#you guys should really read these books

[peppermints-and-lemon-zest]

GARHAHGAHGHAGHGHAGHGHRRRAAAHH MY BABY BOY VINCENT I LOVE HIM SO MUCH RAAAAAA

AHJHRGHAGHGSGHG I LOVE MY BABY FAWN BOY SO MUCH

[blessyouhawkeye]

"but when i am in heaven i will remember your mouth, and when you roast down in hell i think you will remember mine" is such a beautiful line but it's made even better by the fact that it's said by a vengeful ghost named after an eminem song haunting the brain of a lobotomized lesbian nun

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I haven't read these books at all, but your art is so fun and cute that I like seeing your comics a lot regardless. Fantastic Silly Little Guy energy.

Thank you for enjoying my silly little guys and my comics B*)

[incorrect-primarchs-quotes]

Can I be honest here,

I find highly ironic that people will harass new fans just because "ew you don't know all the 400 books and 200+ short stories, you're new and ignorant, ew", then will proceed to correct them and

*drum roll*

They are wrong or hold incomplete knowledge themselves.

[ihavesomejays]

troublemaker

to thank @keebssi for all the delicious raturine, have a quick modern au wangxian. nothing like wondering why your school's bad boy is asking you for your student id number in the middle of a random park (he is not in fact asking you for your student id number) !! also apologies to the mdzs fans i haven't read mdzs and i don't really plan to this one was just for a homie

closeups under keep reading

[hopeless-eccentric]

i dont do a lot of book recs on here (i think ive done one before?) but the Henry Rios books by Michael Nava are so criminally underrated!

They're these mystery novels from the 1980s-1990s about a gay, Latino lawyer (Henry Rios, our protagonist/narrator) solving mysteries--usually while trying to prove his client's innocence. He's a long-suffering idealist written as this kind of hard-boiled detective.

This is actually something the whole series tackles, subverts, and deconstructs in a really interesting way! Instead of being this stoic detective, the archetype gets broken down in a lot of really fascinating and human ways earnestly discussing love, grief, intergenerational trauma, racism, homophobia, illness/disability, toxic masculinity, and substance abuse.

What I love is that these books realize that the hard-boiled detective is stuck in a point of hurt and trauma, and so the Henry Rios series makes a big deal out of fighting tooth and nail to GET BETTER--whatever it takes to improve yourself and your surroundings. While the books maintain a lot of the dark and morose vibe of the original genre (especially given the looming, perpetual grief of AIDS-era queer lit), they always come back to a death match against apathy. It's really moving stuff, especially as the books take this approach to Henry's recovery from alcoholism.

if you're interested in queer history, the books are in touch with queer legal/political history during the HIV/AIDS crisis. The first few books have been rewritten/published as well since Michael Nava's retirement, so I think a comparative reading could be really interesting. For the record, Nava was a civil rights lawyer, so this is all done REALLY well (not to mention the legal drama is engaging, theatrical, petty, gutting, and sometimes hilarious).

if you're interested in detective fiction, they're brilliant deconstructions of the genre. instead of taking the depressed alcoholic white guy with repressed desire for male companionship at face value, the series considers a gay Latino man struggling with machismo, racism and homophobia, intersectional identity, and processing/recovering from grief, childhood trauma, alcoholism, and Catholicism.

Stylistically, the books are smart, poetic, introspective, dark, and witty. There's a lot of suffering, but there are also a lot of intense moments of joy and catharsis that feel really earned.

Also, if you read the rewrites. uh. there's a lot of smut! Happy retirement, Mr. Nava!

[hanzajesthanza]

the training montage in crossroads re-ignited a headcanon i had of geralt waking up and doing gymnastics, performing kickflips and mid-air spins around on a fencepost outside an hour before sunrise to ‘limber up,’ and bleary-eyed dandelion wrapping himself up in a blanket to be like "heyyy... what the hell are you doing 💖"

[burnsopale]

A Scarlet Pimpernel conundrum that lives rent free in my brain:

According to Sally Dugan, Orczy continued to write Pimpernel books mostly because her publishers kept asking for them and they were paying her bills (I call it Conan Doyle syndrome)

Dugan says that Orczy couldn't keep using Marguerite as the protagonist because convention demanded that she stay at home as a good little wife (boo!)

In her search for other potential POV characters, Orczy usually used one of the innocents that Percy is going to rescue, but matching them all in frequency is, unusually, recurring villain Chauvelin

(Quick aside to mention that the members of the League are usually out as POV characters because they know too much, note that when they are given the POV, they tend to be chafing against Percy refusing to share the details of his current plan with them. Percy is almost entirely out as a POV character because he's a trickster type hero and having access to his thoughts would kill the tension. That's also the reason why having the villain as a main POV character works; the question is never IF Percy will win, but HOW, so we must know all the difficulties in his way but not how he intends to overcome them.)

Once Chauvelin becomes a POV character he is immediately written much more sympathetically, from his very first scene in Elusive where he is shown to be vulnerable (threatened by Robespierre), cool (doesn't care about the threat) and admirable (his motivation is contrasted positively with Robespierre's). From this book onward, he has stopped taking snuff (trauma lol), stopped cackling evilly, and the hand-rubbing has gone from a diabolical gesture to a sign of his excessive nerves. He is shown to be increasingly traumatized by Percy's almost superhuman luck and skill, he is constantly exhausted and almost hysterical with nerve-strain, and he is continually contrasted as a true believer in the cause against his power-hungry, selfish, stupid colleagues. In Elusive especially he is heavily paralleling Marguerite. What I'm asking is, did Orczy miss her female protagonist so much she started writing Chauvelin the same way???

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The West Passage

medieval fantasy set in a giant crumbling palace of traditions with forgotten origin, ruled by giant eldritch Ladies

when winter weather comes in the middle of summer, and a beast below the palace begins to rise, two teens from Grey who have suddenly gained a lot of responsibilities set out on separate journeys to the other towers to find a way to stop it, and meet all sorts of strange people and creatures along the way

world where pronouns/names are based on people’s roles

tons of cool medieval-style chapter illustrations by the author

[micamicster]

They'll turn me in your arms, lady, into an esk and adder, But hold me fast, and fear me not, I am your husband dear. They'll turn me to a bear sae grim, and then a lion bold, But hold me fast, and fear me not, I am your own true love.

The Perilous Gard (1974) by Elizabeth Marie Pope

[alexjcrowley]

The Hobbit or Bilbo Baggins's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Not At All Fun Steppe Vacation

[bisexualalistairtheirin]

One really annoying argument ppl keep bringing up when someone complains about lore in Veilguard not making sense considering the other games is "Lol that game (da:o, most often) came out 15 years ago, it's fine if they want to change stuff!" but like... girlies, I don't think it's Origin's fault that Veilguard took 10 years to make and decided not to use what was already established.

[sluttyten]

personal rant

[hms-lurking-latinist]

personally I think that as long as we are doing this historical boat media we should have some stuff about the Athenian navy in the Peloponnesian War. this post doesn't have any particular point I just think it's an interesting period

[cha1cedony]

Idk what it is that makes me fixate so hard on one specific thing for years at a time, but I need it to chill out 😭 DnDads has been my only long-term media interest for like 1 and 1/2 years now, and it’s BORING to only like one thing ever lol I’m BORED!!! I need other things to be interested in, but I struggle with getting into new stuff (other than video games) sooo bad :(

That said, if you have DnD podcast recs that have interesting characters……… GIMME 👀 Also where the early episodes aren’t a nightmare to listen to 🙏 I have never listened to any other DnD podcasts, and I think it’s mostly bc the earlier seasons are always poor audio quality or like 3 hours long 😭 I’m also good with any type of narrative podcast. I just want compelling characters and platonic/familial dynamics pls. Stuff I can write sad shit about!! But also not TOO sad the whole time… maybe a little bit silly idk

So far, ones I’ve written down to listen to are Cast Party and Friends at the Table? I don’t know anything about either of them, though so? Also I keep seeing my mutuals posting Oxventure and Woe.Begone (although the latter isn’t a DnD podcast.. I think?) sooooo let me know your thoughts. And recommendations! Send me your propaganda! Tell me about your blorbos

[liuisi]

no actually im forever salty about we hunt the flame because it got touted as such good representation and then you read it and its just bad. a book written by an arab author does not good representation make!