This one was so fun! Super short but I loved the switch to Space Western, I was imagining the Jetsons kinda vibe hahaha!

i just wish exams would finish already so i can get back to reading!! its so hard to control my urges right now 💔💔

I've been paying more and more attention to magic systems and taking notes on what I like/what I hope to see in a magic system and am also fascinated my delivery(how complex or simple a system is and how the author conveys it). I would love to know what your favorite magic system is and why it worked for you.

For me, one of my most recent reads that I can't get out of my head is Red City by Marie Lu. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's my favorite, but it reminded me that the magic systems I appreciate the most are those that are grounded in tangible, physical realities that have consequences. The alchemy performed in Red City requires shaving bits of your soul for every alchemical action, and it's a painful experience for the alchemists, but they force themselves to acclimate to the pain to reap the benefits of the magic. Your soul can heal itself in the beginning, but the more you perform alchemy, the more long lasting the damage to your soul is, and all alchemists understand that dying young is pretty much guaranteed. This magic system perpetually made me SO FCKN nervous, but goodness gracious does it affect the stakes, the characters' state of mind, and the overall urgency of the plot. Very fascinating magic system in my opinion.

I was a bit startled by the first use of the word "fuck" to describe sex in the introduction (in reference to Wilde and Bosie's sex parties) - the rest of the text is fairly academia-lite in style and it felt out of place. As the author continues to use it, I've been thinking about the words we as a society use to describe sex and the connotations attached to those words. As far as I can tell, the use of the word "fuck" is intentional.

My initial reaction to the specific use of "fuck/fucked", particularly to describe homosexual sex, was displeasure. As a queer person, it's hard not to notice the distinctions made between heterosexual sex and homosexual sex - hetero sex is often described euphemistically in literature and in real life (making love, doing the dirty, so on and so forth) and when "fuck/fucking" is used in that context it's often for sex that is emotionally distant (i.e. "just business"). Queer sex is often othered in pop culture, seen as dirtier or more depraved than heterosexual acts regardless of the actual acts being performed, so the distinct use of "fuck/fucked" here made me a bit worried. The term is harsh and a bit detached in most connotations, to be fair.

As the introduction continued, I realized the point the author might be trying to make. He talks about the movement to turn who you have sex with (in his parlance, fuck) into an identity, a part of who one is. Which is valid, it is that for many folks now. But the thing that makes one's sexuality an identity in today's culture is the long history of othering and oppression of those whose desires fall outside heterosexual relationships. Lemmey and Miller are detaching sex from identity by using the word "fuck" here - for some of the folks in this book it was just that, and they likely wouldn't have identified themselves in the same manner as we do today.

What do my fellow Boundlings think? These are my thoughts in the moment, so feel free to play around with these concepts with me as we read.

Happy June and everything it means to all my galactic brethren! I am on a quest to follow as many alien pfps as I can because I think aliens are rad. If you comment and have an alien pfp (profile pic) I will follow you. 🛸

To my fellow aliens 👽✨

1 - why did you pick the alien pfp? 2 - what do aliens mean to you? Do you have any special memories or cool dreams of aliens? Have they always captured your imagination? Do you think we're #NotAlone? 3 - got any book recs involving aliens? Or even ... gayliens? Share amongst the Hive please 👽🙏 4 - if pb ever did like, reading challenges that pitted pfp teams against each other, what other pfp do you think would be the most worthwhile opponent and why? 5 - who's your favorite alien character in literature?

This is a silly goofy post so feel free to be silly & goofy below 🤪

It's been a while since I posted something similar to this. Finally, I'm done with schoolwork and got a new idea.

For accuracy, please include the year and painter. There are many artworks with the same name and I don't want anything to be mixed up.

Either way, I'll take a look at the painting and give a recommendation (I doubt I'll look into every painting's analysis, so the recommendation might have nothing to do with the actual meaning of the art, I'll mostly base myself on vibes).