#i want to recommend it

[throesofincreasingwonder]

"A story doesn't need a theme in order to be good" I'm only saying this once but a theme isn't some secret coded message an author weaves into a piece so that your English teacher can talk about Death or Family. A theme is a summary of an idea in the work. If the story is "Susan went grocery shopping and saw a weird bird" then it might have themes like 'birds don't belong in grocery stores' or 'nature is interesting and worth paying attention to' or 'small things can be worth hearing about.' Those could be the themes of the work. It doesn't matter if the author intended them or not, because reading is collaborative and the text gets its meaning from the reader (this is what "death of the author" means).

Every work has themes in it, and not just the ones your teachers made you read in high school. Stories that are bad or clearly not intended to have deep messages still have themes. It is inherent in being a story. All stories have themes, even if those themes are shallow, because stories are sentences connected together for the purpose of expressing ideas, and ideas are all that themes are.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy one year anniversary to In Stars and Time!

[all-my-ocs-are-evil]

[insert poetic title here]

fun fact: this did not start out as isat fanart

(rambling in tags)

[heartorbit]

if we could stay connected, just like this

[mssoapart]

12 years later, welcome back, a show about a nerdy boy and an active girl running into mysteries and occult

[nopoodles]

The Story Graph is lovely from a reader/book tracking perspective but my gosh is it a nightmare as an indie author. Not a single one of my books has been imported automatically so far and Welcome To Humanity has missing publisher info (despite the fact that I gave every detail upon importing) AND only half a cover for some reason.

On Goodreads I have an author profile, which means I can update my own books. If I have a new cover or details to include or something gets messed up and I need to fix it, I can just do that. But on Storygraph, I'm stuck emailing them or filing a ticket (which I've already done 6+ months ago for WTH and it hasn't been updated yet. Do I do it again? Do I accept that the cover is forever gonna be half?)

I know I'm not a bestseller. I know my books aren't making a huge impact on the market. And I know I'm probably the only person checking my Storygraph page. But it's frustrating anyway because it leaves me in this awkward limbo where I tell people to look for my books on the Storygraph (especially since Amazon owns Goodreads) and my stuff isn't on there or it's only got bits and pieces.

Not to mention, if I add the book myself, manually, so the details are actually in there (not all of them, for some reason) it sticks a "user added" logo on it as if it's some unverified and therefore less valuable thing (dare I even call it a book).

This post brought to you by "I've tried importing my upcoming pirate book (Not The Fighting Kind) twice already today and despite the message that reads 'it can take up to a minute' it's still not on there!"

[lesbianwyllravengard]

I want more female characters who are just so bad at comforting others. Not for lack of trying or caring, they just get so so awkward when someone's upset, and they try to repeat things they've heard even if it doesn't necessarily apply to the situation, or they accidentally say the wrong thing and make it worse. If someone cries they panic and throw every single comfort technique down at once and it only helps because it's such bizarre behaviour

[nymphoutofwater]

Here's a remade masterpost of free and full shakespeare adaptations! Thanks @william-shakespeare-official for this excellent post. Unfortunately, a lot of the links in it are broken, so I thought I'd make an updated version (also I just wanted to organize things a bit more)

Anthony and Cleopatra: ~ Josette Simon, Antony Byrne & Ben Allen - 2017

As You Like It: ~ At Wolfe Park - 2013 ~ Kenneth Brannagh's - 2006

Coriolanus: ~ NYET Alumni - 2016 ~ Tom Hiddleston - 2014 ~ Ralph Fiennes - 2011

Cymbelline: ~ Michael Almereyda's - 2014

Hamlet: ~ David Tennant - 2009 ~ Ethan Hawke & Diane Venora - 2000 ~ Kenneth Branagh's - 1989 ~ BCC's Part One & Two - 1990 ~ Broadway - 1964 ~ Christopher Plummer - 1964 ~ Laurence Olivier's - 1948

Henry IV: ~ BBC's Part One & Two - 1989 ~ The Brussel's Shakespeare Society's - 2017

Henry V: ~ The BBC's - 1990 ~ Laurence Olivier's - 1944

Julius Caesar: ~ Phyllida Lloyd's - 2019 ~ The BBC's - 1979 ~ John Gielgud - 1970

King Lear: ~ The RSC's - 2008 ~ Laurence Olivier - 1983 ~ The BBC's - 1975 ~ James Earl Jones - 1974 ~ Orson Wells - 1953

Love's Labour's Lost: ~ Calvin University - 2016

Macbeth: ~ Antoni Cimolino & Shelagh O'Brien's - 2017 ~ Ian McKellen & Judi Dench - 1969 ~ Sean Connery - 1961

Measure for Measure: ~ Hugo Weaving - 2019 ~ The BBC's - 1990

The Merchant of Venice: ~ Al Pacino - 2004 ~ Trevor Nunn & Chris Hunt - 2001 ~ The BBC's - 1980 ~ Lawrence Olivier - 1973

The Merry Wives of Windsor: ~ The Royal Shakespeare Company's - 1982

A Midsummer Night's Dream: ~ Oliver Chris & Gwendoline Christie - 2019 ~ City of Columbus's - 2018 ~ Julie Taymor's - 2014 ~ The Globe's - 2013 ~ The BBC's - 1988 ~ Lindsay Duncan & Alex Jennings - 1986

Much Ado About Nothing: ~ Shakespeare in the Park - 2019 ~ David Tennant & Catherine Tate - 2011 ~ Kenneth Branagh - 1993 ~ The BBC's - 1984

Othello: ~ The BBC's Part One & Two - 1990

Richard II: ~ David Tennant - 2013 ~ Deborah Warner's - 1997 ~ The BBC's - 1978

Richard III: ~ Ian McKellen - 1995 ~ Laurence Olivier - 1955

Romeo and Juliet: ~ Simon Godwin's - 2021 ~ The BBC's - 1988 ~ Laurence Harvey & Susan Shentall - 1954

The Taming of the Shrew: ~ Ontario production? ~ American Conservatory Theater - 1976 ~ Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor - 1967 ~ Mary Pickford & Samuel Taylor - 1929

The Tempest: ~ Gregory Doran's - 2017 ~ The BBC's - 1988

Timon of Athens: ~ Barry Avrich's - 2024

Troilus and Cressida: ~ Audio Production ~ This one I found on youtube? - 2016

Titus Andronicus: ~ Anthony Hopkins - 1999

Twelfth night: ~ Texas Shakespeare Festival's - 2015 ~ Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright & Ralph Richardson - 1970

Two Gentlemen of Verona: ~ Katherine Steweart's - 2018 ~ The BBC's

The Winter's Tale: ~ Antony Sher - 1999 (Warning: they don't have a bear...)

Bonuses:

Time Loop Hamlet! (A personal fav of mine)

Rock Opera Hamlet???

Shakespeare animated tales

The Complete Works Of Shakespeare Abridged comedy

Romeo and Julieta: A Día de los Muertos Love Story

There’s also many other Latine Shakespeare adaptations listed in this archive

From the original post:

A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet.

Russian Hamlet here

Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern Macbeth retelling.

Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here.

This one is the Taming of the Shrew modern retelling.

The french Romeo & Juliet musical with English subtitles is here!

Here's the 1948 one,

the Orson Wells Othello movie with Portuguese subtitles there

A Lego adaptation of Othello here.

Here's commentary on David Tennant's Richard II

[plorpl]

Today I offer Tumblr real, undoctored screenshots from the House MD DS game, free of context:

Special awards go to:

"Would you still love me if I was a worm" core:

And my personal favorite, for all the omegaverse girlies out there:

EDIT: adding a link to my other post with more info on the game

[ciderjacks]

She’s the most like me

[spitedemon]

i really don’t think it’s “typical dragon age fandom nonsense” for people to be genuinely upset about the world state choices. combat, level design, art direction, gameplay gimmicks, those have all varied across each dragon age game. the one thing that’s remained constant are nods to our previous choices.

i wasn’t expecting my HoF to come riding in on a griffon, but i can’t find a monument dedicated to warden tabris somewhere around the anderfels? lucanis couldn’t have some lines about the time that one arainai boy was stirring up trouble in antiva city? you’re gonna tell me that making a mage the new divine wouldn’t have some impact on nevarra and antiva? on the anderfels, the supposed most devout militant andrastian nation in thedas? you’re saying nobody in the north is paying attention to who rules orlais or ferelden? come on.

[questwithambition]

Something incredibly satisfying about knowing your craft and the confidence that goes with it. Just the casual “yeah I could make that”. Want a band tee? Yeah I can embroider my own with the lyrics I want. Bridesmaid dress too long? Yeah I can hem it. Need new slippers? Yeah I can crochet a pair (and give them bunny ears). And of course it’s not perfect but nothing beats that feeling of being able to craft your own solution with your own two hands

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Ooh, you want to know what happens at the gay bar run by ex-pirates, ooh...You'll just have to read Tiger Tiger to find out...

(Inspired by this Disco Elysium comic)

[paintingpuff]

I'm late to the aro positivity party but thought I could shout out a manga I read this year, I Want to be a Wall!

It's about an aroace woman (who is really into BL) and a gay man being arranged into a marriage and how they navigate that, growing closer and kind of becoming a QPR.

The stuff that really got to me was the discussion of the woman's experience with her asexuality (and aromanticism though that isn't explicitly labeled), how it connects to her media tastes and the way people have hurt her in the past. It was all absolutely heartbreaking.

A fun detail I also like is how the pair act out romantic tropes (Gift of Magi style misunderstanding, paranoia about "cheating,"), but they are all done through a platonic context.

(Ex. Even though they're not in romantic love, he still feels upset at the idea of losing their bond, or her getting hurt by someone he doesn't know.)

There's not too many chapters of it out, unfortunately (only like two volumes), but the ones I read are very enjoyable and I'd love to put this on other people's radar!

(btw, I got this manga rec from this video, and there's more in it!)

Asexual Manga and their Powerful Visibility

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=urXrwYmMdgA

[sugarsaltreading]

"I Want to Stare" from SAL: Stories About Love, a short story collection by Sal Jiang

in recent years i've noticed Sal Jiang becoming a rising star of sorts among yuri enthusiasts, probably in no small part due to the TV adaptation of Ayaka Is in Love with Hiroko. Sal Jiang is well-known for her OL stories and- what seems to be her favorite character type- female characters with pretty faces and twisted personalities, but one of the most notable characterstics of her work, imo, is her unique and varied character designs, and that includes her use of different body types. I Want To Stare is the most notable in this regard because of the main character, Saho

I Want To Stare is by far one of Sal Jiang's most "gentle" stories, but that doesn't make it toothless. it really stands out to me in how Saho feels about her body and how others behave around her- the reader never sees her face outright mistreatment. if anything it's the exact opposite; pretty much everyone seems to adore her... but that's its own kind of weird, isn't it? in her own words, people treat her like a "mascot," something "soothing" for them to cuddle and fawn over, but not treat like a person

this is why she's so adamant that Kenji's constant flirting attempts are just him attempting to tease her- a "mascot" can be adored and doted on, but not desired. as it turns out, Kenji does desire her, but sadly, he still treats her like a "mascot," talking over her and grabbing hold of her, treating her like an object and almost showing her off, assuming she reciprocates his feelings before she even opens her mouth

it's a subtle story and a subtle character arc, but Saho ultimately does change, finding the courage to assert herself and not let others treat her like a toy. and in doing so, she's able to connect with someone who is capable of both desiring her and seeing her as a person

[captainsparklefingers]

*shows up fourteen years late to Tumblr with very cold Starbucks* So that Sherlock show is pretty good, huh!