#but again. maybe i just need to reread these books

[hottakehoulihan]

Every second I subject myself to Ward I wonder if maybe this is WB fully flexing his "unreliable narrator" organ as hard as he can and that's why I have to deal with having Vicky as MC.

The problem with engaging with fans is the dumb ones talk the most and the loudest, and eventually it's hard not to think that maybe you have been too subtle. ...and so where Taylor literally did nothing wrong of course, maybe it's time to push Vicky as a super obnoxious "the law is always morally correct you should always follow the law first or be hit with hammers" (borrowed from a speech she gave to Kensie) gal who is wrong "leopards never change their spots once someone has crimed they are a crime-inal forever" literallyfigurativelyliterally all the time

and I'm just not strong enough to get that I need to read this like I'm enduring Catcher in the Rye again, and that arrested-development-glorygirl (no reference to the TV show) is maybe some day going to outgrow her trauma and hate and desire to be the boot on the neck of nonconformists (the girl literally chose black as her costume color because she hates white because Amy wore it) and

ah I shouldn't rant. Fortunately Vicky dies in the next chapter and then I can--what's that? Instead of Vicky dying it's one of the characters I liked? Dammit. I hate that. It's probably the dog. We only just got Dooby Skew the wonder dog and it dies right after? Bullshit. We can't have nice things. : (

I don't hate Vicky fans. I will assume that anyone who actually likes Antares is just a superior student of English Literature as compared to me and they probably enjoyed every page of Ulysses instead of just being kind of annoyed and bored like I was 80% of the time I was reading that book. I admit my flaws. I had to reread Catcher in the Rye multiple times just to grasp why other people enjoy and respect the book and I still don't. But yeah. I admit my flaws.

And I sure as hell admit Victoria's because she's like one flaw from the tip of her toes to the top of her cop cap. The only time she shies away from wanting to be ubercop is when she wants a bigger ubercop telling her how to do her own ubercopping.

I think I'd prefer having her mom as MC. I like the way mom's underlings subtly squirm and flush when mommy steps into the office. I could get used to that. Respect the uniform? Bah. Respect the baller Brandish? Okay. Yes ma'am.

Wait, is ward copagnda? Worm seemed relatively anti cop when I read it. From what I've heard Pact is too.

Everything you said is completely true simultaneously.

worm is anti-cop

pact is extremely anti-cop

Victoria throws petty criminals into an alternate dimension prison colony to die of exposure for smoking weed and it's seen as a pretty chill move.

[pigeonclaw]

It's so funny how, unprompted, so many posts on my for you tab alternate between text posts saying "Nightheart is the best WC character I love him" and "Nightheart sucks, he's the worst, I want him dead." Idk what I did to make tumblr think Nightheart discourse is my hobby but I do find it a little entertaining.

[undercover-grisha]

Inej: “Okay beta, let’s try to just float for a little bit.”

Kanej kid: “No, I wanna race!”

Inej, internally: “Inej Ghafa, you are a pirate. You swam in oceans. This is a backyard pool. You cannot beat your three-year-old in a swim race. That is unfair.”

Kanej kid: “I’m gonna beat you so hard!”

Inej, internally: “Thin ice. Very thin ice.”

[cerealmonster15]

it also occurred to me like yesterday that in my kali/sil fic I’ve been writing I think I like, focused so hard on figuring out characterization and relationship dynamic accuracy and also just fighting for my life with the plot that I believe I neglected to like. Mention silvers sleepy boy situation like,,, at all. Maybe once offhandedly??? Like I didn’t forget it’s a part of him but I think somehow I just forgot to work it into the fic at all when it’s generally a pretty big part of his character 😭😭😭 like maybe it’s bc we’ve been in book 7 and it hasn’t come up in the dream zone (I forget if he mentioned if he’s just not sleepy boy in the dream realms, probably lol) so maybe that’s why I forgot??? But even then I literally went to some of the vignettes to study how he talks with kalim and the sleepies does come up in those examples….. I feel like it’s just something I was like “yeah yeah that’s a given I need to figure out the rest of him rn tho cuz he’s more than just a sleepy guy” so hard that it slipped my mind completely….. I went too hard in the other direction….

[stripedtabbycat]

every time i find myself getting indignant at someone saying shit like "kids these days are stupid and don't know anything about movies made before they were born" i have to remind myself that i am routinely surprised by movies made in the late 60s being in color

[as-dreamers-do]

you know what I'm suddenly craving post-wheel of time reread? starting my Stormlight Archive reread that I need to have done by December 5

but. I have a bunch of library books I also need to read, and if I start Stormlight now I'll finish it at the latest by I'd guess September's end which is two months too early--even throwing in Elantris/Warbreaker/Arcanum Unbounded won't stretch it till December. so I shouldn't start quite yet. but. i NEED more familiar epic fantasy I haven't read in a long time. urgghghhghgh

[pigeonclaw]

Tigerstar 2.0 has been one of my favorite characters for years, he's silly, he stirs up drama — you know I love cringy little guys who stir up drama — and he loves his kids. At least, those have been traits I've enjoyed about him in previous books.

Not a big fan of his recent behavior in regards to Birchfeather, though I can understand it. He's being a hypocrite, and Tawnypelt points this out. It sounds to me like something he's going to have to work on, something that will take time, and I'm okay with that on its own! Unfortunately I don't have faith in the authors to give him that time. I fully expect them to move on and that's a shame. Because a story about a father lashing out over his son's choices and then having to learn to accept that he shouldn't expect to have control over everyone's choices... would be a good story.

[megagrind]

The 9th Michael Vey book is coming out in a week so I am once again apologizing in advance for the person I will become

[unproduciblesmackdown]

similar to the greentext stuff - i was visiting with my neighbors and their grandkids were around, and I said to this eight year old, "Hey, you wanna know something cool? I was playing the game when the Endermen came out." and his eyes went wide, like this kid looked like i told him i landed on the moon. His grandma thought it was really funny, and she said she has no idea what i'm talking about, but her grandbabies do, and that's incredible to her.

oh that's fun lmao, when minecraft & that update's existed for more than your whole life, and yknow being that young and like Next Year fr is this huge time scale away, a couple of years is a quarter of your life thus far and like maybe nigh half of the part of your life you actually have longterm memories for....i was checking out this dev's blog's archives about a:tdd's release in 2010 & in one entry they compared the implicitly Roughly concurrent release of Minecraft and i was like hey whoah. forever primarily being a game i've Heard Of more than any more direct exposure so i had no precise sense of [before minecraft release] [after minecraft release] Year 0 there but it's like for sure back in thee day when minecraft was a new thing, huh

[depresseddepot]

It's been so long since I've read anything kingkiller chronicles related but the narrow road between desires was so unexpectedly emotional and sweet

[jewishcissiekj]

maybe it's just me but the current (adjectiveless) X-Men series sometimes feels more like a Cyclops solo series than an X-Men comic

[titsthedamnseason]

“you will see all your favorite people again”

[myuminji]

THE FUCKING WHIPLASH I GET TO SEE THE BOOK THIEF MENTIONED OUT OF NOWHERE, IN 2023⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️ 🫨🫨

How about a kiss, angel?

[owlbelly]

so. i understand where the sentiment "listening to an audiobook is the same thing as reading the book" is coming from - i mean, yes, the bottom line is you are taking in the same words in what is possibly a more accessible (or maybe just more enjoyable) format for you! and i'm 100% in agreement that "book snobs" who say "no you didn't really read it" if you listened to the audiobook are full of shit. ofc you should engage with stories in whatever way works for you, there is no moral or intellectual superiority to reading words off a page vs. listening to them

but it also is different? an audiobook is a performance. choices a narrator makes about line readings can drastically influence the meaning of the lines. even just different voices, accents, etc. - there are creative choices being made by the person delivering the words to you, and that affects your experience of the story in a different way than if you were making those choices in your own head. it might even change the way you visualize what's going on!

this isn't a bad thing it's just An Actual Thing & i think it's worth talking about. it rubs me the wrong way when people act like accommodations (and for many people audiobooks are an accommodation) always result in a completely identical experience, or even that they should, & if you suggest that people accessing media in different ways are having different experiences it's somehow ableist

anyway on rare occasions i really enjoy audiobooks but mostly they are much less accessible to me than words on a page (i need to be able to reread, flip back and forth, go at my own pace) & i also just really strongly prefer to encounter a text on my own before hearing someone else's performance of it, if possible! again i don't think it's "better" to read a physical book i just think it is a Distinct form of experiencing a story & acting like the two things are entirely the same is sort of doing a disservice to both

[booksinmythorax]

If you buy a lot of books and end up not liking some of them very much, can I suggest checking them out from your library first?

I worked in bookstores for a long time, and of course lots of my paycheck went directly back into the store. I've ended up "weeding" a lot of those books and donating them to different places just because I knew I wasn't ever going to read them again.

Now I'm a librarian, and I'm realizing just how much money I'm saving by checking books out FIRST. Maybe I check something out and I end up DNF'ing it within 50 pages. Maybe I check something out and I enjoy it, but not enough to read it again. Maybe I check something out and I really love it, but it freaked me out so bad it's tattooed on the inside of my eyeballs and I won't need to read it again (Drew Magary's The Hike, I'm looking in your direction).

Or maybe I check something out and I love it! And then I go buy a copy to own because I know I'll reread it, probably with a pen to mark up the margins in a way I know I can't with a library book!

Idk man. If you want to be more intentional with the way you spend your money, if you want to combat the commercialization of the publishing industry, if you hate that authors are being forced to do all their own marketing on TikTok and that readers are feeling shame about not purchasing and finishing literal hundreds of books per year... Maybe start by going to your local library. You can still post haul photos of library books without spending a dime.

[chiasfeu]

as a retired ff writer ive come out of hibernation bc the lack of smallville clark kent ffs is unacceptable tom welling is toooooo fine

sorry for all the grammatical errors i wrote this all at once and didn’t reread

part two

SECRET ADMIRER - clark kent x reader

Fumbling the lock of your locker, you sigh; you were on your fifth day at smallville high school and you weren’t ecstatic to say the least. After your dad had gotten into some legal trouble with LutherCorp your family had to move out of Metropolis to somewhere more safe.. more remote. Adjusting to the rural life of smallville had proven to be difficult and the people seemed strange. Slamming a fist against your locker you try again, meticulously turning the lock of the locker. Click. As you open the doors of the locker, a piece of paper slowly falls out.

Picking it up you read your name in bright red across the folded up piece of paper, you smile to yourself thinking, my very own secret admirer..

Maybe smallville won’t be so boring.

—————

Sipping on your coffee, you annotate your copy of the scarlet letter for English class. “Hey! y/n right?” A friendly voice calls out. You look up from your book, smiling. “Yeah! you must be Lana?” She nods, “I see your getting ready for the English exam, you need any help?” You glance at your book before starting, “I’m good for now.. I’ll let you know if I have any questions!” She smiles again before turning away to walk back behind the counter. Your eyes follow her as she talks to the costumers by the counter, they look familiar— a blonde girl with short wispy hair, and two other guys beside her.

You almost jump out of your own seat when you lock eyes with one of the boys, has he been looking at me this whole time? You think, embarrassed, quickly focusing on your book again. Although you’ve looked away you can still feel his gaze lingering on you.

“Hi.” You’re startled as you hear the voice, looking up at the boy that was staring at you from across the room. Before you can reply he starts, “You’re in my first period Bio class.. you know.. with Jenkins..” You blink, waiting for him to continue. He gulps, “uh well Jenkins is really tough.. and we have our first quiz next class so I was wondering if you would want any help….?” You smile sweetly, what is it with small town folks being so eager to help out? “Yeah I would really like that actually,” He smiles, almost in a relived way. “Great. You’re actually my new neighbor so I’ll just come over to help out,” He says before turning away. You cock your head to the side before saying, “Wait.” He turns around, facing towards you, “I never got your name,” you say.

“Clark Kent.”

—————

You’re sitting on your bed as you peer up at Clark while he explains how to convert moles into grams, “So you’re going to divide the number of particles by Avogrados number..” You yawn tuning him out, your eyes fall the paper that slipped out of your locker earlier today. I still haven’t read that note. You grab the note, opening it up, “y/n are you listening to me.” He says clearly frustrated. “Sorry Clark..” you say apologetically smiling, he notices the paper in your hands and nervously looks back up at you. “What is that?” He says, shifting around in his seat, looking intently at your face. You smile lightly, giggling, “It’s a letter from my secret admirer.” He visibly relaxes, “Oh.. I take it you like having one?” You nod shrugging, “makes smallville a lot more interesting than it could be.” He fake winces, “Smallville is a lot more interesting than you think.” You raise your eyebrows unconvinced, “Really? You’ll have to show me what’s so ‘interesting’ one day.” He smiles glancing down, “Maybe I will.”

You look at Clark’s notebook and your eyebrows furrow, the handwriting looking strikingly similar to the one in the note you found this morning. “Clark..” “Hm?” He looks up at you, “Do you possibly happen to know whoever wrote me that note?” He scratches his head, “No? Why would I?…” You shrug, “Just curious..” He awkwardly smiles before writing in his notebook again. You shift your position on your bed, scooting closer to him, “Clark, it’s ok you can tell me if you do know…” you bring your hand to his exposed forearm caressing it. He coughs before breathlessly stating, “I really don’t know who wrote it, y/n.” You push up against him, drawing circles up his arms, “Hm.. that really is too bad..” He swallows dryly, “yeah?” You nod slowly, “yeahhh.. I would’ve gone along with everything they wrote in that letter..” There’s a moment of silence as he looks at you. He shuts his eyes, sighing hard before confessing, “I wrote it.”

You grin mischeviously, running a hand through his hair, “You really didn’t have to lie, Clark..” He opens his eyes to look at you, his cheeks red from embarrassment, “y/n” “hmm?” You hum, tilting your head bringing your lips closer to his. He glances at them, sighing heavily before parting his lips to say something. He’s cut off by you pressing your lips against his, you feel his body relax into yours, his hands sliding up your back and his lips pushing deeper into the kiss. You pull away from the kiss, your hands holding Clark’s head; using your thumb you wipe lipstick off of Clark’s swollen lips as he looks at you longingly.

Yoau press your lips together, suppressing a giggle, “Hmm it’s getting late.. how about we pick back up tomorrow?”