See you space cowboy!

she/her. pfp by @call-me-fiend

[thespoonisvictory]

can't stop thinking about this cover of sexyback

Nerve covers Justin Timberlake’s ‘SexyBack’ for Like A Version

[susandsnell]

feminist killjoy hours again, what the actual fuck is “weird girl literature” and how often do we acquiesce to the latest degrading gendered advertising campaigns

[susandsnell]

Women did not fucking pioneer horror, thriller, and science fiction as we know it for publishing to infantilize it into a high school phase

[susandsnell]

is Stephen king “weird boy literature”? Or does he get to be an adult horror novelist?

[archivezinc]

i think far too many people have only seen this video as that one sped up gif version of it and that is a crime that needs to be fixed because this video actually changed my life

[aniquotes]

“People don’t understand the word ruthless. They think it means ‘mean.’ It’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it.”

- Marco, Book #30: The Reunion, pg. 71 (by K.A. Applegate)

[unpretty]

How did you get so good at writing??? Did you take classes? I feel like you should get paid all the money for this! (I subscribe to your website!)

after i dropped out of high school i found a torrent of like 5GB of OCRd romance novels and i read like 3 romance novels a day for a while

read enough romance novels and you will realize that they live or die entirely on technical skill. if you are new to romance novels then even bad ones can dazzle you with novelty but by the time you are on your 30th historical fake engagement between a bluestocking and a rakish duke you can grade them and you know when they've failed. when two books have what should be the same main characters hitting the same plot beats, but one of those books is delightful and the other fucking sucks, you learn some things. some books are bad and still delightful. other books are good but they just don't hit. you start to see the seams in the bad ones. 'oh, this is a weird out of character moment because she wanted to have the kabedon moment and didn't know how to get there'. 'she didn't want the ust to end but couldn't think of a better reason than this deus ex cockblock.' that kind of thing.

you could probably do this with other genres but i like romance because the plot is two people fall in love. that's it. everything else is set dressing. if you can figure out how to make that work you can carry it over into whatever other genre you feel like. mysteries would give you a different skillset around plotting that i don't have.

anyway after that i wrote a lot.

[unpretty]

i said it in my original tags but i want to talk out of my ass and say that one place that a lot of current romantasy falls short for me is that it ends up being written by people who mostly read other romantasy without going back to the original genres of romance and fantasy. it's like a 'learn the rules before you can break them' kind of thing. you have all these magical macguffins to hit the tropes but can you make me believe that these characters have chemistry without that? is there chemistry, or did you tell me they're fated mates and now i'm supposed to assume this fight is sexy? does the fantasy aspect exist for anything aside from the magical macguffins? i'm not going to throw stones from inside my house made of worldbuilding designed to make all my fetishes happen, but the really fun part is when the lore spins out of control and you end up really going in depth on linguistic anthropology things that aren't relevant to the makeouts.

and the other thing is that you can't really sub in fanfic for this. plenty of fanfic takes characters from other genres and plops them into romance, but it's not the same. a good romance novel says, "here are two characters. you may know their archetypes, but you don't know them. you are going to get to know them, and you are going to love them, and you are going to want them to love each other, and when they love each other you are going to be happy for them". i love a rakish duke. when a man who's never had to do his own laundry is slutty as fuck that's my shit. but you still have to make me like him. you can take that archetype and make a guy who fucking sucks. most fanfic will not impart to you any knowledge about how to make a reader like a guy from scratch. you already know that guy. that's the whole point. fanfic with as much character building as an original work is the exception, not the rule.

the whole reason i get catty about fics that just make a different guy is that... you've made a different guy. i don't know who this guy is and i don't like him, and you haven't bothered trying to make me like him, because you slapped another guy's nametag on him like a cheat code. it's cool if you did make me like this new guy, but why is he wearing that other guy's nametag if no other aspect of him is present?

read the genres you want to write, obviously, but there's a reason the shitty comphet romantic subplot is a cliche. it's because romance is its own skillset, and if you try to fit romance in your thriller when you only read thrillers it's probably going to be the weakest part. if you want an ensemble cast then chemistry between characters is important regardless of whether they're going to fuck about it.

[thegunlady]

#this is also what i call the Star Wars Problem (although: wide category lol)#but i mean specifically the thing where george lucas watched a BUNCH of westerns and samurai films and ww2 flying ace films#and then made a space movie ABOUT high points in those other story forms#because he knew those pulp genres inside out and knew what bits he needed to hit in RAF Dambusters pulp when he added laser swords#or in western saloon showdowns when he added spaceships#but then you fast-forward a few decades and people are making star wars movies ABOUT other star wars movies#and like not many of those scenes are going to hit that way - they just wont have the chance#they’ll be a copy of a copy and the emotion is going to degrade like the worlds crustiest reformatted ocr PDF#or a xerox of a xerox of a xerox#they’ve ceased to be about the feeling generated by the Form and have become simply the Form in isolation (via harrietvane)

[thespoonisvictory]

oh well from ariana's new album far and awayyyyy the best song on that thing omg it's so good

[carolsturka]

[tablesage]

useful framework

[thespoonisvictory]

Keeping a diary is so crazy because sometimes you write a phrase down randomly on instinct and it actually sticks in your mind forever and ever

[thespoonisvictory]

walking out of work on a late summer day saying in my head "There are stones I cannot roll over. There are lakes that have frozen." it's like I wrote the thematic content for my life.

[thespoonisvictory]

Keeping a diary is so crazy because sometimes you write a phrase down randomly on instinct and it actually sticks in your mind forever and ever

[closethedoorandcomehere]

646: The Mad King | Close the Door: Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire Podcast

Spoilers, profanity, Jaime x Brienne. Gather round as the legendary Melrosing gives us all the gritty details from the first showing of ‘The

Close The Door And Come Here - The Mad King

Gather round as the legendary Melrosing gives us all the gritty details from the first showing of ‘The Mad King’ by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. George R. R. Martin was involved, so there are canon ASoIaF arguments brewing. Just remember: not believing R+L=J is a dealbreaker, ladies. We talk through the new reveals about Lyanna Stark, Elia Martell, and Ashara Dayne to mixed reviews. Rhaegar Targaryen reviews go from bad to worse. Nedbert gets a moment. Dany reveals cause aftershocks. GRRM’s obsession with prophecy is now everyone’s problem. But, most importantly, Jaime Lannister is unquestionably portrayed as a hero. Kingslayer, affectionate. (Pay no attention to the cabbages.)

[thespoonisvictory]

finished the unicorn hunters and weirdly emotional about it. as a unicorn and direct-to-dvd barbie movie lover as a child AND lover of this rough period of history I just had so much fun reading. they r making good books out there

[thespoonisvictory]

I've decided Ivanhoe and LOTR will be my big fall reads and like a squirrel before winter I am hoarding as many contemporary fantasy books as possible to prepare

[thespoonisvictory]

ALSO reading Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden and omg it is so fun and good it is the first 2026 release I have properly loved this year. prose is good but I just also really admire telling a plot with a lot of moving + magical parts very simply and elegantly without confusing us. Does a good job of making the side characters interesting and fun to read as well without having them take over - in particular, Isabeau, Elesbed, and Butter as the "two 12-year-old girls and their fuck-ass cat" storyline really tickles me

[thespoonisvictory]

my other selling point is that this is set during 1490 in Brittany and delightfully in that pre reformation late renaissance time period. yay for cauls and chapels and Grand Hunts and the Duke D'Orleans being our love interest

[july-19th-club]

kushiel series is great its literally about the world's least interesting man and the world's most interesting woman, a celibate sword guy and a trained spy/political instigator whose primary job is as a high-class courtesan in God's Grandson's Free Love France, and she has a spiritual directive to have as much hardcore sadomasochistic sex as she wants forever . and be bisexual

[thespoonisvictory]

ALSO reading Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden and omg it is so fun and good it is the first 2026 release I have properly loved this year. prose is good but I just also really admire telling a plot with a lot of moving + magical parts very simply and elegantly without confusing us. Does a good job of making the side characters interesting and fun to read as well without having them take over - in particular, Isabeau, Elesbed, and Butter as the "two 12-year-old girls and their fuck-ass cat" storyline really tickles me

[thespoonisvictory]

finished Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey! very good! I especially enjoyed that this book is so fun as a horny romp because our fmc Does go around and fuck through half of this expansive political-figures ensemble cast. Phedre has sex for fun, for work, for political gain, to help someone grieve, and to gather information. While other characters may look down on this (and her tastes, as is central to the novel), Carey clearly views this not as a fault of character but how Phedre is, and how some people are. She has a Love Interest, but one that has to be completely down with her sleeping with other people, and is far from her One True Love.

And it's harrowing to think of how many new fantasy releases marketed and known as Horny Sexy Dark Romances are so.. repressed. how many adult chart toppers are known for how crazy they are, but are about the fmc fucking exactly one (1) person, who is her One True Love, whom she will marry. If she attempts to touch someone who is not this One True Love, the narrative comes down and smites her with consequence. Idk it's all very christian to me, both the books and the reaction to them