Sometimes, Wang Jiexi thinks exasperatedly about how magical his life has become, and then he realizes that there isn't anything more magical than what has always been there. As always, Ye Xiu, his familiar, is there to witness it with him.
A continuation to my old Modern with Magic - Witches and Familiars AU which, uh, I still have to post here sometime too…
Girlpool—Before the World Was Big // memorial bench quoting Toni Morrison's Sula // @inanotherunivrse // Iain S. Thomas, I Wrote This For You // Zadie Smith, Swing Time // Fall Out Boy—The Kids Aren't Alright // Audrey Emmett // Mikko Harvey, "For M" // Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (tr. Ibrahim Muhawi) // Langston Hughes, "Poem"
obsessed with mass market paperbacks. their pleasing rectangular proportions. how they fit badly in a hoodie pocket so you can drag them around everywhere with you like a temporary little buddy. the way they fit in your hand because they're MADE for human hands and not as bookshelf decoration. the way the pages feel when you riffle them gently with your thumb. How pristine and crisp they look when you get them and how creased and folded they look when you're done, even if you try to be nice to them. how that wear is okay, how that's correct actually, because they're made with the philosophy that books aren't meant to be PRETTY, they're meant to be read. that little ripple new ones get on the left side from where you hold them when you're reading, the way the ripple only goes as far as you've read, because u change stories by reading as they are changing you. how you can find thousands of these creased and folded and loved little dudes in every thrift store and used book shop and neighborhood library and you can instantly see the ones that someone carried around in a backpack for weeks or read to pieces or gave up on halfway through because they wear being read like fresh snow wears footprints. I love these poorly made, subpar little rectangles so much. truly the people's books.
i firmly hold that it's my duty as a reader to believe it when an author tells me at the beginning of the series that the dragons are gone forever and never coming back. but god it's a struggle sometimes.
I'm re-reading the Discworld series for reasons, and honestly the most relatable part of reading these as an adult is how many of the protagonists start out being tired, used to their little routine and vaguely disgruntled by the interruption of the Plot. Sam Vimes wants to lie drunk in a gutter and absolutely doesn't want to be arresting dragons. Rincewind is yanked into every situation he's ever encountered, though he'd much rather be lying in a gutter too. (Minus the alcohol. Plus regretting everything he's ever done said witnessed or even heard about fourth-hand in his whole life.) Granny Weatherwax is deeply suspicious of foreign parts and that includes the next town over; Nanny has leaned into the armor of "nothing ever happens to jolly grannies who terrorize their daughters-in-law and make Saucy Jokes"
Only the young people don't seem to have picked up on this---and that's fortunate, because someone has to run around making things happen, if only so Vimes and Granny and Rincewind have a reason to get up (complaining bitterly the whole time) and put it all to rights. Without Carrot, Margrat, Eric, etc. these characters don't have that reason; they're likely to stay in the metaphorical gutter and keep wondering where it all went wrong or why anything has to change.
............well, that's not quite true. You get the sense that Vetinari knows how much certain people hate the Plot. And as the person sitting behind the metaphorical lighting board of Ankh-Morpork, he takes no small pleasure in forcing the Plot-haters specifically to stand up, and say some lines.
Smol snippet of Jon Hamm reading the Good Omens excerpt at the The Art of Elysium’s 2024 Heaven Gala, 6.1.2024 :) ❤ (I hope we will get it all one day! :) <3)
Jon: From a little story called Good Omens, The Nice and Accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, by Terry Pratchett and our own Neil Gaiman.
The angel waved a hand expansively, if a little unsteadily. "Loads of buggerall, dear boy."
"But it gets there anyway," Crowley persevered.
"How?"
"It doesn't matter!"
"It could use a space ship," said the angel.
Crowley subsided a bit. "Yeah," he said. "If you like. Anyway, this bird—"
"Only it is the end of the universe we're talking about," said Aziraphale. "So it'd have to be one of those space ships where your descendants are the ones who get out at the other end. You have to tell your descendants, you say, When you get to the Mountain, you've got to—" He hesitated.
ngl, I'm beginning to take issue with how in conversations about anti-intellectualism almost automatically, the face of girls and women will be slapped on the problem.