for any of my mutuals who have read dune... i'm like halfway through; please tell me why i should keep going

its like i know im going to sob when i go on reginald shepherd's (obviously defunct) blog but i go on there anyway and then i read the posts robert philen posted for him postmortem with his last two poems and i do i just cry and cry and cry

I’m so sorry but in the nicest way possible do yall actually read books or just read words??? Cause I’ve been seeing that trend of people not understanding how “snarled” and “eyes darkened” and “eyes softened” etc. was used in a book and like…

Genuinely, do yall just not have imagination?? Or not understand figurative language??? Also eyes do literally darken and soften have you not lived a life??? How do you read with no imagination? Is this how you get through so many books in one month - you simply don’t take the time the understand the words as they are read?

maya angelou saying the funniest thing anyone has ever said about editing, which i can never let myself forget EVER AGAIN [x]

not to be controversial bc I know this is like…not in line with shifting opinions on fanfic comment culture but if there’s a glaring typo in my work I will NOT be offended by pointing it out. if ao3 fucks up the formatting…I will also not be offended by having this pointed out…

‘looking forward to the next update’ and ‘I hope you update soon!’ are different vibes than a demand, and should be read in good faith because a reader is finding their way to tell you how much they love it. I will not be mad at this.

‘I don’t usually like this ship but this fic made me feel something’ is also incredibly high praise. I’m not going to get mad at this.

even ‘I love this fic but I’m curious about why you made [x] choice’ is just another way a reader is engaging in and putting thought into your work.

I just feel like a lot of authors take any comment that’s not perfectly articulated glowing praise in the exact manner they’re hoping to receive it in bad faith.

fic engagement has been dropping across the board over the last several years, and yes it’s frustrating but it isn’t as though I can’t see how it happens. comment anxiety can be a real thing. the last thing anyone wants to do is offend an author they love, and that means sometimes people default to silence.

idk where I’m going with this I guess aside from saying unless a comment is outright attacking me I’m never going to get mad at it, and I think a lot of authors should feel the same way. ESPECIALLY TYPOS PLZ GOD POINT OUT MY TYPOS.

I'm afraid that I have the worldbuilder's disease and it is terminal.

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

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

Since western media (especial American) are working overtime to suppress South Africa's hearing and Yemeni voices I want you to keep these 3 points in mind:

Not 1 major American news outlet broadcasted the South Africa case hearing on Thursday, but they broadcasted Israel's case hearing, today, Friday 12/1/2024.

Yemen has repeatedly said that the Red Sea blockage is because it's following its duty to upload "Article 1 on the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of Genocide" and IS NOT to "endanger the freedom of navigation in one of the world's most vital waterways" like Biden put it, in his statement.

Gaza Strip is still under severe bombardment. Don't allow yourself to get used to it. They just bombed an entire neighborhood in Khan Yunis which is a southern city! And as of recently the electricity has gone off in a hospital because gas has ran out.

god imagine logging on one day and learning:

the amv you made for a relatively niche ship a couple years ago has gotten a huge spike in views out of nowhere

a massive youtuber apparently stole it to put in his video essay because he just couldn't be bothered to watch the actual show???

the only reason people know about this is because some guy dedicated half of a 4-hour long video essay to calling the guy out for never having an original idea in his life.

like genuinely. how do you even begin to react to that

Edit: I am not the op of the amv!!! That is someone else!!! Please don’t spread misinformation!!!

Actual op’s (who is not me) reaction to this:

id in alt text

everyone come look at this fucking AITA post i just saw

11, 12, 16 :)

11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

Honestly most of what I read fits in this category because I really don't read a lot of new stuff. The one that jumps to mind immediately is Beth Allison Barr's The Making of Biblical Womanhood. I've been wanting to get my hands on it since it came out and I finally got around to it this year!

12. Any books that disappointed you?

Frankly, a number of books disappointed me this year. I think as I read more and more, I get pickier. Usually they don't hit me with any kind of weight behind the disappointment because I know my taste is a bit... eclectic, I guess? (I want to say refined but boy does that sound pretentious.) That said, I've got to give it to the entire Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown. The first book was okay with room for improvement, but then the series 1) never improved and 2) got way worse. And not in a fun way, just in a boring way. I had a friend recommend this series incredibly strongly—a friend whose taste in novels I generally trust—and it really let me down. I also haven't read YA in ages and these books reminded me why I quit the genre.

16. What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

Definitely The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. I've seen it on so many "best books of all time" or "read before you die" lists and I really went in with high expectations. I can really see how the content might be motivational/helpful for some people, but I really just found it extremely trite. I get what the author was trying to do, but it definitely did not land with me. Maybe I'm just too much of a cynic.

may 9th

book: the curator by m.w craven

opened on page 94, chapter 22

closed on page 121, chapter 28

read for 24 minutes

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

Genuine question- do you think it is important for you to be posting about … Skateboarding? In Palestine? When people are being killed?

yes. we are more than victims of genocide. we are people with culture and joy and history and life and resistance and love and resilience . we will not let all of that be overlooked. talk about our pain and the injustice that we face, but don’t forget our joy too. although these instances of pain and suffering are true and ongoing, you need to recognize that by only listening to stories of our suffering, you narrow the complexities of the full Palestinian person and experience .

those first couple weeks after escaping a time loop have gotta be disorienting as all fuck. all those little cues that used to tell you what's about to happen are now triggers that cause you to brace for something that isn't coming. you have to relearn the permanence of death -- hell, you have reacquaint yourself with the entire concept of finality altogether. everything keeps changing but it never changes back and you keep having to remind yourself that this is normal. "it won't reset anymore," you echo to yourself, over and over and over, like a broken record, like you're still trapped in a loop, like someone who escaped the time loop but was doomed to bring it into the future with them