#how did this get published

[leserattevirginie]

Me: ooh, I haven't checked in on that comic in a while, let me see what's new!

The comic on that same day: How about 34 pages of highly suggestive fanservice!!! 😃

...no but really, what kind of feverdream did I just read 😂 (not that I'm complaining).

☆ Vague spoilers below the cut ☆

First, I don't think I've ever come across this kind of fanservice where the subject is male, so that was a nice change for once.

Also, I know Sergey's intense frown is supposed to be connected to psychotic intrusive thoughts about lasers, but this still made me giggle

Second, I'll just say that I certainly appreciate this incredibly subtle lighting:

And third: I probably won't be able to look at champagne glasses the same way again - at least for a while. Unless I am wrong about what's implied here... I doubt that 😅 but judge for yourselves:

Now this miiiiight be totally innocent but...come on 🤣 especially in combination with all the threesome jokes.

(Also I'm still haunted by that blowjob ouroboros thing from earlier this year, I'll put nothing past them)

And the hair. My god, the hair 🤣. On both of them! Sergey looks absolutely fabulous of course, but Oleg with slightly longer hair is also nice!

[hyenagurl]

ive been rereading stephen king’s IT and its uhhh kind of a nightmare. he describes beverly’s breasts every time she’s in a scene. literally. every time she appears. whether shes 11 or 32. i fucking hate this book

[maddenikaris]

The luminaries series is one of the worst book series I have ever read holy shit

[ogwnostalgia]

Video Review: With Teeth by Kevin Kangas (aka Don't Stick Your Dick in That: The Book)

This book is the sleaziest, most misogynistic, poorly-thought out garbage-covered nightmare I've read in a while, so . . . enjoy! See if you can spot the exact moment this book broke me and sucked my will to live! It'll be fun, I promise!

This book is the sleaziest, most misogynistic, poorly-thought out garbage-covered nightmare I’ve read in a while, so . . . enjoy! See if you can spot the exact moment this book broke me and sucked my will to live! It’ll be fun, I promise!

[thereadingmoon]

the best plot twists of the locked tomb are when it unapologetically fucks genre over and over again—it’s a fantasy story in a sci-fi setting, it’s a whodunnit meets battle royale, it’s a coming-of-age romance at the forefront of a colonial imperialist dystopia, it’s a psychological thriller and a ghost story bubbling in a stew of homosexuality and queerness, it’s a ball of literature references wrapped around memes and pop culture, it’s a slice of life in a cake of political intrigue, and turns out it’s ultimately a climate fiction horror story on steroids

[corntired]

Fanfiction is so goated actually

No monetary incentive, just writing in one's free time. Some incentive for like kudos and comments, because who doesn't want to hear that someone else enjoyed what they wrote. Just writing a story that is good and/or enjoyable, no real-life pressure to keep it going because god forbid you and other people are depending on it financially.

Writing a story because you want to write a good story, so you can write what they want the way you want, at a pace that is realistic for you, with exactly the plot pacing you want there to be.

[demigod-of-the-agni]

This is what happens when you complete the "Remembering the Past" quests immediately after you're accused of murder

[silentwalrus1]

if i have to read one more published fantasy book that uses irl memes and online vernacular in its dialogue i’m taking away the toys until y’all can learn to respect yourselves. Not only does it break immersion in your world and detract from your characters having their own voices, it also makes you, the author, seem like a dim parrot incapable of neither original thought nor basic understanding of the passage of time

1) due to the timeline of publishing, any meme included will automatically be hopelessly dated by the time the story reaches readers and

2) it’s literally the same thing Ready Player One did. Hey look i’m pointing at a thing in pop culture. Did you get my reference? Did you get it? Let me list some more colors and shapes you recognize. Did you get it? And then Gideon Nav hit the dab or whatever. Hashtag Relatable!

It’s so painfully unfunny and uncompelling every time. We can do better. Apply some creativity to your own work

[lemongogo]

just thought of stamps treatment of elendira again ..no .. NOO

[tennessoui]

I'm begging on my hands and knees for more Twilight au, and those are words I never thought I'd say! Anakin being able to resist compulsion, and Obi-Wan seeming instantly obsessed, and poor Shmi! Pretty please 🥺🙏

hey!! sure! here's some more!

(2.5k)

Having a sheriff for a mom sucked a lot when he was a kid growing up in a small town. There was probably nothing Anakin was rebelling against more at eleven, at thirteen, at seventeen than the rule of law his mother represented. 

All things considered, she was pretty good at separating her home life from her worklife. It was Anakin who was bad at respecting the separation, Anakin who couldn’t keep son out of delinquent.  There’s only so many times he could be pulled out of wreckage and bars and buildings with Keep Out No Trespassing signs on them before he got The Sheriff at home and out in public.

He’d hated it growing up and had come to grudgingly respect it later and in fits and starts. His dad dying had, terribly and ironically, helped a lot. His mother had had a stroke just before and then Anakin had been faced with the possibility of being an orphan, and the terror of that had mellowed him out.

Sorta.

He still hates a lot of things about his mother’s job. Especially the fact that she’s the sheriff of a very small town.

And when people talk, she listens.

The thing about small towns is that everyone’s always fucking talking. And other people are always fucking lsitening so they can talk later. One big fucking community, which means when Anakin comes home from his weird doctor’s appointment with Dr. Kenobi, a few hours later because he took a detour biking along the edge of the seaside cliffs just to spit in the good doctor’s metaphorical face, Shmi Skywalker already knows more than Anakin ever planned to tell her.

Like, for instance, “Sheila says that Dr. Kenobi thought it would behoove you to spend some time at the local library volunteering.”

Anakin pauses, backpack half-slung off his shoulders. He hangs his stuff up slowly, careful to keep his tone very light. “Did Sheila say what I told him after he said that?” 

His mom’s silence is very loud.

“I don’t want to do i—”

“I asked the new librarian about it on my way home from the station. She thinks it’s a wonderful idea. Apparently we used to have a program like that in the forties but it died out during the war.”

“Mom, come on—”

“It’ll look good on resumes, saying you created and supported a local reading program.”

“Yeah, but I’m a bit too old to be applying for babysitting positio—”

“It’ll look good for me as well,” Shmi says in her sheriff voice. “Elections are coming up soon. It’ll be good, if my kid was involved in the community.”

Anakin’s glad that his back is still turned to the living room, where his mom is sitting. “Are you gonna run again?” he asks, paying special attention to his tone this time.

“Why wouldn’t I?” his mom replies. “I’ve been sheriff for a decade and a half.”

Anakin lets his eyes fall closed for a second, knowing that his face can’t be seen. This is how they end up half the time: Shmi’s ardent belief that she is invincible, going up against Anakin’s desperate desire for her to be so.

And they just don’t talk about it. As if they’re actually in agreement.

He knows how this is going to shake out.

“Do you have any plans tomorrow?” His mother asks.

Anakin’s eyes remain closed. “I guess so,” he says.

—--------

Mrs. Kenobi—call me Satine—is sort of scary up close. She’s tall. She glides between bookshelves. Anakin’s never met someone who glides before. And she’s so intensely, incredibly, blindingly perfect that Anakin would rather be anywhere but in her vicinity. There’s something incredibly unnerving about the symmetry of her face, the sharpness of her cheekbones. She’s obviously an absolute knock-out, just drop-dead gorgeous, but it makes Anakin’s skin crawl and his heart beat fast, but not in a good way or a normal teenage boy way.

Anakin tries to keep the unease off his face as Satine leads him through a tour of the library, a gentle hand on his forearm. That’s another thing Anakin doesn’t really like. She’s wearing satin gloves. He doesn’t know anyone who wears gloves anymore.

It’s just all a bit…unsettling.

“I put in a few words around the school yesterday afternoon,” Satine tells him. They pass by the mystery section, the fantasy section, and take a hard right into the young adult section. The shelves are smaller here, and Anakin feels rather stupidly gigantic as he and Satine walk through them. “To some parents picking their children up after school. They agreed it would be good exposure to bring them to the library for an hour or so of reading before supper.”

Anakin highly doubts it will be, but Satine hasn’t really asked him.

She sweeps past his figure and pushes open a pair of double doors with a flourish better suited for a Russian tsarina hosting an elaborate ball than a small town librarian showing off a small, cramped, and dusty room filled with padded seats and threadbare rugs.

And then, as if she has been waiting to put the last nail in the proverbial coffin, Satine adds, “A few students from the local high school will be here as well.”

“Sorry,” Anakin says, “are you saying I’m going to be reading to high school students? Can’t they do that themselves?”

After all, Anakin went to high school here. Academics hadn’t been too rigorously challenging, but they’d taught the fucking basics.

Satine raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow in his direction. “They’ll be volunteering as well.”

Oh. Right.

“It looks good on their college applications,” Satine waves a hand through the air and the words linger there. Anakin looks out the rather dirty window, jaw clenching. “I’ve already chosen a handful of books I think the young ones will enjoy.”

Anakin, committed to his fate, pads over to the titles placed carefully ontop of a short, stout side table. 

“Peter the Rabbit,” he reads off the top. “Peter Pan. Alice in Wonderland. Treasure Island. The Prince and the Pauper—look, you’re the librarian here, but don’t you have anything written this century maybe? Harry Potter, even.”

“These are classics,” Satine tells him, her nose raised into the air as if she has encountered something particularly foul-smelling. She turns away, presumably to return to the front desk so she can welcome half the fucking town inside the library so Anakin can read them fucking Anne of Green Gables and become a better person.

“These are fucking boring,” he mutters to himself, flicking the cover of the first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz open. Publication date: 1900. “I’d rather be in Kenobi’s office getting lectured at.”

There’s a sharp noise of disapproval from the doorway, and Anakin’s head snaps up to see the tail end of a very heated look from the librarian before the door closes behind her.

He shivers, alone in the emply room, and it takes several long minutes for his heart to settle back into its normal pace. 

—----------

After the fourth kid sneezes, Anakin closes his book with a snap and stands from the very small chair they’ve got him sitting on. “Come on,” he tells the cluster of children he’s been assigned to. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Are you kidnapping us?” One of them, a snot-nosed kid who’d started the sneezing says, rubbing at her cheek beneath her glasses. “Cause mommy says that’s not allowed.”

“I’m not kidnapping you,” Anakin snaps back, barely holding in his natural follow-up to the sentence which is of course, I don’t want to be around any of you in the first place. “Also, just for future reference, you shouldn’t ask if someone’s kidnapping you after you already start following them.”

The girl scowls and reaches up her hand to hold onto Anakin’s. 

For the love of Christ.

“We’re just going to go into the main part of the library,” Anakin tells his children, all six of them. “They have windows out there.”

They have windows out there and they also have parents. Parents who absolutely should be doing other things with their lives and precious hour of extra freetime.

Parents who are clustered instead around the library’s front desk as the town’s newest librarian holds court.

“Is reading time over?” one of the kids asks him, turning his head to look up at Anakin.

Anakin thinks about it. “Do you want reading time to be over?”

The kid thinks about it back. “Yeah,” he decides. “You don’t do the voices good.”

“It’s a boring book,” Anakin tells the kid. “Voices aren’t going to make it better.”

“Voices always make it better,” another kid says. “They make everything better.”

“Oh look,” Anakin says. “Is that your father?”

He gestures vaguely towards the cluster of drooling middle-aged somethings focused on Satine.

The kid peeks around his thigh and then shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That’s Dr. Obi.”

“Dr. Obi!” The kid holding Anakin’s hand says, and she lets go.

Anakin gets a bad feeling about this, a feeling that only doubles when he turns around to see Dr. Kenobi sauntering towards him, hands tucked into the pockets of a long dark jacket that makes him look even more pale than he already is.

He scowls automatically as the man gets closer. “Dr. Obi.”

Dr. Kenobi spares him a look that’s far too amused for Anakin’s pleasure before he crouches down to the level of the kids. “Hello there, young ones,” he says, opening his arms to accept a hug from the traitor of a girl Anakin’s just spent thirty minutes reading to. “Are you eating all your vegetables? Even the brussel sprouts?”

“I like brussel sprouts,” one of the kids reports sounding proud, and that starts a cacophony of opinions about brussel sprouts from all around Anakin.

“Wow! One of mine just absolutely hates them,” Dr. Kenobi says. “She refuses to eat them, so you’re very brave, Michele.” He lets go of the girl and turns his golden-brown gaze up to Anakin. “And what does Mr. Skywalker think?” he asks, raising a hand for Anakin to take. It’s very obvious he’s asking for a hand up and Anakin is obeying before he thinks about it. He snatches his hand free almost too soon, but Dr. Kenobi doesn’t even have the grace to lose his balance and fall over. 

His hand is like ice in Anakin’s, and Anakin stuffs his fingers into the pocket of his jacket automatically a second later.

“Do brussel sprouts help with circulation?” he’s biting out before he can stop himself. “Cause you may need some then.”

Kenobi’s head tilts very slightly to the side as his eyes catch and hold onto Anakin’s. “Oh?” he asks lightly. 

“You’re cold,” is all Anakin mutters in return. He swipes his other hand against the back of his neck. “”S poor circlutation, isn’t it? Something in your diet maybe?” Dr. Kenobi blinks at him and then breaks into a wide smile. “I can assure my diet is very…circulation-mindful,” he says. “Blood health positive.”

Anakin’s mouth thins into a line. He guesses that’s what he gets for trying to give health advice to a doctor, especially a doctor like Kenobi who just so happens to be devastatingly attractive and also smart.

And also an asshole. And also married.

Speaking of which. “Are you here to fend off your wife’s admirers with a scalpel?” Kenobi’s eyebrows raise. “Young ones,” he turns his head away from Anakin, down to the children.

The strangest feeling breaks of Anakin the second Kenobi looks away, almost as if a strange pressure he hadn’t even realized had been building was suddenly dissolved.

The very small beginnings of a headache begin to thrum in his temples.

“Young ones, it’s time to find your parents, isn’t it?” Kenobi says, and like fucking magic, the crowd of six children around Anakin disperse, children swarming away from him towards the group of adults surrounding the front desk.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Anakin blurts out, even though he’d meant to ignore Kenobi now that he doesn’t have to make nice in front of small kids. Not that he was really making nice in the first place. But now he definitely doesn’t have to.

Kenobi gives him a half-smile, eyes heavy-lidded. “It’s a special sort of skill that takes, above all else, much practice.”

Anakin scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Does Kenobi think he can’t commit himself to something even as mundane as a fucking commanding persona? Does he think he doesn’t have it in him to be–-

Kenobi’s eyebrows go up again. “Has anyone ever told you that you are exceedingly defensive?” 

“You’re extremely nosey,” Anakin snaps back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t you have better things to focus on right now anyway?”

He gestures loosely towards Satine, who has started playing with one of the mother’s bracelets as the other woman stands and looks at her rather dumbfounded.

Kenobi follows his gaze and then lets out a huff of laughter. “Satine can take care of herself,” he says, even though it hadn’t really been Satine that Anakin was worried about.

He’s about to open his mouth to say so when Kenobi turns back to him. His eyes are piercing, a dark, captivating sort of gold. 

“Do you find my wife beautiful, Anakin?” he asks.

Anakin blinks. His headache is getting worse, which is probably down to what can only be a trick-question fashioned to look like a grenade lobbed at his feet. “I don’t think there’s a good answer to that,” he mutters, rubbing absently at his forehead. “What the fuck.”

“An honest answer is a good one,” Kenobi says lightly. “Tell me honestly.”

The words feel pulled from Anakin’s stomach, and he’s opening his mouth before he realizes it. “No,” he says. 

Kenobi’s eyebrows crinkle together. “No?”

Anakin curses his stupid impulse control. “She’s beautiful,” he adds quickly. “Really. But…it makes me uncomfortable.”

Kenobi’s lips purse, and then there’s something like disappointment in his eyes as he examines Anakin. “Ah yes,” he murmurs. “I’ve been told my wife can make countless young men feel rather uncomfortable. It’s normal in men your age, Anakin. Sexual ar—”

“Uncanny,” Anakin blurts out. He doesn’t mean to, but he also doesn’t want to listen to  Kenobi trying to lecture him on fucking arousal in the public library. When it’s not even relevant. “She’s so beautiful, it’s uncanny.”

“Uncanny.”

“Yeah, like. Monstrous.”

Kenobi’s mouth falls open, pink lips parted in what looks like honest surprise.

Anakin’s own eyes widen as it hits him that he’s just called Kenobi’s wife a monster to Kenobi’s face.

“Shit,” he says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m going to go.” 

He throws a look at Kenobi, whose eyes are lit with something a lot like interest and then across the library to where Satine’s head is turned, cocked, and eyebrows up high on her forehead, as if she’s just heard everything he’s said.

He decides rather immediately that he’s going to take the backdoor exit.

[2129888]

i don't remember how i stumbled across this interview but i've never seen anyone mention it so i'm dropping it here <3 it's a little dated but still like super valuable and a decently in depth look at higuchi-sensei's previous works and how she works and thinks as a mangaka... personally i think it's the most i've ever learned from an interview of hers. super interesting stuff :0)

[jackfrostimposter]

genuinely why is there so much misinformation about the guardians of childhood book series?

[13reasonstoeatthatcake]

I really want to know how Lilith Sorrengail feels about trying her best to get her youngest daughter away from whatever it was that her dad supposedly found in the Archives after Brennan 'died', just to get said daughter even more involved with the tyrrish rebellion two: electric boogaloo.

[uncanny-tranny]

When I find it hard to do certain things, I like to pretend I am a neanderthal living in a cave with my clan, and I must do The Thing in order to survive.

So, when I'm doing cardio at the gym, I'm actually chasing and tracking a mammoth, and when I need to cook, well, I'm not cooking on a stove top, I am hurdled over the first fire and watching the fat of our kill drip down onto the burning wood. And when I find it hard to crochet, I pretend that the first winter storm is coming and our clan needs me to make blankets to hurdle under and that I must contribute.

I hope whatever you do to do The Things will help. It is a uniquely personable trait to motivate yourself through pretend and stories. That's what makes this life interesting - that's what makes you feel larger than yourself 💛

[up-in-flames-writing]

In lieu of Stuff Your Kindle day, can we talk about the issue of how the m/m genre of books, romance or not, is almost entirely dominated by women? Can we talk about how the most recognisable gay couples in media are written by women? Can we talk about how queer men can't even write about ourselves, how we are only allowed to exist when it's from the point of view of a straight woman sexualising us?

Can we talk about that? Or am I going to get called misogynistic for pointing out the disparity between who gets the writing deals, & who gets their books turned into movies, & whose shit gets popular versus whose doesn't? Can we talk about how m/m fiction is only allowed when it appeals to a cishet gaze, or is that too much for tumblr to take?

Can we also talk about how trans queer men are even more hated by publishing? Can we talk about how we get shit from both sides? Can we talk about how books about the experiences of being a queer man, written by queer men, never get the same recognition as books written by women on this subject (barring academia which has its own problems)?

Can we talk about that? Can we?

[fictionadventurer]

"If the structure of your world ever evaporates, I will still be here."

I think The Q might contain one of the greatest declarations of friendship/love ever.