May Hope Find You From The Pages of A Good Book

[vintar]

there's this one gay porn studio i'm subscribed to email updates for just because i am never prepared for what each email contains

pretentious gay sluts i am very fond of you

[creekfiend]

in general I find that "why did someone behave this way" is almost always answered by "behaving otherwise was too difficult and frightening for them at the time," and then you have to dig into why that is. people behave in ways that feel 1. easy for them (do not require much thought or effort) 2. accessible to them (patterns that have worked many times before) and 3. safe for them (apparently predictable outcome)

this is true even for behavior that is absolutely horrific and totally unacceptable. which can be a tough thing to accept, I think.

[makingqueerhistory]

The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Nghi Vo 

With the heart of an Atwood tale and the visuals of a classic Asian period drama, Nghi Vo's The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a tightly and lushly written narrative about empire, storytelling, and the anger of women.

A young royal from the far north, is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.

Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

Affiliate link above

[lamine-19]

The kindest thing that literature does is remind you that your little peculiar feelings have always existed. Someone, in some century, felt equally bewildered by love, bored by society, tired of pretending, and hungry for meaning.

[intothestacks]

[silliestbutch]

Transfem Butch Books:

The Scales of Seduction by Rien Gray [historical fiction, retelling, erotica]: An erotic lesbian monster novella reinterpreting the Medusa myth. Romance between Medusa and a basilisk warrior. Transfem butch protagonist.

Reverse Tomboy by Auto Anon [literary fiction, autofiction, essays]: A novella about a trans woman who struggles with relationships, familial dynamics, and reclaiming her masculinity after transitioning. Comes with an essay on transfeminine butchness and masculinities. Transfem Jewish butch protagonist and author.

Hot Girls with Balls by Benedict Nguyen [litfic, satire]: A contemporary satire novel about two trans lesbian volleyball players, who have to grapple with the anxieties of stardom as well as their their own off-court relationship drama. Transfem Asian-American protagonist. Transfem author.

Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante [litfic]: A trans lesbian mourns her straight trans friend, and comes to terms with her death by writing a personalized encyclopedia/love letter about the latter's favorite obscure TV show. Transfem soft butch protagonist. Transfem author.

Herculine by Grace Byron [litfic, horror]: A disaffected and traumatized young woman arrives at an all-trans girls commune founded by her toxic ex-girlfriend, only to discover something sinister afoot. Transfem butch love interest and side characters. Transfem author.

Our Monsters by Jemma Topaz (mystery, erotica, satire): In a futuristic city inhabited by monsters, a human woman tries to solve a series of grisly murders, while romancing several monster girls. Transfem butch love interest (poly romance, not the only love interest). Transfem author.

Always open to recs. Transfem butches are loved and appreciated, and I don't tolerate invisibilization of transfeminine people when speaking of butchness and lesbian masculinity.

toss a coin to a silly butch 🐻

[crownedinmarigolds]

I have a big folder on my desktop of inspirational pictures/memes/etc to keep me going so I shall share them with you here.

[singing-bowl]

thinking about how ursula k leguin said "what goes too long unchanged destroys itself. The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so lives" and how everyday i wake up slightly different and i can feel myself shed the skin of who i used to be slowly, slowly, until i look back and can scarcely recognise who i was... but also she is still a part of me, part of the leaf litter and the humus, supporting me as i send new roots down and new leaves stretching up to the sunlight

[squeakitties]

[necromosss]

As the person who got their R keyboard broken and the world mocked me for being forced to use the uwu language as replacement

My condolences

[commodore-64]

put that back

[the-davest-of-uncles]

National Lampoon, October 1985

[creativepromptsforwriting]

To all the writers who haven't written in a while. May the right words come to you and may they actually get written down.

[penny-anna]

one argument you often see about fanfiction is that it's like 'training wheels' writing? like 'oh it's fine to do that while you're still learning, it's easier than coming up with your own ideas'. and I have to say I have just never agreed with that.

[penny-anna]

in my experience it's actually pretty common for newbie fanfiction writers to gravitate towards coming up with OCs rather than writing about the canon characters (hence the infamous Mary Sue); this suggests that many people find that 'easier' than attempting to write about pre-existing characters.

I would say that recreating the characterisation, mood and general vibes of an existing work of fiction is in fact a skill in and of itself that's acquired via practice. A common compliment delivered to fanfiction writers is how well they have captured the spirit of the original work. Inexperienced fanfiction writers fail to do this.

When creating an original character you can, ultimately, say anything about them and now it's canon bcos you created them and you said so. conversely, well, if you are covering a well known song and start playing the wrong notes people will notice immediately.

In addition: a lot of fanfiction, IMO, is in actuality a form of metafictional literary analysis. a story where two characters sit down and talk about their feelings about a canonical event? literary analysis, which is of course a skill. Sometimes fanfiction is bad bcos the writer is not good at interpreting texts.

finally I have made this point before but you never really see anyone suggesting that fictional works based on existing public domain texts are on 'easy mode'. is it 'easier' to write something based on a copyrighted work than a public domain work? Of course it isn't.

[penny-anna]

I know I said 'finally' but I forgot a point:

A major strength of the transformative work is its ability to create dramatic irony. If a fanfiction's emotional resonance is dependent on being familiar with the source material that's not necessarily a bad thing. sometimes it's a sign that the author has done a really skillful job of engaging with said source material.

[catnippackets]

I read Project Hail Mary after I watched the movie and without the visuals I have to say it was easy to forget that Rocky was an alien bc so much of the book just felt like "two human beings who speak different languages talking to each other". Andy Weir's writing style isn't super descriptive, it's heavier on dialogue & actions, so if it went for too long without referencing an alien limb or something my brain would eventually start imagining a nondescript human guy with welding goggles. idk Rocky is so human. he's speaking a pidgin language to our main character who is doing the same thing for him. he's a mechanic. he knows how to pilot a spaceship. he's married. he's just like earth people except he's not human and in very simple writing form it's so easy to forget that

[homoerotisch]

why has anyone bothered to write a kissing scene after annie proulx wrote this in 1997

[screamlet]

FYI: brokeback mountain is a short story available to read on the new yorker site and as a PDF (only 20 pages!)

[nighthawkes]

I must sleep. Sleep is the mind-healer. Sleep is the big-life that brings total ability to fucking do anything. I will face my bed. I will permit the blankie to pass over me and snores to pass through me. And when sleep has gone past I will turn the outer eye to greet the new morning. When the sleep has gone there will be everything. Energy and will to live will remain.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

A waulking song for the winter season

I'm 99% certain I already posted this song, and I was going to just reblog it. But Tumblr search fails again. So I'm making a new post. Maybe it will bring the older post out of hiding.

From the Wikipedia article:

Waulking songs (Scottish Gaelic: Òrain Luaidh) are Scottish folk songs, traditionally sung in the Gaelic language by women while fulling (waulking) cloth. This practice involved a group of women, who traditionally prepared cloth, rhythmically beating newly woven tweed or tartan cloth against a table or similar surface to lightly felt it and shrink it to better repel water. Simple, beat-driven songs were used to accompany the work.

This song has been translated to English. It makes me cry happy tears every time I listen to it, thinking about all the generations of humans (going back to at least the old stone age) who have spun fibers and made cloth to keep us all warm and safe -- everything from winter coats to ships' sails.

Lyrics:

White the sheep that gave the wool, Green the pastures where they fed. Blue and scarlet side by side -- Bless the warp and bless the thread.

May the charm of lasting life Be upon your flocks in full. From the hill where they rest May they rise both whole and well.

Bless the man who wears this cloth. May he wounded never be. From the bitter cold and frost, May this cloth protection be.

Bless the children warmed within. Three times three our love enfold. Peace and plenty may they find. May they grow both wise and bold.

Now is waulked the web we've spun. Winter's storms may rage in vain. Bless the work by which we've won Comfort from the wind and rain.

White the sheep that gave the wool, Green the pastures where they fed. Blue and scarlet side by side -- Bless the warp and bless the thread.

[lingthusiasm]

Bonus 114: How poetry reveals the structure of languages | Lingthusiasm

Roses are red Violets are blue English poems are stress-based This is not a haiku In this bonus episode, Gretchen and Lauren get enthusiasti

Bonus 114: How poetry reveals the structure of languages

Roses are red Violets are blue English poems are stress-based This is not a haiku

In this bonus episode, Gretchen and Lauren get enthusiastic about how the structure of a language influences what forms of poetry are possible in the language. We talk about why so much English poetry depends on not putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle, how languages that don't have word-level stress like French write poetry based on syllable counts instead, how English speakers write haiku in a way that's actually subtly shifted for the constraints of the language (because Japanese doesn't have syllables, they have morae), and how signed languages like ASL use handshape repetition for poetry. (Check out the links to some ASL and BSL poem performances below, they're well worth watching!) We also talk about how the form of poetry has evolved several times as it moves back and forth between spoken and written formats, from beat and slam poets reclaiming orality to perfectly tweet-length forms like double dactyls and formats that rely on screencaps to preserve formatting, like the double-columned twin cinema. Listen to this episode about how the structure of a language influences what forms of poetry are possible in the language, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon. You'll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat to other language fans about your favourite popular or obscure form of poetry!

[frankingsteinery]

AITA for not telling my fiancé I know he’s queer? 

I 20s (F) have a 20s (M) fiancé, V, and he’s been talking about this terrible secret he cannot tell me and he keeps almost starting to come out and then backing out. The issue is V and I were raised together by his parents, and my surrogate 40s (M) father and (now deceased) surrogate mother arranged for our marriage back when we were both children. They thought it was the best for us and at the time we were too young to realize the implications and had no reason to reject to the match. When we were teenagers our mother was on her deathbed and she told us again that she wished for us to marry, and of course we both agreed. However, V is also best friends with a 20s (M) guy called H, and they were nearly inseparable as boys and teens. They also went to university together and shared an apartment but V had to come home due to family reasons. Lately he’s been going out all day and coming home at night hours later. He insists that he’s fine and that we all leave him alone and not worry for him, but I think he and H have been sneaking around. He even delayed our wedding day by arranging a trip to go to England alone with H. It’s exhausting for all of us and I think I should just tell V I know and support him and that we can call off the marriage, but I’m not sure that’s the best course of action? I’m completely fine with not marrying him - he always felt more like a brother to me anyway - but I worry it might come off wrong. The worst part is he’s really beating himself up about it. He’s so guilty it’s beginning to take a toll on his health. I don’t care if he has a boyfriend I just want him to be happy.

EDIT: nvm he built an 8ft creature in his dorm