People Who Want To Be Awful Are Going To Be Awful.

This man is an actual wizard doing actual magic.

staples?! he made a basket with staples?!

Just finished reading a Zeetha-focused AU that was simultaneously one of the best fics I've read in ages, and one of the most frustrating.

The basic change point was a good one, the changes that would follow from it were well thought out, the peeks into Zeetha's head fit with both who she is in canon and the version of her in this AU. But...

The whole thing (more than 216000 words in three stories) was riddled with the sort of grammar errors you get when you trust your spell check too much. To/too/two mixed up, "there" when it should have been "their", and so on.

I'm only a grammar purist when I'm professionally required to be, but the mistakes in this one were significant enough to be a distraction from the story. Which is a shame, because like I said, the STORY was really good.

It was like trying to walk a trail through beautiful scenery, but not being able to relax and enjoy the beauty because you keep stubbing your toe on roots and rocks sticking up in the middle of the path.

Lyrical Ballad, in Saratoga Springs, NY is one of my favorite used bookstores in the world.

Twitter thread by Melissa Caruso about a labyrinthine magical bookstore in Syracuse, NY. Link to the first tweet in the thread; most pictures have image descriptions! Now here are the screenshots of that thread:

And then a hero of the labyrinthine magical bookstores of the world put all the bookstores that people listed in the replies on a map! (Google Maps link)

I've also considered stargazing and archery.

planning to start birdwatching soon cause all of my hobbies go like this

and I need a hobby that goes like this

to try and fix my back ya know?

If you don't have a person handy to do this to, try going to YouTube and searching for "[your favorite piece of media] reaction".

It's really easy to find folks reacting to music, and there are also some folks who do reaction videos for movies, games and shows.

You can never experience watching your favourite show for the first time again, but you CAN convince someone else to watch your favourite show and vicariously enjoy all their raw reactions to seeing it for the first time, which is honestly nearly as good.

I get so frustrated with myself sometimes. I have THOUGHTS about a serious topic, but when I try to express them, they never make as much sense to other people as they did in my head.

I've made very little progress on either this scarf or this book.

The scarf I'm not bothered by. Any knitting project I'm not having fun with I'll either set aside and come back to or unravel and do something else with the yarn. No big deal.

The book though...

It's like, I want to know what happens, and the answers to the various mysteries, but I'm not actually enjoying the process of reading these novels. The writing style just doesn't fit my brain.

I'm considering just abandoning the book and reading the Wikipedia page instead. That'll answer my questions well enough.

Current knitting: a simple garter stitch scarf, using fuzzy yarn from Dollar Tree. I'm working in random colors, with two strands together. The goal is warmth and softness rather than beauty.

Current reading: "Area X" by Jeff Vandermeer. This is the omnibus edition of the Southern Reach trilogy. I finished the first book, and honestly, I'm not sure I'd keep going if the second book wasn't in the same volume. It's not bad, but it's a very different writing style than I usually read.

Current knitting: a simple garter stitch scarf, using fuzzy yarn from Dollar Tree. I'm working in random colors, with two strands together. The goal is warmth and softness rather than beauty.

Current reading: "Area X" by Jeff Vandermeer. This is the omnibus edition of the Southern Reach trilogy. I finished the first book, and honestly, I'm not sure I'd keep going if the second book wasn't in the same volume. It's not bad, but it's a very different writing style than I usually read.

You know what would be cool? A story about a mideval Strong Rebellious Warrior Woman... who actually enjoys sewing and embroidery. Like, yes she dreams of riding horses through the fields and swinging a sword, but is also looking forward to returning home after a long day of fighting to finish that really cool lapel piece shes been working on all month.

One thing that I think Facebook and YouTube do better than Tumblr is giving people the ability to opt out of specific ads.

Especially being able to tell them that the reason you don't want to see that ad is because it's not relevant to you.

I don't mind a reasonable number of ads in exchange for a free service, but the ones here on Tumblr are so horrifically misaimed and there's no way to tell them that.