#or borrow them from my library

[shadowtrooper1414]

@juice-boxy how dare you make me genuinely think about rereading the warrior cats books

[fistfuloflightning]

Winterfell

[soracities]

Hi, do you or any of your followers have any recs for audiobooks? Preferably that are free, I just would like to listen to something while knitting but not sure how to start exploring since I don't know who are good narrators or things like that. Thanks so much!!

i don't listen to audiobooks unfortunately but any audiobook devotees please please send in your recs for anon, thank you 💗

[barnabyboppins]

Hopefully lukewarm take (i haven’t checked)

I recently finished reading the Heroes Of Olympus series (having read pjo immediately prior) and I think it’s pretty shitty that the worth of all of our good guy characters are, to a notable degree, measured by their ability to find and engage in romantic relationships and are then greatly defined by those relationships. (Disclaimer; I don’t think I’m in a justified position to discuss lots of the racial criticisms for HoO but I do agree with a lot of em and that aspect does factor into this topic)

7+ important recurring characters is quite a lot of people to balance, even in a five book series and all of the non-pjo characters suffered immensely for it. But one character arc I anticipated over and over again that never ended up happening was any one character finding fulfillment from the non-romantic relationships around them by de-prioritizing the idea of a perfect someone in favour of accepting the support of their friends/comrades/campers/family/etc. (Second disclaimer: I don’t expect a novel saga from 2010 to have characters declaring their orientations (or lack thereof) aloud but the idea of a character learning to define themself by or through something outside of romance isn’t a new one)

I think Percy and Annabeth are very cute and work well as a couple (are they the only white couple?) and I don’t really see any chemistry between Piper and Jason (I feel like they’re on very different paths from each other and Piper stagnates greatly in favour of supporting jasons development) but I think literally every other Good Guy character had the potential to not need romance in their arcs. Frank could have been raised to praetor by consensus and recognized by his peers and grandma, actively validating his growth rather than him achieving great feats and no one noticing or really caring except for Hazel. Hazel could’ve been shown learning about the modern day with Frank and Nico during downtime and reconciling her identity and trauma with the diversity of today while discovering a new freedom in acceptance (from the Seven) of who she is from back then and who she may yet want to be (and also not dated a 16 y/o at 13).

Leo, Reyna and Nico were the main ones I was thinking would forgo the need for a partner at least as a necessity for their growth/healing as all three have severe familial trauma, are distanced from other demigods socially somehow, and all were explicitly ousted from conventional romance in-writing.

Initially with Leo I had hoped he would confront his struggle being the “seventh wheel” by expressing how he was feeling overlooked as a friend (and as the ONLY shipwright) in favour of everyone’s romantic interests, which would lead into further emotional vulnerability in the party but, that never happened save for a few stoically non-communicative gestures of support to Frank and otherwise weird hang-ups on Hazel before he fucked off to Calypso, letting his friends think him dead for weeks. Leo lacked connection and felt inferior and less important than the rest of the Seven and the narrative validated that by only fulfilling him through an a Rapunzel-like hot babe trapped on an island who is physically dependent on his emotional dependence on her. That’s not a recipe for healthy relationship! I related to Leo initially as an aromantic person with 9 siblings, half of whom are already coupled so it was very disappointing when I realized by the third book that RR just didn’t take what was to me the most obvious arc for a character who is vitally important to a team but least noticed. Also the Hazel-Frank-Leo pseudo-love shape didn’t need to happen, at least in the way it did, and I think the Leo-Hazel-Sammy weird love thing was stupid.

I think Nico and Will are a very cute couple and I’m looking forward to reading their book when I come around to it but I felt unsatisfied that the thing that got Nico to stay at camp after 5 books was a guy who had little significant presence until the last book and not like, any of the other deeply important connections he made during his journeys? Nico’s been talking about never returning to either camp for a while and none of the Seven or Reyna (I think) thought to check in with him? I get that Will is supposed to be like the first person to insistently want Nico around but if Will really is the first then that’s kinda fucked up given the whole like, eight books worth of people he’s met. It’s a bit fucked up that after years of Nico’s presence, seemingly the first connection to anchor him down is an unspoken suggestion of a romance

Reyna’s character journey confuses me because I don’t if I missed or forgot it but I don’t remember her having a conclusion to her internal struggles. Aphrodite telling her she’s doomed to singledom gets brought up again and again and it’s mostly just to make you feel bad for her. She doesn’t tell anyone else. She doesn’t seek fulfillment in the platonic or familial connections she has. They visit her house, trauma dump about her abuse AND fakeout her sisters + the hunters + the amazons deaths just to have Reyna be even more hurt. Reyna and Nico come to understand each other while they’re travelling but by the conclusion of the series she’s just gone back to her isolating and stressful role as the praetor, but now with more work to do! Aphrodite’s words are never explained and their veracity is never tested and all it serves is to give Reyna more misery porn.

I guess what I’m saying is I think the story would have been better if The Seven & Co had a little more connection with each other and not just with their respective partners and if we could have seen some internal growth come from that.

[springs-hurts]

Meanwhile me to those thick classic novels—

[r7inyz]

forgot dogman was getting a movie WASNT EXPECTING TO SEE A TRAILER IN MY FEED CROWD CHEERS!!

[untilyouremember]

Yona of the Dawn

Available digitally

Available in print

[houkagokappa]

I came across the graph of how different CLAMP anime are related and it's beautiful. I really need to get back to reading (and watching) more CLAMP works

[britneyshakespeare]

I have to be so honest and vulnerable with you for a second. I keep thinking of getting another complete works of Shakespeare

[echoesofadream]

so many books on my tbr and also so many books i have started but not finished and im thinking about reading dostojevskij instead

[dooxliss]

note for the unaware: 100 gold coins = $1 and i have 625 so whatever i get will detract $6.25 from the total price

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

i need to get myself out of the mindset that money spent on books doesn't count if the books are in irish

that's not how it works

[magnetictapedatastorage]

..

[sojourner-between-worlds]

Literally Everyone: L&Co is sooooo good! Please watch it! Please read it!

Me, having seen plenty about it, finally finishing the first book: wHY dID nO oNE tELL mE

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: KILLING FLOOR by Lee Child.

This isn't a genre I typically read; HOWEVER!: my dream agent was on an episode of the Writing Excuses podcast about beginnings, and they said this one is Very Good, so I borrowed my dad's paperback copy to give it a whirl.

I'm low-key hoping this will help me sort out some Genre Issues™ I suspect I'm having with a writing project, too, which is a nice added bonus! Excited to see how this goes.

[sysig]

Hoppy Easter (Patreon)