the littlest gryphon
ADORABLE
@littlestartopaz This reminds me strongly of that doodle you did of the Starlight griffin with my icon.
(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)
@momster90If writers took every bit of writing advice that was in the format ‘Don’t use X part of the English language’, all English fiction would read like Spot the dog
#Spot chases the ball#the ball chases Spot#the ball conquers nations#the ball still chases spot#see spot run#run spot run#the ball is coming
stop telling ppl to write like hemingway i promise u adverbs are not another face of the dark lord satan its ok
First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing, because verbing weirds language
Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing, because no verbs
Then they for the descriptive, and I silent because verbless and nounless
Then they for me, and, but no
REBLOGGING BECAUSE THE LAST POST IS BRILLIANT.
(Source: patrexes, via littlestartopaz)
Stormdancer
ALL RIGHT GUYS
SIT TIGHT.
Remember how I have no impulse control? Yeah, I wandered into a Barnes and Noble and bought three books AND ONE OF THEM WAS THIS.
No lie, kiddos, Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff might legitimately be the best book I’ve read all year. Have I read the rest of the series? NO I HAVE NOT, because I blew through this thing over the course of like six hours today (I mean…I slept for two of those hours) and I have not shut up about it long enough to buy the next two in the trilogy. My parents are going to tape my mouth shut if I keep going, so I’m foisting all my need to rant onto you lot.
Okay, so, here’s my pitch. First off, yes it is just as badass as the cover suggests. But seriously
THE ‘VERSE: a futuristic steampunk universe based on feudal Japan (and it’s not that standard steampunk isn’t fun, but my God it was nice to get the fuck out of Victorian England), comprised of four clans (Dragon, Fox, Phoenix, and Tiger) on the islands of Shima, ruled by the Shogun, Tora Yoritomo. Shima runs on the blood lotus, which provides everything from the drug of choice to the chemical used to power their engines (called chi), and the blood lotus (and the chi) is controlled by the Lotus Guild, which is…hella sketchy. Their dependence on the lotus has turned their lands black, their skies red, their rains acidic, and their air so thick with exhaust that anyone too poor to afford a pricey respirator dies slowly of blacklung. The worldbuilding is goddamn beautiful, everyone, and the mythos is so gorgeous.
OUR HEROINE: Yukiko of the Kitsune (Fox) clan, the daughter of the Shogun’s Hunt Master, the Black Fox of Shima, who is yokai-kin, able to speak to animals with her mind. This talent, rare and powerful, makes her one of the Impure, according to the zealots in the Lotus Guild, who will burn her alive in the city square if it comes to light. She is fierce and grieving and the perfect combination of the open hand and the hidden knife–she cries and screams and loves and fights and I am in love. I would like to officially request ten thousand more kick-ass stubborn girls of color with messy morals and more determination than training as my novel heroes. Yukiko is everything to me, guys, she’s so much to me.
THE PLOT: Everyone on Shima knows that, once, arashitora, thunder tigers (half eagle, half tiger), flew in their skies, and sea dragons swam in their oceans. But the lotus that poisons their lands has choked out the great beasts of myth, too, and now it’s been generations since one was seen. When the Shogun dreams of himself riding an arashitora into battle like the stormdancers of old lore and summons his Hunt Master to make it a reality, no one expects them to succeed–not the Black Fox, not his two comrades at arms, not the crew of the sky-ship they hire, and not his daughter, Yukiko. So you can imagine their shock when they manage to capture an arashitora in the middle of a thunderstorm. The situation goes from baffling to life-threatening when creature’s struggles and the storm wreck the ship, stranding Yukiko alone on a mountainside with herself, the clothes on her back…and a crippled arashitora who wants her dead. And that’s just the first hundred pages.
TL;DR: this book has it all. Badass women of every flavor. Revolution. Magic. Demons. Found family feelings. Women getting to do vengeance quests. POC as far as the eye can see. The writing style–ugh. *claps hands to chest* Fucking slays me. Radically original take on the steampunk vibe, with worldbuilding that is just beautifully intricate. And the arashitora. I’m not telling you anything about him, but the arashitora is A MASTERPIECE of a character.
Read this and come talk to me about it because I am howling.
It’s been literal years and I’m still not over Snape’s cloak-shrouded ass for asking an eleven year old muggle-raised kid the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane in front of the everyone on the first day. You want to know the difference? There is no fucking difference. They’re colloquial terms for the same fucking plant. He just wanted the intellectual upper hand over a goddamn little kid. “Haha, trick question”, so clever. you oily bag of tits
(via clockwork-mockingbird)
The reincarnation fic every Les Mis author writes eventually. This has been chilling in a random document for, like, literally months. Completely finished, mind. So. Here. *offers to Internet*
Reblogging for the “why were you posting fanfic at one in the morning Moran” crowd.
stop telling ppl to write like hemingway i promise u adverbs are not another face of the dark lord satan its ok
If writers took every bit of writing advice that was in the format ‘Don’t use X part of the English language’, all English fiction would read like Spot the dog
#Spot chases the ball#the ball chases Spot#the ball conquers nations#the ball still chases spot#see spot run#run spot run#the ball is coming
IMO Adverbs can be pretty nasty sometimes (”’I can’t wait!’ said Tom excitedly” is still a pretty bad sentence) but it all comes down to how you use them, and what words you put them together with.
Generally, you should try to avoid using adverbs in phrases like ‘she said happily’ or ‘he screamed loudly’. Aside from that, adverbs aren’t inheritly bad.
And ‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past’ isn’t a bad sentence at all.
thats not really anything inherent to adverbs, it’s just redundancy. the dialogue is speaking for itself. ’“i can’t wait,” said tom excitedly’ is a bad sentence, but ’“i cant wait,” said tom flatly’ is chill. id probably throw a comma in there before ‘flatly’ for pacing but u do u
“dont use adverbs” is basically a really shitty way to verbalize “redundancy is often awkward and makes your audience feel condescended to if it’s not done well”–because lgr there are times when redundancy is okay, there are times when literally everything is okay
break the rules of literature. theyre shitty rules anyway
First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing, because verbing weirds language
Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing, because no verbs
Then they for the descriptive, and I silent because verbless and nounless
Then they for me, and, but no
REBLOGGING BECAUSE THE LAST POST IS BRILLIANT.
(Source: patrexes, via primarybufferpanel)
