#I need to stop reading so many books

[obsob]

here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud!!

✷(print shop)✷

[storybookstr4nge]

I bought and read the sun and the star today and..... nobody talk to me rn. I can TELL where mark oshiro pulled through for us. this book is so unapologetically queer, and melded with rick's always wonderful action sequences makes for such a lovely read... it really solidifies Will and Nico's chemistry and history and the wonderful way they love both romantically and as friends.... it never fell into the miscommunication trope even when the boys argued, and instead had them talk it out and be so transparent the whole way through...... it was so cavity-inducing-ly cheesy with just the right moments of incredible fluff and tragedy. I just love them. I love how dorky they are together. two cringe fail (affectionate) losers who are just so so smitten by one another and putting in a beautiful and mature effort towards loving one another the exact way the other needs to be loved. I am just so happy that this book exists within the riordanverse canon

[figofswords]

somebody rec me some good books. and they do actually have to be good. don’t rec me something just because it’s gay or it’s popular, it has to also still be good. like both the story and the writing have to be good none of this good concept bad writing or good writing horrible story. fantasy or soft scifi preferred, especially if it’s nontraditional fantasy. I am bored and sick of the internet and I want to get back into reading more but I’m kinda meh about most of what’s on my shelf

*edit: when I say “soft scifi” I don’t mean cozy I mean not hard scifi, as in stories that are more fantastical than grounded in hard science. for example the Martian is considered hard scifi, so not that. Star Wars would be closer to a soft scifi bc it’s all bullshit on the science end and it’s more about the vibes

[badoccultadvice]

So like, I have been having this weird experience analyzing the Harry Potter books lately, and please indulge me while I talk about J.K. Rowling's weird writing.

My goal was simple: read the Harry Potter books to find which parts were influenced/inspired by actual magic that people do in real life. My theory was that there was a lot more magic in the earlier drafts of the books, and that she took a lot out due to fear of backlash from America's ongoing reenactment of the Satanic Panic. For instance it's quite obvious some of their magic lessons got dumbed down so that very little of what's in the books could actually be tried in real life, and I think she took out a lot of astrology.

I also wanted to do a couple errands along the way, one of which was to check and see if it's explicitly written in the books that Harry is a cis man. I'm a trans man, SO I'D KNOW. (I'm a slow reader so all I can say for now is: the FIRST book does not explicitly state Harry is cis, but if he's trans, there's some implied worldbuilding with items like the Sorting Hat that comes into play. Also I'm fairly sure the Dursleys would have gone along with him being trans because that meant Petunia could reuse Dudley's old clothes instead of having to get girl stuff. I'mma save any other explanations on the topic for a video on it.) The reason I'm doing this read-through is because I think J.K. doesn't know anything about trans people and didn't think to make sure her wizard world was trans exclusionary. AND IT TURNS OUT THAT WE TRANS MAGIC USERS HAVE A WAY OF WIGGLING INTO MOST PLACES UNDETECTED BY NORMAL MEANS.

While I was doing the re-read I encountered two sort of broad revelations:

There's a lot of old stuff in there like Latin and Greek and tradcraft stuff, but also modern magic of the more recent era... but the incorporation of modern magic cuts off somewhere before the 80s. These books read like they were written by a early 70s magician. Like they honestly read like J.K. is a magical practicioner who just didn't read any magic books written after 1972 and never discovered what Chaos Magic is, (and also, never heard of most of what happened in the Cold War). I have never found a writer, in fiction or non-fiction, more dedicated to referencing magical stuff that most magicians alive today just don't care about anymore.

J.K. Rowling's knowledge of child abuse laws and general social mores regarding treatment of children also ceased to update itself by about the 80s. I keep getting distracted by this and having to make more side-notes about corporal punishment and researching stuff like when caning was banned in England. (HInt: it was banned before Harry went to school, so in Book 1 it's fuckin weird that he assumes that Wood is the name of a cane he's about to be whipped with.) Like, this woman raised children in the modern era, she should know when canes stopped being used.

So like, when I mention that I'm doing some research in this area, this is the sort of stuff I'm reading for and the sort of stuff I'm encountering. I haven't been talking much about this journey because it seems like any time anyone brings up anything Harry Potter up whatsoever, we've got to talk about how J.K. is a terf in every other sentence. But like, y'all: I hope you slow down and re-read the books, because J.K. Rowling is a terf who is also a child abuse apologist and normalizer. She is a terf who is also a horrible fat-shamer. She is a terf who is also an ableist with a huge problem writing about mental illness. And she's a terf who's also a sexist who undermines feminism with her actual writing of female characters.

And I honestly think she double and triples down on the terf stuff so that people will only talk about that. I think it's worth talking about the fact that not only is she an awful person in the terf way, but like, every other way imaginable too. I think it's worth talking about the fact that with all the obvious biases she has, the group she CHOOSES to publicly marginaiize is trans women, and I think she makes that choice because she thinks that she'll get more allies that way. That if she wore all of her issues on her sleeve like she wears the terfness, that she'd lose a lot of allies, that a lot of prestigious charities would stop having anything to do with her. That she uses the identity of "terf" as a shield because she knows that certain people will protect a terf, and she does this specifically so people won't notice how much of a sexist, abuse apologist, ableist, fatphobe etc she ALSO is. Opinions that could lose her a lot of money and clout if people remember them enough.

She's trying to pick on who she thinks is the most unpopular kid in the class out of the hopes that the bullies in class will be her friends instead of pile up on her, but if the bullies knew what she really thought of them, THEY wouldn't even be her friends.

Also like... I just want someone else to read the actual words in these books and see what fucked-up choices she made as a writer. I think a LOT of people remembering these books are actually remembering the movies, which are way more different from the books than you might expect.

[tootalltech]

okay. i feel like theres still Some People who may check the land of stories tag on here the way i occasionally do i know theres some fans of the series here at least. since a while back i wrote out an entire paragraph to briefly explain why im insane about lloyd bailey to my friends who dont know tlos, i figure, WHY NOT POST IT ON HERE where people who also know the series (and therefore this character) might see it <3 its at least a little funny to see how i try to explain things in tlos like the hall of dreams briefly with little to no details. this is also kind of like a brief summation of everything we know about lloyd AND JOHNS childhood which is interesting. see below.

sits down. let me set the scene. lloyd bailey is the younger son in a set of two. his mother is a very powerful fairy (#fairygodmother) who’s kind of like the chancellor of an entire kingdom. lloyd and his older brother john both very much have magic in their blood because of this. lloyd’s father dies when he is very young. he is “not the same” afterwards. he thinks his older brother john, who handles his fathers passing arguably “better”, is the favorite child. john is happy and cheerful and everyone loves him. lloyd sits in his dark room and reads books like the iron mask all day. lloyd’s mother does not know how to get to him. she figures out how to make a potion that can bring books to life, since he likes to read so much. she offers it to him. he turns her down. she goes into this magic little hallway (infinite space) where she can see what people truly desire. lloyd the 11 year olds desire (i don’t know how old he is.) is to take over the world. hm. a bit concerning. his mother takes him out into the forest on a nice walk, chains him to a tree, and drains his magic from him. lloyd is not a fan of his mother for this. he tells her that she never would’ve done this to john. his mother considers her action stopping him before he wreaks havoc on everything. lloyd considers this having his “birthright” stripped from him for “a crime [he] never committed” (direct quote). lloyd despises his mother. he runs away from home not long after. he considers the potion his mother made his. he only comes back home to try and steal it. he fails. he is sentenced to life in prison. his mother gives him a mask to wear so no one knows he’s her son. john moves to the otherworld and starts a family. lloyd rots in prison. lloyd’s son who he doesn’t know about is born. lloyd rots in prison. john dies. lloyd rots in prison. his mother loves john’s children and starts to train one of them in being her successor. this could’ve been lloyd. lloyd rots in prison. he doesn’t escape until his niece and nephew are teenagers and his niece is about ten times more powerful than him. because she has the gift that was ripped out of his hands. lloyd hates the world he lives in and its people and seeks to destroy it as soon as he’s out. i wonder why. in conclusion. im normal about him.

[bunnihearted]

apparently im in my audiobook era now.... ૮꒰⸝⸝> <⸝⸝꒱ა

[thelawsofdaylight]

also i am attempting les mis letters again this year but i'm not going to be reading closely until we hit book 3 because that's where i fell off last time!!!

[pixelgreen]

🤔

[llycaons]

I've been told I'm being overly critical of the mxtx books but if anything it's a sign of genuine interest and respect in her work. if I just thought the books were trash, I wouldn't bother. they're engaging because they've got great characters and interesting plots and richly complex themes and well incorporated family drama, tragedy, comedy, and social commentary. that's why I keep talking about them years after reading, and why it kills me so much when parts of them are bad. these books could be absolutely incredible! I know mxtx can write amazing characters and fascinating, complicated relationships!! I know she's talented and imaginative! but when her romantic relationships fail, it's so painful to see how different her approach to gay men is compared to the other relationships in the work. it's disappointment in something that could have been great as much as anything else

[thriftdyke]

tagged by @grieving4theliving 9 favorite books! I suck at remembering books I loved in the past so these are just the books I’m used to telling people are my favorite books plus some I’ve read recently plus fav series. (for series I tried to choose my fav from each but the series as a whole can also be represented)

tagging:

@loveyouslay @jordanshenessy @friendofcars @eruditetyro @lesbianjudasiscariot and anybody else who wants to!

[hostilecityshowdown]

i know i'm The Guy who never shuts up about people, especially modern-day professional wrestling fans with little to no awareness of pre-1980's wrestling, needing to read death of the territories. However. bodyslams in buffalo by dan murphy opens with the best overview of the entire history of professional wrestling i've found yet and, overall, it's a much shorter book that doesn't read like a textbook

this is a greatly accessible alternative for anyone who felt overwhelmed by death of the territories' scope, constant stream of factual information with little reprieve, and serious/academic overtone. bodyslams in buffalo has humour, dramatised retellings of events, and exclusive/rarely seen photos from the collections of both pro wrestling illustrated and the families of wrestlers. also: transcribed promotional posters, news articles, and advertisements! highly recommend

and don't forget to continue engaging in active boycotts, demonstrations, letter/email writing, awareness raising, and direct action in support of palestinian freedom and in opposition to the genocide of palestinians.

[altruistic-meme]

as we can all see, the bsd brainworms got me. so i am adding bsd to the manga collection chart 🫡

[girlscience]

i genuinely think fanfic might be ruining my life

[yohankang]

i passed all 4 exams but at what cost

[bluebellthesponge]

i completely forgot that my own copy of the communist manifesto includes historical artwork to illustrate the ideas and talking points with artwork

obviously reading material it’s not necessary at all but i just think it’s neat that the copy 16 year old me found at a half price books happened to be this one

[trans-cuchulainn]

"YA books only have simple politics and never grapple with complex issues with any nuance" have you considered you just haven't read good YA and you should probably stop making demonstrably inaccurate generalisations about an entire fucking age category based on three books you saw recc'd on tiktok