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#and i know how much you love ocean vuong and i love him too so this is hopefully nice <3
comradekatara · 3 days
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what genres of music do you think the gaang would listen to? what about some of their favorite artists? i think katara would be a big olivia rodrigo fan and that aang would listen to a lot of taylor swift lol
aw come on now be nice to aang. he would have better taste than THAT. i think he would listen to a lot of disco, like donna summer. he would like upbeat funky music that you can dance to. and he’d have a pretty eclectic and varied music taste. like i see him also loving joanna newsom (and not just because divers is about his life). and maaayyybe he’d listen to taylor swift, like one or two songs perhaps, but his ass would NOT be a swiftie.
that said, katara would feel very passionately about her, although whether positively or negatively i do not know. but there is no way she is simply swift-neutral. she would care way too much about pop culture as a phenomenon. i think that even if she really did love taylor swift she’d always preface her name with “famous climate criminal…”
and look, i respect olivia rodrigo, i think she’s a talented performer and makes great songs for amvs (ty lee all american bitch kendall roy brutal nanami vampire, to name a few highlights), but if anything, katara would listen to actual 90s riot grrrl and female singer songwriters, because olivia is simply not as good as her inspirations.
katara would also listen to any music that has a subversive political message or is sung by a woman with eminently powerful vocals. so a combination of punk, folk, some gospel, some heavy metal, and a lot of r&b. also i think she’d listen to very specific shwotunes and defend those musicals with her life.
sokka doesn’t have a music “taste” he has one song that he plays on repeat for weeks until he gets sick of it. sometimes that song is a symphony by beethoven, and sometimes that song is “fireworks” by mitski (okay, it’s often “firework” by mitski). but his one constant is kate bush. he’s fucking obsessed with kate bush.
toph grew up a piano prodigy so she has a lot of opinions on classical music and that’s most of what she listens to for the first decade or so of her life. then she gets introduced to like, tracy chapman and fiona apple through katara and sokka, and realizes that classifying all music with lyrics as “trash” may have been a bit reductive. and when she gets a bit older she gets really into indie rock and begs sokka to take her to concerts. and he doesn’t even really care for the concerts. he just takes her because he knows how much she loves it.
zuko is a mitskigirl thru and thru. i know that ppl say he’d be emo and listen to mcr but that music is too coarse and unpolished for his sensitive ears. he likes music with a beautiful melancholy quality that makes him feel sad yet gorgeous. he also listens to jbrekkie and jay som and other musical equivalents to ocean vuong. he’s literally gaysian what do u want from him.
suki is by far the most into music of anyone in their friendgroup. music is one of her favorite things in the entire world, and if she couldn’t play and listen to music she wouldn’t even want to exist. she’s in an indie folk rock band with her friends called the kyoshi warriors, and they have a lot of followers on bandcamp. she has an incredibly varied and extensive music taste, which is why she’s basically always designated the aux cord. sometimes she’s playing the cranberries and sometimes she’s playing googoosh and sometimes she’s playing otyken. and her taste never misses.
ty lee is one of those freaks who doesn’t really listen to music by choice. instead, she listens to: true crime podcasts, audiobooks (eg, of lacanian psychoanalysis), or sometimes simply has her earbuds in with nothing actually playing so as to seem as if she isn’t eavesdropping on the conversations taking place in her vicinity. but when people ask her what kind of music she likes she just says, “oh, you know…. pop.”
mai is also a mitskigirl she’s even more of a mitskigirl than zuko is (so she claims, although zuko would contest this). she’s very active on spotify because she loves making various playlists for different moods, different vibes, different blorbos from her shows. she likes all different genres, and takes suki’s recommendations very seriously above all.
azula’s two favorite artists are, unfortunately, rachmaninoff and kanye, and that’s all you really need to know about her.
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juwon-ah-moved · 2 years
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BEYOND EVIL (2021) + Ocean Vuong quotes
for @petekaos 💛💙
RAHUL !!!!! this will be only half a surprise i think, i’m sure you got that i was giffing beyond evil from what i said skdsnd but i really think the quotes will be a surprise eheh anyway time to get sappy ! damn it’s been 2 years already. when people say time flies they really mean it!! honestly these 2 years have been some of the happiest of my life overall, despite the bad and the ugly, and a huge part of it is that i got to go through them with you alongside me :’) you’ve been with me through thick and thin, we’ve laughed so much together, made dumb jokes, shared so many passions and brainrots, been homophobic towards mek’s 2022 costars together (JK!!!) and also we’ve supported each other in everything. i know i tell you all the time, but i’ll never stop saying it: i love you!!!! you are such a kind, funny, sweet, talented, supportive, fantastic person. i never get tired of talking to you, if anything when we don’t talk for a bit i miss you a lot. you’re my best friend and honestly i couldn’t ask for a better best friend like absolutely no one could fill in this role but you !! sure, maybe someone else wouldn’t tease me about pigeons (🙄) but we’re bonded by that pigeon shit so 🥰 i think i’ll never have the proper words to tell you how much you mean to me, but i hope i’ve somehow showed it to you in these two years and i hope i get so many more chances to in the future. here’s to many many more years of getting anons about our friendship 💙💛 love you so much !!!!!!!!
#beyond evil#**#rahul tag#i'll tag the show so anyone who wants to can rb this even if it's for rahul skdksdns#just ignore the sappiness under the read more <3#ANYWAY rahul AAAAAAA i hope you like this !!!#it was a Journey and it's not even that much of a complicated set but it was still jskdsnds i did my best :tiredcat:#i wanted to do something more... let's say special. or significant for our friendship#i guess#but no matter how hard i tried to think of something else my mind came back to beyond evil and this idea and so ... it happened#you did say you wanted me to gif it so :eyes: the dark scenes were hell to color WHAT THE HELLLLL#i tried :sob:#i hate being on desktop ANYWAYYYY i love you. i'm rambling because i'm nervous you won't like this that much.#thing is i've been thinking of 'one day i'll love ocean vuong' so much lately#and then it clicked that that line about a father is SOOOO juwon i just could not stop thinking about it ...#and i know how much you love ocean vuong and i love him too so this is hopefully nice <3#beyond evil and ocean vuong's works actually both give me those Feelings ..... bc they're both so raw. and full of pain and trauma and love.#I'M RAMBLING OKAY ENOUGH SJDKSDBSJDNS#hope you like this HAPPY 2 YEARS <3333333333 LOVE YOU :CRI: :CRI: :CRI:#ALSO WAIT LMAO yes this is only the first half of beyond evil and i've been kicking myself for not finishing the drama#bc i KNOWWWWW i would've had so much more to work with#and possibly i woud've made something better#maybe i'll make a part 2 once i'm finished with the drama tho
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me-writes-prompts · 4 months
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Hey there! I'm really trying to get more into writing after struggling for years to get my head right. One thing I know is that I need to be a better reader first! So what are some books you recommend? I recently read the Locked Tomb series and loved it, a friend of mine is recommending the Murderbot Diaries, and two books I really enjoyed that weren't SciFi/Fantasy were Piranesi by Susana Clarke and Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. So I guess I'm really into SciFi/Fantasy/Mystery type books. I like Horror too! Not really a fan of Romance, but I'm willing to have my mind changed if the right books come along! Any books you'd recommend? :) (sorry for the lengthy ask)
Hi! I'm really glad you asked this because I do have recommendations for books that are enjoyable and also have a distinct style of writing. I've added the trigger warnings, so please be aware of those!
The first one is: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
This book talks about the speaker, Little dog, in his late twenties, writing a letter to his mother who cannot read. He was born in Vietnam, and goes in depth with the mother son love but also explores the topics of race, class, masculinity and much more. (You have to read this book! The author has such a poetic style of writing that never lets you get bored of it! Trigger warnings: on-page death, child abuse, drug use, violence, depictions of war and sexual assault, animal abuse, Violence, Depictions of war, PTSD, Death of a friend)
The guest list by Lucy Foley
This book is a murder mystery. There is an exclusive wedding taking place on a remote Irish Island. (This book is very interesting right from the bat, and I found it binge-worthy from start to finish. Definitely a re-read! Trigger warnings: Sexual content, Drug and alcohol use, Violence, Profanity, Crudeness, Murder and explicit self-harm, sexual assault.)
Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
It tells the story of a café in Tokyo that allows its customers to travel back in time, as long as they return before their coffee gets cold. (Not my fave of all time, but since you said you like Fantasy, you have to read this! It's very interesting and has short stories of different characters that keeps you on your toes. Trigger warnings: Abandonment, Blood, Cancer, Car accident, Death of a parent, Grief, Infertility, Medical content, Pregnancy, Miscarriage)
Almond by Sohn Won-pyung
The main character, Yunjae, was born with a brain condition callled alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. (I read this book and really liked it. It's an in depth of how Yunjae, the main character, goes through with having such a condition. It's a five star over all! This book contains: Extreme bloody violence, Bullying, Animal harm)
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dallonwrites · 4 months
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UNTIL HEAVEN - WIP INTRO
matthew lejune / @dallonwrites / ocean vuong / mary ruefle
He knows that his headache is quietly growing vicious and he should take off his headphones, but now they’re singing about Heaven and Las Vegas – two places he has never been – and he knows that at some point, still unknown to him, his father died, and maybe that means he’s now stuck in Heaven or Las Vegas or somewhere in between. Or maybe that means he’ll just be everywhere, in the rain on Felix’s face and the ache behind his eyelids, and that’s how it’ll stay.
Genre: Adult Literary Fiction, novella (please god stay a novella)
Setting: San Francisco/New York, December 1990/January 1991
Vibe: shoegaze & dream pop, warm lighting, ginger flavor, a city skyline at night, going to church for the first time in years, feeling too old and also like you were born yesterday, disposable camera photos, the passing of time, stuff rabbit toy from your childhood, the hallway at a family gathering, planetariums, cold air on your face, retro christmas decor, realising you were once a child and that child deserved so much better
Deals With: parental grief when your parent was a piece of shit, Christian trauma, queerness in relationships, adulthood as you progress through your 20s, healing + building your own life after a traumatic childhood and what happens when that is disrupted
Soundtrack Essentials: The Cure - Plainsong / Mazzy Star - Be My Angel / Cocteau Twins - Cherry-Coloured Funk / Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas / Beach House - The Hours / Jeff Buckley - Dream Brother / Tamino - Cinnamon
Synopsis: When Felix's father dies suddenly it's a week before Christmas, he and Beau had just begun experimenting with an open relationship, and he refuses to interrupt his life to mourn a man who doesn't deserve it. But when he can't stop his body from grieving, and his sister is growing obsessive over the morbid details, and at work he's teaching children that remind him of himself, an opportunity to impulsively leave sees Felix spend an insomniatic month in New York: diners at 3am, trips at the club, a birthday spent in a planetarium, one night stands to tell his boyfriend about in the morning, and a dangerously intense relationship with an enigmatic man who wants to know everything about his father.
This is another piece in my personal project/emotional support series and follows Revelations, Revelations and Lover Boy. If you know me you know Dorothy and Felix are my annoying children who I love so dearly and this novella is paired with a future novella that follows Dorothy during the same time. Fun fact! I only returned to writing because I wanted to explore Felix more and now I have an entire world that dominates my brain and it's all his fault! So this novella is kind of like a love letter to him. I also literally only created this so I could have a project that was soundtracked by historic Cocteau Twins' album Heaven or Las Vegas. Currently drafting because it won't leave my mind
The answering machine beeps awake -- and then, Beau's mother, reminding them that they're in charge of dessert tomorrow --and then, Beau's coworker wishing them both a Happy Holidays, a Stacy who Felix has never met -- and then his sister, sarcastic but loving, This is me calling so you know I made it home alive, just like you asked -- and then surprisingly, Goldie, Hi Felix, even though school broke up weeks ago, So I know it's Christmas, but I wanted to let you know that I talked with Joey's father and it sounds like he's doing much better at home already. He's even excited to come back to your class! And his father sounds super proud and optimistic about his progress and by the end of the last message he’s on the floor, back to fridge and elbows on his knees, face in his hands. And he lets out a shaky, snivelled breath that makes him push his palms harder against his eyes, against the wetness because he can’t cry, not over this, not when there’s still Christmas presents to wrap and last minute laundry so stop crying, get up, put on your new Mazzy Star record and get on with it. He straightens his back, holds his head up, takes a few deep breaths that feel more like gasping for air and also like pulling barbed wire out of his throat, gazes at the slants of streetlight on his living room wall. He can’t cry, not over this and not here, not in the home he’s worked so hard to make so warm. So he sits with himself, wipes his own eyes and holds himself in his own arms; when he feels calm enough, or trusts himself to be, he leans forward so he can open the fridge and reach in for the last ginger ale, cold in his hand and warm down his throat. Just him and the hum of an empty apartment.
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earthtooz · 8 months
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hello! i love your works so much everything you write is perfect! i stopped writing more than a year ago but reading your works inspired me to write again 😊 it’s crazy how we are the same age but our level of writing is completely different, yours blew my mind 🤯🤯🤯 (in a good way!!!!!) i was wondering if you could give me some tips to improve my writing as i feel like i’m lacking in many departments (if you’re comfortable in doing so, ofc!) thank you! ❤️❤️❤️
this ask was send march 5th, and i'm happy to report that four months later, for the first time in a while, i think i'm finally at a point in my writing where i'm confident giving out tips that are not generic and stock standard. i do not know if anon is going to ever see this, but i hope you do, and i hope that you're still as inspired to write as you were when you sent this :) a lot can happen in four months!!
i'm just going to get straight into it. you'll find that the further you go, the more... catered the advice might be to you (it's long, and maybe a bit rambly, but i hope it’s useful in some sort of way 🥲)
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# ONE - THE MOST BASICS:
the most DEVASTATING thing you can do for your writing is not have a purpose for each scene or snippet you write. give your scenes a point, don't let them be just images that you sit on the document to take up space! are you trying to prove that character x oc's relationship is growing? are you trying to show that it's breaking apart? are you trying to set up the character as someone who's beginning to fall in love and hates it? give everything a purpose. every word must be linked to your intention.
you know what they say about chekhov's gun, if you are going to mention some little thing, give it a purpose later! you mention reader likes sweaters? let character give them a sweater! this works in many-a-ways.
this all comes down to the planning, which i would give tips on, but i'm writing this part too late. i'm also trying to keep this first part brief because this is a very long post.
for english speakers, the second most devastating thing is to not know your grammar LOL (i cannot criticise those who speak another language as their first! kudos to you, keep doing what you're doing.)
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# TWO - FIND YOUR STYLE: easier said than done, but it's an essential part of any art. writing takes time, and only time will evolve your skill and therefore, your style. if you do not like what you write off the bat and believe you are 'lacking' in some departments (no such thing, there is room to improve instead of being 'incapable' of doing something), then i always turn to some of my favourite authors, whether they are published or another fanfiction writer, turn to them and study them. DO NOT PLAGIARISE, just try and emulate what you see from their works and put them into your works, with your own sense of individual style.
i have my list of esteemed tumblr writings that i look up to, as well as writers that i adore. ocean vuong will always be one of my favourite writers, i listen to him frequently when i am stumped by my own writibg. he has this sort of creative aura that drips of his own idiosyncrasy that inspires me every time i try to listen to him, him just speaking calms and invigorates me so much.
so yeah, find your writer, and learn from them :)
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# THREE - THE 'DEPARTMENTS': the departments that i have included are:
characterisation
dialogue
description and artistic expression (this one is long, bear with me.)
like i said earlier, there are indeed departments are writing that we all have room to improve in. i will talk about the few that i might find specific to fanfic writing because i am nothing like an actual author :,)
characterisation: a fickle little thing T^T the worst thing ever. to characterise properly means you know the character like it's your own, but in fanfiction that's just truly not possible :,) so i can try and give you my own tips on how i deal with characterisation.
listen to the english dub (or your first language) - DON'T CRUCIFY ME. PLEASE. BUT LET ME SPEAK. for my fellow fluent english speakers, listening to a dub in a language we do not understand can only go so far in the way we understand a character. when listening to english, we hear the intricate ways of their tone and personalities work, and what kind of dialogue best flows with them (toji fushiguro is excluded from this. never listen to that man's english dub.). when i was writing for bakugou- he's not the hardest character to understand, but with the help of the english dub, the dialogue that i wrote for him flowed a lot easier than if i had just tried to internalise his jp dub. he's gruff, and rude, and cocky, and his english va captures that in quite an adorable way! ofc you can never just ignore the original, the original is there to provide you the blueprint, but sometimes a little help explaining the blueprint goes a long way !!
characterisation can also be perfected through the subtle changes in dialogue that you see. a big part of character is how they talk, and even just the subtlest of changes can go far. let me start with the example "this is a really bad idea." if i were writing itoshi rin, then i would change the sentence fit to his speech and embody how he'd actually react to a 'bad idea'. he's curt, doesn't say more than necessary, and unashamed to be cold so he'd probably just say "this is stupid." before walking away LMAOO if i were writing someone like gojo, then the sentence also changes too. he doesn't mind talking and adding more to his point, so i would write something like: "you sure? this doesn't seem like the brightest idea." and if i'm really trying to sell a romantic relationship, i'd add a 'sweetheart' there or something.
dialogue: this is a personalised experience, so as is everything in writing. i have been complimented on my flow and dialogue a lot of the time but in truth, i am merely having a conversation with myself in my head. i try to become the character i am writing about and then i just chat with myself :3 it can be that simple. dialogue does not need to be something you over-complicate, i am my own, ethical character.ai.
description and artistic expression: look, i can't say much on this one except that you're all on your own. i am still trying to perfect my own skills in this department because this is perhaps one of my most vexing parts of writing. i truly am just not... as poetic and imaginative as i want my words to be, but i am trying and i am improving.
my biggest tip regarding description and artistry is: if the reader can imagine it, you don't need to write it. you don't need to fill in the gaps with actual scenes, if your characters are walking through the park as a filler for getting from destination A to B, then that park scene does not need to be as descriptive as A or B. a mere 'you took a shortcut through the park' will suffice. or even better, just go straight from A to B.
say my 'A' scene is starting at a cafe, and my 'B' scene is going to the mall, you could just go 'calling for the waitress to get the bill, you then find yourself in the mall within 15 minutes'. spend time on the gaps that require a bridge to cross, not the gaps that you can merely step over.
these kind of things appear in your planning and admittedly, i don't even plan ROFLLL but i have primary scenes that i have sketched out which i sometimes add to. like spider webs, when going from one thread to another, sometimes the journey is not all that important if it does nothing for your plot.
again, i find inspiration in a lot of the writers i look up to. a recurring motif is something i love adding, whether that be dialogue or a recurring item that symbolises something (like the hairband in between love and lies - a nagi fic). techniques like motifs or an extended metaphor add a lot of depth in your writing that you can't find otherwise. you can also omit going too over the board with reader's emotions too, or just the character's. if it's obvious that they are angry, sad, happy, you don't need to go too far in detail about said emotions.
another so crucial thing is to take note of the things you see in real life and apply it in fiction. the most mundane of things you are doing can have beauty in words.
are you at the beach? why don't you take a look around. tell me about the people that sit on towels, minding their own business. tell me about the way the sun sits high in the sky, unforgiving and burning before going into the main plot.
are you sitting on a bench, killing time? tell me about the breeze you feel, or perhaps the heat that overwhelms you. tell me about what you hear- bikes, children laughing, whilst you're waiting for your date to show up- all of these minute things, so long as you don't go overboard, will matter a lot to the imagination of the reader!
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# FOUR: TAKE CARE OF AND LOVE WHAT YOU WRITE writing will always be hard :,) not a single draft goes by where i do not find inconsistencies and flaws, but i love them all the same. i love the drafts that i read over once and posted and i also love the drafts that i poured blood, sweat, and tears into. neither of them are more special to me because they were all born from a simple idea.
to look back on what you wrote and going 'i can do this better now' is beautiful, no? i love the end product for what i learnt on the way.
i know me giving this advice is kinda hypocritical because you'll find me going 'i hate this' in the tags, and you can choose to believe me or not, but i adore all of my stories the same. some of them i just hate that i couldn't give them the attention and love that they deserved, which shows through in the end quality. not that you guys seem to care, it's all in my head sometimes lMFAO.
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# FIVE - KEEP THE POV CONSISTENT: now we are getting to the tips that i've been learning myself recently. how funny is it that i learnt this whilst reading from a writer that i so admire?
whilst reading a long fic, i noticed that the flow is satisfying because there was no swap of perspectives. the character was in the focus the whole time and the reader was the reactor, the catalyst being the character's actions and internal dialogue. on the other hand, the reader's thoughts and feelings being in the spotlight can also be significant.
i had always known that keeping the pov consistent would influence your writing, but i never knew how much.
which pov you might want to choose is all intuitive. writing is intuitive- every other tip that i have revealed is all intuitive and i'll cover more of this later. more importantly right now, which perspective you want to execute is all on you, and no one else. if you know your character, your storyline, and your skills, you will simply know how the story shall go. it is just as powerful to write it from reader's pov as it is the character's because it comes from your knowledge and authority as the writer!
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# SIX - LEAVE THE COMFORT ZONE: this kind of returns to tip four. sometimes the only way to evolve is to do something we are bad at and that advice applies to writing too. writing is a path set by previous writers but it is not one that we have to follow all the time, why take a shortcut when the long way is prettier, and more rewarding? your journey of improvement is dependent on what you realise and give yourself opportunities to improve in.
for example, recently i have been trying to improve the depth of my descriptions and- don't laugh, but the way i've been doing so is as followed:
i input myself into the scenario, i empathise with the characters within the scene and i describe it. maybe it's emotional and the character can't look you in the eye because they don't have the heart to, not when their chest is filled with a smoke that is so unbearable that all they can focus on is not turning to ashes. maybe it's a happy scene and all you can look at is the character. maybe it's confronting, and the only thing you can think about is defending yourself against their clenched fists that will never actually hurt you, but you know damn well can break your walls in one swing. leave the comfort zone, write new au's and new dialogue pieces, write new metaphors and similes and use rhyme, listing, repetition- just try something new every time and let it be meaningful to the story.
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# SEVEN - GIVE YOURSELF TIME. like the growth of your muscles or the mobility of your limbs, or the way your hands flow along the canvas or keyboard, writing is a skill that can only be improved with time. fanfic writing is intuitive and completely reliant on your own tastes.
i can sit here, speak for ages about writing, but the only way you can learn is to do. i have people who see what i do and praise me for being one of their favourite writers, and as honoured as i am every time, i am merely born from the six years i have put into this craft, as well as the hours i put into writing and planning what they see. if you could see the behind the scenes, you would go 'what the fuck am i looking at' LMFAOO.
when i write and then i reread and i know what it is missing, but i cannot speak about this like it is easy, like i have not spent the past few years of my life consistently writing for various characters and growing along the way. to be fair, you don't need to take six years to get good at writing, it can be a very smooth process! i don't think i was the brightest cookie at 12 ngl but i took my characters and rewrote them into different scenarios and here i am today, at 18 and (marginally) better.
as long as the urge is there, worship it, take the step and write. then post, if that is a step you want to partake in. simple as that :)
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that's all for now! sorry this is so long, now that you've reached the end, i just wanted to say that i have no authority over what you produce and how you do it. these are simply just things i've learned along the way and i hope they can provide you some sort of revelation.
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creature-reads · 3 months
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Creature's 2023 Top Reads
I was fortunate enough to read a lot last year and want to start interacting more with Bookblr in particular. Shoutout to Libby, the library app, through which I used to access a majority of works through. If you are an USA American and have a library card you too can access books, music, graphic novels and more through the Libby app for free.
These awards are made up by me, for my own enjoyment. I do not receive any monetary or other payment for recommending these authors. Please remember to buy books from your local stores when you can.
Best Fantasy- The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
A tale about a jewish Golem and a bedouin/arab Jinni who find themselves in New York during the early 1900s. I really must commend Wecker of how seamlessly her plot pulls together during the climax of the story, beautifully done. This is a slow non explicit romance of two people who are seen as outsiders even in their own communities. It is beautiful, it’s soft, it’s heart-wrenching. I love all these characters for their rights and wrongs. Arbili is innocent of all crimes, fight me.
Best Author- Hank Green
I read two books from Hank Green, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, and he is winning this for the glow up. While his first book wasn’t bad, the second was a definite improvement. His prose is clear and refreshing, tinged with his hope towards the future and his belief in the inherent good nature of humanity. His character development greatly improved as the series continued and I love characters who are completely aware how thin a line they are walking on, while knowing the only way out is through.
Best Fiction - Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut (not queer)
The tale of trauma and its effects from an American soldier who was a POW stationed in Dusseldorf Germany during the end of WWII. Recommended to me by a friend, I had doubts before starting this book. Reading it, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find an almost resignedly unreliable narrator and as you continue you realize its horror of war and grief that broke him and what keeps him going. So it goes.
Best New series - The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir
There's been a lot said about this series already, but I have to commend Muir in creating these increasingly unreliable narrators. This series is for people who see potential in a narrative and aren't afraid to dig. Comprised of modern humor, heartbreakingly tragedy, and horror of the most occult. It is easy to see why these books are so popular, especially here on Tumblr. This series has so much in it it’d almost be faster to list what isn’t. We’ve got a space-faring necromantic Empire run by Jod (effectively necromantic god emperor who’s also just a guy), rebels, body hopping, memes, stupid lesbians, smart lesbians, whatever Paul is, eye-color significance/powerups, mysteries, just a bit of murder(don’t worry about it), and a truckful of Catholic guilt.
Best Sci Fi -The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon
BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR. This book will lure you in with giant robots and queer characters and proceed to destroy you with trauma, grief, and the betrayal of everyone you hold close including yourself. This book is not for the faint of heart. There are many comparisons to Pacific Rim and/or Evangelion, which aren’t incorrect. But I feel like a better description would be more along the lines of Brandon Sanderson with the depth and breadth of worldbuilding with character development written by …a mix of Ocean Vuong and Hayao Miyazaki?? I’ll probably end up doing a full review of this in the future. But I’ve found myself rereading this novel multiple times and finding pieces of foreshadowing, worldbuilding, and lore that I’d previously overlooked. The characters are real and their connections and relationships are bound together beautifully. If it sounds even remotely interesting to you, please try it. I and I and I.
Honorable mentions:
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
When Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb
Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu
Witch King by Martha Wells
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harmonyowl · 1 year
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what form of love does your ship embody?
I was tagged by @direwombat to do this uquiz, thank you so so much hun this was really fun! Blythe and Grace don’t really have a set ship, so I’ll just be doing Elethara and Athralan.
If you’d like to do this I’ll be tagging @deputyash, @strafethesesinners, @enderevynne, @kittiofdoom , @aceghosts, @strangefable, @dumbassdep, @sstewyhosseini, and @shellibisshe and anyone else who wishes to do this is welcome to tag me! 💜
Elethara Suledin embodies
LOVE AS A CHOICE [ love is beautiful because it's built deliberately ] when casey mcquinston wrote "that's the choice. i love him, with all that, because of all that, on purpose. i love him on purpose" and when jenny slate tweeted "i just want someone to grab my little face and scream on purpose, on purpose i am going to care about you" and when jodi picoult wrote "after fifteen years, love isn't just a feeling. it's a choice" and when the good place said "if soulmates do exist, they're not found they're made"
X
Solas embodies
LOVE AS RELIGION [ love as the sole object of your reverence--nothing about you is holy, but maybe your love for another is ] when sappho said "in the crooks of your body i find my religion" and when the cast of les mis sang "to love another person is to see the face of God" and when halsey said "i found God, i found him in a lover" and when katherine philips wrote "to the dull angry world let's prove there's a religion in our love"
Athralan Suledin embodies
LOVE AS TENDERNESS [ love as gentleness after a lifetime of cruelty ] when ocean vuong said "sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined" and when pablo neruda said "like a jar you housed the infinite tenderness and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar" and when anais mitchell wrote "all i've ever known is how to hold my own, and now i wanna hold you, too”
X
Dorian Pavus embodies
LOVE AS BEING KNOWN [ love is knowing all of someone and loving them anyway ] when tim kreider said "if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known" and when joe wright said "The idea that these two people know each other, knew each other when they first saw each other. That they recognized each other from their future" and when micah nemerever said "it was a relief and a horror to be known so perfectly"
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pacifymebby · 7 months
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Do you have any fave LGBTQ+ literature, tv, movies, content creators?
Okay so I'm still trying really hard to find queer books that I like because beyond Allen Ginsburg in college we weren't taught any LGBTQ+ authors/poets (except Carol Ann Duffy but the only thing I'd recommend about her work is to stay away because I hate it haha)(I probably hate it because of school tbh, sorry Carol) so anyway yeah, when it comes to this I've had to do all the searching myself and I don't really know how well I've done.
But for books:
🍂 Orlando / Virginia Woolf
I kind of can't believe Virginia Woolf wasn't on my other recommendations because The Waves is one of my favourite books (again I think you have to have a lot of patience but it is beautiful) and this one is brilliant too. A man wakes up in a woman's body and gender roles are revealed to be a little bit silly.
🍂 Thérèse and Isabelle / Violet Leduc
Erotic novella about two girls at boarding school, low-key spoke to me as a bi girl who kind of started realising her bisexuality when exploring sexuality was sort of thrust upon me by female friends at school I guess. It's just a good example of feminine sexuality and desire written by someone who knows.
🍂 Chelsea Girls / Eileen Myles
I'm very into Eileen Myles as a poet and these stories are so so so so so fucking good too!!!!
🍂 In The Dream House / Carmen María Machado
I got into this because it's what Google recs when you finish The Dangers of Smoking in Bed / Mariana Enriquez and honestly, I didn't enjoy it as much but it was still amazing. It's gothic horror af but also a really important work on abusive relationships within the queer community which the author has personal experience of and thinks isn't spoken about enough. Its really haunting, did fuck me up a bit but ultimately in a good way. But be careful because it does chronical abuse and that can be upsetting.
🍂 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous/ Ocean Vuong
Another one where I love their poetry and think they can do no wrong tbh, I haven't finished this yet (I keep getting distracted but don't be put off by that I'm just really easily distracted!!) And I think it's wonderful idk. It's also written in quite a cool style which is always a bonus I find.
🍂 Our Wives Under the Sea / Julia Armfield
I actually only read this because I read an essay on the Exorcist and body horror by the author where she talks about her experience with having a cyst that had to be operated on twice. The essay was so stunning that I was like damn, gonna have to read that book everyone's talking about now and bestie, was worth it. The books class also.
🍂 Sister Outsider / Audre Lorde
I just think everyone should read Audre Lorde, Audre Lorde should have been on the curriculum instead of endless Simon Armitage idk. I read this and Your Silence Will Not Protect You as a 19 year old and they changed the course of my life idk.
🍂 Communion / bell hookes
Read this and broke up with my shitty ex boyfriend. It's not entirely about lesbianism but more kind of, love in general, platonic, romantic, what it really means to love. She talks about the feminist choice to choose lesbianism which was a phenomenon in the 70s and also discusses a lot to do with how misogyny impacts womens ability to love and be loved. It was a really important read for me, made all the more important because when I picked up the book my boyfriend ripped into her name and tried to be like lol what would you read her for...and then I read it and was like oh HE'S the problem.
Poetry:
🐇Howl / Allen Ginsburg
I know he's problematic but for me Howl was the prototype, the first massive poem I read and loved as an adult, the first one where language really sounded musical to me, the first poem I heard that Hurt. If you can you should listen to the YouTube of him reading it in San Francisco,that's amazing.
I also really like A Supermarket in California.
🐇 Sappho
Just all of it I guess, I think we're all eventually pushed towards Sappho and for good reason.
🐇Emily Dickinson
Read her letters to Sue, Open Me Carefully. I read these one summer between school years and I think they changed me. Her poetry in general is wonderful, some of it occasionally comes off as very old fashioned (shock horror our girl was born in the 1800s) but there's much to savour there. Also apparently there's a TV series about her life on Apple TV, I don't have Apple TV though so I haven't seen it.
As for TV and movies I don't think I have anything at all. I don't watch a lot of TV and I mostly only watch the same 5 old man movies on repeat. I think books have always been my thing, I can concentrate on reading in a way I can't concentrate on TV and also just the fact you can put your book in your pocket and get it out on the bus, in the staff room, at school, at the pub when you're waiting for your pals etc... I was always a headphones and books gal so I don't really have any recs for TV. Sorry :/
EDIT: Kill Your Darlings!!!! As in the movie, if you're into the beats you should watch it, it's very good and a real insight into what was in reality a pretty nasty little scene.
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bybdolan · 1 year
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hi, amy! how are you? i admire a lot your writing and i wanted to ask if you have any tips to write powerful and creative metaphors, please
I just reblogged two of my favorite writing related posts, one of which directly deals with the topic of imagery. As an addition, it always helps me to think about what I want to convey with a specific image. The "the road is cuved like a cat's tail" example Ocean Vuong is not a fan of, for example, could work for me if we connect it to a description of headlights as yellow eyes and thus create the image of a WHOLE cat, a predatory animal able to pounce at any moment. Which conveys a sense of anxiety, of slumbering danger, perhaps of false peace. Take all what I say here with a grain of salt because I tend to get overly stuck on imagery to a point that maybe is overbearing. Ocean Vuong and Chuck Palahniuk most likely are better teachers, but oh well. To illustrate my point about thinking what exactly you want to say, I translated and explained some of the images I have written (all from my bigger writing project because I was too lazy to search somewhere else lmao) to showcase my thought process and aims with creating them.
“She wonders which parts of her people have chosen and savoured like a rich piece of meat.” – The main idea here revolves around consumption. I link the consumption of revenge p*rn to a slight steakhouse atmosphere, where people explicitly choose which parts of an animal they want to eat. The woman’s body thus is reduced to its parts (dissolving of the body is a bigger theme in general) and what these parts can do for the “customer”. There is also an element of sensuality, as well as a slight cannibalism edge if you want to look for it.
“Her mother once told Alison that talking to her was like pulling teeth. Now her teeth are pebbles in her hand.” – (Let’s ignore the doubling of “teeth” that I still don’t know what to do with.) Here, I wanted to connect being vulnerable and revealing yourself to actual physical harm and a feeling of loss upon discovering that you just opened yourself up to somebody else. It’s also just a nice turn of phrase.
“Her body is a frayed rope, and so she remains like this, coiled up into him.” – Frayed rope = being worn out, maybe having pulled a muscle, fatigue, anxiety, being overwhelmed. The “coiled up” expands on this idea and really gives a sense of physical closeness.
“His hug yanks her back into her body the way a fish is pulled out of water.” – This one is focused on movement and a certain harshness and violence. It’s also implied that resting within her body is the unnatural state.
“Much of it is food she recognizes from childhood, but her parents’ fridge is a loved, worn-down apartment, while hers resembles a storage room.” – This one is meant to point out emotional connection to food, or a lack thereof. I like the idea of the fridge as a space akin to a building.
“The night in November is a tear in her veil of virtue, her thoughts are manic fingers widening the hole.” – Again, I was thinking about movement: How do I convey frantic thoughts? I like the image of the manic fingers because it reminds me of depictions of addiction and withdrawal, as well as the way people pick at their skin. It also makes me think of freeing yourself from something that is suffocating you, hence the hole idea. Love a good hole moment too (absence!).
“Her tongue is strange and heavy in her mouth, a leech stuck to her throat." – Slimy! I think this one most appropriately ticks Ocean Vuong’s “connection of sensuality” box. I like that it’s disgusting and, like the teeth phrase earlier, shows a disconnect between thought and speech, an inability to communicate. Very gothic in a way.
“Shame grows within her, heavy and [soft/furred]; her body turns into a rotten fruit.” – Apart from the fact that it’s a little biblical, it also is reminiscent of a peach, giving it all a sexual edge.
“She cannot look at his handwriting, the sharp curve of his C [gouges/drills] itself into her abdomen.” – Sex! Pain! Grief! The intimacy of somebody’s handwriting! The C as a dagger!
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Tag Game to Better Know You
tagged by the very lovely @zozobruh thank you SO much for thinking of me <3
What book are you currently reading?
it WAS Time is a Mother, the poetry collection by Ocean Vuong, but it's currently lost on the london subway :( next on the list though is Secret History, my friend got it for me for christmas and I really wanna start!!!
what’s your favorite movie you saw in theaters this year?
I'm ngl I don't think I've been to the cinema yet this year!! But I'm very excited for Asteroid City (which I might get to see this week) and Barbie. I am becoming very unhinged about Barbie tbh-
I will say though, I REALLY wanna see Banshees of Inisherin that u mentioned in ur own post!!!
what do you usually wear?
monochrome (with the occaisional splash of red or blue), short skirt & long jacket (like the cake song), lots of jacket pins. I wore a dress on saturday that was a bit risky in terms of my dysphoria but i FUCKING LOVED IT ACTUALLY. I also adore my new barbie crop top-
how tall are you
5 foot 10-ish I think??
what’s your star sign? do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event?
I'm an aires and I have the same birthday as Nathan Fillion, Mariah Carey, Christine Sydelko from Vine & apparently a bunch of tiktok stars I've never heard of lmao
do you go by your name or a nickname?
my name, Envy. A couple of people have tried V against my will, I hate it tbh
did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child?
When I was a child I did not even know I was a girl lmao. I wanted to be a rockstar and I *am* in a band though, so????
are you in a relationship? if not, who is your crush if you have one?
oh boy lmao (I'm single and mostly fine with it. I think I need to figure myself out a bit before I think too much about this one)
what’s something you’re good at vs something you’re bad at?
I am good at playing guitar. Not great, competent. I lack the focus to really grind out the practice to break the barrier into being Really Really Good at something. So I guess I'm bad at learning??? But my actual answer to that is I'm bad at picking up on social queues/figuring out where I stand with people
dogs or cats?
I love them both, I love going to someone's house and they have a dog, but I'd personally rather live with a cat
if  you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favorite  picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you created this  year?
A lot of what I've written this year are song lyrics that are NOT ready for anyone else's eyes lmao. You can have this little snippet from an Our Flag Means Death fic I'm working on though:
The dull Toronto sky barely seemed real as Ed stared gloomily out of his studio apartment window. The whole city felt fleeting, a hastily-painted backdrop to an imitation of life that looked as if it could start peeling away at any moment. He remembered coming here with his mother as a teenager, resenting the city’s skyscrapers for blocking his view of home, all the friends he had to leave behind. It was childish to feel that way again, Ed thought, but he also knew he couldn’t help it. Stede made him happier than he’d ever thought possible, and everything that came between them was cruel in its indifference. They hadn’t arranged when to see each other again – that was normal, Ed needed to know his schedule before he could commit, and he normally called from a payphone once he had something to offer. But the wait until then didn’t make it any easier.
what is something that you’d like to create content for?
I want to make a video game lmao. I started designing a top-down shooter a while ago to see how it felt and I. It activated all the special interest neurons in my brain I want to make game mechanics and spend ages making little pixel art icons bc I will get v obsessive about the art style and- but that's not really what the question was lmao. Uh. I've only recently started getting into writing fanfic and stuff, I'm writing for Our Flag Means Death right now but I had some ideas in high school for Doctor Who fics that I might dust off at some point-
what’s something you’re currently obsessed with?
YuGiOh, our flag means death, whatever Ryan Gosling has going on right now
what’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year?
my year has NOT been going how i expected it to at all and some of it stings a bit, I won't lie, but that's unfair of me because things are really, really good when I get over myself and really think about it. I am happy, I'm just a little bit insane, but I'm leaving the place that is making my mental health tank in about a month so things are looking up!! and they were already good, I just!!!
what’s a hidden talent of yours?
I am good at So Few Things, I would not hide a talent, I am trying to seem like a good hire
are you religious?
No, but I think the sense of community and catharsis and connection to something so much bigger than myself I get when I see my favourite artists at a concert is close to the feeling I think a lot of people are chasing, and can feel, when explorign their faith. I would say I'm some kind of spiritual but I think that feeling just comes from Us, not because there's something Bigger out there
what’s something you wish to have at this moment?
A reason to leave this island Right Now I'm moving up north to be with my friend in a month and I could NOT be more excited but this is going to be the longest month of my life lmao
going to tag @school-marm-charm if u fancy sharing!! No pressure though <3
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brother-genitivi · 2 years
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What form of love do you embody?
I was tagged by @ava-du-mortain (thank u so much <3) to answer this uquiz as my ocs
Destan Hawke - love as tenderness
[ love as gentleness after a lifetime of cruelty ] when ocean vuong said "sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined" and when pablo neruda said "like a jar you housed the infinite tenderness and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar" and when anais mitchell wrote "all i've ever known is how to hold my own, and now i wanna hold you, too”
Vedaat Altın - love as being known
[ love is knowing all of someone and loving them anyway ] when tim kreider said "if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known" and when joe wright said "The idea that these two people know each other, knew each other when they first saw each other. That they recognized each other from their future" and when micah nemerever said "it was a relief and a horror to be known so perfectly"
Esra Shepard - love as religion
[ love as the sole object of your reverence--nothing about you is holy, but maybe your love for another is ] when sappho said "in the crooks of your body i find my religion" and when the cast of les mis sang "to love another person is to see the face of God" and when halsey said "i found God, i found him in a lover" and when katherine philips wrote "to the dull angry world let's prove there's a religion in our love"
Enara Lavellan - love as devotion
[ devotion: love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person, activity, or cause ] when ruth said to naomi "where you go, i will go, and where you stay, i will stay. your people will be my people, and your God my God" and when hozier sang "i'll be the dreadful need from the devotee that drove [orpheus] underground" and when deathcab for cutie sang "if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, i will follow you into the dark"
no pressure tags: @laz-laz-ace-pilot @new-austin @blackinquisitors @palipunk @forystr @siennamain @bitchesofostwick
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blonde-dilf · 2 years
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a rant about Loid’s dad and how war travels through a family
*spoilers for chapter 62 of the manga*
*trigger warning mentions of abuse and trauma*
I so so love the writing of the characters in this story and how multi-faceted each of them are, because I think it’s something that’s necessary for a story that handles such heavy topics at times. And Loid’s dad even tho we only get to see this fraction of what he was like he’s still important to the story in the way that he clearly had a complicated influence on Loid. (head cannoning that loid probably had intense daddy issues when he was in his 20′s, he just like me fr). it’s somewhat understandable when people say Loid’s dad was a bad father cause he clearly wasn’t the prime example of a good parental figure- he hit his 4yo kid out of frustration (only once from what we know), he was always arguing with his wife and Loid was aware of it, he didn’t spend a lot of time with him etc etc. But at the same time he wasn’t actually an awful person, he seemed very human in the sense that he was clearly deeply concerned/worried about something (presumably the oncoming war going by the subtext) and it’s clear he did want to have a good relationship with Loid but was always too busy/overwhelmed to (when he apologizes and tells Loid they’ll go to the festival together). anyone who’s had shitty parents has probably grown up and realized their parents were just regular people with really big problems, and when people can’t deal with their problems they become imperfect in a lot of ways(which sucks obviously and isn’t validated). But really imagine, how would you as a person handle knowing that a war might ensue and that you might not be able to protect your family? what do you do when your kid’s so adamant about becoming a soldier and you see him pretending to play war with his friends and you can’t look in his eyes and tell him just how brutal war is, cause he’s just a kid. like FUCK.
I'm also gonna bring Ocean Vuong allusions into this because I love his work and it works so well with this, but in his poetry he talks about how parents who come from war carry a lot of emotional trauma with them-and this usually brings PTSD, difficulty being affectionate, being more aggressive etc. but he also writes about how love is sometimes translated differently in those relationships, where an act of hitting your child is almost like preparing them for war, even if the war is already gone and they’ve escaped it’s become a part of them. and the child who is born into a world without war receives that and they don’t know how to comprehend it, they don’t know why the person that’s supposed to love them is so angry and cold. and it’s cruel and it’s painful and heartbreaking, but isn’t it so deeply maternal and gut wrenching in the way that a parent having experienced the cruelty of the world wants their children to survive and so to prepare them for it they must show them pain. (of course this is the unhealthy/untreated trauma reaction and doesn’t validate it, but it’s still interesting to think about)
and this is purely my head cannon of Loid just going off how I’ve interpreted his character and the little info we have, but I imagine that at some point- likely that moment of reflection he had when he was a sergeant standing a top of pile of bodies and came to realize how pointless war was, was probably around the time he came to understand the things his father was trying to tell him when he was a child. And the way Loid’s grown as a person and now dedicates his life towards working against a war while also trying to be the greatest father he can be and succeeding in both- I think his dad would've been really happy, and I certainly love Loid so much for it. 
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neo-shitty · 2 years
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toffeeeeee, i saw the book ask game and!! i had to shdjdk. sorry if there's too many, you can answer however many you like ;-;
17, 25, 28, 42, 50, 55, 60, 63, 80, 94 and 135 !! (´-﹏-`;) hehe <3
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me when i saw how many numbers this ask had !! thank you so much ivy, i hope my recs deliver somehow ;n; (also this had me thinking harder than i did on an essay i just submitted HJSHA I LOVE IT)
book recs ask game!
#17 - a book with a yellow cover
men without women by haruki murakami, a short story collection about men with no bitches /j,, the stories aren't correlated to one another and i had no major takeaway but i enjoyed 1 story out of the 7 which was the independent organ (bc i related to the guy and it got pretty sad, i like that shit). this feels like a compilation of murakami's random thoughts, literal ideas out of nowhere and inherently hard to find any deeper meaning into it but maybe that's just my lack of analytical skill.
#25 - a book by your favourite author
unfortunately, i no longer have a favorite author but the last one i acknowledged was marie lu so... legend. prolly her most popular work but not my favorite. her writing has the ability to single-handedly bring me out of reading slumps and i think i read almost every book she wrote. got a few world-building, plot-twisting techniques from her too!!
#28 - a book you wish you could read as a beginner again
mentioned a thousand times atp, looking for alaska :'D by john green :'D the money i'd give just to reread that for the first time bc i have paragraphs of it memorized now HJSHA i think this sparked my love for angsty things
#42 - a book that made you want to scream by the time you got to the end
i had a different book for this at first until i remember this one read that was so bad i wanted to forget about it. never let this go by kazuo ishiguro. YES, the story had a serious topic in its undertone but i just couldn't appreciate it anymore with how much of a drag everything else was. it reads like one of those tiktok series vids that are like 'follow for part 2'. BITCH!! JUST GET ON WITH IT!! the number of times this book goes (not a spoiler, just a bad example) "i'll tell you why i burned the house down but first let me tell you about my friend's boyfriend" LIKE I CARE ABT THAT RN??? god just thinking abt it is making my blood boil
#50 - a book that made you cry a LOT
THERE IS ONLY ONE!!! HOUSE OF HADES BY RICK RIORDAN. i know, kinda hard to get to and i'm not even sure if this would make you cry. it had me bawling tho, tear-blurred vision as i waded to the last page. it was that bad. if you're looking for a tear-jerker that i know made others cry, a little life by hanya yanagihara.
#55 - a book with a satisfying ending
again, for me, it's a little life. there was something about how i finished that book that left me feeling relieved. not only bc it was one chonky ass book but bc i barely read things where the ending i want is the ending i actually get.
#60 - a book that you think about at 3am
things have gotten worse since we last spoke by eddie larocca. told in e-mail correspondence between two women, they have a 50 shades of grey-esque arrangement but it gets from 0 to 1000 so quick. i'm gonna step aside and let my review speak for itself.
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#63 - a book that actually made you laugh out loud
the blood of olympus by rick riordan, last book of the hoo series. sorry my tearjerker and biggest laugh are from the same middle-grade series. adult fiction doesn't draw much emotions from me (except maybe frustration), they just leave me mortified.
#80 - a book that reminds you of a loved one
norwegian wood by haruki murakami. a close friend recommended this to me and because he said the book mirrored his life, it's forever tied with him now. while the story in itself didn't appeal to me that much, i had fun pointing out which parts of the book and his life overlapped.
#94 - a book about grieving
on earth we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong. while the book doesn't explicitly state that it's about grieving, it reads like it is. it's almost as if the main character is grieving for a life he cannot have and mourning for people who are still alive.
#135 - recommend any book you like!
i think i recommended this before when i mentioned your writing reads like a murakami book HAHA after dark !!
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nilmeansnothing · 2 years
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reading on earth we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong is such a wild ride everytime because i have to stop every few pages just to compose myself like okay this is so beautiful how am i supposed to go on. i need to appreciate this bit before i can continue the story uk. anyways.
// When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?
//You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone, in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.
//For a moment almost too brief to matter, this made sense - that three people on the floor, connected to each other by touch, made something like the word family.
//Days I feel like a human being, while other days I feel more like a sound. I touch the world not as myself but as an echo of who I was. Can you hear me yet ? Can you read me ?
//You would tell them that the most useful thing one can do with empty hands is hold on.
//The boy from who I learnt there was something even more brutal and total than work - want.
// What if the body, at its best, is only a longing for a body ? Why did I feel more myself while reaching for him, my hand midair, than I did having touched him ?
//I wanted to leave, to say stop. But the price of confessing, I learned, was that you get an answer.
//They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it.
// I'm sorry I keep saying How are you ? when I really mean Are you happy ?
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choysum · 4 months
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to you, for a moment, just to you.
that burning lover never recognized a single reference I made. you and I, we speak to each other in coded poetry and we decipher nearly all of it at a glance. the surgeon’s wife with her chapped hands, the peach song, triassic cuddle, red and blue me and you over and over web weaving richard siken kintsugi poetry that eats you back love as a dog love as a cat just crush me mary oliver!! with the flat of the knife, as garlic, as love. what would I do, to have so many of your words in me they leak out my fingernails, to be so coated my friends could read your name on my cheeks.
you live on the same continent as my first lover. I breathe, I breathe, and I wonder why it should be him and not me. the burning one crumples to ash and I know these letters are not much more substantial. we could leave it to the summer, if that’s easier. I’ll never know your face under my hands. maybe it’s better to chalk it all up to the romanticization of a stranger. frame it as a gustav klimt moment, lock me away into the box of people who wouldn’t understand you if you spoke only in french. I would catch every fifth word perhaps, amour, you know the nouns were always my strong suit.
if we say goodbye in winter, you picked a good month for it. decembre and its endings, you know. I see them everywhere. I’m always mourning some life or another. I wonder what you mourn, how you think. is your mind a maze of words words words, poetry and language and song? I imagine one of those grand bells, bejeweled on the inside. I fit a ruby pebble from my meteorite to the wall, and it is tiny beside the emeralds but please take it anyway. please imagine me, hands soaked in river water and promise I can’t fulfill. I braid the gossamer and the thistledown and the nettle, stinging and filament too fine to wend together, but when you write letters into the grey anything is possible. that apartment in the city and every home after it, the garden and the wallpaper. keep me-! and for a moment you do.
I am pressing every kiss to your neck. I’ve been waiting since childhood and still I know I will never grow up to your lips. come down, come down… not rapunzel, then, another tale. I don’t stop talking, never stop talking. someday one of the stories to pass on my breath will be yours. I will speak your name (I know it, e, what a traitor I am to know your initial and never give you mine) and I will keep your voice soft in my ear every time I read je t’aime. I will think of the thousand parallel lives we are not living together. I will remember the orange you could not peel for me. I will eat ivy for the rest of my life so that I might become it next time for you, so that you might eat of my leaves and I will finally know what it is to live in your mouth, however briefly.
(- not too romantic, that part; ivy is mildly toxic and should not be consumed by either one of us. violence and poison and sickness down to the soul, however, poets are no stranger to these. you and I get no story beyond the one we write. ocean vuong tells the whole thing in a sixteenth of the words that I use, and far better. you and I, you and I, you and I, beats echoing into each other ever softer until the cave itself forgets we are there. read me in the next cumulonimbus and remember.)
i haven't slept and the rain won't stop before the sun rises and then settles back down to sleep and i think i want to stay in this moment that you wrote to me for a long while
isnt it the greatest thrill to find such a complementary soul? all i ever wanted when i was 10, 11, 12 (brief respite when i was 13 and then it drowned me more than ever) was a best friend. i wanted a friendship like anne found in dianna, i think i would have done anything. i still would, if I'm honest about it - and of course i am. i think there was something wrong with me when i was born i dont know how to make people love me (and stay) / hello i am a cat what is my existence, what is that? why it and not me, please can you look at me and love me too
these are substantial to me. i met a friend from chicago online more years ago than i can remember and we wrote back and forth and called and i sent them silly birthday presents and we grew up and applied to uni and college and now i hope to visit them in the foreseeable future. i can tell this is going to be a long response and im sorry. how can we lose when we're so sincere ! people also ask: where else can i put it down. lets exchange hands and yes, multiplied by 1 everything is the same but a process has happened. we would have each other's hands.
i used to have a gustav klimt poster on my wall, my first moving out purchase. i couldnt keep such a box closed my dear, my rattlesnake. i was always bad with nouns, i prefer the doing, the clever games to fit detail upon detail into a single latin conjugation - i could teach you, if you like? please let's intertwine our red strings together further. i want to be difficult to leave. i want to be easy to leaveif that's what you want. tell me what to do what to believe in, won't you? ill ask so well
i traverse the llandscape of your mind this winter, frostbitten and tentative but i will leave a trace nonetheless that only you will find, and you will burn it to ash lest another agent discover it, won't you? in this timeline or the next. my thoughts are getting muddled i think you will still understand i think you'll still understand what I'm trying to have you understand
i would cry for the sake of your hands, my love. all the nettles but i fear the swans will remain that way forever.
you kiss the back of my [neck] and i want to cry, only the sun has come this close, only the sun. i am so stricken with desire for the tenderest of gestures right now that i occasionally wonder what i would give up to lie beside someone afterwards
always bring your notebook, never stop writing. always keep talking there is space in the world for your words and there is a vacuum here devouring itself anticipating them in earnest. you have my name, my face, my city and a multitude of my confessions.
a sixteenth sounds beautifully poetic,i wish i knew whether you refer to something specific or just want to conjure semiquavers
write soon, here or at the email. eat well <3
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iironwreath · 5 months
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miscellanous quote inspo for ocs
pulled from various books, poetry, etc. normally I like to fit these at the start of fics but they don't always have a neat place. includes the quotes at the top of their fics on ao3
idk what's going on with the formatting, random letters keep randomly making themselves bigger no matter how many times I edit lmao
azul:
“Because the air had smelled so sweet, and the sky had been black velvet, spangled with points of diamond light that didn’t flicker at all, only burned constant and cold. Because the grass had been wet with dew, and the trees had been heavy with fruit. Because she had wanted to know what was at the end of the long path between the trees, and because she hadn’t wanted to turn back before she understood everything. Because for the first time in forever, she’d felt like she was going home, and that feeling had been enough to move her feet, slowly at first, and then faster, and faster, until she had been running through the clean night air, and nothing else had mattered, or would ever matter again—” — Seanan Mcguire, Every Heart a Doorway
"I'm on the cliff of myself & these aren't wings, they're futures." — Time is a Mother, Ocean Vuong
cadiana:
"I did not know how to deal with this sort of death, the one that comes slow and inevitable and does not let go. I am a solider, I deal in cannonballs and rifle shots. I understand how a wound can fester and kill a soldier, but there is still the initial wound, something that can be avoided with a little skill and a great deal of luck. Death that simply comes and settles is not a thing I had any experience with." — T. Kingfisher, What Moves the Dead
“'Everyone goes to the war together—but we come back separately shattered. If you see what I mean.'” — Olivia Waite, Hen Fever
"Most species bare their teeth as a threat, as a display of aggression, of leadership. It is a reminder that these clenched jaws can and will open your yielding throat. I want you to think of this next time I smile." — Unknown
cihro:
"The truth is: I want to hold your hands because they are like mine. Holding a knife
by the blade and sharpening it. In your dreams, how much invitation to pierce are you? Perhapslove, the truth is: I am afraid
we are both knives, both stones, both scarred. Or we will be." — Nicole Homer, Underbelly
"All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you." — Richard Adams, Watership Down
“Did he really splinter bone, was infection festering there, what was the secret injury down at the heart of him? There are only simple answers to a knife.” — Kathryn Harlan, Fruiting Bodies
crow:
"The pursuit of knowledge always seemed to have a price, and in stepping away from the academia I'd recreated the same circumstances in the private sector. The lesser of two evils was still evil." — In the Roses of Pieria, Anna Burke
“How quickly you come to a willingness to kill, and how quickly your lover will believe it of you. There are so many ways to find out what you will do when there is no one else to help you.” — Kathryn Harlan, Fruiting Bodies
“Never mind the book teaching me that the shadows inside need not be snuffed but treasured—that darkness existed to hide riches from ordinary mortals unable to handle their brilliance, and if I mustered the courage to dive into those veiled depths, these riches could become mine.” — Jade Song, Chlorine
“Power was sweeter than apples. It was cheaper than water, and sustained the soul twice as well. If Johann was going to be a Thing with a name, then from now on he would be a Thing with power, too.” ― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven
“'Deep forests always invite strangeness, whether real or imagined.'” — Samantha Shannon, A Day of Fallen Night
“But he is my King, and I am his Devil. I have given him my blood, my youth, my love, my good right hand; who am I now to begrudge him my death?” — Alix E. Harrow, Six Deaths of the Saint
iona:
“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.” — Vincent Van Gogh
"'War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.'" — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
"'He might be the very picture of lambkin,' Ead said, 'but monsters often have soft faces. They know how to mask themselves.' She looked them both in the eye. 'We will watch her. We will listen well. Remember why we wear blades as well as jewels.'" — Samantha Shannon, The Priory of the Orange Tree
surina:
"I do not know how to tell this story, and the pieces cut me as I reassemble them." — Anna Burke, In the Roses of Pieria
“The power of this weapon, any weapon, comes from here [heart], but only when tempered by this [head], by the discipline, the self control of the one who wields it.” — Kratos, God of War 4
"Who would go promised nothing but ice? Who would cut her home to pieces and row away for that?" — Maggie Smith, You Could Never Take A Car to Greenland
“'Alas, that these evil days should be mine. The young perish and the old linger. That I should live to see the last days of my house. No parent should have to bury their child.'” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
genevieve:
"When it's your own child, love is a dark animal, is exploding. Live forever, live forever, this love pleads. But this love knows that we were born to be wrenched apart by death. This love is not a heart shape. There's no pleasure in it. This love can quickly turn to rage. It sharpens into a weapon that is out of our control." — Madeline Ffitch, Stay and Fight
"That's the whole point of a curse, isn't it? You are doomed to live with it." — Victor LaValle, Lone Women
"'Without her, I am having to learn new ways to live. I imagine you have these moments, too, when you trip on the spaces Kanifa filled.'" — Samantha Shannon, A Day of Fallen Night
nepenthe:
"And the monster? Who is she? She is what happens when someone cannot be saved." — Natalie Haynes, Stone Blind
"What would it be like to have yourself stripped away in layers? Memory and pleasure, thought and self-knowledge. Love. She didn't know the weight of the poetry when she won it." — Kathryn Harlan, Fruiting Bodies
union:
“What now? I am out with lanterns, looking for myself. But here’s the thing about carrying light with you: No matter where you go, and no matter what you find—or don’t find—you change the darkness just by entering it. You clear a path through it.” — Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful
“Love, love, love, it was the core of my life, from which, of course, comes the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned that some of them were men and some were women and some—now carry my revelation with you— were trees. Or places. Or music flying above the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun which was the first, and the best, the most loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into my eyes, every morning. So I imagine such love of the world—its fervency, its shining, its innocence and hunger to give of itself—I imagine this is how it began.” — Of Love, Mary Oliver
vierna:
“Violence. This was violence. It had always been violence, no matter how far removed the poison had made her, no matter how easy it was to deny the connection when blood hadn't been cooling on her hands. It had been death, wicked death, shameful death—but she had never named it violence, before.” — Caitlin Starling, Yellow Jessamine
"I carried my fear of the world and apprenticed myself to the fear.
I carried my fear of the world and it became my teacher. I carried it, and it repaid me by teaching me how to carry it.
I carried my fear of the world the way an animal carries a kill in its jaws but in reverse: I was the kill, the gift. Whose feet would I be left at?
I carried my fear of the world as if it could protect me from the world." — What I Carried, Maggie Smith
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