#this series is like. if the titan's curse was 5 books long and also specifically catered to 9 year old me

[danthatartman]

Books I read in 2023

Heeeeeeeeey Tumblr, I'm alive! Warning for very long post.

Given how little I ended up drawing during the back half of the year, I want to do a different kind of summary to close out 2023. And, since I already posted my thoughts on almost every movie I watched on Letterboxd (https://letterboxd.com/NotThatCrypto in case you're interested), I wanted to share the books I read during the last 365 days.

For 2023, I wanted to read at least a book per month, with a secondary goal of reading two per month. I ended up with 16 total reads. Not quite two per month, but probably the most I've ever read in terms of different books in a year (If we don't count that time I got obsessed with fanfics and read what must have been the equivalent of 20 novels in like five months a few years ago.)

Anyways, let's get started.

1: Tress of The Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

Sanderson is my favorite writer, and this year he and his team delivered the Year of Sanderson kickstarter, which ended up including 4 novels he wrote in secret during the pandemic. Tress is the first of these novels.

I found this to be a delightful story. Sanderson really flexed his style muscles for this book. It's probably his most beautiful in terms of prose and rhetorical figure usage. You can really tell he wanted to make a novel *for* his wife.

It gave me the vibes of older fantasy tales, while still retaining much of what I love about the Cosmere and Brandon's books in general. I do wish some things were a little more unpredictable, as the twists were a bit too clear right from the very early chapters, and would have liked to be more surprised. I'd probably rank it among my top 5 fave books by him, specific spot undecided.

4.75 stars out of 5

2: I'm Not Mr. Monster by Dan Wells

I started reading the John Cleaver trilogy last year, this is book 2. On the one hand, I think I preferred the atmosphere and pacing from the first one. On the other hand, Wells managed to dive so much deeper into John's psyche here, and that really carries the whole book. There's also some concepts that I felt could have been expanded more upon, but guessed that would be done in the last book (We'll get to it later) Overall, some improvements over the first, and some things that felt weaker to me.

3.75 stars out of 5

3: Queer: A Graphic History by Meg John Barker and Julia Scheele

Read this because I was dealing with some personal stuff earlier in the year. It's a graphic novel that details some of the more theorical and philosophical aspects to queerness and sexuality throughout the years. Found it to be really well explained but at the same time, brief. It serves as a really good jumping-off point to get into the subject, which I want to do in the future. Scheele's illustrations are awesome and really help to highlight and simplify the most important information.

4 stars out of 5

4, 5 & 6: Percy Jackson and The Titan's Curse, Percy Jackson and The Battle of the Labyrinth, and Percy Jackson and The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

Like with the John Cleaver series, I started reading Percy Jackson last year, after a friend of mine really recommended it, and wanted to read them before the show premiered. I read these in succession, so I'll list them together.

Titan's Curse was really good, probably the most emotionally complex Percy Jackson book, and I'd probably rank it second or third amongst the five.

Battle of The Labyrinth is probably my least favorite from the whole series, as it felt repetitive and at times like it dragged on for too long.

Last Olympian however, was super enjoyable for me, even though it did also repeat some actions sequences in terms of structure. Would rank it highly as well.

As a whole, I found the Percy Jackson series to be a blast, and it scratched my greek fascination itch. Percy is a really well realized character, and I adored reading from his perspective.

I do wish I had read these books a bit younger though, as I obviously encountered some stuff that left me wanting more as a result of the target audience. Not at all faults of the books, but good to point out.

Titan's Curse: 4.5 stars out of 5

BotL: 3.5 stars out of 5

The Last Olympian: 4.25 stars out of 5

7: The Binding by Bridget Collins

One of my most dissapointing reads. Its characters never clicked for me, and I found the book to be too tropey and like it didn't do enough with the premise or its magic system. It left me feeling frustrated, especially after I'd heard some really fantastic things about it.

I will award some points for the writing style though. It was very beautiful, and was what made me power through, other than my curiosity.

2 stars out of 5

8: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

While I think it is quite easy to see where the story is going right from the start, I think the journey to get there is super compelling. I like Haig's style, and only wish this one had been slightly longer so it could dive more deeply into each of the protagonist's possible lives. Some really cool imagery too.

Enjoyed it, and want something similar that explores the things that this one didn't.

3.5 stars out of 5

9: The Alpha's Son by Penny Jessup

Cool queer love story that also happens to involve werewolves. I honestly think the shapeshifter aspect of the story is undercooked. The relationship between the two main characters is interesting but I also think sometimes it develops too quickly.

Action is definitely not this book's strong suit, and given how much the third act focuses on it, it feels a little underwhelming. However, the style and characters are good enough that I am interested in reading the sequel, which came out a few weeks ago.

3 stars out of 5

10: The Frugal Wizard's Guide to Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson

Back to Sanderson. Book two of The Year of Sanderson was an incredibly dissapointing one for me. I think this is the book of Sanderson's that I've liked the least. The humor never clicked, and I found the protagonist to be quite unlikeable. The illustrations for this one felt very disconnected from what I was reading too. Sefawynn was really cool though, best part of the book. The writing felt too dry, and while the tech seemed interesting at first, at the end I felt there was a more compelling story to be told with it.

2 stars out of 5

11: The Werewolf's Guide to Life by Bob Powers & Ritch Duncan

Funny that I read two books with "Guide" in the title right after the other. Read this as research for some personal stuff. Really cool book, written as if werewolves were real, basically functioning as lore and instructions if you were to turn into one. No real story here, other than the few examples of "real life cases" they share. Fun writing style, with interesting ideas about the genre.

4 stars out of 5

12: Yumi and The Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson

Third year of Sanderson book, and back to the Cosmere. I adored this one. I think Sanderson wears his influences on his sleeve a bit too much here, but that also made me love the book all the more.

Both Yumi and Painter are extremely interesting as characters. I also think Sanderson really captured the feeling of mystery with the worldbuilding and plot that his best works do. The imagery it sprung to my head was really beatiful, and the gorgeous illustrations by Aliya Chen are breathtaking.

Uses a bunch of really evocative and interesting concepts, and in superb ways. I do wish some of the secondary characters were more fleshed out, and I feel like the ending is a bit too tidy.

This is a story I really wish there was more of, but Sanderson has said he has no plans to revisit these specific characters. I hope at least the world is explored further, cause that was such a great setting. Had a blast with Yumi. So glad Brandon got so much better at writing romance with this and Tress.

4.5 stars out of 5

13: This is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Okay, this one was very interesting. I'd heard about it before it blew up on socials, but I have to admit that that was what made me dip into it.

While I liked a lot of the concepts and the general structure of the book, I was not a fan of the authors' writing styles. They just moved too quick, and I felt they spent too much time describing certain aspects when others drew my attention more.

Red and Blue's relationship doesn't feel organic to me, and given that it is the main driving force of the story, I found it disappointing. I also found some descriptions to be more confusing than poetic.

While in concept this is a mighty interesting read, I think some things fall apart when put in practice.

3.5 stars out of 5

14: I Don't Want to Kill You by Dan Wells

Finale of the John Cleaver trilogy.

I feel like it starts off a lot stronger than how it ends, but still really liked it. I think I prefer it to the second one as well, but can't help but feel that it didn't manage to recapture a lot of the powerful ambiance of the first installment.

Well's prose also read much sharper and refined here, and John is a fully realized character. It's very uncomfortable to be in his mind, and yet I couldn't help but keep going.

Glad there is more after this, as I do think that these characters and world can be explored further. Excited to see where it goes. Also very curious to read more of Dan's work, as his way of thinking interests me a lot as it is so different from mine.

4 stars out of 5

15: Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl

Quick read that my students (a whole different story for another day) chose for their reading assignments so that they could practice their English. I adore the movie and was excited to read the source material along with them.

Really liked it! We read a lovely illustrated edition. The story's scope feels just the right size, and Dahl's writing style is a real blast. I do think the last two or three chapters are too quick, and would have liked to see a stronger conclusion to the story.

4 stars out of 5

16: The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson

Final year of Sanderson book, and also final book I finished this year. Appropriate that it's number 16.

This book has me a bit conflicted. Sanderson jumping so far into the future of the timeline, but doing so with a character we are very familiar with feels risky to me. I think it reveals a lot of things that changed my expectations for Stormlight.

As for the story itself, the book takes a bit to get started. It's first act felt a little frustrating to me. That really seemed to change once the second act started. It's a lot more engaging and exciting. Sunlit is the most standard Sanderson novel out of all the secret projects. That's not a bad thing necesarilly, but I do think the other two Cosmere focused ones felt a lot more exciting and innovative as a result.

Nomad as a character felt a bit muddy. It almost felt like reading three people at once, something that sometimes happens to Sanderson when characters are viewed through other POV's, except this time it happened within Nomad's own. Auxiliary rules though.

Worldbuilding is probably the best and most enticing part of Sunlit. I also think the ending was very cool and I really wanted to continue even after the end.

3.75 stars out of 5

And that's it!

I read a lot of Sanderson this year, but I also managed to read a bunch of books that had been on my TBR for a long time. I was excited to delve into some genres I'd not read much of before. I'm also glad to have read books that might have not been my cup of tea, that always helps to make better sense of my tastes and to train my skills too.

As for next year, I *might* continue reading more of Riordan's work, as well as checking out what's next for John Cleaver, BUT I want to go back to The Wheel of Time first, I'll probably dedicate January and February to that.

I want to get into some more epic fantasy series, so First Law, Farseer, and Malazan are all on my radar, but I will probably choose only two of those. Discworld has also been popping into my head recently, doubt I'll dive too deep into it for now though. Might keep going with Gentleman Bastards too, I love Lies of Locke Lamora.

I want to read more sci-fi as well, been thinking of going for The Expanse or Murderbot.

Wind and Truth comes out in December, so I want to read as much non-Sanderson before then, we'll see how it goes.

I'm going to try to reach the 2 books a month mark, but won't make any promises, as a lot of things are in flux in life right now.

I am open to suggestions for books if anyone has any! Would love to hear ya'll's thoughts on that and the post in general. xoxo!

[dykeseinfeld]

u asked someone to remind you to post about your pjo dual protagonist thalia/bianca au and i am SO intrigued by this idea please say more

anon asked: hey queen hope your homework went good yesterday 🌸…now what were you saying about thalia and bianca 😳 ?

ok y’all i’m here...the moment almost none of y’all have been waiting for....bianca/thalia protagonists with alternating pov’s au

warning it’s kind of super long and may or may not read like a 2nd grader’s semi-coherent game of pretend so under the cut it goes!

so the main things you need to know about this au are 1. thalia survives and 2. annabeth’s + luke’s ages are a lil diff bc canon is my sandbox 3. i can’t decide if percy exists in this au or not (maybe y’all can help me decide?)

so the first book:

would start a few months after grover brought thalia (12), luke (13), and annabeth (10, not 7)  to camp half blood. they were chased by monsters sent by hades on the way, and thalia almost didn’t survive, but ultimately she got lucky and managed to send a bolt of lightning through her spear for the first time and they made it into camp

it’s been some time so annabeth is happy as a clam in the athena cabin doing her 10-year-old-with-severe-mommy-issues thing and luke is actually pretty popular with the hermes cabin bc he actually Met Their Dad Holy Shit and also he’s getting pretty good with a sword

at the same time, thalia is alone in the zeus cabin. everyone has been freaking out bc they all saw the huge bolt of lightning that incinerated a couple hellhounds as they made their grand entrance and What The Fuck Child Of The Big Three???

she’s also further isolated because chiron will take her for private training sessions sometimes, since she is clearly really powerful already and also Hades Himself was trying to kill her (chiron told her the reason was the big three’s pledge not to have kids, and maybe about the great prophecy? if he tells her that then she’s sworn to secrecy)

once grover leaves on another protector assignment, thalia mostly hangs out with luke, and annabeth. luke + annabeth both will try to eat meals with her at the zeus table but annabeth doesn’t want to get in trouble and luke is genuinely making friends in the hermes cabin so thalia will feel bad sometimes and send him back

kronos, seeing this bitter isolated child of the big three’s dreams: it’s free real estate

MEANWHILE

hades is Pissed that thalia survived and zeus got to break their oath And get the glory of a prophecy child

so he sends someone to take bianca (12) and nico (10) out of the lotus hotel and casino a little early.

grover is still their protector, but since the Stirring hasn’t begun in earnest yet and hades is lowkey determined to keep them safe, they make it back to camp half blood with no escort/incident

bianca + nico are put into the hermes cabin, and luke kinda takes them under his wing bc while he’s not bitter he still needs therapy bc this 14 year old has never met a pre-teen he couldn’t try to parent

luke introduces nico and annabeth since they’re the same age and they become really good friends!! she Loves mythomagic and he thinks her dagger is super cool and they’re both just really excited about camp <3

bianca is more reserved and resistant to the whole thing, and she wanders around alone exploring and runs into thalia in the zeus cabin

at this first meeting they get into a bit of a fight bc bianca is still in shock/denial about the gods being real, but thalia at this point has zero patience for this

anyway after that and maybe another scuffle during capture the flag or something they hit it off and become best friends in the way girls can, especially bonding over how they’ve both had to take on raising annabeth and nico basically on their own at the age of 12

~QUEST TIME~

thalia is given a quest for [unspecific reason] and chooses bianca and luke, they go off leaving annabeth and nico frustrated at home

quest hijinks etc, bianca is trying to figure out her parentage + her weird mysterious powers? and thalia is arguing with luke because he’s settling into camp/hero life really well actually but she’s getting progressively angrier with the gods for trying to kill her and also keeps getting dreams from kronos and doesn’t get why he doesn’t seem to remember all of the shit that the gods have put him through

bianca + thalia have las-vegas-style-heart-to-hearts where thalia shares her tragic backstory about her mother and her brother and how hades tried to kill her and even about the great prophecy and how she’s trying on this quest bc of that and her dad but at the same time these dreams are making her suspicious that he might’ve been responsible for her mom’s death.

bianca then shares her own stuff, about how terrified she was being on her own with nico having to protect him but also not remembering most of her childhood and not remembering her parents or how she ended up in the care of this lawyer and just the absolute mindfuckery that her memories/past are

luke is asleep in those scenes i guess lol 🧍‍♂️

anyway eventually they finish their quest in this massive climactic battle where bianca discovers her powers in a huge-showy-”i’m the ghost prince”-way and is formally claimed by hades which thalia sees as this Massive Betrayal obviously and bianca is horrified too because she knows what hades did to thalia but at the same time she’s just so happy to finally understand at least part of her past

thalia just reaches a breaking point though because everyone around her just doesn’t understand her anger and just when she thought she had found another sympathetic person who understood what she was going through she joins hades??? no. no fucking way. kronos reveals that he’s the one who has been sending her dreams, prob by sending some messenger who he possesses or smthing and when he offers thalia the chance to join him? she does (dun dun dun)

main beats of the rest of the series:

thalia and bianca on opposite sides of the war training to be the prophecy child, they come together a Lot and have like melodramatic fight scenes where they talk out their anger and try to get the other to join them bc they don’t want to kill each other

luke is extremely conflicted/betrayed and there’s a titan’s curse moment prob towards the end of the third book where they’re fighting and thalia is trying to get her to go with him but here he actually does go to join her (gasp!!) and is evil for at least one book but his heart’s not in it and he goes back to the good side eventually

by the point of luke’s betrayal, annabeth and nico are growing and developing and old enough to go on quests w bianca and by the last book they’re a main trio of sorts and their hypothetical character development is already making me emotional

there’s just a lot of general sexiness with foils and inner conflicts and bianca doesn’t even want to be the prophecy child but she needs to for the fate of the world and bianca is so angry at thalia bc thalia is a daughter of zeus and could control her powers and is perfect and just meant to be the prophecy kid, not some daughter of hades who they didn’t even have a cabin for before

hm maybe by either the last or second-to-last book thalia + bianca are close to reconciling or at least their interests are aligned for the moment and they read the text of the prophecy together and things go Wild bc they both think “single choice shall end his days” either is about luke or nico and it turns up the gas to their fighting both of them care about both of them and yeah

and then i can’t decide if there’s romantic arcs at all but if there were it would go like this:

just a dash of thaluke where at first it was luke having a one-sided crush but thalia misses him a Lot after she goes to kronos and wonders if it’s that she misses him or if it’s something More until to get him to defect there’s like a melodramatic moment in the fight where thalia kisses him and they go off to be Evil Together but it ends bc luke doesn’t believe in the cause and only joined her in hopes of getting thalia back to his side

once luke leaves/is kicked out thalia realizes that she didn’t love luke she just wanted a family and also in the second half of the series she realizes she’s a lesbian as a parallel to her redemption arc

bianca meanwhile is unconcerned w romance until she has her botl-hoe-moment where within one book she 1. runs into the hunters on a quest and has a thing with zoe nightshade who tries to get her to join plus tells her about that time she met thalia, 2. she goes to calypso’s island and falls in love w her in the moonlight or w/e and has her what-if moment, and 3. when they meet up that book thalia somehow knew abt zoe + calypso and seems almost angrier abt them  than the war?? weird bc bianca knows that thalia is Totally Straight right??

my main point is that bianca/thalia is our friends-to-enemies-to-lovers endgame thank you i will take my pulitzer now

[ffamranxii]

I draw a manga/write a light novel series based on that manga, which is essentially an amalgamation of my favorite series and giving some of my favorite characters, who I feel were shafted in their source material, a better ending. That series is called C’est la Vie 5, because it originally featured five fandoms that I LOVED enough to have created an original character for.

Now, like many people, I’ve created a fuckton of OCs for a fuckton of series. However, unlike, say, Dragonball Z and Pokemon (RIP to Son Mei and Cissy the Eevee breeder), I still use these characters. I am still active in these fandoms. Some of these characters are nearly as old as I am. Some have gone through so many iterations that they’re nearly unrecognizable from their original forms (looking at you, Haruhi, Suzuka, and Kinoko). But they have ALWAYS been there.

C5 the way it is now started as a fun little project in college to help me memorize my Japanese vocabularly. It was a series of one shot or 4koma doodles in the margins of my notebooks, featuring PGSM+Hina. Then the doodles got mutated. I replaced Makoto with an original character named Sun Hwa, who then was replaced with Ayumi Yamada from Honey and Clover. I added in Hagumi Hanamoto from H&C too. Ami was renamed Moeco, and her appearance changed. I ended up splitting Ami in two, because I loved her Dark Mercury arc so much, and ended up with Moeco and Akumi. I added Mio Kuroki but called her Arisa Kuroki, because my Usagi at the time was called Mio. I added Mikasa from Attack on Titan. Misa Amane (named Erika after her actress in the live action). And it spiraled from there. C5 went through a TON of iterations as well over the past ten years. There was a character called Haruhi, but she was from the Haruhi Suzumiya series.

Now it’s pretty ironed out. The cast is so big I’ve split the series into a set of volumes into one big volume, so it doesn’t become Naruto. Each volume has a set of plots, two of which are contained within that volume. It’s pretty easy and I like it.

HINA is a mishmash of three fandoms (two if you count PGSM and Sailor Moon as one fandom). I fell in love with Boys Over Flowers (the Korean version) after discovering the live action Sailor Moon, and had a complete fit the entire time that Jandi chose Junpyo. (WHY, Jandi. WHY. Jihoo was BETTER for you. BETTER!) I had a Korean friend in my Japanese class, and it was at this period that my Makoto doodle was replaced with Sun Hwa (another Korean) and that Hina Kusaka (who is exclusive to PGSM, and whose name I stole for my OC) became Hina Ku (after the actress who played Jandi, not Goo Junpyo). Hina and Sun Hwa had small side conversations in Korean that my friend taught me, while the group as a whole reinforced my Japanese lessons. C5 has plenty of Boys Over Flowers characters (a mix of the Korean, 2019 Chinese, and Japanese versions), but I never made an OC for the series. Hina filled both roles. In PGSM and Sailor Moon I kept her name as Kusaka, but in C5 it’s Ku, and she is a zainichi - Korean-descended. Hina also plays a different role depending on which series I’m using her in. In PGSM, I used her as Sailor Sun. Sailor Sun has been a character I’ve had since I was five years old. She’s changed style and looks considerably over the years, but she’s always been there. In every other iteration of Sailor Moon, I prefer the theory that Naru and Unazuki are Sailors Earth and Sun, and Hina is one of Usagi’s many friends. In the pre-C5 era, she, Usagi, and Erika were part of the 3 Bakas, for their bad grades. 

AKIHO is my newest OC and holy shiiiiit I have cleaved to the Persona series hardcore. Rather than create a new OC for each entry in the series (though I may change my mind when Person 6 comes out), Akiho’s look, style, and role in the story changes (I reconcile this to be something akin to Clara Oswald in Doctor Who). In P5, which she was created for, she’s a Phantom Thief. The idea came to me when I learned there has never been a playable character of the Temperance arcana, Hifumi was supposed to be a PT, and the general consensus that Mishima and Shiho should have been PTs. Akiho has been through several iterations herself but her general look is based on Tae Takemi from @scruffyturtles ‘s Adult Confidant AU. Her personality seems very calm and serene, but she is a secret metal head and a huge fan of Eikichi Mishina’s band Gas Chamber. Her PT mask is based off a butterfly. Her role in C5 is a shrine maiden, where she gets along with Rei (Sailor Moon), is the sister of Akira Kurusu (who is a separate person from Ren Amamiya), and the daughter of a pair of mobsters.

KINOKO is my second oldest OC, having been around since I was twelve. Her original name was Cherry (like every other Tokyo Mew Mew OC) and her original animal is lost to the sands of time. Luckily, my favorite animal is a red data animal, so she can be fused with that now! Kinoko has been through so many iterations it isn’t funny. In the TMM world, her hair is an auburn, a dark brown with red undertones, mimicking how some mushrooms (where her name comes from) appear. (It’s a callback to her original name). Her Mew outfit has also changed considerably and I still haven’t settled on it completely. The Mew Mews are not a unit in C5. Zakuro is a model with Ann and dating Minto, Ringo (LOVE Ringo) is a middle schooler who hangs out at an arcade and is best friends with Bu-Ling, Ichigo is a waitress with Berii, Retasu works with Ryou. And Kinoko works at a karaoke bar, chasing troublemakers like Bu-Ling out. She also interacts with the new Au Lait boys.

SUZUKA is also an old OC, her name having originally been Meiling. She’s from Fushigi Yuugi, which I was obsessed with as a child. She’s nearly as old as Kinoko - I was introduced to the series at around the same time. Suzuka’s original role as Meiling was Miaka’s attendant and general Mary Sue, and she was one of my first attempts at exploring fanfiction (along with Kagami the cat demon and Teiten the Thunder Sister from Inuyashs, RIP), because I couldn’t decide which of the original Suzaku warriors I loved most. Everyone had such a wonderfully tragic, lovely backstory, and I needed to give them all blankets and hugs, and Miaka was just a dumbass, okay? (I think I settled on Tasuki. Love me some Tasuki.) Anyway. Suzuka eventually morphed into the Priestess of Kouryuu once I learned that Fushigi Yuugi was based on real Chinese legends, and one legend sometimes included Koryuu, the Yellow Dragon of the Center. (Fun fact: There’s a video game that explores this option, but in it, Kouryuu, is treated as a false god.) In my OC world, Kouryuu is the Great Unifier, only able to be summoned once the first four priestesses have summoned Suzaku, Seiryuu, Byakko, and Genbu, and it is he that will stop the war that threatens the four countries of the Book of the Universe of the Four Gods. In C5, Suzuka works at a bookstore owned by Hifumi Togo that specializes in rare books.

HARUHI is the last old OC, but she’s also new? Haruhi was, for the longest time, existant in a stage of limbo. Fruits Basket was introduced to me as a teenager, when I was about thirteen or fourteen, and I didn’t quiiiite embrace the message, behind it. I couldn’t get past the art style (I was very picky about what I visually consumed back then), I couldn’t get into the anime for the same reason, and I couldn’t quite get past the whole “it’s called Fruits Basket wtf and also they turn into animals? And it’s not a magical girl anime? What in the actual fuck?” But like many things I of course loved the characters, I adored my baby Kyo, and I of course made an OC specifically for him, because I back then did not ship Kyoru (sacriligious, I know). I don’t even remember what Haruhi’s original name was. I just decided that she was a Sohma and the rooster, because the curse of the original rooster was broken, and broke a long time ago, so it was entirely possible for Kyo to have a love interest who was a Sohma and the rooster who was around his age (in my teenage mind). That old Sohma OC, is of course, RIP. I can’t even. And recently, I discovered Fruits Basket Another, and I somewhat resurrected that OC in the form of Haruhi, but as the child of the OG cast. Sawa needs more friends, more protectors, and there’s no tsundere besides Hajime. It always bothered me that Kagura never got any canon love interest or story wrap up after she let go of Kyo, and then in Another she doesn’t have children. :( I love Kagura, so Haruhi is hers! I’m also sad that no one in Another dresses in kimonos when so many in Furuba did (Ritsu, Akito, Shigure, Kazuma, Kunimitsu), so Haruhi dresses in them when she isn’t in school. 

KEIKO is special. Not only is she the newest, but she is also the only character exclusive to C5. While the other characters in C5 are based on characters from other fandoms and have their personalities and such shaped by the new series, Keiko is entirely unique. Her name is a combination of the two things that birthed the series: Sailor Moon and Persona 5. Keiko is for Keiko Kitagawa, the actress who played Sailor Mars in PGSM; and Makigami is for Kazuya Makigami, a major character in Persona 5 the Daybreakers. Kazuya is also Keiko’s brother in C5 and he is... not a great person lol. Neither is Keiko. Her appearance is based on how I wear my hair irl and the clothing of Jim Hawking from Outlaw Star, my favorite anime of all time. (I sadly never made an OC for that series. I tried but I am not good at space opera.)

None of the OCs ever cross paths in C5. It would create a temporal paradox and probably result in one of them fainting or dying lol. Since they’re all essentially the same person. Fun fact: I, Ffamran (known in-universe as Bideru the author) also occasionally make cameos, and I also cannot cross paths with the OCs. Luckily Tokyo, where C5 is set, is a very big place. 

If you stuck with me through this very long post about OCs, thank you! I just really wanted to go off about them since I’ve been in a writing mood and I’m on volume 2 of C’est la Vie 5 now. 

[thecomicsnexus]

TOP 10 INK AND COLOR ARTISTS OF 2019′S REVIEWS

This year I felt the need to also do this list. Why? Well, when I was going through the most prominent artists with a 10 score, I noticed that some names were in almost all of them, but they weren’t the main artists. These artists are mostly inkers and colorists, and they are industry professionals, that usually worked for the publisher directly. This is the main reason they were involved in most of the art teams. Some of these were working for hire though. But you will also notice that unlike the writers and pencillers lists, this one is a lot more diverse.

NUMBER TEN JOHN HIGGINS (1949 - PRESENT)

John Higgins (born 1949) is an English comic book artist and writer. He did significant work for 2000 AD, and he has frequently worked with writer Alan Moore, most notably as colorist for Watchmen.

John Higgins was born in Walton, Liverpool. After leaving school when he was 15, he joined the army and, on leaving, spent some time in a commune in Wiltshire. He returned to Liverpool and, in 1971, resumed his studies at Wallasey College of Art. There, in 1974 he qualified in technical illustration, which allowed him to get a job as a medical illustrator at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.

After getting his first comic book art published in Brainstorm in 1975, he drew the cover for 2000 AD No. 43 in 1977 and decided to go freelance in 1978, with an eye on becoming a comic artist. In 1981 he started getting regular work at 2000 AD, one of his early projects being the art for a Tharg's Future Shocks by Alan Moore, as well as doing covers for Marvel UK.

After this he worked steadily at 2000 AD and joined the British Invasion in the mid-eighties—notably doing the colouring on Moore's Watchmen and Batman: The Killing Joke, a job he got through colouring Steve Dillon's art on Moore's ABC Warriors story. This led to more work in the American market, although he has kept working on British titles too especially with Judge Dredd over 20 years.

He provided the art for Greysuit with Pat Mills, as well as working with Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti on The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning and Jonah Hex No. 28.

Higgins is also a writer. He wrote and drew his first Future Shock at 2000 AD and did the same for Razorjack, a comic book mini-series from Com.x, which was reprinted in 2009.

Higgins has worked in a number of different areas providing artwork for animation, film and book covers like The Cabinet of Light and The Morgaine Stories. In 2012, Higgins worked on the Before Watchmen project, drawing the serialised feature "Curse of the Crimson Corsair" which was initially written by Len Wein. Higgins later became the writer of the feature as well.

In 2016 he provided the art for six stamps commemorating the Great Fire of London, illustrating them in the style of a comic strip.

In 2017 a collection of his artwork was exhibited at the Victoria Gallery & Museum in Liverpool, in an exhibition called Beyond Dredd & Watchmen: The Art of John Higgins.

Higgins made it into the list thanks to his work on “Batman: The Killing Joke” and “Watchmen”.

NUMBER NINE ROMEO TANGHAL (1943 - PRESENT)

Romeo Tanghal (born 1943) is a Filipino comics artist who has worked primarily as an inker. He became well known in the industry in the 1980s for his work on DC Comics' The New Teen Titans.

Romeo Tanghal was born and raised in the Philippines. A self–taught artist, he started doing comics illustrations after graduating high school. He briefly worked with various local publications before emigrating to the United States in 1976. His first published work in the U.S. was "If There Were No Batman... I Would Have to Invent Him" in Batman #284 (Feb. 1977) for DC Comics. He then drew short stories for House of Mystery, House of Secrets, and Weird War Tales. He later became the inker on such features as Super Friends, "Scalphunter" in Weird Western Tales, and "Gravedigger" in Men of War. In 1980, Tanghal became the inker of George Pérez's penciled artwork on The New Teen Titans. Tanghal drew two origin stories for DC's digest line during this time, a ten-page short story in DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #5 (Nov.–Dec. 1980) featuring Zatara and Zatanna and the origin of the Penguin in The Best of DC #10 (March 1981). Tanghal began working for Marvel Comics as well in 1986. He inked the comics adaptations of such films as Labyrinth, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and Willow. Tanghal did character design and storyboards for Sunbow Entertainment from 1985 to 1987.

Tanghal received an Inkpot Award in 2013.

I usually think of Romeo when I think about the team of Wolfman and Pérez. Their work on New Teen Titans is the main reason he made it into this list.

NUMBER EIGHT LYNN VARLEY (1958 - PRESENT)

Lynn Varley is an award-winning American comic book colorist, notable for her collaborations with her then-husband, comic book writer/artist Frank Miller.

Varley grew up in Livonia, Michigan. Moving to New York City, she found work at Neal Adams' Continuity Associates. She debuted as a comic book colorist on Batman Annual # 8 (1982), written by Mike W. Barr and penciled by her then partner Trevor Von Eeden. Around the same time, she became professionally involved with Upstart Associates, a shared studio space on West 29th Street formed by Walter Simonson, Howard Chaykin, Val Mayerik, and Jim Starlin. Varley colored the first two issues of Chaykin's American Flagg! Frank Miller later became part of Upstart.

Varley provided the coloring for Miller's Ronin (1984), an experimental six-issue series from DC Comics that proved that comics in unusual formats could be commercially successful; and The Dark Knight Returns (1986), a four issue mini-series that went on to become an outstanding commercial and critical success. Miller also noted that Varley helped create the futuristic slang that Carrie Kelley and other characters use.

Subsequently, Varley colored other Miller books, including The Dark Knight Strikes Again, 300, Elektra Lives Again, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot (with Geoff Darrow), as well as a number of covers for the U.S. editions of the Lone Wolf and Cub series. She also colored the backgrounds for the 300 movie (2007), produced by Miller.

Varley has only worked sporadically in the comics industry since 2005.

Varley and Miller were married from 1986 to 2005. They moved from New York City to Los Angeles in the late 1980s and moved back to New York shortly before the September 11 attacks.

Because of her collaborations with Miller, Lynn made it into this list thanks to her work on “Ronin”, “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Wolverine”.

NUMBER SEVEN GLYNIS “WEIN” OLIVER (1949 - PRESENT)

Glynis Oliver, also credited as Glynis Wein is an artist who has worked as a colorist in the comics industry. For several years, she was married to Len Wein. She returned to her maiden name in 1985. She was born in England.

She has been recognized for her work in the industry with a Shazam Award for Best Colorist in 1973.

Glynis has an extensive career in comics, but the reason she made it into this list was her work on “Uncanny X-Men”, more specifically “the Dark Pheonix Saga” and the “Wolverine” mini-series.

NUMBER SIX BRAD ANDERSON

Not to mistake with the creator of Marmaduke.

Brad Anderson is a cartoonist and comic book colourist. He began his career in 1998 working for DC Comics in 1998 on the title Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. Ever since he has worked on countless comics for different publishers including Dark Horse Comics and Marvel Comics

Most recently, he has been working on titles like Batman Eternal, Green Lantern, Justice League and Convergence.

Little is known about Brad’s life (odd considering the popularity of the material he is part of). He made it into this list thanks to his work on the “Witching Hour” crossover and also on the Shazam Origin that run on the Justice League book.

NUMBER FIVE ANTHONY TOLLIN (1952 - PRESENT)

Anthony Tollin is a professional comic book colourist. Tollin started working for DC Comics in the early 70s as an assistant to Tatjana Wood in the coloring department. In the early 80s, he became the main colourist for DC, doing almost all of the covers of the publications of the company at the time. Tollin worked for DC until the early 90s, when he started working for other publishers.

He is in this list thanks to his work on “Vigilante”, “Ambush Bug” and “Crisis on Infinite Earths”.

NUMBER FOUR ADRIENNE ROY (1953 - 2010)

Adrienne Roy (June 28, 1953 – December 14, 2010) was a comic book color artist who worked mostly for DC Comics. She was largely responsible for coloring the Batman line (Batman and Detective Comics) throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Roy attended an art school in Wayne, New Jersey, where she studied painting techniques. Her first contact with comics was through collecting Marvel Comics' Tomb of Dracula, The Sub-Mariner and Conan the Barbarian. Roy's first work as a comics colorist was assisting her husband Anthony Tollin, who worked for DC Comics at the times. But it was long-time colorist Jack Adler who would give her the first job at DC: the cover of DC Special Series #8 (featuring the Batman, Deadman and Sgt. Rock team-up). Adler and Sol Harrison (who was also a colorist) were considered by Roy herself as her mentors and both trained her on coloring during her first years at DC.

Roy was also responsible for the coloring on many other titles during that time period: The New Teen Titans, The Warlord, Weird War Tales and Madame Xanadu. Nevertheless, she is predominantly known for her work on the Batman books: Batman, Detective Comics, Batman: Shadow of the Bat, Batman: Gotham Knights, and Robin.

When computerized colors arrived to comics, the assignments to classic colorists decreased a lot. By 2000 Roy was largely out of work, despite training herself on the computer. Roy spent her last days battling cancer and died in Austin, Texas, at age 57 on December 14, 2010.

Adrienne Roy illustrated most of the comics of my childhood, and her “fuchsia” skies are pretty much her trademark on many Batman comics. She made it into this list thanks to her work on “New Teen Titans”, “Batman and the Outsiders”, Tales of the Teen Titans”, “The Judas Contract”, “Batman” and “Detective Comics”.

NUMBER THREE TERRY AUSTIN (1952 - PRESENT)

Terry Kevin Austin (born August 23, 1952) is an American comics artist, working primarily as an inker. He is best known for his work embellishing John Byrne's pencils on Uncanny X-Men from 1977 to 1981.

Austin grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and attended Wayne State University. He started inking comics as an assistant to Dick Giordano and Neal Adams, doing "Crusty Bunker" work for Adams' Continuity Associates. Austin came to prominence in 1976–1977, inking Marshall Rogers' pencils on a celebrated run of Batman stories for DC Comics' Detective Comics collaborating with writer Steve Englehart. During this same period, Austin inked Michael Netzer (Nasser) on DC's Martian Manhunter in Adventure Comics and Green Arrow/Black Canary in World's Finest Comics, as well as Al Milgrom on Marvel Comics' Captain Marvel. He later teamed with Rogers again on Marvel's Doctor Strange.

In 1977, Austin and penciler John Byrne became the new art team on Uncanny X-Men. With writer Chris Claremont they produced a series of stories — particularly "The Dark Phoenix Saga" — which elevated the title into the top-selling American comic book.

Austin resides near Poughkeepsie, New York, where he plays volleyball and gets together often with fellow comics veteran Fred Hembeck.

Terry is a very popular inker that has almost no presence online (only through Fred Hembeck). He made it into this list mostly for his work on “Camelot 3000″ and “Uncanny X-Men”, most specifically, “The Dark Phoenix” saga.

NUMBER TWO DICK GIORDANO (1932 - 2010)

Richard Joseph "Dick" Giordano (July 20, 1932 – March 27, 2010) was an American comics artist and editor whose career included introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes and serving as executive editor of DC Comics.

Dick Giordano, an only child, was born in New York City on July 20, 1932, in the borough of Manhattan to Josephine Labruzzi and Graziano "Jack" Giordano. He attended the School of Industrial Art.

Beginning as a freelance artist at Charlton Comics in 1952, Giordano contributed artwork to dozens of the company's comics, including such Western titles as Annie Oakley, Billy the Kid, and Wyatt Earp, the war comic Fightin' Army, and scores of covers.

Giordano's artwork from Charlton's Strange Suspense Stories was used as inspiration for artist Roy Lichtenstein's 1965/1966 Brushstroke series, including Brushstroke, Big Painting No. 6, Little Big Painting and Yellow and Green Brushstrokes.

By the mid-1960s a Charlton veteran, Giordano rose to executive editor, succeeding Pat Masulli, by 1965. As an editor, he made his first mark in the industry, overseeing Charlton's revamping of its few existing superheroes and having his artists and writers create new such characters for what he called the company's "Action Hero" line. Many of these artists included new talent Giordano brought on board, including Jim Aparo, Dennis O'Neil, and Steve Skeates.

DC Comics vice president Irwin Donenfeld hired Giordano as an editor in April 1968, at the suggestion of Steve Ditko, with Giordano bringing over to DC some of the creators he had nurtured at Charlton. Giordano was given several titles such as Teen Titans, Aquaman and Young Love, but none of DC's major series. He launched the horror comics series The Witching Hour in March 1969, and the Western series All-Star Western vol. 2 in September 1970.

He continued to freelance for DC as a penciler and inker. As an artist, Giordano was best known as an inker. His inking was particularly associated with the pencils of Neal Adams, for their run in the early 1970s on the titles Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow. Comics historian Les Daniels observed that "The influential Adams style moved comics closer to illustration than cartooning, and he brought a menacing mood to Batman's adventures that was augmented by Dick Giordano's dark, brooding inks."

By 1971, frustrated by what he felt was a lack of editorial opportunities, Giordano had left DC to partner with fellow artist Neal Adams for their Continuity Associates studios, which served as an art packager for comic book publishers, including such companies as Giordano's former employer Charlton Comics, Marvel Comics, and the one-shot Big Apple Comix. Several comics artists began their careers at Continuity and many were mentored by Giordano during their time there.

He had a brief run as penciler of the Wonder Woman series which included a two-issue story in issues #202–203 (October and December 1972) written by science-fiction author Samuel R. Delany. Giordano drew several backup stories in Action Comics featuring the Human Target character as well as the martial arts feature "Sons of the Tiger" in Marvel's black-and-white comics magazine The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. He was a frequent artist on Batman and Detective Comics and he and writer Denny O'Neil created the Batman supporting character Leslie Thompkins in the story "There Is No Hope in Crime Alley" in Detective Comics #457 (March 1976). Giordano inked the large-format, first DC/Marvel intercompany crossover, Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man (1976), over the pencils of Ross Andru. Giordano inked Adams on the one-shot Superman vs. Muhammad Ali in 1978. Throughout the late 1970s and the early 1980s, Ross Andru and Giordano were DC's primary cover artists, providing cover artwork for the Superman titles as well as covers for many of the other comics in the DC line at that time.

In 1980, DC publisher Jenette Kahn brought Giordano back to DC. Initially the editor of the Batman titles, Giordano was named the company's new managing editor in 1981, and promoted to vice president/executive editor in 1983, a position he held until 1993. DC Comics writer and executive Paul Levitz observed in 2010 that "Giordano held the respect of talent as one of their own, and kept their affection with his reassuring calm and warmth."

Giordano provided art for several anniversary issues of key DC titles. He and television writer Alan Brennert crafted the story "To Kill a Legend" in Detective Comics #500 (March 1981). Giordano was one of the artists on the double-sized Justice League of America #200 (March 1982) as well as Wonder Woman #300 (Feb. 1983) He was promoted to Vice-President/Executive Editor in 1984, and with Kahn and Levitz, oversaw the relaunch of all of DC's major characters with the Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series in 1985. This was followed by Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen in 1986. Giordano inked several major projects during this time such as George Pérez's pencils on Crisis on Infinite Earths and John Byrne's pencils on The Man of Steel and Action Comics, though during this period he always employed assistants for inking backgrounds, filling in large black areas, and making final erasures.

From 1983 to 1987, Giordano wrote a monthly column published in DC titles called "Meanwhile..." which much like Marvel's "Bullpen Bulletins" featured news and information about the company and its creators. Unlike "Bullpen Bulletins," which was characterized by an ironic, over-hyped tone, Giordano's columns ". . . were written in a relatively sober, absolutely friendly voice, like a friend of your father's you particularly liked and didn't mind sitting down to listen to." Giordano closed each "Meanwhile..." column with the characteristic words, "Thank you and good afternoon."

The Vertigo imprint was launched in early 1993 built upon the success several titles edited by Karen Berger including Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Sandman, Doom Patrol, Animal Man, and Shade, the Changing Man. Giordano inked six issues of The Sandman in 1991-1993.

Beginning in 1987, Giordano was in the middle of an industry-wide debate about the comics industry, ratings systems, and creators' rights. Veteran writers Mike Friedrich, Steven Grant, and Roger Slifer all cited Giordano in particular for his hard-line stance on behalf of DC. This debate led in part to the 1988 drafting of the Creator's Bill of Rights.

Giordano left DC in 1993, and still did the occasional inking job, but later returned to freelancing full-time. In 1994 Giordano illustrated a graphic novel adaptation of the novel Modesty Blaise released by DC Comics, with creator/writer Peter O'Donnell. He was one of the many artists who contributed to the Superman: The Wedding Album one-shot in 1996 wherein the title character married Lois Lane.

In 2002, Giordano launched the short-lived Future Comics with writer David Michelinie and artist Bob Layton. Since 2002, Giordano had drawn several issues of The Phantom published in Europe and Australia. In 2004, Giordano and writer Roy Thomas completed an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel. They had begun the project in 1974 but the cancellation of many of Marvel's black and white magazines put it into limbo. The finished story was collected into a hardcover edition in 2005 and a colorized hardcover edition in 2010. In 2005, F+W Publications Inc. published the instructional art book Drawing Comics with Dick Giordano, which he wrote and illustrated. His last mainstream work appeared in Jonah Hex vol. 2, #51 (March 2010) for which he drew the interior art and the cover. His last comics work was pencilling and editing Baron Five, published by Hound Comics.

Giordano married the former Marie Trapani, sister of fellow comics artist Sal Trapani, on April 17, 1955. She died from complications of her second stomach cancer surgery in February 1993. They had three children together; Lisa, Dawn, and Richard Jr. Marie's death, combined with Giordano's increasing hearing loss, hastened his decision to retire from DC. Following the death of his wife, Giordano split time between homes in Florida and Connecticut. In 1995, he moved to Palm Coast, Florida, where he continued to work full-time freelancing, until his death. Giordano had suffered from lymphoma and later from leukemia, secondary to the chemotherapy. He died on March 27, 2010 due to complications of pneumonia.

Giordano served as mentor or inspiration to a generation of inkers, including Terry Austin, Mike DeCarlo, and Bob Layton.

Shortly after Giordano's death in 2010, The Hero Initiative created "The Dick Giordano Humanitarian of the Year Award", which debuted at the 2010 Harvey Awards ceremony held at the Baltimore Comic-Con. The award recognizes one person in comics each year who demonstrates particular generosity and integrity in support of the overall comic book community.

Giordano received recognition in the industry for his work, including the Alley Award for Best Editor in 1969. He won the Shazam Award for Best Inker (Dramatic Division) in 1970 (for Green Lantern), 1971, 1973 (for Justice League of America), and 1974. He won the 1971 Goethe Award for "Favorite Pro Editor." Giordano received an Inkpot Award in 1981. In 2009 he was awarded the Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame Award.

My favorite anecdote of Dick Giordano, is from Karen Berger (from the book “The British Invasion: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison”) about Grant Morrison’s thick Glaswegian accent.

“When I first met Grant, I was with Dick Giordano and Jenette Khan. I had set up appointments pretty much every hour with different writers and artists in this suite that we had rented to meet people, and Grant was the last person we saw on one of the days. And Dick Giordano was very hard of hearing... he wore two hearing aids and when Grant came in, Grant started talking and [Giordano] just took off his hearing aids and left the room. He couldn’t even read his lips.”

Dick Giordano is a legend, but he is in this list because of his work on “Camelot 3000″, “Tales of the Teen Titans”, “Vigilante” and “Crisis on Infinite Earths”.

NUMBER ONE TATJANA WOOD (1926 - PRESENT)

Tatjana Wood (née Tatjana Weintraub, in Darmstadt, Germany) is an American artist and comic book colorist.

Tatjana's father was Jewish, and her mother was Christian. During World War II, she and her brother, Karl Joachim Weintraub, were sent to an international Quaker boarding school in the Netherlands. Gaining Dutch citizenship was not easy, so after World War II, the Quakers arranged for the two to travel to New York City in 1947. Karl went on to the University of Chicago, while Tatjana stayed in New York, attending the Traphagen School of Fashion. In 1949, she met Wally Wood, and they married August 28, 1950.

During the 1950s and 1960s, she sometimes made uncredited contributions to Wood's artwork. One of the stories she worked on was "Carl Akeley" in EC Comics' Two-Fisted Tales #41 (February–March 1955). She did a number of animal drawings for that story.

Later, beginning in 1969, she did extensive work for DC Comics as a comic book colorist. She was the main colorist for DC's covers from 1973 through the mid-1980s. Wood did coloring work on the interiors of comics as well, including Grant Morrison's acclaimed run on Animal Man, Alan Moore's issues of Swamp Thing, and Camelot 3000. She won the Shazam Award for Best Colorist in 1971 and 1974. Tatjana has had no significant credits in the comics industry since 2003.

She is also a skilled dressmaker and weaver, who has crafted theatrical costumes and pictorial loom tapestries.

Tatjana's brother Karl died March 25, 2004. He was a distinguished scholar at the University of Chicago and the author of two books, Visions of Culture: Voltaire-Guizot-Burckhardt-Lamprecht-Huizinga-Ortega y Gassett (1966) and The Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance in Autobiography (1978).

Tatjana Wood has been mostly uncredited for most of her career. It is only thanks to interviews and reprints that we know of her work on many essential books, like the original Swamp Thing volume.

She made it into this list because of her work on “Swamp Thing” and “Camelot 3000″.

There were more artists that didn’t make it to the top 10, but were considered: Bob Oksner, Bruce D. Patterson, Tom Ziuko, Tom McCraw, Alfredo Alcala, Mike DeCarlo, Joe Rubinstein, Klaus Janson, Malcolm Jones III, Norm Breyfogle (for both lists) and Steve Oliff.

Being an inker or a colorist in comics can be an ungrateful job. But they mean a lot to certain artists. It is not the same to be inked by Romeo Tanghal or by Mike Royer. And because most of these artists had permanent contracts with their publishers, they ended up growing up in the industry. To all of them, thanks for the comics!

[t-oresama]

"A Celebration in Animation: The 100 Greatest Cartoon Characters in Television History" by Marty Gitlin and Joe Wos

Synopsis: Few morose thoughts permeate the brain when Yosemite Sam calls Bugs Bunny a "long-eared galoot"or a frustrated Homer Simpson blurts out his famous catchphrase "D'oh!". A Celebration in Animation explores the best-of-the-best cartoon characters from the 1920s to the twenty-first century. Casting a wide net, it includes characters both serious and humorous and ranging from silly to malevolent. But all the greats gracing this book are sure to trigger nostalgic memories of care-free Saturday mornings or after-school hours with family and friends in front of the TV set. 

Published: 2018 (Lyons Press) Genre: Non-fiction, pop culture, ranked list Rating: 3.5 out of 5

WARNING: There are some spoilers in this review (they don't mention the ranking of the shows I'll mention, just the shows themselves). The cover of the book already spoils things in this regard, but just in case you want to read this yourselves, you may want to skip reading this review until then! :D

Reader Review: Okay, so at this point, I'm literally going to start making a new tag/sub-series of reviews called "judging a book by its cover", because yet again, that's what I did. Heck, I'll even go back to my old reviews and tag them as such I went back to my old reviews and tagged them as such. Working at a library is a blessing and a curse in this regard... Anyway, my allure to this book's cover came from Teen Titans' Beast Boy being smack-dab on it. And with my undying love for the original Teen Titans series, I was instantly curious as to what ranking he'd been awarded (THAT, I will spoil; it'll be in the tags). And I've always had a love of both cartoon history and countdown lists, so this book was right up my alley anyway. 

Now, as much as the internet likes to make fun of WatchMojo on Youtube ("Top Ten Anime Betrayals" memes, anyone?), you have to admit that you yourself have watched at least one of their countdown lists, or a countdown list from someone else (ScreenRant, Looper, etc). There's something inherently interesting about putting things, specifically things we see in pop culture, in a ranked order, and the possibilities of the subjects of these lists are limitless so there's something for everyone. That being said, it drives me crazy when people get so mad or defensive about the entry order of a top 10/ top whatever number list, whether it's "How could THIS be #1???", "How could this NOT be #1???", "What about ___???", you get it. So going into reading this list of the top 100 cartoon characters in all of cartoon history, you really have to understand that these are the, albeit well-thought-out and industry-knowledgeable, OPINIONS of two people. This is not the Mayan calendar, the end-all be-all of lists. If anything, it prompts a dialogue, inviting you to hop on discussion train and talk about cartoons yourself. 

Both Marty Gitlin, a pop culture author, and Joe Wos, a cartoon illustrator, have both the professional and personal insight of the vast history of cartoons. What is very apparent, though, is that these two have come together for more of their personal love of cartoons than anything else. This didn't bother me personally, because no matter how unbiased a ranking list claims to be, there's always a little bit of bias. The two authors try to base their rankings in fact more than personal preference, and for the most part they do stay unbiased, in both obvious and non-obvious ways (for example: there is one Disney character that ranks decently higher on the list than another Disney character, which was backed by reasonings both personal and professional by the authors, since the initial reaction from anyone would probably be "...Wait, really?"). Their choices do a great job in ranging from the dawn of cartoon history with "Crusader Rabbit" and "Astro Boy" to much more recent cartoons like Archer from "Archer", Tina from "Bob's Burgers" and Korra from "The Legend of Korra", all with the same logic applied to each for why they deserved to be recognized in this book, and not necessarily why they deserve spot number whatever (although they do emphasize the rankings DO matter, but it didn't really matter a whole lot outside of the top 20). I genuinely enjoyed learning about cartoons I wasn't too familiar with, getting little blurbs and fun facts out of it, and just generally getting into the heads of Gitlin and Wos. It's clear they did their research and really applied a lot of thought to this list. After all, it's hard with ALL the cartoons characters that have existed since the early 1900s to simply pick 100. Some liberties are taken for duos, like Sylvester and Tweety and Cosmo and Wanda, but it makes sense because some exist as foils of the other to play off of each other, and their partnership is what made them stand out individually in the first place. In that regard, it's more like a top 125-ish list, but again, the authors take care in making the reasonings make sense. Plus there's a foreword from SpongeBob voice and overall voice-acting marvel Tom Kenny, which is a nice treat that whets our appetite for what this book will unveil.

That being said, this book is very much a first draft that should have had some more time to be edited before release. It's enough sometimes to be overlooked; in the beginning of each new ranking, there's a bio for each character (Created by:____ Debuted in: ___ Voiced by: ____), but rather than a new blurb starting on a new line, there are sometimes two blurbs that exist on the same line. Again, not the worst thing ever. But then there are some that are just impossible to let go; there's literally a ranking (within the ranking) of Pinky and the Brain's most ridiculous "Take over the world" schemes, and there's randomly a line about Racer X of "Speed Racer" fame that is clearly not supposed to be in this ranking, let alone in this ranking's ranking. Consistency is also an issue. For a book about cartoons, there's a big lack of them in this book. Every ranked character, I assumed, would have its own picture to visually show the reader who the character is in a "show, don't tell" kind of way, but that was very much not the case for a large amount of characters. The most logical answer to this could've been that there were copyright issues where the authors couldn't obtain permission to use their images, but several Disney characters appear visually in the book, despite Disney being notoriously stingy about sharing their characters in mediums they don't helm themselves. And where we get a cartoon character visually for #1-45, we don't get any pictures at all for a straight 15 rankings afterwards. For a ranked list about a visual medium, I would've loved to have seen who they were talking about, instead of Google image searching who certain characters were (like I had no idea who Beany and Cecil were before this book, and had to provide my own visual representation). It's just an odd choice for a cartoon book to exclude... cartoons. Though what's more odd are some images they did include. There are a couple of weird choices of photos, like the French TV poster for "Pokemon" that says "Le Film" under a screenshot of Pikachu, and the tiniest picture ever of "Crusader Mouse" obscured by the title sequence. Again, Googling these characters myself showed me better results than the book did. 

Finally and most importantly, character information is straight-up wrong. I know I said they do their research-- and they do-- and the authors are obviously not expected to know everything about every character offhand, but where they get tiny details and industry notes spot-on, they get the absolute simplest character information so unusually incorrect. There are two notable examples in my copy of the book. The first one is in Fat Albert's entry, where it states "Cosby Kid Tito is killed by a stray bullet intended for his older brother, who had joined a gang" (Uh... Fat Albert spoilers?). But it's actually Tito's younger brother Fernando who is shot and killed because the older brother who joins a gang is "Cosby Kid Tito". I know the piece is about Fat Albert the character and not Tito, but why bring this up if you don't even use the correct character to mention how progressive the show was to justify Fat Albert's place on the list? The second one is for the Powerpuff Girls regarding Blossom's physical description. It reads: "Blossom boasted light brown hair with a large blow and featured a short cape tied behind her pink dress and black belt." UMMMMMMM. I was so absolutely confused by this one line I had to look up various shots of her character model in case I somehow forgot that she had a cape, and to clarify, she absolutely does not have a cape (unless for specific episodes where's she dressing up outside of her normal attire). Did the authors think her hair was a cape? Did they mistake one episode where she wore a cape for the entirety of the series where she doesn't wear one? NO CAPES (CHECK OUT INCREDIBLES 2 IN THEATRES JUNE 15TH). Also... light brown hair? What adds insult to injury, besides the well-established fact that she has RED hair, is that this character description is written RIGHT NEXT TO A PICTURE OF THE POWERPUFF GIRLS TO PROVE THAT THAT IS NOT TRUE. Honestly, I'll give leniency where it's due for taking on the task of ranking and going in-depth on the origins and noteworthy points of a character, but no one prompted them to make this list. If you're going to talk in-depth about a character, fact-checking is your best friend. This is simple research, or simple picture-looking.

Overall, it's a fun book that helps you brush up on your cartoon history and send you into a state of nostalgia. I do wish there were more than the ten or so characters from Japan, Canada or the UK that appear on this list, but again, it's a book written in America that tends to look at the influence of said cartoons in American history, and asking someone to examine every cartoon character in the WORLD is a daunting, if not impossible task. I do also disagree with the fact that the list starts with #1 and descends from there. I find it more fun to build up to that #1 spot, because who really wants to read who #100 is when you know who #1 is already? I actually read this book backwards because of this, and found it much more satisfying to see the #1 spot by the "end". But I don't think there will be any dispute with who the top 30 or so cartoons are, but even if there are, that's the fun of ranked lists like this: if you disagree, just make your own list! It's all in good cartoon fun.

[raychulemma]

50 Completely Random Questions People Rarely Ask Tag:

1. What’s your favorite candle scent? Red Apple Wreath - Yankee Candle. It's perfectly Autumnal and always goes on half price sale after Christmas. I have far too many versions of it

2. What female celebrity do you wish you were related to? Probably Maya Rudolph because she's a shameless weirdo like me

3. What male celebrity do you wish was your brother? Probably Peter Kay. I feel like he would be easy to open up to. And he would make awkward family events so much more bearable

4. What’s your favorite thing about marriage? (And if you’re not married, what’s your favorite thing about being single?) Security. Safety. I didn't expect it to feel any different because we had been living together for a while but something about the actual marriage made me feel protected and comfortable. Also because its a same-sex marriage it's a lot nicer to say my wife than my fiancée, because i would wonder if they assume my fiancée is male

5. What’s one thing you own that you should probably get rid of, but just can’t? Books that I'm not going to re-read but have memories linked to buying/receiving/reading them.

6. Can you do a split? not a chance

7. How old were you when you learned how to ride a bike? Seven. i learnt at the end of my road because it's a dead end. and i got a green bike for my birthday with a seat for my teddy

8. How many oceans have you swam in? just the Atlantic ocean 🌊

9. How many countries have you been to? 6. France, Spain, Germany, USA (Florida), Wales, Scotland.

10. Is anyone in your family in the army? No, my Grandad was, and some of my Great Uncles but no one during my lifetime

11. What was your favorite TV show when you were a child? Superted, Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Story of Tracy Beaker, Dick n Dom in da Bungalow, Jungle Run

12. What did you dress up as on Halloween when you were eight? A classy binbag witch

13. Have you read any of the Harry Potter, Hunger Games or Twilight series? I got into the Harry Potter books in 1998 and am still in love with the series. I went to the midnight release for the last book. I watched all of the films in the opening week and vividly remember that the cinema i saw the first film at in 2001 had a Harry Potter themed sweet shop. I have jewellery, clothing, books, dvds, wands, other collectibles. I read the books with my mum when i was younger and watched all of the films in the cinema with her. she had her own HP merch. My wife also loves Harry Potter. We have been to see Cursed Child twice and have been to the Studio Tour 3 (or 4?) times. We had a Harry Potter themed wedding which was absolutely perfect. Hunger Games was something i avoided reading until the first film was coming out, and then absolutely loved the first 2 books (3rd one got too political for me) and the films are still some of my favourites for costume and set design. I read the twilight books after my best friend recommended them to me. We all actually read them as part of our sisterhood club. I went to blackpool to watch the first film in the cinema with my best friend. I watched the last one at midnight with my wife and one of the girls from the sisterhood who is one of the biggest twilight fans i know still. she has behind the scenes books and dvds and has re read the books that much that the spines are just gone. my mum was also a big twilight fan and would watch them any time they were on tv. i watched a few at the cinema with her, always her choice. she hadnt seen hunger games at the time of them being released but we did watch them all with her a few years ago

14. Would you rather have an American accent or a British accent? i film YouTube videos and always think my accent would be more interesting if it was American

15. Have you ever taken karate lessons? no, my 2 brothers and sister did when i was 5 or 6. i didnt like being touched so never did it

16. Do you know who Kermit the frog is? yup

17. What’s the first amusement park you’ve been to? im going to guess Gullivers world Warrington because its the closest one to where i live

18. What language, besides your native language, would you like to be fluent in? French because I love disneyland paris. or japanese because i would love to visit tokyo but its way out of my comfort zone

19. Do you spell the color as grey or gray? grey. e for england, a for america

20. Do you know triplets? yes, 2 girls and a boy but i only met the girls

21. Do you prefer Titanic or The Notebook? Titanic. my mum was a massive fan. She watched it 3 times in the cinema when it first came out. we watched it with her when it was released in imax on an anniversary. she had behind the scenes books, a few versions of the vhs and dvds, playing cards. her love for it made me love it

22. Have you ever had Indian food? no im a very fussy eater and have never tried indian or Chinese

23. What’s the name of your favorite restaurant? Of all time? Tough choice but im going with pizza hut. Cheesy bites base with double mushroom. Never craved something more

24. Have you ever been to Olive Garden? they dont have it in England so no but i would probably like it

25. What would your parents have named you if you were the opposite gender? i have no idea, maybe jason after my dad?

26. If you have a nickname, what is it? rach, chicken, chickadee

27. Who’s your favorite person in the world? i want to say scruff but shes technically not a person. kirsty is my best friend and i would pick her every time

28. Would you rather live in a rural area or in the suburbs? where i live is in between. drive one way and its city, the other way is farms. so living in one ot those farmhouses not far from city life would be the dream. i would have chickens, sheep and cats.

29. Can you whistle? yep but my cats hate the noise

30. Do you sleep with a nightlight? i can see the hallway light from where our bed is so i dont generally need a nightlight but we do have cute ones. i have 3 HP ones on my bedside table

31. Do you eat breakfast every morning? yea as long as i have time

32. How many times have you been to the hospital? ive only ever been to a&e. once for palpitations, a few times for mental health and once for an x ray on my hand. ive been to walk in centres for urine/kidney infections and for fractured fingers. oh i did go to hospital to see a neurologist to be diagnosed with essential tremor

33. Have you ever seen Finding Nemo? yes i love it. my brother and sister both bought me the dvd for christmas the year it came out so i had 2 copies for a while. i also had the game for pc and ps2. and i had a game on my phone and ipad where you could build up the seabed and gain fish. the film is just so nice and calming to watch. the scenery, the sound effects, the movements are all just gently flowing. and somehow you get attached to these characters and root for them whether youre a fan of tropical fish or not.

34. Where do you buy your jeans? primark, next, sainsburys, asda

35. What’s the last compliment you got? kirsty said my eyelashes look like im wearing mascara when im not

36. Do you usually remember your dreams in the morning? yea and they're weird as fuck. the latest one was about the bath being clogged with poo

37. Favorite beverage that isn’t water? Tea ☕

38. How many pairs of shoes do you currently own? a disgusting amount. maybe 20. maybe more

39. How old were you when you found out that Santa wasn’t real? about 8 which I think wasnt too young or too old. my brother told me which I was glad about because i was prone to being bullied at school and would have hated to be told by nasty kids

40. What is one food that you used to hate but now you love? cheesy garlic bread WTF

41. What is a weird lie you’ve told? i told kirsty once that i had pood the bed and asked her to help me clean it.

42. Heels or flats? flats always. specifically trainers. i think dresses look so much cuter with trainers. same with suits

43. Do you have any weird phobias? no just common ones. moths, spiders, flying insects, beetles, heights, being completely isolated, finding a dead person

44. What is a phrase or word you always say? i cant actually think of a current phrase i say but i do get stuck on phrases

45. What is a song that you bast or belt out when you are alone? part of your world, let it go, bridge over troubled water, over the rainbow. any that i try to actually hit the notes on

46. What is one of your biggest pet peeves? nails. nails tapping, and the sound of cutting or biting nails. or people that stop in the middle of an aisle or walkway when you're trying to get past

47. Do you sleep with your closet door open or closed? they dont even have doors on yet so open

48. Would you rather be attacked by a big bear or a swarm of bees? bear. the noise of bees terrifies me. i had a flying ant in my hair on flying ant day but i didnt know. i heard it buzz and cried

49. Do you have any weird things you do? i cant have 2 cream biscuits together (custard cream and jam n cream). i sometimes say hi to my teddies so they know i havent forgot about them. i buy hatchimals when theyre on sale even though i havent previously collected them cos im an impulsive pos. (honestly collecting animal jam figures and my little ponies were the best though)

50. What movie could you watch over and over again and still love? any of the harry potter films, titanic, sisterhood of the travelling pants, Princess diaries 1 and 2, enchanted, princess and the frog, raise your voice, catch me if you can, chalet girl, the shining, slumdog millionaire

[fandomsandfeminism]

Rick Riordan's books just keep getting better (and more diverse!) Transcript

Part 1

Part 2

Transcript Below the Cut:

Rick Riordan. So, I've wanted to make a video about Rick Riordan for a while and with  The new Trials of Apollo book just coming out, I’m really hyped about it. So I wanted to talk about why I like his books, or at least some of the things that impress me about them and keep me consistently excited about them.

Rick Riordan, if you don’t know,  is the author of the wildly popular Percy Jackson series, and today I want to talk about his books, especially how his representation of minorities has improved over time.

So, a few quick things: First, I’m not going to talk about ALL of Rick Riordan’s work, especially his ancillary and tie in material like the Demi-God Files or all the cross over stories, mostly because I haven't read all of them.

And second: Spoilers. Just, big old spoilers for basically everything. I’m not going to go into big plot points much, but I will be talking about some of the characters in depth. I’m going to move through his ouvre in roughly chronological order. So, you are warned.

Lastly, this video hinges on the premise that well done, well executed, fully fledged representations of minority characters in children and Young Adult media is good and important.  I’m not really going to argue this point. It is the assumption we are beginning with. Diverse media with diverse characters is  good and important.  

And this point is, weirdly, kind of controversial. In fact, in the vast majority of children and young adult media most of the cast will be white, straight, cis, able bodied, neurotypical children or young adults with an unstated or vague religious affiliation. This last bit, about the unstated or vague religious affiliation is one we don’t often think about, but really, having a character with ANY stated religion is really rare. Most will, maybe, practice a sort of secularized Christmas maybe? But that’s about it.

The rationale you’ll hear for this is that this makes books more accessible and thus marketable. I would counter that if you really want your book to appeal to as many different people as possible, wouldn’t you want to have as many different types of characters as possible? But that comes with the assumption that outright bigots wouldn’t refuse a book because one of the secondary characters is in a wheelchair, I guess.

So, yeah. Most children's lit and young adult lit  will be white, straight, cis, able bodied, neurotypical children or young adults with an unstated or vague religious affiliation, even if it gets absurdly, massively popular. Popular enough to take risks and work outside the box. I’m looking at you, JK Rowling. Looking at you.

This fact, this lack of diversity, does not bother some people. And we are not going to argue this point in this video. We are beginning with the assertion that this situation is not ideal, and that added quality, well written diversity is a positive. And we are going to look specifically at how Rick Riordan improves in this specific aspect of his writing over time.

--

Ok, so, Uncle Rick is a San Antonio , Texas native, and as someone who was also born and raised in central Texas, I love this fact. He went to MY alma mater, UT, and became a middle school teacher. We’re basically the same person.

Now, Percy Jackson isn’t actually his first book series. In the 90s he wrote a detective series set in San Antonio called Big Red Tequila. There’s like 7 books in this series and I have read none of them. I’m sure they’re great though. How could they not be with a name like that?

Our story really begins in 2004-ish. The story goes that he was telling his son Greek myths as bedtime stories, and when he ran out of myths (or at least child friendly myths I assume), he started to make one up. He invented a story about a boy named Percy, a son of Poseidon, who goes on an adventure to return Zeus's missing lightning bolts.  His son told him that he should turn it into a book, his dad had published books before after all. So, Rick did just that. He then took his rough draft to his middle school students and used their feedback to revise.

He then sold this book to Miramax Books for enough money to retire from teaching and focus on writing. God damn. Rick was living the dream here. Life goals.

So, yeah. If you’ve never read the first Percy Jackson books they are...fine. They’re ok, good even. Definitely like, children’s books. But if you like bad puns and greek myths they are fun. I read all 5 in like...one weekend when I was in high school. I personally think the books really pick up in the third one: Titan’s Curse, mostly because we meet my favorite character, Nico. There’s some good world building in that book, and it really feels like Rick had figured out how he wanted to end the series by that point, so the plot feels more focused.  Maybe that’s just me.

So, remember how I said that Children’s lit will tend to be filled with white, straight, cis, able bodied, neurotypical children with an unstated or vague religious affiliation? Well, Percy Jackson and all his friends are...mostly, white, straight, cis, able bodied, children with an unstated or vague religious affiliation who have ADHD and Dyslexia.

Because Rick Riordan’s son has ADHD and Dyslexia, and Rick wanted these heroes to be like him. So, yeah. The diversity isn’t AMAZING here, but the intent to provide representation for minority children was present from the very beginning. And ADHD and Dyslexia are, like, super powers here, proof the children are demi-gods, are side effects of their brains and bodies being ready for amazing quests.  And there’s this great diversity in the characters with ADHD and Dyslexia and how it impacts them. Annabeth is depicted as super smart and studious. You have Percy who has always struggled in school. And so on.

Now, how you feel about this representation of ADHD and Dyslexia will vary. Some people really like it, others think it isn’t very well done or plays into some iffy tropes. I think we can safely say that the intent was very positive, but your milage may vary on the execution.

There’s also a movie adaption of the first 2 books which are…..bad. Logan Lerman was 18 when he played Percy- who should be like...12? And they made Hades the bad guy? And like..Persephone? Is? In? The? Underworld? In? Summer? Which….ugh. Like, they made Grover black, which was a cool choice, an attempt to address the lack of racial diversity it seems.  but still these movies are not good….maybe if you haven't read the books, you’ll like them. I don’t like them. I didn't even watch the second one honestly. .

Alright so we will look at the rest of Rick Riordan’s books in part 2 of this video. I wanted to cut it here to keep it from getting super super long. So I will see you guys over on Part 2 to finish up

CUT --

Welcome back to my look at all of Rick Riordan’s books and how they have improved over time. We are going to jump right in where we left off at the end of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Ok, so after Percy Jackson, Rick Riordan started work on the Kane Chronicles. If you haven’t read the Kane Chronicles, I don’t blame you. They are kind of the forgotten half-siblings of the Percy Jackson universe, but you should read them. They are really good, and they feel like a really experimental time for Rick. Not only is this the first time we see him play with a split First Person narrator, where different chapters are from different character’s Point of View, but he also really tackles race in these books.

Carter and Sadie are biracial, and deal with all kinds of race issues- Sadie being white passing and Carter not, the books looks at  how that impacts them and their experiences with others, their family, and their heritage. Plus all the Egyptian shit is really cool.

But even if you skipped this book series (seriously, go back and read them.) you can see this evolution in Rick’s writing in his sequel to Percy Jackson- Heroes of Olympus. These books actually came out at the same time as the Kane Chronicles, with The first Kane Chronicles book coming out in May 2010, then The first Heroes of Olympus book coming out in October 2010, and back and forth. And it’s clear that his new skills in Red Pyramid were influential on Heroes of Olympus.

Not only do we see the return of the Shifting narrator, now a Third Person Limited Point of View that follows different characters in different chapters, but where the first series was overwhelmingly white, these books seem to make a real effort to avoid that. The first two books- The Lost Hero and Son of Neptune take place, more or less concurrent and independent of each other. It’s not until the 3rd book when all the new characters meet up. But in those first 2 books, we get 5 new MAIN characters- Jason, a white boy; Piper, a Native American girl, specifically Cherokee if I remember; Leo, a Mexican American boy; Frank, a Chinese American boy; and Hazel, an African American girl. We also get Reyna, who isn’t a main character at first, but I would argue becomes one in House of Hades, and she is Puerto Rican.

And ALL of these characters and their racial identities are handled really well. Like, they are fully fleshed out and genuine characters. This doesn’t feel like shallow, lazy tokenism. Their heritage plays a part in who they are, but is not the ONLY thing about them. Piper, for example, has a father who refuses to play Native American roles in movies because he wants to avoid being stereotyped or type cast and Piper carries that struggle to connect with her heritage with her. Hazel’s experience as a black girl, and a black girl from the 1930s at that, impacted how she was treated growing up and makes up a big part of her backstory. But they aren’t solely defined by these experiences like shallow stereotypes.

It’s well done ,is that I’m saying

-

So at this point, we could say that while Rick had a good grasp on racial diversity and neuro-divergence representation. Most of his characters were still straight, cis, able bodied, children with an unstated or vague religious affiliation. (Seriously, did none of these kids have like..faith in a religion before?)

Now, here is a true, fun fact. On June 30th, 2013, 3 months before the release of House of Hades, I went on Tumblr and wrote an Open Letter to Rick Riordan about how he should really include LGBT+ characters in his books. He had written. Like, 11 children’s books at this point, and despite my headcanons, every character had been portrayed as assumed straight and cis. So I wrote a letter. How much I liked his books, but really, could we have some LGBT+ characters, this IS Greek mythology after all.  I don’t think he ever saw this letter, despite me tweeting it at him.

Among other things in this letter, I go on to list several possibilities for LGBT+ representation in his books, including:  quote: maybe Nico feels an unrequited crush on Percy. A headcanon I had since book 4, Battle of the Labyrinth.

And so, I want my moment, just to say: I. Was. Right. And I told you so.

House of Hades came out in 2013, and well, so did Nico. My favorite character came out of the closet, or, well, was outed and it was heart wrenching. The fandom kind of lost its shit over this. Anyone who had shipped Percy and Nico was throwing a party, homophobes were throwing a fit, it was very emotional. I was gloating a lot.

And let’s be clear- Nico’s sexuality in House of Hades is not...handled the best. It’s better than nothing certainly, and it’s better than Word of God reveals post publication. Rowling. But, by itself, it’s...well...single sad cis gay boy pines over unrequited straight crush hits some stereotypes. None of this is malicious, but it by itself is only so-so representation.

But Rick wasn’t done there, because we still had one more book- Blood of Olympus. Nico gets a super cute boyfriend in the form of Will Solace, and gets some closure with Percy. Now, your mileage may vary with that particular scene. Nico smugly telling Percy he “isn't his type” feels, well, a little out of character and, I dunno, corny. But it’s nice to see Nico get this happy relationship with Will, and I’ll forgive Rick for any stumbles in the exact execution to avert that sad-single-gay trope.

- -

Ok. So, now at last, we get to the 2 series that are still in publication: Gods of Asgard and Trials of Apollo. These two series are publishing concurrently, and  because the Gods of Asgard started publishing first, let’s talk about it first.

I love Gods of Asgard. Truly. These might be my favorite of Riordan’s books. Part of that might just be that after 10 Greek and Roman books, a focus on Norse is refreshing, but I just love it. I love Magnus, I love the Annabeth cameos, I love Sam. Ok, so, the first Gods of Asgard book: Sword of Summer hits two important notes when it comes to minority representation.

Hearth is deaf and mute and uses sign language. This is the first time we’ve had a main character with a clear disability other than ADHD and Dyslexia. Which is really cool. And The consistent use of sign language throughout is neat.

Our second is Sam. Who is muslim and wears a hijab. Like, truly, how many stories do you know about a hijabi muslim valkyrie girl kicking all the ass.

Book 2, Hammer of Thor…well. Remember when I said Nico is my favorite character? Nico might have to fight Alex Fierro for my heart. Alex Fierro. A trans gender fluid child of Loki. I love Alex. Some people cried SJW Gay-Agenda bullshit over Alex like, being trans and gender fluid and, actually mentioning it more than once, but those people are unhappy assholes and I ignore them. I like Alex. Alex is an interesting, complicated character and I can’t wait for the next book.

Also, am I the only one who thinks Magnus and Alex are being set up for some romance? Just wishful thinking? Feels like romance. I ship it. I’ve been right before.

So ok, so We now have racial diversity, representation of multiple kinds of disabilities, a gay character, a gender fluid trans character, and a muslim character. -

Let’s talk about Trials of Apollo.

These books are really fun. If for no other reason than Apollo might actually be the most loud, entertaining narrator we’ve had yet. He’s funny, he’s an asshole. He’s also very loudly and clearly bisexual. Which, duh. How else would you even write Apollo if you have any understanding of Greek mythology?  It’s mentioned a couple of times in the first book, and then even more in the second, where his prior relationships have plot relevance.

The second book also introduced us to Jo and Emmie, a biracial lesbian couple who used to be hunters of Artemis who are now raising a daughter together.

And this is kind of the joy of really GOOD diverse representation. Like, Apollo has faced hardship because of his relationships, with both men and women, but his sexuality itself isn’t a problem with him. Alex is very secure with who they are, but has clearly faced a lot of transphobia. Nico was very closeted and seemed to have a lot of pain tied up in his sexuality and is only just now healing from that with Will. Jo and Emmie clearly faced issues with their relationship, having to leave the hunters, but have built a new life together. We get this great array of experiences, rather than just one prevailing narrative.

I love it, and we’ve come so far from that first bedtime story about a boy trying to find some stolen lightning bolts. - -

So, what’s in the future for Rick Riordan? Well, he hasn’t announced any new book series for after Gods of Asgard and Trials of Apollo wrap up. However, we do know that he is starting his own Publishing Imprint with Disney Hyperion.  Rick will only work as a curator it seems, focusing on having minority authors write fantasy/mythology based books from their native cultures. There are 3 books signed right now,

Jennifer Cervantes’s Storm Runner, which is about a boy having to save the world from a Mayan Prophesy.

Roshani Chokshi’s Aru Shah and the End of Time, about a 12-year-old Indian-American girl who unwittingly frees a demon intent on awakening the God of Destruction

And Yoon Ha Lee’s Dragon Pearl, about a teenage fox spirit on a space colony.

All of which sound AMAZING and I will preorder as soon as Amazon let’s me.

Look, Rick Riordan is not a perfect person or a perfect writer. Some people take issue with him because he has said some rather insulting things about the small number of people who still worship the greek gods. That he took these stories and was dismissive of the people who still value them religiously. Now, The majority of those comments seem to come from blog posts back in 2006, and he did have a brief apology for offending Hellenists on his facebook back in February. and one would hope that this interest on letting minority authors tell stories from their own culture in the future is evidence that he has learned and grown since then.

And not everyone will like Rick Riordan’s books no matter what. They are for kids. They are corny and have bad puns and sometimes meander or forget about important characters for long stretches of time. Sometimes the ideas he has are better than the execution. It happens.

But when I look at his books as a whole, I see Middle school teacher from San Antonio who started with a fun idea and never stopped growing as an author with a dedication to minority representation in his novels. And I certainly appreciate that, and look forward to more of his work for as long as he decides to produce it.

[mikaey43]

#14 Percy Jackson & the Olympians:

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

Rating: 4/5

Pages: 361 (with a brief excerpt from the final book: The Last Olympian)

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion Books (an imprint of Disney Book Group)

It's a new year and I'm reviewing a book I finished at the end of December 2016. (And let's face it, by the time I crank out this  review it'll be New Year's Day again...) I will preface this review by stating that while I do have reading goals, I don't necessarily have a numerical goal. I don't really like to place numerical goals on reading since, for me, it deters from the reason I read—absorbing the story—(basically: quality over quantity). But I do like to review books and I completed my goal of posting five book reviews. I did read way more than five books in 2016 but I didn’t review them because of reasons (mostly life). This year I upped my goal to six books reviews. It does seem like a tiny goal but because of life, if I do more than six I will be very happy. My other reading goal would be to post a review at least within a week after I've finished reading a book that (in my opinion) is worthy of a review. (UPDATE: I’ve already failed hard in that resolution.) Other goals this year include: finishing posting a month's worth of  pictures on Instagram as part of a monthly challenge. (UPDATE: perhaps every other month, beginning with February!) My last goal for this year is to organize myself better. (UPDATE: although this last resolution is vague, it's the one that has worked out the best so far. Weird.) Anyway, Happy New Year!

During the last week of December I was taken on such a great adventure! I actually don't have any anecdotes about this book. It’s completely brand new in the sense that nothing eventful happened prior to reading it nor do I have any news on a new Percy Jackson film, or reboot. Not even rumors on a television series. (In my opinion, it would make such a great series—if done right.) In a way this fourth book is in keeping with the theme of this post of a new year, new feelings, and new experiences and it is, of course, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan.

(WARNING: Reader discretion is advised. Spoilers up ahead of PJO.)

In this story, we're back in the summer months, and just two seasons after the events of The Titan's Curse. We open as Percy attends his ninth grade orientation at Goode High School. (They grow up so fast.) As always, ancient monsters show up and try to destroy him. But we come to learn that Camp Half-Blood is in danger of being invaded by Kronos's army. The war with the titan king is drawing to a head and the only way to stop the attack on the campus is to journey into the belly of the earth through the mythical labyrinth. And unfortunately, things aren't looking too good for Grover and his search for Lord Pan.

Although there were a few new characters in this book I actually want to talk about a a few that have already been established and introduced to us. As promised, we have Nico di Angelo, Bianca’s younger brother. Unfortunately, he's still angry at Percy after the events of The Titan's Curse. We found out that he and Bianca are Hades' children, who were born before the World War II pact. I can’t see the impact—if there is any—on the overall picture of this story line. Then there's Rachel Dare. She was introduced to us during the pit stop at the Hoover Dam. She rescued Percy from an army of skeletons. The surprise came when we learned that she is a mortal who can see through the “Mist.” We get to know her a little bit more this time since she'll be attending the same high school as Percy. I couldn’t be happier. I like her. This brings me to the character I've wanted to discuss for a while: Sally Jackson. She was the first mortal we know who can see through the “Mist.” Aside from that, she is always there for her son, does her best to both protect him and support his destiny. I'm sure that as his mother Sally is worried about Percy. I'm glad to see that she's growing as a character and living her own life. She sets and reaches her goals. We only see Sally's development in bits and pieces through Percy but she has come a long way.

This book, for me, is a series of cinematic proportions. It has the slow buildup of plot, story and character arcs that span these four books but everything appears on a grander scale (case in point: defeat the titan king … but apparently save Luke whom Kronos has now possessed). The actions is amplified; the stakes—already high to begin—just becomes intense. I'd like to think that I have that good of an imagination; however, I like to know that it's Riordan who has done a wonderful job of having this story streaming through my mind with each word I read. I know that as a “good reader” you are supposed to be able to have this type of visualization in your mind, but it's the job of the author to help you construct the scenery, speak through the dialogue and react through the action.

Another thing about this book is the running theme about heroes and their fans (that “heroes rarely live up to our own expectations”). There were three characters who failed to live up to the expectations of our three main characters: Tyson with the hekatonchires, Briares, Annabeth with Daedalus, and Grover with Lord Pan. This disillusion had our main cast becoming their own heroes and ironically inspires Briares and Daedalus (Lord Pan is another story.) It was a very nice message to the readers revealing that you are more than enough as heroes. While it's nice to look up to others, “heroes” make mistakes, fail, and fall apart. Begin a hero doesn’t just mean triumphs and battle stories but having the courage to try again, having compassion for others, and doing the right thing. That is why heroes never fade.

After reading That Titan's Curse, I honestly thought that there wouldn’t be any other competition against The Sea of Monsters and that the story line would be a straight shot through without much climax or dip. But I was wrong. This adventure resembles the second book in the series insomuch that while there is a specific goal in mind, the route to this mythological place doesn’t have a set location on the surface of the contiguous United States. Therefore this makes the journey grander. There were occasions where they did pop back in different cities across the country but quickly returned to the labyrinth. Time also travels differently above and below the earth. It runs slower in the tunnels and faster on the surface. This helps the story move further away from reality making it more magical, mystical, and mythical without really leaving the present time.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars. This series has definitely been a roller coaster. It has many ups and downs, loop-de-loops and steep drops. This pattern through the series (book 1: 3.5 stars, book 2: 4 stars, book 3: 3.5 stars, and now book 4: 4 stars) leads me to believe that while the ending will be satisfying it won't bee anything extraordinarily great, which is fine with me. As long as things have been constructed logically toward the endgame I don’t think it'll let me down. I am very pleased with Riordan's weaving of intricate detail into plot and his great use of characters and their roles (both gods and mortals). He does not forget them. I am very curious to see how he finishes this tale and ultimately Percy's fate. Until next time (hopefully very soon with the final book review).

Happy New Year!

Thanks for reading.