#i should just stick to my books

[clementinatehasperdido]

I got stood up. But my outfit is on point.

[nellasbookplanet]

Having finally read the Nimona comic (it’s very good, everyone please go read it) I can’t help but find describing it as being about the power of incredible violence to defeat an authoritarian state, as I've seen done, to be both kind of misleading and ultimately reductive to the story as a whole.

Yes there is incredible violence in the comic and it was in the end what tore down the corrupt system, but it was also Nimona's downfall, destroyed her relationship with her only friend (and led to her (temporary) death by his very hand as he could no longer stand by her and her actions, even as he never judged her, recognized her role as a victim and tried to save her until the end), put countless civilians in danger, and ultimately did little to nothing to address how to actually fix the problems of the system to keep them from returning. In fact, Nimona as a character shows little interest in fixing anything. She suggests killing the king and having Ballister take his place, despite Ballister neither wanting this nor having the experience to pull it off (and would, in fact, only result in replacing one king with another rather than lead to an entirely new system, as is often the case with bloody uprisings). When people start dying from the illness they spread, Ballister wants to immediately stop it; Nimona suggests they let more people die to further rile up hatred and anger against the institution. Nimona isn't a good guy looking to save people; she's an angry, hurt girl looking to hurt those who hurt her and those who have the potential to hurt her in the future (even when Ballister is one of those people). She is the villain the state turned her into.

And that is kind of the point I see the story making. Not 'you need incredible violence to tear down an authoritarian state' as something good and celebratory, but rather 'an authoritarian state will ultimately lead to its own downfall by creating monsters of its own making, and while said downfall is needed the fact that it has to happen at all is deeply tragic because there are no winners here'. Nimona isn't a villain-villain (the true antagonist is obviously still the Institution), but she isn't a hero either. She's a tragic figure with a tragic end that the state brought upon itself by mistreating its people. She doesn't stick around to help rebuild and heal, and she doesn't (to our knowledge) get to see her home become a better place. It's a bittersweet end where the very person who tore down the oppressors is too broken to enjoy the end result. It isn't a story about rebellion, it's a story about the inherent and justified self-destruction of authoritarian systems.

(Writing it out like this, I realize that, thematically, it’s very similar to n.k. jemisin's broken earth trilogy, which you should all also read because it is incredible and not very friendly to authoritarian states.)

[sciderman]

Opinion on thor? I might be a bit biased but besides spiderman, he's gotta be my fave

he's hot. i love a man with long blonde hair.

i used to love the movies! in fact, he was my favourite character in the mcu before they introduced ant-man, but my interest in him kind of dropped off the same time my interest in the mcu dropped off... no offence to taika (i love taika) but i didn't like ragnarok, (have not seen love and thunder and probably never will) and i don't care for the new silly goofy thor - i kind of liked that his stories were one of the few stories in the mcu that actually had weight and gravitas or whatever. i liked that they were different from the rest of the mcu. but now all of the mcu gotta be silly goofy. and thor is a gamer. what is going on.

i really don't know very much about thor from the comics! what i've read about him is so disparate and he's kind of characterised differently in every appearance of him that i've read, so i don't know if i've really got a gist of who he is. probably i need to read a thor series from front-to-back so i can get him. would be appreciative of any recs in the replies! i'm fighting off a cold at the moment, and some new reading material might be good and cozy and healing for me...

[oozeandgoo-art]

Sketched a very old oc before class.

[stabbyfoxandrew]

y'all who like my AUs and play wipw with me, i have a small dilemma: last week i got so many asks that it stressed me out. a lot.

i wanna keep doing wipw. so... do i turn off my inbox after i get a certain number of asks or limit it to one ask per person? like idk i don't wanna not do it because it's so fun and i like it but oh my god last week was rough for me and my silly little brain

[stairset]

Mom went to Starset with me and when we got home we showed dad someone else's video where they recorded their whole show so he could experience the Whole Ass Movie they were playing in-between songs so even though they already knew there was a story now they actually wanna know what the story is so now I gotta figure out a way to explain the entire plot of The PROX Transmissions in a concise manner.

[leafpool-loves-ashfur]

calling it now people are going to ship Flipclaw and Podlight

[panncakes]

i need more sapphic book recs so if anyone has any pls let me know

[nonasbirthday]

if i'm being honest, i was predisposed to like Kyr bc she has Adora spop vibes

[piratekane]

reading wrap-up

I didn't do a Reading Wrap-Up(TM) in February so maybe I'll do two months now. Here's the stuff I read between February 1 - March 31 and my brief and unsolicited feelings on them.

Summary: The queer was strong these two months. But like my brother days, squinting off into the distance: "Could be, hmmm. More."

February: A big book month. I had a vacation this month and read A Lot. I don't remember the days, just the page counts. Almost all my books were bangers this month though!

Top mentions in no particular order:

Faebound by Saara El-Arifi - umm, impeccable. A 5 star read. This book was masterful. The magic was clever and if you were doing some close reading, there was a special reward for you. There's a neat plot twist at the end I didn't see coming but just enhanced the story even further when I went back to read a little. Good character work, good pacing. My chief complaint: this is a trilogy series and it just came out. How will I wait?! 5/5 stars

The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai (translated by Jesse Kirkwood) - this was an adorable story of a father and daughter detective agency that hunts for food. You tell them your favorite meal, what you remember is in it, the person who made it for you, and they hunt down the ingredients and make your dish for you, replicating it as best as they can. Each patron had emotional reasons for hunting down their favorite meals and it was all heartwarming. The food sounded delicious. This was such a great and cute read.

The Burning Kingdoms books by Tasha Suri (The Jasmine Throne and The Oleander Sword)- how did I not read this sooner?! Why did it take me so long?! Why did I read all 1000+ pages in two days? It was worth it. Truly. I am desperate for the third book because I need to know how this goes for Priya and Malini especially after- Well, never mind. After that. Please let it be November already. 5/5 stars

Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail by Ashley Herring Blake - again, here I am late to the party. But what a party. I fell in love with Astrid in Delilah Green Doesn't Care and was so excited to see her story continue. Astrid, you disaster, I am so glad you got your happy ending with a soft butch who is good with her hands. After that fucking man, you deserve the world. And you're so disgustingly in love. Love that for you, truly. Keep it up, girl. 4/5 stars

Queer rating: good. 13 out of 15 books were sapphic. Go me.

March: A small book month. I was so emotionally tapped this month that I spent a lot of nights doom-scrolling and making sure my dog was breathing instead of reading. April will be better!

Top mentions in no particular order:

Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood - this was just some great mythology stuff. I was so deep into this story that I looked up, realized 90% of the book had flown by, and I wasn't sure how the hell Underwood was going to wrap it up. But she did! And it was such a great ending! I mean, I was sad and elated and I think that's how you're supposed to leave a book when you love the characters and their journey is earned and realistic. It was also not too myth heavy, which I liked. Pesky curses, though. They'll fuck you right up. 4.5/5

Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner - I love a good romcom to break up the heavy stuff. And I love adversaries-to-lovers. And I love watching soccer. So basically this was a great book to scratch those itches. Much smuttier than I thought it was going to be and I had to put it down once to be like, well they certainly did that, but overall I had a fun time reading this and my wife bought me Mistakes Were Made by Wilsner for another brain cleanser (maybe. I've heard *things*). 4/5

Queer rating: "Could be, hmmm. More." 2 out 7 books. Come on, self.

[cestacruz]

Mmm Jeanne

[todayisafridaynight]

looking back on all my y7 comics is so funny but now im compelled to organize them 'chronologically' and see what that looks like

[percyjaczon]

i’ve only watched up till ep 4 of pjotv (🏴‍☠️ ofc) and i’m mostly finding it pretty bad, but i do think there’s some genuinely interesting tidbits in there. one of them was the line from annabeth about how she had to fight for thalia’s love — i thought that thalia making annabeth earn her love is a pretty interesting characterization choice for thalia. yes, it is a drastic change from tlo and ‘the demigod diaries’, where it was clear that thalia is soft for annabeth right away and tries her best to do right by her from the moment they meet, but when you keep in mind some of the context from the book + show, i think that the change they made does line up with thalia’s character.

ok so first of all, annabeth’s recounting of her relationship w/ luke and thalia is meant to parallel her upbringing with her father and stepmother, the loving doting father figure and the harsher mother figure (which was . . . smth, but that’s a whole other issue). smth that i realized later on was that this kind of alludes to thalia’s own upbringing as well. thalia has been taking care of herself pretty much her entire life, and even when she was on the run, she had to fight to survive by herself for years before she met luke. though it deviates from her book characterization, it makes sense that this would be the only lifestyle she’s ever known, and that she would expect others to behave similarly. luke could prove he could handle himself, but a 7 y/o child is dependent on others, smth that thalia couldn’t fathom, hence leading to her making annabeth ‘fight’ to earn her love.

to add on to my prev point about thalia’s upbringing, i kept on thinking about how in the show, they stress that demigods have to earn their olympian parent’s love. this is shown the most through annabeth’s relationship with athena, where she constantly has to be at her best to maintain athena’s favor and one little thing can cause it to be lost forever. while the line about thalia making annabeth earn her love was meant to reinforce why annabeth believes love is conditional, i also think that it could be a nod to how thalia bought into this mentality of conditional love as a result of her own relationship with her olympian parent. in the books, while she does feel bitter and resentful towards her father at times, thalia does believe in zeus and wants a connection with him. in ‘the demigod diaries’, thalia and luke only end up taking annabeth in bc of the chain of events that came from thalia chasing after what she thought was a sign from her dad! with the show’s insistence that (most) olympian love is conditional, it makes sense that thalia had to fight to gain zeus’s "love", and i think it makes sense then that mentality would transfer over to a relationship where she has to assume a parental role of sorts. i think it’s an interesting contrast to luke, who rejects everything about his olympian father and gives love unconditionally when he assumes a parental role. since luke (+ percy at this point in time) are irreverent of the olympians and actively question the way they treat their kids (ntm how both do know unconditional love from their mortal mother, regardless of their respective difficult home lives), of course they reject how the olympians show their “love” and give their own love freely regardless. but thalia and annabeth were seeking for a connection with their immortal parent, and have thus internalized this mentality that love is conditional.

also idk if the writers are keeping hoo canon in mind while they were constructing the tv versions of these characters, but the first thing that immediately came to mind when i heard this line was that thalia’s mentality had to have smth to do with the loss of jason. when thalia meets annabeth, she is only 12 years old, and jason would’ve probably ‘died’ 4 years ago. jason was most likely the first person that thalia had loved unconditionally, and its pretty obv that his disappearance shakes her up a lot, given that it’s the final catalyst to her running away from home and his memory is so painful that she never even told her best friends abt him. i think she did feel partly responsible for jason’s ‘death’ bc she didn’t keep her eyes on him and i think she did carry that guilt even 4 years after the fact. which is why i think it’s entirely plausible that thalia would not be so keen on opening up and getting attached to another young child.

ok last point on this but i also think the implications of this line would make the ttc emotional climax hit so much harder (assuming they ever get that far lol). luke, who was maybe the first person who had loved annabeth so easily and readily, manipulates and harms annabeth with no (observable) qualms. and thalia, who had been so hard on a 7 y/o annabeth, is so aghast by his treatment of her that she finally accepts her best friend is no longer the person she remembers and ends up kicking him off a cliff, and annabeth has to watch all this go down. isn’t that just heartwrenching?

[quarklynx]

Read a book today, would not recommend. I have fallen to the "just one more chapter" curse. It is now 5 am.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

nah but like

claude does a seminar and seteth not only attends, but he takes a front row seat!!! (and he's the only one taking notes? shame on the rest of you. must be a youngin thing where they don't wanna take notes...!)

bonus is that he's the only one who got a skill increase! (makes sense, since none of the rest of y'all were taking notes)

seteth studied claude's lessons well!

listen there's not enough interaction between them and i love what tiny bit we have but since there's not enough i'll take any take tiny little bit i can get through gameplay

[legallypumpkinn]

“…lest we literally die.” has gotta be one of my favorite things I’ve written for this essay.