#I feel like I’ve got to re-read the whole series 💀

[gatheryepens]

Godzilla-read's Easy & Simple 2023 Reading Challenge

❄️ January - Choose a book that you enjoyed as a teenager to reread.

I decided to take part in @godzilla-reads 2023 reading challenge!!

Technically I’m still a teenager but when I was 12/13 one of my favourite series ever to read was Geek Girl by Holly Smale. When I was younger I was obsessed with this series, I ended up reading all the books - I think there’s about 8 books in the series. Whilst reading the book, I didn’t cringe as expected - it was actually pretty good. Obviously there are some aspects of the book that made me do a double take, but overall it was a nice walk down memory lane. It was also really weird re-reading as a lot of the references that I didn’t get back then I understand now.

[cocogum]

I'm sad the great wave volume is over and eager for the next. But I think I enjoyed following through your commentary more than actually getting the story xD

So, thanks for that.

I’ve been giggling at ur comment for two minutes now 🥰🥰

DON’T TELL ME NICE THINGS, MY JAW’S ABOUT TO POP OFF FROM SMILING TOO MUCH-

But in all seriousness, your lovely comment means more than you’ll ever know.

Every Thursday when a new chapter was uploaded, I found myself re-reading it repeatedly. I had to carefully organize my thoughts to articulate them clearly and in a logical order for others to easily follow. I also had to screenshot every panel I needed to reference in order to illustrate my points.

I often have to combine two or three panels into one using Picsart on my phone because Tumblr only allows 10 images and 30 images on the website. This way, I can avoid discarding or wasting any of the images I want to share. Additionally, I sometimes use ibisPaint X to cover up certain parts in images where I cropped them and it affected the appearance of the eyes.

But don’t get me wrong, despite going through this hell every Thursday night, the chapters were a joy to read, and I enjoyed reflecting on them while considering how to approach discussing them.

In short, it was hell but I enjoyed the full process 💖

But it’s obviously not over for the great wave series lol

Since the physical copy of the first volume featured 5 chapters (the 10 webtoon episodes got fused into 5 chapters), this means that we’re only at the very beginning of the Great Wave manga’s story. (I can’t believe we’re still at the beginning even though it feels like we’re already in deep shit 💀)

Tot pretty much confirmed on Twitter that there will be around 100 chapters to prepare for.

That means I’m aware we’ll see much more mature themes (*cough* chapter 1 *cough*) and much more graphic content (*cough* possible horrid assassination of the royal osamodas family *cough* no I am not delusional).

That means I’m aware I’ll have to keep this whole commentary thing going about a hundred times 😄🤭😁

But to know that you enjoyed my commentary more than the story is just-

Wow??? I am speechless???

Like-

What do I even say to that??

I get that the story gave us a huge weekly migraine cuz of the chicken and gorilla but omg???

I am genuinely happy that I made your migraine bearable throughout those weeks, thank you so so much for telling me 😭💖

Just the thought of knowing that you liked them makes me wanna bash some blue animals again 👹👹

I hope you’re having a wonderful day/evening/night imatekuani 💖💖💖

(I see you got a King pfp 👀 ur even more amazing for having good taste ✨💕💕 I’m also pissed disney had to end the owl house earlier than expected)

[garden-bug]

ABOUT ME 🐞🦟🐛🪲🐜🪳🦋🪰🦗🐝

I am garden-bug and you can refer to me as such. I love bugs big and small but mostly big (unless I have a microscope handy which I literally don't guys I don't have a microscope). My favourite insects are praying mantids or ants and I have written too many essays that talk about ant symbolism.

I am a literature student and literature analysis is not my degree it is my lifestyle.

I am multi fandom. I will list fandoms I engage with, my takes and my fics below:

Star Wars

OG Trilogy: Amazing incredible

Prequels: Flawed but culturally relevant

Sequels: 💀💀

The Mandalorian: Seasons 1 & 2 changed my life but none as much as season 3 which I was so appalled by that I spent the summer of 2023 rewriting

Ahsoka: 💀💀

Thrawn 1st 2 trilogies: Literally space Sherlock Holmes I love the Thrawn trilogies (haven't read the original yet I know shock horror but idt I'd cope)

Clone Wars: Very cool, Ahsoka my beloved. Darth Maul.

Anything not mentioned I either haven't seen, abhorred, or forgot what happened in.

My other takes:

New Star Wars is kinda… trash??

I do not like Dave Filoni's writing or his mando-verse or whatever he's calling it.

Ezra and Thrawn space adventures forever in our hearts 💔

Thrawn is an anti-villain guys.

Ships:

I wish I could ship Shin x Sabine but I've seen brick walls with more chemistry.

Thranto

DINLUKE!!!

My Fics:

Mandalorian S3 (+ Ahsoka series rewrite):

Force-school crack fic:

One Piece

I am on WATER SEVEN! I love Franky with my whole life and Iceberg is a beautiful man. Finished Dressrosa for Doflamingo and Law and Corazon. I cried. I’m kind of skipping around honestly because I’ve pretty much had everything spoiled I just pick an episode and go.

Ships

Zolu and Lawlu on the aroace spectrum my beloved 💞💞

Not been convinced by Zosan...

FROBIN!!

Oh my god dofuwani

Other takes:

I LOVE OPLA! It stole my heart. OPLA cast my beloved. So good. Amazing. Even my mum loved it.

Yes it’s a little different to the manga/anime and misses some details, but I think it does a brilliant job for what it is, capturing the essence of One Piece and making it more accessible to a wider audience. You would not catch my mum watching the anime that’s all I’m saying.

Crocodad/Crocomom is real idc

The one piece is real

My fics:

This was meant to be a silly genderbend dofuwani fic but it derailed significantly. Now it’s like 30k, Croco’s got a traumatic backstory, Luffy abandonment complex origin story *spoilers: crocomom*, Doffy has some gender realisations, fem dofuwani has taken over my brain like a fungus, it’s also somehow just really really fun to write.

Death Note

I don't interact with this fandom much because my takes are shaped by my AU so I literally relate to nothing. Death Note has be in a constant choke-hold just always like it’s always there in the back of my mind. I think it made me who I am. Uhh help.

Ships:

Not a lawlight shipper. Light was mean and evil and L deserved better 11yr old me was distraught and my feelings have never changed.

L x Lola (OC)

In my AU Near and Mello are raised as siblings so their ship kinda freaks me out.

Idc abt Matt I never even wrote him into my fic (rip).

Mello x Halle my beloved. I love when two bisexuals fall in love.

Other takes:

The manga is better.

The anime deserves a re-adaptation??

Near is my absolute favourite fictional character ever (genuinely do not know why huh) he is so annoying and I adore him.

Mello didn't die what L and Lola saved him.

My Fics:

I wrote this when I was 12 but it is the basis for my AU and deserves all the honorary mentions:

Jujutsu Kaisen

WHAT THE FUCK -

My fics:

Cosy one-shots basically:

Bungou Stray Dogs

Chaos shambled disarray that somehow I enjoy.

Pisses me off but it has its moments.

Ships:

Sokoku is my all time absolute favourite ship ever of all time. Yeah no it still is I just checked.

My fics:

Dazai and Chuuya get hit by a tsunami oh no they have to face their tumultuous feelings for each other (spiral) and accidentally adopt/rescue a small child:

Ninjago

JUMP UP KICK BACK WHIP AORUND AN D SHPIN -

I love Ninjago. Lloyd my beloved. Zane is me fr.

Ships:

Jaya

Zane/Pixal

Kai/Skylor

Llorumi is a NO Harumi is an irredeemable monster and you cannot convince me otherwise. My sweet Lloyd deserves better.

I don't ship any of the ninja with each other ESPECIALLY not with Lloyd the age thing is a mess.

Images used in the ninjago memes are from Pinterest and saved to this board under the ‘I’m gonna make memes’ section: https://pin.it/4rN3gIj

[away-ward]

hi, i’ve always been too shy to comment or send asks before but i’m making this my first bc i wanted to let you know how much i appreciate your work! i read your hell yeah fanfic a couple of months ago & when i stumbled upon it again recently & found a whole master list worth of fanfics added, i was super ecstatic & read all of them in one go hahaha

my personal favourites are reality & arrival <3 reality bc their conversation in the carfax room was so in line w their characters, it just re-emphasised how much i wish we got more of willemmy outside of blackchurch. having a scene like that in nightfall would’ve really grounded them as a couple in the present. all the snippets from the first three books plus the high school chapters of willemmy were such good buildup only to have the willalexaydin bs instead 🤧 anyways, i have a soft spot for arrival too. to have the damon & indie dynamic play out like that makes so much sense! damon & will already have such a strong & unique bond so for will, of all his friends, to have the first girl in the group would definitely make their relationship extra special.

on a side note, your post abt aydin being a few years older than canon made me lose my shit btw since i completely agree 😩 whenever i’m in my devil’s night brain rot, i always pictured him like 6 years older especially w how penelope douglas was trying to portray aydin & emory together. oh & your timeline for the character’s ages made me happy! it never occurred to me for will to be the oldest of the horsemen (which i’ve seen a few ppl comment on). given his may birthdate, i just assumed he was born the following year after michael, kai, & damon were. i mean, it makes sense right?? he’s the baby of the four. i could be wrong but then that would mean damon is the youngest which i refuse to imagine for some reason given all the shit he’s been up to 💀

this post is getting longer than i expected & i could probably continue rambling on but i just wanted to thank you again for your contribution 🙏🏽 this fandom has practically a drought in fan fiction unless it’s for second gen but seeing as kaibanks & willemmy (my biases) were done dirty in the series, your account has truly been such a gem to follow.

It’s nice to hear from you!! I’ve definitely been on the fence about whether to reach out to someone or not but I’m so happy that you decided to leave this message. It really made my day.

I feel that ‘reality’ is the closest I’ve ever come to getting Em and Will right. I also a snuck in a few references that are dear to me, so it’s special in my eyes, despite its needed edits. It was originally a request, so I can’t take all the credit for it, but I’m just so I’m happy that it’s one of your favs.

And ‘arrival’ has been a personal HC of mine for a long time. It took me a while to get out onto a page, so it’s great to hear that it’s struck home with others too.

A lot of my fics are borne out of that ‘we didn’t get to see this in the book but we should have’ and ‘what would have happened if…?’ feeling. Having had the chance to speak to other fans, I know I’m not alone in that, so it’s nice that so many people are finding my fics...fulfilling? I know other writers could do better, but until then, I’m happy to be around to fill a void.

Ahhh! The aydin age thing! Thank you! Anytime Aydin’s age is brought up in NF I’m like, ‘no you’re lying. You’re, like, 32/33.” But nope. He’s 26???? smh. Missed opportunity. It could have done so much for his character to just age him up a bit.

Regarding the timeline…as much as I would have loved for Will to the oldest…I think he is the baby. For clarification, I think Michael, Kai, and Damon were born in 1994 and Will in 1995. I didn’t want to give actual years in the post because I think the vibe that PD was going for was a timeless/infinite ‘this could be taking place at any point in time’. except for the points where they put in things that would date the books, the years and timing were purposefully left vague. I didn’t want to take that away by giving concrete dates. But I stayed up til an ungodly hour on a work night, going over this stupid timeline with a friend who has never read the series because trying to untangle it in my head was driving me absolutely nuts. So I had to record it somewhere.

In the chart, they all start the school year the same age* and then end the school year the same age, but within that nine months, it goes Michael, Kai, Damon all before Devil’s Night on October 30th, the new year, and finally Will in May.

That being said, at one point we did get stuck on whether Will was actually the oldest and I loved what it did for his character too. If at some point, he got held back a grade, it would go to why he’s a bit insecure, feels like he’s the dumbest in the group, and doesn’t trust himself to act on his own. I kinda wish Will had some sort of learning disability like dyslexia or ADHD because I think it would contribute to his lack of interest in school and strengthen his addiction storyline. None of that is canon and I don’t HC that it is. I just kinda wish it was there…

But according to my calculations, Will is the baby of the group, and of his family. That, along with his privilege, can also explain why he is the why he is.

Also Damon being the youngest would be hilarious and I wish it were so.

No worries, I as a wordy rambler myself, I appreciate everything you had to say. Feel free to drop by any time. I talk way too much, but it’s nice to get this devil’s night brain rot, as you so accurately termed, out to others who understand.

Thank you so much for your message and have a great day!

*well, if the school year starts in August, which some places in the US do. Others start in September, in which case, Michael will already be the next age up at the start of the year.

[zephfair]

Thank you so much for tagging me @mychemicalrachel You made me really think about this one! 😘💖💖💖

Rules: in a text post, list ten books that have stayed with you in some way. don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you.

I’m cheating because I’m procrastinating, these are mostly series, and I feel like babbling.🤣

1. The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley. 🐴🐎🐴 I was that crazy horse girl growing up and I re-read most of these books so many times, especially The Black Stallion Mystery, I could’ve quoted them. Except for the weird end-of-the-world one. That one scared me so badly, I never could finish it.

2. Man O’ War by Walter Farley. 🐴🏇🏇 Same reason, I was a horse-obsessed kid and this one about the real-life, famous racehorse moved me and made me cry and I told everyone for years that I wanted to be a jockey when I grew up. SPOILER: I did not achieve this dream. But I still remember the book and story very fondly.

3. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. 🌸💮🌸 I read this as a kid and thought it was lovely and sad and very moving. I listened to an audiobook of it a couple years ago, and it held up.

4. Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. As a teenager I got into the Tom Clancy novels (idk how; I think Mom bought me some used because they were very long and she thought it’d slow down my book consumption🤷), and I remember carrying this one to school for months because I would read it (656 pages!) in hidden snatches during study halls or free time. When I finished it, I did a book report on it and got an A.😂

5. Agatha Christie’s novels. I started reading them young and I think they convinced me that I and everyone I knew was eventually going to be poisoned to death or, alternatively, accused of poisoning someone to death.☠️🕵️🧐 She made me love mystery novels! I’ve started listening to her works on audiobooks and they’re still fun—overly convoluted and chock-full of dated red herrings—but fun!

6. The Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. 💖💖💖💖💖 I love these books so much. I stumbled upon the first one just browsing in the library as an adult, and I read the series as quickly as possible. They’re fantastic, and some of the best first-person, unreliable narrator books I’ve ever read. They’re funny and full of adventure because Amelia and her family are Egyptologists in Victorian times. The later ones don’t hold up quite as well because of one relationship I will never like, but they’re still better than most other mysteries. The author was an Egyptologist so she gets all that right. The audiobooks with Barbara Rosenblat are amazing—she is fantastic!

7. Die for Love by Elizabeth Peters. 💀💖 Her standalone novels are definitely dated, but still more fun and entertaining than most other authors. I just love her style of writing, and she crafts characters that make me care because they feel like fully realized people. This one is in another of her series featuring Jacqueline Kirby who might be a stand-in for the author, but as I approach middle-age, I appreciate her a lot more. 🤣 This one pokes gentle fun at the romance novel industry—not the novels because the author literally wrote romance novels under another name—but the publishing industry as a whole. I have no idea if things have improved, but I hope so.

8. The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.🐢🐘❣️❣️❣️ I can’t even pick out my favorites, or the ones who’ve influenced me the most, because they all have. Finding Terry Pratchett’s works changed my life, and specifically, changed my ideas about writing and storytelling. I could talk forever about everything I love about his writing--because even the books I don’t love the most still have made me think and analyze things about life and myself--but I won’t. Just go read them. If anyone wants a specific recommendation, hit me up. There are different sagas within the series, and you can start with one of them.

9. One for the Money by Janet Evanovich was really interesting to me because her writing style is so spare and her characters are complete caricatures, but it worked for, like, five or six fun books. By the time I found her books, I was in my 20s and analyzing writing styles, and I still don’t want to write like her, but it’s okay for a really quick, action-packed read.

10. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. The first four books are incredible. The best fantasy I’ve ever read, and I will fight about this.😂🤣 I was introduced to them in college, and I read those 7 or 8 available, but especially the first four over and over. I loved his writing style, I was in awe of his world-building abilities, I adored his characters because even the ones I loathed felt like real people. I waited for years to read the final three, and I’m sorry and all apologies to Brandon Sanderson fans, but I was majorly, extremely disappointed. The change in style, the huge changes in characters, all of it was too much. I only read them once, cried a lot at the fate of some of my favorites, and was done. 😢

[padfootastic]

I agree with you and the anon about Lily’s shortcomings. I think fans create an image of Lily having no faults, even though there’s no canon to back this up - part of this is down to jkr, who limited Lily’s character to the male relationships in her life (but that’s a whole issue I won’t go into)

I think what people ignore in SWM, is moments like Lily berating Snape for staying friends with DEs, even after what they did to Mary, even though she herself is still talking to Snape! We don’t know what they did to Mary, but it’s safe to assume it was more than a couple of hexes. This cannot have boded well for her relationship with Mary, but a majority of Gryffindors, who probably saw the situation with Snape far more clearly than Lily did.

I also think people gloss over the fact that Lily was both stubborn and able to hold a grudge. Let’s not forget, as different as she was from Petunia, they were sisters. I’m sure Lily also had, in smaller doses, a lot of the negative traits that we see in Petunia throughout the series - quick tempers, vindictiveness, and a Slytherin cunning. I actually think Sirius and Lily were alike in a lot of ways (clearly James had a type), which also parallels the way that Harry and Sirius are quite similar in temperament, especially after OOTP. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think James was a Gryffindor with Hufflepuff traits (he considered it the height of dishonor to suspect his friends), and Lily, Sirius and Harry were Gryffindors with Slytherin traits.

lily definitely enjoys a saint position in fandom, ngl, and i think part of that (in addition to only being defined by the males in her life + her sacrifice) also comes from what a solid example of james’ assholery we got in swm. it’s easy to demonise him, and prop her up on a pedestal because of the stance she took in that scene.

re her negative traits, i don’t entirely agree she had a quick temper, i would put it more along the lines of slowly building and erupting in the form of something aimed to hurt? and not necessarily physically, but wherever the other person’s weakest point is. there was an excellent meta on it a while ago that i can’t find 😭 but it said something like, it took a while for lily to snap but when she did it was final. and yes!!! someone else who thinks those two are super similar—i’ve been thinking that for a while now and it led me to the natural conclusion of james potter with a humiliation + degradation kink (whoops i apologise u had to read that 💀) but yeah, lily def had slytherin traits in my mind (i also hc her as being competitive, a bit self absorbed, and not great with feelings and atleast two of those lend itself to the house of snakes)