#rating: 5/5

[brightbeautifulthings]

The Midnight Club by Christopher Pike

"In that minute, Ilonka both found and lost something precious, a friend more dear than all the gems in all the wide world. 'Found' because she had loved him at first sight, and 'lost' because he was obviously a patient and was presumably going to die."

Year Read: before 2006, 2022

Rating: 5/5

About: Rotterdam Hospice is a place for teenagers with terminal illnesses, and it's home to The Midnight Club, where five teens meet at midnight to share scary stories. They make a pact that the first among them to die will try to contact the others from the afterlife. Trigger warnings: character death, child death, suicide, overdose, guns/mass shootings, drug/alcohol use, terminal illnesses, cancer, AIDS, paralysis, amputation, grief, guilt.

Thoughts: This has long been one of my favorite Christopher Pike novels, and I was excited to reread it in preparation for the upcoming Netflix show. It's one of his sadder and less frightening novels, but it's a prime example of the blend of philosophy and spiritualism that permeates his work. It's almost never overtly religious, and neither is The Midnight Club; it's more an examination of possible afterlives, questioned by the people who are most likely to be deeply concerned about that issue: the dying.

Understandably, it's a very sad book, and I spend the second half of it bawling every time I read it. It's difficult to watch Ilonka cling to herbal cures and the hope that she might be getting better. The characters' storytelling takes up as much or more page-time than the actual events, which take place over a very short span of time. In the first half, I felt they were overwhelming the actual characters, and I wanted to spend more time getting to know them. By the second, however, I was grateful for the stories providing some breathing room from the heavy grief of the novel.

Pike is fond of his stories-within-stories, and he's in his element here. While I doubt some of them, like Spence's trigger happy mass shooter on top of the Eiffel Tower, would go over as well with modern audiences, the stories are often insightful looks into the characters' connections and personalities, particularly with Ilonka's and Kevin's. It's like Pike to venture into past lives, and it's a thoughtful, haunting, and ultimately hopeful study on death and afterlives, with a beautiful bit of symbolism at the end that has stayed with me for years. We have the sense that the characters have been here before and will be again, and while that’s never easy, somehow it's okay. It will always be a favorite.

#book review #the midnight club #christopher pike #horror fiction #ya horror #5/5 #rating: 5/5 #2022 #before 2006

[thequeerbookish]

Review: Like Real People Do by E.L. Massey

Looking for a fun and diverse feel-good queer novel featuring ice hockey and a great cast among other things? Look no further, E.L. Massey's Like Real People do has your back!

Looking for a fun and diverse feel-good queer novel featuring ice hockey and a great cast among other things? Look no further, E.L. Massey’s Like Real People do has your back! Quick Info Like Real People Do Blurb Like Real People Do The Queer’s Review of Like Real People Do Bookish Thoughts Similiar Books like Like Real People Do Quick InfoLike Real People Do Title: Like Real People…

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#author: E.L. Massey #diversity: disability #diversity: mental health #diversity: poc #genre: contemporary #like real people do #pairing: m/m #rating: 5/5 #series: Breakaway series #theme: Ice Hockey #theme: sports #type: book reviews

[yoggybloggy]

#christ lord ive had enough. yes i shouldve said outside america #but like 5 amending comments and edit to the original post thousands of notes ago #yet only like 2 of you seem to think 'hmmmmm maybe op has already heard about canada's shipping rates a billion times in the tags!'

[brennan-lee-mother]

Jawbone finds out Fabian's parent left him alone in Seacaster Manor and insists he move into Mordred. He's collecting Bad Kids like Pokemon cards. The way he can still get Riz eventhough his parent doesn't suck is by getting Sklonda into the parent polycule.

#unfortunately Gorgug has nice AND unfuckable parents #no hate to the thistlegirlies but y'all are too cute to register as romantic interests #at this rate fig will be siblings with 4/5 bad kids #fantasy high junior year spoilers #fantasy high junior year #fantasy high #fhjy #d20 #dimension 20 #fabian aramais seacaster #jawbone o'shaughnessey #riz gukgak #sklonda gukgak #mera speaks

[mercury50]

Leah Sava Jeffries really saw "she'd secretly had a crush on him since she was twelve" and ran with it

#percabeth #pjo tv show #percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #slowburn is slowburning #how are they going to last 5 seasons at this rate? #annabeth chase

[ispyspookymansion]

just genuinely curious, you dont have to say what you picked or explain yourself in the tags unless you want to

#its very low here. maybe 5-10% of people wear them Ever. even though rates are not looking so good in the city again #kora.txt

[wild-magic-oops]

Student: Professor Dekarios, is it true you married a Bhaalspawn??

Gale: Yes, but let's focus on today's lesson about-

Student: Aren't you afraid he's going to kill you in your sleep?!!

Gale: No, he doesn't try that anymore. So the lesson-

Student: Not anymore!?! He used to try before?!!! And you survived!! *in awe*

Gale: Yes. So today's lesson-

#gale rates as coolest professor in large portion due to durge lmao #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #gale #durgegale #surge #the dark urge #bg3 #patch 5 spoilers #bg3 spoilers

[burninblood]

Bucky Barnes and Natasha Romanoff in Thunderbolts #2

#buckynat #kiss #winterwidow #BUCKYNAT KISS IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD 2024 #omg!!! #thunderbolts #thunderbolts 2023 #spoilers #wednesday spoilers #comic spoilers #i rated this issue 5 stars sorry not sorry

[yuttikkele]

(miraculous s5 spoilers)

I do find it really funny how miraculous s5 goes from 0 to 100 like, REAL fast. The season starts off all, “Monarch may be powerful, but Ladybug and Chat Noir are finally gonna KICK HIS BUTT!” and by the end it’s like, “GABRIEL AND TSURUGI HAVE LOCKED UP ADRIEN AND KAGAMI. ADRIEN AND FELIX ARE SENTIMONSTERS. GABE IS FORCING HIS OWN “PERFECTION” DRUG ON EVERYONE. NATHALIE IS DYING. CHLOE’S BEEN HUMBLED. LILA HAS THE BUTTERFLY MIRACULOUS. GABE GOT THE LADYBUG AND BLACK CAT MIRACULOUS AND THE WORLD EXPLODED AND HE’S REVERED AS A HERO AND ADRIEN KNOWS NOTHING.”

#bro the fear the last two episodes probably would’ve struck in me as a child #THEY DIDN’T UP IT TO A TEEN RATING IT’S STILL A KID RATING HOW DID THEY DO THIS??? #I mean not that creepy stuff can’t be in kid shows. It has and it will. BUT THE VILLAIN WINNING AND BEING REVERED AS A HERO? #HOW DID THAT GET THE OKAY? #miraculous s5 spoilers #miraculous ladybug #mlb season 5 #ack #text post

[alicelufenia]

WE DID IT GAMERS

EDIT: Since this post has been getting a LOT of attention, please see my other post about how to successfully knock her out (it's trickier than you may think)

EDIT2: With Patch 6, Larian has made it so you basically just have to literally knock Minthara out (no need to mess with that "Temporarily Hostile" bit), so I'll use this space to link to any and all tests I've done to confirm this.

EDIT III: As of hotfix 21, the game will no longer forget you defeated Minthara if you long rested after knocking her out but before defeating the other goblin leaders. Feel free to rest up before taking on Dro Ragzlin now!

Test 1: KO at the Grove Battle Test 2: KO after initiating combat through dialogue

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate iii #patch 5 #patch 5 notes #bg3 minthara #minthara #minthara baenre #minthara bg3 #non-lethal damage option new mvp #go forth and enjoy your spicy elf in any and all paths you choose #patch 6 #updating with every test I do #I'll never finish this game at this rate ;_; #minthara good playthrough recruitment

[aquilaofarkham]

extremely happy to announce that robert eggers new nosferatu film is already peak cinema

#aquila talks #nosferatu #robert eggers #willem dafoe #vampires #eggers will cast dafoe as a little freak in every one of his films and i'll be there to rate all of them 5 stars on letterboxd

[brightbeautifulthings]

Ordinary People by Judith Guest

"The things which hurt instruct--Benjamin Franklin. That was one of Arnold's favorites. Not true, though. The things which hurt don't always instruct. Sometimes they merely hurt."

Year Read: 2005, 2015, 2023

Rating: 5/5

About: The Jarrets are a typical upper-middle class family living in Lake Forest, Illinois. Cal is a tax attorney and the provider for his family, Beth the organized, efficient housewife. They have one son, Conrad, although they used to have two. Ordinary People presents a family isolated by grief and learning to find their way through it. The following triggers play major roles in the plot/themes of the novel and are discussed at length in the narrative and the following review. Trigger warnings: child/sibling death, suicide attempt (graphic), suicidal ideation, drowning, violence, blood, depression, grief, guilt, self-loathing.

Thoughts: I read this for the first time in high school, and like most assigned reading back then, I adored it while everyone else hated it. After nearly fifty years since it's been published, there are certainly books out there that handle suicide, depression, therapy, and grief better than this one (I've even read some of them), but Ordinary People was the first book I ever read that talked directly about those issues. I've never forgotten it or the way it attempts to both bring attention to and normalize them--it’s right there in the title. These are ordinary people, struggling with things that could and do happen to anyone. Occasionally, it can come over a bit dated, but on the whole I think it's survived time really well. It's not hard to picture the Jarret family in any decade.

I've read this so many times that Guest's writing is like slipping on a comfortable sweater. I enjoy the way the narrative slowly uncovers the history of the Jarret family, how they got the way they are, and why they think and behave the way they do. The relationships are complicated and interesting, particularly among the three family members: Conrad, the teenage son, Cal, the father, and Beth, the mother. Their relationships with Buck, the older son who is no longer there, also play a major role in the story.

The narrative switches between Con and Cal (which I think was a mistake, making their names so similar; even being familiar with this story, I mixed them up a few times). As a teenager, I found it easy to relate to Con and the pressure of simply getting through a normal day. His arc in the story is arguably the best as we watch him work through school, home, and therapy in the wake of a suicide attempt. Guest makes no attempt to gloss over the grim reality of those issues, the fact that they may be lifelong struggles, or that they often don't end in recovery. There is a slight privilege issue, given that Con comes from a upper-middle class suburban family that can afford treatment.

I thought I would find myself relating more to Cal as an adult, but the character I actually sympathized with more on this read was Beth. We don't have the benefit of her perspective (for good reason-- she's as isolated from the reader as she is from her family) and she acts quite selfishly, but I could better see the way grief divides her from her husband and son. Sometimes, the only person you can save is yourself. I cry every time I read it because it's so personal and so human, but it's ultimately a book I reach for when I need to be reminded that there's hope at the end of grief. Anyone who has ever been through something similar will see something of themselves in it.

#book review #judith guest #ordinary people #classics #adult fiction #5/5 #rating: 5/5 #2005 #2015 #2023

[khaopybara]

❝Sure, who else is going? Just the two of us. Why just us? Because I want to spend time with someone I love.❞

LOVE PATTRANITE as SUN, AJ CHAYAPOL as TON and MILK PANSA as ONGSA NANNAPHAT episode 7 of 23 POINT 5

#23.5 #23.5 degrees #23.5 series #23 point 5 #th: 23 point 5 #tosunset #userlovevivi #:: mygifs! #ongsasun #milklove #milk pansa #love pattranite #gmmtv gl #thai gl #at this rate i'm going to gif every jealous sun scene of this episode #which means that whole thing basically #but i really love jealous sun

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

happy mother's day lmfao

bonus (the girls are fightiiing):

#and thus eddie caused a category 5 neighborhood disaster bc he tried to flirt via sandwich questions #which is a totally valid way to flirt. Totally. #what's more romantic than being able to bring people their favorite sandwiches without having to ask #idk im not a romantic. almost wrote tomantic. i dont like tomatoes either #welcome home #scribble salad #welcome home fanart #welcome home puppet show #in all honesty during last night's festive breakdown i had the doodled Thought above #and scribbled it in my phone notes #it feels good to not only have an Idea but to also Get It Out #yaknow? i dont get that often #brain usually has half a thought then fizzles out and decides to go lay down for a full week #also here's a niche concept that is incredibly funny to me: #a neighbor swearing and wally immediately being like NO!!! THE RATINGS!!!! #he has to snipe them before they can get the full word out. how sad :'{ #alsoX2 special thanks to these doodles for keeping me awake #i had decided not to sleep when i drew this and i can't fall asleep before ten otherwise ill wake up 4 hours later wide awake #with no hope of getting back to sleep #and another s/o to barnaby for being incredibly pleasant to draw. he does not fight me like the others do

[laundrybiscuits]

Eddie’s doing some dumb trick with a couple of wooden spoons, clever hands making them move through the air in improbable ways, and Steve’s about to bite his whisk in half. 

He’d thought for sure that Eddie would be going home the first week; Edward Munson, 29, bartender/musician from Brighton with mismatched tattoos and wild hair, seemed like exactly the kind of pretentious asshole who would flame out early with some ill-advised hipster experimentation. If Steve (28, social worker from Indiana, USA) had been a complete asshole, he’d have said that Eddie didn’t have the fundamentals. That he was all sizzle, no steak. 

It’s a good thing Steve’s not a complete asshole, because Eddie’s been blowing the technicals out of the water so consistently it’s actually pretty fucking embarrassing. His signatures and showstoppers are making a very respectable showing too, except for the time he tried to incorporate some fresh pandan extract and fucked up the liquid ratio, leaving him with a dripping mess that Mary’d declined to even try. 

Afterwards, Steve had seen him leaning against a tree and struggling to light a cigarette. Steve went over for no particular reason, flicking on his lighter and holding it out like a peace offering. Eddie looked at him warily, but bent over the offered flame. 

“Can’t believe I made it through this one,” Eddie said after a moment, white smoke curling out of his mouth.

“Yeah, I feel like that every week.” Steve leaned against the tree next to Eddie. It was a big tree, the kind that’s probably been growing in this field since before England was even England. 

“Nah, but—c’mon, you know what I mean.”

“You had some bad luck with your showstopper. Happens to the best of us, man. Your signature hand pies looked sick as hell.” Steve’s own hand pies had turned out pretty well, so he was feeling generous. It had only been the third week; plenty of time for Steve to snag Star Baker, though even by that point, Steve had been getting the creeping feeling that he was being a little too American about the whole thing. Everyone else seemed to think competitiveness was some kind of deadly sin. It was—actually kind of nice, to get the same kind of nerves he’d always gotten before high school basketball games, but know that he wasn’t really fighting against anyone except himself in the tent.

Anyway, the very next week, Eddie had done some kind of kickass gothic castle with a shiny chocolate dragon and gotten Star Baker for the second time. Steve had clapped him on the back, appropriately manly. Eddie had pulled Steve into a real hug, arms tight around Steve’s shoulders and his whole lean body pressed up close and warm. It had only lasted a moment, and then Eddie had bounded over to Mel and Sue, both of whom he’s been thoroughly charming since the get-go. 

Steve thinks that when this season—or, uh, series—airs, no matter where Eddie places, the entire country is going to be just as charmed. Eddie’s going to get whatever kind of cookbook deal or streaming show he wants. Sponsors will take one look at that handsome face and charismatic grin, and a whole world of possibilities is going to open up for Eddie. 

Steve’s not in it for any of that, of course. He’s here kind of by accident, because Robin pushed him to apply, and it’s a goddamn miracle he’s been holding his own. Hell, it’s a miracle he’s in this country at all. When Robin had started looking at the Cambridge MPhil program in linguistics, she’d said wouldn’t it be great if and he’d snorted, yeah right, like I could ever get whatever job I’d need to move to another freaking country, but then—well. Things had happened the way they’d happened, and now Robin’s almost finished with her degree and Steve is taking time off from the London charity he works at in order to be on Bake Off. 

He’s told all this to the cameras, plus the stuff about how baking started as a way for him to connect with the kids he used to babysit in Indiana, blah blah blah. He thinks it’s probably too boring for them to air, but he gets that they have to try to get a story anyway. 

Eddie Munson, on the other hand, is probably going to be featured in all the series promos. Steve is rabidly curious about what Eddie’s story is, but he hasn’t worked up the nerve to just ask. It should be the easiest thing in the world. They’ve got kind of a camaraderie going, the two of them; a bit of a bromance, as Mel’s put it more than once. 

It’s true they get along pretty well, and the cameras have been picking up on it: on the way Eddie’ll wander over to Steve’s bench like a stray cat whenever they get some downtime, how they wind up horsing around sometimes, working off leftover adrenaline from the frantic rush of caramelization or whatever. There’s the time Eddie had hopped up on a stool to deliver some kind of speech from Macbeth, of all things, and overbalanced right onto Steve, who had barely managed to keep them both from careening into a stand mixer. Sue had patted Eddie on the shoulder and said, “Well, boys, that’ll be going in the episode for sure.”

They both get along with the other contestants just fine, of course, but they’re two guys of about the same age with no wife and kids waiting at home. It’s only natural that they’re gravitating together, becoming something like friends, Steve figures. It’s pretty great that he’s getting at least one real friend out of this whole thing.

It would be even greater if Steve could stop thinking about Eddie’s hands in decidedly non-friendly ways. With all the paperwork he’s signed, he can’t even complain to Robin about how Eddie looks with his sleeves pushed up to show off the tattoos on his forearms, kneading dough and grunting a little under his breath with effort. Steve had almost forgotten to pre-heat his oven that day. 

Two benches away, Eddie fumbles the spoons he’s been juggling with a clatter, and he bursts out laughing, glancing over at Steve like Steve’s in on the joke. Steve grins back, heart twanging painfully in his chest, and thinks: well, fuck. Guess this is happening.

#this is a TRULY bonkers AU like wtf even is the venn diagram of steddie fans and people who exclusively like the BBC GBBO #I know nothing about the process of creating reality tv so I most likely will not be continuing this #(plus ST is just so intrinsically American to me) #but I saw the GBBO musical last week and that's what prompted this little abomination #steddie #GBBO AU #ETA: ftr I rated the GBBO musical 2.5/5. I have a colour-coded spreadsheet. #decent songwriting & solid performances but the emotional beats/pacing were all over the place and it did some weird revisionist callbacks #plus the level of assumed thirst for not!Paul Hollywood was wildly off-putting to me #a person who finds neither his personality nor his appearance in any way attractive #anyway I paid £15 for my ticket and that felt right to me. I will see literally any show for £15.

[pango-doots]

yeah

#I made this in like 5 minutes sry if it's messy lol #sasha is 100% a cardgame enjoyer #I'm not a trans raz truther personally but ik it's a popular hc (extremely valid) and he fit best >:) #happy pride #psychonauts #sasha nein #meme #silly tag #a pango original #doot.jpg #rated e for everyone