#especially later on in the book

[mushroomslovesyou]

boy, this Ishmael guy sure knows how to end a chapter

[anotherpapercut]

genuinely it will never stop baffling me how people will wear twilight shirts and talk about team Edward vs team Jacob and then the same people will be like "I'm not basing my personality off of a piece of media (harry potter) made by a transphobe 😌" like good that's great! so you can excuse racism but you draw the line at transphobia? good to know

[bixels]

Every day I feel the vicious urge to start working on a fake opening title sequence to The Grand Galloping 20s' first story, The Witch From Ponyville, as a proof of concept. I've been watching old Disney movie openings.

[sevenines]

i saw this tweet and found it interesting for two reasons. one is that some people base how good cartoon network would be to toh by how it treated su, and despite the fact that su’s treatment by the network was considered poor at the time, now its thought to be exceptionally good in comparison to modern shows.

two is how exactly su got impacted by a limited budget. a common criticism is how characters like connie, peridot, and lapis are left out of missions. but balancing a lot of characters is not only hard but also costly (extra animation, extra voices—it’s been revealed that the show is limited to a set number of characters per episode otherwise they’re over budget). animation mistakes are not uncommon since retakes cost extra. the entire reason the original show got cut short was due to loss of funding!

[radiantmists]

reading animorphs sequentially instead of in whatever random order you can get your hands on them is such a trip because you can see these kids getting progressively better at war and worse at being happy, you can see how traumatic events from one book echo into the next ones but never quite get dealt with because these kids have no real way to take care of their mental health, you can see their relationships deepening but simultaneously gaining friction and faultlines as they learn just how far they'd go for each other but also how far they'd go in general...

obviously this series was meant to be episodic in nature, and i actually think that might be the better way to first encounter it, but the arc of the series in publication order is extremely well-crafted

[bonesblubs]

They're here!! Really happy with them :)

ULTRAMEGAzine can be found here

and Vol.3 can be found here

[tathrin]

The Extremely Serious and Scientific Legolas Fandom Hair Colour Poll:

What colour hair do you picture in your head for your personal mental image of Legolas of the Woodland Realm? (Not necessarily which one you think is more or less "canonical"; rather just what you see in your head when you're reading something.)

Ideally, you can also share when and how you were first exposed to Lord of the Rings in the tags or reblogs, and what you think most influenced your mental image.

No I'm not procrastinating from writing stuff, go away.

[bayetea]

I'm gonna froth at the mouth over this in the tags so bear with me but reason #1278038 why the way rick went about breaking up jiper was bad: rereading her povs in hoo where she gushes over jason feels like even more of an unreliable narrator queer girl comphet psychological horror story

[arlathen]

it's funny that andrastianism was right but like a thousand years too early. like no a god and his (once?) mortal beloved didn't inhabit the golden city but. they do now.

[chrysanthemumandthesword]

I'm going a little nuts. I've just read the Odyssey (they only had me read the Iliad in high school, so I'm correcting that oversight, lol). I've looked at multiple different translations because the library/Guttenberg Project are free so comparing/contrasting is easy and fun! I've also listened to EPIC. And like... it's an adaptation with an obvious set of themes drawn from the original they want to explore over others more predominately present, so there will be differences. It's also a modern interpretation? So like... it's not going to 100% adhere to ancient Greek values? Like a modern audience is going to have some qualms about baby murder, so if you want to adapt it that's going to have to be addressed (if you don't take the coward's way out and just shove every war crime on Neoptolemus - or go the full historian route and fully write from an ancient Greek perspective which may alienate new readers but could also be dope? It's subjective).

Like, we all should know an adaptation (especially a modern one) is never a substitute for reading the original work. But adaptations can also bring new or expanded perspectives on the original work, expand on or address themes from the work in a new way, as well as inspire people to read the original. And honestly? A popular adaptation should motivate people to read/watch the original - this is exactly what kicked my ass in gear to read the Odyssey!

I'd also say don't hero-worship the original. Especially if you haven't read it in a while and have a knee-jerk negative reaction to any new adaptation. The original works should still be read but let people have fun! Don't criticize, just say if you want more content/context read the original! I would, for example, never criticize someone for loving Muppets Treasure Island or Treasure Planet even though they don't stick one to one on the original Treasure Island story - even though it was my favorite book growing up. I think they both are made with a love of the source material, but are changed for the medium + the specific themes they want to address.

I don't know. If an adaption makes a story (especially and old one) more accessible it should usually be celebrated and met with encouragement to look deeper into the source material instead of acting superior - especially if you haven't read the source material in a while either. Let people have fun and encourage them to explore! Don't shame them for liking an adaptation, especially when it's made to expand the reach of a wonderful work to a younger, wider audience.

[tea-cat-arts]

"Madam Yu would be a Karen/ treat minimum wage employees like shit-" literally the only servant she's shown abusing is Wei Wuxian (and that's because he's the victim of a proxy war between her and Jiang Fengmian around the idea of him being adopted into the family, not because of his class). Madam Yu's two handmaid's love and respect her, and Madam Yu actually defends them when Wang Lingjiao tries being a Karen to them. She also tells Wang Lingjiao to fuck off when she demands the Jiang servants bring her tea.

Also, Karens are unpleasant women, but not all unpleasant women are Karens. That term is about entitlement and being unreasonable (and often times, racist). Madam Yu is mean and unpleasant to talk to, but she keeps most of her interactions brief and probably doesn't have the time or mental energy to be a Karen or hold a grudge that long. If you want an actual example of a Karen in mdzs, Wang Lingjiao is right there

[qiu-yan]

in MDZS the novel, the innkeeper in Yunping mentions that people are too scared to go petition Yunmeng Jiang for help because someone once walked in on Sect Leader Jiang whipping a guy in the main hall, supposedly because the guy was a demonic cultivator.

[crimsonsoulpower]

I really wish IWTV wasn't filled with so many vehemently ignorant people who are addicted to not using a single brain cell. Why are they calling him Armand de Romanus? That's not Marius' actual last name, it's just something he came up with because he is of Rome. That's literally it! The same way book Armand was once called Armand le Russe (for being born in Keiv). Fractured his memory might be, he still remembers being born in what's current day India and is played by a brown British man. How tf did "de Romanus" come in there? Like are you retconning that bit about him being a desi boy??

[treefey]

I ran across this post that was essentially about how good worldbuilding does so many things-- OP was struck how in a period drama when there's so much emphasis on being proper, the reckless abandon of women sprinting without bonnets, etc. communicates the direness of the situation so quickly. I had something similar happen with mostly character building, but also a bit of world building.

So, I'm slowly reading through the Discworld books, in a random "whatever my library has" order. I've read several of the Watch Arc, including Fifth Elephant, where Carrot and Angua are there and together, but the focus is on Vimes. In all the books I've read so far, Carrot is steady and lucky. I'm currently reading Thud! , where the whole time Angua is so uncomfortable with Sally and is jealous of her charming vampire nature. Angua feels so on edge, brutish, kind of, around Sally. Then they have to put on the stripper's dresses and Angua thinks her gold sequined dress "just [doesn't] work" and Sally looks stunning in a simple dress.

Naturally, when she goes to the watch main office, Carrot is standing there watching her with his mouth open. Such a simple sentence. She doesn't linger on it, but we as readers know this trope. We know the "girl next door who doesn't feel pretty" makeover. And the badass woman having to wear sexy clothes to a fancy event or whatever trope. And we know Carrot. Solid, thinks of everything. He's so smitten, seeing her in a slinky dress. And just watching her. Because of all the character building and world building up to that point, that one line had me completely breathless. Like, probably more than most actual spicy scenes. He is so stunned by her he's not trying to keep the peace in the office, he doesn't move when she threatens to stab a random watch guy with a stripper heel, he's just super into her.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Salt Houses

historical fiction

follows 4 generations of a Palestinian family from Nablus between 1967 and 2014

uprooted and grieving after the Six Day War, they start to build a life in Kuwait, until they’re once again displaced in 1990 and scatter to Paris, Beruit, Amman, and Boston

different chapters from almost every family member’s perspective, skipping years in between

explores complex family dynamics, grief, and loss of home and identity through displacement

[atlalasassy]

The fact that my mental health is so reliant on a fictional character, that is confirmed dead, being alive is worrying