#before reading book 3 i thought they were just a trans character before i was like oh these two are separate

[wiltkingart]

Hi Wilt! I just finished your book as well. No need to reply, I just wanted to tell you how much I admire and appreciate the work.

You captured so many different relationships with transness, society, romantic and sexual dynamics across the collection. My favorites were Womb Witch and the title track. I absolutely felt for a long time in my trans teens that only a dark pact or miracle would cure me of my despair, and it turns out that despair can blind these protagonists to danger, or paralyze them before opportunities to change. In Lambskin, I felt so uncomfortable with the cruelty of the whole system; it was a true horror story for everyone involved. I appreciate all the extra art of Godling, another hit for me. I don't know quite how to feel about the events of that story, but the characters were surely fated to meet, and being who you're 'meant to be' is part of it I suppose.

Thank you as always for sharing your thoughts, talent and unique perspective(s) with the world. I would definitely read more.

<3 <3 <3 very much appreciate reading your thoughts on it. i dont feel the need to add anything to this, just want to thank you for reading and opening yourself up to what i was trying to convey. thats very special. thank you.

[azaharinflames]

Sorry to bring this to you but just had to vent.

I stumbled on a Buddie blog that's connected to another fandom and thought I'd read through. And please. Their arguments get worse and worse with every post.

One essay is just "racism" 50 times in one paragraph (I'm exaggerating but not by much). It's just every trick in the book to try and defuse valid criticism by knocking down strawmen and pathetic attempts at moral shame.

They really are the most sophistic morons. Hell, even the Sophists themselves would have been ashamed to hear their arguments.

You're good! I had a good, fun weekend, and I'm feeling much better now <3

I've said it before, but Buddies have a tendency to hide behind harmful accusations to avoid admitting/acknowledging the situation for what it truly is. And they, in turn, refuse to see the harm there is in doing so.

Take the use of Evan. For months, they've been accusing Tommy of deadnaming Buck for calling him by his first name (never mind that they're now lowkey celebrating Eddie calling him that, but I digress. Even when I would love to point out that Eddie said it with the same disdain that Buck was used to from his childhood; Tommy did not), and by doing so, they are comparing the use of Buck's name to the use of a deadname, which tightly relates to the trans community. By using this term in such a way, they are trivialising it, putting an actual issue in a light that makes it seem ridiculous and takes away the importance it deserves. Deadnaming is a serious issue that should not be taken lightly, yet, Buddies do it because it fits them.

And just like that, now they hide in racism, and they use it to justify their defense of Eddie's questionable actions. Breaking news: no one was focusing on Eddie's ethnicity when they were criticising the scene. No one was attacking his Latino identity when they were criticising the scene (as far as I saw). The criticism was rightly focused on his actions and his treatment of Buck, just like it would've been had it been anyone else the one in Eddie's place.

It all comes down to their refusal of accountability, and to admit that the show was not painting Buddie in a romantic light. Even more so, it all comes down to their refusal to accept Eddie Diaz is an extremely flawed character that, frustratingly enough, refuses to accept any type of accountability (yeah, the common factor is interesting here).

It especially comes down to their inability to properly debate, because deep down, they know they'd lose if they tried to say Eddie was completely in the right. He's not. And because they are incapable of actually analysing the situation and debating it in a way that doesn't fall into blind adoration for a character, they resort into throwing harmful accusations to everyone who will not agree with them.

It's, honestly, why I've decided I'm just done interacting with them, or trying to argue with them. They're the embodiment of putting your fingers in your ears while singing lalalalala I can't hear you. Nothing that can be said to them will be actually heard. So. Why waste my energy, yk?

[lakesbian]

twig faq to answer all of the asks i got regarding my liveblog

Q: holy shit twig turned out bad huh A: yeah

Q: should i read twig? A: no. it's bad

Q: what about the parts of twig that were good though? i noticed that there were parts of twig that seemed awesome before everything suddenly exploded A: okay let me elaborate. the first ~13 arcs of twig are really really endearing when they're focusing on the lambs. when they're being about the lambs, they range anywhere from "cute" to "extremely fun" to "genuinely super compelling" to "shit that made me cry (positive)." we have high points such as:

12yo sylvester lambsbridge fumbles 3 people with crushes on him harder than anyone's ever fumbled in their life in the span of like 7 hours maximum

sylvester lambsbridge does transhet biopunk brokeback mountain

wildbow writes rose thorburn but if she were a hardass trans girl (she's the one doing transhet biopunk brokeback mountain with sy)

gordon dies and lillian copes by taking some of sy's drug that gives him turbo-adhd

helen is there

sylvester lambsbridge experiences what i earnestly believe to be one of the cruelest things wildbow has ever done to any of his protagonists

lots of other stuff, i'm abbreviating here

but the reason i say the first ~13 arcs of twig are good when they're focusing on the lambs is that twig is prone to slogging, strikingly mediocre fight scenes--sy can't fight for Shit, but wildbow still insists on describing, like, sylvester trying & failing to hit someone with a wooden plank with the same gratuitous, lengthy detail as taylor inventing a spider-based saw trap for someone. and unlike the spider-based saw trap, it's not interesting to read about. the arcs take an episodic format, and what this means is that virtually every arc goes on way too long, contains at minimum 40% more tediously detailed fight scenes than are actually necessary, and then leaves you feeling jarred when wildbow inevitably timeskips to the next arc just as the prior one was really getting into the emotional swing of things. i also have a (quite possibly subjective?) sense that twig wasn't as well-developed and thought-out as, e.g., pact, and oftentimes the setting conceit (1900s biopunk frankenstein-y british empire) doesn't feel like it's hitting quite as hard as it should.

for all of these reasons, i wouldn't have rated the first ~13 arcs of twig any more generously than in the 3.5-4 star range while i was reading them, but that's still an overall rating of good. i wouldn't still be thinking about some of the things from the first ~13 arcs of twig if they weren't overall good. if all of twig was the same quality as the first ~13 arcs, i would recommend it to people who i feel like could tolerate the pacing issues & would feel reading about the lambs was worth it.

but. BUT. BUT-

Q: so, twig turns out really bad, huh? what went wrong? A:

it is not all the same quality as the first 13 arcs. it turns out really bad the last 7 arcs are actually atrocious

the first thing that comes to mind if you ask me "what went wrong with twig" is that wildbow tries to write a trans woman as one of the main characters, and he does it badly. miss jessie ewesmont, my new favorite girl whom we need to get the fuck out of a wildbow novel. i think she was written extremely well--and in fact one of the top 2 characters in the book--prior to wildbow trying to handle her coming out. i'd even say the foreshadowing for it was perfectly well done and enjoyable. but after she comes out, during the last 7 arcs of the book?

you know how trans women are often victims of being treated as undervalued, disposable girlfriends, who are expected to coddle & cater to their partner's every whim while receiving effectively nothing in return? and you know how trans women are often treated as if they should be grateful for receiving (what is often less than) the literal bare minimum? and you know how trans women are frequently treated as if it's completely implausible for anyone to find them genuinely attracted or desirable, let alone worth pursuing or putting effort into?

yeah, the last 7 arcs of twig contain untold tens of thousands of words of wildbow reinventing all of that from first principles. this is a subjective experience, but it genuinely felt worse to read than amy dallon. at one point, the Disposable Trans Girlfriend in question literally says "i appreciate you not killing me" after she gets stabbed in her sleep by her boyfriend, sylvester. it's beyond parody. i've never said "WE HAVE TO HIT WILDBOW WITH HAMMERS" more in my goddamned life than while reading the last 7 arcs of twig. Transmisogyny Fucking City. it's a completely unforgivable and miserable reading experience.

and speaking of unforgivable and miserable reading experiences involving bigoted handling of a main character...onto Item No. 2 on the list of writing decisions that ruin twig! the ableism.

wildbow wants all of the lambs to--due to being ill-fated human experiments--have set expiration dates. one of the Main Points hanging over the entire narrative of twig is that every single lamb is, in all likelihood, going to die of complications from the way they've been experimented on before they're even twenty. two of them do die from those complications before the story is even halfway over: jamie's entire mind & sense of being is regularly taken out of his body, and one day, the doctors can't get it back in. gordon is a ~15yo with the heart problems of an elderly man, and they kill him while he's still young enough to make one of his last acts begging to see his dog one last time. it's good. it's tragic, it's interesting.

the problem is that wildbow's decision for how to depict sylvester starting to experience end-stage complications is to...turn sy into an ableist horror movie trope villain. sy hears The Devil telling him to kill his friends, and he just fuckin' blacks out and then comes to like "oh no...what's all this blood on my hands." i'm talking "mental illness is a Demon that can Possess You and make you an Evil Serial Killer" levels of ableist writing. like wildbow straight up turns sy into the joker from the movie joker. it's like that one "insaaaaynenene....assyyylum..... cray-ay-zeee...Insaayne" tiktok, you know the one. it's why he stabs his disposable trans girlfriend.

and it's baffling because: 1. wildbow wrote worm. you'd expect better from him when it comes to writing mental illness. but his skills apparently stop short of being able to depict a character with psychosis without making it cartoonishly ableist. but also, 2., sy doesn't only start becoming mentally ill at the end of arc 13! the previous arcs do very clearly establish that he's extremely codependent with the other lambs and needs continuous support to avoid experiencing life-threatening mental health episodes. he experiences dissociation, he struggles with severe memory loss, he acts erratically, he has self-injurious tendencies, he hallucinates, he talks to himself in public. prior to the start of arc 14, all of that is written with perfectly amenable levels of nuance and empathy towards sy. i wouldn't describe it as glowing representation, or anything, but it's by no means egregious.

but after arc 13? change of plans. now he's the joker from the movie joker, and we have to watch while his friends chain him to an armchair so he doesn't go around randomly cutting peoples hands off in a murderous fugue state.

it's bad. it's extremely bad to read.

the third item regarding how/why twig becomes terrible is a lot more simple to summarize: it becomes almost entirely about the previously mentioned sloggy fight scenes as opposed to about the lambs. and when it is about the lambs, it's often terrible to read anyway, due to the aforementioned issues with the handling of protagonist sylvester lambsbridge and his disposable trans gf. the plot becomes incoherent and uninteresting to the point where it's not even worth the effort of attempting to summarize how or why. everything that made twig good more or less entirely disappears from the story, and things that make it fucking awful are added.

Q: okay but lets say i have something unfixably wrong with me and i want to read twig anyway. wheres the best stopping point? arc 13? A: yeah it's arc 13. it's not a satisfying stopping point at all though. nor is the rest of twig prior to it really worth it. just don't waste your time. go read a good book, like pact, instead

Q: what the fuck is up with helen? A: :)

[abnormalityrobot]

Reason why I love the The Sunbearer Duology by Aiden Thomas:

SPOILERS FOR CELESTIAL MONSTERS (nothing too major as I'm not that far in)

1. Canonically LGBTQIA+ characters who's identity is not plot relevant also canonically deaf character:

Teo - trans male main character who has experienced dysphoria in the form of his wings, his wings were originally a brown colour which was the colour of the female birds (i forgot what specific kind of bird) which led to him getting a binder made to bind his wings so he wouldn't have to see them tho in the book they do change to the male colour (colour u see on the covers of the books)

Xio - trans/non binary (Ive seen images of an updated character card with the nonbinary and he/they pronouns so I think an identity change of sorts happens in Celestial Monsters)

Ocelo - they/them enby

Xochi - trans female

Tierra - LGBTQIA+ in someway bc his daughter Niya has two dads and is the biological child of both from what I remember (Tierra is the god of earth btw)

Marino - canonically loves Dezi (idk if I just missed any hints but I may have misinterpreted their relationship in Sunbearer Trials as I thought they were close friends and was surprised to find this out when Reading Celestial Monsters)

Dezi - canonically deaf and uses sign language (I p sure there's been mentions of someone interpreting from him)

2. It's mexican inspired which I think is cool like I've heard of foods I didn't know about before because of Sunbearer Trials (tempted to go through and search up the different foods mentioned) I've also learned the Spanish words for god (dios), goddess (diosa), and demigod (semidios and semidiosa) also I read this book after reading PJO & HoO (yes demigods and a trans mc are big reason why I got the book) so getting to hear about non greek & roman gods was nice

3. I like how each of the gods cities have differences that make them feel unique like Niya's home has mountains and stuff (srry don't remember much abt it or even it's name) while Teo's home Quetzlan is in a forest and has birds everywhere (not surprising considering his mom Quetzal is goddess of birds) Also the cities belonging to the Golds (group of some of the gods in this book) are more developed and closer to the middle where sol city is meanwhile the Jades have their cities closer to the edge and the places belonging to the Obsidians are all group together far from sol city and away from the other cities

4. VINE REFERENCE AND MENTION OF FANFIC!!!

Niya makes a two bros chilling in a hot tub reference in Sunbearer Trials and in Celestial Monsters Auristela says the word fanfic

Proof:

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading roundup: june 2024

before I get started on June, I have to issue a correction from May: I forgot to include a book!

last year I backed Iron Circus Comics' erotic anthology My Monster Girlfriend, edited by Andrea Purcell and Amanda Lafrenais, and it finally arrived just ahead of pride. My Monster Girlfriend contains 15 stories by all by different artists, and features protagonists who get it on with everything from the classic ghosts, werewolves, and vampires to a reality-warping angel (?) who contains infinite dimensions, a sleep paralysis demon, and an all-consuming flesh monster hivemind.

while I would have liked to see a little more variety in the freakishness of the actual sex, the anthology is a lot of fun and shows off a great diversity of art styles and scenarios in which one might get down to clown with a monster girlfriend. my personal favorites were Feather by Kanesha C. Bryant, in which an intrepid pervert boldly attempts to locate their girlfriend's genitalia; MonsterHER Under the Bed by Bont and Wes Brooke, which puts a cute, sexy little spin on the monster under the bed; Forest Wedding by Otava Heikkilä, which reads like an old timey fable except it ends in a giant forest woman getting crazy fisted by her new trans husband; and Girl Fiend by InnKeeperWorm, which is infinitely jackoffable even though, frankly, the hellhound should have stayed in her more monstrous canine form to fuck.

okay, now onto the June reading! I found myself reaching the end of the month surprised that I had added so few books to my 2024 spreadsheet, and then I realized: it's fucking PRIDE MONTH and I'm a career queer. I spent most of June either busting ass working various events or in a coma recovering from said events; no wonder I didn't read as much as I thought I would. I also gave up on one novel after sinking close to 200 pages in it, which means the list is even shorter, but trust me: the DNF was the right decision.

so, who made the cut for pride?

The Monsters We Defy (Leslye Penelope, 2022) - this book was a romp! it's fun! it's a hoot, dare I say! this is a historical urban fantasy that takes place in the Black society of 1920s Washington, DC. protagonist Clara and her band of ragtag magical misfits have a heist to pull off against one of the most powerful Black women in DC, with their own curses and powers at stake. it's a fun story with a neat magic system and lots of words that are capitalized so you know they're Magical and Important, and it's a read that goes down real easy. strong recommendation if you find yourself in a slump!

Just for the Cameras (Viano Oniomoh, 2023) - my first foray into independently published romance! and it was... fine. the plot's a little patchy, sure, but it's definitely not the worst romance I've ever read, and at least a throuple made for a nice change of pace. AND nobody's seething with jealousy or insecurity about multiple partners? you love to see it. this book was apparently originally intended to be a novelette and it definitely could have stayed that way, but if bisexual Black hotties sucking and fucking is what you seek then you're going to have a great time. TW: 2/3 main characters are British.

Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs (Ina Park, 2021) - to the surprise of absolutely no one who knows me, this is one of my very favorite nonfiction reads of the year so far. I cannot emphasize this enough: if you like the way that I talk about STIs and sex ed on this blog then I think you'll really like this book, because having read this book I desperately want to be her friend. she brings so much passion and energy to her work that it bursts right off the page and is - pardon this awful pun - absolutely infectious.

Survivor (Octavia E. Butler, 1978) - for those you not in the know, this book is kind of a get. it's the only book of Butler's that was never reprinted, so now you can only read it if you get ahold of a super expensive original edition OR if you, hypothetically, find a PDF online and print off the entire thing on your work printer. and I'm so glad I did the latter, because holy shit this book whips ass. the book was apparently disavowed for its lack of connection to the rest of the Patternist series, which is true but oh my god, the story is SOOOO cool anyway. we've got a human woman named Alanna who grew up feral on Earth only to be adopted by a Christian cult who are GOING INTO SPACE to preserve the human race, but it turns out there are already intelligent people on the new planet and they have Feelings about what the future of these human missionaries is going to be. it's on Alanna to navigate the clashing cultures and tension between the humans and two warring groups of aliens, and it is fucking URGENT. I don't say this lightly but I think this has ascended to be in my top three Butler novels.

No Name in the Street (James Baldwin, 1972) - ooooooh my god you guys!! oh my god!!! I've never read any of Baldwin's long form nonfiction, but within pages I knew that this was going to pretty permanently change my brain. this memoir-ish book delves into, among other things, Baldwin's witnessing of the American civil rights movement, including the deaths of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Medgar Evers. woven around that is the alienating experience of being a Black man with exactly enough cultural cache and social clout to sometimes isolate him from the people he grew up with but not nearly enough to buy acceptance or safety in a white society, emphasized by Baldwin's unfinished struggle to free a friend from prison after a wrongful murder charge. and somehow that's barely doing the book justice! it's so vast and incisive and weary and impassioned and it did, truly, have me jotting down the names of everything Baldwin ever wrote to make sure I can read it all. as much as I bemoan my habit of impulse reserving books from the library, I really am indebted to the Stacks podcast for getting this on my radar.

[sam-blackbird]

An analyse of Umbrella Academy s4's posters (beware of s3 spoilers, ofc)

Hi! Today, the official Umbrella Academy Instagram account published season 4 posters, and since I'm very excited about this, I'm gonna try to analyse the posters, or what I can tell about them.

It's going to be long so grab a snack if you want / can, put on a cool playlist, and let's dive down! I'm going to do it poster by poster, in the order it was posted, from the oldest post to the newest (so not in numeral order).

We can notice that the characters are cut in two, the Portal way.

Anyway. First of all: Viktor !

Ngl, I had a moment when I saw he had the masculine uniform.

But past my joyful moment, my mind went racing so fast I couldn't keep it down, I had to share my thoughts (even if there may be only one person reading me, but whatever).

First thing first, it's interesting that the first one isn't Luther but Viktor, who is, the main character of the show (or at least, that's how I see it). Or a least the most important one. (if the last scene is Viktor ending his reading of his new book, about his siblings, not only would it be a fucking good epanadiplosis but it would make me cry the hell out of me)

After all, the show open with him, following him. And nothing would happen if it wasn't for him. He's the one trying to get the family stick together, and (unwillingly) starting apocalypse (twice or thrice, shit happens).

Let's focus on the poster now. On the left, we have a clothing reminding us of the Umbrella Academy days, or rather the "how it was before the show", except they are adult, and Viktor is here shown post-transition (and not pre-, as he was in the first two seasons). What does that mean? Fuck if I know. That being said, I think it have its importance (if they wanted to put children instead, they would have, wouldn't they?). However, we can note that he is not wearing neither the boy shorts (nor girl's skirt, for obvious reasons), but some secretly third option, aka a grey pant (is it the sport pant?). He is standing out himself, as a trans man (not wearing a skirt, yet not wearing the boy uniform either, as if he wasn't fully in that category somehow? idk).

Viktor's posture is straight (lol), and I associate it with being calm, obedient (he listen to everything Reginald says (ex: take these pills), and since Reginald is perceived as a father figure, it makes sense that Viktor wants to obey him, maybe hoping he (Viktor) will be loved and recognized as valuable). And also with being like a puppet. Or a muppet. The point is: He's not free of his movement, he doesn't have free will.

His face doesn't look happy. Nor sad. Just... neutral. He's just... there.

On the right, we can't see his face, yet his posture seems way more relaxed! He's wearing casual clothes, more modern ones, adapted to the world without powers they're now seems to live at the end of season 3.

His looks reminds me of the one of Tyler Ronan from Tell Me Why, a game by the studio Don't Nod (I fucking love that game). Both characters are trans man.

(These are pictures of Tyler)

Anyway. Casual clothes. Blue, like the uniform. I won't analyse that, this post is already long enough.

Tbh, I haven't saw again the last episode of season 3, so I don't remember if it was the clothes they were wearing or new ones.

Also, Viktor is holding an umbrella in his right hand, probably a reference to the Umbrella days. Like, it's a part of him, he can't leave it behind, he physically have it with him (even if he doesn't have the power).

And the Umbrella is closed, unlike the ones from the previous seasons's posters.

Like, season 2's were opened (and full), and season 3's were opened and damaged (and they were hiding the protagonists' faces, showing implicitly the influence of the academy on them).

Next one, Luther !

We almost can see his face on the right!

But anyway, let's start by the left. Luther is walking, straight, in what could be either a military walk or a relaxed one (? don't quote me on this please, I can't explain). His posture screams "confidence" and "I'm number one, I'm a leader, follow me!". Or something like that, I'm no posture reader, just someone who watched way too much police and detective shows. He's wearing the Umbrella uniform (and it's so fucking weird to see it on a grown ass man!). His hair are cut short.

On the right, he's wearing a more casual look. There's something going one with his arm muscles, but I can't be bother to search what. His hair are longer than on the left. He is wearing gloves and an umbrella, and walking shoes. His umbrella is cutting his name (does it have some symbolism? Maybe.)

He's still wearing blue (like Viktor), even if it's a different kind of blue (and it kinda fit him).

Nothing more to add. (yes, I have my favorites, and despite liking Luther, I won't kill my eyesight anymore than necessary for details).

Next! Diego!

Let me preface this by saying that it's so fucking weird to see him in that uniform. On the left, he's walking like a good little soldier, following the leader.

On the right, he's the embodiment of a relax guy who can (and will) definitely yeet you out of the picture if needed. He's not wearing anything casual. It's more like a killer / soldier clothes, with his precious knifes.

DOES HE HAVE A MUSTACHE????

He's holding the Umbrella on the shoulder, as if he can't be bothered with it (and/ or he's gonna use it as a weapon).

Next! Not number 3, but the one who's linked to Diego! Lila!

Love that she's officially "Lila Hargreeves".

The left outfit is like the one she had in season 2 when she was with the Handler and stuff about her past was revealed (so interesting and meaningful choice of outfit). Her heels are thin, as if she wasn't stable (with her life situation and all).

Yet, on the right, her heels are thicker, more stable to move (she's more free to go).

Her clothes are modern and the flowers fit her really well, I might say. Her hair are put up, like the active badass woman she is. They're brown again, and not white/ blond anymore, it's more natural.

She overall looks like a business woman, with a casual chic.

She too, is holding an umbrella, which make her fully part of the family. She hold it casually.

Next, another girl: Allison.

Ngl, I'm no big fan of hers, so this will be short.

On the left, she's confidently wearing her UA (Umbrella Academy) uniform. Her hand move don't really feel natural (saying this as someone who sometimes draws human beings). Her hair are like the one from season 1.

On the right, she looks like a business woman and a mom. Her posture looks aslo determined, while relaxed. She have business to do, and no one will stop/ prevent her from doing so!

Girl power and all that.

(I'm trying, I really can't stand how her character was wrote during season 3)

Neeeeext! Let's go with one of my fav, Klaus!

I have to say, it is criminal that a) his hair are short on th right side (loved his long hair) and b) where's the skirt?! He slayed in it! Anyway.

On the left, his walking looks very mechanical, as if he was a machine, a robot (lol) (I won't do any joke about Grace). Yet, his posture his not natural (no one walks naturally torso in one way and legs in another, if that makes some sense).

His eyes are closed. Why are his eyes closed? Idk. Maybe he closing his eyes on what happened during the UA days. Maybe it’s symbolizing his absence of choice. His face is still, resigned, accepting his fate. Maybe to show he’s kinda dead inside?

Klaus had always been closed to death, more or less metaphorically speaking, as he can see ghosts (= dead people, or what remains of them).

His hair is all over the place, reminding the crazy days he had to get fucking blasted to avoid said ghosts.

Right side is colorful. He's beauty, he's grace, WHERE ARE HIS HAIR?! No but more seriously, cutting one's own hair symbolise change in many culture, and more specifically letting go of the past, embracing new beginnings, and/ or undergoing spiritual or personal transformations. I have no idea how to interpret that.

He seems to float, to ascend (plz don't kill him). He is bare foot (bare feet? idk) (fun fact: in the comics, he could only use his power when sober and with bare feet) (I won't go down the rabbit hole of barefoot symbolism and its link with death, I'm not mentally well enough to do that).

He his wearing a yellow coat with flowers (flowers, like Lila!). Yellow is associated with joy, fest, sun (and Klaus is a comic relief, a feel good sunshine character), and flower, life. (again, plz don't kill him)

What reinforce that idea of tragedy is that the umbrella he's wearing is the only one who isn't black: it's the umbrella he was holding during Reggie's funeral in s1. Plus, he's holding it with three fingers out. What's the meaning of three? Idk. Maybe it’s for Allison? Maybe it has a link with God (the Christian one)? Yk, Holy Trinity and all that. After all, doesn't Klaus met God (the little girl in the afterlife) regularly?

Does that look good or bad for Klaus? No idea.

Speaking about looking good, Ben is back, alive. I won' t go far enough to say "well", but he's alive.

On the left, he's standing straight, walking in a unnatural posture. Following only.

On the right, he is bend (idk why tho) forward (his hips are forward his shoulders, curbing like a closing bracket). His clothes are casual (and looking alike the one Viktor had been wearing during s3). His umbrella also cut his name (like Luther's). He's a Vans' boy!

(please, no mustache for him)

We can't see if he's wearing glasses or not.

Last of the Hargreeves kids (if you count Lila as one, and if not, last one of the power-gifted Hargreeves): Five.

On the left, his posture is haughty. His hands are in his pants pockets. He know what he wants, he is very sure of himself, maybe because he thinks he is better than everyone (he can think that, given what happened) (some might even say he have a bratty attitude, but I'll answer, well have you seen him during season 1???)

(my personal theory is that he is bend forward to be smaller on the left than on the right, because he appears to be)

On the right, he left the UA uniform for a more formal suit (some call it 'the grandpa / old man suit'). His hair are longer.

He's walking down like he had no shit to give anymore (he doesn't) and he's ready to throw hands (he totally his).

HOLY (S)HIT HE'S HOLDING THE UMBRELLA IN HIS RIGHT HAND! Why? Why is he te only one wearing the umbrella on the other hand? Is it to accentuate his difference with his siblings (+ Lila)? Is it to show how differently he see his time at the UA an how differenlty he uses his powers? I mean, given he didn't spend as much time in the UA as the rest of them, ofc his vision and perception of the UA is different. Even his vision of time is different.

Or he’s just left-handed.

And now, BEWARE! THE REGINALD JUMPSCARE! (or is it scare jump? Anyway, I've been working on this post for more than an hour and a half, plz be indulgent, it's late and the day had been long)

On the left, we see the whole umbrella for the firs time on these posters. Said umbrella is closed but not entirely (it could be open anytime).

Reggie is wearing a lilac/ purple suit, which is a color hard to dye (so it costed a lot and was reserved for royalty / rich ppl before industrialization and the use of chemical products for clothes dye; and we know Reggie arrived/ was on Earth on 19th c., so during the industrialization). He is “young” looking (like he was in the 60s), and seems well assorted (who tf have two jacket pockets on the same side tho?)

On the right, he's old and wearing a brown suit. Brown can symbolize the Earth, which can provide: ppl are depend on it to eat and therefore survive. In a way, he was a Earth for his children, as they were dependent on him (does that makes him a good father? Absolutely not!). (that thought, of Reggie being a Earth, is funny given he is an alien / an extraterrestrial being)

And if you put them all in order, you get :

(notice how Klaus's picture / posture melt greatly in Five's?)

And that's it! Damn, that was long. Don't hesitate to let me know what you think about all of that in the comment!

[ekat-fandom-blog]

Personal canons are the canon everyone has created based on the canon and fanon content they've consumed.

Expansion not necessary. I just wanted to add my thoughts.

1. Examples range from wanting to wrap his drinks in a web before drinking them to wanting to fall asleep curled up in the back corner of his closet. No, it doesn't matter which Spider-Man.

2. This one is just my perception of the two. There's nothing I can actually tell you about this other than the vibes seem to match.

3. The headcanon of Poison Ivy eating mostly meat is fun. (Not fully carnivore because I think she'd also eat plants because it's necessary to eat both to be a healthy human and can be healthy for the environment if done in moderation). I decided to combine it with Danny Phantom for this because I haven't seen anyone do it before. So, Ivy being mostly carnivorous and Sam being ultra-recyclo-vegetarian would be appalled at each others diets.

4. Cyborg's connected to a supercomputer created by a more scientifically advanced society, while Barbara is a human (I specified her because she's the best Bat at hacking.) Her being the best hacker in the universe is a stretch at best. There's gotta be computer languages she's unable to decipher because it's so different to any on earth. (I don't think anyone from earth should be able to hack cyborg or the mother/father boxes.) If your supercomputer can be hacked by the equivalent of a preteen with a 2010 samsung who doesn't even recognise the coding language you used, then you didn't create a supercomputer. (Mother/father boxes are sentient, autonomous computers btw.)

5. Young Justice was good. Great. It just seemed to stop caring as much about having the new audience learn about the characters after season 2. I wouldn't know who Razer is if I didn't watch Green Lantern: The Animated Series. I stopped having emotional connections with the characters by season 4 and they stopped wrapping up storylines in an emotionally fulfilling manor after season 2. As someone who never read any comic books except for Spider-man/Deadpool and a few green lantern ones and one batman and spider-man crossover, I don't care about the characters they shove into the show and expect everyone to care about.

6. I get it. The "he won't stop if he does it once" was only in one comic (apparently) and the comic was written by someone that (apparently) most of the fandom doesn't like. I don't care. Every reason he has for not killing is valid and coexists. He collects reasons to not kill like it's gold and he's a dragon. The only reason that is invalid and can't coexist is that he doesn't care enough about the people that could get hurt or killed to permanently stop people like Joker, Bane, or Scarecrow.

7. It makes sense if they were the two to get touch starved easily. Dick grew up in a circus where everyone was presumably pretty tight knit and Tim grew up in a home where appearance mattered more than feelings. But also they happen to be the characters I like to torture.

8. Strange is petty and I 100% believe that Tony started it. (Stephen is finishing it though.)

9. Freddy Freeman can't walk without crutches and flies in the comics. (I haven't read them, tho) I feel like it's erasing disabled peoples' struggles when they just give him the ability to walk in his hero form. Let him be a little flying guy who never touches the ground.

10. It's a comic thing again. I just think it's more interesting. (I found pages of captain marvel comics in google images and tumblr.)

[one-squash-one-end]

once again rambling about Adam Parrish

Hi! This still belongs to my big Raven Cycle analysis, click here for the masterpost.

For most of the characters I obviously read a lot into subtext and speculate about how they're absolutely not straight, but lucky for us, we do get canon queer characters!

So let this be me talking about Adam as bi representation and also throwing in (other people's) gender headcanons. As always, please tell me your thoughts in the notes <3

c) Adam Parrish

Sadly, I cannot speculate too much about Adam’s sexuality, as he is canonically the mean, witchy (and bitchy) bisexual.

There isn’t much I can say, really. Throughout the book series he displays interest in both Blue and Ronan. And also Greenmantle, but I would like all of us to ignore that because I want to believe Adam has good taste. Blue and Ronan as his love interests are essentially seen as equal. While I would say he had already had some repressed attraction for Ronan (see: him calling the swearing melodic, black-painted poetry- you normally wouldn’t feel like that for someone who just called you a motherfucker) in book one while dating Blue. Yet it becomes very much clear that he did have romantic feelings for Blue. Yes, the two of them were doomed from the start (but still pretty cute I’d say! Until things went to shit, that is), however, Blue is not treated by the narrative as some mistake before Adam figures out he’s actually gay (looking at you judgingly here, Rainbow Rowell). Neither was Ronan a quick, silly thing to see how it would feel to kiss the same gender. That is, like, very much very obvious, through the last five books. They are boyfriends, your honor.

At this point I would also like to give a shout-out to Adam Parrish and the Crying Club (which would make for a fire band name, just saying). This little group of queer people Adam collects at uni (in Call Down The Hawk) has my whole heart and I so wish we would have seen more of them, I am forever mourning their potential of silly, reoccurring side characters. What I’m trying to say though is this: The fact that Adam builds a group of queer people around himself (another one apart from the Gangsey) proves his sexuality even more, because we all know queer people flock towards each other.

Either way, canon bisexual, we love that. Moving on.

Honorary mention to the transmasc Adam headcanon that Tumblr user @barbaricpoetic compiles especially well in a post. I personally do not follow that headcanon, like of course I do not think Blue is supposed to be written as genderfluid in the books, but somehow I believe even less in trans Adam, but either way I do agree there is a lot of strong source material to support that headcanon. Check out the original post for a lot more detail, I don’t want to plagiarize all of that here either way, but here’s two especially solid hints: First of all, he does everything to appear more masculine, like working in typically male-dominated fields and dressing accordingly to that, while orientating his behavior on Ronan and Gansey, who, ironically, do not try as hard as him. Secondly, there’s physical descriptions, Adam being a lot more “elegant” and delicate than the other (Raven) boys Blue knows, with unusual features, and “blue eyes pretty enough for a girl”. Yeah, might be a coincidence, might be solid, queer truth.

This would all make so much sense, even within the books and all, there is just one, considerably big thing, that would not add up with this in canon. Adam’s rural-conservative shitbag of a father would never use the correct name and pronouns for his ftm child.

Either way, there might still be something fun going on with his gender that defies the binaries. Why do I think so? Well, Gansey says a very interesting thing. “Henry was a boy. Adam was a─ Gansey didn’t know.” I wish he would have told us what makes them different. What is it that Adam was? A man? A demiboy? A nonbinary person? A dinosaur in disguise? Please do enlighten us, Gansey. I’m assuming it’s got something to do with Adam being more mature than Henry (he definitely is), but like with Blue and the 300 Fox Way Women, it might be a gender thing, at least you can very easily lay it out to be that way.

To conclude as I will conclude every character part, I think Adam might possibly wear a crop top (might take him a while to accept masculinity is everything you want it to be and not just a certain aesthetic standard though), but absolutely not regularly and not around strangers or his parents.

[rimurutempest]

Hello.....If you don't mind me asking, can I ask, what are your top 7 favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series/etc) and your top 10 favorite (fictional) characters from any media? Why do you love them all? Sorry if you've answered this questions before......

Interesting specific.......

7 media huh?

SLC Punk - live action movie from the 90s about Punks in Salt Lake City during the 80s. As a trans person that grew up in Arizona in a region populated by a ton of Mormons I sorta related to it kinda and nowadays I feel like it's actually a really funny, really scary, and really beautiful movie that gets overlooked a lot.

The Shining by Stephen King (book) - it's not my favorite horror novel and it's not my favorite Stephen King novel, but it was the book that got me to enjoy horror. The story is so scary and good, the characters are fleshed out, and there's a whole underlying dialogue about abuse and alcoholism that's very scary. Which is part of why I don't like the movie, cuz the movie adaption (erases the usefulness of the titular "Shining") sorta erases the personal story about alcoholism and abuse. And, it's definitely there still, it focuses more of its efforts on just being a spooky haunted hotel, it's style over substance to me. The connection of the personal and horror made me sort of see the true story telling value of the genre, and now I'm like. In love with horror.

Inside Mari by Shuzo Oshimi (manga) - the best way to explain this is, what if Freaky Friday were more of a psychological horror. Reading Inside Mari has been a very important thing to me as an adult, I sorta see myself in it and there's so much trans emotions in this (there's a whole thing that Oshimi is probably trans), this work is so dear to me I refuse to read to watch other people's take or interpretations, which sounds bad but I just want my special thing that I interpret my way to be interpreted my own way. It's amazing and I love it. All of Oshimi's work has hit me in a personal place.

Wandering Son by Takako Shimura (manga) - one of the first portrayals of a trans person I saw in manga, and honestly still one of the best. There's a lot of criticisms we could give it, but I love it and I related to it so much. It was nice to see a story follow such a young trans girl (and boy) and see them grow. Probably part of why I decided to finally identify as trans.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part 3: Rebellion (anime movie) - this one is largely just emotional stuff that's coincidental. The original Madoka tv show (and thus first two movies) were great but I never thought it was perfect, but Rebellion emotionally murdered me and as everything else mentioned, it felt so relatable. Came out in a very important time frame for bonding when my husband, so I got to see it in theaters with him (twice technically, we went a second time with a friend) plus I got to see it with another friend (three times total) hehe. It's just like, a very big date for my husband and I, I remember it perfectly down to what I had for dinner (my first bowl of professional made ramen lmao). The movie just, really hit, and the circumstances around seeing it were just really important to me.

Lateralus by Tool (album) - I'm sure some people are gonna be like "whaaaa how edgy loser" or whatever about this. But Lateralus was an important album for me cuz it introduced me to larger intellectual concepts I'd never considered before, made me really fall in love with that brand of music, and was one of those things I would put on repeat when I felt very depressed (read: dysphoric). I know the members have sorta grown into shitty people (namely Maynard) but this album is just very important to me.

I'm just going to say The Green Knight (movie), there's a lot I want to put here, especially a lot about Arthurian literature, but I think the best way to just, placeholder all the Arthurian shit I'm obsessed with. The Green Knight is a fantastic adaptation that's incredibly beautiful and well acted. Love it.

tbh w/ you I don't wanna do characters rn so if you swing back by later I might.

[ekjohnston]

hi!! i was watching the new apprentice arc in tcw, and i was thinking...

how would a transmasc nightsister or transfem nightbrother look? im asking you primarily because of sister the trans clone and tepoh, so i do trust you with my trans star wars!!

being transmasc myself, im foaming at the mouth for more trans star wars characters, and the concept of a trans nightsibling would be amazing to see!!

would mother talzin and the leader of the males in dathomir send over a trans person to the other camp? a nightbrother with pale skin and no horns? a nightsister with colored skin and horns?

just a cool concept that i'd love to see you flesh out!! :] <3

Hi!

So this is a lot to think about, because so frequently in non-human humanoid Star Wars species, sexual dimorphism is both extremely visible AND tied to social status/role. Furthermore, the nightsister/nightbrother alliance already involves more than one species (I THINK???, like, the Nightbrothers were exiled Zabraks and bonded with the Nightsisters who were already there??? I am reading the wiki and trying not to accidentally find Acolyte spoilers, so I am not reading too closely🤣).

I seem to recall Talzin altering Savage Oppress to make him a more useful warrior, though. And I know adding magic to a trans narrative can immediately cause separate issues, but it's definitely something to consider when building a character from a planet full of witches. What makes you a Nightsister, your assigned gender or your culture and magic? How would the combination of social role and magic affect a person who is transitioning? And if you're a Nightbrother but not a Zabrak, what does that mean? And how does the Force work in all of this?

Also, the unification under Talzin is pretty limited in terms of timeline, so before that there were a bunch of different Nightsister groups, and they probably had their own way of doing things. You could, theoretically, invent your own group (but then what happens to them when Talzin rather forcefully unites everyone?).

Long story short, I can't build a character on Tumblr and then use them in a book, so I'm deliberately avoiding that (you may have noticed), but this is a very, very brief intro to the things I think about when I'm starting a character build, and if you're building a character for some reason (game, fanfic, fun), then that's awesome too! None of my questions have single answers, and every possibility leads to more story generation and character development.

(It has been a while since I've thought about this era, so apologies if I've misremembered something. And this is just how I would go about character building. Other people might start somewhere else.)

[eyeballplanets]

HI MUTUAL 👋👋👋👋 i was just wondering if u’ve read green lantern far sector and if u have any thoughts on it? jo is such a fascinating character both thematically and what she means for green lantern lore as a whole but like NOBODY talks about her 😭 i think she’s really interesting also on a meta perspective because like ik the author’s record isn’t spotless (allegedly she was one of the people who attacked trans woman writer isabel falls + her response to the ones who walk away from omelas was…weird) so like. Ik all comics writers tend to have some sort of bias or flaw (altho usually they’re a little more general like. racism or sexism), but that author specifically seems to have some particular pitfalls that would clash against the type of story she’s trying to tell with jo: the disillusioned ex-military ex-cop who literally received the social justice ring. ok now i’m rambling there wasn’t really something i was driving towards there. I just thought ur really passionate and really good at analyzing comics and comics adaptations thru the lens of race and sexism that if u had read far sector u would have some really interesting things to say about like. idk. how nk jemisin writes themes in far sector and if she succeeds at it? BSKDJSJSJ THIS IS STARTING TO SOUND LIKE AN ESSAY PROMPT. THIS IS JUST ME ASKING IF UVE READ FAR SECTOR BC I THINK UD LIKE IT <3 SORRY IF U HAVENT OR DONT <333

no, i haven't.

...

LOL SORRY dont worry i got more to say than this. i'm me. i always got some shit to say.

i was halfway tempted to read it before i answered this ask but as the clock kept ticking i was like. you gotta be real honest with yourslef ARE you gonna read it? and the answer was no...

i actually have two copies of it. neither of which i paid for. two different friends went 'you'd like this' and gave it to me. y'know how white dc bloggers have their One Duke Thomas Post a year? they have white blonde girl pfp talk about white blonde girl only analyze white blonde girl and then go aw shit i needa post duke i gotta fill my duke quota! (for the record this isn't just baseless hate there Are optics to why they choose duke.) well if i was white mine would be my Two Copies of Far Sector.

i actually have a mildly funny story about nk jemisin. five years ago i was a lot more obnoxious. for the record as an outspoken queer woman of color this obnoxiousness was just that--i was quick to start fights and a bit of a clingy friend. it was also five years ago. but i really loved the dickens out of nk jemisins novels. so much that when i was briefly on REDDIT early this year i found someone in the fantasy subreddit who was like ugh i knew this girl that loved NK JEMISIN and THE WITCHER and was OBNOXIOUS and i was like. waitaminute. i like nk jemisin and the witcher. and then looked at the username and was like waitaminute... WE USED TO BE FRIENDS LOL. for a long time most of the posts in the tags of her pre-broken earth books were art that i commissioned 😭

over time, of course, as i've matured, consequently becoming less pugnacious and needy, i've kinda soured on her writing. she IS kind of a weird liberal. i read the dc power issue that included her backstory and jo joining the us military veteran (especially in contrast to simon's being an arab immigrant who was brutalized and imprisoned because of 9/11 lol) left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. at this point we have three lanterns associated with post 9/11 us imperialism, but unless far sector and her subsequent comics do a HELL of a good job deconstructing the image of how liberal marginalized americans step on the rungs of imperialism to justify their own success (highly unlikely given. again. the increasing liberalism of jemisin's works) i just can't imagine the comic does anything except reify the very imperialist myths that simon was at least intended to oppose. at least john's military retcons you can oppose with his 30 years of prior characterization, and before hal was enshittified he was interesting because his character was so enshrined in the trappings of imperialism and masculine hegemonies. (everyone groans. sorry i do have other modes.) and i think especially with jemisin having that history around her. the other gl writers dont have spotless histories but at least ron marz never led a harassment campaign against a marginalized woman and then retroactively justified the fear of the other through liberal language LOL. (he did codify a visual language of male subjectivity in comic art so.) i have not read her other books and will not. there is little we can do to disassociate all the art with which we engage with these systems (says the invincible fan) but we can at least respond to authors who left the vantage of their art and inflicted that harm upon a living person.

also that's very nice of you to say! i do sometimes worry i sound like i'm just smelling myself but. i would be interested in reading it it would be really fun to talk about jo in a lens that isn't ‘she's the single greatest lantern and should completely shunt out any discussion of simon and jess’ OR ‘naked bigotry.’ sometimes things made by people of color... enforce and validate systems of oppression, even if they are not along hypervisible axes of identity! this is why identity as the sole locus of discussion of harm has been so unhelpful and detrimental. sometimes things like class and position in imperial hegemonies come into play.

[kingarthurflourofficial]

april books

phoebe and her unicorn: unicorn time machine 4/5 (always love a new phoebe and her unicorn book!!!! calvin and hobbes for this generation TO be honest)

motheater 2/5 (apologies bc there was absolutely nothing Wrong with this book i just got very bored about 3/4 of the way through and DNF)

miss pettigrew lives for a day 4.5/5 (HATE it when everyone who says a book is excellent turns out to be right! this one goes on the list with a man called ove where i DID enjoy it tremendously but am mad about it)

hell followed with us 5/5 (ok if you have religious trauma read this one with caution but we LOVEEE a book where the trans protag gets to rip out some literal throats hell yea!)

even though i knew the end 3.5/5 (not the target audience for this as i am generally bored by angel/demon related narratives but it was very beautifully written and tightly paced! if you like lesbians and supernatural elements you will definitely enjoy this a lot)

you can't keep a good woman down 5/5 (WHOOOOOOOO BOY this one was. a LOT. in a good way! many of the stories i will be thinking about for a long time.)

inda 4/5 (gosh do you guys remember Inda? remember sherwood smith? remember when there was randomly a gay character in a book and it wasn't presented as a moral failing and it unnerved you so much you hid the book in the back of your closet lest any grownups find it before you could smuggle it back to the library? i'm incapable of an objective look at this book obviously but the WORLDBUILDING. the LINGUISTICS)

impossible creatures 3.5/5 (i DO love katherine rundell and i say this with love! it is Just possible that she needed a little bit more time and space between writing a john donne autobiography and going straight back into writing childrens' books.)

just like that 4/5 (gary schmidt i cannot believe you still are out here making me cry despite being on the surface THE most mid man in existence. you and gerald morris are on a LIST.)

act your age, eve brown 4/5 (NO one was more surprised than i was by how much i enjoyed this book. a het modern rom com? but my determination to read at least 80% books by Black authors this month and a rec from someone i trust had me put it on the list and i enjoyed it so much i put the other books in the series on hold at once)

a hope divided 4/5 (what a clever, kind, and compassionately angry book!!!! such a good look at an aspect of the civil war [southern people who didn't want to fight for the confederacy] rarely portrayed in fiction! and the intersectionality was SO deftly done i would like her to teach classes to a Lot. of modern authors. please. thank you.)

new suns 2 2/5 (i'm beginning to think spec fiction is not actually a genre i enjoy as much as i thought rip. that said! some of the short stories were very intriguing and i've added the authors to a list to look out for in the future)

solutions and other problems 4/5 (i remember reading and re-reading allie's blog back in the day and nearly choking trying to stay quiet enough laughing that no one would come investigate what i was doing on the computer and this book only confirmed what a gifted communicator she is. the more poignantly difficult parts of the book i'll let speak for themselves)

a quiet teacher 3/5 (really good for a debut novel! fast paced with a good twist and intriguing characters. slightly annoying lack of resolution to some personal problems the MC had but i guess thats what the rest of the series is for)

the enchanted isle 3/5 (falls into the CLASSIC blunder of stevenson's books - gives a shining example of the best parts of feminism and then washes it all away in a tide of falling in love with some MAN who's in love with his land and won't leave it or compromise with her over it. the obvious solution here is to let the man continue his situationship with his bestfriend/sadwarboy and she can continue her job as a headmistress and come back in the summer and holidays.)

spring magic 2/5 (might be the first d.e. stevenson i've ever Not finished. got SO disgusted with the beautiful premise ONCE AGAIN falling short because the girl falls in love with some awful man (and worse, a SOLDIER) and doesn't even have the excuse of him owning an island or anything)

the henchmen of zenda 4.5/5 (ok i understand now why everyone is feral about the henchies. they ARE all that AND a barrel of chips, actually. side note: cannot believe i only have one kjc i haven't read. how am i going to SURVIVE.)

three good deeds 3/5 (vivian vande velde does NOT fuck around when she writes fairy tales for small children let me tell you. she's making a point and she's making it hard and fast and there are going to be deaths involved)

the blue castle 4/5 (i can't believe i Hadn't read this one before? somehow? it's a perfect example of a type of genre i wish was quantified but i'll just have to call the 'mrs 'arris goes to paris' variety until someone can better explain it in a listicle)

anthology of African American Women in Literature 4/5 (ALICE CHILDRESS i am running to look up everything you ever wrote. audre lorde can i do anything for you. is there anything i can do for you. maya angelou let me help you.)

the fae tales by @not-poignant 5/5 (im pointing silently but meaningfully at this series and when you ask what i mean by it i just point more insistently. i am POINTING what don't you get!)

the wildness within 5/5 (again! i am pointing so hard i'm spraining something!)

the pack survives 5/5 (sorrrryyyyyyyyy that since i broke the seal on reading astolat's GOT fics i cannot stop re-reading this one. like its my fault!)

total - 23

[tyrantisterror]

You know how we complain about pornbots with sickass names and avatars of pretty girls following us, because it's taunting us with a hollow imitation of what we want out of life?

Well today a pornbot with a sickass name and an avatar of a pretty girl liked the pinned post I have advertising my wizard books, and that's, like... that's mean, man. For a brief moment I thought someone who hadn't seen my silly wizard books liked them and wanted to check them out, that's a mean thing to tease me with pornbots.

...

So I guess the only thing to do is to SHILL THEM WIZARD BOOKS BABY!

Wizard School Mysteries is a series of books that follows eight young (re: college student-aged) wizards attending the first ever school for magic, the Academy of Applied Arcana and Magic. While there, they encounter various perilous situations that lead them to unravel conspiracies of kidnapping, murder, and other malfeasance. In other words, wizards go to a school and solve mysteries. The title is very apt, no?

There are two books in the series so far, with eight planned total.

Book 1: The Meddlesome Youths shows how our eight heroes first met, and together unravel a plot by the fair folk to kidnap their peers on campus.

Book 2: Tournament of Death sees our heroes embroiled in the Ultimate Wizard Battle, a competitive tournament of for-fun wizard duels that's turned deadly thanks to acts of sabotage. Can they find the saboteur before the Tournament of Death claims one of their own?

(click on the titles above to go to their amazon order pages!)

I'm a few chapters deep into writing Book 3: Wicked Witchcraft, where the group's resident nerd (well, they're all nerds, but she's the nerdiest nerd of them all), Gretchen Pappenheimer, finds herself in the internship from Hell, while the rest of her pals have to deal with a masked murderer prowling the campus grounds. I'd like to have it out by October this year, Friday the 13th if possible for reasons that should be obvious, but we'll see how that works out. I think it's doable, but I'm not setting it in stone just year. And there are five more books to come after that!

While I'm sure you'll assume, given the premise of the series, that it has similarities with a certain... more... popular book about wizards solving mysteries in a school, I can assure you it's quite different. For one thing, it's got gay people in it, who get into gay relationships that we get to see, rather than me tweeting that they were gay the whole time fives years or so after the series wraps. And two of the main characters are trans, including the very mainest main character of the lot! It feels kinda shallow mentioning these facts, like I'm just pointing out diversity in my book for brownie points, but seriously those feel like low bars to clear in 2023 AND YET certain other wizard franchises just... haven't, because they're written by closeted fascist transphobic antisemite.

....ahem.

Anyway it's also different from Herbie Porber because it's set in a vaguely medieval fantasy land instead of the current day, and because its tones is far more Discworld than anything else. It's good! You should read it! Why, it's so good that the second book only has one review so far, because the people who read it are so awestruck at how awesome it is that all but one of them has been rendered speechless by it.

So check out Wizard School Mysteries, the fantasy book series that even pornbots love!

[mr-saavik]

Midyear Book Freakout Tag 2024

Haven't done this in a few years and no one asked for it but here we go

1) Best book:

Lots of contenders for this, but I think it has to be A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. Fantastic writing on a great subject

2) Best sequel:

I haven't really read any traditional sequels where a story continues on from another, but any of the Sherlock Holmes books/short story collections works for this. Maybe The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes or The Hound of the Baskvilles as favorites? Idk

3) New releases you want to read

Henry Henry by Allen Bratton, but idk when I'll get to it because I'd need to get an interlibrary loan

4) Most anticipated release

I'm lowkey bad at keeping up with whats coming out BUT I am excited to read Failure to Comply by @librarycards

5) Biggest Disappointment

Probably Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong because I had heard it was great and a good introduction to writings on disability, but ended up being a very mixed collection of writings and a lot of it just felt meh

6) Biggest Surprise

Perhaps Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip? Not surprise in the sense that once I knew what it was I thought I wouldn't like it, but surprise in the sense I had never heard of it until I was assigned to read it in a class about literature of the Middle Passage

7) Favorite new author

Virginia Woolf. I've read Orlando before but I don't really remember it; reading A Room of One's Own made me realize I love her writing style

8) Newest fictional crush

Closest answer I can give to this is Sherlock Holmes because I do love that bitch but idk if "crush" is the right word for it or if he counts as new if I was familiar with his character from the Granada tv series

9) Newest favorite character

To not repeat saying Sherlock Holmes, I'm going to say Merricat Blackwood from We Have Always Lived in the Castle even though I've read that before, so again, it doesn't really count as new

10) A book that made you cry

None despite historically being a known crier

11) A book that made you happy

Uhhhhh I guess one of the Sherlock Holmes ones? I tend to read sad shit and reviewing what I've read so far this year there isn't really "happy" material besides that

12) Most beautiful book you've bought or received

Big fan of these two

13) What books do you need to read by the end of the year?

Well. Finish what I'm currently reading (Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion, Noor by Nnedi Okorafor, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle), also read Before We Were Trans by Kit Heyam because I have it out from the library, same with The White Album by Joan Didion because it is also in the massive book of nonfiction work from Didion I have out from the library, and I think Sara @colors-changing-hue & I are going to attempt to finish all of the Sherlock Holmes books by the end of the year but we've been slow on that recently so we'll see if that happens (to complete the series we'd nees to finish The Return of Sherlock Holmes and then read The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow, and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes). Besides all of that for fun, once classes start back up I will be reading a lot of Shakespeare for my class on his early plays, some medieval romances for a class on that genre, and probably some books about Hitchcock because I'm taking a class on his films and the professor teaching it usually assigns a few whole books to read besides articles & stuff

[praetoravila]

Hi hi hi!! Don’t know if you still want some OC facts, but here’s two about each of my BTR babies!!

Ezra’s first fictional crush was Linus, Matt Damon’s character in Ocean’s Eleven, but he told everyone it was Julia Roberts’s character in Ocean’s Eleven because he didn’t really know how his family would react at that point.

Amara’s middle name, Daniela, is the same as her mother’s, which given her and her siblings’ relationship with her parents she has Complicated Feelings about.

Nicki also does not have a good relationship with her mother! Her mother, Helen, didn’t want a kid and left when Nicki was still a toddler, and she’s been so no-contact that she doesn’t even know Nicki is trans.

Kalani has been writing songs since they were ten, and still has the beat-up notebook they wrote all their first ones in.

Ezra actually has been offered the opportunity to act in a commercial with Destiny before, but he turned it down; he’s not really built for being in the spotlight or in front of a camera, and he knows that about himself.

Although Amara and James do become unexpected besties, she’s a little iffy on him originally - she originally thought he was kind of shallow and a typical Hollywood wannabe, but she did realize she was wrong.

Nicki’s dad, Patrick, is actually British! He’s from a wealthier family and moved to America shortly after he graduated university, wanting to make a new life for himself outside of his family’s influence, and he eventually wound up in Portland, where he met Nicki’s mom.

Kalani’s first self-titled album, which they release towards the end of the events of the show, features duets with both James and Lucy, as well as a feature from all of Big Time Rush.

Hope you like these, and feel free to tell me some facts about your babies too!! Hope you’re doing well!! <3 <3

hi dolly! amazing headcanons omg. the one about nicki’s mom is heartbreaking and i just want to hug her. i love all your ocs so much!! here’s a few for my ocs!

macie learns how to produce music from gustavo, and when she decides she’s had enough of singing, eventually she takes over rocque records as head music producer!

noah’s favourite book is the giver. he’s read it at least 9 times

olive cuts her hair in s3 as a form of reshaping her identity. the first time logan sees her w short hair, he’s shocked but it ends up becoming his favourite look on her

elisa and kendall are pretty good friends! she doesn’t really get hockey, but she’ll sit and watch games w him!

laela was born in maui hawaii, hence why she has a traditional hawaiian name. her mom couldn’t think of one the entire pregnancy so she asked one of her nurses for name suggestions!

macie’s favourite city she’s been to on tour is seattle. there’s just something about that city that resonates with her.

[spockandawe]

this might be a longshot but do you know any transmigration cnovels with trans characters in them? or just cnovels in general tbh transmigration is not a requirement

Oh man, this has been sitting in my inbox for a while because I really wanted to pull together some good recs for you, but it is.... a lot harder than I expected to differentiate between some of these books. The broadest catchall tag on novelupdates looks to be "gender bender," which isn't the most clear starting point. If I haven't read something, the tags on novelupdates aren't always clear on whether any given story is 1) crossdressing, 2) body change that will be undone eventually, or 3) body change that the character is at peace with. And if there are any characters who are trans and aware that they're trans, I could not find a relevant tag, and the book descriptions were not helpful. There are tags for "male to female" and "female to male," but like before, it's really unclear which of the above categories the book will fall into. I saw a tag for "genderless protagonist," but skimming the tagged books, it was hard for me to tell if that meant anything like what I would hope for.

That being said, I hate to leave this with a complete shrug. Let me start with some low-hanging fruit! Terribly sorry if you've heard of these examples before, they're not very obscure. From books I've read or bound: TGCF/Heaven Official's Blessing, the supporting character Shi Qingxuan has some gender things going on. There isn't a definitive answer as to what exactly that entails, I've seen a variety of headcanons including that SQX is nonbinary or a trans woman. I default to they/them myself, but I've seen some LOVELY thoughts about this. Then, in JWQS/Clear And Muddy Loss Of Love, the protagonist is born female, but is living life is a man, including irreversible body modification in order to pass more convincingly (for revenge reasons). The story uses she/her in the narration, but it could easily be something more complex if you wanted to read it through that lens. And then in 2ha/The Husky And His White Cat Shizun, there's a supporting character doing a similar born-female-living-as-a-man-with-body-mods thing. I can't say that it's a story about trans experiences, but it is definitely easy to read with an eye to gender.

And then, these are entirely unvetted, but here are some novels from my attempted NU search that looked like they maybe had potential. I think all of these seem to be 'I got dumped into this body that doesn't match my nominal gender, but it's cool', rather than trans stories, so please don't trust my recs too hard, but I can't believe how hard it was to search for this!!

Demon Sword Maiden

Reborn As My Love Rival's Wife

Fugui Ronghua (short, but complete)

Even If I'm Reborn As A Cute Dragon Girl, I Will Still Make A Harem

Dominion's End

Reborn, I Became A Male God (only three chapters translated, but MTL is out there)

it is shockingly hard to tell what I'm getting into from these tags and summaries, jesus. I hope those recs aren't all completely off the mark, but it's really hard to gauge their content without reading them myself. If other people have recs, I'd love to hear them in the comments! I feel like there must be authors who have tackled some of these themes, and I'm disappointed that the tagging conventions make it hard to identify who those authors are :T