justthatspiffy

[justthatspiffy]

told my cabbie for the 3am airport trip that I was feeling a bit nauseous and he immediately took my bag away from me and said "Trip to the airport is 12 dollars. I'll drive slow." and then he did-- no fast corners, very gentle stops at the lights. and I was willing to pay the extra few dollars for it, but when the meter hit $12 he clicked stop and let me ride the rest of the way free. and it might just be the insanity of waking up at 2:30 after 4 hours of sleep but I was really emotional about it. Like ok Mr Sandeep, the world is still good actually.

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Many aspects of Americanism are contemptible and grotesque but not God’s glorious favorite sandwich the PB&J

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The Garden behind the Moon (Howard Pyle, 1895)

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Winter is for listening to the same music you were listening to at 15. Unfortunately

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Credits to @Hakusi_Katei from X/Twitter

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nuclear power is impressive until you get up to why. "we use the most precisely engineered machinery ever created to split atoms to release energy" oh yeah how come? "boil water to turn a fan" get the fuck out

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My two yr old is looking through a book about prehistoric art and she saw a picture of those cave painting of hands and she held up her own and said "hand!" And I gotta be honest. That hit

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so anyway here's a near incoherent book review

so i was an arc reader and i really thought it would be bad but it wasn't bad and that was a good surprise

the gifted heart by tiffany davis if you're interested

i would recommend it kind of if only because it couldn't hold my attention and i stopped reading about halfway through but i kind of want to know what happens

cool cool worldbuilding, very setting-immersive, magic system i haven't seen before (tbh one reason i cannot pay attention this little brain does not want to hold new magic systems)

its biggest flaw was i could not connect to the characters at all. i think the writing ended up more descriptive than experiential, like we did get narration on what our protag was feeling but it was so surface that either she's the flattest character in the world or we didn't get enough info. thus the romance comes off as severe internalized heteronormativity ("wow the only boy i've met who's my age, we get along" and narratively i think he was framed as a love interest but she's. literally not into him. the other guy initially is older than her which can be like exciting enticing, but it's all flat flat flat. then the other other guy is the king i guess but at that point i was too tired)

i think there's something also with the pacing, like with that lack of digging into relationality things just keep happening. event event event with little protag commentary sprinkled in give us some time show us she is wringing her hands she is sweating she is having nightmares because her whole community got slaughtered while she was away gathering herbs idk man it's. oop the knights came gotta go.

the other thing that kills me is this sort of interesting spiritscape and she's talking to the dead and controlling the pseudo-damned dead, but what could be a really unique expanse just gets hard shoved into a christian framework of "good people go to the blessed, bad people become lost" and the lost float around like shell ghosties or whatever. i love shell ghosties but i feel like i missed some lore or there's a weird thing happening here. what a way to be damned. and the way the characters talk about their fantasy religion is just. light christian "jesusfigure gives us gifts and he's guiding our paths"

i mentioned the protag feels very flat, and we're not getting deep gritty inner conflict from her (she's warranted a little more external interpersonal conflict too) and i'm like. is she a mary sue? but then her little friend learns he has the controlling planets and elements magic so whammo. surprise subtle misogyny. she's like helping him but it's weird that you're like "is the protag op" and then the author swoops in like "watch her male friend be so much more op"

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A lot of fiction these days reads as if—as I saw Peter Raleigh put it the other day, and as I’ve discussed it before—the author is trying to describe a video playing in their mind. Often there is little or no interiority. Scenes play out in “real time” without summary. First-person POV stories describe things the character can’t see, but a distant camera could. There’s an overemphasis on characters’ outfits and facial expressions, including my personal pet peeve: the “reaction shot round-up” in which we get a description of every character’s reaction to something as if a camera was cutting between sitcom actors.

When I talk with other creative writing professors, we all seem to agree that interiority is disappearing. Even in first-person POV stories, younger writers often skip describing their character’s hopes, dreams, fears, thoughts, memories, or reactions. This trend is hardly limited to young writers though. I was speaking to an editor yesterday who agreed interiority has largely vanished from commercial fiction, and I think you increasingly notice its absence even in works shelved as “literary fiction.” When interiority does appear on the page, it is often brief and redundant with the dialogue and action. All of this is a great shame. Interiority is perhaps the prime example of an advantage prose as a medium holds over other artforms.

fascinated by this article, "Turning Off the TV in Your Mind," about the influences of visual narratives on writing prose narratives. i def notice the two things i excerpted above in fanfic, which i guess makes even more sense as most of the fic i read is for tv and film. i will also be thinking about its discussion of time in prose - i think that's something i often struggle with and i will try to be more conscious of the differences between screen and page next time i'm writing.

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Asking Americans specifically: reblog and put in the tags how do you make tea.

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“kill them with kindness” WRONG. GET RECLAIMED BY THE EARTH🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🍄🌿🌳🍀🍀🌱🌺🌷🌹🍄🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌿🪻🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🎍🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🍀🪻🌾🌿🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🍄🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🪻🍀🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🪻🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🌱🌺🌿🍀���🍀🍂🍃🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🍄🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🍃🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🪻🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🌱🍄🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍄🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌲🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🍀🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🎍🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🪻🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🍄🌳🍀🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌺🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🌱🌻🌳🍄🌳🌿🌱🍄🌺🌸🌹🌳🌻🌲🌿🪻

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even with the context of this being an organization that donates livestock to families, this sent me

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