#please go and read the books

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[the-broken-quill]

Season Headcanons for the Small Magics gang

Spring // Thomas Flarety: I think there isn't a better season to assign to Thomas than spring. Spring not only signals a conclusion (the end of winter), but new beginnings (the start of spring, duh), and I think this symbolism works really well with Thomas. It's kind of hard to put into words, and I think you'll only really understand what I mean if you read the books yourself (shameless plug here: GO READ THE DAMN BOOKS, THEY'RE PHENOMENAL). Thomas Flarety is everything and nothing all at once: he's the son of a merchant in this small town who's gets fucked over astronomically by an entire religious institution and then becomes the sole target of said institution for literal YEARS and is only able to fight back because he can see (and use) magic. Aside from that, he's also just an aspiring student with a thirst for knowledge and a love for old books just trying to make his family proud. Did that explain anything? Yes and No. TL;DR: Thomas Flarety is spring, try and change my mind.

Summer // George Gobhann: While it might seem like the most contradictory, I think summer fits well with George if you squint hard enough. George, to me, is the stereotypical 'tough guy/brawn over brains' kind of guy who uses brute force or physical action to solve his problems (I mean, he did punch a guy so hard he died in the first book so...). He maintains this kind of, guarded and stoic front for most of the series until the final book where his walls start crumbling and everyone is able to see the full extent of just how everything that happened has impacted him. I think assigning the season of summer to George also kind of draws attention to the fact that he kind of comes full circle; it's summer when Thomas returns home and meets Bishop Malloy, which is what sets off the events of the series, and it's summer (I believe) when everything gets "resolved" (don't quote me on this, I might need to re-read the series again).

Autumn // Eileen Gobhann: She's got red hair and a fiery personality to match, which I think works well with the overall visual aesthetic of autumn; the trees start changing around this time of year and I think pairing the season of the harvest is appropriate for Eileen. While everyone in the gang changes dramatically throughout the series, I think Eileen is the one who changes the most, and in the most ways as well. Based on the social/cultural norms of the time period in which the books are meant to be set (I always thought of them as being like, slightly medieval/fantasy era-esque), Eileen experiences the most radical change and I think that aspect of her character development coincides the best with the shock of fall when you step outside one day and all the trees are swathed in fiery golden hues. There's a lot more I could say about her character overall because she's really just fantastic, but I do want to keep these (relatively) short.

Winter // Henry Antonius: He's the son of the Duke of Frostmire, so while I might normally assign him to summer, and George to winter jut based on their personalities, in terms of actual character I feel like winter is more fitting for Henry. As much as he is a flirtatious bastard, Henry is tough and resilient. He's able to keep a cool and level head in unexpected situations, and he's incredibly smart. At the same time, though, he also exhibits the same playful lightheartedness that comes with the winter season; I can definitely picture him getting into some gnarly (and also extremely competitive) snowball fights. He's also just a cool guy (pun absolutely intended) in that he's kind of that stereotypical “everyone wants me” popular guy. He'd be like, the hot love interest in a shonen anime, I think; he's handsome, wealthy, intelligent, and good with a sword. If you overlook his drinking habits, he's a total catch! What more could anyone ask for?

[riant-draws]

@bapple117's fic The Theraprist is PEAK LITERATURE

(in which we do a little trolling and a lot of therapy- if you're into fluffy hurt/comfort with a good helping of angst, this fic is for you)

[dragonsbluee]

I need everyone to acknowledge the fact that KRS!Cale is a MASSIVE bookworm. He's able to thrive in Birth of a hero because he read it and enjoyed it. (yesyes record helps him, but you can't ignore the fact that he knows the characters, not just the plot. That comes from liking the thing you're reading!)

Give me the young master spending his afternoons reading under the shade of a tree with a new book series and absolutely devouring it in one sitting. He's missed being able to read a whole series and not having to hunt for the next books through a destroyed city.

Give me Cale with a little notebook full of books he'd like to read, the titles collected from the people he talks to. He'll read anything or at least try it out, but fantasy remains his favourite genre.

He also writes little opinion blurbs for his favourtie books, or jots down quotes and favourite lines. Sure his record ability means that he doesn't really have to, but it's an old habit he enjoys.

Cale, who starts collecting books on his travels, just one or two from every place he visits. His friends and allies pick up on this and start bringing him books they think he'd like. Cale has a very speicifc and rare smile when someone gifts him a book. Its small, but it somehow takes over his entire face, and you can almost see his eyes sparkle in delight. It quickly becomes a smile everyone looks forward to.

Cale, who never turns down a book given as a gift, and so he starts picking up bits of knowledge from across the continent. He learns about the edible plants in the Jungle, the different variations of marble and stone throughout the Roan Kingdom, the fables and myths of the Dark Elves. He keeps them on a shelf in his room in the super rock villa, and every once in a while, the kids pick one to have read to them. When the shelf is full, Eruhaben pulls some out from his hoard as a gift to Cale. They're almost too gaudy, but Eruhaben enchants them to protect the books from dust, damage, and pests. Cale spends an entire day reorganizing his collection.

He never thought he would be able to build his own personal library, but here he is.

Cale loves to compare the books he has in this world and the ones he knew before. Sometime in the future, he sits down and uses record to copy out his favourite series. He gifts it to Choi Han so he can have a small piece of home he never got to experience.

It becomes known that the best way to get Cale to stop and actually take a break is to plop a kid on his lap and give him a book he's been looking forward to. One year for his birthday, Alberu gives Cale free rein to explore the palace's secret library. They find him curled up in a corner a couple hours later surrounded by stacks of books.

Cale is 100% the type of person to insist that more libraries should be available to the public so that he can read easily when travelling to different places. It's definetly not because he wants more kids to be able to learn how to read, and he was able to grow into loving books because of his local library.

[egophiliac]

CROWLEY SSR THOUGHTS

there is zero basis for this, but I can't get this thought of my head

I don't know why I decided to draw it this way

[rvieskie]

girls just wanna have fun an academic year with a ridiculously small class that might be considered essentially a cult in a field that’s tragically pretentious and consists of only the best of the best - the elite in their particular field where everyone is hot, evil and gay, everyone fucks everyone but they all hate eachother and hurt eachother yet are bound together with this inexplicable need and entanglement up in eachother, someone prophecized to die, power and knowledge driving each of them to a state of madness, found family in a sense but the family is fucked up and the chemistry and connection between all of them is so bright that it might burn all of them alive and they’d be happy to burn because this was the precipice they were reaching for anyways, so much power and so much obsession and so much passion and mania with the academia and even more so eachother and they fuck eachother up and fix eachother all at once and ohmygod GIVE ME IT

[chechula]

Atreyu and Falcor wish you the best birthday, from the sea of grass @yonetee ♥

[chalkrub]

identity-stealing newt found dead in miami - very sad, very canon

say mean things on my art celebrating an underappreciated book series by an illustrator i love and i WILL badly draw your favourite character in the family guy death pose

[perfectlynormalbooks]

One-volume binding of Shimeji Simulation, one of my favorite mangas of all time. Folio size, Polar Duo, metallic silver HTV + case (with a little hole so you can see the girls being tender together 💙)

I made this one for a friend who mentioned that he'd be interested in reading the manga, but preferred to read manga in physical form. There's no licensed English translation OR print run of this, so I decided to make my own - I downloaded the Orchesc/a/ns translation/scan on MangaDex, compiled it all into a single volume, and reversed the PDF page order before imposing it into signature-form, so it can be read right-to-left, as intended! The edge art is hand-drawn by me, meant to mimic those geometric doodles that show up throughout the story. Hand-sewn headbands, to pull it together! And a little mushroom + fish charm bookmark, because OBVIOUSLY!

Fun fact: this is the first book I've ever bound that's been too chunky to fit in my home guillotine. It was nearly too big for my bookpress, too - but only nearly.

[hualianschild]

saw this on my tl and oh op is so right

credits to @/melondenden on X

[nashvillethotchicken]

A lot of people in the iwtv Fandom regurgitate antiblack talking points particularly wrt Louis being femme/effeminate/gnc and it's genuinely so disgusting like no, Louis is not making his partners engage in domestic labor when they participate in the businesses and investments they are partial owners of. No, Louis is not being the patriarch of rue royale when lestat leaves the house after beating Louis within an inch of his life. No Louis is not "masculine for his culture" especially when compared to other black men in the same time period. People will actively ignore canon to make Louis into this hypermasculine black brute and Lestatr or armand into these shrinking violets that are oppressed by Louis when he's not that at all. The only times he's ever acted even close to that stereotype is to assimilate into a white supremacist society that expected that of him in order for him to earn a living and to please Armand, which causes him great distress and visibly worsens his mental health to the point of Louis lashing out at Claudia and being so entirely numb that he self harms. Louis is not this hypermasculine black brute and a lot of people try to make him into one bc of unconscious bias surrounding black people (black people have been stereotyped as hypermasculine, angry, overly violent and sexual deviants since the 1700s) or to absolve their non black favs of the actual patriarchal and oppressive violence they enact on Louis and Claudia or a combination of the two. It's disgusting, do better

[welcometogrouchland]

Disgustingly messy and crusty sketch dump but I couldn't get my own terrible theory out of my head and ended up making a bunch of sketches about it. Also at the end a bonus dickbats and Damian doodle bc I was reading an issue of their Batman and Robin run (IDs in Alt)

[iceagebaby]

obsessed with @mudpuddless king halt au, ive been thinking a lot

crowley is in denyal, he is just hibernian RIGHT?

i also have some skeches of halt in regal clothing, but im not a fan of them, and i cant find accurate irish royal clothing to use as reference, what i drew was just making it up as i go

[julijbee]

girlbossing too close to the sun.

[subconscious-deactivated20230229]

If anyone out there sees my blog, no the fuck you don’t.

[elizabethzoopzoop986]

IT WAS FORESHADOWING