Jennifer Lee!!

All this is to say that the fact that this octopus appears to be dreaming means one of two things. Either

a) dreaming is a very, very old thing indeed, going directly back to the Urbilaterian. This would mean that almost every animal, from insects to starfish to sea slugs to newts, is likely to have the ability to dream in some capacity or another (unless they have specifically lost it by evolutionary simplification).

or

b) dreaming evolved entirely independently in cephalopods when they developed greater intelligence. This would suggest, at least, that there’s something very fundamental about dreaming related to intelligence itself, which causes it to emerge independently when sufficient intelligence arises.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Achilles:

T H W A P

You need something like this:

“Turn off that music!” Fiona shouts from the next room. “No emo shit in my flat.” I am emo shit.

She hands me a slightly smaller slice—fair enough, I didn’t kill the Mage—and sits down next to Simon to pour the milk.

“You didn’t get that vibe from me either, Baz. You’ve got no vibe … check.”

“No,” I repeat. “I can touch you less gently, but I won’t love you less kindly.”

(Genuinely not sure whether she means the vampire thing or the gay thing.)

“I’m texting Bunce,” he says. “Like I have time for another boyfriend … Your dysfunction is a full-time job.”

(For someone who is afraid of looking gay in public, he sure gets off on public displays of affection.) (That’s probably connected.)

“Because…” he whines. “Because it’s kinda hot.”

“Just know,” he says, “that I’d do anything for you. That I’d let you do anything to me. There’s nothing about you I don’t want.”

“If you can’t be gay at Ikea,” Snow reasoned, “where can you?”

I took a quote from Tumblr (got permission) and made it into art.

Surrounded by books you will never feel the sour taste of loneliness.