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You could phrase it as "these stones are said to blah blah blah" without definitively saying they will

yeah I think I'm landing on "I should look these things up and know them if people actively ask me, but maybe don't proactively offer the information"

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if I don't believe that crystals have any inherent magic, is it unethical of me to advertise the things that Crystal People™ say as a way to sell my jewelry?

I mean I guess in practice I've casually tried using crystals in a "shit, can't hurt to try" way, like bringing citrine in my purse to a job interview, but deep down if you asked me I'd have to admit that I don't think the stones do anything besides look pretty.

so basically can I put something up at a market saying that the aventurine necklaces I've been trying to sell for months are going to attract luck and prosperity for the wearer? People do sometimes actually ask me what all the stones do, and it does feel like I'm a killjoy when I have to say something like "I don't know, I just like the way they look"

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okay yeah I googled and found this rundown of the horniness of the acotar books, which I have not read: https://www.estapinto.com/book-blog/spicy-chapters-acotar-series-all

and apparently the one with the MOST sex in it only has sex in 8 chapters out of 80 total chapters?? that is not porn, that's a book with a bit of sex in it.

like if these dudes who keep calling it porn and acting like women are depraved (or not actually reading) watched a video that was 90% plot, 10% fucking, I don't think they'd call that porn, I think they'd just call that an R-rated movie. Game of Thrones has some sex scenes, were these guys calling that porn?

I'm kind of starting to suspect that the "spicy" books people post about are probably not that explicit to someone who's spent a decent amount of time reading fanfic. Like I'm getting the sense that people who are calling all of these romantasy books porn don't know what porn is

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I'm kind of starting to suspect that the "spicy" books people post about are probably not that explicit to someone who's spent a decent amount of time reading fanfic. Like I'm getting the sense that people who are calling all of these romantasy books porn don't know what porn is

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gotta say, as someone whose main exposure to hockey has been this fandom, it's wild that there are apparently booktok books where hockey players fuck women

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oh my god I thought I finished the first set of Ace Attorney games and I was all sad bc the Apollo Justice one makes even less sense than the first ones

but then I was looking at the art and I was like "who's this asshole with the weird glasses, I don't remember him"

I just straight up didn't play the third game, which is more understandable when you know how weird the menu screens are in this specific game, but now I get to play it! and Mia isn't a ghost for once!

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I just know in my heart that if Glee was still going they would make Pink Pony Club a Kurt song after he moves to Los Angeles and becomes a stripper for one episode

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I feel like I can say this on the monsterfucker website, but I just read a novella called "How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're A Terrifying Monster)" and there wasn't even any monsterfucking. Why are you writing a romance with a shapeshifting cthulu monster if there isn't even gonna be any weird sex. You're wasting a perfectly good monsterfucking premise

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at first I thought the issue I had with the Storygraph recommendations feature was that the recommendations were not in line with what I asked for

now I feel like the real issue is that I picked "animal death" as a content warning I didn't want to read about and now it's flagging basically any book where people like go fishing or eat meat, which like technically is correct I guess, but isn't really the spirit I was going for here.

I think the content warning feature is currently really lacking here, so I'd say that doesthedogdie.com is still going to be my place to check for that kind of thing.

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FLIP

The newest graphic novel from Ngozi Ukazu | Pre-order now! ✨🔄

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I officially finished 75 books in 2024

obligatory disclaimers:

I mostly listen to audiobooks while I walk around, though I did finish 1 paperback book and 8 e-books.

I do often speed them up but only to about the pace at which I read print, and I'll slow them back down if I feel like I'm not comprehending things.

Some of these are novellas, one of them is a graphic novel, a few of them are Graphic Audio productions that I used to re-read Murderbot

That said, I did also read some long ones so according to Storygraph the average length was 317 pages

I do not think I am better than people who read less or worse than people who read more.

I track reading as a way of gauging my cognitive health since I struggled to read anything when I was dealing with then-undiagnosed thyroid issues including brain fog.

I don't really rate books because I don't find that helpful for me but I do dump books liberally if I don't like them, so you can assume to some extent that if I finished a book I thought it was good. Feel free to message me if there are any you want to know more about.

this is 125% of the number of books I finished in 2023 (I think? 75 compared to 60?) so I think it's pretty solid!

I did not really finish books at a consistent pace; October had the most books finished with 14, but April had 0 books finished (my cat was hospitalized early in the month and I think that just consumed my mind for most of the month) (he's doing okay now)

In 2025 I'm going to stick to my goal of finishing 52 books, just because knowing myself and my brain it's usually good to finish about 1 a week

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ANOTHER thing is that some of her horror novels are based on older horror short stories, and it's fun for me to read the original and then read her retelling, because then I'm not just being scared I'm looking for ways she's changing things and interpreting things

god, the thing about T. Kingfisher's horror is just like. I can't think of a single point where I've been in any place to judge any of these character's actions. I just finished The Twisted Ones and like, light spoilers, but I myself have been in the woods with a dog and seen weird things and thought "well if the dog isn't freaking out it's probably not that big a deal." Like that's inarguable logic, that's half the reason you have a dog is "assess situations for danger"

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I will also say regarding recent horror reads: Does The Dog Die dot com has a lot of books listed and I've found it helpful as I've started dipping my toe into that genre a bit more, there's some shit that I just can't handle and there's some shit that doesn't bother me at all and it's helpful to know what shit's going to be in a book before I'm too far in and getting nightmares

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god, the thing about T. Kingfisher's horror is just like. I can't think of a single point where I've been in any place to judge any of these character's actions. I just finished The Twisted Ones and like, light spoilers, but I myself have been in the woods with a dog and seen weird things and thought "well if the dog isn't freaking out it's probably not that big a deal." Like that's inarguable logic, that's half the reason you have a dog is "assess situations for danger"

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littleredruns It’s cause the stage version didn’t use poppies there, El just made everyone dance all crazy or freeze or something. I don’t remember exactly but I know the poppies was new to the film

okay thank you, this makes me feel a lot better for not quite remembering what was going on there

with that context I do think the poppies were a fun change to make and made good use of the movie format, and was also a nice homage to The Wizard of Oz

I just saw Wicked and I overall really liked it.

It did not occur to me that Elphaba's poppy spell didn't work on Fiyero because of love, I just assumed that Fiyero has done too many drugs and he's built up a tolerance

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I just saw Wicked and I overall really liked it.

It did not occur to me that Elphaba's poppy spell didn't work on Fiyero because of love, I just assumed that Fiyero has done too many drugs and he's built up a tolerance

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Queer Eye is a worse show without Bobby Berk.

Not a problem with the new HGTV type guy, he seems like a perfectly nice dude and I like his designs, but by taking out the one queer eye guy who has an issue with organized Christianity, they've removed the absolute last potential source of conflict and interest in the show. I watched all of this newest season and then went back to watch one episode from season one, and the show just suffers when there are zero difficult conversations and it just becomes

"Hi! We're here to inspire you and make your life better! We love you!"

"Hi back! I'm so instantly inspired by you and my life is so much better! I love you back! I've been crying since the instant the cameras started rolling!"

There's this one woman in the new season who is deeply Christian, and there was a weird moment where they emphasized every one of the guys saying something like "yass, we love faith! yay Jesus!" and it just felt so pointed and weird? Personally it felt like they were looking me in the eyes and scolding me for having serious issues with Christianity.

And even putting my own problems with Christianity aside, this would have been a better episode of television with Bobby because the woman had recently experienced homelessness, something that Bobby has also experienced. That would have been so much more compelling and interesting to have two people who'd experienced similar difficulties, but with one person who felt rejected by Christianity and one person who felt like it got them through the worst period in her life.