#TL:DR

[ancicntforged]

all that strength and for what? you're already stronger than most people, why do you wish to acquire even more of it? is there no end to your pursuit? how much, until it's enough ruby?

"When people enjoy writing, they do it. When people enjoy painting, they do that. I enjoy fighting and while I do enjoy winning, I don't want it to be easy."

Ruby enjoys a good challenge. We all challenge ourselves in different ways; Working out, doing sudoku, working harder, etc. Ruby enjoys fighting someone with the chance that she might lose. She's threatened the integrity of her planet and even her entire universe several times for the sake of it.

When she is challenged, and sometimes loses, she wants to surpass that limit. Ruby is on a constant road of self-improvement in that regard, just as anyone wants to surpass their own limits in the things they enjoy.

Ruby loves to fight, and she loves a good challenge. That's the character of Ruby. It's also to protect those she loves and because it's what gives her purpose in life.

#;Ruby #v; Main #anonymous #tl:dr #Ruby trains to get stronger because she has a love of fighting. Saving people is a cricumstance that comes from the inevitable shit storm #that follows her around. #apologies i took this and made it a #headcanon #but yes this is a pretty good summary of ruby's philosophy about fighting training and strength

[verysaltynik]

About discovering Neil Gaiman's works and how it went for me

So, before i watched Good Omens S1, after like half a year after it came out, i barely if not at all knew about Neil Gaiman, sure i watched Coraline as a child and it was one of my favorites.

But from that time and onward, until very recently, i thought of it as a Tim Burton film because i was familiar with his style (and i was wrong in that assumption, he had nothing to do with the production of Coraline), only after watching GO and reading deeper and more about Neil i found out that the original novel was written by him. And then i found out that American Gods was also written by him.

I never was a book person, i assume it's because of ADHD and that concentrating for long periods of time on one thing was and is still hard for me, so i mostly discovered things trough films/series and videos or anything that i can put on background while i do something else, so from when i was a child i never had an interest in reading them, why would i if i could just watch an adaptation?

Another point is that Neil's books and novels weren't really that popular on a massive scale in Russia, not in my childhood anyway, so i never heard of him! Of course now Russian fanbases of Good Omens, The Sandman and American Gods is massive, which boosted the popularity of his books as well, so don't have a complete statistic of how accurate i am about the book's popularity back then. But that's not the point anyway, the point is, i didn't know of him until about 3 years ago.

Then The Sandman came out, and at that point i already was using tumblr and participated in GO fandom, so i started reading the comic too (which was hard to find online and in english) but i didn't finish it, not anywhere even close to finishing it, I'm guessing it's the same problem as with books.

Now through some miracle in my local library there was an english version of Sherlock Holmes, and i got it... nearly a year ago... and I'm only on page 50 still... and i have only like a month to finish it or I'll be fined for keeping it longer than I'm supposed to...

But hey! Look! I'm READING it! Very slowly, but I'm reading it! Having it in my room, physically existing in the same space that I'm in, it helps! Which gives me hope that if i find an english physical copy of Neil's books, I'll be able to read them how they were supposed to be read!

Yeah, maybe this post is too long, worded poorly, and has too much turns and twists, but i just wanted to put it out here, since i love and look up to Neil and his works

It's just when i see people talking about his works on here, it's always how they knew and loved his books since childhood, how they shaped their childhood and so on, and almost never something that i can relate to, even if i love his works just as much as they do, they're just not his books.

TL:DR I felt left out of that "i loved your books since i was a child" majority of the fanbase and in relation i felt left out of the fanbase as a whole, i want to read the original english versions of Neil Gaiman's books and novels and find out why so many people cherish them so much personally

also if anybody is willing to help or knows where i can get the books, please reach out, it would be delightful 💕

#saltstext #long post #neil gaiman #good omens #the sandman #american gods #books and reading #writing #adhd #important #so yeah if anybody is willing to sell or send me his books or if you know where i can get them here please tell #tl:dr

[theliterarywolf]

Yo, interesting question I'd claim: What do you think it means visually when written "His smile didn't reach his eyes." I've been reading some popular phrases and trying to imagine what they'd look/sound like in real life, and this is definitely one of them.

Oh, that's actually a really good question and I can answer it on two fronts: one from using the phrase fairly often in my own writing and one from actual remarks I've gotten from my time working in customer service/retail!

On the first front: typically when someone writes the phrase 'their smile didn't reach their eyes' they're referring to a smile that is fake in the malicious sense. I.e.: someone putting up a warm or happy smile but you can see in their eyes that they're up to something or that the gesture in their mouth has been well-practiced while their eyes are showing the truth.

However, there are the times when the smile is false but the eyes are genuine in cases of sad or solemn characters trying their best to not drag everyone around them down. These would include: a leader who has just lost a beloved teammate but they're desperately trying to keep up a strong front for the rest of the team, even though the tears in their eyes are washing out their attempted smile

Or a character who is suffering from depression but doesn't want anyone to ask about it so they're keeping up a practiced smile though you can look at their eyes and see it's a mask.

On the second front, though: I actually had my own encounter with this. It was back when I worked in the 'healthy living industry': it had been a long day and I had kind of exhausted all of my cheer and 'kiss-ass-ness' for the day. This group of gym-bros came in and carried on whooping and hollering and asking stupid questions (because, obviously, since I was a thick girl I know nothing about workout regiments and supplementing).

They finally came to pay and I was smiling, doing all the pleasantries, etc. But then the dude who was in charge of paying looked at my face and said 'Wow, you are completely dead inside, huh?'

To which I promptly replied, 'Yep! Your total is $298.38!'

#tl:dr #when someone's smiling with all the intent of distracting you #from some source of discomfort or pain that their eyes #are telegraphing

[saturnite0614]

saturnite tl:dr

since I'm starting be more active on tumblr, I'm doing an introduction:

she/they : 20 yrs

WARNING: While I don't write NSFW, I am not child friendly. It's up to you whether or not you engage with my content and posts. I also don't fuck with racists and terfs :) you won't find sympathy here

I used to be more focused on original art and fanart but now I put more of my focus on writing. My most prominent and current interests are - Star Wars, Call of Duty, and Sailor Moon. More broadly, I like horror (looking for Dead Meat and Magnus Archives fans).

I mainly share ao3 links and shorts on my tumblr with the occasional small post. Here are some links where you can find me:

TikTok

Twitter

Archive of Our Own

Instagram

Mastodon

I lurk a lot, but feel free to chat with me. I'm usually not doing anything anyway.

#tl:dr #tumblr #introduction #about me

[godheadjones]

writer asks <3 🦄 💖

heyyy thanks for sending in :)) happy new year!! (cannot remember if i said it to you yet)

🦄 Is there a new POV you'd like to try writing?

a lot of POVs are interesting to me to try and get into! from riverdale i’m pretty sure i haven’t gotten written from veronica’s pov actually which is surprising because i do love her dearly. maybe i’ll plan a jeronica fic in the near future set in riverdale. who knows?

but in all seriousness i don’t have any POVs i desperately want to write now but if any opportunity’s come up they would be really interesting to write in some!

💖 What is your primary writing goal for this year?

keep up with my wips. i don’t have many right now, which is a shocker, but i do have one for carmen sandiego that i’m only a little stuck on so i’m trying to get through that. other than wips i also want to always have something to write at night. i’m writing a book with my friend and i’ve started writing that a bit more this year which is really good cause i like abandoned that and it’s a really fun idea! also to write for multiple ships in fandoms. i am really partial to jabitha but there are some ships i do enjoy still that i want to write more for like veggie! i really miss veggie so maybe i’ll try and write more of them

#charlie asks layla answers #ask game #tl:dr #i don’t know why it got so long oops that’s what happens whenever i talk i get more ideas

[fatetcrn]

Gereon Alexius things: ( a.k.a: the long incoherent ramblings about Felix’s father I found gathering dust in the drafts of my old blog )

- Gereon Alexius was the son of the head of the House of Alexius of Asariel, a wealthy coastal port city roughly a two days ride from Minrathous. He is from a long and distinguished line of extraordinarily talented mages who had a fair amount of political influence across Tevinter. However. there were more than a few in his ancestry who had a history of delving into the darker more forbidden magic arts. Including his own father.

-  Was Alexius a good man? At one stage, yes. Very much so. In many respects, Felix inherited his father's moral compass and incorruptible decency. It was this decency that Dorian admired He was a man Dorian would compare to all others, an impossible benchmark to be measured against. That is until Alexius lost his wife and in many respects his only son. Grief changed him. He became relentless and desperate in his search for a cure and this lead him to eventually get involved with the Venatori.

- Alexius valued the pursuit and sharing of knowledge over personal power and gain and was a loving husband and father. Alexius Snr., in contrast, was arrogant, merciless, cold, calculating and highly ambitious at the cost of all else that stood in his way. ( I mean you had to be a REAL ASSHOLE to want to kill your own grandson ) He hoped that giving Alexius his seat on the Magisterium would inspire some political ambition. It did not. Everything Alexius did was to try and improve the Circles and provide quality higher education for the Soporati. He was a vocal advocate for more funding for Circles , in particular towards learning and research, rather than throwing coin at the war against the Qun. Aside from that, he pushed the boundaries of known magic on a daily basis focusing on the manipulation and control of time.

- Unconventional and eccentric, Alexius not particularly concerned about society's expectations. He married for love instead of status and politics ( and possibly wasn’t even planning on getting married, to begin with. ) Livia became his raison d’etre / his muse / the absolute love of his life. They were an intellectual power couple, greatly respected across Tevinter. He studies temporal magic and Livia would study the effects this had on the Veil. The Veil being her area of expertise.

- Alexius was so proud of his son who had inherited his intelligence and curiosity. The extravagant amount of tutors were not only to compensate for the lack of magical talent but to satisfy the boy's insatiable desire to learn. Felix excelled in everything that he set out to accomplish except for the one thing that mattered Magic to Felix is like that one subject an otherwise straight A student gets a C- in. ). However, for a long time, Alexius continued to push Felix to develop his magical talents even though it put a great deal of psychological and physical strain on the young boy who desperately didn't want to disappoint his father. Felix’s grandfather hinted numerous times that Alexius should consider alternatives ( wooo blood magic ) or, in failing that, to dispose of the family embarrassment altogether ( though not in such direct terms ). He believed that the Alexius line would end in embarrassment and Mathematics. Arguments that surrounded this often involved him calling Felix a Soporati along with various insults. Often within earshot. The attempted assassinations only began when it was known that Felix would be going to go study in Orlais of all places ( an insult added to injury ) and would be inheriting his father’s seat on the Magisterium.

- Alexius had encountered many exceptional young mages ( and there were many clamoring for his apprenticeship ) but none of them had impressed him nearly half as much as the one conversation he had with a drunken Dorian in a house of ill repute. He saw smothered potential, a blazing intellect and a young mage who would one day greatly surpass him. Alexius never took on any other apprentices before or after and grew to love Dorian as if he were his own.

- Alexius and Halward were in tentative communication during Dorian’s apprenticeship. Correspondence was vague and centered around Dorian’s well being and his progress and successes which were many. Alexius was not very forthcoming on any details, especially those concerning Dorian’s personal life. Halward was simply trying to keep tabs on his son and Alexius felt it enough that he knew Dorian was doing well and that he should be proud.

#ch : felix alexius #lol idek #i wrote this a year ago but i stand by it today #tl:dr #long post ts #i'm sorry #felix alexius : headcanon

[conteamarula]

To long, Didn't Read. The modern internets issue with text.

The modern internet doesn't actually have an issue with text. Just certain kinds. People will sit and read a novella's worth of conversation on Discord, or a 200,000 page fanfic. But seem to draw the line at individual messages when they get past a certain length. For some people I've probably already lost them, others will look at the rest of the post and immediately quit. TL;DR. It can be quite difficult to get a whole idea across in the span of a Tweet (or less) and yet that seems to be what most people expect a lot of the time. I have been part of, and witnessed, so many discussions that devolved do to misunderstandings because all parties refuse to make one, moderately long, message that fully explains a thought. And when I say moderately I mean like a single paragraph. Less words than you'll read in the span of a minute during a stream, or while in a Discord general chat. Instead of a short paragraph, you'll get a flood of people each sending out single, or even half, ideas with everyone's ideas and messages cutting into each other. It is unproductive and cause's a great deal of issues. That said it is quite clear that the amount of text isn't actually an issue, more that it is the amount of text coming from one post. A Tumblr post consisting of fifty people talking back and forth, with enough text to fill a newspaper, is acceptable. But one post all on it's own comprised of a few paragraphs fully explaining a thought gets ignored, or somewhat shammed. This demand for brevity on personal messages has caused many issues on placed Twitter, where someone trying to be clever, or say something non-controversial, finds themselves on the wrong end of a hate mob because what they said was misconstrued. 280 characters isn't always enough to express a whole idea, as evidenced by the people who make long form posts on Twitter by making a series of posts and numbering the order. Large walls of text can sometimes be intimidating, but pushing the other way is really the wrong way to go. Some ideas are complex and take a lot of words. If we're not willing to hear people out, we're dooming each other and ourselves to be unheard and misunderstood.

#internet #tldr #tl:dr #thoughts #my thoughts #discussion #to be heard #to be known #to listen #listening #understanding #understand

[saul-goodboy]

well if y’all needed good news today this big thing just passed up to the president

transcription v

House passes sweeping climate and health care bill, sending it to Biden's desk

The party-line vote delivers a major victory for congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden heading into the midterm elections.

by Sahil Kapur | NBC NEWS

The House passed a far-reaching Democratic bill Friday to combat climate change, extend health care coverage and raise taxes on corporations, voting along party lines to send the legislation to President Joe Biden for his signature.

#tl:dr #good news #big climate/tax bill thing just made its way to the president

[matches-is-meow]

y’all i was babysiting a little 3 yr old girl today and she took a long hard look at my sparkly black nails and told me “black is just absence, dont you know?” and i was internally like, damn. it really is

#tl:dr #kids are just wierd

[illusinia]

I think one of the things that pisses me off the most about the roe v Wade ruling, beyond the fact that it gives women no guaranteed control over their own bodies or reproductive systems, is that men seem to assume that women are capable of taking on all physical and financial burdens associated with raising a child.

In a country where women are not paid the same as men, where we are not given adequate parental leave when pregnant and probably not even adequate pay in order to seek necessary medical Care during pregnancy to ensure a safe and healthy pregnancy for both mother and child, in a country where we don't have options for child care once the child is born that would allow single mothers to work, men want to force women to have children. They want to potentially doom women who are raped and forcefully impregnated against their will to abject poverty, for they might not be able to work once they give birth.

This is not as simple a matter as men would like to make it out to be. It is an incredibly complicated issue with far greater social impact than any of them want to believe. They want to write this off as "if you are not interested in having a child then don't get pregnant". If it were that simple and women could become pregnant upon will alone, we wouldn't have need for things like abortion and contraception. If men in our country were raised to respect women, the entire reason that our species is even capable of reproducing, then such matters wouldn't be necessary. But the world doesn't work that way and biology doesn't work that way. And I don't care if you believe your God has said that all life is precious. I don't care if you believe that Fates dictates everything.

Your beliefs are not everybody else's first and foremost, so you should have no right to tell anybody else what to believe or force them to adhere to your moral standard in how they live their lives, no matter how strongly you believe your convictions are.

Taking out the moral arguments for or against abortion, if we look at just the consequences of having a child, both physical trauma to the female and the financial burden that is placed upon the parents or parent as is sometimes the case after the child is born, this country wants to place the entire burden potentially solely on women. They want to say that you can give a child up for adoption if you are unable to care for it with complete disregard for the financial burden of medical care for ensuring a safe delivery of the child for both mother and child. They want to disregard the fact that children are costly before they are born. They also want to allow children who are not viable outside the womb, children who will die within a year or so due to a grievous medical conditions or malformations, to suffer as they slowly wither away under the gaze of their parents. And they want to place women in a position where they may feel completely helpless. Where they may kill themselves and they're unborn child because they see no other option. They want to put them in a position where they may feel that killing their own child is better than watching that child suffer.

They want to put their religious perspective on everybody else and try to tell everybody else that their religious perspective is right. At the end of the day, the issue should not be about whether or not you believe abortion is morally right or wrong. It should be about acknowledging that not everybody is the same and not everybody has the same beliefs and that for some people this issue might be a lot more complicated than the simple act of deciding that you want to terminate a pregnancy.

And that is perhaps what frustrates me the most about this whole issue. Everybody wants to make it about morals, but it should be about practicality as much as anything else. If the leaders of this country really, really, really want to make abortion something that doesn't happen or that doesn't need to happen, then they really need to look at the reasons why people seek abortions and find ways around it. They need to invest in the type of medical care and genetic work that would save children in the womb from being born with these genetic disorders that will ultimately cause the child to die not long after birth. They need to work on solving the problems that lead people to seek abortions. Taking abortions away is just going to drive people towards dangerous alternatives or possibly even taking their own lives because they feel they have no other option.

And that's perhaps the saddest part of all, the fact that there is likely to be a grave increase in suicides and maternal deaths related to this decision. Part of that is going to even potentially be caused by doctors feeling that even though they suspect the woman might die giving birth, they can't provide enough justification to ensure that they won't be penalized by their state for saving a woman's life. And I would also like to point out that if a woman dies in childbirth, then you have may have gained a life but you have lost the potential for any further lives to be born of that woman. And women are the entire reason that this species is able to procreate. We have not yet mastered the ability to procreate without women and perhaps when we do the world will change again. But until that has been mastered and until we have those capabilities, women remain the only way that children are born and if women die in childbirth then there will be no more children born of those women and those children who are born will not have the benefits or protections of a mother because the mother's life has been lost in the process. And if that woman is a single mother, children might live their entire lives without having any kind of protection, any knowledge of what it is to have a safe or loving family. Our foster system in this country is overwhelmed as it stands, removing abortions for as an option for population control will place a greater burden on that system and more women may take the lives of their own children because they may feel that they can't take care of the child and sending the child to an overwhelmed foster care system will simply be dooming the child to suffer.

Women will take their own lives for they will feel that they have no other options, no support, no place to be. Pro-life people want to talk about the idea of the community supporting mothers, but that's not how our world works anymore. They are living within the delusion of how the world once was and not how it currently is. And that right there is a dangerous place for people to live, especially those who are making our laws. Those people who are disconnected from the world and who want it to be something other than what it truly is should not be able to make laws that will impact everybody, because all it will do is bring pain and suffering upon a large percentage of the populations over which they hold power. It's sad knowing there are people who will suffer for the supposed moral victory of a handful of extremists who don't even follow their own religious morals or laws but would try to force everybody else to behave according to those laws when they themselves don't even do the same.

#roe v wade #tl:dr #sorry for not breaking it up #couldn't find the read more bar

[freaky-fan-but-bread]

ok so I should explain last night

basically me and my boyfriend had a conversation where he was like "i want you to be yourself and I don't wanna hold you back from that" and I was like "I will do literally anything to make this work".

That meant the conversation eventually ended in me saying "I'll be a girl if that's what makes this work"

after everything went down I talked to my parents and came to some conclusions, specifically that I'm overly dependent on my boyfriend for a lot of things.

The important thing is that we love each other a lot so this should work out eventually.

So we're gonna meet up irl to talk about what happened in a few days. Don't worry, I'll figure something out.

#blog #freakish screams #vent #explanations #tl:dr #i panicked #i'm overly dependent on him #and I need to make some changes #and talk to him

[fearsomeandwretchedandwrong]

Now, given that Patterson made his bones as a storyteller with a series featuring a Black detective and envisioned his second hugely successful franchise, the 22 books and counting “Women’s Murder Club” series, as a way to expand his audience among women, you’d imagine he’d have gone out of his way to partner with Black and female co-authors.

You’d be wrong.

Out of the 44 co-authors I found in his front-line novel franchises — the ones aimed at global bestseller status — I only identified one woman of color: Rachel Howzell Hall (a bestselling crime queen herself and a former board member of the Mystery Writers of America). Nine others were white women.

#tl:dr #disgustingly rich white guy builds his career writing about a black male character #never cowrites with black male authors #complain white male authors are discriminated against #issued lame apology when called out for it #james patterson

[bakumatsu-assassin]

Personal Head Cannon - Nippon's Divide

Following the Hamaguri Gate incident, the internal divisions within the Japanese Brotherhood escalated in the aftermath, largely due to Leopold's actions. On that fateful day, he violated all three tenets principles of the Assassin's Creed. "Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent..." Leopold's imprudent decision to directly confront the Mori ronin in an exposed manner proved disastrous. Despite his lack of responsibility for the Kyoto fire incident, his actions triggered a chaotic and violent clash that led to a deadly melee. This unfortunate event claimed the lives of numerous Assassins and innocent civilians who were caught in the raging inferno.

"Hide in plain sight..." By engaging the Choshu rebels, Leopold not only exposed himself to the enemy but also exacerbated tensions. His foreign status, aligned with the Shogunate during a time marked by widespread anti-foreign sentiment, provoked the ronin and compromised his ability to remain inconspicuous. "Never compromise the brotherhood.." Among his betrayals, Leopold's gravest transgression was imperiling not just the Brotherhood, but the entire nation of Japan. His actions became a catalyst, intensifying the sonno joi movement aimed at restoring imperial power. In a single act, Leopold essentially handed over Japan to the Templars, a catastrophic consequence reverberating throughout the country.

Under usual conditions, Leopold would have met instant execution, as the breach of any of these principles invariably attracts a sentence of death. Nonetheless, intense debates emerged within the Brotherhood regarding whether the outcomes of his actions were deliberate or not, exacerbating a significant division within the Assassin ranks.

#personal headcanon #verse: bakumatsu #things got out of hand #tl:dr #Leopold fucked up big time #and screwed everyone over

[bl4ck-dr4gon]

Hollow Knight HC: Attitudes On Relationships/Dynamics Part 1

More chicken for the Head Cannon brew.

Specifically the various attitudes/dynamics of the denizens of Hallownest regarding romantic Relationships.

More below the cut. \/

Rural Hallownest: Forgotten crossroads/Dirtmouth/Crystal Peak

Largely consisting of small farming villages, the occasional wanderer band that's settled down for what ever reason, and the small mining town supporting Crystal Peak, the attitudes regarding who is dating who is an incredibly varied but the typical attitude is large indifference.

The Farming Villages/The Crystal Peak having settled a fair time ago are generally more relaxed regarding relationships and marriage but often struggle in getting the bits and pieces for the ceremony itself.

The wanderer settlements usually are the same as the native towns due to braving the Grand Wastes. Who's buggering who tends to take a back seat when food supplies are running low and the Carrybeast's are getting weaker by the day. Thou a newer settlement had imposed a strict child policy due to their numbers having been rendered quite low, but so long as there we're more children being born the leaders cared little for who one kissed.

Greenpath: Greenpath

Due to the dual nature of the children of Unn being plant and bug the relationships they developed were a combination of plant and bug as well.

The standard attitude is to form short lived 3-5 person (where in each is called a Flower-Partner) polycules (called a Flower-Dance) and then after a certain amount of offspring or pleasure the group breaks apart amicably, and depending on how well the group viewed the events therein, would form a small friend group so that they could recreate the experience during the next flowering season.

They viewed continuous attachment to one particular individual rather odd, or as a sign of obsession or worse. As the Infection grew, even meeting up with a previous Flower Partner often resulted in the entire flower dance falling through for fear of spreading the Infection due to reminiscing.

Deep Nest: Deep-Nest

In Deepnest it's a veritable free-for-all and anything goes.

You fancy that big strong spider dame you had best learn all her in's and out's to either beat her, trick her, or convince her into it the relationship. She'd find it very alluring if you did all three.

If you find the young conniving centipede lad rather fetching one had better whisper sweet nothings into their ear as you lay the edge of a Nail on his back. He'd find it suspicious if you didn't.

It is all about the danger in Derpnest, about constantly being at the tender mercies of the other, placing your own neck right against the others mouth whilst they do the same and never biting down at such a tender feast.

As a result of this tenuous tension anything more then 2 total partners results in dissolution of the relationship, or more often 1 survivor out of a rather nasty brawl/dine-and-dash.

dis all i can write, brain out of steam, yay

#hollow knight #Hallownest trivia #TL:DR #Outskirts dont care #Greenpath like short lived Polycule #Deernest is pointing Knives and staring sensually

[preacherpollard]

Preaching In The Age Of AI

Brent Pollard While scrolling through a social media site, I stumbled upon a post by a concerned brother claiming that the latest AI technology would threaten the preaching profession. Although I have heard similar complaints from artists and writers, I was surprised to hear this argument from a preacher. Artificial intelligence has caused much hysteria; some individuals have even linked its…

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#AI #chatbot #ChatGPT #connection #ethics #laziness #ministry #personal #Quillbot #syntax #tecnology #TL:DR

[pendragyn]

Just returned my library ebook of The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi and wanted to share my thoughts.

I liked it, and give it a solid 4 out of 5 stars (5 stars is rare for me so 4 is pretty high praise.)

It's pretty fun and relatively lighthearted. There's enough science to feel like sci-fi without it getting bogged down in exposition and enough slice of life to feel lived in and not just a background to the action. And there is action! Just the right amount for the story imo.

The story follows Jamie Gray, who loses his job because of his asshole billionaire boss right at the start of the pandemic. Luck has him delivering food to an old acquaintance whose employers "KPS" are hiring and paying very well. It's not until after the interview that he finds out what "KPS" stands for.

Jamie and the other new recruits are sent off on their first tour and that's when all the excitement begins. Kaiju are real, but not on our earth, and the Society's purpose is to try to keep them from crossing into our space, while also studying them because, wow, whole other parallel universe!!

It's all a big secret, except it's not, because research takes money and governments are notoriously stingy, which is where corporate sponsors come in. This, as always, causes trouble.

There is a character that uses they/them pronouns as well as implied queer characters but it isn't expressly called out. They're just living their lives and accepted by the people around them.

Trigger warnings I can think of are; animal attacks, animal death, blood/bleeding, human death, named character death, murder, violence. There are injury descriptions but not particularly graphic. There are some descriptions of biological functions that might be considered gross and some scatalogical references. The story takes place during the Covid pandemic but it factors very little into the plot.

#the kaiju preservation society #john scalzi #book review #no spoilers #list of possible trigger warnings #book rec #tl:dr #it's good #I liked it