#also two of the three bookstores are used bookstores so the books are really cheap

[daggerhobbit]

i live in a place where there are 3 bookstores and 1 library within walking distance of my house

as a bookworm this is the BEST

[aaronsrpgs]

DAWstruck

A Quick Look at Sci-Fi/Fantasy Publisher DAW and My Desire for Cheap Entertainment

If you've ever been to an American used bookstore, flea market, etc., you probably recognize the distinctively uniform yellow (or faded-to-brown) spines of the DAW books pictured above.

From Wikipedia: "DAW Books is an American science fiction and fantasy publisher, founded by Donald A. Wollheim, along with his wife, Elsie B. Wollheim, following his departure from Ace Books in 1971. The company claims to be 'the first publishing company ever devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy.'"

Wollheim was active in sci-fi publishing and fandom circles; he published the Ursula LeGuin's first two books at Ace, and as a youth, he was kicked out of the New York Science Fiction League club for getting a group of unpaid authors together to sue writer/publisher/organizer Hugo Gernsback after they weren't paid for published stories:

"It grieves us to announce that we have found the first disloyalty in our organization… These members we expelled on June 12th. Their names are Donald A. Wollheim, John B. Michel, and William S. Sykora—three active fans who just got themselves onto the wrong road."

I've worked in bookstores and libraries for decades, and my eyes always glossed over the shelves full of yellow spines. But I started to reconsider after listening to Sean at SFUltra talk about Electric Forest by Tanith Lee. (Once you're equally convinced, go back his Patreon, which is literally my favorite criticism on the internet.)

I started devouring Lee's work. In my opinion, she outstrips most of the "greats" of that era of sci-fi. Her prose is awesome, her plots are great fun, and she's prolific across science fiction and fantasy. Had I been sleeping on DAW Books? Were they all this good?!

They are not all that good.

DAW Books books run the gamut of sci-fi and fantasy, from alternate histories to barbarian tales to postmodern reactions to the post-war West. And taken as an overview of the sci-fi field at that time, they reflect the good (Tanith Lee) and the bad (libertarian cryto-fascism, coercive sex freaks, tired cliches).

So why am I writing about them? Because they represent a type of publisher that, as far as I know, doesn't really exist anymore. They published authors who'd never been published before, and they printed straight to paperback.

I have no idea if anyone was making a living being published by DAW, but I assume this was a foot in the door for lots of these authors. And the books were so cheap! The one I have on hand was $1.25 in 1976. Adjusted for inflation, that's $6.93.

And listen, I read difficult books. I read literary fiction and academic histories and complicated, confusing cross-genre works. But I also like to read trash! I think everyone deserves to read some trash. But I want that trash to be cheap and easily accessible.

And with modern publishers focusing on established authors and Next Big Things, it's hard to find trash! And when you do find it, it's often dressed up to look like a Next Big Thing and priced accordingly.

Please give me more cheap trash.

And god, look at those covers. Again, I don't know if any painters were making a living by selling work to DAW, but they were definitely putting in the work. You got classic Frazetta horniness, you got '70s psychedelia, you got "what if the Bible was weirder?" classicism.

I want to decorate my walls with these.

The nice part is that they're mostly shorter than 200 pages, and I've never spent more than $5 on one of these, and I can usually find them even cheaper. So next time you're at a library sale and you see a faded yellow DAW spine, take a closer look.

Just stay away from Gor.

(DAW is still in business today, as a subsidiary of Astra House Publishing. I would say they occupy the same spheres as Tor: popular, readable, and usually left-of-center science fiction and fantasy. Such as The Forever Sea, a sapphic ecological fantasy book about sailors on a sea of plants. They cost, unfortunately, more than $7.)

[panthera-tigris-venenata]

Some books I read lately:

I don't read as much as I used to, so enjoy this selection

Babel

Such a good book. Such an experience.

I've seen people voice an opinion that they couldn't relate to the protagonist, but I can't agree. My school is trying to kill me (figuratively) too.

Still, it was weird seeing myself the most as the story's antagonist. Made me think.

Likewise, it was weird reading book that had the quote of "the act of translation is an act of violence" in translation, but I think I did the right choice. The text is a bit dense and I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much in english.

The book itself is dark academia, but not as in "vaguely gothic surrounding & really hot academic rival," but as in "your school made you who you are today and destroyed you in the process; it's using you for your language and your heritage and it won't stop taking and you should be grateful, everything is so much better now, isn't it?"

Every Exquisite Thing

A modern day take on Dorian Gray. I've been thinking about getting this book for quite some time, and I'm so glad I did.

It's about teenage girls in the age of social media, which makes it about a thousand percent more reletable than Dorian "I own ten editions of the same book in different colours so it matches my outfit and judge people for expressing basic human emotions, oh woe is me" Gray.

...yeah I wanna punch him <3

Anyway. The book has great Aesthetic and themes.

Acting school and "one must siffer for beauty" and fur coats and parent-child relationship and a thing that fits my extremely specific definition of hate sex. (Yeah, they're lesbians. It's Dorian Gray retelling)

Mexican Gothic

A great horror story from the first half of last century. (So, obviously, great Aesthetic)

The thing that gets the main heroine in trouble is familiar love and there's nothing she could have done differently.

She's also like, "My future partner must be of the highest standards", and then she sees the wet cat personified youngest son of the family her cousin married into (he's actually very sweet, tried to help her), and goes: "... actually nevermind, I want that one"

(...yeah, nothing bonds two people together as a bit of arson)

The Villain-thing is simultaneously a cult and fungi.

Fungi scares me normally, so this works.

The Thousand Floor series

Yeah it's not my first time reading this, but I adore this series.

It's set in future, which is mostly used for extra bling, and one boy has an illegal home-made Quantum computer in his brain. He uses this solely to flirt with girls better.

There's murder and excelent relationships drama.

Relationships drama as in "I accidentally killed one of my best friends in drug-induced mania cos I thought she was having an affair with my dad but she was actually my step-sister and now I'm blackmailing three people over this and fuck, one of them is kinda hot".

(once again, fits my extremely specific definition of hate sex)

There's also a con artist<3

Carmilla

Bought this at seven in the evening from a cheap books bookstore, but, c'mon. Lesbian vampires.

Mona's guide to defensive baking

This was such a cute read, it feels like a really inovative fairytale. Another book from the author, Nettle and Bone, feels the same.

It's about kids and there's magic and corrupt goverment and the animal sidekick is a sourdough starter <3

House of Hunger

More lesbian vampires, yay!

And probably my favourite read in very long time. I didn't plan to buy it, but I read a random excerp at the bookstore and the book gripped me in such a way I bought it. And read it in two days.

There's not a lot of explicit worldbuilding, but there IS worldbuilding: in the way the air tastes, in how the clothes feel against her skin. (I mean, she gets history lessons but she finds them insanely boring, so we really do not get the worldbuilding beyond bare bones on need to know basis for her)

And the relationships!! The shadow of family, the friendships, the obsession!!

...and as for the love interest/villain, imagine Ianthe Tridentaria and you're free to go. I love her. Both of them.

DNF/Hate reads <3

For when I need to persuade myself that chemistry cannot deal me THAT much psychic damage <3

Crave

By god. Please. It's Twilight but on Alaska and the author ain't mormon so MC is allowed to be horny on main.

We all know this.

So PLEASE, stop mysteriously repeating "Careful, something might bite you here"

The book refuses to tell the heroine there's supernatural shit for 150 pages even though we all know it. From the summary. And the marketing.

...also, there's were-dragons. I don't know what's going on either.

But yeah this was great for reading the most ridiculous passages to my roommate and laughing over it. Very bonding.

Crave 2

No I cannot be bothered to learn the title.

In the first two chapters, girlie has no idea wtf happened (x months long coma & amnesia), like four different people refuse to tell her, and she manages to remind us no less than five times that yes, Jaxon Vega is still hot.

Yes, that spelling is a crime too.

... I'd like to know what does the author have against Prague. That's kinda unrelated but still.

Fourth Wing

Yeah fine it's better written that Crave (the bar is in hell), but this book made me read "I cling to leaf-tipped limbs of the tree" in english version. (The word you're looking for is BRANCH.)

The translator used "branch", which, massive kudos to her, improved readability by like seventy percent by that alone.

Still, the characters talk like therapy (derogatory) and insist on telling worldbuilding in THE most ridiculous ways.

I'd give redeeming points for dragons but I didn't get to them before "leaf-tipped limbs of the tree", so, hard luck ✨

School for Good and Evil

...yeah that's mostly my fault for reading out of intended age group, but.

SIR, that's your STUDENT. STOP. Please.

That said, there's like. A lot of innuendos for a middle grade book.

Rhapsody

If I had a nickel for every YA book that has "an ancient bat-winged fae king" as the love interest, I'd probably be fucking rich.

Also, the MC is a siren and the book is "dark romance". She did NOT claw anyone to death nor drown anyone and I feel like I should be financially compensated for that.

[walkawaytall]

sleepover saturday: I'm pretty happy because I spent two hours at a used bookstore today and got three books and a star wars comic for really cheap! what are you reading and/or looking forward to reading?

That sounds like such a fun time and a great haul!

Oh, gosh, I have been...not great at reading the past year and a half or so, but one of my friends recently suggested the audiobook for Brandi Carlile's memoir Broken Horses, and I do have that, so I may start it up soon. Also, I really adored The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (giant CW for domestic violence for that one, but it is an incredible book) and I've been meaning to check out more of her stuff, so possibly one of her other novels.

Thanks for asking!

Sleepover Saturday

[thedaughterofkings]

okay, I do need to rant

So I just finished this book - not naming it because I don’t want my rant to end up in any tags or search - and I’m mad and disappointed.

It was a humongous thing, almost 800 pages (according to a very quick search somewhere between 160k and 200k, I did read the German translation so probably even a bit more) and I saw it in my local, small, independent bookstore (this is important because it was also not cheap and it least that purchase supported them^^°) and it looked cool and sounded interesting so I bought it very spontaneously.

The premise is very much based on the power of translation and while I’m not a trained translator I did study English and have tried my hand at a couple of other languages as well, so a novel based in Oxford, about the power of translation and learning different languages sounded right up my alley. That it is a magical power, thus making this a fantasy novel, plus set in the 19th centry, making it a historic novel, made it sound all the better.

And man, did I want to love it. It has so many things I love, the premise is super cool (everything that gets lost in translation, those little secondary meanings that don’t transfer from language to language, has its own power, becomes magic in its own right, that is such a cool concept!!!), the cast should have been interesting, the setting fascinating (a tower of translation in the middle of Oxford, (em)powering the British Empire through the languages of those people it has colonised, (ab)using those translators from other cultures to further the Empire’s thirst for power and silver and world domination).

But for the most part it felt just ... sterile and then at the end - spiteful?

There is one main narrator for almost all of the book and I still cannot really characterise him. Never mind the 180° turn his characterisation takes at the very end, what irritated me most was that we meet him as a child and then again after a ten year or so time jump as a student at Oxford - and there was no difference!! Like, that’s not how you write a round interesting character, in my opinion.

The other main characters are hardly more three-dimensional, they seemed stock characters almost. There is the best friend of the narrator, whose death is part of what so suddenly transforms the narrator ( I have thoughts about that, but I don’t want this rant to be absolutely endless) and that’s about all he adds to the novel.

And then there’s the two girls, one black (?) with Haitian heritage and one white, English girl. And boyyy do I have thoughts on them.

Okay, I need to take a step back for this next part of the rant to have any hope of making sense: The novel is about translation, but mostly it is about colonisation, the British Empire and the consequences of both, especially for the countries, cultures, people and languages that have been colonised/stand in the way of furthering England’s hegemony. The novel is clearly, explicitely, relentlessly critical of that and rightly so. But it really is relentless - not only in its criticism of colonisation (again, very much agree with that), but in its pursuit to portray the culpability of every white character.

Some - many! - are very much culpable, but in their multitude, they become almost caricatures, to the point of loosing any real impact. They never have any motivation beyond greed and disdain for anyone not English and that makes it hard to care at some point. Why yes, another white racist, what else.

It’s most ridiculous in the white girl of the student quartett. She’s honestly the one with the most interesting characterisation - and still becomes a caricature at the end. She’s the only one of the group that is fully white and English, the daughter of a retired Admiral, and as much as the book makes sure to make clear how little she understands her friends and the racially motivated mistreatment and abuse they face - it also becomes clear how little the characters (or the book) care to understand her. She’s white and thus privileged and that’s it. She can never understand them and when she tries and asks, it’s annoying and self-serving. When she feels bad about how they’ve been treated, what they continue to face, it’s portrayed as egotistical and a selfish emotion. She gets one chapter from her point of view, and everything that that chapter introduces is summarily ignored for the rest of the novel. Instead, she becomes the ultimate villain, the one who will pursue her best friend to the end of the world to kill her rather than accept a challenge to her world view! (God, I’m so mad at how the novel treats her)

And ugh, I’m too much of a feminist for this novel. It feels like whatever the opposite of intersectional feminism is - misogyny is - you can’t even say second to racism, because it is made very clear that it doesn’t matter at all. Letty’s (the white girl’s) chapter is all about how misogyny has shaped her life, has almost kept her from being able to study, which was her biggest dream, and that honestly would work reasonably well as a motivation for her actions against her friends, but instead of digging deeper into this issue, the novel again sidesteps it in favour of portraying her as unable to change her racist point of view and thus turning from squeamish girl to ruthless killer in the span of a page.

Oh, there’s a scene of the girls being harrassed at a ball, but again, it’s only driven by racism, the misogyny is simply a vehicle.

In fact, in a turn that feels really spiteful, the only white character who sides with the characters of colour in the novel (the single white character, there literally is no one else who sides with them without having additional motivations) is the one female Professor who is portrayed as vehemently anti-feminist. And then she gets to die.

It all just rubs me really wrong.

Finally, (for now, I do have more thoughts) the novel is just ... long. It’s more scientific paper than literary novel for long parts and it just drags on - and I’m actually interested in the topic in question and in fact at least partially studied it myself! It’s all written so emotionless and mechanical that it’s hard to understand the motivation and supposed love of the characters for this field of study.

And then there’s the footnotes of course. They don’t know if they want to be in text commentary, or historical background explanation or fictional additional information. This might be a personal pet peeve, but for a novel that’s set in a clearly defined historical period, and which goes to great lengths to explain the changes made to the layout of Oxford for the sake of the novel, I hated how it mixed footnotes that were clearly fictional additional information and footnotes that might have given actual historical background. A historical fantasy novel doesn’t have to be historically accurate (if that is even possible) but I think that it should at least not muddy the waters of what is fiction and what is history unnecessarily. And this is now very much a personal pet peeve, but I just reread a children’s fantasy series which includes its secondary sources on the time period and the cultures portrayed in the novels - and if a novel about dragons and vikings can do that, how can a novel that throws around names and dates and quotes and actual historical events on pretty much every page not?!

I think that’s enough ranting for today, though my ask box is open, if you should happen to have any questions^^°

[slightlyinsanemind]

Safe Place Chapter 1

Hey? Uh… Hey! Sorry, that was… Hi. I was… I’ve seen you here a few times, always see you reading. I also like reading. A lot. Figured, maybe that was a good way to break the ice. I don’t do this often… Talk to people I mean. I usually prefer to keep to myself. It’s complicated… You seem nice so, I thought, maybe I should give it a shot. Just trying to… try again, I guess. Anyway, enough of that. Uhhh… Books, right. I’m actually getting back into reading a lot again. I just got a lot busier over the years, college, internships, that sorta stuff. But I read a lot when I was younger. I’d buy like three or four books in a row and a few weeks later I’d be back at the bookstore to get some more. Luckily there was a really good used bookstore so they were pretty cheap. My favorite time to read was in the early hours of the evening, when the sun is starting to lower and it’s not blinding you. I made a little reading spot by my window. It was one of those, the wall is so thick, that the glass window was just put into a big hole in it, so I pretty much made it into my reading area, stuffed it with pillows and I’d just be there for a few hours. Reading. Forgetting about the world. Just me and them, the characters and worlds they live in. Their adventures, their dreams and friendships. I guess… Sometimes I was a little envious of them. They had something I didn’t. Genuine relations with people. Knowing that there’s someone that will stand by your side no matter what. During those hours I felt I had friends, imaginary as they were, but… it was something. What about you? Are you good at dealing with your own emotions? Or do you also need an escape? Something to make you feel safe when the world is so overwhelming and you just feel tiny and helpless to do anything, when you feel you can’t breathe anymore and you just want to scream to be left alone but you can’t because you’re breathless so you just end up falling on your knees and hope everything will just blow over, waiting for someone to help you up and promise they won’t abandon you, and the subsequent disillusion when you look up and there is no one to reach out to, that you are simply and utterly alone… Oh… I’m sorry… I just went off didn’t I? God I’m such an idiot. I’ve been told a few times “keep being like that and you’re damn right no one will feel like putting up with you”. Guess they were right. I’ll try to not act like that with you. Unless… you don’t mind. That you don’t find this too weird. That I can be myself with you. Ahem, anyway, we were talking about books, reading, and all that, right? What about you, what do you like? No, let me guess. Looking at you, hmm, you totally like dramas. I’m just kidding. Classics! I’m pretty sure Dracula by Bram Stoker was your favorite when you we’re younger. I get it, it’s pretty good. But I bet after that you totally read all of Twilight in like two weeks. Don’t be embarrassed, I did the exact same. So, the only logical follow up would be Romeo and Juliet. That I admit, I never read. But I’d like to. Of course, you don’t have to read or watch the play or anything to know the story, I mean, it is a classic and incredibly influential. The tale of two star crossed lovers that love each other more than anything else in their lives, go against their families so they can be together and end up dying together thinking the other had died and not being able to continue to live on without each other? Romantic is it not? Can you imagine a love like that? Loving someone so much that death itself is little more than an obstacle for them to be together? …Yeah. Did you ever love someone like that? I did. It didn’t go well. Not the other person didn’t die, just… never really loved me. It hurt, so much that it broke me and took me to… some dark places. It’ all right. In retrospect, it’s actually better things turned out like that. I learned to value myself more. It took some time e a thousand and one tears but eventually I came to terms with it. It made me stronger. I could finally see my own beauty. Now I can accept who I am entirely. All my insanity and sarcasm, my crappy jokes e dark humor. My loyalty. My ambitions, my dreams. Oh well… Books! Not done with that just that. I bet you’ve read those self-help books. The type that for some people it holds the secrets of life while for others they are nothing but nonsense and that the writers are snake oil sellers. I’ve read a few, here and there, out of curiosity. But still haven’t really made up my mind about them. On one hand they are interesting, an unordinary reading for me and that maybe I’ll learn something there. Or could learn if, on the other hand, I didn’t criticize and question every single sentence. Like, if someone is “guiding” you through life then should they not explain how and why they came to that conclusion and not be just “it is this way simply because it is this way”. Sure, some of the philosophies could indeed work if you apply them to your life and start seeing the results and realize that you’re becoming better than what you thought was possible. But we know life is not rainbows coming out of a unicorns butt. If we want something we have to make work for it. Have to plan, make things work and yet there’s not a guarantee that you’ll get what you want. There’s no bloody plan to life, you simply live it and make the best that you can. And live with it. You know, one day, in a rather boring class, I read this book, can’t remember the name, but it had a quote that went something like “If you did not become rich then you day was a failure. But if you became right than it was a success”. So, from that logic what can we consider a failure, success or wealth? I had the top of the class score in some test, is that a success? Great, but I don’t see how I’m closer to getting rich. More depressed, sure, but rich? But if I have the lowest I don’t see how I’m getting poorer from that. But, still depressed. Guess that’s really the only constant in life, uh? And lastly what kind of riches are we talking about? The millions that would pop in on my bank account? Or is the feeling of a job well done enough? Sometimes I think the authors of these books are a little out of touch with reality and how things really are. Damn… I started rambling again didn’t I? Guess we can drop the philosophical stuff before we go even further down this rabbit hole and it is way too early and we are way too sober. Unless you don’t drink. I don’t usually but sometimes I drink a bit when I’m alone at home just to… I dunno. Just to I guess. Anyway, let’s move… Oh, excuse me, my phone.   Sorry. I must leave. You come here often right? I mean, I know you do but… We’ll talk again one of these days, okay? Bye…

[nancy-plays-dutp]

Moving Mountains - First Look

A new book has come out, and I’m excited to play it! This won’t be too spoiler heavy but just in case I’ll put stuff under a cut once I actually get into the story content. Also it’ll start getting long.

Moving Mountains is the 33rd book to be released. It is set in the fictional country of Yuanning, a feudal monarchy that takes inspiration from China. I’m not a historian and have received no details on the dynasty, so I can’t comment on historical accuracy, but it appears to be fairly grounded with no fantasy elements.

Listed under “Adventure,” “Romance,” and “Healing” in the bookstore, the summary indicates that our protagonist, Wen Rou, is struggling between the education given from her father and the expectations society has from her state as a noblewoman. I do think this is a rather simple premise, but it can still be a good story if the characters and writing are done well. Especially after the last story, Code Whalefall, being so incredibly confusing and hard to follow, a simple story can be a treat. But it could also risk becoming forgettable, especially since it’s working with an aesthetic easily compared to so many other books, like Gourmet’s Journey, Tang Hunter’s Dynasty, and Ancient Dreams, all of which I consider to be high quality stories; Moving Mountains has some work to do if it wants to distinguish itself.

Moving Mountains is two chapters long, with 33 stages and 43 stage events, making this story more linear than average with less stage events, which are the meaningful choices you can make throughout the story. With 46 new clothing items this also is on the low end, which is not necessarily a negative thing. All the outfits do appear to have thought and care put into them, with many details and subtle touches, and I quite enjoy them. This being said they are remarkably similar to the outfits in Gourmet’s Journey, so while they’re beautiful they’re not exactly anything new.

Displayed are three of my favourite outfits from the story; the middle one is a Jerry outfit while the other two are craftable, and while the Jerry outfits are more detailed the craftable ones are certainly not lacking in style. The first outfit I especially enjoy as it reminds me of Mulan with the red and the sword, which raises my hopes to dangerous heights for this story. I do hope we get to use a sword.

One thing that was rather interesting about the clothing in this book is that two of the six encounter items are only one star; usually one star items are rarer in the game, with many stories having no one star items at all. I haven’t graphed this but I believe this may make these the lowest stats for encounter items. While I haven’t unlocked enough blueprints to evaluate crafting costs it’s likely this will not be a cheap book. I do commend the restraint shown for Parvens shop, with only seven blueprints (especially when compared to Code Whalefall’s nineteen), and among those only one costing over 300 diamonds.

There are three companions in this book: Gu Yin, Luo Jiuhua, and Shen Jiaojiao.

Design wise the men are nothing remarkable, resembling the companions we saw in Tang Dynasty Hunter and Gourmet’s Journey. If anything they have even less to set them apart from each other than usual, seeming to share the same kind of stature with a different hairstyle and color robe. Shen Jiaojiao fares slightly better and it amuses me how similar her dress is to one of our craftable outfits, but just as before there really isn’t much to distinguish her design from the protagonist. Theoretically this is on purpose, to characterize her as a kindred soul, and I have no real complaints about this. I simply find it amusing how female companions usually get unique designs while male companions look alike so often that I have a difficult time telling them apart.

Personality wise, Gu Yin is set up to oppose you, telling you to mind your place and believing that you can’t accomplish all that you claim. Clearly he’ll be won over by your skill and charm throughout the story and admit the error of his ways. His backstory has him rising through the ranks of society from poverty, and claims that he’s more open minded than most.

Luo Jiuhua is your childhood friend who you’ve been reunited with; although you lost touch many years ago in the story you are reunited and rekindle the relationship. His family is rather wealthy, being merchants that have found some degree of success. I suspect he’s going to be somebody who might end up using his status to help you; I’d really like an arranged betrothal leading to real feelings stemming from your friendship, but I don’t know if we’ll get that arc.

I haven’t met Shen Jiaojiao yet, so I only have her bio to go off of; it would appear that she’s reserved and gentle, the perfect lady of society, and I guess that we’ll befriend her and help her open up and be braver about her desires. 

I mentioned that I hadn’t met Jiaojiao yet; I am currently three stages in to this story, so will just be able to comment on the setup and speculate on where the story might go. The protagonist has a strong personality and feels trapped by her mother’s desire for her to get married; she loses her Nanny who tells her to be brave, and decides to chase her dreams. She’s characterized as quite intelligent, having taken lessons from her father and seeking rare books to buy, and even mentions having taken martial arts lessons in her youth. There is also a subplot about a terrible flood in the southern provinces of Yuanning, where her family is from, and her father has been sent to aid the situation, but refuses your request to accompany him and help where you can.

Three chapters is not enough to form a definitive statement on the entire book. I do think this could be quite a good story, but hope that the protagonist is allowed to take some major action to choose her own path. Disguising herself as a man to travel to the flooded areas and help, for example. Court intrigue and marriage arrangements have their place, but I enjoy it when protagonists get to do more active things, and a disguise would lead to some interesting situations. But since we’ve already met most of our companions at home I doubt this will come to pass.

One thing I enjoy is how the mother is being written so far. She’s stern and insists that her daughter must get married, but it’s clear that she’s doing so out of concern. I will say not too much depth is being given to this plotline at the moment, other than saying “I’m not like those other women who want to marry” and “Don’t be silly, you’re a woman. Of course you want a husband,” and I do hope that these perspectives can be fleshed out a little. I’m not arguing for every woman to embrace an arranged marriage, but I just think its interesting to consider what societal constraints might place a woman in a position where she feels that’s her best option, whether financial or social or political or a combination of all three. The protagonist’s assumption that a woman gives up her dreams when she marries is something I’d like to see challenged by a character in the narrative, maybe one who sought an advantageous marriage to gain enough wealth and power to pursue her dreams and interests. 

The reason why I am coming up with these ideas is simply because I’m looking for what this story can offer that would truly be unique. We already have several stories featuring a female protagonist escaping marriage and seeking her dreams, and while they’re of varying quality I tend to find that it’s better when she actually has a dream to pursue rather than just a desire to not be married. For example, in The Perfect Storm you escape your marriage to become a pirate, and while that past does come back most of the story is spent being a pirate, which I found highly enjoyable. Wen Rou has said that she wants to be free, but hasn’t expressed what she’ll do with that freedom; I’d enjoy it if she decided to masquerade as a man to save people, or if the story allowed her to be more of a scholar and seek out knowledge, or perhaps a shrewd businesswoman who’s skilled at running an estate. This could easily happen in the story, and I do hope it lives up to the potential I see in it.

I’ll be playing through Moving Mountains for the next few weeks and compiling more statistics on it, so I can do a full in depth analysis of the themes once I’ve completed this story. In summary my current stance is that this could be quite an enjoyable book, but it needs to go beyond the bare minimum to really set itself apart from the many books it resembles.

[someonelookingpraediti]

Bookshelf Tours The Twi-Library

1. The books - obviously. I had the first three in paperback, and then waited anxiously for the last book to be released. I managed to snag a signed copy of Breaking Dawn, completely by chance. Seventeen year old me was thrilled.

2. The books. Again. This time in white! Why do I have the alternate covers, when I already had the books? Honestly, because I found them on clearance and have never had any impulse control.

3. The graphic novels. These ones took some tracking down, I can tell you! But, I bided my time, set up alerts, and eventually managed to get them nice and cheap on eBay. Unfortunately, New Moon Part 2 was never published.

4. Rosalie’s necklace. When we went to see the movie (on release day, of course) we stopped in at the bookstore afterwards, and they had a HUGE Twilight display, with all the character jewellery, the books, stationery, etc. I bought this necklace, and a bookmark, which is sadly lost to the ages. A few weeks later, I went to see the movie again, and this time, I hated it. That was the end of my Twilight phase. The necklace got dumped in a drawer, and forgotten about, never worn. When I started my twilight renaissance, I went to my dad’s house, and spent hours rummaging until I found it boxed up among my childhood things.

5. These redesigned covers for classic books were a marketing trick, designed to cash in on twi-mania. Books that Bella reads during the series, with covers made to fit in with the Twilight books - right down to the font. The front cover of Wuthering Heights proudly proclaims it to be “Edward and Bella’s favourite book!”

6. Various keyrings, bangles, and bag charms. Some of these are left over from my teenage obsession, some are newer acquisitions. My favourite is a cute “Team Jacob” bag charm, which is just stylish enough for people to compliment, before they notice what it says.

7. The movies. The singles discs were actually my mother's. She left them behind at dad’s house when she moved out, and I took possession of them during my renaissance. The box set is a US import, and it’s stylised to look like Edward and Bella’s wedding album.

8. The New Moon Steelbook. I’ll admit, this one is a bit odd, since I don’t actually have a Blu-ray player. But it’s so pretty!! And I got it on eBay for about £6, so I’d have been a fool not to.

9. Immortal: the Twilight fragrance. No, really. Apparently, this is supposed to be how Bella smells to Edward? Honestly it smells like a mixture of the bottom of an old sock basket, and fly spray. I never have to worry about running out, because it genuinely made people gag when I used it.

Not featured in this picture - two giant cinema posters for Twilight and New Moon; a stack of board games, including Twilight Scene-It, which is actually pretty fun; two throw pillows, currently on my bed; and a total of FIVE Twilight t-shirts, including one that says “Team Edward” in the Batman logo.

I'm also going to mention Move to Higher Ground at this point. The Quileute Tribe are currently based in a tsunami zone, and they're raising money to move to higher ground. You can read more about their mission, or donate directly to the fund, by visiting mthg.org

[hel7l7]

NOTEBOOK INFO POST

OKAY A BILLION YEARS AGO SOMEONE ASKED ME WHAT NOTEBOOKS I USE... 

So here finally a post about it. As the pictures show I have a bunch of notebooks, and they’re not all the same. The black ones (the one also shown with my hand and the butterfly) are the notebooks I started with.  I got these from my mom’s boyfriend who got them from the place he works at. I really liked the size and the paper of those books, but after a while he couldn’t get me any more.  The brown fat journal is a ‘dummy’ I bought in a bookstore. I really disliked it, the paper was thick yet the marker bled through and on the pages. The thickness of the journal also made that the scans I made were quite blurry because I couldn’t get it in the scanner properly. 

After that a few smaller books were added to the pile, the black small one was an accident, and the A6 size books are honestly too small for me. I got this one. And another one that was square and a bit bigger.   The smaller brown ones are both from Flying Tiger. I got them just to try, and really enjoyed them! But they don’t have a standard-collection so when I went back to get the same ones they were sold out.  I got the black one with the ribbon around it instead. (This is the one I’m currently using.) It’s nice, it has a hardcover which I prefer tbh. And I really like the square shape and the paper. I really want to get another one when this one is full. 

The light blue notebook is from HEMA (similar to this one) I honestly don’t really like it. I wanted to try a bit of a bigger size, it’s a bit wider than the other books I used before. And I dig that. But the paper is very thin, you can see the marker through the pages and the glue makes it all wobbly and ugly looking. It’s a good notebook to start with maybe, since it’s quite cheap. But I personally don’t think I’d buy it again. It’s also quite thin and doesn’t have that many pages.. 

As you can see I put the start/end-date on the books I use. This is so I can find back something easily and because I think it’s nice to see. I used to only work in one notebook at a time. But now that I’ve different sizes and sorts I mix it up and usually work in two or three notebooks at the same time.  They also all get a title or theme.. or at least a different look that sort of represents the “phase” I’m going through in my journey at that time. 

Questions are always welcome! 

- B. 

[too-attached-to-fiction]

Between The Pages | d.m.

Masterlist here.

Part 2 here

REQUESTS ARE OPEN!

Word count: 1337

Requested: No

Summary: Reader works at a wizard bookshop that specializes in muggle books. One day, Draco wanders in. 

A/N: if this gets enough attention I might make a second part because I’m really excited about this imagine but we’ll see! Leave a message in the notes if you do! Also two draco one shots in one day oops (I just want a boy to fall in love with me at a bookstore is that too much to ask?)

~~~

Draco couldn’t remember the last time he’d wandered the streets of Diagon Alley leisurely. It had to have been before his sixth year, when things were simpler and the back-to-school rush surged in his veins. He could feel cold eyes on him from all angles, but he kept his own eyes wandering.

In the Leaky Cauldron, Tom had been kind enough to serve a butterbeer to Draco, but it was clear his presence wasn’t wanted. 

His eyes landed on a bookshop, in the far corner of the shopping district, that he was sure he’d never seen before. Before he realized, he was walking through the crowd, curious about what  could be inside. 

Mother Goose Books had been open for less than a year, but you were surprised about how much business was booming. The store had originally been an empty space in the district, but the owner, an old family friend, offered to sell it for cheap when you pitched her the idea. Most days, you could be found at the front counter, your nose buried in one book while a tall stack of them sat next to you. 

Like most of the shops on Diagon Alley, it seemed little on the outside but larger than life once you stepped in. That was, in part, due to the fact that you and the cafe owner next door decided to break down the wall in between your shops for more customer satisfaction. Tea mugs were often littered all over the desk you kept behind the front counter. 

The door of the shop clanged open, but you refused to glance up from your book now. The Great Gatsby, like so many other books you had read, was something that you absolutely could not put down. 

“Ahem.” Draco cleared his throat, and you nearly jumped off your stool. Bewildered, you looked up to see the platinum blond, adjusting your glasses. “Er, sorry for scaring you.” 

“Oh, no, it’s alright. I probably should have said something when the door opened.” You flushed, bookmarking the page and closing the book. “Is this your first time here?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, welcome to Mother Goose Books. We specialize in books, obviously, muggle and wizard. If you’d like to donate anything we’d happily accept, but if you’re just browsing or need a recommendation, that’s fine too.” You rattled off. “Is there something in particular you’re looking for today, Mr. Malfoy?” 

“U-um.” He’d never been greeted so boldly, especially without introducing himself. Still, he was sure that there were people who knew him, considering his family and reputation during his school years. “Not really.” 

“Do you need a recommendation?” 

“Sure.” 

“Wizard or Muggle?”

“Why don’t you pick?” You smiled at the response, hopping off the stool behind the counter. 

“Follow me, Mr. Malfoy.” 

As you walked through the book aisles, Draco couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut. “So you’re the only one who works here?” 

“Its not as if I can really afford anyone else, although I can’t seem to shake my house elf from coming here and acting as one. Normally I’d ask her to grab the books, but I needed to stretch my legs anyways.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?” Draco asked as you rounded the corner. 

“(Y/N) (L/N). Ravenclaw. I was a year above you in school.” You came to a sudden stop, then reached up on your tiptoes. When your fingers finally grasped the book, you lowered yourself down. Handing the book to Draco, you smiled. “Here.” 

“What’s it about?” He asked, but you were already starting to walk back to the counter. He quickly followed you, and minutes later you were at the shop’s entrance. You settled yourself atop the stool again and pursed your lips. 

“I don’t suppose you know much about American history, do you?” 

“Why would I ever learn that?” You fought to roll your eyes, but instead you shrugged your shoulders. 

“It’s nice to know.” You huffed at Draco’s questioning stare. “Anyways, the book relies heavily on American history. I’m sure you understand the elitism of pure blood families.” Draco nodded. “It’s like that everywhere, only, instead of how pure your blood is, it’s about the color of your skin. People like you and I, we get off easy. We’re the ones that make the rules because our skin is pale.” 

“Okay…” 

“Essentially, one of the common ideas in America during the 19th century was that black people, people with dark skin, were not human. They were treated the same way some treat house elves, as servants. Eventually, that changed, at least a little bit. But people still look down on others because of their skin tone.” You explained quickly. “This book is about that racism.” You tapped the book. 

“It follows the life of Atticus Finch, a middle aged lawyer and father of two, living about eight decades ago in America, specifically the deep south. The deep south was where racism was… er, the most apparent. Atticus is a white lawyer that’s trying to help a black man.”

“Why did you give me this book? To Kill A Mockingbird?” Draco asked, and you shrugged. “We just got out of a war about something so similar, and you want me to read this?”

“I’m not forcing you to do anything.” You shrugged. “But if you’re rejecting the recommendation because the plot makes you feel uncomfortable, then there’s the exact reason why you should read it.” 

Draco opened his mouth to object, but he stopped when you started up again. “If you read this book, and still feel that pure-bloods are the gods in this world of men afterwards, I’ll refund you, and you will never hear a recommendation from me again.” You promised. 

He scowled before reaching into his pockets. “How much do I owe you?” You grinned.

“Three galleons and two sickles, please!” 

~~~

One week later, Draco found himself at Mother Goose Books again. He set the book on the front counter, and this time you raised your head before he could surprise you. 

“You were…” 

“Right?” You asked, taking the last word out of his mouth. “I had a feeling you’d say that.” 

“Alright, what’s your next recommendation?” 

“Well…” 

Within mere weeks, Draco started coming in more and more frequently. By now he was stopping in every Monday and Thursday, always in the afternoon. You’d give him a recommendation, and he’d gladly accept it, always returning to share his thoughts before asking for another one. 

“So, why did you open this shop? Why not become an auror, or a potion maker, or-” Draco asked one day as you lead him through the store as always. 

“I didn’t want to.” You shrugged, and Draco blinked at you in disbelief. “I’m book-smart, not life-smart. I wanted to spend the rest of my life reading and sharing books with people, and I’m doing that.” 

“You never wanted to do anything else?” 

“Nope.” You smiled, popping the ‘p’. 

Draco shook his head. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” 

A month or two passed by before you started to run out of books for Draco to read that you had already read. You were trying to figure out what to do next when he walked in, right on time. 

“No book today?” He asked with a smirk, and you shook your head. 

“I think I’m running out of books to give you. You come so often.” You laughed. “Although, maybe we can be book buddies? Every week one of us can pick a book we think looks interesting, and we’ll read it and discuss the next time we see each other.” 

“That… sounds pleasant, actually. I’m not here for a book today, though.” 

“Oh?” 

“I was wondering if you’d like to come with me to get tea.” 

“Right now? Next door?” You asked, red coloring your cheeks. 

“Only if you have the time-” 

“Of course I have the time. And of course I’ll go with you. Let me just close up shop.”

[pixiegrl]

For the prompts, 29 and 15 with Lashton? Love your writing!

Hello anon! This was for a prompt on tumblr for Lashton, in a waiting room with “Is there anything I can do to help?” It ended up being goofier and fluffier than intended but @calumsclifford gave me the idea and I ran with it. Enjoy!

As always it is also on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26431231

Calum hiccups and immediately starts crying again, loud broken sobs. Luke tips his head, counting to 10 and willing himself to not just, get up and leave Calum. Regrettably, Luke is the only one with a car and he can’t just leave Michael at a hospital. He also can’t just abandon Calum here because then Michael will have to deal with an upset Calum on top of the injury and Luke will never hear the end of the whining.

Calum’s sprawled over Luke’s lap wailing at the top of his lungs. Everyone in the ER waiting room is shooting them concerned looks, but it’s 2am on a Monday so no one is actually coming over to check on them.

Luke’s counting to another set of 10 because Calum won’t stop whimpering about Michael’s “never going to recover” and “it’s all my fault,” when Luke hears someone clear their throat next to him. Luke glances over, immediately embarrassed that there’s an attractive guy with light brown curls, hazel eyes, and an old All Time Low shirt with his hands shoved into his pockets staring at the two of them. The one time Luke’s got a snotty Calum in his lap, his curls look flat and greasy, and he’s exhausted would be the time that a hot guy with good music taste comes over.

“I couldn’t help noticing that your friend seems very, uh, upset. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Michael is dying!” Calum wails, flinging himself further into Luke’s lap. The guy looks alarmed, taking a step back.

“He’s exaggerating! Michael is fine! He fell off a skateboard trying to do a “cool trick” and landed on his wrist funny. He thought it might be broken, but he’s going to be fine Cal! I’ve been trying to tell you that for the last 3 hours,” Luke huffs, trying to smack Calum upside the head. At any other time, Calum would have latched on to the fact that a hot guy is talking to Luke and tried to drop hints that Luke is very single and very bisexual and would love a boyfriend. Now, Calum’s too worried that Michael’s at death’s door over a small enough injury.

“He’ll never be able to play guitar again!”

“In 6 weeks, he’ll be perfectly able to play guitar Calum.”

The guy snorts and tries to hastily cover it up with a cough, when Luke looks over at him.

“What are you even doing in an ER at 2am on a Monday?”

“Oddly enough, something similar. My brother Harry tripped off his skateboard and landed on his face. Thinks he might have broken his nose, so here we are,” Ashton says, waving his hand around the waiting room. He pauses before sitting down a few seats away from Luke.

Luke feels a spike of heat in his chest. The cute guy is sitting near him! Calum is not scaring him away. Maybe he’s Luke’s soulmate. Wait, now Luke sounds like Michael and Calum and he refuses to be them.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“This isn’t even the worst thing that’s happened. Michael got burned once, totally got half his face and his eyebrows and Calum was inconsolable. I think Michael ended up having to hold him while the doctor was trying to bandage him up. Whenever Michael gets an injury, Calum acts like Michael’s on death’s door.”

“Because he is Luke! How can you say you’re his best friend and then just disrespect him like this?” Calum yells, muffled by the fact that his face is pressed into Luke’s jeans. Luke rolls his eyes. The guy smiles and Luke feels his heart skip a beat. Is he sharing a moment with a stranger in a waiting room? Is he in a rom-com?

“Ashton.”

“Hm?”

“My name. It’s Ashton. Since Calum here said your name, I figured it was only fair that you know mine too.”

“Well nice to meet you Ashton. What do you do when you’re not taking care of brothers with broken noses?”

“Taking care of little sisters who are just the right age where the wrong nail polish color is the end of the world, working at a coffee shop, playing drums.”

Luke perks up, “We’re a band. The three of us. Michael’s guitar, Cal’s bass, and I sing. Play guitar too, but not as good as Michael. We’re looking for a drummer.”

“You guys any good?”

“You could come see us practice for yourself.”

Ashton hums. He gives Luke a once over. Luke goes a little red, ducking his head to stare intensely at the back of Calum’s head. God, he needs Michael here to handle this Calum’s a terrible wingman. Next time, Luke’s going to break Calum’s wrist so he has Michael with him as a wingman.

“I don’t just give out my services for free you know. Drumming is alot of work and I deserve something in payment.”

“Oh? I mean, I work in a bookstore, Michael’s in a music shop, and Calum teaches football we don’t have like alot of money to go around. It’s why we don’t have a drummer yet.”

“You’re in luck because I’m a cheap drummer. All I ask for is a date with a very cute, blonde singer.”

Luke’s startled. Luke’s so startled he’s not sure he’s still breathing and he considers asking the nurse at reception if he’s still alive. There’s no way Ashton’s asking Luke out on a date. This is not happening at 2am on a Monday in an ER waiting room.

“Uhhhh, I would have to check my work schedule. I'm very busy selling books to bored teenagers and very excited children,” Luke says. He’s staring at a point over Ashton’s left shoulder, hoping that if he doesn’t make full eye contact with Ashton he won’t do or say something embarrassing.

“Well, I’m also busy selling coffee to angry businessmen and stressed college students. I think the best thing we could do is exchange our phone numbers so that way we could text each other about our schedules and set up a band practice day. Or a date. Whichever comes first. But just so you know, I know a really nice pizza place around here that I love to take a certain singer to.”

Luke’s too shocked to argue with Ashton. He simply nods, taking his phone out of his pocket and handing it over to Ashton, unlocked and everything. Ashton smiles, entering his information and texting his own phone before handing it back. Luke notices that he saved his name with a little drum next to it. As if Luke has more than one Ashton in his phone that he wants to text on the regular.

They chat for a bit about music, their jobs. Luke tells Ashton about Michael and Calum, that they’ve been friends for close to 5 years now, that Michael and Luke didn’t get along at first until music became involved. Luke shares that Michael and Calum have been dating for just as long, that Luke’s painful single (not for lack of Michael’s trying to find Luke someone). Ashton tells Luke about his siblings, his mother, that he’s just broken up with his boyfriend (he looks at Luke shyly when he says it and Luke grins at the idea that Ashton wants to go on a date with him already).

Luke loses track of time until the doors leading to the hospital wing swings open and Michael comes out, all pink hair and disheveled clothing, brace on his left wrist and a lollipop sticks out of his mouth, grinning around it. Calum lets out a cry that Luke can only imagine wives make when their husbands return from war and runs towards Michael flinging himself into Michael’s arms crying. Michael looks startled, but unsurprised, patting Calum on the shoulder, leading him back to Luke.

“The doctor said it’s just a sprain. I gotta keep it in the brace for a few weeks and come back for a check-up, but it’s nothing serious,” Michael says.

“But it could have been!” Calum wails again. Michael rolls his eyes, fond, pressing a kiss to Calum’s forehead.

“Considering the crying your boyfriends doing, I thought you were on death's door,” Ashton says. Michael looks over at Ashton confused.

“Who are you?”

“The man Luke abandoned me for in your time of need,” Calum says, glaring at Luke. Luke throws his hands up in mock surrender. Michael looks like he’s fighting back the urge to laugh.

“Ashton. Apparently, I’m Luke’s new boyfriend.”

“He’s our new drummer! We’re not dating! We haven’t even been on a date yet,” Luke rushes out, leaning over to smack Ashton. Ashton lets out a delighted laugh. Michael’s grinning maniacally now. Luke needs new friends.

“I would call this a first date.”

“You’re not allowed to call Michael’s trauma a date,” Calum protests.

“If it gets Luke a first boyfriend, it could be my funeral and they could call it a date,” Michael says. Calum lets out another wail and collapses onto Michael’s shoulder.

“I feel like you missed the part where I said he was our new drummer.”

“Oh I heard that but it’s not nearly as important as you getting a boyfriend.”

Luke jumps up starting to usher Michael and Calum out of the waiting room, “Well it’s 3am on a Monday and we have to go now because you are very injured and we should all sleep,”

“You should call Luke he’s very free all the time for dates!” Michael calls over his shoulder. Luke really needs new friends.

(Ashton still texts him at 5am, letting him know that Ashton’s brother is fine and that Ashton is also very free any time for both band practice and dates.

“You should send him a dick pic.”

“I’m not sending him a dick pic, Michael.”

“How else will he know you’re interested?”

“Are you breaking up with me for the waiting room guy Luke abandoned me for?”

“Not when I don’t know what his dick looks like and I’ve seen yours...on second thought, Luke send Ashton a pic of Calum’s dick instead.”

“I’m quitting this band,” Luke moans, flopping face first into the couch.

“Hey, if I hadn’t injured myself you wouldn’t have a boyfriend,” Michael protests.

His phone beeps. Ashton’s sent him a little heart emoji. Okay fine, maybe Michael and Calum aren’t terrible friends. It did get Luke a date with a cute guy.)

[nomolosk]

Snapshots (AU Yeah August 2020)

read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655623/chapters/63153622

Day 18- Bookshop

Hawkmoth was getting impatient. Universal had been at large for two days, heading into three, and so far there had been no results whatsoever, except for the mother of all backlash headaches resulting from that momentary ‘star-crossed lovers’ universe, or whatever she’d called it. Moreover, he’d had to spend most of his time transformed, which was putting him rather glaringly behind on the designs for his newest line. Of course, he was also getting some excellent inspiration from all these different universes, but…

He decided enough was enough. If Universal couldn’t draw out or find Ladybug and Chat Noir in the next twelve hours, he would pull the akuma and try again. Activating his link to Universal, he readied what he was going to say.

“Universal,” he began in his patented Intimidating Voice, “I am growing tired of this endless parade of universes, none of which bring the miraculouses or their bearers any closer to me!”

“You promised me the power to change reality itself, Hawkmoth!” Universal started to complain.

“But only if you would do the work to find my nemeses so I can finally defeat them and take their miraculouses,” Hawkmoth reminded her. There was silence on the other end for a moment. Then she spoke again.

“I actually think I may be close,” she said in a quieter tone. “Of all the pulls between two people, this has been the strongest I’ve felt, and… it’s quite strong, Hawkmoth. It can only be because these two have also got miraculouses.”

Hawkmoth narrowed his eyes, somewhat surprised that she’d actually fulfilled her side of the bargain. After all, there were only a few of his many hundred akuma who had even come close- so many had been utter failures, and the rest had not been up to the challenge, even with the powers he gave them.

“Let me see,” Hawkmoth commanded, and the link between them strengthened enough for him to see what she was seeing. It robbed her of agency, stopping her in her tracks, but that hardly mattered. It wasn’t like she was a particularly offensive akuma. Her strength lay in not being noticed. In fact, with the masquerade ball universe she’d currently got going, the glowing butterfly symbol might well have simply been a part of her mask and no one would take notice.

Hawkmoth peered through the gloom until he could see two people wrapped in a passionate embrace. However, even with the darkness, the masks, and the costumes, he could tell they weren’t the ones he was looking for. Their skin tones were too dark, the heights didn’t match, and moreover, he recognized them. They had borne miraculouses a few years ago, but after Miracle Queen had exposed their identities, Ladybug had never called on them again.

“That’s not Ladybug and Chat Noir! That’s the Ladyblogger and her boyfriend!” Hawkmoth yelled. Fury roared through him and into the link, making Universal seize up with pain. He didn’t care. She’d raised his hopes only to dash them again. She should feel his wrath. 

“You have twelve hours,” he threatened. “Don’t disappoint me again.”

----

Universal shuddered in relief as the pain vanished along with Hawkmoth’s presence in the back of her mind. She cast a sullen look at the pair of lovers who had inadvertently caused this pain. It wasn’t their fault, but she hadn’t been akumatized for being rational. She decided to get back at them by making them star in the most boring universe she could think of. And just to make it extra mind-numbing, she extended the same Paris-wide effect as she had for the university life universe.

The headband on her head pulsed in time with her thought, and an indelible sphere of change spread out from her. She smiled grimly as the two before her were transformed from the mysterious and alluring masked couple into two average bookstore workers. She’d put a little more power into the memory editing part of the spell, trying to make sure that the two people in front of her wouldn’t remember what they’d been doing or why they were in the same part of the store. The two of them broke apart under the influence of the mind wipe, and found themselves apparently manning the counter of a large chain bookstore.

“You let the magic and mystery of the universe I gave you carry you away, but you’ll see… Romance doesn’t last long when confronted by the horrifying mundanity of everyday life,” she muttered under her breath. She was on a timer now- she had to make every second count. But first, she was going to ensure at least one of these people had a bad day.

She marched up to the counter, determined to act like the most disgruntled and entitled customer she could be. She would give him hell, and then she would track down that snake and mouse couple.

----

Alya blinked. For a moment she could have sworn… but then reality reasserted itself and she noticed that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. 

“Alya, what are you doing here? Get back to work!” Nino hissed at her, then pasted on a smile for the evidently quite disgruntled customer stomping up to the counter. Alya smiled but turned away, a little hurt at Nino’s insistence. He’d managed to score a coveted customer service position lately, but he’d spent more time in the warehouse where all the books came in than she had. Had he just forgotten what it was like to escape the mindless drudgery even for only as long as her break? It wasn’t like she didn’t know not to interrupt when there was a customer to help, and she could have tidied the gift bags, or something while she waited.

It honestly baffled her why the grand bookstore that was practically its own city by now, couldn’t keep more than one person on a counter at a time. It seemed so counterintuitive, she thought. She came back around the counter and hopped on the off-brand segway used by store employees who couldn’t afford to spend a good half-hour walking from one section to the next. She glanced back at Nino, only to see his smile grow strained as the Karen at the counter ranted at him. She spared him some pity- the backroom might be boring and dull, but at least she didn’t have to put up with harassment. She took careful note of the woman, the purplish headband she wore, her... questionable clothing choices, and the way her manicure was so cheap the colors had actually leached onto her fingertips.

Wait...

----

Marinette giggled as Adrien spun her out, narrowly avoiding the bookshelf to her left. He tugged her hand and she obligingly spun back, crossing her arms over her torso to hold his hands as they swayed together, back to chest. She giggled again, bright and happy. Still, they were at work.

“Not that I’m not enjoying this,” she said, grinning up at him. “But shouldn’t we get back to work? I mean, what brought this on?”

“It’s quirky and fun,” Adrien replied promptly. “Plus, we both need a break from shelving overpriced textbooks, and... I like dancing with you.” He smiled. 

She felt herself blushing, but fortunately she was currently too relaxed and into the moment for her overzealous anxiety to rear its ugly head and ruin everything. She sighed and closed her eyes, just for a moment, enjoying being so close to her crush and hearing him say he liked dancing with her.

The approaching whir of one of the store scooters made her eyes shoot open again and she tore herself away from Adrien, heart pounding. If it was one of the many managers and they got caught doing anything but their actual job…

She got to work, making room on the shelf before hefting a stack of heavy textbooks into the cleared space, making sure the spines were right side up. When she glanced over at Adrien- just to see if he was hurt or offended by her sudden leap away from him- he was working away at the next shelf over. His expression was neutral, but when he saw her looking he took the time to smile and wink at her. She smiled back. 

Marinette really hoped he didn’t think she suddenly hated him, or was ashamed to be caught dancing with him. But he probably didn’t. Stocking the shelves was one step up from unboxing and labeling the books back in the warehouse, and no one who had escaped that wanted to go back to it.

Marinette hoped that the scooter would pass them by, but unfortunately it came to a stop at the end of their aisle of shelves. 

“Pssst!”

Marinette looked up to see, not an overbearing manager, but her friend Alya, who had started working there a lot more recently than any of her other friends and was consequently still stuck in the warehouse. She must be on her break, Marinette thought. I wonder why she’s not with Nino?

Curious, she went over.

“I can’t talk right now, Alya, I’ve got all these to shelve and there are more where those came from.”

“Nino just got chewed out by the weirdest customer guys,” Alya said, and only then did Marinette realize that Adrien had joined them. “You’ve gotta come check it out!”

Alya zipped away, and Marinette and Adrien shared a look of mutual mischief before tearing after her.

@auyeahaugust

[saltyslack-toast]

#Knock The Book 2: The Devil All the Time

WELL, I MADE IT TO THE 2nd BOOK REVIEW OF MINE, MEANS THAT I’M A PASSIONATE AND PERSISTENT BITCH, PERIODT. No actually I’m just bored and got really nothing to do, so here I am making judgmental, invalid and uncritical book review just to ease my guilt for doing nothing at home (just so my mom see me working through my laptop).

Okay The Devil All the Time is actually my first English book. The story of how I got this book as a matter of fact is quite irritating and funny at the same time. My uni friend, she saw this book in a modest book bazaar near her hometown. She was reading the title and the word ‘devil’ just remind her of me, she bought it and just gave it straight to me…... I’m sad but like thankful???

It’s a secondhand and hardcover book but I don’t really mind, considering the fact that the quality is still very nice though, except the worn spots stained all over the cover that make the book looks very old. My friend bought this only for RP 25.000, yes dude you’re not misread this shit, it was THAT CHEAP (whoever sell and own this book before me, I really appreciate it). Although if you want to buy the new one, you can get this book for USD 26.95 which converted in rupiah would be RP 407.500, yeah its cost pretty fancy for broke students like us and I don’t know if the book’s supposed to be available in your local bookstore but I think you can find it in worldwide shipping online store like amazon or any other shop perhaps. The book’s cover illustrate a dying white mutt hanging on the ‘log’ and bunch of cross everywhere, the cover is actually make sense when you read the book. It published in 2011 by doubleday in United States of America. The Author is Donald Ray Pollock, and you can find the sum information about his background written on the cover, but based form the book’s cover you can also check his website in donaldraypollock.com but when I checked, I’m not sure if it’s really his website since it just like pest control website (LMAOO I HAD NO IDEA FR). Anyway,

Let’s go breaking down the book!

“… Too much religion could be as bad as too little, maybe even worse, but moderation was just not in her husband’s nature”

The whole story in this book, basically give you portraits regarding the life of lunatics in the time after WWII. Nope, there is no sums up about the events happened in that moment so chill y’all non-historical enthusiast bitches. This book gonna give you a bizarre experience reading it, the first 10 pages of this book was already psychedelic, I assure that shit. Have you watched Games of Thrones series on HBO? It’s chilling right how Ned Stark, the protagonist of the main series died in the first season???? EXACTLY that was the vibes u got after reading the first chapter and get crazier every time u read forward. By the way, this book embodied 7 chapters and 55 sub-chapters, the chapter in odd and even numbers has 2 different main focuses on each characteristic exist, here I sum it up for you:

On the odd numbers chapters (1, 3, and so on), the central story of these chapters is circling among the family of Willard Russel, his Mom Emma and Uncle Earskell and also those 2 insane peeps Roy Laferty and Theodore. Willard Russel used to be a navy army and a bit skeptical dealing with religion issues just like his uncle, but his mom has always been a devoted worshiper. Willard married to the beautiful and kind-hearted women named Charlotte and they was given a son named Arvin Eugene Russel, everything was normal until Charlotte got sick and Willard gone crazy praying to god for his wife’s recovery and poor little Arvin has to suffer the predicament by his own self. Their stories always give me religious-fanaticism-gloomy vibes (is that even make sense??). Don’t even get me started with the life stories of the two brutes-ass man, Roy Laferty and Theodore they were used to be ‘preacher’ in Emma and young Willard’s Church. Nothing I could say further because it’s gonna be a major spoiler for you, but their stories really giving you insights of how frustration and fanaticism allow people to do something beyond their common sense.

“You remember what I told you the other day?” He asked Arvin

“About the boys on the bus?,”

“Well, that’s what I meant, you just got to pick the right time”

On the even numbers chapters (2, 4, and so on), the main tales is pertaining on the journey of Handerson couple, Carl and Sandy. They were like the Bonnie and Clyde but sad and exploitative version in this book. Carl is a ‘photographer’ and sandy working as a waitress in a café called Wooden Spoon (Which the place where Charlotte used to work as a waitress and the place she met Willard for the first time as well). During summertime they got this ‘ritual’ ((but not in a religious way)) where they drive to different states and give a ride to the hitchhikers found on the way, then Carl forcefully offer them to fuck Sandy for free (HIS OWN WIFE) while he took pictures of them fucking and after that Carl kill them and take all the money those hitchhikers got in their pocket (dude I can’t even judge anything). But to be honest, I’m not a fan of these two characters because they were all so ANNOYING to death. And then there is Bodecker Lee who’s a police and also Sandy’s brother, ok that’s it, I’m not gonna give you any spoilers.

“… He went down the street and sat on a bench in a park the rest of the day thinking about killing himself instead. Something broke in him that day. For the first time he could see that his whole life added up to absolutely nothing…”

You might be confused since there are quite a lot of keen characters in this book but there’s a point where all these bitches are relating to each other, so chill y’all impatient gripe-ass. Overall, the flow of the story is undoubtedly interesting for you to keep going throughout the whole story, because every phase gonna make you wondering about next things happened to them. But, the transitions among every chapters is quite uncomfortable for me, because sometimes when the story has reached its climax there is no resolutions coming to solve the problem immediately, and you’re faced to read the new chapter with a whole different setting and characters so it’s kind of ruining the vibes and emotions the book has made me, but again this just my personal preference so please don’t judge (while everything I did right now is judging inaccurately).

“He realized that he would never preach again, but that was all right. He’d never been much good at it anyway. Most people just wanted to hear the cripple play”

However, what I like the most from this book is the deepening of every character exists is so fascinating, even for just the side or supporting character (for god sake I’m sorry idk what to called a character that isn’t the main one), for example a bus driver in Meade, Ohio which Willard talked to when he was on the way home after the war ended, the narration wrapped and portraits the driver’s life perfectly without make us bored, and there’s still a bunch of interesting narration about the life of the side characters in this book that also as odds and intriguing as the main character’s background (jesus, everything happened and everyone in this book is just so strange and peculiar I swear to god). The story finished in a most tragic-beautiful but still gloomy way, even though it’s quite predictable but still a very good closing for me personally. To be noted, on the way to the end of the story, there will be emerge another asshole priest character named Preston Teagardin, ready to shake you up until you finish the book. But still, let’s said this particular ‘last minute character’ has proving that the author is paying so much attention of how the story ended isn’t leaving any 'rush-made' impression (this shit might confused you I’m sorry my English hasn’t got any better *sorry hand sign* *sorry hand sign* *sorry hand sign*). # hashtag attention to the detail bro.

Holy crap, that’s the first time I’m almost able to cut all the bullshit I intend to bring it up here.

This book is one of my top 5 books that you have to read once in a life time (although I haven’t discover the other four, omg im sorry y’all). Little information for you that the first time I read this book (yeah I read it for quite few times) is when the campaign of presidential election era, which in Indonesia the religious are pretty sentimental issues, some of the people in my country suddenly became those annoying fanatical preachers, man I can’t stand it. And this book is just precisely relating to that condition and I get to know at least a glance of what the heck odds things happened in their minds, since you know fanaticism and stupidity doesn’t hit only on particular group of religions, race, gender or anything, we can all be stupid and brainless (especially me because I basically have no brain). There probably quite many scenes that is pretty disturbing to read (I don’t know if people could be triggered by it???? But I guess so) so yeah a bit warning. Overall, I genuinely recommend this book for you guys because every element in this book is almost perfect, the storylines, bold characters, and the RARE AND STRANGE AND SENSITIVE topic promote by the author in this novel is totally a BOOM. Don’t worry reading this book not going to give you those agnostic and atheist vibes HAHA chill I still consider myself a devoted Muslim tho (hashtag masyaallah ukthi).

By the way before I wrapped it up, I hear that this book will be made into a netflix film. WELL, of course I’m excited because the casts are so amazing, and I love Netflix adaptation and I enjoy watch movies as much as I read books (again, unnecessary information of mine *sorry hand sign*). I found that the release date is postponed from the origin plan in 15th May (which is three days ago from I posted this on my page) due to I don’t know perhaps corona because that bitch has ruined everyone in the world’s schedule, but for real I can’t find the exact information regarding to the updated release date, so while you wait the film to launch, why don’t you just go read the book first? I assure you this one not gonna give you any disappointment.

I think that would be it for this 2nd rubbish book review of mine. Although, I think I made a little progressive from the first one (OR MAYBE NOT???? I’M SORRY Y’ALL) but of course there’s still much deficiency I served. Still, I hope my writing get better in the process of making this whole novel of reviewing book inaccurately. To be honest, I wrote this shit not for getting any engagements or audience but for my own satisfied HAHA. So yeah I’m literally comfortable writing for nothing. But bitch guess what I’m just gonna keep going, until I could professionally writing and make it for a living? Well, amen for that.

Xiao, See you in Advance!

[thedistantdusk]

Please explain to a youngster what the Three Year summer is?? (I think that’s what that was that you mentioned). I am young and dumb and have only really been in fandom since 2012

Ooo boy, Nonny, pull up a seat — but for starters, I’m sure you’re not dumb! You just experience fandom a different way because of your age, and I will happily explain what I mean.

Let’s hop in a time machine to the early 2000s. OotP hasn’t been released. There are no smartphones. Dial-up isn’t unheard of, DSL is preferred, and WiFi is but a distant dream. Apart from a few small, local events, our only access to fandom is through desktop computer.

Tumblr and AO3 do not exist. FFN and a few smaller fanfic sites provide all content, and the latter is usually organized by shipping preference. If you liked the OBHWF dynamic, you typically went Checkmated, SugarQuill, Gryffindor Tower, or SIYE (and I’m sure I’m missing a few, but these were my favorites). If you preferred pairings that would later become non-canon, you’re looking at sites like Ashwinder, Portkey, Azkaban’s Lair, etc.

In short? Back then, everything was different. We consumed fic in a completely different way, and tbh I think a lot of our lingering debate (especially on things like concrit and shipping etiquette) boils down to how you experienced fandom the first time.

((And as an aside, during this time period, it was the norm to provide lengthy, detailed concrit to stories. The series wasn’t over, and almost every author’s goal was to provide approximations of canon elements (even if they preferred AU storylines). As authors, we valued that type of feedback because it meant people cared a lot about both the source content and the material you’d written — and also, keep in mind that when you were on dial-up, providing that kind of feedback took a lot of time. You had to spend a while in front of a slow computer, you had to gain access to certain sites, and you couldn’t just read something on the go. Concrit, regardless of source, implied an automatic appreciation for both the series and your story because the reviewer wanted to help you match canon parts as much as possible.))

That being said, I personally believe there are really two separate HP fandoms. We have the group that was around to watch each book/movie come out, and the group that’s only known a world in which all the questions of the series were answered. (And no, I’m not gatekeeping anything or passing judgement on the value of either. I’m stating facts on how we consumed fic and participated in fandom prior to the release of all the books/movies.)

I was roughly Harry’s canon age when the final two books were released, so I participated in the former group. The Three Year Summer was a period of time (three years, as I’m sure you gathered) in between the releases of GoF and OotP. It’s called the “summer” because the books were each released in the summer months during massive, ridiculous midnight release parties at bookstores.

If you were a teen/an active participant during this time period, you probably:

Had a crush on Emerson Spartz

Made your own Harry Potter t-shirts/paraphernalia (stuff wasn’t really mass-produced yet)

Spent a lot of time huddled over in class reading printed fanfic (remember, no smart phones)

Hoodwinked your way into an adults-only fanfic archive, and the site you picked varied depending on your ship preference. (Personally, I was a Checkmated girl, which is how I read all of @jenoramaca’s stories when I was super young)

This time period also resulted in lots of fan theories, fanfic, and epic, epic shipping wars on many popular forums. I don’t really feel like rehashing all of it, but I will say that some legitimately nasty things were tossed around on the daily, and one such place for this debate was a fansite called Chamber of Secrets that had a forum called the LoveThreads.

At the time, I was just a teen lying about my age, but I’ll fully admit that everyone involved in the LoveThreads contributed to some degree of toxicity — myself included. My participation was mostly limited to defending Ron and Ginny (who were almost universally loathed by people who didn’t like OBHWF), but I definitely didn’t help things or call people out as much as I should have. There was a lot of homophobia associated with hating on same-sex pairings, and a lot of sexism/slut-shaming surrounding Ginny, in general (yes, even when she was canonically like 13). I never participated in that sort of discussion, but in retrospect — even though I was a teen arguing with grown-ass adults — I could have done more to refute it.

Annnnyway, the early 2000s were a much different time, and I’m glad they’re behind us. (And yes, I have a different handle now, so you probably won’t find me, even with the WayBack Machine😉) The Three Year Summer ended when OotP came out... but unfortunately, things only got more toxic and confusing. Unless you read between the lines, there isn’t a clear indication of Harry “picking” (and yes, I hate that word) either Ginny or Hermione. It wasn’t until HBP that things became clearer but this was also a dumpster fire because of the Spartz/Anelli/JKR interview post HBP, and if you don’t know what I mean, I beg you to look that up on your own.

When HBP came out, we had clearer answers. Most of the folks who didn’t like OBHWF packed up and left. I personally backed out for a few years during movie releases because I had no interest in what I felt had become a movie (not book) fandom. Around this time, I also started to see a resurgence in a specific anti-canon pairing mentality, which I didn’t care for either. To be honest, the concept of toxicity has never been limited to one side or the other, but since returning to HP, I’ve done my best to avoid it.

Here is a rule of thumb that helps me (with everything from shipping to politics): If a comment would seem immature/ill-conceived from the opposite perspective, it’s probably not worth adopting.

For example, if a story summary includes a warning like “Contains Harmony bashing,” some of you might be interested — but pretend that’s Hinny instead. Doesn’t that just seem lazy and off-putting?

Likewise, if a billboard said, “Trump is a fucking moron,” I’d be inclined to agree — but substitute that with Obama’s name. It feels like a cheap insult that could contain more validity with more mature language/more specific information.

So. Perhaps this rambling mess paints a fuller picture of what shaped early HP fandom experiences, and also explains why I’m personally just not too interested in debating the validity of different ships.

I hope this answers your question, Nonny... and consider yourself lucky that you missed this particular weirdness!

[soulbutterlanguages]

Things to know for College Students!

Picking a School

If you already know what you want to do, that’s fantastic! Try to find a school that has an excellent program. In terms of distance, I suggest finding a school that’s no more than five hours away from your home. I TOTALLY understand the want to be as far as possible from your hometown, and I’m as independent as they come, but I still got a little homesick after a month or two.

Try to find a school that won’t require you to take out loans ! I’m sure you’ve heard this before if you’ve read this far into this post, but think of that as a last resort. There are m i l l i o n s of scholarships that just want to help you. 

If you don’t know what you want to do~ that’s totally okay! I never knew how to answer that question growing up, and I still didn’t know walking into college. If this is the case, take your first year to be undecided, make the goal of your freshman year to try to figure it out. In the meantime, knock out as many core classes as you can. Try to balance saving your electives for later and also exploring new interests. 

TALK TO LITERALLY EVERY ADVISOR YOU CAN

Their whole job is to talk to you! And the likelihood is that they can turn you on to knew tracks that you didn’t even know about. My advisor pointed me towards the Modern Language Option, at my school that means that if I take enough of a language, they will let me bypass some of my Core Requirements. Now, I’m learning two languages at once (which is my idea of fun) and I got to skip FOUR CLASSES that I’d have no interest in taking AND I’ll graduate early.

Talk to people, seriously. In the same vein, go to clubs! Try out a party or two! If it isn’t your scene then there is literally no consequence if you decide not to stay.

If you pick a major or minor that you want to change, that’s okay!

I know picking these can be really scary and it feels like you’re sealing you’re fate, but I know people who have changed their major four or five times in their college career. While this isn’t optimal, it is doable. Luckily, if you’re interested in something like Psychology, but you don’t know what to concentrate in, or what specific kind of psych, it’s easy to switch. This is because a lot of the required classes are in common with other psychology/sociology/poli-sci majors or minors.

Avoid online classes! Especially if you know you aren’t that interested in the subject material, it can be ridiculously difficult to get yourself to focus when you’ve never personally met the teacher. Plus you feel like you accomplished more in your day if you got out of your dorm or house and actually physically attended a class.

speaking of which...

Go to class!!! Think of it as every class you skip, you are handing your school a free $200. Sometimes things come up, or you need a mental day, but don’t make it a habit! Most classes at my school allow two free skips, (which I try not to use,) the way I think about it is if I can be more productive somewhere else than in class, I’ll allow myself to skip occasionally.

Buy your textbooks literally anywhere but the school bookstore. I’ve seen the books on Amazon for easily three times as cheap. Depending on the class you can find the pdf version online for free. Also you can slap the ISBN number into ThriftBooks or CheggBooks and (hopefully) find it for less than $10.

You will feel like giving up at some point, know that this moment is insignificant compared to what you will feel if you push through and make it to the end. At the same time, college isn’t for everyone. There’s no shame in taking a break and coming back or just dropping out. Just make sure you have a plan that will be better than what you are doing now.

Another little secret is that most schools have teachers’ textbooks available at the library, so take advantage.

GPA is harder to improve in the later years! Here are some tips to make a good start.

~Take easy classes the first semester, get acquainted with this way of life.

~Make a list of when things are due, and take it day by day

~if you have a long paper, start in time to write about a page a day

~determine what time of day you are most productive, do good work in that span, give yourself the rest of the day off

~ treat yourself sometimes !!! you can’t go hard 24/7, let yourself breathe

~at the same time, focus your efforts on your freshman year, then you can let yourself have a little more fun later

~keep yourself healthy!!!! Free gym access/salad bar are helpful for people (like me) who detest being healthy.

~IF YOU DON’T KNOW THAT INFORMATION BEFORE MIDNIGHT FOR THE TEST TOMORROW, THAT IS A PROBLEM FOR FUTURE YOU! No all nighters! You’ll feel awful and a brain with rest is more likely to get an A than a brain who can hardly pay attention due to lack of sleep. If you’re worried about it, get up early the next day, get yourself a nice breakfast, and study.

Here is a link to another post with tips

Here is a link to a helpful reddit thread

[winterromanov]

hold me like a soldier - bucky x reader fic

PART TWO - JAMES

Pairing: bucky barnes x female reader

Excerpt:   “Anyway. I saw you sitting on your own, and I always sit on my own too, and I kind of hate it because this whole grad school thing has reduced my friendship circle to exactly zero, not including my new pot plant Hero, who is great but not very talkative, you know? She doesn’t have many opinions on Tolstoy’s use of the interior monologue in Anna Karenina. And also my roommate spends a lot of time examining corpses in the interest of science, so she’s not the most fun at the moment.”

Warnings: none

Taglist: @lunatictardis @cals-cigarette (reply or send me an ask to be added!)

You were under absolutely no impression that grad school was going to be easy. Yet, that being said, you’d never counted on it being this damn difficult either. Sure, the classes were more intense and more frequent, the deadlines already piling up and ready to leave you shaking like a village in a cyclone—but the classes you could deal with. You’re more than used to homework and Shakespeare is nowhere near as undecipherable as it was in high school, romance and comedy and tragedy now a wholly fluent language in your brain. No, what is difficult is how fucking lonely you are.

You’ve done the whole moving-to-college thing before, but that was back when you were eighteen and naïve and everyone in your dorm was in the same rocking boat, dropped in the middle of a city and on the hunt for (illegal) cheap beer. Now you’re older, arguably wiser and surrounded by hardworking mature students with exceptional career goals. Your roommate, Elise, is almost finished med school and has absolutely no interest in hunting down New York’s best bookstores with you. And the people on your course…they either have friends already, from their undergrad majors, or rush off the minute class is over. It leaves you aimlessly wandering the city on your own or cowered in the library, desperate for any—literally any—company other than your family, fuzzy and lagging over Skype conversations.

School is important. Probably the most important thing in your life, and you’ve worked really fucking hard to get here. But your sanity is important too. Spending another evening with a bottle of budget wine and Friends re-runs on Netflix while pretending to make notes for your medieval lit seminar is definitely not doing it any favours.

So—this is it, you decide. This is the day you bite the bullet. You will no longer be the loneliest girl in New York City, even if that means forcibly pinning someone to the wall of the literature faculty and making them get coffee with you.

(Not that you’d ever have the nerve to do that. Of course. Where does anyone even acquire that sheer level of confidence?)

Your morning starts in a building a fifteen minute walk from your apartment and the October air is unseasonably warm, sweat pooling in the small of your back where your rucksack dips. You make it to Russian lit with a few minutes to spare so you take your usual preferred seat a few rows away from the back of the hall, trailing to the middle. The faces that start to fill up the seats around you are recognisable, at least, but you know very few by name. A girl who is also in your Early Victorian Proto-Feminism class (Tessa, you think) smiles tightly at you, but decides not to sit next to you, preferring a seat nearer the front. As you get your laptop out in preparation for the lecture starting, another face catches your eye.

You don’t know his name, but you always notice him, whether it’s in class or in the library or the canteen near the activity centre. He always dresses smartly but in greys and blacks and blues, like he deliberately tries to evade attention. His dark hair is short but hangs a little in his eye-line, revealing an attractive face with a sharp jawline and sharper eyes. A ghost of facial hair shadows his chin and although you’ve never seen him smile, you can imagine it being the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen. Like the stars back home, the ones unaffected by artificial light, impossibly bright. You don’t get to see the stars like that in New York City. It’s like the skyscrapers have stolen them to burn.

He’s never acknowledged you before. Your stares go unseen, thankfully, because there’s nothing more embarrassing than trying to explain why your eyes refuse to leave somebody’s frame. This time, however—this time, his eyes flicker straight over to you. It’s unmistakable. For a couple of seconds, his blue irises settle on your own, and you snap away quickly as your cheeks flush.

Good one. Real good.

At that moment the professor turns up and starts to load up today’s presentation. When you look back, you can see the back of the guy’s head, a few rows in front of you diagonally across the hall. He’s on the shorter row by the door, only three seats either side of him, but all of them are empty. He doesn’t seem to have many friends either. It doesn’t strike you that there may be a reason for that—maybe he’s just shy, or finds it difficult to find friends, just like you.

(He seems a little older than you, too. There’s just something about his expression, aloof and quiet, that makes you think he carries more years than his face cares to admit.)

The lecture is on Tolstoy and while the professor’s theories on Anna Karenina are interesting, you keep finding yourself glancing at the guy. This is the first time you’ve realised he doesn’t have a laptop, unlike the majority of students in the hall. He’s scribbling notes fervently in a small moleskin notebook, hand covering the side of his face as he writes.

By the time the lecture finishes and you’ve typed a grand total of eight words (the presentation title, go figure) the decision is basically out of your hands. You can’t let him sidle out of the hall like every single Russian lit class before this one, especially if he insists on causing this much distraction to your studies. As the professor finishes up you quickly pack away your laptop, squeezing between the rows in an attempt to reach him before you lose him amongst crowds of other students in the quad outside.

Your gaze follows his scruffy black backpack, standing on your tiptoes as you try to see over the tops of the heads that make their way down the stairs. He presses a white earphone into his ear and between arms, you can see he owns an iPhone, just not a laptop.

For half a second, you falter. Is this weird? Walking up to someone random—well, almost random—after class and just striking up a conversation? Maybe he’s alone because he wants to be, preferring to stalk about without company other than his own. Maybe the seats are empty because he’s completely unapproachable, others before you tried and failing to break into his circle. After all, he’s hardly unattractive. You can’t be the only one feeling subconsciously drawn to him.

Oh, fuck it. Whatever happened to biting the bullet? You remember something your sister mentioned to you in one of your two-hour long Skype marathons—be brave, loser.

You follow him until you’re out of the between-class rush, jogging a little to catch up with his long strides. Taking a deep breath to psych yourself up, you stumble to a halt beside him as he stops to read a message or something on his phone.

“Hey,” you say, a little breathless from your jog, pulling your rucksack straps up your shoulder.

He blinks, a little surprised, like he hadn’t seen you. His hands tighten into fists, then relax. He recognises you. “Hey?”

You smile, hoping to appear approachable, but wondering if it actually comes across as a grimace. “I’m, uh—sorry, we just had Russian lit together?”

His face is totally unreadable, but his body looks tense, putting you on edge. Maybe this was an extremely bad idea. “Yeah. I saw you.”

“Yeah, I saw you too. Well, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have…” you realise you’re rambling and to your surprise, there’s a hint of amusement on the guy’s face. It seems to flicker away quickly, like he’s telling himself off for it. “Anyway. I saw you sitting on your own, and I always sit on my own too, and I kind of hate it because this whole grad school thing has reduced my friendship circle to exactly zero, not including my new pot plant Hero, who is great but not very talkative, you know? She doesn’t have many opinions on Tolstoy’s use of the interior monologue in Anna Karenina. And also my roommate spends a lot of time examining corpses in the interest of science, so she’s not the most fun at the moment.”

He listens bemusedly, his hands sinking into the pockets of his trousers. You sigh. Verbal diarrhoea.

“The point being…we could, maybe, sit together?” you offer, hoping you haven’t immediately put him off if he was ever considering what you’re proposing. “Talk about Russian books sometimes so I don’t go mad?”

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he looks down at his shoes; they’re scuffed up red Converse sneakers, the only part of him in technicolour. You’re almost certain he’s going to turn you down, the sting of rejection premeditated in your stomach, because hell you’ve been in this position before. He’s silent, considering this simple arrangement for longer than you’d anticipated, which is somehow a good and bad sign simultaneously.

“I…” he begins, and you’ve already finished the sentence. I would rather not, thank you. His jaw flexes, hardens. “I can sit with you.”

“Oh!” you say, brightly, by surprise. Nonchalance isn’t an option. Your grin is so damn obvious and you’re not even ashamed of it. “Oh, cool!”

“But—I don’t say this to be…I’ve just got a lot of stuff going on.” He smiles sadly, painfully. This expression is definitely readable. More readable than he wants it to be, you suspect. He dips his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Your hand closes round his arm and you can feel it tense, rock hard, and it’s like—like he realises you aren’t a threat, so he relaxes, his expression soft but eager to get away. You smile as a peace offering. “I just thought I’d ask your name. Then I’ll leave you alone. Promise.”

He mulls the question over in his head like he’s attempting a complex math problem, not a daily occurrence. His mouth curves before deciding on his answer. “James.”

“James,” you repeat, trying it out. You give him yours in exchange and he nods once, expression returning to neutral. He turns and makes his way to his next destination, perhaps another class, and before you know it he’s swallowed by college crowds and completely gone from view.

It’s been one of your more…charged interactions on campus, but nevertheless it leaves a warm feeling in your stomach. Sitting with someone is a start. It’s sure as hell better than sitting alone.