The Frozen Sea

"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.” - Franz Kafka

[hopeurokays]

friends don’t look at friends that way

[mercifulmother]

– Animorphs: The Reunion, K.A. Applegate

[stormofsnow-moved]

I just want to buy books and read books and organise books. Is that such a hard wish for life?

[adel-i]

[ijustkindalikebooks]

“The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.”

― Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader.

[lizclimo]

[muchymozzarella]

Whenever people try to tell me to ship "moral ships" I like to think about how inherently immoral it is to flirt with service workers at coffee shops where they're obliged to be nice to you so... many coffee shop AUs are like. Immoral. But given that they are a fantasy where this is instant romance without the fear of trapping a service worker in an uncomfortable situation that's tantamount to workplace sexual harassment, I enjoy the cutesy coffee shop AUs immensely.

And that's basically my attitude towards all fantasy. There's lots of things I enjoy in fantasy that wouldn't work IRL. Enemies to lovers. Sudden kisses. Miscommunications in relationships. Codependency. Fight sluts who physically assault each other while emotionally connecting.

Once you start ascribing your morals to the fiction you consume, you tend to miss the issues in even the most innocuous, innocent seeming scenarios. It's easy to judge other people's fictional enjoyment until someone points out your innocent coffee shop AU is romanticised workplace harassment.

But it's all fiction. It's a fantasy. That's why it's fine.

A lack of education around things like consent, healthy relationships, self respect and respect of others, bodily autonomy, etc, has made people think they can rely only on fiction to tell them what right - but that's dangerous. And unsustainable.

[helenvaughans]

[itsmistybitch-deactivated202605]

These posts are sisters

[ivylefay]

”There have to be stories about being in that terrible place and coming back from it, rather than just stories about never going to that terrible place in the first place.”

Seth Dickinson, on The Masquerade Series, from In Media Les Episode 19

[kat-from-minasmorgul]

shelves ✨ (ft. lamp I need to put on the ceiling)

[saintfelina]

women in GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums)

[safije]

15th century Timurid Qur'an copied on Chinese paper from the Ming Dynasty.

[ijustkindalikebooks]

“When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean.” ― Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels.

[mckitterick]

[kosmogrl]

everybody needs to read more. read all the time. read every day. read read read

[darkacademias]

Audrey Hepburn as Jo Stockton in "Funny Face" (1957)

[ijustkindalikebooks]

“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.” ― Beatrix Potter.