Impossibly Sporadic Creation

Equiping an armor tutorial

Wakes up from hypnosis where he was about to marry a woman he’s never seen before with his mystery girl’s voice, the instant he wakes up then the cute girl he’s actually fallen in love with now has that voice. Then she drops to the floor and has a fish tail, and then the first girl is suddenly cackling “too late!” and bursting out of her skin. So it turns out she’s actually an octopus woman who drags herself over to the real mystery girl - who’s a mermaid?! They’re real?! - and taking her back into the ocean. And Eric has no idea what’s going on here but okay, one of these women is clearly evil and he needs to go after his mystery girl.

And all of this happens/he realizes what he has to do within like, a single minute.

Prior to this he was just living out a sweet romance after having a Meet Cute with a shipwrecked girl, but okay, guess he’s involved in whatever the fuck this is. Acting first, questioning later.

See, it's not just that he writes mediocre, churned-out thrillers; there are many, many authors of mediocre, churned-out thrillers out there, he ain't special.

It's also not that he "writes" them with "coauthors" and slaps his name on them - again, this is not unique.

It's not even - though this is starting to get there- that he chases every publishing trend and creates His Version of everything from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Nicholas Sparks, which nobody likes as well as they like his thrillers but still buy because they have His Name on them like a summoning charm.

No, what makes James Patterson uniquely loathed is the combination of the frequency of publication and his popularity. Because, to be honest, I'm not sure that anyone even likes his books anymore, but it doesn't matter, because if they have the James Patterson name on them then readers will be queuing up like zombies desperate for a fix of decaying cerebral matter. Which would be tolerable if he had the decency to only write one book a year like most other bestselling authors, but "James Patterson" (quotes VERY intentional) puts out roughly two books per month. So as a librarian, not only do you have to buy every new book James Patterson puts out, you have to buy multiple copies in order to fulfill demand. Somewhere around 5% of my fiction budget is spent ENTIRELY ON JAMES PATTERSON. Every new James Patterson that comes out means a dozen or more queer romances, inventive sci-fi novellas, unique cultural viewpoints, etc, etc that you can't buy because YOU HAVE TO BUY JAMES PATTERSON INSTEAD. (See also, you just weeded and shifted the Ps in fiction to make room and now it's full again oh god why.)

And the clincher - the absolute clincher - is the knowledge that the publishers will be "finding" "unfinished manuscripts" by "James Patterson" for a minimum of fifty years after his death, so even if some right-minded bibliophile with a claymore takes one for the team, we will never, ever be free.

$30 to a local Black and Brown led grassroots community organization!! They do a lot of incredible work, I encourage checking them out!

Also while I was looking, I found this website that gives you lots of Black owned businesses local to DFW!

And a few of my families darling babies!!

Grace: he/him

Rocky: okay. Rocky will use he/him too

Grace: okay but I feel like defaulting to he/him promotes a patriarchal kind of mindset and we should be more thoughtful about it

Rocky: okay so use the other standard pronouns

Grace: she/her?

Rocky: yeah

Grace: okay but that feels weird too

Rocky: why weird question

Grace:

Grace: I guess I could

Rocky: Rocky he/she/they/it

Grace: I don't know if you can use it

Rocky: why not question

Grace: it's just considered dehumanising?

Rocky:

Grace: okay so you won't pick a pronoun but I have to pick a tonal inflection?

Rocky: my thing more important statement

Grace: okay fine can't you just your tones for me?

Rocky: but Grace not qualified engineer

Grace: well is there a schoolteacher tone?

Rocky: uhh no

Rocky: schoolteacher not

Rocky: schoolteacher not prestige profession statement

Grace:

Rocky: yes but very rude to use for close friend statement

Grace: wait hold up 🤔 you think of me as a close friend?

Rocky: uh-huh

Grace: does that mean what I think it means

Rocky: it means what it means statement