Bene Books

Hello ! My name's Bene, and my blogging is really inconsistent Trying to be a booklr, mostly failing

[emvisual]

The cookies explained.

this is it

[wizard0rb]

what did we do to deserve portal 2. that shit was so good and for what

[wizard0rb]

we got to have this! we got to have a valve game set in the half life universe, and its an enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-again sci fi comedy story about a homicidal ai created to run tests forever and the test subject she catches feelings for!! how is this game real!!!

[wizard0rb]

happy birthday to the only video game ever

[bamf-jaskier]

I have said it before I will say it again, it is a crime there is not more Mimi Ndiweni on my dash

[loveinstreams]

the way the sanders sides is just an american gen z version of SLG 

[trashlord-watson]

[a-random-fandom-friend]

Lys ? Hey Lys ? Every word you say invoque some repressed memories back to the surface and i hate it :)

[blatterpussbunnyfromhell]

J'ai 1 seul truc à dire à propos du shipping:

Matoine, Yaourt à la pêche.

[a-random-fandom-friend]

I think all of you should stop

[catchymemes]

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[antennacosplays-deactivated2021]

I will buy you

[that-house]

Untitled.

i made a comic in google slides for some ungodly reason

[that-house]

the long-awaited sequel, Untitled #2

[that-house]

Untitled #3 explores the formulaic entertainment mass-produced by the pawns of capitalism. Or I just wanted to say ass. One of the two.

[that-house]

Untitled #4: the plot thiccens. also there’s a plot apparently

[that-house]

Untitled #5. This whole comic is 23 strips long, and I’ll be doing daily uploads until it’s all posted. Thanks for the great response y’all.

[that-house]

Untitled #6. Okay so firstly, HOLY FUCK Y’ALL. I did NOT expect this comic to get notes, let alone fanart. The most recent strip will always be linked at the bottom of my pinned post, so you can check there to see if you’re caught up.

[that-house]

Untitled #7. Not much to say here. I hope you’re having a good day!

[that-house]

Untitled #8. The true plot begins.

[that-house]

Untitled #9. The Creator can possess Red because I, like Red, have a phenomenal ass. That’s it. It’s not that deep.

[that-house]

Untitled #10. *slaps roof of blue square* this bad boy can fit so much fucking existential despair

[that-house]

Untitled #11. Bet you didn’t expect the ass jokes comic to come to this now did you

[that-house]

Untitled #12. Red is fucking pissed at me. sorry buddy

[that-house]

Untitled #13. I indeed cannot have a comic without characters. Well played, Red.

[that-house]

Untitled #14. Red has his priorities straight.

[that-house]

Untitled #15. It would be funny if this were the last strip but I promise it isn’t. I put too much effort into the end of the comic to stop it now.

[that-house]

Untitled #16. Nice try, Red. Nice try.

[that-house]

Untitled #17. The paradox of omnipotence perpetually vexes me :(

[that-house]

Untitled #18. Let’s not have any ambiguity: Red’s dead. Hey, that rhymes! Neat!

[that-house]

Untitled #19. While strip 18 coincidentally did fall on April Fool’s, it wasn’t a prank. This comic has two characters now. Remember when this comic was about ass jokes?

[that-house]

Untitled #20. Three more strips to go. Holy shit.

[that-house]

Untitled #21. ass haha

[that-house]

Untitled #22. What am I going to do? Who knows… Find out tomorrow at roughly 8:30 AM EST!

[that-house]

Untitled #23.

[spideybway]

[shutyourmoustache]

🐝 get jet-lagged. I repeat: bees get jet-lagged.

[readingsometimes]

If you haven’t ditched the Amazon-owned Goodreads in favor of the independent, Black-owned StoryGraph, what are you waiting for?

You can import your Goodreads data (so you won’t lose years of book tracking)!

You can get personal recommendations based on your current preferences!

It’s sleek af!

IT’S NOT OWNED BY AMAZON

Users can apply content warnings so you can avoid triggers before ever opening a specific book

The same applies for ‘mood’! Wanna read something sad? Find books tagged as ‘sad’, that’s literally it

IT’S NOT OWNED BY JEFF BEZOS

[readingsometimes]

Addressing some comments in the tags: It’s true that the database isn’t as vast as Goodreads’ - yet. The site is much, much newer than Goodreads. But you can actually help them expand!

When you search for a title, you may not find what you need. Then all you have to do is click the handy “Can’t find the book you’re looking for?” link, and you’ll be taken straight to this page, where you will be able to help them find books to add to their database! If you can’t find that non-English book you’re looking for, help them out!

[daemonmatthias]

I had no idea it was black-owned! So cool.

I’ve been using StoryGraph for a bit over a year now and I LOVE IT.

Way better review system - you can mark things as quarter stars, you mark moods, slow/medium/fast pace, several things about plot, character, etc.

Tailored searches - you can search by mood as well as set various preferences and then search for matches.

Can add/view content warnings to books - no more skimming reviews and accidentally getting spoilers!

Really interesting and unique reader-created challenges

Tracks more than # of pages/books read - also tracks moods, types of books, length, fast/medium/slow pace, etc.

Also, to address the above comment- it has been about 7 months now since I’ve had to add a book to their database, and I’ve been reading a good mix of old/new/popular/lesser-known/etc. just in the last 3-4 months. The database has grown ENORMOUSLY since StoryGraph first launched and will simply continue to grow the more people use it!

[ruinedchildhood]

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

drunk on it

Geralt comes home drunk and melancholy after a night out with his brothers. Jaskier asks what’s wrong - and immediately regrets it when Geralt confesses that his mood has been brought about by his unrequited love for a friend. 

2.8k, Modern/Domestic AU, contains swears, drinking and heaps of pining.

~

Jaskier was enjoying, for once, having the TV to himself. Although - he glanced at the clock, noting that it was just past half eleven - he wouldn’t have it to himself for much longer.

Geralt and his brothers were unlikely to stay out till the early hours of the morning: they’d stumble home when the pubs shut just before midnight, instead of traipsing between clubs till the last one closed at 3am like Jaskier and his friends would do. Jaskier wasn’t waiting up for Geralt - not at all - he just happened to be up late, and Geralt would just happen to arrive home before he’d gone to sleep.

Barely even a coincidence.

Besides, Jaskier always enjoyed entertaining Geralt when he drunkenly returned from a night with his brothers. There was always a new story to hear, some fun gossip, and possibly a rushed confession - Jaskier, fucking guess what Lambert and I did—

He heard the front door open, and the tell-tale thumping of Geralt drunkenly removing his boots and coat before making his way into the living room.

“Hey you,” Jaskier said, pausing the movie, “Good ni—” he spotted Geralt’s face. “Gods, Geralt, what’s up with you?”

Afficher davantage

[sophiamcdougall]

Please don’t pirate books at least while the author is alive. I’ll make an exception for actual billionaires and wildly expensive textbooks you cannot afford yet need to complete your studies. I can’t make an exception for assholes, because we’re all considered assholes by someone.  I don’t know how many people realise how many writers who created successful, beloved stories and characters still die poor while other people get rich off the same work. I don’t think people realise that in the UK the current average yearly earnings for an author has nosedived over the last fifteen years to £10,500. That obviously is forcing people to quit writing. It increasingly means writing is a job for people who’ve inherited money or have wealthy spouses who can support them. I don’t know if people realise that in general, writers are poor and getting poorer. I’m sorry, but if you think widespread sense of entitlement to free books has nothing to do with that … you’re just wrong. 

I say I don’t think people realise - the truth is I hope they don’t, because the alternative is that they don’t care. That’s certainly the impression I’ve got from Twitter, where a truly horrifying number of people are arguing that copyright on  all books should expire after thirty years, and you should be able to acquire books for  free after that. This … would not just mean that everyone gets free books. It would mean if you write a book at 30, not only do you lose any royalties from it at 60, but Disney can take it, make a franchise out of it, Scrooge McDuck it up in a pool of money while you starve because writers don’t get workplace pensions.

Some threads on the unintended (?) consequences of this. I can’t go over it all again. John Brownlow NK Jemisin Michael Marshall Smith Me Marina Lostetter Kari Dru and others William Gibson and others

There are plenty of others. It’s not that this actual idea will actually happen, but I do think it reinforces the idea that it’s not only okay, but sometimes actually virtuous to search for ways to enjoy writers’ work without paying for it. Like it’s somehow a step towards a better world. Not just at the reader end, to be fair, at the employer end too. And I do see a lot of people here too who are all about supporting workers unless the workers are writers in which case fuck’em. 

Like. If you want to radically change society in such a way that mass-media conglomerates don’t exist and so can’t exploit us and we’re supported to make art in some other way than fine. But can you start the revolution with actual rich people please, not ask us to live right now, in the society we’ve got, without the money we need to survive it. Finally, a plea: I really, really, do not want to debate this. This whole thing genuinely makes me feel tense and shaky and sick. If you’ve got to disagree - unfollow me, block me, vagueblog somewhere I can’t see it. The Twitter version of this already has me feeling like I’ve been kicked in the gut. I didn’t want to write this post. I just felt I wasn’t going to have any peace until I did.

[sophiamcdougall]

More from Courtney Milan, including on how no, it’s not like patents.

[feuervogel]

So much good here. 

[mikkeneko]

not even about the topic at hand but

I can’t make an exception for assholes, because we’re all considered assholes by someone

[sophiamcdougall]

No there freaking isn’t. A millionaire is not a billionaire-lite. A millionaire is not someone who has absolutely no risk of suffering personal want, and the power to fix multiple social issues and chooses not to.

I chose my words deliberately. If I’d meant “and millionaires” I would have fucking said that. I didn’t forget. 

So much has been said about the difference between a million and a billion that I would have hoped it was no longer necessary to explain it, but here we are. 

 A million is a thousandth of a billion.  A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 32 years. 

If you earned £1000 a day, and spent nothing, it would take you three years to become a millionaire. It would take you 2,470 years to become a billionaire. They’re not even close to the same kind of thing. Obviously it’s fortunate and unusual to be in possession of a million anything at once, (although it’s worth noting that different currencies mean significant differences in how much wealth we’re actually talking) but in a career where it often takes years to create and sell even one book, it should be understood as equivalent to several years of salary coming at once. The safest thing for any writer would be to assume it will never happen again. Your next book bombing - or simply not getting the lucrative film deal your last book did – these are very normal occurrences. Yeah, that wouldn’t in itself take you back to poverty, but it could very easily mean the status of “millionaire” is a one-off blip, not a static condition.    And factor in one fairly normal problem like having to pay for your own or a relative’s longterm care, or any kind of health crisis at all for writers in the US, and you could be back to average levels of wealth at best very quickly.  Also how the hell do you know who is a millionaire? You don’t. 

And people are very quick to assume writers are millionaires, because a book has sold fairly well or has been made into a film or even simply because they’ve heard of them. That’s a big part of the point of this post. People think writers are much, much richer than they are. They are very unaware of how often even books that make money don’t necessarily make money for the writer. (Just look at what happened to Peter Beagle, for a particularly heinous recent example.) They are very keen to find loopholes to  put writers in a special category of person it’s okay to exploit.

Don’t. 

[phantomrose96]

Hiromu Arakawa’s genius is obvious throughout all of FMA but her first and biggest leap of genius was in how she crafted her protagonist. 

Arakawa realized the burgeoning youth of the early 2000s wasnt interested in another plucky spry optimistic young shonen protag. Instead she gave us a short ugly egotistical asshole smarter-than-you atheist with so much money and power that people could no longer best him in arguments by telling him “dude shut up ur literally like 12″ 

Five pages in we’re told Edward’s famous and rich and powerful. Five more pages and he’s calling some girl stupid for thinking God exists. Five more pages and he’s proven right. Five more and he’s kicked an evil priest’s teeth in. And no one can tell his mom on him.

Hiromu Arakawa figured out the dream of every edgy young weeb discovering internet arguments for the first time and she cast them an idol made of gold.

[phantomrose96]

[rideroftherange]

It’s like the original protagonist got turned into a suit of armor, so his asshole sidekick had to fill in as the face.

[phantomrose96]

Wait holy fuck

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[tiktoks-for-dead-pope]

[injuries-in-dust]

That took a turn I wasnt expecting!

[newt--newt]

Hey if the British Museum still has all their stolen artifacts, does that mean that other countries can have Prince Phillip’s mummy?

[pergameno]

He’s not mummified enough yet, they need to bury him and then next week some other countries will put an scientific expedition to study foreign royal burials traditions and claims the loots