Selfish Indeed.

🤯

Parents think it's a sin for their children to disobey them. Parents think it's okay to assault their children in order to instill the fear of God in them.

Those parents are prime examples of using the lord's name in vain. But they don't want their children to know that. So they instead invent some bullshit definition.

Alternatively, the Warp from Warhammer 40K. Heavy metal space-hell infested with demons and madness. If your ship isn’t shielded properly you get invaded and and driven insane. Fun stuff! John would have loved it.

The River is essentially just the Warp combined with the aesthetic of Hades’ soul whirlpool at the end of Disney’s Hercules.

the argument between john and mercymorn over what metaphors to use to describe river travel to the baby lyctors is so funny to me as i’m rereading slightly behind my best friend reading the series for the first time.

bcuz when they told me they were still kind of confused by it, i first went ok did you ever read a wrinkle in time? it’s similar in concept to the way they travel in the book

no? ok wait it’s actually like minecraft. which i now think is the best metaphor. you go into the nether, have to deal with difficult terrain and a bunch more shit that can kill you, but you travel a short distance in the nether and end up much farther in the overworld

Oh hey two obscure things I relate to!

is this anything

I deserve to take up space. I am worth being a part of my friends’ lives. Advocating for myself is not selfishness.

"No one remembered my birthday-" Well, but did YOU tell anyone it was coming up and you wanted to celebrate it with them?

"I wish someone would see through it when I tell people I'm fine-" Well, but have YOU considered not lying when people ask you how you're doing?

"I am so resentful of my friend because they keep doing this thing that really bothers me-" Well, but have YOU directly communicated that the thing is bothering you?

"I am burning out because my friend keeps expecting me to help them with serious struggles-" Well, but have YOU tried to establish the boundaries you need to feel okay?

"No one ever asks me about this thing I really care about-" Well, but have YOU brought it up yourself?

"I miss my friend but they haven't texted me-" Well, but have YOU been reaching out to them?

Sometimes people are mean, uncaring assholes, in which case you get to be mad. But sometimes you just need to communicate better. Try communication before you assume someone doesn't care!

Truly one of the best side-effects 😭

Heck that’s honestly just one of the effects lol, no side- about it!

I love the fact that I can cry like Mary in a pietà for whatever reason now, good or ill.

It’s collaboration like this that makes me love my community lol 🖤

Also L’s outfit works WAY too well for it not to have been pre-meditated and hidden in the back of her closet.

Light answers a tough question

Oh hey, Bingo!

butch as in, “here let me get that for you.”

butch as in, I help all my friends move.

butch as in, “of course I’ll be the DD.”

butch as in, I walk on the outside of the sidewalk.

butch as in, “thank you, baby.”

butch as in, I’m the advice friend.

butch as in, “do you need help?”

butch as in, I’m active in my community.

butch as in, “say that again, I dare you.”

butch as in, I’m a jack of all trades.

butch as in, “will you stay?”

butch as in, a shoulder to lean on.

butch as in, “I can fix that.”

butch as in, I’ll pump your gas and check your oil.

butch as in, “I’d love to make you dinner.”

inspired by @femmefruit :)

Best advice I’ve ever found on Tumblr. Thank you friend 🫡

Hey, look at me. Look at me. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: you need to condition yourself to being okay with being inconvenienced by things. The first time I spoke about this I meant it in a mental health way- it is good to go out to the store and see people versus just ordering alone at home- but there is another more pressing societal issue you should be more concerned about as well.

Any service you rely on for convenience can be weaponized against you the moment you begin to rely on it. Streaming used to be a cheap and convenient way to see movies at home. It is now exorbitantly expensive, you need multiple accounts just to get what you want, and any of those movies can be taken from you at any time. And unless you have gotten used to going through the “inconvenience” of owning physical media, you can do nothing about it. Same goes for buying things on Amazon. Same goes for any service like DoorDash etc. These companies WANT you to be reliant on them for convenience so they can do whatever they want to you because, well, what else are you gonna do?

Same thing goes for the uptick in AI. If you train yourself to become reliant on AI for doing basic things, you will be taken advantage of. It is only a matter of a couple years before there are no free AI services. Not only that, but in the usage of AI’s case, it is robbing you of valuable skills that you need to curate that you will be helpless without the moment the AI companies drive in the knife the way they have done with streaming. Delivery. Cable. Internet. Etc. It will happen to AI too. And if you are not practicing skills such as. Writing. You are not only going to be at the mercy of AI companies in the digital world, but you are going to be extremely easy to take advantage of in real life too.

I am begging you to let go of learned helplessness. I am begging you to stop letting these companies TEACH you helplessness. Do something like learn to pirate. It is way more inconvenient at the beginning, but once you know how, it is one less way companies can take advantage of you. Garden. Go to the thrift store (older clothes hold up better anyway). These things take more time and effort, yes, but using time and effort are muscles you need to stretch to keep yourself from being flattened under the weight of our capitalist hellscape.

Inconvenience yourself. Please. Start with only the ways you are able. Do a little bit at a time. But do something.

And then each subsequent book continues to flip expectations of the genre like the cohort flips planets!

By the end of Gideon we’re already reeling, but then Harrow comes along and really shows off the brilliant inner workings of the setting and magic system all while gaslighting us on the very existence of the previous book. 😅💀

The thing that really gets me about the Locked Tomb series is that from a worldbuilding perspective it’s YA catnip. Like any other author would have started it out from someone low ranking in the cohort, maybe falling in love with a rebel or vice versa, introducing parts of the world slowly. There are even houses to sort yourselves into! It’s perfect! That would have been a good story in and of itself! However Tasmyn Muir started in the deepest depths of the equivalent of death cult Amish territory from the POV of someone trying to escape and join the terrible death army, and it works. It’s like if you started explaining the concept of Star Wars with a clone from one of the tanks in Palpatine’s lair. Obsessed with her as an author.

Never underestimate the combined power of two traumatized punks who are heavily into the DIY side of things!

He implies she's worth building something new with, next thing we know he's wearing a more revealing outfit with her signature X doodled all over his body. Good for him!

Also, between this scene and the moment they show up in battle, they've apparently had the time to: - turn her entire lab/hideout into a blimp - cover the whole thing in giant tags of the firelights symbol, her cloud tatoos, and more - rebuild pow pow and fishbones, which were very much broken in act 2 - rally the firelights - cut and dye her hair - crop his top - pierce his ears - sew her a shark hoodie - cover her entire body in crayon drawings - accessorize their outfits - again, turn her lair, a giant airshaft, into a functional blimp

Maybe Ambessa gave her entire army the week off before battle. Maybe Jinx and Ekko were on unfathomable amounts of cocaine. We'll never know