thegirlwiththelantern

[thegirlwiththelantern]

A Stunning Compendium of the Cosmos is Coming 🧡 📖

We're thrilled to announce that Dark Horse Comics will release a collected volume of three comic tales from MIDST in one gorgeous volume on August 12, 2025!

Pre-order now wherever mind-bending comics can be found!

[thegirlwiththelantern]

Just read The Strange Case of Harley and Harleen and my god I needed a little bit of positive plurality in my life this week.

The way Pam and Harl's relationship adapts to accept the Harley/Harleen split makes my heart swell.

The way Pam sees the difference between her girlfriends.

And assures her that she accepts and loves all sides of her.

And does what she can to accommodate Harleen's memory holes.

The core relationship of this book is just so sweet and positive in accepting things as they are without judgment or pushing. Just acceptance and love.

And after finding that in our own life, I know what a powerfully positive thing it can be.

But the Harley/Harleen relationship is well handled too. There's friction and denial at the start but the two develop and trust one another by the end and Harley takes a seat as my favorite kind of character, the morally ambiguous protector.

I love the way Harley's protectiveness of Harleen is depicted and how she tries so hard to keep her from interacting with the criminal underworld of Gotham.

It's just saccharine and kind.

Highly recommend the book to anyone who just wants soft and kind plurality vibes. Heaven knows the majority of the fiction involving split personalities are flooded with angst and darkness and though this book contains a few dark plot beats like DV it never feels painful or sorrow inducing.

I'm so happy I read it.

[thegirlwiththelantern]

WWW Wednesday | 8 January

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Sam of Taking On a World of Words. To take part you answer three questions, which are: What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next? 📖 What did you recently finish reading? Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution by Tania Branigan An indelible exploration of the Cultural Revolution and how…

[thegirlwiththelantern]

@oneringnet  — kings and queens the lord of silver fountains, king of carven stone the king beneath the mountain shall come into his own and the bells shall ring in gladness, at the mountain king’s return, but all shall fail in sadness, and the lake will shine and burn

[thegirlwiththelantern]

[thegirlwiththelantern]

I was at a bookstore looking through the art section and I saw a spine that said The Camden Town Nudes which was interesting because this didn’t seem like the bookstore where I would ever find something like that and I wanted to have a casual look but like. This also wasn’t exactly the bookstore where you felt like you could look at naked pictures let alone just suggestive paintings of them, it’s a really small shop as well, so I was like right I’ll just take a quick peek, I’m an art student, I love history, maybe I’ll buy it. I looked both ways and saw the shopkeep had left momentarily and no one was about, so I opened it and found it was an entire book featuring nude Edwardian women all painted by Walter Sickert between 1905-1912 and it was actually quite a revolutionary set of paintings for its time given that it featured very raw depictions of working class nude women in dark London instead of the elegant, white bedsheet clad, Demure middle and upper class women usually depicted.

And of course RIGHT as I flip to this lady’s boobs practically taking up an entire double page spread, every customer in a 5 mile radius appeared from around the corners of the shelf including the shopkeep and immediately regressing to a wet, pathetic Edwardian man from 1908, startled, I dropped the large book which caused a giant SLAP on the floor in this already silent store thus causing all patrons to look down at me scrambling on my knees to close a giant book of Edwardian boobs and let me tell you it would not have been nearly as funny had I not immediately felt like some Edwardian local pervert who just tried to sneak a cheeky peek at the erotic book in the bookstore only to drop it dramatically causing a scene, red up to his ears trying to shove it back on the shelf. Like such a casual and normal thing in modern day but looking at Edwardian women suddenly turned it into this egregious act as I apparently became possessed by the spirit of a moustached man in a bowler hat and morning coat going Good Heavens I mustn’t gaze upon these images in public lest the constable haul me away!

[thegirlwiththelantern]

Bookish Quests for 2025

I love the new year. I love the sense and excitement of beginning. This year more than most. I have big ambitions for this year and while they’re not necessarily going to live on this blog, I’m not going to let my work here slip either. I’m determined to keep to a minimum of four posts a week. Despite my continued streak of losses, I’ve chosen to up my goal of 400 to 500 books. Because of who I…

[thegirlwiththelantern]

Rainy Season Hero: Froppy ★ Uravity

[thegirlwiththelantern]

We're back with our start-of-the-year Damaged Book Sale! Head over to quindriepress.com to browse our comics catalogue and pick up some battered books for up to 50% off their usual price! 🐉

Background art by @bethfuller Illustration by @rdkieran

[thegirlwiththelantern]

New Danmei Publisher: Hai Tang Books

HEYO HAPPY SATURDAY THERE'S A NEW DANMEI PUBLISHER!

Hai Tang Books, a division of Hong Kong business Cherry-apple Cultural and Creative Limited, has formed in Flushing, NY, and announced multiple danmei licenses. Books will be in print and e-book as far as I can tell (EDITED: NO, it's looking like print-books only probably), and are licensed for distribution in the United States and Canada only.

Their website, Hai Tang Books, currently has a "down for maintenance" notice, but it was up earlier and multiple screen caps and such reflect the list of announced licenses (such as here on reddit and this post on bluesky.) There's also a list on Novel Updates.

Licensed Titles Are:

A Certain Someone (Moumou) by Mu Su Li

Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know (Mozun Ye Xiang Zhidao) by Cyan Wings

Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating (Wanglian Fanche Zhinan) by Jiang Zi Bei

I Can Do It (Wo Xing Rang Wo Lai) by Jiang Zi Bei

Mist (Bowu) by Wei Feng Ji Xu

Don't Pick Up Boyfriends From the Trash Bin (Buyao Zai Lajitongli Jian Nanpengyou) by Qi Jing Nan Qu

Marrying a Demon (Jia Mo) by Yang Su

The Approach/Descent From an Altitude of 10,000 Meters (Cong Wanmi Gaokong Jianglin) by La Rive Gauche

The Blue Dust Trilogy (Qianlan Huoxing) by Chu Tu

They've even shared some art:

I Can Do It:

Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating:

DVAWTK:

LOOK AT LITTLE YIN HANJIANG. LOOK AT HIIIIM *sob*

(Image source: https://bsky.app/profile/skyarise.bsky.social/post/3ldafjvvc2k2w)

Anyway. Very exciting morning in the danmei world!!!

[thegirlwiththelantern]

You know, I'm somewhat of a literary analyst myself

[thegirlwiththelantern]

2025 Manga

A more shounen orientated list. To start the year out with a bang! But this isn’t an over-eager compilation. I have two more lists featuring manga in my drafts currently and I’m very excited to share them with you. There were a few series I was pleasantly surprised to find are currently ongoing (or the translation is, at least). Once again, however, Yen Press is the only publisher to name…

[thegirlwiththelantern]

Cover illustration for Tusk Love, a Critical Role novel by Thea Guanzon and published by Penguin Random House. AD: Ella Laytham and David Stevenson

[thegirlwiththelantern]

The only people in the novel Dracula who aren't having the worst time of their life are the guys who moved the earth boxes because they have consistently gotten free drinks from the random lawyer who's very interested the boxes.

[thegirlwiththelantern]

Exploring Gothic Horror Themes in Yelen & Yelena

YELEN & YELENA has several Gothic Horror elements. I’m going to provide some moderately spoiler-free examples below, then do a deep dive into some of the stronger horror themes/examples. Sensuality, love and loss bound up together in an eerie, haunting setting An isolated castle in the rot-infested forest Unnatural and uncanny situations (where the familiar becomes unfamiliar, e.g. discovering…

[thegirlwiththelantern]

Like genuinely I think people need to take their complaints, literally any of them (preferably all of them. Not necessarily because they’re all wrong but because this is good practice regardless) and just…. Think them through

Instead of just gut reacting to it and deciding it’s bad or a mistake think about it as a decision and think about WHY it might have been made.

Assume it’s deliberate. Assume the writers knew what they were doing. Assume the writers understand the relevant topics. That may not be all true, but for the moment assume it is anyway.

Why would they choose to do this?

What could it imply about the character who is doing this?

What could it imply about the thing being done?

If it contradicts something previously mentioned, think about why that could be. Which source is more trustworthy? Why would one of them be wrong? Is one wrong, or could something have changed?

If it doesn’t seem to match that persons characterisation, think about why it might be different. Has something happened to them? Would that have changed them this way? Or are they acting like this for another reason? Is that even them?

Sometimes you go through all this and the answer is still that it’s bad writing. Sometimes you come out with new complaints. The point is not to defend every writing choice being made, the point is that you have considered it, and properly thought about what reasons there might have been behind that decision.

I have seen so many deliberate writing decisions made to convey something to the audience being written off as bad writing because people don’t stop to think about the reasons why something was done a certain way. You’ll have a much better experience with media if you go into it with an open mind, willing to consider what the writer is trying to convey, instead of going into it looking for bad writing to complain about and never thinking about something beyond the surface level.

[thegirlwiththelantern]

Are we ready for some backlash-to-the-backlash on love triangles yet?

Like, fandom ship wars are, make no mistake, insufferable, but love triangles as a narrative element are--like every other literary device--good when they're good and bad when they're bad. I like a good throuple as much as anybody, but sometimes the fact that there's a conflict going on over what shape the developing romance will take is the whole point, and if you immediately swap that conflict out for a threesome, you're not left with much in the way of story.