (if you’re a giancarlo esposito fan, you’ll be delighted to see him in an early preacher role)

Another Country and Going to Meet the Man Another country: "James Baldwin's masterly story of desire, hatred and violence opens with the unforgettable character of Rufus Scott, a scavenging Harlem jazz musician adrift in New York. Self-destructive, bad and brilliant, he draws us into a Bohemian underworld pulsing with heat, music and sex, where desperate and dangerous characters betray, love and test each other to the limit." Going to meet the Man: " collection of eight short stories by American writer James Baldwin. The book, dedicated "for Beauford Delaney", covers many topics related to anti-Black racism in American society, as well as African-American–Jewish relations, childhood, the creative process, criminal justice, drug addiction, family relationships, jazz, lynching, sexuality, and white supremacy."

Just Above My Head"Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni's Room, and to the political fire that enflames his nonfiction work. Here, too, the story of gospel singer Arthur Hall and his family becomes both a journey into another country of the soul and senses--and a living contemporary history of black struggle in this land."

If Beale Street Could Talk"Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions-affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche."

also has a film adaptation by moonlight's barry jenkins

Tell Me How Long the Train's been gone At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. An adored older brother vanishes into prison. There are love affairs with a white woman and a younger black man, each of whom will make irresistible claims on Leo's loyalty. 

---ESSAYS---

Baldwin essay collection. Including most famously: notes of a native son, nobody knows my name, the fire next time, no name in the street, the devil finds work- baldwin on film

--DOCUMENTARIES--

Take this hammer, a tour of san Francisco.

Meeting the man

--DEBATES:--

Debate with Malcolm x, 1963 ( on integration, the nation of islam, and other topics. )

Debate with William Buckley, 1965. ( historic debate in america. )

Heavily moderated debate with Malcolm x, Charles Eric Lincoln, and Samuel Schyle 1961. (Primarily Malcolm X's debate on behalf of the nation of islam, with Baldwin giving occassional inputs.)

----

apart from themes obvious in the book's descriptions, a general heads up for themes of incest and sexual assault throughout his works.

[hinamie]

sympathy for cain

[happyheidi]

𝖼𝖺𝗍𝗌 𝗂𝗇 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗋𝖺𝗂𝗇

[magpiedraws]

Jon he's really trying here cut him a break

(tumblr crunched the resolution of this comic a lot rip)

[alliluyevas]

"i hate love triangles" "i hate cheating" "stop writing about love triangles and cheating" people write about love triangles and cheating because complex emotions and romantic conflict are deeply compelling themes. get good.