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the book has arrived. currently im on a page 33. i have Thoughts. idk if yall would be interested in my rambles, but maybe ill post some of em as i get through it
#some live reading sort of thing#miscellaneous#house of leaves#its pretty interesting so far but damn its a heavy read#specially since i aint a native english speaker and i buyed the book in english#guess i like to make my life harder for myself LMFAO#but i rlly like the design of the book#the book cover being slightly shorter than the pages making it seem like theyre spilling out of it not fitting quite right#the word “house” being colored blue adds a sense of foreboding like its this bigger thing looming over the narrative#the changes in fonts indicating the switch of the narrator#fun stuff
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ive been thinking about the red string superstition recently and also sol bufo always and it makes me sick how uncannily caldwell tanner has made sol to perfectly target me personally
(+ cropped versions !)
#naddpod#ba2mia#ba2umia#solum bufo#swag daniels#calliope petrichor#calder kilde#alexandrite#posts by me dot com#okay..... SECRET TAGS RAMBLE!#so basically this superstition is like ... i think a chinese/buddhist/taoist superstition?#ive taken some creative liberties with it... but its mostly accurate to how its been told to me?#but of course theres lots of variations! some more abt bad luck; some say to tie it on the doorknob#etc etc ... lots a variations#i was also rlly interested in the .... weird illogic? of the thing?#like the red attracts and repels spirits at the same time#so thats something i was thinking about with too. red is assocuated with both swag and alexandrite. which to me was kinda reflecting like#i think what murph said . swags place in the wild is in a way. an extension of what he learned from the network#mothership s inextractivle from sol and swags lives. they will always be held doen by it. thats the spirit that will follow them forever#that they choose to hold on too! as much pain as it brought ... some of the experience was worth it#and anyway. theres somethingwrong w me that the minute someone brought up this superstition my brain went#'ohhh just like sol!' < needs to touch grass moment#but i CANT BELIEVE. CALDWELL DID THE RED STRING. AND ITS LITERALLY A MOURNING RITUAL#caldwell keeps accodentally makig that frog ASIAN. to MEEEE!!!!!!#but. anyway. idk. ive always hced sol kept the piece of yarn and it makes me kinda .... what if y let the malicious spirits follow you.#and haunt you. what if its the closest you can get to keeping the person still around#and sol and swag obviously have so much about homes .... so!#(ok. weve reached the pt where maybe nobodys reading? so confession is this is sort of a well. ive just been doodling this comic everyday#after a wake. and it was sort of inspired after realising i was even a bit sad about it maybe. so. idk its about sol but also?#i guess the projection doesnt end at him being asian. hehe. is what i mean. LOL. okay secret tags over . buried lore. dont look here folks)
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What led to this (orufrey comic, cw an uncomfortable/creepy scene)
#witch hat tag#orufrey#er.... i'm too tired to have anything to say..i worked several days on this.#wait.. didn't i say just recently here that i probably wouldn't ever depict 'what if alaira is qifrey's sort-of ex'. What's going on#i don't even remember deciding to draw this..it's all a blur..i'm not sure why i WOULD decide to draw delicate scenes in my head#that i wouldn't really want to share with anyone/discuss so why did i draw it...#some part of me really really wants to draw things that are more and more true to myself...#maybe because of my alienation with most romance/shipping/dynamics the rest of the world depicts.#orufrey really is perfectly suited to me - what i read in the text and what is in my head. well anyway#i am TIRED of drawing poses and angles and..maybe now i will actually take a break from drawing bc of the tediousness of Angles#btw it really is a 'stretch of time' . . . assuming witches graduate age 18-20#well orufrey are canonically 30-ish. they've only had agott around for presumably about TWO years (?) bc she took the test age 10#and it feels like oru moving in/unknown atelier acquisition/building (?) .. i guess that could be a year or so before agott at most#(she was the first disciple) so... ????????? What about the other 7 or so years ?!?!?!!?!?! Unemployed Brimhat Hatred era#that time is very nebulous. after qifrey went to the tower i feel like it's been implied he and oru drifted apart a little.#certainly they didn't live together at first... no way. that doesn't feel like how it is based on things oru has said about becoming Eye#idk. I'm tired now. i don't usually think of alaira as necessarily qifrey's ex and this being how things went in that 'sliver of time'.#i usually prefer the idea that they have their first kiss with each other in their 30s cause That's Just The Orufrey Lifestyle#just felt like making a more relatable alternative view of my own Cai Orufrey Canon one time. btw im a big monoshipper and it hurt a bit#let's leave it there. this is surely the most i've worked on a 'single' art - though now i realise just how much longer the fic took :')
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due south is a show about a man faced with many emotionally complex situations that we may all encounter in our everyday lives. here, for example, his ghost dad approves of his gay date (inspires joy, relief) and then tells him he's moving in (annoying) to do ghost taxes (wildly confusing, closes in on horror).
#'i've been thinking about an office. i think i need an office.' 'what the hell would you do with an office?' fdjfkd#of course what he eventually mainly seems to do with his office(/cute little cabin home) is lure fraser into the closet#which is some extremely fertile ground for reading things into all on its own if you wanted#but i do hope he gets his taxes sorted out!! do you think they have separate forms for dead canadians#living with their son in chicago but maybe also in purgatory canada behind a possibly magical closet door?#are you living abroad if your canadian cabin is located in an american closet inside a canadian consulate on another plane of existence?#i bet the canadian tax authority doesn't have clear guidance on this in their FAQ. poor bob fraser#video#*#due south
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hi.
#i know most of you didn’t even realize i was gone#but man…#my mental health was like in a state of 📉📉📉 in the past 30 days like we love being mentally ill and fucking insane <3#it was mostly bc i panicked and started obsessing over possible water damage in my flat kind of out of nowhere#like it started when my landlord came to check my bathroom bc my downstairs neighbours had water stains on their ceiling back in july#which had been caused by their shower curtain apparently but i was already spiraling when my landlord told me so i was sure it was my fault#i was assuming it was bc of me bc i had sometimes been spilling some of my bathwater and i was like WHAT IF IT HAS GONE THROUGH THE FLOOR?#and it didn't help that it has been hot af and very humid in my apartment LIKE WELL OVER 25 DEGREES AND 60% HUMIDITY#anyways i couldn’t shake this not matter what i tried and my fucking insane brain made me think i was going to get arrested for like#flooding the whole building or for causing some sort of mold infestation#i had SO MANY panic attacks; i wasn't able to sleep; i wasn't able to eat; i was on edge and panicky basically 24/7 so fun fun fun :D#and i kept waking up in the middle of the night and HAD to go check my walls or the space below my kitchen#it was compulsory like i couldn't not get up and go check and tbh i would've thrown out all of my furniture if i could've to check for mold#(and shhhh i know how fucking insane this sounds but having a mentally ill brain that's anxious all the time does suck ass sometimes 🥲)#(the worst thing about it tho was that i was SO AWARE of how insane about this i was being and yet i couldn't stop losing my mind over it)#(also i was so ready to move tf outta here bc i couldn't handle being triggered 24/7 which is why my mom let me stay with her last week )#i was so out of it that i couldn't even let myself do the things i usually enjoy... like at all#like watching my shows or spending any ungodly amount of time on tumblr... or replying to messages i got from people who i love#ig this goes to show HOW bad this actually was for me mentally bc usually tumblr and my shows are like my safe place#anyways we finally had a leak detection dude come over today and we had him check the water levels in my walls#and he said everything is fine and he specifically told me i should stop worrying about any water damage BC THERE IS NO WATER DAMAGE#he also said that the weather has just been insanely humid this year so it's not surprising that the humidity levels are higher than usual#i’m still a bit scared about some possible mold but ig this is good enough for now#i am aware how ridiculous this must sound for anyone who's reading this now but couldn't let it go not even with meds so let me live pls :(#TLDR I WAS GOING THROUGH IT BUT I AM BACK I THINK AND I AM MOST LIKELY GOING TO START BOTHERING YOU WITH MY GIFS AGAIN <3#AND I JUST REALIZED I HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN ANY OF THE HEART KILLERS STUFF YET ASIDE FROM ONE OR TWO PICS LIKE :(#OH AND I NEED TO START WATCHING SUMMER NIGHT ;_;#sabrina talks#@AIRENYAH GIRL I AM SO SORRY I WILL PROBABLY REPLY TO YOUR MESSAGES LATER TODAY OR TOMORROW MORNING ;_;<3
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ok wait i need to hear more of your thoughts on peeta owning a bakery....
This is one of those rare times where I’m pretty sure this anon isn’t someone I know personally bc I’ve subjected anyone who will listen to my rant about the Peeta Bakery Headcanon. Anyway, you’re gonna regret asking this anon bc there are fucking Layers here.
I know this is probably a controversial take based on the number of fics where I’ve seen it, but I simply do not think that Peeta would open a commercial bakery after Mockingjay!! Like on a metatextual level, I don’t think it really fits with the point of the ending of the series. It actually sort of fascinates me that it’s just such a common headcanon because the ending of Mockingjay is exceedingly vague. I think that vagueness invites us, as readers, to imagine a better world post-revolution. A world where Katniss would feel confident that her children would be safe from injustice, where she’d feel confident that her children would never know want the way she did as a child. A just world. A kinder world. Can a capitalist society ever be just? Is a capitalist society where a disabled teenager has no other means to subsist himself (or feels like there’s no other way he can be a contributing member of his community) really the post-revolution world we dream of? Is that really the best we can imagine?
(This got so insanely long I’m adding a read more lmao)
I get that showing a better world is not always the point of post-mockingjay headcanons/fics. Like there are plenty of really great post-mockingjay fics I’ve seen where, yeah, part of the fic is that society like ISN’T all that different or all that much better. I’ve seen that really well done! Hell, I’ve written them myself! It’s easy to imagine how a lot of aspects of society would not get an overhaul, a lot of the same structural inequalities would continue to exist. One headcanon that really stuck with me (I can’t remember which fic it was from) was that Peeta sells basically mail order baked goods to people on the Capitol, sending them iced cakes and pastries by train, because there are still people who were “fans” of theirs during the Games. And idk this doesn’t actually have much to do with my point lol but I liked it because it’s kind of fucked up and like! Yeah! It makes sense! If he needed money that would be a good way to make it! War often makes people rich, often for horrible reasons, and often it’s people who already have capital in the first place.
Anyway, more about the hypothetical bakery because alright. I bring up the fact that “yeah society not being all that different post-revolution and still being an unjust capitalist hellscape” could be a reason why Peeta re-opens a bakery because that’s actually never the types of fics where I see the bakery headcanon. Fics where Peeta opens a bakery are usually trying to make the exact opposite point. Like. Things are getting better, now he can open a bakery! Look at how much better the world is now, plus he’s got a bakery! Peeta is healing, that’s why he can open a bakery now! And I am so, so sorry to inform everyone who’s never had the grave misfortune of owning a family business, but there is truly nothing further from the truth lmao. Like just putting aside the immense amount of emotional baggage that Peeta has about his family, running a small business is an insane amount of work in any context and being a baker especially is physically grueling and involves early hours (and long hours) that aren’t really the best fit with the multiple ways that Peeta is disabled now. (I could go into this more because I have a lot of thoughts. But I will spare you.). I also think it’s seen throughout the books that Peeta is someone who needs time to pursue creative outlets to process his feelings and someone who values leisure and values quality time with his loved ones. And having grown up in his family’s bakery, I think he’d understand the reality that running a bakery wouldn’t leave much space of those pursuits and wouldn’t leave much space for him to have the things that keep him healthy and stable. I think he’d know that the way he is now— after two Games and the war and unspeakable torture at the hands of a dictator—isn’t compatible with the lifestyle necessary for running a commercial bakery.
And tbh with that in mind, I don’t think he’d push himself to re-open a business (one that would be a constant reminder of his dead family and his complicated relationships with them that got no closure) that would require him to sacrifice his physical and emotional well-being. Like I think he might look into the possibility, I think he might even start trying to open a bakery out of a sense of obligation/duty, maybe harboring some idea that this is who he was supposed to be, who he would've been without the Games, or that it’s this last piece of his family that can live on, or that it’s this last connection to his family so he can’t let it die too. But ultimately, I think any attempt to open a bakery wouldn’t get very far. Maybe he'd start wading into the logistical nightmare that is small business ownership and realize it's not for him (because it's probably also true that as much as him and his brothers were involved in the business, there's almost certainly parts they weren't involved with and didn't see, i.e., filing taxes). Or maybe looking into opening a bakery— how triggering it is, the stress of it— causes a downward spiral. Maybe he hates how much he's worrying everyone by unraveling. Maybe having a breakdown from the stress of just trying to open a bakery makes him realize, yeah, maybe in another life he would have ran his family’s bakery but the way he is now just doesn’t work with running a bakery, not without great sacrifices he's not willing to make. I just can’t see a bakery coming to fruition.
I know a lot of fics include Peeta deciding to reopen a bakery as a big step in his healing or include him rebuilding a bakery as part of his healing process but honestly, I think the opposite would be more true: I think Peeta either trying/failing to open a bakery or ultimately deciding not to open a bakery would be hugely healing for him. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way he is now as a person, his new limitations but also his strengths. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way his life his now and accepting that he likes his life the way it is, that he’s satisfied with his life without needing to own a bakery. I think it would be an important part of him coming to terms with the loss of his family. I think he knows he can never have things back as they were and I don’t think he would try to recreate them, especially because his family’s legacy isn’t a business. I think he’s emotionally intelligent enough and self reflective enough to realize that what mattered to him about the bakery— taking care of others by feeding them, being integrated into his community and being actively involved in it, brightening people’s days with delightful things whether that’s beautiful cakes or hearty food or delicious treats— and the things he learned from his family through the bakery, are things that he can carry on in other meaningful ways.
(Do you regret sending this ask yet, anon? Because if not, you will soon. I’m not done yet. There’s more.)
I wasn’t really sure where to put this next part in what is rapidly becoming an essay because it sort of combines the points about like “what do we imagine a post-mockingjay society to look like” with the practical difficulties of starting this bakery but here’s another thing: do people really think that the Mellarks owned the land the bakery was on?? Like, sure, the merchants are the petit bourgeois of Twelve but I still don’t imagine they really own anything. In a society where houses are assigned to people upon marriage, where property ownership and capital are so closely interconnected with citizenship (as shown by the Plinths who, by having immense capital, are able to leave their District and become citizens of the Capitol) do people really think the Mellarks would be allowed to own the land their bakery is on?? I always imagined it sort of like a tenant farming situation: the Capitol gives them the raw materials for the bakery and in return the bakery give them some absurdly high portion of their profits, or the Capitol sells them a year’s supply of raw materials at a premium on credit and at the end of the year the Mellarks have to use the money they made with those materials to pay it back, except it’s never enough to turn a profit so they always have to buy next year’s materials on credit and the cycle continues.
We (understandably) get a really skewed view of the merchant class through Katniss’s perspective so I can see why people come to the conclusion that his family owned the property and, as the last surviving member, he would’ve inherited it. I’ve seen the inheritance thing in fics a lot or a hand wavey “well Twelve was decimated to no one owns anything anymore so it can be his” or even like an almost sort of reparations type situation where he’s entitled to the land as a surviving refugee of Twelve. But I don’t know. I guess I don’t think it fits with everything else we know about Panem that the Mellarks would’ve owned that land and I think the question of whether the government would’ve let him take ownership of the land post-revolution brings up a lot of issues about the structure of society post-Mockingjay that I find more interesting to explore in other ways, especially when, from an emotional perspective, 1) I find the idea of Peeta not opening a bakery more compelling and 2) I don’t think it really fits his character arc by the end of Mockingjay to reopen a bakery, as I went on about at length above lol.
On the flip side: literally who cares!! Do whatever you want!! Headcanon whatever you want!! I get why people go for the bakery!! It’s fun, it’s wholesome, it’s a built in bakery AU that isn’t even an AU. It doesn’t matter if it’s practical or realistic!! It doesn’t need to be practical or realistic!! It’s fanfic of a dystopian YA series!! My unfortunate affliction is that I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant and that I have multiple degrees in the social sciences so I can’t see the bakery without being like “What about the overheard? What about the start up costs? Who’s spending long nights balancing the books? Is Peeta covering shifts when an employee calls in sick? Is Peeta the sole person working there until the bakery is open long enough (often a year or more) to start turning a profit? How does that sleep schedule work with his nightmares? How does that work with Katniss’s nightmares? What happens when he has an episode and suddenly needs to take the day off before he has any employees? Does the bakery just remain closed for the day? Can the profit margins withstand regular unexpected closures? Can the supplies withstand regular unexpected closures?” And if the answer is “Elliott none of those things matter he’s not doing the bakery because he needs the money but because he wants to”, then my question is why does he want to? Does he not get the same sort of satisfaction out of feeding his loved ones? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would rather give away baked goods than sell them?? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would prefer to make cakes for people’s special occasions upon and then when they insist on paying him for it, he only lets them “pay for the ingredients” which actually cost significantly more than he says they did??
So yeah my point is that it’s a matter of personal taste! It doesn’t fit the way I see the series but that doesn’t mean it’s like wrong, I’m not an authority on Peeta lmao.
It’s also a matter of personal taste in the sense that I find the themes that most resonate with me at the end of Mockingjay (and the end of Peeta’s arc specifically) more interesting to explore in other ways. Grief, living with loss, relearning yourself, finding hope, figuring out your place in a dramatically different world when you don’t even know who you are anymore, healing, building a new life after such complete and total destruction of your old life— those are all things I find compelling about the end of Mockingjay but for me the bakery isn’t the most compelling way to explore them.
Not to say I find the concept of the bakery totally uninteresting. I have this fic about Johanna that I’ll probably never finish where the point sort of is that, yeah, her life really isn’t all that much better after the war. It’s been years at this point and she’s still miserable and she doesn’t know how to be a person but by the end she’s trying to figure it out. And towards the end, Peeta tells her that he’s spent years sort of passively, half-heartedly trying to figure out how to inherit the land his family’s bakery was on, only to find out it was never theirs in the first place. They’d been renting it the whole time and he’d never even known as a kid. So he sort of passively, half-heartedly went on another wild goose chase to find the owner and now, finally, after years of writing to various government agencies and being sent in circles and things being barely functional, he’s managed to track down the owner. Now it’s owned by the daughter of the man who owned it when he was a kid because the original owner (who was likely up to some sketchy war crime shit) died during the war and she inherited it (the irony…). He got in contact with her and asked how much it would take for her to sell it and she told him she’s not interested in selling but in light of the situation, in light of the fact that he’d have to build a new building in order to operate a bakery, that she’d cut him a deal— she’d only require 50% of the bakery’s profits as rent instead of the 80% his family used to pay. And of course Johanna is outraged, that’s not right, the owner shouldn’t be allowed to do that, they should do something about it, they should fight back. And Peeta is like. Not interested. He was actually sort of relieved that opening wasn’t very feasible. Getting the answer was a lightbulb moment where he saw that over the years of trying to look into this, he’s built a life that he likes— one where he’s stable, where his loved ones are stable, where he’s cared for and can care for others— and he doesn’t really want to change it drastically by opening a bakery anyway. He just needed an answer, one way or another, before he could get some closure and move on. (And the point of the conversation is Johanna is having her own lightbulb moment that it’s okay to move on, it’s okay to change, it’s not a betrayal of the people and things she’s lost but that’s not my point here!!).
But anyway. That’s obviously not about running the bakery— it’s about the choice to not run one.
Anyway!! Anyway… are you satisfied anon? Is this what you wanted?
Lastly, here is my most important qualm with the bakery headcanon: must Peeta be gainfully employed? Is it not enough for him to be Katniss’s boytoy? Can’t he just paint and garden and bake and hang out with his girlfriend all day? Is that really too much to ask?
#peeta mellark#thg#the hunger games#the hunger games meta#anyway wow this got so long and I literally read it through one (1) time so uhhh sorry if this makes no sense!!#as I was doing my one read through and realized that one of my other thoughts on this is that yeah I can much more easily see the#headcanon that peeta like sells baked goods (probably at cost with no profit) out of his kitchen because that’s much more flexible#and I think that would work a lot better with what like I guess I’d call his psychiatric disability post mockingjay#and how he’d certainly want to take care of Katniss too#like that sort of flexibility makes a lot more sense for him and it’s like. if he doesn’t bake for a few days or however long then it’s fin#it’s not a formal brick and mortar business#it’s just something he’s doing because it’s a way to be involved with people and a way to do something he’s passionate about#without there being waste and while covering some of the costs#and he doesn’t have to like keep books or do payroll or any of the things I can’t see him being very passionate about#as far as like bakery management goes Lmao he can just bake!!#but then I started getting into this whole thing about how that quote-unquote ‘running a business’ like that (informally from your house)#is actually a really common practice for people living in poverty so probably something that Katniss and peeta would’ve been familiar wirh#anyway and then this whole rant about how the emphasis on the brick and mortar bakery often goes hand in hand with#this widespread fandom thing of having a fundamental misunderstanding of how rural poverty works and what it looks like#but then I was too deep into it and said you know what? never mind! and deleted it lmao
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2024 reads / storygraph
Outdrawn
f/f contemporary romance
two cartoonist who’ve been rivals since uni, and now have competing webcomics online, have to work together on the relaunch of a cult classic at the comic press they both work at
they both struggle with art-related physical and mental health issues, and complicated families
#outdrawn#aroaessidhe 2024 reads#sapphic books#I thought this was decent! I liked the concept (even if I got distracted by some art related things…)#and the dynamic between the characters was good. I enjoyed their relationship development broadly speaking#and the emphasis on communication; though it was a quick flip into being together all of a sudden.#The sketchbook doodle flirting was cute. Some interesting exploration of their complicated family situations too.#There’s a lot of exploration of burnout and carpal tunnel and the dangers of artists overworking which I think are important conversations#and are done with some nuance. But it’s pretty much all discussed in the context of the personal pressure they put on themselves#rather than the industry corporate greed and artificial competition created by the comic platform - which are significant in this story!#It felt odd that that connection wasn’t really ever made?#I know that this is a romance and nitpicking the background plot is beside the point and also that I am not a big romance reader#but the premise that the comic hosting site archives everything; wipes the leaderboard; and out of nowhere has a comic competition for#new weekly chapters…I’m sorry but the art world would riot. Even if people enter because they’re desperate for the cash they’d be pissed#People live off the income from their webcomics! if they were erased (temporarily) with no notice…..there would be crimes committed istg#I simply don’t believe that it would be doable to create a new weekly webcomic with no notice while you also have a full-time comic job#(especially as the only stylistic choices mentioned are full-colour) - not to mention what happened to their 8-years-running webcomics#that were archived? they don’t think about them at all after the beginning? surely they’d care about that?#And then with their new comics they make for this competition (after work I guess) we get vague snippets about them but barely anything#- if they’re consuming that much of your time I would expect to feel like they’re thinking about them all the time#rather than the vaguest discussion about genre and cast numbers only.#I guess I just think the whole comic site stunt felt unnecessary for the plot anyway -#it would have worked exactly the same if they were just competing on the normal leaderboard with their normal comics???#anyway - I’m not judging TOO hard about all that because again I know it’s not the point and maybe the industry is like that in some place#Unfortunately it was distracting enough to affect my feelings on the book tho lol.#Lastly: the audiobook………oof. The narrators talk at different speeds; for one.#And Sage’s VA does this deeply weird raspy-anime-teen-boy voice for Noah which is such an odd choice#and doesn’t match her character at all.#unforch my library only had the audiobook (what I usually prefer) so I just had to sort of….translate the narration into a normal voice lol#anyway the romance is good tho
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Do you ever think about how Fakir, after him and Ahiru finally broke everything that kept the town of Goldkröne in the ghostly hands of its writer, after they finally have some air of peace over the town finally being able to live in its intended early 2000s environment, that Fakir still feels at times like it's not real and that for a while he fears that if he closes his eyes it'll be back in Drosselmeyer's control. Like it just doesn't feel real to him during that first year of calm, until he feels the dull pain on his recovering hand injury and Ahiru who follows him without a pendant anywhere to be found.
He doesn't feel it's real, the calm finality of this town, but he makes sure to feel the scar on his hand. And he makes sure to hold the little duck and realize that she is who she has always been. Him and the town are finally living peacefully.
#dia talks#princess tutu#He probably starts planning on writing Ahiru into the world mayyybe like 3-4 months into his recovery#he doesn't know what a cell phone is yet but he sure as hell can look at a bookstore and ask for a notebook and pens#i bet that first year in Goldenkröne must be hell because trading deals bring all sorts of new things into the town#Just Fakir going “what the fuck is a scooter?? Wait what's a CAR---”#he ends up having to read a bunch of newspaper articles about “Goldenkröne booming in German tourism!”#Actually does he even know his country's name... Did they all even know they lived in Germany and not JUST a city????#Drosselmeyer would've really pulled one on them for only talking about the city and its outskirts and NOT the country it resided in#But let's assume they did know. Fakir would have to figure out so much has changed in 2002 Germany compared to whatever time they were in#My god just thinking about the thought of Fakir learning what a television is... or a radio for that matter has me howling internally#local amateur writer is put into a coma after hearing for the very first time german rapper Sido#alternatively: local amateur writer's brain explodes after hearing german Happycore artist Blümchen and dance pop group No Angels#ptutu spoiler#i know its a +20 old show but just in case people wanna watch it i love it enough to tag the post show headcanon#ptutu analysis#ptutu headcanon#ptutu post canon#Also sorry i keep jumbling between Goldkröne and Goldenkröne in the writing its 4 AM and the german part of my brain is a mess lmao#(its supposed to be Goldkröne but for some reason I keep making it into the attribute word Golden so dont mind the mistake)#(if you do i will sob please be gentle towards my polyglot self)
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The Most Unreliable Narrator I Have Ever Seen
soooooo I had a Cyberpunk-obsessed phase pass recently, and this time Johhny Silverhand's character caught my eye. His story, more specifically, and how... inconsistent he seems, depending on each source.
In the game, Johhny acts like a bastard for most of the game. He panic-rages on his first meeting with V, throws many threats around, but is later beaten into the background with the blocker pills Misty gave to V. Even Johnny's friends' are well, they react Loudly to his return. Y'know, make it known his presence alone provokes a lot of anger from them.
Even during his first appearance, when V gets thrown into Silverhand's memories of his SAMURAI concert, the only real thing V recalls is the all-consuming rage that he felt, which he tried to shout out through the microphone, but it never felt like enough.
And doesn't this sound weird then, that the only thing Johnny does throughout the game after that first meeting is help V out? He learns about the Smasher guy hideout at the docks (he does that through dubious means but that's Johnny for you), he helps V out when the seizures become worse, he calmly agrees to Any decision V makes, despite V clearly Not being in any real state to oppose him in the finale of the game, he plans the whole thing with "Alt" so V can get his body back at Johnny's own expense, from the beginning, and he doubles down on that claim at the end of the game.
Do you see the dissonance? The egoist rockerboy that admitted to using his friends to getting what he wants, and the downright self-sacrificing hero and a friend that is Johnny at the end of the game? People change, sure, but this divide is very massive and too sudden, so I wanted to dig into that. And what I've stumbled upon, with the help of canon Cyberpunk materials like the Red sourcebook (or, more specifically, LayedBackGamers' reading of the canon books and his lore videos on different topics), is that
Johhny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077 is the Most Unreliable Narrator I've Ever Seen.
Count with me here:
Johhny's personality in general. No matter what your interpretation of him his, it's impossible to ignore that Johhny is very much a people person and he exploits that knowledge and charisma to suit his own goals. If you choose to trust him, then you might have already been played.
2) Johhny has been alone, only his lovely self for 50+ years inside the Arasaka chip. Don't ask me how he is still even remotely sane, I haven't got a clue (hopefully the time as a construct without outside stimulation flies differently and he hasn't felt those 50 years in real time). The thing to mention here, however, is that, being alone with your thoughts and emotions for a long time, having nothing else for entertainment, is a great opportunity to rewrite your own memory of events or emotions you've felt.
3) Lack of a body. The aforementioned constant rage, that was the dominant emotion is Johnny's life (before Alt, at least, if Never Fade Away is anything to go by, and I mean, that's literally a love ballad), is a symptom of his PTSD from his too-young years serving in the corpo war, same as his signature silver hand. I'm not a specialist here, but I do know PTSD, especially for war veterans, is a physiological illness just as much as it is a mental one. Johnny's body literally had trouble living normally after that experience, and knowing this bastard - he never managed to treat that. Existing as a personality construct frees him from the many bonuses of being corporeal, but it also free him from the physiological side of PTSD. His day-to-day existence is fundamentally different from that of the Johnny Silverhand that the world knew 50 years ago, so yes, as a 'time traveler' or a source of information and comparison about the 70's and 20's of cyberpunk world Johhny is not a good source.
4) The chip with Johnny is literary inside the head of another person. The characters in game question, multiple times, just which decisions is V making on his own, and which of them might be Johnny's doing. Not consciously, no, but V and Johnny are clearly not your simple neighbours. They are not your 'close friends that start subconsciously copying each other' too. It is quite possible that the chip with Johhny is adapting to the 'hardware' it is running on, so it is specifically implementing parts of V's personality into Johnny, to minimize the 'friction' between the personality and the body it is supposed to inhabit. Everyone say hi to existential horror)
5) How does Soulkiller ever work? Is there data on how much the resulting engram actually resembles the person it tried to copy? How did the process of copying Johnny go? I can answer the last one - very badly.
Death of Johnny is told in excruciating detail in the Cyberpunk sourcebooks. Johnny died on the floor of Arasaka tower, torn in two by a shotgun blast from Smasher. There is no information on how much time it takes Soulkiller to create the engram from the brain, but it better have finished doing that before Johnny's brain started dying from a lack of blood and oxygen, and he clearly didn't have much time either, considering bisection is not the best for bodily fluid preservation, so it's a wonder the engram even works properly. Plus, during the initial heist to steal the chip with Johnny, the chip was damaged further before the idiots decided to stick an unknown harddrive into their heads to preserve it. Basically, it's nothing short of a miracle, that engram-Johnny is actually a whole damn person, that he can function, think and feel properly (well, as much as Johnny can do those things)
It is very sad that V can't talk to Johnny about this, as the man does blame himself over things he hasn't even done, and he had done enough emotional damage to himself and people around him without that kind of burden on top of it.
6) Johnny's memories are literally false. The attentive reader had to pick this up in my previous point - didn't Johnny die in the hands of Arasaka after they interrogated him? Nope. Nope, and I can say that confidently because,
(drumroll please)
Cyberpunk tabletop sourcebooks! Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the Cyberpunk universe and the TTRP series of games, has worked closely with CDPR writers during the production of the 2077. He oversaw everything, and he says that 2077 is in the same cyberpunk universe too, it's not an 'alternate reality' or anything.
Johnny Silverhand died while trying to buy time for his friends to escape, from a shotgun shot from Adam Smasher. That's it, he died on that floor, there was noone to interrogate, no rooftop helicopter he ran for.
The sequence of 'memories' we see from Johnny's POV in the game is a mishmash of two different assaults on the Arasaka towers, yes towers there were two of them. There is a great video explaining all the small and Major details Johnny's version of events got wrong, because we have the sourcebooks and the text inside. You may accuse me of holding a 'holy canon' argument ... and well, yeah, this is kind of holy knowledge, as it was written for gamemasters.
Still, some of the things in Johnny's version are Major, and while the media certainly covered the whole story extensively with corpo propaganda (oh, btw, Johnny didn't bomb anything, he probably didn't even know there was a nuke involved, he is literally just a scapegoat), there are some holes that a citizen of this world might know and wish to poke. The aforementioned Two Arasaka towers, or the absence of the legendary solo Morgan Blackhand from Johnny's story. Interestingly enough, there is a radiostation of Maximum Mike in-game, who is actually just pretty much Mike Pondsmith, and he does propose a couple of questions the 'official' version of the attack doesn't cover (like, where would a rockerboy even get a nuke, he might have been popular, but that's not just something you find without military contracts, and that means corporations). Another thing is that since Arasaka owns Soulkiller and has had the engram for a couple of decades, it is quite possible they are the ones responsible for messing with Johnny's memories.
So uh, yeah, Johnny is the Most Unrealible Narrator I have ever seen. Johnny of 2077 is most certainly not the Johnny of 2020's, but this might be a good thing. Maybe the 'real' 2020's Silverhand could never have made the progress the engram did, or become such a good friend and companion for V, or maybe he could have done those things too. We'll never know. I really love this story anyway.
#thanks for reading#johnny totally deserves a second chance at life after this why cant he and johnny show alt the finger and delta out of there#so v could live out his days and then johnny would take over#on the other hand johnny is a great example that being an engram is not the end so maybe v could come back in some sort of form later#after giving alt the finger#btw thats not alt either that's probably just an ai that caught little wind of actual alt and just calls itself her#also alt herself might be alive but that story is WEIRD so no idea#cyberpunk lore is great i had an amazing time listening to it and discovering new things#mike pondsmith is also amazing heard a cyberpunk red campaign he mastered and listening to him has been a blast he is a true storyteller#cyberpunk 2077#cyberpunk red#legends of night city#mike pondsmith#johnny silverhand#phantom liberty#this is the first and last time I praise cdpr after that back to hate for the ps4 version of the game i go#and for refusing to update the game for that platform and for not releasing the dlc for it and for upping the system reqs even higher#ill live to see actual 2077 before I get access to hardware that can run that shit#btw existential horror enjoyers I sure do hope you have heard of SOMA )))#oh i also dont think johnny was that bad in life either like he was bad but rogue and kerry are clearly happy to have him back so the game#must've shown just a very low time for him he had to be a good friend to earn that kind of loyalty still could behave like a bastard tho
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DO YOU KNOW WHAT SPAWNED YOUR EXISTENCE?
[ID: Two lineless, digital paintings, both with warm, dark gray backgrounds. Both canvases are shaped like exact squares.
Painting one shows an adult Bill Cipher, a bright yellow triangle with a top hat, bow tie, cane, singular eye, and long lashes, reaching out to shake hands with the Axolotl, a pink axolotl with an electric blue tail. Bill is looking at the Axolotl casually, and his outstretched hand is engulfed in blue flames, while the Axolotl is smiling at Bill gently, reaching out to take his hand. There are stylized stars, similar to sparkles, in the top right and bottom lefthand corners of the painting. The painting is textured so that you can see the gray of the canvas very faintly through the brush strokes.
Painting two consists mostly of a short passage from Edwin Abbott Abbot's Flatland, written in light gray over the dark background. The passage is the beginning of chapter 7, and reads as follows:
"7. Concerning Irregular Figures
I for my part have never known and Irregular who was not also what Nature evidently intended him to be-- a hypocrite, a misanthropist, and, up to the limits of his power, a perpetrator of all manner of mischief..."
Below the quote, near the very bottom of the page, is a tiny illustration of a very young Bill Cipher. He is drawn completely in grayscale, and is looking down at the ground angrily, fists clenched. He is wearing a pauper's cap and has bandages wrapped around his rightmost angle, which is noticeably longer and more acute than his other angles.
End ID]
#flatland#flatland: a romance of many dimensions#bill cipher#my url was almost irregularbillcipher for a reason I have… thoughts!#i do wanna say for anyone who hasn't read my fic uh me making bill irregular is not one of those#'what if the oppressed person was the REAL bad guy and went Too Far' type deals. at least that's not my intention#i always like to write bill with a bit of a square in him where he's not too bothered by people Not Having Rights#'till it impacts how people see HIM (and the few people he's grown to care about)#things will get to him sometimes but it's always through a lens of like... himself if that makes sense. he simply does not care about other#he's the living embodiment of 'do you believe in gay rights?' 'i am gay' 'he's dodging the question' but for irregularity#to be fair with whatever the hell is going on with him and kryptos he's also sort of that for gay rights too#... also i have birth defects and just wanted an excuse to write about victorian ableism so i hit bill and kryptos with the disability ray#woe... birth defects be upon ye#anyway this is some old art but i'm still very fond of the bill n frills drawing
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you ever just. become overwhelmed by a sudden out-of-nowhere wave of tenderness and affection and longing for reconnection directed towards someone to whom you no longer speak for Very Good Reasons
#‘out of nowhere’ she says like she hasn’t been doing a lot of reading/thinking recently about various tragic messy breakups#and the later regrets of the parties involved#anyway. tell me not to text her#it’s been over two years since the last time we talked… absolutely no reason to break that streak now. lord give me strength#she was really fucking mean to me! like objectively intentionally unwarrantedly cruel! it ruined an entire year of my life#and fundamentally changed me as a person on a deep level! there’s a lot of things i used to like about myself that i don’t think i’m ever#going to get back#and yet every once in a while we have to do the whole ‘maybe i could make things right’ song and dance 😔#the thing is most of the time i’m not even really angry with her anymore like enough time has passed since all the shit went down that#really i just sort of look at her behavior and feel sad. both because of the impact on me but also because of the ‘that’s really how you#felt you needed to act towards someone who cared about you? you couldn’t have just expressed your feelings in an honest and productive way#instead of just lashing out in the cruelest possible way and ruining the entire relationship beyond hope of repair?’#and i feel bad and sorry that it went that way and honestly i kind of pity her and hope she’s gotten some of her shit worked out#so i’m not like. actively pissed off at her anymore. but also i can’t think about her without thinking about the worst year of my life so 🙃#i don’t actually feel that trying to reopen that door would be very healthy for me at least#we did try a Reconciliation of sorts a couple of months after the initial falling-out and while it was kind of helpful for me in that she#like. apologized lmao. and affirmed that i wasn’t crazy and she did in fact On Purpose say the most hurtful things she possibly could have#said to me given the information she had at her disposal. and that i really had not done anything to her that could warrant that. etc.#it also left a sour enough taste in my mouth that i just don’t see a future where the two of us spending time together is enjoyable for me#and yet… the regret will always live inside me i think. maybe if i were a stronger person…#caseyposting
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Me normally: Let people love what they love
Me, after a Test Match Special commentator expresses their belief that the new All Creatures Great and Small is somehow "better" than the 1978 version: This is pure insanity and TMS can no longer be trusted on anything, how can they even be trusted to know about cricket, do they have no TASTE
#Look it's fine that this show exists and people will watch it and like it and that's ok maybe it's just not for me#But that was like a statement purely designed to piss me off#There were lots of issues with the 1978 adaptation! I still vastly preferred the books any day!#And I actually initially had high hopes for the new one because they at least cast a Scot (albeit a Highlander not a Clydesider) as James#And the actors at least looked a little bit younger than Christopher Timothy and Robert Hardy#And thank god Helen actually sounds like she's a farmer's daughter and doesn't speak RP!#But from the half hour I've seen of it I've had to write off this new adaptation#For two major reasons#First of all there's Siegfried#Siegfried is one of the key central aspects of the vibe of the books and therefore key to any adaptation#Robert Hardy was too short and too old for the part but he lived and breathed the character#The twinkle in the eye bouncing off the walls and in and out of rooms followed by half a dozen dogs utterly full of life even when angry#But this new Siegfried is just sort of... Eeyore-esque; he comes into a room and you can see the flowers droop and the set turn grey#Siegfried was angry Siegfried was happy and the historical character he was based on was no stranger to melancholy#Since Donald Sinclair did commit suicide or rather self-euthanasia after Alf Wight and his own wife Audrey died#But this slow grumbly figure in the new adaptation is not Siegfried Farnon- the book character didn't grumble more often he exploded#And why did the adaptation give him a dead wife that's so weird? What could that possibly add to the source material?#And this brings me onto my second problem which is to do with women and age#Firstly I have no idea why they aged down Mrs Hall or at least made her look younger than a woman her age would have back then#But what really drove me mad was when Heriot goes out to see some old woman hill farmer in the episode I saw#And this woman is far too clean and young-looking and you can see that she's wearing 'natural' look make-up#And a perfect set of clothes that looked like they were straight out of the House of Bruar autumn collection catalogue#Say what you like about the 1978 adaptation but old women looked like old women regardless of whether or not they wore make-up#It may be that the better quality of television screens means that the 'natural look' shows up on screen more clearly than it would have#But natural look make-up was not really a thing in the 1930s and for old women Yorkshire hill farmers I doubt they'd have much on at all#They just don't seem to be capable of allowing people to look old and wrinkled and real or have bad teeth or unattractive clothes#And everything is far too tidy- everybody looks far too perfectly country and quaint#Anyway the moral of this story is of course that I always recommend reading the books because they're much better#than any tv adaptation; but if forced to choose at least the 1970s one felt real and yet didn't have to be grim either#Ok that's my rant over please do feel free to enjoy the show I just got annoyed because the opinion was expressed on TMS
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So I've been thinking. It's funny how enjoying meta is somewhat embedded with trust.
Like, if you're "friends" and have followed a person for a long time, you have more a sense of their values, and it's easier to read their difficult meta because you trust more that they're being charitable/nuanced.
If you don't know them, it's harder to trust that they're not funneling difficult topics into rationalization of liking/supporting gross shit.
#meta thoughts#case in point - so much of the wincest community still comes off super classist to me and it sorts of...leaks into their meta#you'll be going alone with an interesting character study and then you read stuff that just BOOM classism about family ties#then you go to their page and you find that yes they're into that shit and there's typically a desert of thoughtful cas military angels etc#they tend to like benny cause benny is an idealized brother substitute / sam parallel and it's given the most uncharitable reading#just because you choose a partner than is familiar and like your fam members does not mean you're into your family members oh my god#and sure there's tons of visual and overt racism in SPN in general but to me that at least gets discussed#the classism inherent to narrative fangirl obsessions with incest? not as dissected#familism and community are seen as Weird (TM) to them and they kind of tell on themselves with that imho#and like with racism there are just some things you can't overlook to enjoy a series if you're black because that's your day to day life an#with classism it's hard too bc sometimes you can't escape the reminders of day to day life#and when ppl in the fandom see the villain's monologues as TRUTH you just wanna shake your head but know it's not worth arguing#communal living is more normal than america wants you to think...rich folks want it labelled *weird* bc they want you separated and drained#i am begging us to deconstruct suburbia instead of defaulting to TEEHEE incest bc shitting on pooled resources is paramount in a rigged gam#I find the inherent isolation of american living-to-work without any time to visit each other VERY isolating indeed...also...#like how did we get here#where we're so afraid of labels like*cults* and *helicopter parenting* and *enmeshment* than we isolate as a form of hallowed independence#american success culture has a dark side too#and separating low class families is the aim#get them to spend more $$$ and go for lofty ideals in pursuit of american dream instead of pooling their resources and meeting their needs#meanwhile rich folks do so much respectable nepotism and pretend they're *self-made*#to me that's what the symbol of zachariah is ALLLL about#and if you're blind to what his taunts ACTUALLY mean...i'm very suspicious of your worldview#if resource sharing and co-living becomes shameful and *incestuous* for lower classes then they won't pool their power at all#american exceptionalism#spn + class#class#class warfare#giving up college dreams to be a caretaker seems way more common in poor families too#i suspect we see the incest reading less from brown families / hispanic fams...cause familism is more common
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nooooo not your first two reasons for staying in the city you are legally trapped in instead of absconding forever with billions of dollars worth of stolen art being the married couple who have slowly but surely absorbed you into their relationship and welcomed you into their life. a guy who has never had a place he wasn't obligated to leave feeling at first trapped by his circumstances but then coming to enjoy the idea of a permanent home and unwilling to be pressured away from it . surely no further events will transpire that might cause him to lose faith in this ideal and, feeling it necessary, strike out once again into the lonely world as a traveling thief with no port of call and no living name
#ive read the wiki!!!!! im not cool right now im not cool at all#can we PLEASE get this guy some stability and a chance at a future untethered to either institutions or sudden flight . can we please#white collar#dont let all the fun capers fool you this show is in many ways actually sort of a tragedy#people can change but the world and society might not. and in the end even though you would LIKE to have others. and they would like#to have you. the only thing you can fully expect to have at all times is yourself#therefore it is imperative that you get comfortable with your own company: someday it may be all you have left#home safety and family are wonderful things. sometimes they have chains on.#the freedom to go where you wish and do what you want without any strings at all is also a wonderful thing. sometimes it has no parachute#whats that thing jones says in as you were about all choices being sacrifice?#and neal's like whoa whoa slow down WHY. why CANT we have it all#and it's like well because any time you make a choice. ANY time. you must set aside one thing you want. for another thing you want more#every time you choose you have to decide which thing is the one you want more. oftentimes you will choose wrong#but not realize it until it is too late to take the choice back#this will continue as long as you live#good luck
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The Doctor turning into women and having romantic dalliances with men is every kind of queer...to me.
#EMH (pretending to be B'Elanna after having just SPRINTED down the hall): You wouldn't shoot a pregnant woman would you ??;;#Tuvok: (in the most 'give it up' tone possible) ...Come with Me doctor =_=#Tuvok gets docked points for falling for the ol' 'cough cough im sick' excuse but gains them all back by getting suspicious and starting#an investigation all on his own in the background <3#Also Janeway being held captive and being just kinda pissed about the whole situation...yeah#HEHEHE I like this episode it's funny but also the stakes are high#Janeway sort of smirking and doing the 'come here' motion when that alien man was like 'do you know how to fix this?' - her swag.....#Janeway (captive and stressed beyond belief about the warp core): Yeah I have time to serve dom vibes#Tuvok - Chakotay - Janeway: Each having uniquely bad days#(Worst Security disaster ever - Got put in a morgue for hours - Held captive and threatened with death: + Voyager stranded)#I know Chakotay was unconscious for the morgue thing but still#Chakotay: -opens his eyes to see Tuvok standing there-#(they share a look like 'yeah it's some LIFE THREATENING scooby doo bullshit again')#Hey Chakotay maybe next time don't tell the imposter that you know they're an imposter right to their face <3#Just some tactical strategy for next time <3 <- I love him I'm just being a bitch HEHEHE it was funny to me#Doctor: Hey I know we're in the middle of a serious thing here but like. Why don't we. You know. Hang out???#Janeway: -sharp intake of breathe- ......ohhhh I don't really...DO hanging out.#YAY NAR~!!!!! GET HIS ASS~!!!#Nar I hope you live a simple but fulfilling life as a junk dealer or whatever it is you were talking about god bless <3#Doctor: Now that I might die I have some last requests v_v Captain...throw my diary away. DO NOT. READ IT. Tuvok...I told Neelix about that#rash you got on your ass. We laughed about it for weeks. Sorry.#and then I smile and giggle and ass 'ass rash' to the Tuvok lore#SNRKEHEHE DAMN. HE GOT HARRY TOO???#'Sorry I said you sucked absolute shit at playing the saxophone. I should have phrased it more delicately...damn it. It all becomes so clea#when you face the end.' (Harry: You said w hat????) SEVEN-!!#Seven: Stay over there computer boy =_=#SNRKEHEHEHHEHHAHAHAH#Janeway:....Is he...? / B'Elanna: NO. I've got him =_= I just deleted all that spam. He's FINE.#livetweeting
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2024 reads / storygraph
Stuck In Her Head
short contemporary YA coming-of-age set in Hong Kong, following two teen girls who are friends
one is a musical prodigy but has lost her passion and wants to explore different possibilities for her future
the other is passionate about music but dealing with mental health & family issues
the latter develops a crush on the former, who is aroace, and they have to re-navigate their friendship, while working on a music/coding competition project together and dealing with their own issues
#aroaessidhe 2024 reads#stuck in her head#Hm this had a lot of aspects I found interesting but didn’t quite live up to what I wanted it to be#I definitely love reading YA set not in the west - this is set in Hong Kong - and I liked that a lot!#And of course we always need more YA about friendships rather than being romance focused (though this has an unrequited aspect of that)#This is written by 17yos which is cool! though it does show in the prose a bit. There’s a lot of ‘the girl’ ‘the teen’ instead of their nam#Or like informing the reader of info in slightly awkward ways - one visits the other’s house and says “is this the first time I’ve been to#- I feel like there are better ways to tell the reader this. Like that’s not something you wouldn’t be sure about right?#This made it feel like their friendship was quite tentative - school friends who’ve known each other for years but only really#started hanging out properly recently - but the text says they’ve been inseparable for years.#It definitely tackles a lot of things from burnout and perfectionism; losing passion for your talents; parents divorcing; depression#I just think some could have been handled with a bit more depth/nuance; with more space and introspection given to them#especially their main conflict about one having a crush on the aroace and then she pretends to reciprocate bc the other is suicidal and the#the other finds out and gets mad and it's......weirdly drawn out but also barely explored in depth also? idk#definitely anticipated it to be a bit like this because it's written by such young authors it's expected that they're still perfecting thei#I think teens who prefer shorter books & are looking for this sort of thing would still enjoy it for sure. I'll def look out for future boo#bisexual books#aroace books
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