(no subject)

[contrarianarchon]

What is wrong with the world when I can spend half and hour asking around on various servers and not get any recommendations for inane reading material to fill my mind with while I feel like crap. It's frustrating and part of a terrible pointless feedback loop. Bleh.

(If you have any recommendations for stuff to read which is not particularly troubling and otherwise engaging, that would be nice. I'm very much stuck forcing myself to read random shit in the name of reading and it's Bad)

Comments

[thedarlingone]

Are we thinking fanfic, profic, any particular genre? I can do you mid-century middle-grade kidlit recs like nobody's business, but I'm not sure that's engaging for you. (My flist is so full of people I only slightly know reading books I haven't heard of... :S)

[contrarianarchon]

You're using words I don't have the brainpower to parse. Must be words, must be possible to obtain without spending money. Interesting premises good, negative emotions bad.

[thedarlingone]

"Gone-Away Lake" by Elizabeth Enright, 1956. Don't know if Aussie libraries have it; here in the States it's a library staple. Two 1950s kids find a falling-down Victorian lakeside... thinger where an elderly brother and sister are living mostly off-grid. Gentle and funny and sweet and nothing bad happens. There's a sequel "Return to Gone-Away" also.

[thedarlingone]

Other option: I can send you an ebook of Star Wars comfort read "Starfighters of Adumar", but it has some rough emotional moments. Damn good book though.

Third option: I can summon my librarian friends to this post if you want. :-)

[contrarianarchon]

... am trying sleep, the most novel remedy. The lake book sounds nice I'll have a look around when the weather permits leaving the house, which may no be till Christmas. Don't trouble anyone on my behalf.

[wingedcatgirl]

"Negative emotions bad" is... I mean, what level of negative emotions? I'm not into stories where the whole point is negative emotions, but even when that's not the case, they do still tend to contain some.

But I think it's safe to recommend Not the intended use, a Castlevania fanfic (with mild SMT crossovers) in which Soma Cruz finds ways to use his various demon souls for mundane purposes. Like using the Ghoul soul to save money on groceries.

[contrarianarchon]

1. I think you really overestimate how awake I was when I wrote that. I was mostly just trying to depict a general dislike of stories with a lot of grief/suffering/etc in them as quickly as possible because that seemed like an important selector WRT the kinds of media people were likely to recommend. You're right that a story with literally no negative emotions in it would be bad. I guess I was also trying to poke at the emotions a story was meant to invoke in the reader? There are many stories which are meant to make you sad or scared or morally outraged and that was very much not what I want/wanted.

2. sounds like an excellent rec, I'll save that for the next time I feel like that. Or the next time I'm bored. Whichever comes first.

(Thank you to people who made some attempt to help. It is much appreciated!)