#Good Book Actually

[romantichopelessly]

We talk about the Ronan dog metaphor a lot, but I never see people really diving into the hawk metaphor. Ronan is Gansey's dog because when it comes down to it, he wants to be collared, he wants to be loyal to Gansey, he wants to heel and sit and attack when told to. But a hawk is not domesticated traditionally. It is caught and hooded and chained, and called down from where it is soaring, from where it is free and doing what it was born to do. And who tells Ronan that he is not a dog but a hawk? Bryde, who wants Ronan to embrace recklessness and divorce himself from connection. Bryde who is Ronan. (Because all of Ronan's living dreams are him, not the case for every dreamer but absolutely the case for Ronan). Ronan is telling himself that no, he actually doesn't want this simple contained life--which is partially true, the Barns are killing him, but he's conflating that with his recent heartache over Adam and overcorrecting to pretend that not being able to have something normal with Adam doesn't hurt him.

[razzafrazzle]

Just Checking In! (aka Something About Red Triangles)

[roseworth]

i think theres this idea in the general public that the "best" fanfic gets turned into real books like 50 shades of grey. but the truth is that the best fanfic can never be published as an actual book because its intricately woven into the canon material so its inseparable even if you change the names

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[egophiliac]

buckle up lads we're going BACK INTO THE BOOK

[bone-yarddz]

Audio books but it’s Michael Sheen reading books as Aziraphale and sometimes you hear David Tennant shouting something obnoxious as Crowley.

[ale-arro]

been going a little bit insane about this sentence from Ace by Angela Chen for the past week

[noxcheshire]

Back again with Danny being adopted by other batfam members.

But this time I thought of the absolute comedy of Damian, tiny squirt and five apples tall, deciding that he is now a father to a grown ass teenage Danny.

It was an accident and had never been his intention to adopt another being.

But it had been placed into Damian’s head that in order to be a potential Batman he had to have his own Robin. And the only way to have his own Robin was to have a child, similar to the way that Father would pick up the various children and teenagers amongst them.

Damain had a very specific list of requirements for his potential child-Robin. Danny did not meet any of those requirements, and yet here Damian was having forged papers for the now Daniel Al Ghul-Wayne, and beginning the treacherous affair of introducing his son to the family.

Danny twisted his new shirt sleeve with a frown. It was a nice green silk that complimented the little green that resided in his son’s eyes. Damian wished to bring out the many carefully crafted features of Danny that could match to Damian. Having his eyes pop, wild hair brushed and losing the battle to nervous hands, would have to do.

At least until Damian taught Danny his mother tongue and began the care of his culture and soon to be heritage.

[doctorsiren]

Day 19 of Sirentober / Doctober

Cracked / Parallel

creature of habit

Available as a print on my Etsy Shop

[turndecassette2]

ok back to posting. old 'world heist' cover re-worked for the print edition, maybe out this december

[p4nishers]

i cant get over the ball being so CLEARLY all for crowley i can't get over aziraphale trying to woo him with a WHOLE FUCKING BALL because that's what he knows that's what romance IS for him because he's been wanting to dance with crowley ever since dancing was invented and he's so stuck in time with the way he dresses and talks and he still thinks a dance is the high of romance AND HE MADE A WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING BALL FOR CROWLEY JUST SO HE COULD DANCE WITH HIM like now it's so fucking obvious he gave away his BOOKS without a second thought and it was all for crowley he organised a whole JANE AUSTEN THEME BALL just so he could have an excuse to finally dance with the love of his life and i can't get over this i'm shaking my fists and pacing up and down he did not give a single fuck about anything other than dancing with crowley and HE BARELY TOUCHED OTHER PEOPLE'S HANDS WHILE HIS WHOLE FUCKING PALM WAS PRESSED TO CROWLEY'S AND i need to lie down

[huginsmemory]

Been thinking about how Bill legitimately had a horrifying reason (the literal progressive disintegration of the nightmare realm that erases whatever it disintegrates from existence completely) to move himself and his crew into a new dimension. Like that's terrifying. And yet he never utilizes this to his favour. He could have been honest about this with Ford, and you KNOW as long as Bill didn't mention plans of overtaking the earth, Ford would've made the portal for him, both out of Ford's own interest and because Ford when faced with these big moral questions will pull through. But this is a card Bill NEVER plays because although he needs to leave the dimension, he cannot lose face. He can't put aside his pride and admit to the humility that he needs to flee from his dimension, that he's not actually all powerful. And so instead he pretends to be a muse and when Ford figures out something else is going on, instead of being open and humble and saying that his dimension is unravelling, Bill focuses on that he's going to over take earth, that he's actually been a monster all along, surprise Ford!

And part of it is definitely because Bill's built himself up on power and violence and to grovel and earnestly ask for help, to admit that he cannot stop the unraveling of his dimension completely invalidates that; showing vulnerability? Can't do that, even under the guise of lying to get his way. And part of it makes you wonder if it's also a form of self-sabotage, because underneath his deep denial Bill is guilty over what he occurred; he sees himself as a monster and so he'll be that monster, and having people recognize that feels good in the same way that pressing a bruise feels good. But it makes you wonder what would've happened if Bill even just was open about his dimension unravelling and had lied about overtaking the earth.

It's also interesting because although Bill has SOME charisma and can manipulate people decently well (as evidenced by his cult, and pandering to people's desires with Ford, Mabel and Blendin), he refuses to be vulnerable, refuses to not be true to his off-putting self, even when if he was just vulnerable of pretended to not be himself, to put aside the (false) pride he has in himself he would've gotten a portal by now. and part of me wonders if it's because it's this false pride that built on insecurity and denial on who he is he cannot drop that mask.

Further thoughts on this!

[burins]

I know this is the Take Personal Responsibility for Systemic Issues website, but I keep seeing weirdly guilt trippy posts about libraries and ebook licenses, which are a labyrinth from hell and not actually something you personally need to feel guilty about. here are a few facts about ebook licenses you may not know:

in Libby/Overdrive, which currently operates in most US public libraries, ebook licenses vary widely in how much they cost and what their terms are. some ebooks get charged per use, some have a set number of uses before the license runs out, and others have a period of time they're good for (usually 1-2 years) with unlimited checkouts during that period before they expire. these terms are set by the publisher and can also vary from book to book (for instance, a publisher might offer two types of licenses for a book, and we might buy one copy of a book with a set number of uses we want to have but know won't move as much, and another copy with a one year unlimited license for a new bestseller we know will be really moving this year.)

you as a patron have NO way of knowing which is which.

ebook licenses are very expensive compared to physical books! on average they run about 60 bucks a pop, where the same physical book would cost us $10-15 and last us five to ten years (or much longer, if it's a hardcover that doesn't get read a lot.)

if your library uses Hoopla instead, those are all pay per use, which is why many libraries cap checkouts at anywhere between 2-10 per month.

however.

this doesn't mean you shouldn't use ebooks. this doesn't mean you should feel guilty about checking things out! we buy ebook licenses for people to use them, because we know that ebook formats are easier for a lot of people (more accessible, more convenient, easier for people with schedules that don't let them get into the library.) these are resources the library buys for you. this is why we exist. you don't need to feel guilty about using them!

things that are responsible for libraries being underfunded and having to stretch their resources:

government priorities and systemic underfunding of social services that don't turn a profit and aren't easily quantified

our society's failure to value learning and pleasure reading for their own sake

predatory ebook licensing models

things that are not responsible for libraries being underfunded:

individual patron behavior

I promise promise promise that your personal library use is not making or breaking your library's budget. your local politicians are doing that. capitalism is doing that. you are fine.

(if you want to help your local library, the number one thing you can do is to advocate for us! talk to your city or county government about how much you like the library. or call or write emails or letters. advocate for us locally. make sure your state reps know how important the library is to you. there are local advocacy groups in pretty much every state pushing for library priorities. or just ask your local librarian. we like to answer questions!

also, if you're in Massachusetts, bill h3239 would make a huge difference in letting us negotiate ebook prices more fairly. tell your rep to vote for it!)

[joanofexys]

can we all keep it together and promise that we're not going to go back to the "i love these dumpster fire books" mindset with aftg and with tsc when tsc comes out? i'm tired of y'all pretending the writing isn't good and like the character arcs and plot and subplots are bad when they're actually beautifully structured and they deserve our attention and our praise without a "but it's sooooo bad haha" being added to everything. these books are good. and if you can't admit to yourself that you're reading them because you like them and they're good then maybe you aren't ready to pick up the story that we've been waiting for for years.

[egophiliac]

should've just let Vil be the one to fly, it would've gone SO much easier. 😔

also HEY how are everyone else's pulls going, because I have had the most RIDICULOUS luck, seriously, halloween magic is 100% real

[heybiji]