istillliveinnarnia:

riptidethepen:

istillliveinnarnia:

riptidethepen:

tollers-and-jack:

elucubrare:

anaisnein:

earlgraytay:

taliiscoolerthanyou:

kvothe-kingkiller:

bookcub:

What were your childhood favorite books that no one else seems to know? Not Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, but the book no one else has ever heard of. Mine is Princess from Another Planet. 

its not a novel but Footrot Flats. Its a tiny comic from new zealand about a sheep dog and it is 90% farm humor and I loved it as a kid

also run with the wind

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. Still one of my favorite series

The Great Good Thing by Roderick Townley. 

Princesses, fourth-wall breaking, and what it means to be an author.

The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids by Stanley Kiesel. It’s uh. Like Paul Zindel meets Alan Mendelsohn. Middle schoolish, dark.

A City in Winter!  About a ~secret heir~, which I didn’t hate as much then, and it was read to me when I was a young child by my favorite teacher. It’s for children/MG now, I suppose, and gorgeously illustrated, with a sense of melancholy.

The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. It ties Arthurian legend and Celtic mythology together with a strong dark vs light plot, and gives the everyday a sense of the mythic, dangerous world underneath. 

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Love that book and the next two after it. Then it kinda becomes stale but the first three books are very good.

!!!!!! I’m not the only one????
Mine were ones like that. Also the American Girl books.

Those were some of the only books I read while adjusting to America. I just like Anne of Green Gables much better.

Yeah, Anne is better 🙂

The Castle In The Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop. Basically, lead knight figure that came with a toy castle comes to life and drags the protagonist on a quest. I had a crush on the knight for the longest time, it’s actually embarrassing. The fanfiction I wrote based on it is primarily responsible for getting me back into writing and has basically evolved into its own universe at this point.

marzipanandminutiae:

the thing about millennials who don’t want kids is I feel like a lot of them are deeply On Board for their friends’ kids

like I’m among the minority of my friends in definitely for sure wanting kids someday

but each of my parenthood-eschewing friends has claimed a different role in my future offspring’s life and they seem very excited to play it

so we as a generation may have fewer children

but I feel like they’ll be the most supported and loved children imaginable

@gloclouds You may have called dibs on being ‘that ONE aunt’ (barring having your own kids) but you called dibs on herd management duty as well. Imma have a HERD of adopted kids k.

themedicalchronicles:

thedisagreeabledoctor:

While preparing for my next patient I read in her previous note that she “..is a Vietnamese immigrant who works at a nail salon.”  I stifled a laugh as I recalled Dat Phan’s comedy bit on the Vietnamese taking over the U.S. one foot at a time.  I mentally scolded myself as I tried to dismiss my racist stereotype.  Yet, you cannot deny that this is one stereotype that frequently plays true. 

She smiled as I entered the room, remaining patient as I fumbled with the pronunciation of her name.  After exchanging pleasantries we discussed her reasons for coming in: a lingering cold and a skin lesion.  I noted that she had missed multiple appointments prior to this, failing to get follow up labs from over a year ago.  She blamed this on her busy schedule, caring for two children and working full-time.  For providers the chronically busy patient can seem as frustrating as the chronically sick patient.

Next we proceeded into her exam.  The stigmata for bacterial infection were conspicuously absent.  I described my findings to her, watching her mood deflate slightly when I explained that antibiotics would not help.  I continued to work my way down her body in a systematic exam, explaining as I went.  As I came to her hands I winced.  The skin was thickened, dried, and cracked.  My hands began to hurt in sympathy.

“Tell me about your hands,” I said.

She responded in deeply accented English that her hands became like this after working with the nail chemicals all day. 

“And do you like this job?” I asked.

“I hate it,” she responded.  I continued to inquire why, if she hated her job and it hurt her skin in such a terrible way, she did not seek other employment. 

“In my country I was a nurse.  But here I would have to start schooling over.  It would take twice as long because I would first have to take English classes.” She continued to explain that when coming over, many Vietnamese people worked in nail salons because that is where other Vietnamese people worked.  In other words, it was one of the few places they could get a foot in the door as untrained workers who barely spoke discernible English.  Suddenly the Dat Phan comedy bit seemed a lot less funny.

“Why come to the U.S.?”  I asked.  “If you were a nurse in Vietnam, why immigrate to a place with few job opportunities.”

Her answer?  She makes more here as a nail technician than a nurse in Vietnam, meaning she can send money to her family at home.  And being here gives her two teenage children a better opportunity for employment as they grow up.  In short, this woman gave up a job she enjoyed, to work in conditions she hates, in order for her family to have opportunities she never could.

Long after I wrote her note and sent her on her way, my Vietnamese patient lingered in my mind.  Interestingly, the more I thought the more I realized she did fit into a stereotype, although I had placed her in the wrong one.  Perhaps it is partially true to think that many Vietnamese immigrants are nail technicians.  But I think the better way to look at immigrants, in all flavors, is with the lens of selfless hope they often bring with them, rather than the employment circumstances they often find themselves in.  She, like the most tremendous among us, gave up her life goals in order to propel her family into a new socioeconomic class.  That to me doesn’t fit the image the media promotes for immigrants, but rather the image I think of when I see working class mothers struggling for their family’s sake.  And I think that stereotype, an example of the best that people have to offer, is a stereotype I can live with. 

Reminds me of a post I saw somewhere on Tumblr: Hands up for our parents that came to America with nothing and gave us everything.

It’s a common tale here as well. Many foreign domestic workers, helpers, were entrepreneurs and had degrees – up to Master’s degrees, in some cases. One of the helpers my family had had a chicken farm and half a dozen workers under her, right up until bird flu happened and her stock died.

Usually, something happened to their business at home, or they found that working as a helper in Singapore paid better than the jobs degree-holders could find in their homelands of, say, Indonesia, the Philippines, and so on. Singapore is one of the Four Asian Tigers, after all, with a demand for labour matched only by the relative strength of its currency. They remit as much money home as possible, working in much worse conditions than they could have back home, but the pay is much better than what they might have gotten at home as well.

fatphobiabusters:

kyraneko:

thequantumqueer:

ktobermanns:

loonyloopy:

prokopetz:

boarboy:

onsomekingggshit:

boarboy:

Videogames: you can choose from twenty different eyelashes!!!! oh but you can’t be fat

Yeah, whine about how you can’t have a fat character that can scale walls, or sprint. Please whine more.

you’re so right kiddo….. games are very realistic……. like the parts where you die and then come back again? classic realism. 

but we can’t have fat people in videogames because fat people are the real fantasy creatures and not like… the dragons. and of course, every thin person can scale a wall. sure sure.

Y’know what, here’s something that’s been pissing me off for a while. 

Fat? Easy to gain. So so easy. Our bodies want to keep fat around, because we’re designed not to starve.

Dropping fat? NOT so easy. When people talk about “losing fat,” what they’re saying is “I need to override millions of years of genetics to convince my body I’m not dying and it doesn’t need this carefully-stored fuel.” Dieting? Your body thinks it’s starving. Work out like crazy? Your body thinks it’s in a situation where it needs to bring the hammer down on the regular, and that means you need more fuel – speaking just for myself, I want to eat the world after I lift. That shit doesn’t melt away, even if you’ve been training like a motherfucking monster for months and eating right, because the body wants to keep it.

So yeah, the “eat less move more” doctrine can fuck itself right in the face. 

There are very, very active fat people, fat people who are experts at every sport and physical activity you can imagine. But because fat rests on top of the muscle, you don’t know when we’re jacked. Oh, sure, sometimes you can get a idea, if a person is WILDLY active, like for a fucking living. Here’s Samoa Joe, the NXT pro wrestling champion who was literally dethroned last night: 

Yeah, you can see there’s a lot of power there. 

But a lot of times you can’t. Here’s Vince Wilfork, two-time Superbowl tackling champion:

And here’s Holley Mangold, 2012 superheavyweight division Olympian: 

These are people who fight (and flip, and do all kinds of crazy shit in Joe’s case), and run, and lift for a living. 

And they’re not unusual, as much as you’d like to think so. The world is full of fat powerhouses, of fat runners, of fat Crossfitters, and they’re just as good at doing the thing as their smaller counterparts. 

So realism? Fuck off. The only reason we don’t have fat game characters is because society is fatphobic as fuck. 

Also? Saints Row lets you be fat, *and hot,* so don’t even come at me with “nobody wants that.”

“fat people can’t climb though”

(Exhibit A: Fezzik carrying 3 people up a cliff)

“yeah but that’s fictional!”

and video games aren’t?

Apparently weight weighs differently if it’s fat instead of, like, eight different machine guns and a rocket launcher?

Video games let you carry all sorts of shit, they can let you carry your own body.

(This got better) -V

I’m skinny af, have the stereotypical ‘athlete’ build and did Taekwondo for ten years, and until the day I quit, one of the worst people to spar against was the one kid in class who was asthmatic and obese. This guy was fast for his size, and strong as well. One kick would break clean through your block and send you reeling, and if he blocked you, it was like hitting a wall. On the off chance you actually landed a hit on him, guy barely even felt it, because the fat provided a layer of cushioning for his blood vessels, muscles and organs, aka the vital bits. Good luck moving him and driving him out of the box, by the way.

The other two ‘do NOT spar against them’ students were a martial arts nut and wushu black belt serving in the Navy, and a bad-tempered, skinny shrimp who could hit you twice and dodge out of range before you even got your foot off the ground. So you got Immovable Tank, IRL Terminator, and Speedster. But guess which two would actually see their body types represented in a video games, despite the Speedster actually being the least effective of the lot?

fantasyboudicca:

sonypraystation:

gotitforcheap:

theothersideofthefarside:

electric-purpleboo:

deadpool-for-equality:

wild-blake-hickok:

freexcitizen:

There’s no reason for anyone over the age of 21 to be having a conversation with anyone under the age of 18

“For the last time son, I wont talk to you.”

“im sorry students, but this is the last time im gonna say this. Stop trying to talk to me”

“I’m afraid I can’t hire you, I cannot speak to you.”

“I would tell that kid to get off my lawn, but society isn’t ready yet”

“my new born baby just said it’s first word but I’m not trying to hear that” 

“hello 911?!? help my parents are in a burnin build-”

“i dunnoo kid….you sound just a little young and….idk…. im not really feelin too comfortable with this” *hangs up*

“Hey big sis, I’m having a really rough time in school.”

*cricket chirps*

“Right… four years older than me. I’m 17 and she’s 21 so we can’t talk.”

*problems go unaddressed, no one talks, kid spirals deeper into stress and depression*

“Wait, that old fart of a teacher hasn’t changed his project assignments in years? Damn, using my old assignment as reference could really help my juniors, but I’m 21 and they’re 17 and I can’t talk to them so idk.”

sonypraystation:

gotitforcheap:

theothersideofthefarside:

electric-purpleboo:

deadpool-for-equality:

wild-blake-hickok:

freexcitizen:

There’s no reason for anyone over the age of 21 to be having a conversation with anyone under the age of 18

“For the last time son, I wont talk to you.”

“im sorry students, but this is the last time im gonna say this. Stop trying to talk to me”

“I’m afraid I can’t hire you, I cannot speak to you.”

“I would tell that kid to get off my lawn, but society isn’t ready yet”

“my new born baby just said it’s first word but I’m not trying to hear that” 

“hello 911?!? help my parents are in a burnin build-”

“i dunnoo kid….you sound just a little young and….idk…. im not really feelin too comfortable with this” *hangs up*

“Hey big sis, I’m having a really rough time in school.”

*cricket chirps*

“Right… four years older than me. I’m 17 and she’s 21 so we can’t talk.”

*problems go unaddressed, no one talks, kid spirals deeper into stress and depression*