#finish the book i'm working my way through

[mollyjames]

I made a post a little while ago about video games still being in their "stage actors doing stage acting in movies" phase, and a lot of people took that to mean that I am against cutscenes in video games. Which, fair, that's the example I used, and it's a common example of video games pretending to be movies. But that's not really what I was getting at.

Video games are a medium. More to the point: they are an incredibly broad, diverse medium. It's also a young medium. We're still figuring out what works and what doesn't. To my mind that doesn't mean "no cutscenes ever", but "what does putting a cutscene here do?"

I'm circling back around to this now because I just finished 1000xResist, a game which pound for pound is almost exclusively cutscenes. And it works. So I ask myself: would this still work as well if this were a movie? A book? A tv show? A comic book maybe? And the answer, for me, is no. The atmosphere wouldn't be the same, the pacing of the story would be off, you would lose all of the small clever ways the game takes advantage of its medium, and (maybe most importantly) I wouldn't be as personally invested in the questions the game is posing to its audience.

And this isn't the only example. Sanabi and Nine Sols both games I played recently that made me invested in their story through cutscenes. Because they're good. They dont break the flow. They're as much a part of the game as the gameplay.

I want to see more games like this; games that understand what their narrative needs and how the player experience should be paced. Regardless of whether or not that calls for a cutscene.

[ghostlyerlkonig]

i'm doing @batmanisagatewaydrug 's 2025 book bingo and 9 books in feels like a decent 'let's check in on this' time, with thoughts and feelings.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman (2009) - Feels like it walked right out of 2009. I did not love any of the characters in this book, they are almost all major dickwads but I was enraptured by seeing what happened to them. 4.5/5.

The Magician King by Lev Grossman (2011) - I like the main cast now and care about them, granted half of the book was more interesting than the other due to prior book build up. 5/5.

The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman (2014) - Good conclusion to the trilogy. I still like and root for all the characters (except one). The ending felt A Little rushed but not in a bad way. 4/5.

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman (2024) - I fuck with this book so hard. For a historical fiction that does not stray tooooo far from it while also making Arthurian magics real, it never once attempts to 'explain' certain factors that do not need explaining. Best handling of a trans character I've read from a cis author in a HF. I'm biased to Arthurian based works but man this was so good. I finished it a month ago and I'm still thinking about it. 5/5.

Bring Me The Head Of Susan Lomond: A High School Story by Connor B. (2025) - Great queer comic from an artist I like a lot. I read most of it out loud with voiced because I could hear them so clearly. 5/5.

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle (2024) - Beagle has the most wonderful way of writing the silliest shit and making it fun and beautiful. Not a complicated read by any means but I enjoyed a return to his voice, especially since he's in his 80s and has been put through the fucking ringer over the last 20~ years. 4/5.

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman (2012) - Made me think more than I wanted it to. Somehow the surprise queer character was treated better than I expected (and a little worse). I can't believe it had me rooting for a pope for a solid 5 pages. Made me pull my European History text book from high school out of my closet so I could figure out how many miles one guy traveled and how bad the Bubonic Plague was in the towns he would have passed. Leaves a lot to your own imagination to freak you out with your own visual interpretation of the Christian mythos' angels and demons. And perhaps the giant catfish in Chernobyl. 4.5/5.

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel (2012) - Psychology heavy. I've avoided reading it for a while due to how Fun Home makes me feel. Bechdel's illustrations are great as always. One review I read described it as "what happened to the ground after it is broken" and yeah. Rereading Fun Home before I started it didn't help the emotions beside parsing them better. 5/5.

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly (2025) - Wild book. Feels like an exposé more than a business book. Spotify is so fucked up. I knew this. Now I know it with more detail. Not the most outsider approachable if you aren't aware of the history of how predatory the music business is, but the MOST important things are well explained and terms are easily google-able. It dropped some details in regard to specifically Gen Z artists as victims of this new mainstream system, but that's my only loud gripe. I've been rethinking the relationship with music I developed while living in a 13x13ft room for all of 2020-21 and how I've experienced a "returned to form" from that constant need of background to enjoying records and albums as they exist for listening and paying attention to over the last year, this book solidified that active return to me as a good choice. I love music and what it is without capitalism breathing down its neck. 4.75/5.

Other books read (that i'm not putting on the bingo): Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Art of War of the Rohirrim, Fun Home, Tree and Leaf, and Bisclavret

Next up:

Dudes Rock: A Celebration of Queer Masculinity in Speculative Fiction edited by Romanus and Candra

My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

All Down Darkness Wide: A Memoir by Seán Hewitt

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Reclaiming the Heartland: Lesbian and Gay Voices from the Midwest by Karen L. Osborne & William J. Spurlin

Ma and Me A Memoir by Putsata Reang

[hashtagarting]

I had a idea for your dragon au, dragons unconsciously mark their horde with their craft so they can find it if they lose it and know its condition, it also slows things like rusting degrading and aging for both objects and living creatures.

Ohhh that's very fun. Especially considering that dragons are long-lived creatures in the first place! Don't want to lose your hoard if you can help it! "Knowing its condition" also ties well into being particularly sensitive to how they're feeling and whether or not they're doing well, which is something that my friend and I already had in mind for if a fixation is bordering on getting more intense than it should.

The fact that this is subconscious too is very fun because imagine everyone very slowly coming to the realization that. Hold on. We're not aging as we should.

Either slowly on their own like that, or it could be a very sudden realization if they find a book that mentions it.

Actually wait I like the thought of somewhere in between, where they find a book that mentions this craft-marking and its effects, but doesn't specify whether or not that applies to living creatures too. So it's something they're aware might be a thing and have to deal with the slowly encroaching evidence that, yes, it does apply to them as well.

Alternatively odile has already been having suspicions at this point (especially if this is affecting BONNIE - oh gosh hold on let me finish this paragraph first) and the book confirms her suspicions, and she has to break the news to everyone else that this has already been affecting them, and will probably continue to do so.

OKAY. BONNIE. OH GOSH.

Bonnie is a kid, a preteen, either currently going through puberty or about to. They're the one in the group that would be changing the fastest due to aging, so they're the one that would first be noticeable in terms of those changes slowing. I imagine the rate of slowing matches siffrin's - they wouldn't live as long as a full dragon, but their life has definitely been extended to some degree. I'm not sure by how much, but my first thought is two to three times as long as they would have otherwise. Couple hundred years. So that's two to three times as long for bonnie, too.

Bonnie would NOT be a fan. They already don't like being treated like a kid, and now they have to be one for LONGER??? TWO TO THREE TIMES AS LONG???? They're gonna be like 25 years old and still be 16. How does age of majority work when your aging has slowed?

Once they're not a kid anymore tho they're chill. Frin wanted to stay with them so bad they made sure they'd stay alive with them! Aw!

. . . They're a bit less chill once they start living longer than all their friends but that's something all of them have to deal with, including siffrin himself (presuming he DOES eventually find friends other than his family throughout his life). Things get a little more complicated with pétronille too but this post is already long enough so that can be explored later.

. . .

If Loop, full blown dragon, also starts fixating on them again, then things slow way more, considering how long a full blown dragon lives. F in the chat for bonnie. Hopefully they don't get stuck in puberty for hundreds of years.

[notbecauseofvictories]

there's something calming about reading blog posts from last year, and realizing that I was in this exact same headspace at the exact same time for very similar reasons (ie, the weather isn't great, I tend to want to stay inside which makes me unhappier, my company goes a little bit insane at the end of the fiscal year, etc.)

obviously it doesn't fix the feelings, and there are particular wrinkles unique to 2025 vs. 2024, but still....sometimes you have to sit back, take a deep breath, and acknowledge that February simply isn't your month.

[appleciders]

9 books i want to read in 2025, tagged by @grubbygrrrl!! thanks meera <3

i kind of cheated bc i'm already reading palo alto and tale for the time being, but i like both of them a lot so i hope i finish them!! como agua para chocolate is something i've been meaning to read since like, middle school, so i hope i finally take a crack at it. i need to get back on the reading in spanish train (the last couple i've cheated and audiobooked, which is not a cheating way to engage with a story but isn't helping my reading ability get back up to speed lol) and i want to ease into it. i love le guin, so the dispossesed i've also been meaning to read forever. heard so many good things about murderbot, too. and thank you to @explosionshark and @random-french-girl for some of these recs from your eoy posts, they sounded really cool!!

tagging you guys (briana and rfg) as well as @lukore @sshepardcommander @kchzndrvh @lesbianmarrow @dykerory @dykeydays @suchacomet @appleseedofdiscord @gohandinhand @masculinepeacock @little-alien-duck @mulchbird @fiddleabout @talaricula @dwarnian

[kay9leo]

finishing a book

I finished reading that book I got myself for Xmas two years ago and now I don't know what to do with my life anymore

(You all know what I mean, like when you finish a good TV series or movie and you just sit there thinking on your existence and the story you just saw/read and how epic it was. And now you are sad because the reading high is over.)

And now, this is me. I'm like:

[i-cast-zone-of-truth]

ok so i Did Say that Lois does not get queers because of Bel Thorne. But she DID ALSO make a five-god pantheon in which one of the gods presides over disasters, the overlooked, the unchampioned, and the gays. this god is called the Bastard. could not possibly be better

[icewindandboringhorror]

I'm so heavily anti-advertising that all pitches sound goofy silly to me/I can never take them seriously, so I have no idea how I'll manage to to advertise my game even if I do finally finish it soon-ish lol...

[pride-of-storm]

i was looking for a library book i put down somewhere stupid and in the process had to be like 'nope this is the Other sherlock-holmes-vs-jack-the-ripper book i have checked out right now'

[elizabethplaid]

Help! This AI book cover is hilariously awful. The weird proportions remind me of how people critique the ugly babies in Renaissance and older religious paintings.

[britneyshakespeare]

i finished the merry wives of windsor today btw. 4 shakespeare plays left to go

[thosetwofirefighters]

find the word challenge

rules: share snippets of your work containing each of the words the previous poster selected for you (optional addition: if you can't find the word in your WIPs, or you simply don't have any WIPs, you can just write a sentence around the word)

thanks @the-likesofus for the tag!! very excited to see how many of these words I've used...

my words are: quiet, hold, cover, first, together, and small. unsurprisingly, my fake dating au (currently sitting at almost 30k words like it has been for the past few months...) has all of these words multiple times lol <3

quiet

Buck’s phone rings, and he pulls it out of his pocket, his hands shaking when he reads Bobby’s contact name. He answers before he can even register it. “Pops?” His voice is quiet and terrified.

hold

Hearing footsteps from his spot on the couch, Buck tenses as Nathan comes up the stairs. It’s been so long, but Buck can still recognize the man’s footfalls. He lets out a breath he’d been subconsciously holding when Nathan finally appears and moves towards one of the armchairs across from him instead of the couch.

cover

“Jurassic Park!” Chris yells, and Buck has to cover his ears against the sound, the kid’s excitement causing him to be louder than usual. “Please, Dad, I know it’s kind of scary, but they just put it back on Netflix, and I’ve seen it before! Plus, I’m ten now, I won’t have nightmares!”

first

“I don’t want you to get hurt again,” Eddie says, meeting Buck’s gaze. His eyes are soft and despite his words, they shine with support, and Buck thinks—not for the first time—how lucky he is to have a best friend like Eddie.

together

Nathan’s study abroad had been nearly over when Buck brought up the idea of him going to Los Angeles to fight fires and help people. Nate had just nodded before taking Buck’s hand and kissing him, saying he’d buy the plane tickets in the morning. Buck had assumed they’d be going back together to be together.

small

Eddie glares at Chim when he insists on playing with the station’s small Hildy gadget that they keep in the kitchen. They mostly use it to play music, but Chimney takes the opportunity to ask her a bunch of questions throughout the day and only stops when Eddie threatens to run her over with a fire truck after Chimney starts asking her questions about the 118 themselves.

words for people I tag: home, care, love, make, and dream

no pressure tagging @mooshkat @jacksadventuresinwriting @ty-in-bedlam @lilbuddie <3

[liebgirl]

it’s crazy how women speak to each other so little on this show that kate and sun having one scene together feels like an oasis in the desert. do not get me wrong lost is fine with women it just does NOT pass the bechdel test most episodes unfortunately. nothing to be done we already got once upon a time out of it i wouldn’t ask for more. anyway. kate and sun 🫶

[drfrankendyke]

My summer reading list, in order.

[foxstens]

i wanna reread the books 😭😭😭

[cain-e-brookman]

Alright, I'm still working on Miss Butler's book, but my Libby library hold came in after......it was so long I forgot I placed the hold, let's say that. So my first square in @batmanisagatewaydrug's 2025 Book Bingo is IT LASTS FOREVER AND THEN IT'S OVER by Anne de Marcken. Full review is under the cut, but the tl;dr of it is, uh...

It was fucked up. It fucked me up. 5 stars.

So I've sat on this review for a minute because I truly don't know what to say. The story follows an undead, unnamed woman as she exists in the aftermath of the end of the world. The setting is your typical zombie apocalypse, but instead of the focus on a ragtag band of survivors, it shows the world through the afflicted. The book opens with the main character losing her arm. Already had me hooked.

The thing that makes this book stand out is it's refusal to hold solid. The main character can't remember her name. She can't remember the name of her dead partner. There's little to no description of other characters, nothing is explained concretely in terms of why or how. The lack of these details is so purposefully done. There are no answers. There aren't going to be. The author wants you feeling the emptiness left in those places.

Of all the themes in this book, the thing that struck me the hardest was the idea of the stagnation of grief. The main character can't move on, as there's nowhere for her to go. No way to heal. Highlighting this within the context of undeath, the author drives home, not the tragedy of not wanting to move on, but not being able to move on. This line in particular hit me hard:

But to be undead is to be superfluous, perpetual. The moon is always full. We dream without sleeping. We refuse to return to the earth.

Ultimately, this was a needle-sharp novella that leaves you on the cold shore at the end of the world while asking you what is left of us when we've lost all we love. And how much of ourselves is still connected with them, even without their names. The prose was haunting, the characters were gutting, and the whole thing has left me unsettled in the best kind of way. Highly recommend.