"Love many things, for therein lies true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well."
Vincent Van Gogh
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Idc anymore i think i'm a good enough writer that i can say that when i noticed the pattern in what exactly makes a book "good" on booktok (and, bc of that, what makes it popular and top bestseller lists), it feels almost demeaning and denigrating to the entire craft. Idk if i should blame the way tiktok-esque social media has utterly rotted everyone's ability to concentrate and read more than three sentences, but literally none of those books are objectively good.
(Yes, yes, art is subjective. HOWEVER. Art is subjective when you look at style, at themes, at motifs, at plots and characters. Art is still a craft, it still requires skill. I've seen beyond the tiktok quotes of these books. Not even their editors are good given the amount of typos/spelling mistakes. That is not something that you should find in a traditionally published book.)
You look at these books, and you know the only reason for their existence is to make money. I cannot and will not accept that as art.
(I'm on Tumblr, of course I have to explain every point. Artists who make money off their art =/= people who only create art meant to be profitable. There is a difference between an artist who hopes to monetise doing what they love, who creates what they wish to see more of and who happens to then create something that other people wish to see more of, and a person who looks at what's trending and decides that making an unholy frankenstein's monster of a book that mashes all those trending tropes and motifs together would get them rich quick. The fact that a lot of these booktok books become popular because of nepotism is just the cherry on top. It's soulless.)
And to finally say what I wanted to say, it's because none of these books have any deeper message or even artistic value to them. You will find a few out of context quotes or paragraphs, ones written specifically so they'd look deep and beautiful when taken out of context, so that people would post them, so that people would buy the books. Entire books written just so those few lines could become viral and make cash. It cannot even be compared to a hook line writers would post to get people interested in their works, because in booktok's case, those are the only lines of quality and in the context itself, they are often out of place and forced.
I just hate booktok, i hate what modern social media has done to art. It's all created to be quickly consumed, for the few ☆aesthetic☆ glances, and then discarded. Just to make more money for those who are already nepo babies. As if artists needed more obstacles to jump over.
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I have so much love for teens going through "phases." Experimenting with their fashion, expression, and interests. Getting unusual haircuts, making their own clothes, wonky patches, putting pins on everything, turning their wardrobe into a messy patchwork of different subcultures. I really don't care if it's considered weird or cringe. They're figuring out how they see the world and how they want to be seen by the world. Just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks and it fucking rules
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I’ve acquired two aquatic additions!! A beta named Crunchwrap Supreme, and a mystery snail named Queso! I’ve always loved fish and have wanted a beta for years and have finally “dipped my toes in the water” so to speak.
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I Know Your Secret
AU: Criminal (modern)
Trope: In A Locked Room
Character: Thranduil
I was inspired to make a moodboard by a fic trope roulette. My brilliant friend @guardianofrivendell suggested Thranduil as a crime lord. That got my brain cells working. Thank you, dear for the idea! 💖
I know I am breaking the rules here (moodboard is not a fic!) so I am not tagging this accordingly.
Taglist: @linasofia
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Oxenfree 2 spoilers, re the 'final choice'
I played the whole game in a solid 7 hour chunk yesterday and I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it, and I'll have to do another playthrough when I can, because there's so much of the way the characters are that seems based on your choices so I wanna see what happens when I make other choices
but I'm seeing that a lot of people let Olivia go through the portal at the end, and that everyone who didn't is saying those who did are monsters for letting this grief-stricken teenager kill herself
and. i don't think there is a 'right' choice at the end there in most circumstances. but i did let Olivia take the radio, because as awful as it felt I just kept thinking that I couldn't do that to Rex
especially since we just had a ghost moment of Rex telling Riley she has to keep fighting, even though she's going to keep failing? to follow that up with 'or you can just kill yourself now to save these kids'? like it is a horrible thing to do to Olivia but it's a horrible thing to do to Rex too?
honestly, based on my playthrough, the 'right' thing seems to be Jacob going through the portal. few players forced him to because apparently the only way for him to do it is if you force him - I didn't even let him come on the island with me. I saw the prompt that I could stop him and immediately knew that if I didn't he would die. Riley kept seeing visions of her future but Jacob never did. Jacob kept talking to me about how he feels he never did anything important in life, how he likes just chilling in his hometown, how he doesn't have any grand ambition but also wants to do something important and meaningful
when that prompt popped up I thought 'if I go to that island I'm getting sucked into this loop too and I'm not coming back; Jacob doesn't deserve that' and I made him stay. I'm curious now if there's a specific dialogue tree that leads to Jacob deciding, at the end, that him going through that portal and saving everyone by doing what he's always been doing is his way of being a hero. but that wasn't the option i'd been given. instead I had two suicidal people, who both had their whole lives in front of them
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beautiful art by @/softshivers on instagram,
(( they also wrote a beautiful caption i recommend checking out the post <33 ))
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I tripped and fell into dark academia and now I’m making collages and pressing flowers and reading about medicinal plants and memorizing my favourite sentences from gothic literature
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I am in the horrible state in which I want to write All The Stories so badly that I can write None Of The Stories.
This usually lasts 3-7 days and always stinks. Every single story idea shows up and presents itself as a vivid expansive piece that will be easy to write and should be written soon. It is a lie. My brain knows it is a lie and thus sits back and waits five minutes for me to get bored and move on to the next idea. Yet they all clamor around in the background taking up my attention span and making it impossible to focus on any one idea.
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