#I'M SO IN LOVE WITH THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[andromeda3116]

people actually went on about how game of thrones made it socially acceptable to be a fantasy nerd, as though the lord of the rings movies hadn't been released less than a decade earlier and left far greater cultural ripples and i am just

got may have made the adults feel better about liking fantasy, but lotr got into the kids' heads when they (we) were just young and impressionable enough to be absolutely transported and emotionally rewritten by don't you leave him, samwise gamgee and my brother, my captain, my king and and rohan will answer

lotr was rewriting entire generations' brain chemistry long before asoiaf and so obviously it's not fair to compare any post-lotr fantasy novel to it, and each book series was trying to do different things within their own spheres and so that also is not a fair comparison, but in terms of the cultural impact of the adaptations that came out within a decade of each other, saying that it was game of thrones that made fantasy mainstream is baffling

game of thrones could only run because the lord of the rings movies laid the path, and i will die on this hill

[sarcastic--knight]

in Merlin, arthur was literally born through magic, that is, his birth was so beyond the natural and was such a great stroke of luck that in the end the universe decided to restore balance and made him one of the most unlucky people. seriously, every other character on the show tried to kill this boy, not to mention the betrayals, constant knockouts and all the stupid ridiculous situations. he would have cosplayed as a kebab in the first episode, so the wild universe sighed, “okay, i’ll make him the only and future king, but so that he doesn’t screw up, let this powerful man, magic itself or whatever take care of his ass. yes, i’m literally i mean, you have to button up his shirt and at the same time decide something with this crowd of mercenaries under the window. no, he can’t do it himself, his karma is expired, beaten and showered with fruit. sorry, bro, you’ll have to do it yourself.

[sixth-light]

I have been re-reading Martha Wells' Books of the Raksura for comfort reasons and with the perspective of another half-decade since I first read them, may I present a proposition: these books are to Stargate Atlantis as Shards of Honor in the Vorkosigan series is to Star Trek, to wit, it's nothing like as simple or boring as "filed off serial number fanfic" but the underlying vibes are very, very real

[nomattertheoceans]

I've been reading the Percy Jackson books for the first time over the past two weeks! Just finished "The Battle of the Labyrinth" last night (which btw is my favorite of the series so far!!)

I have now gained a new obsession but it might not be what you think

[six-of-ravens]

it kinda hit me today that the main reason I'm so done with the "romantasy" and fairy tale retellings trends are that I'm just so tired of the same few plots being recycled over and over. and like, i know a lot of people are still into those and I'm not trying to rain on anybody's parade bc there are definitely plots and tropes I will endlessly shove into my brain!! but it's just wearing on me a lot that the same handful of fairy tales and Greek myths are being spat out again and again, with a different setting and a different romantic lead and hey maybe sometimes it's queer but it's still the same thing. a lot of times especially in YA it's basically a retelling of the fucking Disney movie.

like, unless you've deconstructed a fairy tale and broken it down to it's component parts and researched it heavily and built it back up as something you have to think about for a while to pick the fairy tale out of, I'm not really interested anymore. give me more Jane Yolen Briar Rose, hell even more Pamela Dean Tam Lin even though I was kinda on the fence about that one. I want thinkers, man.

[roitaminnah]

yuri update for my yuri warriors I'm so sorry I wish I could draw girls kissing every hour of the day alas. i can barely draw at all these days. sad face. but I persist..... #yuriwarrior

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2023. VILLAINS by V. E. Schwab.

Time for a NaNo Prep Reread! I love Victor and this vicious little family with my whole chest. This'll be my second time rereading VICIOUS, but only my first time rereading VENGEFUL.

[jattendschaton]

You ever read the way someone writes a character and think 'oh yeah, you definitely wrote for x fandom before this' and then one step further do you ever go back and get reinvested in a previous hyperfixation and realize you are writing your current blorbos in a distinctly fandom x-ish way?? Do I even have new blorbos or all they all just slight variations of the same bitch

[egophiliac]

this chapter has been so absolutely nuts that I actually low-key forgot that I had a couple of new UM posters to do! wild! anyway, I gotta think about Lilia's some more, so here is my beautiful electric crocodile son in the meantime. god I hope this reads properly

(I went with Volt to go with his name, but there's a Bolt version too in the print-size folder!)

[firstroseofspring]

memory, death and life as komerex zha, the perpetual game; klingon culture as depicted in the final reflection, by john m. ford

[wishuponroses]

I adore how Tatsuya Endo writes his characters, especially the women. They can be warm, soft, cute, cool, tough, scary... all, if not most, of his ladies in Spy x Family are equally wonderful in their own way, both in character design and personality.

[toaster-fire-art]

Wu Xi!!!

bonus version with the veil and a close up <3

[wizardo-yo]

a bunch of work later and we've got a working crafting system yeehaw

[kuwdora]

13 Books Meme

What’s up readers?! How about a little show and tell? Answer these 13 questions, tag 13 lucky readers and if you’re feeling extra bookish add a shelfie! Let’s Go!

1) The Last book I read: Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World collected by Pádraig Ó Tuama 2) A book I recommend: The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty 3) A book that I couldn’t put down: Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy by Kate Abbott 4) A book I’ve read twice (or more): Explorer (Foreigner #6) by CJ Cherryh

5) A book on my TBR: A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib

6) A book I’ve put down: Spin State by Chris Moriarty

7) A book on my wish list: I don’t currently have a wishlist but I’d probably put Evan Kennedy’s poetry collection Metamorphoses on it. 8) A favorite book from childhood: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman 9) A book you would give to a friend: Xenogensis Saga by Octavia Butler 10) A book of poetry or lyrics that you own: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke 11) A nonfiction book you own: The Making of the Planet of the Apes by J. W. Rinzler 12) What are you currently reading: There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib and Burnout by Emily Nagsoki and Amelia Nagsoki and The Infernal Machines & Other Plays by Jean Cocteau. 13) What are you planning on reading next? A Fortune for Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib. Also I technically had started this book already but I'll be picking up James Clive's Cultural Amnesia again. Next audiobook is hopefully going to be Eragon by Christopher Paolini or T. Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead, whatever comes next on my library holds. Oh, who am I tagging... if you want to do it, hmmmm... @wren-of-the-woods @reinvent-and-believe @soymimikyu @dancingwiththefae @ars-amatoria and hmmm. @crushcandles @danegen and anyone else who wants to talk about their current books.

[msmargaretmurry]

[coffee cup] romance novels: when do they work for becs and when do they not!!!

oooh okay! so i often call myself a romance novel enjoyer but not a romance novel lover, because romance as a genre often involves things that are at odds with what i love most in fiction. which is fine! many people love those things, there is a reason the genre is like that! it just means that it's rarer for me personally to find a romance novel that works for me on every level. (the things i'm talking about are, i don't usually like alternating POVs between romantic leads, i usually prefer my romantic storylines to be involved with the plot but not the MAIN plot, and my favorite romantic relationships in fiction are ones where i don't know going in that they're going to get together. i LOVE catching a detail or an interaction or sensing some chemistry and going "oh?? are they--?? and then greedily gathering more details as i read to try and figure out what feelings are happening. obviously this cannot happen in a romance novel because you know the endgame from the start!)

so what DOES work for a romance novel for me? i'm sorry this got so fucking long and it's mostly complaining so we're putting it under a cut.

firstly it has to be well-written and well-edited. i'm sorry but a lot of romance is not well-edited and it's so distracting to me. i'll often let a little bit of sloppy writing slide if it's a story i feel feral about, but because romance as a genre isn't built to make me feral, i need the writing to be tight or i'll get so distracted by nit-picking. like, i really wanted to love a caribbean heiress in paris but the female lead "muttered under her breath" TWICE on the FIRST HALF-PAGE. this is a whole different conversation but i do place the blame for this on publishing houses who do not care if these books are well-edited because they think their audience has low standards.

secondly, i need things to happen for real reasons. i listen to the "fated mates" podcast a lot because i find the craft side of it all super interesting. the hosts, who really love romance novels (as opposed to me, a romance enjoyer but not lover), often talk about things in romance novels happening or existing for "romance reasons," which are reasons that aren't really justified by the story/plot but that the reader goes with anyway for the sake of the story. romance reasons are almost never enough for me. i need there to be real worldbuilding. if it's contemporary romance, i need it to jive with how things work in the real world. if it's historical romance, there are different rules, because historical romance can run the gamut from trying to actually be historically accurate to totally made-up societal rules in a historical setting. i will meet the book where it's at, but i need the internal world to make sense. no romance reasons.

thirdly, relatedly, i need the author to know their shit. if a character is an athlete, i need the details of that sport to be accurate. if your character works as a nonprofit, i need it to be clear that the author understands the basics of how a nonprofit works. if your character is involved in politics, do not make up how politics work to serve your story, because i will be too annoyed to enjoy it. i read a het hockey romance the other day where there was a rumor about a popular player retiring an the author had a reporter from the ASSOCIATED PRESS show up at the LOVE INTEREST'S HOUSE to try to get details about it and then MORE MEDIA OUTLETS SHOWED UP TO CAMP ON HER LAWN about it. none of that is how any of that works. i don't need every detail to be perfect. i just need things to feel real.

fourthly, relatedly, i need real stakes and believable conflict and deeply drawn characters. i won't love a book just because it contains a trope i like. i need the trope to work with the characters and within the emotional stakes of the story. i need my romantic leads to have something inside them then genuinely needs healing, and i need to believe that they are people who make each other better. (note that this is for romance novels. in other genres i love weird little freaks who make each other worse.) i know some people like very fluffy low-stakes romances and i support them but those are not for me. the stakes need to not just be about the romance; there needs to be other stuff doing on, both internally for the characters and externally in the world around them.

lastly, if it's het romance, it needs to not be fucking weird about gender in a getting off on traditional gender roles kind of way. i WILL be turned off if you keep telling me about your tiny dainty fragile heroine getting claimed by your big strong serious man hero. like i have enjoyed plenty of historical romances set in very gendered societies where gender roles play a huge part in characters' lives, but you can have gender in grand and delicious ways without making patriarchy the kink. if you are making patriarchy the kink then your book is not for me.

oh sorry two more things. i love it when a romance author tries something off-beat for the genre. very little romance feels truly fresh and new to me, so it's exciting when an author pulls that off. also: when a romance novel has sex scenes that are also character-driven, not always 100% perfect sex, and don't feel skippable. that's the good stuff.

sorry this mostly just turned into complaining about things that i don't like 😂 but it really is for me less about "these things work for me" and more about "these are the things that DON'T work for me and i kEEP RUNNING INTO THEM." here are some of my favorite romance novels: evvie drake starts over by linda holmes. the countess conspiracy by courtney milan. think of england by kj charles.