#Between Homes

[cultivating-wildflowers]

Books of 2025 - January

New year, new goals (not just with reading), same massive TBR pile that will haunt me to my grave. I started out with a plan to tackle one giant book, something smaller, and a couple of rereads. I ended up mostly rereading. Granted, my chief goal with reading right now is to enjoy myself, but it's hard to shake the habit of needing to read more.

Total books: 8  |  New reads: 1   |  2024 TBR completed: 0 (0 DNF) / 0/18 total   |   Total books read this year: 8

December 2024 | February

#1 - Stand Still, Stay Silent: Book 2 by Minna Sundberg - 5/5 stars (reread)

Onni 🫶🏻

And the rest of the gang, of course. Not a dull one in the bunch. (But, with love, most of them are dumb in their own special ways.)

On a side note: Apparently I did read further than Book 2 when reading the in-progress webcomic, because there's a major event I remember that hasn't happened yet.... Did I get closer to the ending than I realized?

#2 - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway - 3/5 stars (audio)

Huh. Well, they weren't lying; it's a story about an old man fighting to catch a fish. Possibly there are Themes involved, and maybe even a Moral or two. Beats me. The reviews are funny to read, though.

#3 - Westmark by Lloyd Alexander - 4/5 stars (reread)

Continuing the theme I started last year of revisiting books I've read once, and many years ago, we have the Westmark trilogy! I remember very little from this series:

a vague impression of the setting

facts about two or three characters

a tragic death I'm still not over

the fact that I loved the series immensely

On a revisit, it is definitely as quick of a read as I remember (though it took me ages because I kept getting distracted). Alexander's writing is sparse, but surprisingly gripping all the same. I was a little baffled on how this trilogy goes from this ending to all-out war in Book Two.... I don't remember the details on that one. Evidently I tore through this in a haze the first time, which is par for the course

#4-8 - Between Jobs, Between Shifts, Between Floors, Between Frames, and Between Homes by W.R. Gingell - 4.5 star average (reread, audio)

It's time. And it seems January really is the best time to read this series, because my brain never wants anything too difficult this time of year.

And I have to say, this reread really has me politely confused over the final book, because in all of these, Gingell nails the final confrontation and the denouement. Those scenes right between the fight and the dramatic ending? Always perfect. So what on earth happened with Book 10??? (I still love this series but I may always be frustrated by the ending.)

Other Reading:

I started Shakespeare's Sonnets on the 1st and am intentionally lingering over them. (Read: I got distracted in the first section, where dear old Will obsesses over his gorgeous friend refusing to get married and produce children as gorgeous as himself.)

DNF:

Joust by Mercedes Lackey - The pace absolutely plodded along. I couldn't even make it through the first chapter (which was about 45 minutes long.) The narrator was also horrible, but I could have put up with him if the story had any spark. Not even dragons could save this one.

Battleship Leviathan by Craig Martell - It's a hard military story, only set in space, and not in a Heinlein way. I have zero interest following around a pack of crude space marines whose idea of a good time is making use of the nearest prostitute. (Reviews also mention the concept of a pacifist AI piloting a battle cruiser is...not done well.)

Currently Reading:

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, tr. Tiina Nunnally (2025 TBR) - This is going very slowly. Winter may have been a bad time to start reading this. Ah well. What I have read so far I have definitely enjoyed. Undset's descriptions are gorgeous.

The Kestrel by Lloyd Alexander (reread) - I read like half a chapter in the middle of January and then I got distracted. It's still waiting for me.

[z428]

Too, later: Preparing places to sleep. Shedding familiar light on old rooms. That odd transformation of the self once returned to sleep where so many teenage nights went by. And that embarrassing feeling of imagining some of the spirit to still be here.

#outerworld #the village and the hills #between homes

[bubblesandpages]

"Did you let me buy dead people's clothes?" "They're not wearing them anymore!"

HJGFDSERTYHJNBVCDFXSERTYGHJVGCFDXSERTYGHBVCFDXSERTG

[ideas-ideasideasideas]

Batman gives each of his Robins a different code to use when they’re in trouble and need immediate extraction. He promises that when they call, he’ll drop everything just to get to them, come hell or high water.

Jason, during his time with the League, shares his code with Damian, to be used “only in the direst of circumstances, when you have exhausted all other options.” He doesn’t know if Bruce will answer, given how fractured their relationship was before he died, but it is better than nothing. Every tool counts when they live such dangerous lives.

Damian uses it exactly once, and Bruce, who still feels the loss of his son like a yawning chasm in his chest, responds to it even though he knows it can’t be Jason because Jason’s dead. What he finds, instead of Jason, is a boy in League garbs, drenched in blood from the tips of his midnight-black hair to his too-small feet, with a face that Bruce sees himself and Talia in, requesting asylum from a grandfather who wishes to possess his body. Bruce doesn’t question how this boy who is so clearly his son knew the code. Talia al Ghul is resourceful and places family above all; the code is not beyond her abilities to discover, and she is not above using Bruce’s desperate love for his dead son to ensure that hers does not meet the same fate.

Bruce takes Damian in, because of course he does, and since Jason is dead he allows Damian to keep using the code. After all, it’s not like Jason is alive to use it, right? If someone uses the code, there’s no one it could be but Damian, right?

The next time the code is used, Bruce traces the location to Gotham even though Damian was supposed to be in Bludhaven visiting Dick. But whatever happened that resulted in Damian being in Gotham can wait, because he has already failed one son and he will not fail another, his son is in trouble and he needs to get to him, he needs to—

What he finds, instead of Damian, is a boy (just eighteen, too young, but also too old, but also he will always be a boy to him) in League garbs, drenched in blood from the tips of his midnight-black hair to his too-large feet (when had he gotten so big), wearing the face of his dead son.

(Who, maybe, just maybe, may no longer be so dead.)

[catwouthats]

THEY MAKE ME INSANE

Proof below:

Also, I’m fucking crying, I think his arm is like that bc he fell asleep holding the photo.

EDIT: more proof:

[thatrandomblogsays]

Annabeth: I, a child, had to earn Thalia’s love, that’s how the world works! I have to earn my moms love. Love is transactional, you gotta be worthy of it first silly :)

Percy, listening to this on the train

[anna-scribbles]

emma dupain cheng on the brain😽🎀

more:

[ruporas]

trigunned the hades or hadesed the trigun (id in alt)

[lizzybeeee]

When you spend 20 years attempting to bring down the child slavery, murdering, human trafficking exploitation ring that stole your childhood, murdered your friends, and killed countless innocents only to have them rebrand as 'Noble Freedom Fighters™' off-screen.

[bedrock-to-buildheight]

He really thought he’s good with secrets, huh

[evenlyevi]

blues

[pricklenettle]

inspired by this post, Danny’s lost in the ghost zone and comes across pariah dark’s keep. I had to draw it and had The most fun with the spooky green ghost zone

[z428]

Entlang der Straße. Oktoberlicht lügt Wärme in den Mittag, aber über dem Horizont ziehen die nächsten Schauer ins Land, in die Stadt. Voll und schnell die Strecke, wer kann, übt Rücksichtslosigkeit gegen alle anderen, weil es eben geht, und weil das Freiheit ist. Tropfen auf der Scheibe, Radiostimme im Ohr. Es gibt insgesamt Erfreulicheres während dieser Wochen. (Aber zumindest duftet es aus dem Kofferraum nach Äpfeln, und an den Schuhen klebt noch etwas Erde der Almen. Etwas zum Mitnehmen in den normalen Takt.)

#outerworld #on the road #travelling #between homes

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Look what we've become.

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[wanologic]

The Mansons have Infinite Money

[thecmaly]

adoptbduction

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