#really really good read

[ask-theredcrown]

Hey Narinder, got any story suggestions?

(Same with mod? If that's okay?)

"The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is an interesting one, it's short, you can finish it in a day, but it's so worth it."

[shtish]

Okay so I broke my "no buying books until you've at least read all the ones you own physically" last Thursday. One of the books that I broke the rule with was "Nettle and Bone" by T. Kingfisher aka @tkingfisher aka @ursula-vernon. To my great pleasure, I realized I still got it. I can still read more than 300 pages in a single day and finish a book.

I've read a bunch of her short stories over the years, and I return to "Summer in Orcus" about once every summer, drinking it in greedily since I no longer have to wait for the next chapter to be released. I was always vibrating with excitement when they dropped. And now I own a physical book! And it's not Summer, but it's Marra and her Bonedog and the dust-wife and Fenris and Agnes and the demon chicken whom I love and would probably rather not have as a pet, if only because I'm sure she'd laugh at me when I did something silly. Then again, maybe it's good to have someone else to laugh with you when you're silly. I usually do anyway, but it might be good to add a chuckled cluck as an extra undertone, you know?

Anyway, all of this is to say that it was a delightful read. Ursula Vernon's storytelling is so quintessentially hers, somehow. It sounds silly to say it that way, but that's the simplest way to say it. Her voice is so strong and lovely and so dry sometimes, and it leaves my heart laughing.

It's good, is what I'm meaning to say, in so many words. I'm keeping this one on the shelf, and I'm giving it the spot with the favorites, and some others will have to scoot. I'm running out of shelf space either way. I can't wait to have a home of my own so I can get the biggest book case and give every book the place it deserves.

Okay. That's all I've got, I think. I'm heading off to bed.

Go read "Nettle and Bone". And feed your chickens and bone dogs.

[breathlesslee]

[ciderbird]

academic bias is so funny because you’ll be reading about the same historical event and one person is like “Despite the troubles that befell his homeland and near constant criticism of the court King Blorbo remained strong in the face of adversity” and the other one is like “after letting his people carry the brunt of his cringefail decisions Blorbo the Shitface refused to listen to any reason and continued to be a warmongering piece of shit. Also he was ugly.”

[torybrennan]

everyone come look at this fucking AITA post i just saw

[valtsv]

my main advice for writing an enemies to lovers relationship is to resist the urge to make the characters' loathing and attraction mutually exclusive opposing forces. it's okay if they're getting weirdly into it and having Thoughts whilst also sincerely wanting to kill each other with hammers.

[blanketforcas]

i think what saves me from a lot of discourse is that i'm simply Not Reading All That

[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.

[autumn-may]

Mostly spoiler free summary of my viewing experience

[ronanlynchbf]

tshirt that says NO LIVE ORGANISM CAN CONTINUE FOR LONG TO EXIST SANELY UNDER CONDITIONS OF ABSOLUTE REALITY

[thatskindarough]

“‘I just…I thought you might like to come back, one day,’ Crowley said very quietly. Aziraphale’s foot pressed against his again, and Crowley drew in a sudden breath, as if he hadn’t been breathing properly since Aziraphale had stopped touching him.”

This piece was a commission from the lovely @fellshish for their lovely friend, @alphacentaurinebula ‘s fic What Are You Doing Here? This fic is cute, funny, heartwarming, and incredibly spicy, and I’m very much looking forward to finishing it! Thank you Fells for being wonderful to work with, and happy (belated) birthday to you Alphacentauri, I’m very happy I could do this for you!

[catmask]

sometimes while i think about that while a lot of adults did not treat me very well as a kid i also get a lot of 'in hindsight this person was so good to me and i didnt even realize it until now' as an adult. today i was thinking about how the first anime convention i ever went to was when i was 10 and i asked the man working the manga cafe what manga was/what a good place to start was (because the con was very overstimulating for me and i had gotten lost) and he asked how old i was before recommending yotsuba and asking if i wanted any water or something to eat. its really simple but theres a lot of bad things that couldve happened or he could've been careless in his recommendation, but instead yotsuba has remained one of my favorite manga for years, and probably a large portion of why i continue to read manga as an adult... i think adults who try to involve kids in the world safely/kindly even in little ways make so much more of a difference than they ever really know.

[auden-dahn]

"D-Don't worry about me! Focus on helping the little one, okay?" 🌠 panel redraw of @laikascomet

[beybuniki]

they should go on a fishing trip pt.1

[and-corn]

just like riding a bike

(part 3 of this comic)

[ale-arro]

been going a little bit insane about this sentence from Ace by Angela Chen for the past week