Personally, I Don’t Really See Anything Wrong With Giving Luke To Uncle Owen And Aunt Beru. What Else

I’ve been seeing a lot of threat posts lately and honestly? Fuck that shit. People could have made nice posts but no - y’all gotta go and give people anxiety. No-one needs to reblog bupkis.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around Men at Arms.

It's a fantastic book, but it is also so different from Guards! Guards! in tone. And maybe that's where the key is. It's not that the villain of the story is perhaps one of the most proficient killers in all of Discworld (all two and a half of them... D'Eath, Cruces, and The Gonne) and their goal is to actually kill. It's not even that the crimes that the watch are investigating are murder, because even though paid assassinations are legal death and murder are part of the setting. Death is literally a character here, though much more briefly than G!G!. Frankly, I don't even think it's because of the racial allegories.

The tone in Men at Arms is different because the first one to die is a clown. Because Pratchett literally killed the joke (the entire thing and all of its subsets). There's nothing funny about a clown funeral, the dogs are the biggest allegory for racial issues, a gun really is evil, Cuddy literally draws the short straw. It's all literal. Everything is extremely literal. For once, Ankh Morpork isn't a joke. For once, the city feels like a city. And it's the book where Carrot, the most literal character there is, becomes a man (literally and in every sense) and takes his mantle of leadership.

Everything in Men at Arms is literal. Because the villain killed the joke to death and it was the shining moment for Carrot to step up.

There's also an extensive running bit that even the silly construction of the silly, courtesy of Bloody Stupid Johnson, is actually stupid. Within the narrative itself, the book is calling itself out. It is saying that this absurd veneer that we have found ourselves on is just that. This city was built on itself, on its own bones, on the the bones of empires--fueled with the blood of many. The architecture beneath Johnson's flawed works, the aqueducts and sewer systems below the city, are vast and strong and powerful--maybe even beautiful. But they're dangerous. The past is incredibly dangerous. Even Carrot, whose potential is very much rooted in the past of the city, is dangerous. His victory is not one I expected in the moment it came. The line about how you must hope that whoever is looking at you from the other end of their weapon is an evil man... Was harsh and true and honestly a little frightening for a story which also contains a scene where a sentient rock man chucks a dwarf through the skylight of Schrodinger's pork warehouse to save both of their lives.

Perhaps this puts the rest of the book in context as well. Especially the things that made me cringe when I read them. Like everything about Coalface, Angua being included in the story because she was a woman and every book needs at least one (preferably one that can leap over a building or deadlift a draft horse), the high school clique-ificarion of all the guilds, Vimes talkin to the nobles after dinner and almost letting himself believe he could be like that (even though he ends up laying into them with some excellent biting sarcasm), Vetinari not being in control and not realizing it. It's all very real, but real like a real serial killer in real life and not a crime drama. Maybe even real like a normal guy in a costume with their mask off.

Maybe not.

It's not a perfect book (which bites, because G!G! was nearly there), but it remains a very intentional book. I feel like less people have read it than G!G!, and I can see why. It's messier, it's not as funny, there's a lot more allegory and it's a lot more blunt.

But it's still extremely topical (sadly). I retain my opinion that it may be one of the most important books I've ever read. And I'm beginning to understand, finally, why.

a lot of us are working from home now, pretty abruptly. it’s hard, and especially if you’re like me, a sudden lack of structure coupled with really harsh self-expectations/a tense or unforgiving temperament is really challenging.

i started working from home fulltime this year, and my stop it series is a set of doodled observations i’ve made about the obstacles, bad habits, and unhealthy expectations i’ve found myself running into as i adjust. i hope maybe they can be helpful to other people too!

please check out the linked tag bc i have further observations/clarifications on these in the captions of the individual posts, but i figured it’d be good to finally dump all the notes i’ve made so far into one place. 

and a final note on what i’ve run into as i get used to working from home: it is a really really difficult balance for me, bc on one hand i really NEED a lot of self-discipline and productivity assists to get things done and make enough money to survive. but on the other hand, a loooooot of productivity advice/motivation/tools out there are really heavily keyed into capitalism and the concept of productivity as self-worth, and it’s easier than you think to slide into destructive thinking because you’re trying to keep yourself on track. do what you have to do, but make sure that the measures you take to try to make home employment work and get things done are always abt helping yourself do what you need to do without strife, not wringing as much work out of yourself as possible.

Having read Dracula all the way through now, every adaptation of the story that puts Mina and Dracula together and frames them as being in love makes me physically ill.

Dracula didn’t love Mina. He assaulted and violated her after doing the same thing to her best friend. She was an object to be coveted and nothing more. How anyone can read that and see a love story baffles and infuriates me.

Jonathan and Mina loved each other. They were willing to condemn themselves to hell just so that the other wouldn’t be alone there. Both of their characters get gutted in so many adaptions to make way for sexy vampire shit, it’s infuriating. Making Mina be in love with her assaulter is fucking rage-inducing.

Gimme an adaptation where Mina loathes this pestilential demon with every fiber of her being. Where she’s just as driven to stamp out this stain upon the world as her husband is. He murdered her friend. He violated her body and soul. He mentally tortured and traumatized her husband. Gimme a Mina with all the fury of Hell behind her.

Would that there were five of me, one for each child, so I might keep them all safe.

1. Any calls you are seeing for a #DemExit2020 over Sanders losing are likely being amplified by Russian actors; remember, they want Trump in office and the US in disarray. They're all about dividing us and keeping us at each other's throats.

2. Biden, while scum, will be FAR easier to shove left than Trump, *especially* if we retake the Senate (or did you forget about downticket races...?) *We have a chance to get rid of Mitch McConnell this year*, but that only happens if you vote.

3. This is about harm reduction. Is Biden scum? Yes. Will he do far, far, FAR less damage than Trump? *YES*. This isn't just about the Presidency, it's about the Nazi troglodytes in the Cabinet. It's about keeping another anti-abortion justice out of the Supreme Court (and letting poor RBG rest).

4. Primary wise, we aren't out of the woods yet, go vote anyway, and remember your downticket races. If you are Sanders or were Warren, you have chances at putting in super leftists locally and into the Senate. Take them. Remember: Congress going blue in 2018 has made a HUGE difference in harm reduction. Remember the power AOC and Ilhan Omar have wielded, and now imagine what they could do with a democratic Senate. (Imagine Senate Majority Leader Elizabeth Warren!)

5. Did I mention downticket races? I'll say it again. The *Senate* chooses to convict on an Impeachment. If we had a Democratic Senate, Trump would be *gone*.

(In case anyone accuses me of being a Biden stan, I am a long time Sanders supporter who also thinks Elizabeth Warren is cool & likes them both a lot. I think Biden sucks, but he's not *actively* trying to get me or my loved ones killed. Trump *is*.)

The U.S. Midterms are Tomorrow, November 8, 2022

If you're eligible to vote in the midterms already and haven't yet, make a plan for how to go vote tomorrow.

Know your polling place and when it opens and closes. Know the rules in your state and at your job about taking off from work to vote. Be prepared to wait in line.

And then go vote!

Human: Deal.

Fey: Very well. When you return home tonight, your mother will be in pristine health again. It will be like she never fell ill at all. Even the memory of her suffering will fade…

Human: Thank you so much. She means everything to me.

Fey: I know, I know. Let’s hope the price wasn’t too much for you after all… Only time will tell.

Human: So, when do we start?

Fey: …If I may ask you to elaborate?

Human: You said you wanted my firstborn.

Fey: Yes? And you agreed?

Human: Yeah, so, when do we start?

Fey:

Fey, blushing: Ah.

If you are scrolling through Tumblr trying to distract yourself from something you don’t want to think about, or you’re looking for a sign. It is going to be okay. Just breathe. You are alive and you matter. 

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god