#basically: great for fiction

[friendofthecrows]

Murder comedy where at one point a forensics-centric amateur detective tries to extract a sample from the eye of a victim for tests without the cops noticing

Call that vitreous humor

[vaguely-concerned]

Origins is of course the DA game most closely in conversation with and playing around with Tolkien (right down to the walking talking poetree haha) -- and even more so than most works in the larger western fantasy tradition derived from Tolkien's work that DA:O also hails from and owes a lot of its Stuff to, what makes the game so great to me is that it's doing so very deliberately, and is subverting and deconstructing those tropes and entrenched ideas in some very interesting ways without at all denigrating what it's commenting on. (it doesn't have the almost disdainful undertones of the vein of fantasy that seeks to make the world more 'realistic' ala the more tedious reactions to G.R.R.Martin's work, for example, despite having the darker fantasy bent to it.) among other elements it adopts, what I find the most fascinating is the choice to use the same literary device/conceit Tolkien did in ostensibly only having in-universe biased sources and works to deliver the world through (which I feel is an underappreciated thing about his approach but is part of what makes his world so enduringly compelling and real-feeling -- the feeling of real scholarship devoted/applied to a made-up world. the grounding effect of a good diegetic footnote about source criticism, truly).

many things to be said there, and I'm glad each following game has taken on different perspectives and lenses and traditions to view the world of Thedas through because if you stick with that one too closely for too long I fear we could teeter precariously close to Pratchett's famous and bitingly accurate accusation of most modern fantasy of that era just being about rearranging the furniture in Tolkien's attic lol. and while you could accuse DA2 (my perfect wife who has never done anything wrong in her life to be clear) of many things, that's not one of them, they are pulling on some completely different strings for that one and both the game and DA overall is better for it, to my mind. as so many things in this series: worth staying with and exploring for an installment even if it might get stale if all of it was like this! people are understandably sad about the elements from previous games that they liked which were lost along the way, but that capacity for reinvention is to my mind a huge strength of dragon age as a whole.

(I think Veilguard is coming in as a close second in Tolkien conversation-ness if only in outlining/revealing the worldbuilding that indeed may have been planned since DA:O around the animosity that SHOULD by all rights exist between dwarves and elves in this universe (as per Tolkienesque tradition standards). but doesn't really because you see: politics and the many pitfalls of conservation of knowledge over the ages. our ancestral enmity got semi-intentionally lost between the floorboards of history and you know what. maybe for the best. the humans are already up to so much shit you gotta keep your eyes on them at all times you can't be brawling with each other in the deep roads while they're still around getting up to their nonsense or they'll just pile up even more of it)

[fictionadventurer]

The worst part about reading in a genre where you have low expectations (in this case, Christian historical fiction) is that when a book impresses you, you have no idea if it's actually good or if you're just overly impressed because it was a fraction of a degree better than the usual garbage.

[somewhereincairparavel]

i came across a (typical) reel of jason pov slander and the comments DIDN'T fail me for the very first time, EVER. Literally everyone was agressively defending him in the comments and called out how overused the whole "jason is so boring I couldn't wait to end his povs" videos were?? And all those comments had the most amount of likes??? jason grace defenders, I think our time has officially come. Our hardwork has paid off till the point it has reached the annoying Instagram pjo fandom to angrily condemn against anti jason videos and call out how dumb and unoriginal it is to hate on him simply because the majority of the fandom is and you wanna appear cool.

"no i will not stand for jason slander"

"what did jason ever do? Y'all just hate him bc he is capable enough to compete with percy"

"jason slander is so overrated. His povs were interesting y'all are just being dramatic bc you want to hate on him somehow"

YES. YES. YES. PREACH.

[gladiatorcunt]

han solo wants what atton rand has

[winepresswrath]

the majority of old men in toxic rpf ships are that genre of guy who sincerely believe it barely counts when they cheat and also that being cheated on is a deep spiritual wound only the craziest and most malevolent bitch would inflict on a man. this is in fact exactly why they should have all dated each other. 

[livvyofthelake]

deciding my favorite genre of book is children’s historical fiction… nothing else hits like it sorry… yeah yeah adult historical fiction is fine. not my favorite though…

[thatscarletflycatcher]

‘Steve,’ said Temple suddenly, the thought of food in the immediate future possibly giving him the idea.

‘Yes?’ she said, with a curious smile.

‘I was wondering if, er, you . . .’ He broke off. For perhaps the first time Paul Temple knew what it meant when he used the word ‘bashful’ in one of his novels.

‘Well?’ prompted Steve.

‘If you’d—er—care to have dinner with me on … on Thursday?’ he said.

‘Thursday? Yes, of course,’ she said happily. ‘I’d love to.’

'Good. I shall be in town, so perhaps we can . . . er . . . lunch together, too?’

‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Why not?’

‘We might even manage to have tea together, as a sort of, er—

‘I’d love to,’ she replied softly.

‘Oh, er, splendid,’ he said. ‘Well, that’s about all. Of course, there is breakfast, but—’

‘I always have breakfast in bed.’

‘In bed?’

‘Yes, in bed.’

‘Well, that’s a bit awkward!’

‘Of course,’ put in Steve a trifle glibly, ‘we could get married.’

‘Yes, I suppose we—’ Temple suddenly gasped. ‘I say... are you proposing?’

‘What do you think, Mr. Temple?’ she asked brightly, in a voice that was a perfect imitation of his. ‘What do you think?’

--Francis Durbridge, Send For Paul Temple (1938)

[pastelpaperplanes]

frogive me if I am but a fool, but dost Thorns and Thrones exist as a fanfic, or a series of art, or both

Fear not, dearest Anon, thou art naught a fool, for thine own question is unequivocally valid!

Thorns and thrones resides as a story mostly told through art and various asks I have answered on this blog. I do my best to show the story rather than proclaim it, for truly, I am but a great and lowly chicken when it comes to taking up the quill and ink mine self

BUT! people have made many a fan pieces of work for the AU

Make haste! for each and every one has made masses weep tears of joy and merrious laughter. I beg of thee!

Witness the works of many a talented creators!

[weirdbabs]

you know. i hope johnnys home life is okay. like. its implied that his parents dont love each other, but i hope that hes not living in a household where they fight all the time. i hope theyre separated but actually coparenting him, not using him to to fight with one another

[fideidefenswhore]

[Henry] had asked Lady Shelton whether Mary [was] persisting in her obstinancy. Hearing that she was, Henry became certain that she was being encouraged by secret communication from Katharine. Lady Shelton thought the only possible messenger was Mary's chamber woman. In this she was correct. The maid had been smuggling letters in and out. She was dismissed, as was Mary's confessor, to be replaced by one whom Chapuys characterised as 'Lutheran'.

The King’s Pearl: Henry VIII & His Daughter Mary, Melita Thomas

[chatdae]

The Great Gatsby (1974) au where Gatsby doesn't die and instead Nick takes on the no-paying job of trying to get Jay to move on from Daisy.

Bad ending is Gatsby never does & he and the Buchanans become a never-ending shitshow. Good ending is Jay moves on. Super special bonus ending is Jay and Nick fall in love (toxicity optional)

[mangoofthesea]

what I say: I like reading fiction about power structures and systems of governance outside of our usual - like royalty fantasy or rogue criminal heist kind of thing. The action sequences and higher levels of consequences are really cool

what I mean: it's about the experience of being trapped within a system which you hate but want to sustain in a better way than it has been for the good of its members its about loving your family while hating your family while being stuck somewhere you want to improve you can't escape your responsibility but you can try its a never ending struggle of deciding who you are and who you could be and how you can live and live with yourself while within such systems that feel like a wall closing in on you and your life as you try to build a life with less corruption than the last generation its about th-

[best-fictional-cat]

Round 1 Group 11

Kitty Softpaws (Puss in Boots) vs Goose (Marvel comics / MCU)

[thanatika]

low-coherency rambling in the tags

[lakemichigans]

fellow travelers is losing me for real WHERE ARE THE WOMENNNNN even queer as folk had main cast lesbians and straight women who existed as more than just plot development for the gay men