#books and writing

[jaabeyjaa]

If you can donate, it could truly help victims of this war. If not, please share—spreading awareness matters.

Palestinians, you’re in my thoughts and prayers. We stand with you💚

🚨 We Need Your Kindness to Survive 🚨

Hello, My name is Mosab, and I live in Gaza with my family. Life here has become harder than I ever imagined, and I’m writing this with hope in my heart that you might hear our story.

The ongoing war has devastated my family. We’ve lost 25 family members—each one a beloved part of our lives, taken too soon. I miss them deeply—their laughter, their presence, their love. Every day is a reminder of this unimaginable loss.

We are now facing daily challenges to survive—things that most people take for granted, like food, clean water, and a safe place to sleep. The harsh realities of life here have replaced our dreams with the constant fight for survival.

Our Current Situation:

💔 Lost Stability: The war has left us without work or a stable source of income.

📚 Dreams on Hold: Like so many here, my family’s dreams have been replaced by the need to simply survive.

😢 Unimaginable Loss: Losing 25 loved ones has left a void that can never be filled.

How You Can Help:

I’m sharing our story with the hope that someone out there might care. Even $10 can make a big difference for us, and if you’re unable to donate, just reblogging this post can help spread the word.

Your kindness, no matter how small, is something we’ll never forget.

What This Means to Us:

Your support is not about changing our entire situation—it’s about giving us a little relief, a little hope, and a way to keep going. We are not asking for much, and we understand if you can’t donate. Sharing our story is just as valuable to us as a donation.

Thank you for reading this far. It means the world to us to know that someone is listening. Your kindness gives us strength and helps us believe in a better tomorrow.

With all our gratitude,

Mosab and Family ❤️

[arylleth]

a coffin is too ordinary for your body, I'd bury you in my own arms

[deadghostgirl12345]

*writes a sentence or two after writing nothing for days*

[pagesofjasmine]

Me and books!

[lone-nyctophile]

I want to unlock and recover my memories from when I was a child. I only remember major highlights from that time period, and they aren't reflective of my personality. I merely know who and what I was as a child, and this retroactive oblivion—which now serves as a catalyst to the loss of my self-identity—gnaws at me day-by-day.

In contrast to this, I am now distastefully aware of this forlorn shell of a self that I embody. Constant introspection has become a default setting that's embedded in my functioning. The scrutinisation of every little habit and thought has become something that goes beyond the realm of conscious control. Yet, all this hyper self-awareness has only left me in a state of emotional disconnect and subliminal tumult—this paradox is suffocating; it's become intolerable.

How wretched is it to be so expertly aware of one's decline? Without being equipped to prevent it? I guess I now understand why ignorance is said to be bliss.

Perhaps, this effortless—albeit painful—awareness is a cumulative manifestation of the guilt that I feel for not remembering my childhood? I want it back, oh god, I want those memories back. I want to KNOW who I was. I wish nothing more than to somehow miraculously see my little self from an external, observational lens.

[texaschainsawmascara]

Donna Tartt

[princessmacabre]

Started planning 2024…

my first resolutions:

Stop wasting your time 

Invest it in yourself

Build your life 

Work and overcome your shit

Stop being addicted to negative-thoughts

Build and grow yourself 

Instagram: simple.study.well

[3kockeleda]

"smut", censorship & why we must defend the freedom to read

Every era polices its stories. Today, the battleground is digital: TikTok, Twitter, and Tumblr simmer with moral panics over “problematic” fiction. At the heart of this debate lies a paradox: in an age that champions individuality and free expression, why are readers—particularly women and queer communities—increasingly shamed for enjoying narratives labeled “dark romance,” “smut,” or “spicy”? These terms, weaponized as shorthand for “morally bankrupt,” obscure a deeper cultural anxiety: the fear of stories that center taboo desires, power dynamics, or unapologetic female agency. What begins as criticism of tropes often escalates into demands for censorship, blurring the line between discourse and dogma. The stakes here transcend genre—this is about who gets to control narratives, and why.

Censorship has always targeted the marginalized. In the 19th century, novels like Madame Bovary and Lady Chatterley’s Lover were deemed “obscene” for depicting female desire outside patriarchal norms. By the mid-20th century, paperback romances adorned with shirtless heroes (think Fabio rescuing a swooning heroine) dominated bookstore racks. These novels were dismissed as frivolous “chick lit,” relegated to the realm of harmless escapism. Yet they sold millions, offering women a rare space to claim ownership of their fantasies.

Fast-forward to today. Their spiritual successors—stories exploring BDSM, morally gray relationships, or trauma—face a more insidious suppression: algorithmic shadow-banning, deplatforming, and viral callout campaigns that frame readers as complicit in harm. The shift from physical book burnings to digital erasure reflects a new puritanism, one couched in progressive language but rooted in the same paternalism: “These ideas are too dangerous for you.” Platforms like TikTok, which amplify outrage for engagement, reduce complex narratives to soundbite controversies. A single trope—a mafia romance’s nonconventional relationship, a bully romance’s power imbalance—is stripped of context, becoming fodder for hashtag activism. Lost in this frenzy is the distinction between depiction and endorsement, between art and advocacy.

Critics of dark romance often argue, “These stories normalize abuse!” Yet this concern is selectively applied. 

Consider:

Male-Centric Media: Films like Fight Club (domestic terrorism, toxic masculinity) and The Sopranos (misogyny, murder) are analyzed as “complex art.” Video games like Grand Theft Auto let players enact mass violence, yet their audiences aren’t accused of glorifying crime.

Queer and Feminist Narratives: Stories by marginalized authors—e.g., Carmilla (lesbian vampirism) or Tampa (female predator tropes)—face disproportionate scrutiny. Their themes are pathologized, their audiences interrogated.

This double standard reveals a cultural discomfort with women and queer people claiming narrative autonomy. Dark romance, often written by and for women, subverts the “pure heroine” archetype, allowing characters—and readers—to explore rage, desire, and imperfection. To dismiss these stories as “toxic” is to deny women the right to messy, multifaceted representation.

Fiction is a laboratory for the human experience. Psychologists argue that dark themes in art serve as simulations, letting readers safely confront fears, taboos, or repressed emotions. A 2019 study in Psychology of Aesthetics found that readers of transgressive fiction often engage in more ethical reasoning, not less, as they analyze characters’ choices.

Consider the appeal of dark romance:

Agency in Restriction: Heroines navigating oppressive worlds (e.g., mafia romances) often reclaim power within constraints, mirroring real struggles against systemic misogyny.

Catharsis Through Hyperbole: Exaggerated tropes (obsessive love, revenge plots) externalize internalized emotions, offering emotional release.

Censoring such works doesn’t protect readers—it infantilizes them, implying they can’t separate fiction from reality.

History shows that censorship rarely stops at “protecting” audiences. Once normalized, it expands to suppress dissent:

1980s “Satanic Panic”: Moral crusades against Dungeons & Dragons and heavy metal music targeted countercultural communities.

2020s Book Bans: U.S. schools have banned texts like Gender Queer and The Hate U Give, conflating LGBTQ+ and anti-racist narratives with “obscenity.”

Calls to censor smut follow the same playbook: frame subjective discomfort as objective harm, then demand removal “for the greater good.” But who decides what’s “harmful”? Algorithms? Politicians? Corporations? Amazon’s arbitrary delisting of LGBTQ+ romance novels in 2021 (“content violations”) proves corporate censorship is already here—and it’s arbitrary.

To censor “smut” is to endorse a world where stories are policed by the timid, the authoritarian, or the algorithm. It undermines foundational principles:

Freedom of Literature: Art is not a public service announcement. It must be free to provoke, unsettle, and challenge.

Reader Autonomy: Trust adults to choose their media. Advocacy for content warnings and nuanced critique is valid; eradication is not.

Media Pluralism: A free society requires diverse narratives—including those deemed uncomfortable, “immoral,” or politically inconvenient.

The fight against censorship isn’t about defending specific tropes; it’s about resisting the idea that any story is “too dangerous” to exist. As Salman Rushdie wrote, “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” Let readers revel in their smut, their Shakespeare, their sapphic space operas. Let them dissect, debate, or devour stories without shame.

The alternative—a sanitized, homogeneous cultural landscape—is a far darker tale.

Defend the right to read. Defend the freedom to imagine. And never apologize for the stories that make us human.

[mysterieuxclairdelune]

{Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar/ Veronica Roth, Allegiant (Divergent, #3)/ Horace Annesley Vachell, The Romance of Judge Ketchum/ C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)/ Ada Limón, After the Fire/ Katie McGarry, Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1)/ Sarah Ockler, Twenty Boy Summer/ Audre Lorde, from "Zami: A New Spelling of my Name," published c. 1982/ George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)/ Cassandra Clare, City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)/ Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), from "Poem Of The End" (1924), translated from the Russian by Mary Jane White}

[achaotichuman]

Me- "Alright gonna sit down and write!"

Also me- "Sleepy."

Me- "No."

Also me- "Sweepy deepy very tired."

Me- "No, no, no. We've done nothing all day how are we tired?"

Also me- "Sweepy weepy eepy deepy go to sleepy."

[obscure-witchfairy]

Ughhhhh!!! 😫 Why does writing a research paper feel like such an excruciating task even though I am not even putting in half the effort that I need to!!! It feels like it'll never end!! 😣

[thejudeduarte]

For some reason I don't like reader x character fics just because it feels so wrong for that character to be in love with someone other than their love interest!!😭😭 I can appreciate the writing and I don't mind when people make them it's just I never purposely seek out them ykwim?

Please tell me I'm not the odd one out

[apolline-lucy]

author face reveal 🙈

45 days left until THE HOLLOWS comes out!!! if you like sapphic witches, ghost stories, demon curses, and the occasional magical sword fight, please consider adding it to your tbr on Goodreads or preorder the ebook

[amaliazeichnerin]

Writing advice about characters

There are many methods for memorizing or working out characters in stories. I was given this tip years ago by a fellow writer and it works well for me:

An Excel spreadsheet or similar, with the following columns: --- Name Age School/occupation/education/studies … Character traits Appearance Important contacts Relationships with other characters Gender Sexual/romantic orientation ---

This list can, of course, be shortened or extended as you like, depending on what you need. I find this particularly helpful when writing a book series with a lot of characters who appear again and again over the course of several books.

[pagesofjasmine]

Creating my academic moodboard !