#reading-and

[witchcatyoshiko]

Reading He Who Fights with Monsters by Shirtaloon

And, I’ve made a wonderful idea for Clive’s wife

Picture this, Clive and his team are laid up in this town and Clive has to do some research so he goes to the local Magic Society to get some books and he’s told his wife had already started the research and where he could find her. He’s exasperatedly beginning to tell them he doesn’t have a wife but realizes the person isn’t messing with him. He nods and quickly goes to the room and finds a pretty lady nose deep in books, quickly scribbling notes in one of many notebooks.

Turns out the chick had impersonated Clive’s wife, telling those who heard rumors of her cheating that she was trying to make things right and they were working on their relationship, playing on pity by saying she wanted to help with his research to gain his trust again but really to gain access to Magic Society materials.

He’s flabbergasted and says how could they believe they were married just by her word and she winces saying “I kind of got us married” and sure enough they’re legally married by forged signatures and paid off authenticators.

But she’s smart, a quick study, self taught by all the materials she got her hands on thanks to being Clive’s wife and her research is actually crossing what he’s actually researching too. She came from the slums and would have never thought to do anything so illegal but impersonating someone who wasn’t real… is that really a crime?

She begs to be Clive’s assistant, proving her worth and right to be his wife. He agrees because she did make his current job simpler and her notes are rather thorough. And the team thinks it’s hilarious. She starts traveling with them, geeking out with Clive, getting to see everything she never thought she could, and Clive starts falling in love… with his already wife.

[catmask]

i dont consider myself a 'fashion guru' by any means but one thing i will say is guys you dont need to know the specific brand an item you like is - you need to know what the item is called. very rarely does a brand matter, but knowing that pair of pants is called 'cargo' vs 'boot cut' or the names of dress styles is going to help you find clothes you like WAAAYYYY faster than brand shopping

[grunklebongrip]

When a fic doesn’t fit my head canons but it’s well-written

[notgilderoylockhart]

subscribing to a fic isn’t enough I need the author to blast a bat signal into the night sky whenever they update

[just-french-me-up]

'ao3 needs a like and dislike button'

what you need, my algorithm-rotten minded friend, is a grip

[drumlincountry]

If your life is horrible and you need a new source of meaning and direction.... Do NOT find religion. Learn to identify plants.

[knebellindemann]

[marvelsmostwanted]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[criminalizegolf]

> read library book

> it's good

Thank you library

[witchcatyoshiko]

Reading Renegades series

Halfway through the second book and found the theme song for Nova and Adrian’s relationship

Lay all Your Love on Me by ABBA

But like half of it sung in a dark tone and the other overly confident almost like a command

[heartbreakincident]

nothing but respect for our troops (smut writers) but listen. i dont want to be the person to tell you this, but not every character is going to be a dom or a sub. some people. and i know this is hard to hear. but some people do have vanilla sex. and some of those people might even be The Character.

[whitachi]

posting it here because there's no chance anyone in my family would ever see it: this is how my brother's 13-year-old child decided to announce something to me

[amartworks]

had a fun experience on the subway the other day

[cloudabserk]

WARNING do NOT start reading books and comics or watching movies or looking at art!!! you will start wanting to create art yourself. or god forbid. writing.

[yume-fanfare]

top places to publicly overshare online:

tumblr blog

youtube comment section of a song