Muggle Books

Meg, a soon-to-be actual human being, escapes the Muggle world through books and stories and tells you about her adventures there.

[aldebarangel]

im an absolute fan of when characters have their own twisted perceptions of love. like holy shit that guy thinks inflicting pain is affection! woah this silly man believes love is a form of ownership! give me more.

[tigeristired]

i think 'I trust you with my life but not your own' as a trope is one of the ones that can always fuck me up no matter what

[marvellouslymadmim]

"I trust you with my life because you are good and kind and noble--I know you will not hesitate to do everything in your power to save me.

I do not trust you with your own life because you are good and kind and noble--I know you would not hesitate to sacrifice yourself to save me."

THAT is where it's at!!!!!

[littledeviantsworld-deactivated]

bilf (book i'd like to finish)

[cubistemoji]

[mapswithoutwyoming]

[ID: a tweet by that's not very wonderhoy of you @ mosaikmage

"does the narrative respect women" and "do the characters in the story respect women" are actually two different questions with sometimes different answers

End ID]

[utwo]

Beautiful library in Munich Bavaria

© Thomas

[memendoemori-deactivated2025020]

The best quality a fictional man can have is being deeply, pathetically, wretchedly in love with someone, I think

[fuerant]

Counterpoint: the best quality a fictional man can have is hating someone so deeply and intimately it could almost be confused for love

[fictionadventurer]

I usually think of Gale as "playing by the Capitol's rules" and Peeta as "refusing to play the game", but it's not quite as simple as that. Gale and Peeta are both extremely skilled in different parts of the Game.

Gale is good at the violence part of the Capitol's game. He subverts society's rules by living as a semi-outlaw, illegally poaching to save his family, getting more and more active in fighting against oppression. Yet his violent outlook warps who he is at his core, because it warps his vision of the world into a game of "us versus them" that is actually the bedrock of the worldview that led to their oppressive society in the first place.

Peeta is good at the media spectacle at the heart of the Hunger Games. He can manipulate an entire nation with a story and a smile--a dangerous level of power. But though he's good at putting on the mask, he does so as a way to protect who he is at his core, and to stay loyal to his beliefs. He's able to subvert the system of lies into a tool for presenting the truth in ways that change people's hearts and minds.

Of the two of them, Peeta's probably the more dangerous. He could be the next President Snow if he wanted to be--manipulating the truth to warp hearts and minds and shape society in a way that best serves him. Yet Peeta doesn't play the game for personal gain. He doesn't use his skills to benefit himself. He's always acting out of love for Katniss, and eventually, for the good of all Panem, wanting to save everyone from the lies they're living under, instead of punishing some of them for their role in oppression. Gale works to save others, but only his people--everyone else "deserves" destruction, or is acceptable collateral damage. While Peeta could play the game and keep himself, Gale played the game in a way that warped even his good intentions to bad ends.

You wouldn't think that the honest hometown boy would wind up being less moral than the cunning media manipulator. Yet that's how it plays out, which suggests that it's not just playing the game that matters, but who the players are and how they choose to play.

[literalnobody]

Nothing is funnier to me than Mr Darcy telling his best friend not to propose to the girl he loves bc 1. Her family are unsuitable and 2. She doesn't truly like him enough to marry... only to then himself propose to a woman who is 1. From the exact same family and 2. Has done nothing but roast him since they met

[qilingxiong]

haha that's a nice starry-eyed ambition you've got there buddy. sure hope the narrative doesn't warp it into something ruthless and all-consuming

[howlonghaveibeenup]

you know what i love about terry pratchett and his books. is that the girls are allowed to be ugly. Mr Terry says this woman looked like the wrong end of a dragon and has no teeth and she saved the day and her husband dotes on her. Like….in almost all fantasy novels i read beauty is almost always equated with goodness, and its just…so refreshing to see ugly girls in starring roles. His books really say you dont have to have beauty to have value. and like!! not just in looks either. so many of these ladies have shit personalities. i guess what im saying is he writes women like people, flawed, ordinary and extraordinary all at once.

[brunhiddensmusings]

when lady sybil is introduced shes dressed to muck out what is essentially a pet rescue shelter for incontinent chemichal factories that are only just barely dragons and she is described like her one true purpose in life is to wear a horned helmet and scream at the end of a wagner opera- none of this is played to diminish her as she is the romantic interest of a focus character because she has a hundred and one good qualities that blindside people and is equally as capable in many situations as her husband. yes, the husband who just bareknuckled a werewolf only to find his wife ended an international dispute when he wasnt looking of the four focal witches of the witches of lancre books all four of them are interestingly nonconformist in looks ranging from looking like a wet hen perpetually waiting for the mythical good hair day, to complaining that the traditional witch hat made them look like someone dropped a particularly goth icecream cone, to someone who quite literally lights fires by glaring at the wood, to someone whose face looks like a cheerful apple that has been left out in the sun and this is the one who not only is implied to have had an ambitiously healthy string of lovers but is still pursuing romantic interests well into her 70s a female troll has an argument about being upset about being expected to conform to beauty standards like buffing out her crags, and rebels by rubbing bird doo to promote lichen growth which is still nothing compared to how igor rebelled against gender roles cheery littlebottom… just cheery littlebottom i recall a segment where a male opera singer was wistfully describing the lost love of his youth and how she would open a beer bottle with her teeth is a phrase he uttered like he was describing divine grace the important distinction is ‘allowed to be’ ugly, not required to be ugly or that them being ugly carries any significant meaning. theres nothing wrong with being described as conventionally attractive, though it does raise suspicion, but someone described as looking like a blind carpenters thumb in no way means they dont have great traits and people who love them their self worth was never in question at all in all truthfulness everyone written by terry pratchett is allowed to be ugly in a lot of ways, from c.m.o.t dibbler to lu tze everyone has a certain organic way they just congealed into being with prominent flaws fully visible because often they are not really flaws, or they are flaws but they dont think of them that way. but in the case of the women that being allowed to be ugly is a very liberating status that allows them to be far more visceral and opens so many possibilities

[howlonghaveibeenup]

how dare you make me cry on my own post

[lady-of-the-spirit]

Obsessed with the concept of a character who has never been treated kindly or gently in their life (or in a very long time) and suddenly being treated gently and with care and being stunned and then overwhelmed by it.

[flork-of-cows-official]

book recommendation

[13flowersandfoxes]

@doctorbluesmanreturns

[nejires-hado]

[hacvek]

reminder to worldbuilders: don't get caught up in things that aren't important to the story you're writing, like plot and characters! instead, try to focus on what readers actually care about: detailed plate tectonics

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

cardan about jude:

[readingpeacebypiece]

[sotrias-labyrinth-deactivated20]

I feel like when I say ‘relatable’ what I really mean is ‘resonant.’ I don’t want characters who I feel are like me, I want characters who have emotions so strong I can feel them through the page.