No Mourners No Funerals

the thing about media literacy is that understanding why the author chose to specify that the curtains are blue is the same skill set as understanding that the way the author characterizes all black characters as angry or all chinese characters as meek and silent is racist. it is the same skill set as being able to identify when a news source is biased or when someone is feeding you propaganda. the ability to ask "why did this person choose to present this premise in this specific way?" is a critical skill in a world full of misinformation. why are the curtains blue? maybe it's a characterization detail. maybe it's extraneous worldbuilding. why is this character written as being right all the time? maybe you're intended to disagree with them. maybe it doesn't matter. maybe you should still ask why.

The time will pass anyway

The most basic, intractable fact about mental illnesses is that you simply cannot willpower your way out of them. The only exceptions to this rule are the ones I have, which continue to disable me due to lack of determination and other grave personal flaws

loving the throughlines on transformation and dynamism of means. Necromancy can give you an undead conquering army or maybe you can use it to secure a peaceful afterlife for thousands of captured souls. A demon's penchant for destruction may mean they thirst to cause suffering but can also mean they will gleefully undermine a fascist oligarchy. A Shaper's tool of oppression can be deconstructed into a rebel's tool of liberation. A site of forced worship can be reclaimed into a theatre to tell the people's truth. The world can be changed