#fictional book titles

[hedgehog-moss]

me sending yet another email to a French public service to ask them why they use so many gratuitous English words in a service that's supposed to be non-discriminatory and accessible to everyone in the country

[leoreadss]

Hi lovely humans!

As it is too quiet around here and I do not like it even if I absolutely get it, I thought of sharing some GO GIFs and asking you

What are you currently reading?

drop the title in the comment and let's talk about books!

no fic titles cause we already know that each one of us is currently reading at least three to four titles lol

EDITED WHILE WRITING THE POST: as always my brain likes to wonder and I'm nobody to tell them not to so I present to you the GIF-fiction. Enjoy!

Title: I forgot all the books - A GIFs minisode

Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley, All the books

Where: Somewhere in my head

*Crowley* 'Angel! Where do you want me to put the books?'

*Aziraphale thoughts* 'Exactly. Oh darling, I want you.. to carry me as you're carrying my books, would you?'

*Crowley reading Aziraphale's thoughts since The Beginning* 'You what?'

*Aziraphale* 'But you understood me! Let's go!'

*Crowley* 'Like that?'

*Aziraphale* 'Quite right. Now give me a kiss..'

*Crowley* 'I thought you'd never ask'

*they proceed to kiss while the entire fandom faints on the floor*

*Aziraphele* 'Very nice!'

*Crowley* 'What are you in the mood for now, Angel?'

*Aziraphale* Follow me. 'I'll show you.'

[caputvulpinum]

i did read the title and a basic synopsis, but

am i, personally, supposed to go fucking blow up a pipeline? or maybe 67-year-old disabled mother should get a gun and try to shoot up kamala's house? will that stop israel? will that keep trump out of the white house??

you are expecting way too much from people you don't know. we cannot physically do these things. but we can vote.

a more serious answer i might give is that revolution is not a matter of a single person personally doing something but rather a collective action of many like minded individuals banding together to provide their own skills and abilities to achieve ends greater than any one of them might accomplish.

a more honest answer i am giving you, specifically, is that if you are acting like me saying "read a fucking book" is too much effort to demand of your activism, then i'm gonna need at least 20 dollars hourly wage to tolerate trying to teach you the fucking preschool education of anarchism. if youre interested i can send you an invoice over paypal.

[lieutenantselnia]

Because my new f/os made me wonder about this ...

If you have an f/o who's not usually referred to by their first name, but instead their last name, a nickname, or something like a title or honorific, how to you refer to them? This can apply both to how they are addressed in-universe in their source material and/or how they are commonly referred to in the fandom.

[duckprintspress]

In honor of the 54th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots – June 28th, 1969 – Duck Prints Press is thrilled to share with you how we’re celebrating Pride Month: with queer stories, of course!

Introducing our Pride 2023 Bundles: two collections of short stories, one general imprint, one erotica, each priced at a discounted $19.69, with all purchases benefiting two wonderful queer charities selected by the authors of the stories in the bundles: The Ali Forney Center and the Transgender Law Center.

We’ll be donating roughly 35% of the proceeds from these bundles to charity – the Press is donating 10% off the top, and many of the authors chose to donate part of their royalties as well, bringing the totals to approximately 40% of the list price of the erotica collection and approximately 35% of the list price of the general imprint collection.

How This Works

you buy one or both bundles between now and July 28th, 2023.

we tally up all the proceeds earned and do some math-e-magic to figure out how much we’re donating!

we divide the charity share in half right down the middle and, within the first week of August, we donate raised money to the Ali Forney Center and the Transgender Law Center; then, we post the proof we’ve done so.

you get fantastic stories!

we all get that happy, glowy feeling of knowing that money has been well-spent on fantastic causes!

About the Press

Duck Prints Press is a queer-owned indie press, founded to publish original works by fancreators. We’ve been in operation for over 2 years, and in that time we’ve worked with well over 150 creators to publish four anthologies and almost 70 other stories, from shorts to novels, and we’ve got more on the works (our fifth anthology is Kickstarting RIGHT NOW, as a matter of fact!). The vast majority of our creators and their creations are queer/LGTBQIA+ (maybe even all, but we don’t out anyone and we don’t ask demography because, frankly, it’s none of our business).

20 of our authors have chosen to include their short stories in one or both of these short story bundles, and these 20 and others nominated charities, then voted to narrow it down to these two! Participation in these bundles was entirely voluntarily, as was choosing to donate shares of royalties, which about a third of the authors have opted to do.

About the Charities

Note: These charities are not affiliated with the Press, do not know we’re doing this fundraiser, have not endorsed this in anyway and are, as such, utterly uninvolved in this beyond being the beneficiaries of our efforts! Text is from the websites of each charity and is being used under fair use laws.

The Ali Forney Center was founded in 2002. Committed to saving the lives of LGBTQ+ young people, our mission is to protect them from the harms of homelessness and empower them with the tools needed to live independently. A 24-hour program, The Ali Forney Center never closes its doors. We provide more than just a bed and food for those in need — from initial intake at our drop-in center to transitional housing and job readiness training, we provide homeless LGBTQ+ youth a safe, warm, supportive environment to escape the streets [of New York City].

Transgender Law Center is the largest national trans-led organization advocating self-determination for all people. Since 2002 we’ve been organizing, assisting, informing and empowering thousands of individual community members towards a long-term, national, trans-led movement for liberation.

About the Bundles

(this is getting long, so read more...)

We’re offering two bundles: one containing 14 stories from our general imprint, the other containing 11 stories from our erotica imprint. For all the deets, you’ll need to visit the page for each story, but here’s an overview…

Titles in the General Imprint Charity Bundle:

A Mutual Interest by Alec J. Marsh

The Problem with Wishes by Annabeth Lynch

Let the Solstice Come by D. V. Morse

Warmer Lights by Era J. M. Couts

An Odd Gathering of Peculiar Cats by J. D. Harlock

Dead Man’s Bells by Nicola Kapron

Widow’s Black by Nina Waters

twin flames by nottesilhouette

A Shield for the People by Puck Malamud

Much Ruckus by R. L. Houck

Bubble, Bubble by Sage Mooreland

Settling Down by Theresa Tanner

Best Friends AND… by Tris Lawrence

To Fill My Cup by Violet J. Hayes

Approximately 35% of the $19.69 list price of this bundle will go to the charities.

Titles in the Erotica Imprint Charity Bundle:

Pas de Deux by Aeryn Jemariel Knox

Study Hall by Alec J. Marsh

A Safe Place to Land by boneturtle

Clerical Error by Dei Walker

In the Moonlight by E. V. Dean

We All Need to Get By by Lyn Weaver

The Fated Prince by Mikki Madison

Lust by Nina Waters

No One Right Way by R. L. Houck

Easier Than Expected by Samantha M. Piper

Urchin Juiced by Xianyu Zhou

Approximately 40% of the $19.69 list price of this bundle will go to the charities.

What are you waiting for? Come get some great stories, support a queer-owned business this Pride, and benefit two fantastic causes. Win-win-win situations don’t get much better than this!

These bundles will only be available for one month, so don’t miss out. Visit our webstore between now and July 28th and get yours!

[betterbooktitles]

The screen I spend the most time with these days is a black LCD monitor attached to a PC in an indie bookshop on Long Island. I spend whole days looking at point-of-sale software called Anthology which also keeps track of the store’s inventory. Often, it’s accurate. Occasionally, it says we have three copies of The Bell Jar that have simply disappeared from the face of the Earth. No one stole them. They were raptured, like socks that never make it out of the dryer.

If you’ve never worked a retail job, let me tell you what it’s like: you come in with a little spring in your step, caffeinated, and ready to greet your coworkers and update them on how terrible your last shift without them was. Though the memory of the previous shift’s slog might give you a little anxiety, and though a hangover can make your fuse a little short, you’re in a better mood at the start of the day than at the end. Tedious tasks like ordering and unboxing books (sci-fi movies did not prepare me for how much cardboard there would be in the future) seem manageable in the morning. Customers seem kind. The items you’re selling feel necessary to human happiness. Whatever is going on in your life is put on pause to manage store operations, and time flies. Then, by 3 PM, whether you had time for lunch or not, you wish you had done anything else with your day — or, better yet — your life. 

While the back-straining work of moving inventory around the store or walking the floor helping customers all day without a second to sit down might make you physically tired, the real work of retail is mental and forces employees to become part-machine. Retail workers have to ask the same three questions (“Rewards?” “Bag?” “Receipt?”) and reply to the same three questions (“Have it?” “Bathroom?” “Manager?!?!?”) for 8-10 of their most worthwhile waking hours. 

In bookstores, there is the added expectation that while you’re participating in this mind-numbing routine, you’re at least able to pretend to like and engage with literature. I'm not arguing that people working at Old Navy aren’t eloquent or as over-educated for their job as I am. If they aren’t teenagers, most retail employees I’ve encountered have, by virtue of talking to coworkers and customers all day, the same high emotional intelligence as the smartest people I know who chain smoke outside bars. Still, my guess is that it’s rare for a customer to see a clothing store employee folding clothes, and think “I wonder what their opinion is of the latest Ann Patchett book” or “I wonder if they read Knausgård and run a book club when they’re not helping me find jeans in my size.” People see booksellers doing the same tedious tasks as any other retail employee and assume they not only possess unlimited knowledge about the state of publishing but also have unlimited hours to read while in the store. Customers hold booksellers to an impossible intellectual standard. When they fail to live up to said standard, they’re subjected to conversations like this:

“You haven’t read the latest Kingsolver?” a customer will ask, “Why not? What about this one? Or that one? It’s so good though! I thought you would have read all of these!” 

What’s a shame is that they think they’re being kind when they half-recommend, half-admonish bookstore employees. Worse are the people who are flat-out rude. Case in point, a man came into the store at hour six of my shift, and without any preamble, treating me like I was a human Google search bar, said the name of an author, then started spelling the name. When I asked for a second to look up what I assumed he was asking for, he rolled his eyes and began spelling slowly and loudly: “PAUL. P…A…U…” 

Sadly, I’m too old to be treated that way and without thinking I raised my hand and said sternly “Don’t do that.” Now some oblivious retired banker is walking around Long Island asking himself why indie booksellers are so mean. My Midwestern niceness has disappeared, my helpful attitude is now nonexistent. I have been worn down by the people I’m paid to be kind to.

Read the rest here.

[emeryleewho]

Every other week, someone starts a fight about how it's "unethical" for authors to charge for our books or how pirating is ethical because marginalized people don't have access to stories, but the irony is that every time I offer my stories for free, nobody wants them. I used to offer whole reserves of free-to-read books and no one would read them. I posted about my book that costs $15.99 in paperback and got a couple hundred boosts. I post about my free webcomic and literally not a single person interacts. If you want free stories, there are tons of them. Why are you insistent on taking the ones we need to get paid from? If "free" stories are only valuable to you when they're stolen from working authors struggling to pay the bills then maybe the problem is not accessibility but a separate thing.

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[fictionadventurer]

Current level of Little House nerd: Internally freaking out because Rose wrote a short story based on their time in Florida which means we have filled in the last remaining major gap in the Ingalls-Wilder family fictional timeline.

[bighandsforabigheart]

I’m so excited for this movie but I wish they could’ve just made tmfu2😔

I’m gonna be projecting napollya onto them the entire time no one will stop me

[nostalgia-tblr]

gonna go to my bed now and read about empress matilda.

[deeppurpleforest]

Not only does Alison Weir state (as a historical fact) Bloody Mary was a contemporary name popular / commonly used during & shortly after Mary’s reign, but she also thinks Chapuys might have romantic feelings for Mary. I mean it’s fine to write fan fictions but writing it in details in a published historic novel is… really something else. The plot also seems to involve Mary knowing the feelings Chapuys have for her and feeling terrible for not being able to return it because it is forbidden. What makes it worse is the talk Weir gave blurred history and fiction therefore at the end some of the audience already seemed to believe this.

[whyamihereat4am]

Organisation names in bsd fall into three categories: most basic literal description you can think of, one word name that is sort of cool I guess, and the sickest sounding thing ever.

Like okay we have the Weaponised Investigator Company and the City Mob or something. And then their rivals are named the Decay of the Angel, Order of the Clock Tower and Poets of Malefic Badassery.

Like come on are you trying to drive the theatre kids to Europe? What do you wanna be, a Rat in the House of the Dead or *checks notes* member of the Rich Guy Guild.

[xx-rpr]

Being absolutely heartbroken over a fictional character is some MOTHERFUCKING BULLSHIT!!!! BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT EVEN REAL!!! WHY DOES IT FEEL LIKE THEY DIDN'T CHOOSE ME, THEY DIED, OR A THIRD FUCKING THING! NAH HELL NAH!!!

[tsundere-selfship]

Y’all I just FINALLY got my first hate anon in over a year!! I was seriously starting to miss these! I know I shouldn’t answer it but this one is so awful and incomprehensible I wanna show you guys

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?