#books about reading

[m3djed]

"he would not fucking say that" but you ever be looking at fanart and suddenly its "he would not fucking have abs"

#txt #guys. guys this is not about hcs. do you hear me this is about when a guy with no logical reason to have abs is drawn like a hollister model #like when a guy who does nothing but go to coffee shops and read books is drawn with abs like hes been hiking mountains and climbing trees #do you hear me are you hearing me

[waitineedaname]

I simply don't think that's true eBooks.com but thank you anyway

#i love getting automated emails from book stores #about authors who have been dead for decades ajdbfkdjdj #i had to read nietzsche for my existentialism class. god what a pretentious dude

[orcboxer]

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

#orcspeak #edit: this is not about fanfic nor is it about a specific fanfic nor is it about a specific show or movie or book #this post is about the time loop trope itself which occurs in many different stories spanning many different art forms #i don't read or write fanfic and I'm not looking for fanfic recs and whatever character you think this is about there's #an 80 percent chance i don't recognize their name

[essektheylyss]

"must a story have conflict?" yes. hope this helps <3

#this is about many things but also none of them in particular lmfao #truly what not understanding how conflict operates does to a mf #me vs my executive dysfunction trying to focus enough to finish reading my book this weekend is a conflict. #like good lord

[anotherpapercut]

genuinely it will never stop baffling me how people will wear twilight shirts and talk about team Edward vs team Jacob and then the same people will be like "I'm not basing my personality off of a piece of media (harry potter) made by a transphobe 😌" like good that's great! so you can excuse racism but you draw the line at transphobia? good to know

#remember when twilight came out and there were news articles about the quileute tribe and also if you read the books with your eyes #you know that theyre extremely like INSANELY racist #i remember reading them at age 10 and thinking 'wow this author hates women and native americans' #and i was right bc later i found out shes mormon 😐 #begging you all to take racism and especially pretty extreme racism against natives seriously lmfao

[jupiterlandings]

“How is 12 year old Annabeth head of the Athena cabin??”

1. Demi gods have the life expectancy of a lemming.

2. Gifted kids often burn out by age 16 & I doubt any of the Athena teens have the energy or desire to argue with their little sister who willingly takes care of all the family paperwork.

#ramblings #percy jackson #pjo #OMG PEOPLE THIS IS A JOKE I KNOW SHE WAS THERE THE LONGEST #ITS STILL P WILD TO HAVE A 12 YEAR OLD IN CHARGE OF ALL HER SIBLINGS CALM DOWN PLS #I READ THE BOOKS I DID MY TIME LET ME JOKE ABOUT THIS

[spooksier]

me when the emotionally repressed character is revealed to have had something happen in their childhood that was completely out of their control but changed them in a way they can never come back from

#text! #did post this on twt but this belongs on the crying about characters website #and yeah this is about jarchivist and also marc spector in the mk show #idk it hit me yesterday that they were EIGHT AND NINE!!!!!!! when their respective thing happened and that ruined me #like it wasn't their fault but they think it is!!! GOD!!!!!!!!!! #holds those autistic bi men close to my chest #should've never smoked that shit* (*took my brother to a cave/read that book) #now im irrevocably changed* (*tied to the shittest god possible/destined to be the antichrist) #edit: this is getting a bit of traction so pls know that blorbo tagging and oc tagging is SOOO encouraged #thank you to the person who added the flaming text miles edgeworth thats so funny

[blueboyluca]

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

#dog books #this chapter was very sad reading #when you become aware of punishment #and its use and its prevalence #it's hard not to despair #again this is why positive reinforcement feels like absolution #maybe now my eyes are open I can make up for what I did #what I did because it's what everyone does #because it's more acceptable to punish than to do anything else #I've been having so many thoughts about punishment and society and justice #this book was very validating #another great validating moment in my jumbled thoughts #was listening to the You're Wrong About episode on justice #with Amanda Knox #it helped to ease the despair a little

[watchingwisteria]

listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded psychopath happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.

#seeing some discourse and im not saying lucy grey didnt know #im saying she never dropped the kind of hints that she knew like she did in the movie #or if she did snow isnt worried about them until he very suddenly is consumed by them #snow is not concerned about whether or not she believed him. of course she did! hes snow! #but then shes gone…. for a while…… #and its the sudden immediate drastic unravelling that comes across so clearly in the book #that i knew wouldn’t translate to screen yet still cant help but miss #the hunger games #coriolanus snow #tbosas #lucy gray baird #not a crime or anything just a note that i cannot stop thinking about #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #this is all from memory of reading it quite a while ago. so maybe 3 pages is an exaggeration #but i remember it happening VERY quickly and without much external cause #like we as the reader have no indication as to whether shes nearby or not. #snow has no idea either. he just SUSPECTS. and his suspicion breeds the hatred that has been bubbling inside him all this time #he hates how she undoes him. he hates that he WOULD run away with her if shed let him keep his secrets #and he HATES more than anything that she makes him WANT to tell his secrets #he wants to be vulnerable and reveal the ugly nasty parts about himself and still be loved #but he does not let himself and it is everyone’s downfall #he chooses cruelty bc it is easy and familiar and makes him feel more powerful than the vulnerable give and take that real love requires

[holdoncallfailed]

SPILLED.

#barbie #they got you good miss greta #ive been thinking about the point in the 2nd paragraph about the semiotic value of products vs. the act of buying them #particularly in regards to booktok/the increasing number of people who call themselves book collectors but not readers cos they don't even #intend to read the books they compulsively buy and post about

[turndecassette2]

#watercolour #art #tolkien #elf #feanor #or it was meant to be feanor but I was too lazy to google what hair colour he was supposed to have & I know some ppl care deeply about #those sorts of things #I need to re-read this book #just remember it being good tragedy #& the author cares about trees in a way I find strangely moving & sweet

[hymnsofheresy]

I hate anti aging propaganda. it is a blessing to live long enough to see your hair become silver and your face wrinkle with time.

#i pray that i become old #anyway just read a book about a girl who died young #made me sad

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

#this was much longer i had to cut it down for legibility #but i do want to say i am aware this post doesnt touch on human rights violations as a result of fast fashion #that is because it deserves its own post with a completely different tone #i am an environmental educator #so that's what i know the most about. it wouldn't be appropriate of me to mention off-hand the real and legitimate suffering #that people are going through #without doing my research and providing real ways to help #this is a vent post about a thing i'm watching happen; not a call to action. it would be INCREDIBLY demeaning #to all those affected by the fast fashion industry to pretend that a post like this could speak to their suffering #unfortunately one of the horrible things about latestage capitalism as an activist is that SO many things are linked to this #and i WANT to talk about all of them but it would be a book in its own right. in fact there ARE books about each level of this #and i encourage you to seek them out and read them!!! i am not an expert on that i am just a person on tumblr doing my favorite activity #(complaining) #and it's like - this is the individual versus the industry problem again right because im blaming myself #for being an expert on environmental disaster (which is fucking important) but not knowing EVERYTHING about fast fashion #i'm blaming myself for not covering the many layers of this incredibly complicated problem im pointing out #rather than being like. yeah so actually the fault here lies with the billion dollar industries actually. #my failure to be able to condense an incredibly immense problem that is BOOK-LENGTH into a single text post that i post for free #is not in ANY fucking way the same amount of harm as. you know. the ACTUAL COMPANIES doing this ACTUAL THING for ACTUAL MONEY. #anyway im gonna go donate money while i'm thinking about it. maybe you can too. we can both just agree - well i fuckin tried didn't i #which is more than their CEOs can say

[p4nishers]

i cant get over the ball being so CLEARLY all for crowley i can't get over aziraphale trying to woo him with a WHOLE FUCKING BALL because that's what he knows that's what romance IS for him because he's been wanting to dance with crowley ever since dancing was invented and he's so stuck in time with the way he dresses and talks and he still thinks a dance is the high of romance AND HE MADE A WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING BALL FOR CROWLEY JUST SO HE COULD DANCE WITH HIM like now it's so fucking obvious he gave away his BOOKS without a second thought and it was all for crowley he organised a whole JANE AUSTEN THEME BALL just so he could have an excuse to finally dance with the love of his life and i can't get over this i'm shaking my fists and pacing up and down he did not give a single fuck about anything other than dancing with crowley and HE BARELY TOUCHED OTHER PEOPLE'S HANDS WHILE HIS WHOLE FUCKING PALM WAS PRESSED TO CROWLEY'S AND i need to lie down

#im actually not okay im never getting over this #this was actually the most romantic thing to ever happen on television prove me wrong you can't #no because he spent CENTURIES reading about and witnessing and orchestring romances and he's been wanting to living in them WITH CROWLEY al #this fucking time and crowley rescuing his books was the most romantic thing that ever happened to him and in return HE GAVE AWAY THE BOOKS #HE LOVES SO FUCKING MUCH FOR CROWLEY AND OH GOD OH JESUS #how am i still not normal about this show im literally box breathing and my heart is fucking POUNDING from a SHOW i cant i just cant #i need psychiatric help #good omens #good omens s2 #azicrow #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #ineffable spouses #good omens season 2 #ineffable husbands #go s2

[feelingthedisaster]

aftg is probably the only fandom in which the fans do not recommend the books to others

#aftg fan: talks a lot about aftg /x: should i read it? / aftg fan: no #its always trying to convince your friends to read your favourite book #but not with aftg #and i think thats precious #unique #aftg #all for the game #nora sakavic #all for the gay #fandoms

[iphigeniacomplex]

it’s very easy to tell the good satires and pastiches from the bad ones because the bad ones are too afraid to live within the form. like if you are doing work with fairy tales and you are refusing to look closer at the underlying logic and unspoken rules of what can seem at first to be a senseless form, you are not going to create meaningful work. to borrow a turn of phrase originally used by maria tatar, if you refuse to enter “the house of fairy tale” as anything more than a gawking tourist, you will miss the particular order to the way the table is set, the rooms that are locked vs the rooms that are simply difficult to enter, the set of the floorboards and the position of the furniture. whatever you build will then be a gilded imitation of how you believe the house of fairy tale ought to look, the table set according to your educated specifications and every door open. there can be no interrogation of themes from a writer who views the form as beneath them!

#it speaks! #sondheim understood this with into the woods; the deconstruction of narrative itself is able to happen because we are able to believe in -> #<- the fairy tale logic he employs prior to this. #its a kids book but adam gidwitz understood this with a tale dark and grimm!! #cant speak for the rest of the series but that first book uses the absurdity of fairy tale logic to speak about the absurdity of -> #<- adulthood and the pedagogy present in many fairy tales to discuss the ways parents hurt their children. #rule of threes is important but theres so much on my list ive yet to read; always welcome recommendations. #fairy tales #into the woods #<- this comes from musings on how successfully i feel that musical functions so it gets the tag