#my whole job is books

[vera-dauriac]

I FUCKING LOVE BOOKS!!!!!!!!

[egophiliac]

like mother, like son, but less wholesome this time?

(I couldn't decide whether or not to put them together, so have them in all the different ways!)

[mollysunder]

Sky and Viktor's relationship is such a horror movie to me. You've got a man who was frustrated by the limitations placed on his life that were out of his control, like his class, mobility, and general health. Despite everything, he manages to rise beyond his station and avoid being an assistant for the rest of his life.

Then you've got a woman from the same background who admires him and all that he's accomplished in spite of the similar class based prejudices they faced all the while she's his assistant. She works up the courage to take leap of faith and reach out to him with her own research to show what's possible if they worked together as equals. And then he gets her killed!

Sky's death isn't the end of it because while it affects Viktor it is in no way meaningful to Sky's life or value as a person whatsoever. Even the pendant he wears in her memory is based on the design of her notebook, but that was just her notebook's cover, she probably bought it from a store and the design itself is probably mass produced. Why not use Sky's signature that was in her letter and in the notebook, the thing part if the notebook with real value?

Then Sky's brought back in s2 and she really only exists to be Viktor's assistant again, who he kills, again! But this time it's different because this time Viktor's making a conscious decision to look Sky in the eye and kill her... to prove he's changed.

In the middle of all this, in no way has Sky's death been mourned by her family or anyone else who could have known her. Jayce wasn't affected by the reveal, he didn't think it was important to tell Heimerdinger, or anyone who knew her. Nothing about her life, death, or disappearance has spurred any emotional reaction or even curiosity about what happened to her.

Sky's new life was also extremely isolated because she became further tied to him (in some ways you could say she was defined by him). Viktor never mentioned Sky to anyone in the material plane during his commune arc, so she only exists to him and she has no way to communicate with others, she's just there for Viktor's sake.

Then in the finale we learn this all a part of a big time loop where Viktor actively set the wheels in motion to have him and Jayce create hextech together, but if everything follows as is, that means Sky is violently killed in those timelines too. That means Viktor weighed the costs and decided over and over and over again that Sky was expendable enough to let her die for his plan to work eventually. How is that not murder at this point?

What's worse is that post-finale Sky's humanity is a point of dispute amongst the fandom, the VAs, and the writers themselves. Sky's the hexcore manipulating Viktor. No, Sky's a manifestion of Viktor's guilt. No, she's actually supposed to represent his humanity/conscious made physical. And in none of these arguments do they discuss Sky as a person, she's just an object meant to serve Viktor both in the narrative sense and literal sense as his assistant.

The most absolutely maddening part is that with Viktor's new bio on the League site, not only have most traces of Viktor had been scrubbed by Piltover's archive, but Sky's life has been completely wiped. Her death was implied to have been swept under the rug, and only described as the "loss of life" consequence from his Hexcore experiment.

Viktor was afraid of dying a senseless death (created by the conditions Piltover condemned his birth to) in obscurity and then he turned it into Sky's destiny.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.

Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.

Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.

Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.

[deoidesign]

Idk who needs to hear this but time and time again isn't over!!!

Webtoon removed the "time and time again will return!!!" Banner and I don't know why, but it's not over!!! There's still another 1/3 of the comic to go! There's a lot more stuff that I'm working on and it'll be coming back soon!

Please be patient with me, I know it's been a long time... But the stuff I'm making is really good and there's a lot of reasons it's taken this long. I promise I want it back more than anyone.

I'm trying to come back around the end of October. I'm doing my best to get everything ready in time, so no promises, but I'm on track to do so! I'm just one person writing and drawing everything, and my editor was fired so I'm not even getting any notes anymore. It's literally just me. I'm doing my best I promise!

[thalasseleno]

the movie made benitez look like a loner sometimes

which had some beautiful cinematography to represent that!! BUT in the book, upon being introduced he’s immediately recognized by multiple cardinals who’d never met him but had all heard about his service. he’s immediately welcomed! lomeli/lawrence notices several times benitez telling a story to cardinals listening intently to him. he makes a slow but noticeable climb up in votes, which makes way more sense in the book given the context that he is becoming more popular. auramaxxing actually. it’s interesting that they didn’t portray some of this.

also who was gonna tell me the turtle thing is something they completely made up for the movie and doesn’t actually happen at all in the book :( 

[aster-draws]

Divergent from my typical content here is a comic I drew based on a random book I found in a used book store and quickly became enraptured by

[bayetea]

I'm a strong "percy would get a job in education/outreach to underprivileged kids in the future" truther but I don't necessarily agree with people who say that him taking on marine biology as a college major doesn't make sense at all

"why would he study marine biology he can already work with sea animals to his heart's desire" I don't know maybe because he wants to get paid???????? he wants a normal job???? percy grew up poor and unsafe. why is it weird that he craves stability with a career that enables him to do something that he loves? or maybe he wants to go into the system and help bring about lasting reform that will actually improve care for sea creatures??? yes he can save sea animals on his own time but think about it. is it better to abandon his life in the middle of the night to go help a trapped sea creature Every Single Time it happens or is it better to enter the system and make it so that capitalists stop polluting water or disturbing sea ecosystems for profit. his powers as a son of poseidon are a band-aid not a lasting solution to systemic environmental neglect and decay. he has an established precedent of caring for bringing about systemic change (see: turning down immortality) and for me this is no different (I just personally headcanon him wanting to bring change for disadvantaged kids but whatever)

to me this logic is like telling an exceptional artist that there's no point in going to art school to become a professional when they can already just do art on their own time for fun. like yeah....... if you're content with doing that as just a hobby. but what if you want to become an even better artist and learn new skills. what if you want to do it as a job that pays you and gives you health insurance and social security. then what

for me the main logistical issue of him majoring in marine biology has never been that he would never do that it's that the intersection of new rome college accreditation to the Actual Real world isn't all that clear/logistically sound. like I guess the mist can handle anything but what impact is new rome going to be able to have on the realm of mortals. this would be a nice thing to discuss actually (more in tags)

[communistkenobi]

I don’t like when people ask how many books you plan to read/have read this year one because I think that’s a weird relationship to have to books and two because I think even reading a chapter or a portion of something is valuable. this is especially true with non-fiction but even with fiction I think any amount you read, even if you don’t read the entire thing, is not a failure or ‘incomplete’

[alicedrawslesmis]

didn't read yesterday's chapter cause I knew I wouldn't pay attention, and this is literally imo the most important chapter in the whole book and a chapter that for some reason most critics seem to totally skip over

[boydswan]

Absolutely free, so everyone can see.

Shia LaBeouf as Clodio Pulcher in MEGALOPOLIS (2024) dir. Francis Ford Coppola

[fictionadventurer]

The independent religious bookstore is the only place you can go on an overpriced shopping spree and feel good about it.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Outdrawn

f/f contemporary romance

two cartoonist who’ve been rivals since uni, and now have competing webcomics online, have to work together on the relaunch of a cult classic at the comic press they both work at

they both struggle with art-related physical and mental health issues, and complicated families

[soupysuki]

another lil self indulgent sketch (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)

[spock-adoodledoo]

i think one of the things i'll always appreciate abt maomao is that even though she's the protag, it's not really that the world revolves around her or that things always happen to her, it's more that she gets involved in things (usually at the request of other ppl but whatever) that usually don't affect her immediately. idk but it's nice that she's kind of our dispassionate window into palace life instead of the person everything happens to

[shrews-studies]

Now that I'm dipping my toes into the waters of literary translation, I'm really starting to have a new level of appreciation for good translation and it's nice bc woah that's a whole new way I can enjoy reading a book