Owning a cat is such a funny concept. You can just go "hello, I would like to have my house haunted by a strange little man who will not speak in words, but may sometimes make demands communicated through mysterious riddles composed of knocking things over and petty thefts, and stares at me like an idiot for not understanding why it was necessary to shove all my socks inside the couch", and just make it happen. You get yourself a little house ghoul and for the next 12 years you know exactly what went klonk in the night.

my beautiful princess with a disorder

i love how eager fandom is to make cute boys purr. doesn't matter if it's canon, doesn't matter if there's literally any reason whatsover to associate that particular character with cats or purring, if there is a cute boy and he is non-human/part-human or has powers or there is literally even the *slightest* possibility you could argue in favor of him purring, somebody out there is gonna make that boy purr. love that for us <3

idk who needs to hear this but when your english teacher asks you to explain why an author chose to use a specific metaphor or literary device, it’s not because you won’t be able to function in real-world society without the essential knowledge of gatsby’s green light or whatever, it’s because that process develops your abilities to parse a text for meaning and fill in gaps in information by yourself, and if you’re wondering what happens when you DON’T develop an adult level of reading comprehension, look no further than the dizzying array of examples right here on tumblr dot com

this post went from 600 to 2400 notes in the time it took me to write 3 emails. i’m already terrified for what’s going to happen in there

k but also, as an addendum, the reason we study literary analysis is because everything an author writes has meaning, whether it was intentional or not, and their biases and agendas are often reflected in their choice of language and literary devices and so forth! and that ties directly into being able to identify, for example, the racist and antisemitic dogwhistles often employed by the right wing, or the subconscious word choices that can unintentionally illustrate someone’s bias or blind spot. LANGUAGE HAS WEIGHT AND MEANING! the way we communicate is a reflection of our inner selves, and that’s true regardless of whether it’s a short story or a novel or a blog post or a tweet. instead of taking a piece of writing at face value and stopping there, assuming that there is no deeper meaning or thought behind the words on the page, ask yourself these two questions instead:

1. what is the author trying to say? 2. what does the author maybe not realize they’re saying?

because the most interesting reading of any piece of literature, imho, usually occupies the space in between those questions.

Also, sometimes it has hidden meaning relating to how art was funded.  For example, Dickens never met an adjective he didn’t like because he was paid by the word.  Dumas included long and pointless dialogue because he was paid by the line.  Even stuff that was purposely included for dumbass reasons can teach us about the world the author lived in.

To-cat-ata in B by sympawnies

I wanted someone to play it as soon as I saw it and they delivered

see also: my single favourite tweet about my former residence

im annoyed and a little pedantic so can i just say as a blanket statement

queerbaiting is when the promotion for a FICTIONAL STORY intentionally hints towards two characters having a romantic relationship, without any intention to follow through in the show, in order to get queer people watching without discouraging the homophobic enjoyers of the show

queerbaiting is NOT:

there are more but those are the main examples of people misunderstanding what queerbaiting is and being mad at something that isn't actually a problem

actually im gonna make an addition, if two characters who happen to be the same gender are extremely close, and it's never specified as romantic, that is not always queerbaiting. in fact, that can very easily be queer as well. why, you might ask?

queerplatonic relationships.

i am once again begging you guys to remember that romance is not the most important and meaningful relationship type two characters can have, and that sometimes people are aroace.

if you see two incredibly close characters who have never once expressed any romantic attraction for one another, and there have never been any hints aside from them caring deeply for each other? that can VERY easily just be a qpr, or literally just two friends.

obviously, i understand that queerbaiting is a genuine issue that happens far too often for my liking, and i am not in any way trying to say that it doesnt happen. however, if you cry queerbait at every thing you see, the word is going to lose its meaning, because there are so many instances where you just haven't understood the meaning of a relationship, or you are claiming a real life person is queerbaiting because you are being parasocial.

I really do dunk on villain stans a lot but the thing is like. I genuinely do not care on any sort of moral level if you love a villain, or villains generally. They are pretend. The murder and the war crimes aren't real. Do whatever.

The issue is that like, this is a person the narrative is telling you to root against, and that it's okay because they are pretend. That doesn't mean they can't have sympathetic qualities but it does mean that as a rule the story is telling you "hey, here are the heroes who oppose this person, cheer for them" and also "you should boo and hiss when this motherfucker comes on stage" and a lot of people who like villains will look at everyone else and go "why the FUCK are you booing and hissing don't you see they have TRAUMA" instead of acknowledging the big "TIME TO BOO AND HISS" signs being thrown out by the story and saying "bring it on."

And I suppose you can argue that this is an overly simplistic way of looking at it, but if we're dealing with a story with at least some reasonably clearly delineated heroes and villains you're not intelligent for trying to pretend it's more complicated than it is. I'm not talking about the gray areas of antagonist who could be persuaded otherwise, nor antihero but straight up "this is the bad guy, we all but have arrows pointing at them saying it". Like, really, a lot of people who stan villains don't seem to do it for the love of the game, which I would respect, but because of a sour grapes situation with the heroes, or because they're in their edgy "subversion automatically means you're the smarter one" phase.

Anyway my point is I don't care if you woobify a villain for any sort of moral reasons but I do think that if you do so, you're a coward and not terribly good at understanding stories. I also don't care from any sort of moral standpoint if you enthusiastically cheer on the villain, but if you act confused or mad that most people aren't with you on that, I think you're an idiot and not terribly good at understanding stories.

solm palace 🌅

Full offense but your writing style is for you and nobody else. Use the words you want to use; play with language, experiment, use said, use adverbs, use “unrealistic” writing patterns, slap words you don’t even know are words on the page. Language is a sandbox and you, as the author, are at liberty to shape it however you wish. Build castles. Build a hovel. Build a mountain on a mountain or make a tiny cottage on a hill. Whatever it is you want to do. Write.

beep boop

💙 Preparing the Soil by Rynne

💙 Preparing the Soil

by Rynne (@rynne)

T, 26k, Wangxian

Part of the LWJ Birthday Serenade - Mini Bang

pov lan wangji, post-canon, established relationship, family feels, lan family feels, gusu lan sect rules, uncle-nephew relationship, chinese holidays, birthdays, good kid lan sizhui, married lan wangji/wei wuxian, soft lan wangji/wei wuxian, good sibling lan xichen, lan qiren tries, not jiang cheng friendly, music

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

Listen pal, the subtitles stay ON.

Feeling stuck with your writing? Well, have you considered killing someone with a sword?

people telling you they reread your fic is the biggest compliment you could ever receive. there are thousands of stories out there begging to be found, to be explored, but your story meant so much to someone that they came back to it eagerly, they went over every word again. to love is to return and loving a fic is rereading it. thank you to all readers and rereaders <3333