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azulaaaaaaah · 1 month

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rating every zuko ship (cause that mf is shipped with everyone)

CLICKBAIT!!! this isn’t every zuko ship just the main ones i immediately lied lol. idk if any of these are hot takes or not but please don’t crucify me (might do a part 2 where it’s azula ships)

Jinko - Zuko/Jin

6/10

awwww it’s cute (for what it is)

and what it is was one singular date that was never really mentioned again

i really appreciate how jin is so unperturbed by zuko’s awkward angst and just genuinely likes him

howevvver she’s kinda one dimensional (as she’s only in like an episode) and i just don’t see this going anywhere longterm

less a ship, more a vehicle for zuko’s character development lol

Jetko- Zuko/Jet

3/10

jet being zuko’s first gay encounter is canon in my eyes

don’t ship them however cause i hate jet with the fire of a thousands suns

similar issues to jin as well where their interactions are extremely limited so personally have no clue how this could be a long term thing

Maiko- Zuko/Mai

5/10

i am so impartial on this ship it’s not even funny.

i get that it’s canon. i get that izumi looks suspiciously like mai so it’s endgame. i just don’t see HOW?? it feels as if the writers realised zutara was becoming popular and were like ‘OH SHIT WE GOTTA DEFUSE THIS SITUATION SOMEHOW’

their relationship is basically just mai being a cold asshole and zuko being an angry asshole and there’s no change or development between EITHER OF THEM

however when they’re cute they’re cute !!!!

‘i love zuko more than i fear you’ COLDEST LINE EVER

however again it’s like - you had a crush on him as a kid. he was BANISHED. you dated for like a month as teens. you argued the whole time. he left again- and shortly after you saved him from prison, but then you were imprisoned partly due to his actions. you get back together again, he becomes the ruler of a country, and then you’re surprised it’s isolating him/making him even more of an asshole???

on the other hand we as a society need to admit that zuko is weirdly possessive of her (ig that’s a positive if ur a booktok romance girlie but im not). like if i was mai i wouldn’t put up with that toxic shit either

at the end of the day, i honestly don’t care that they’re canon lol- but i think they’d probably best as a bitchy best friend duo

Zukaang - Zuko/Aang

1/10

not round here partner. not round here

my first issue is the age gap is objectively extremely weird if examined in canon. leaving it at that

i get that this is grumpy x sunshine in a way the other ships aren’t to me- but we’ve only ever seen these two characters interact with each other when there’s (again) A WEIRD AGE GAP

they are bros in the least homosexual way possible

the cherry on top of this situation is: isn’t aang the reincarnation of his great grandpa? isn’t that giving slight, uh, inc*st vibes??? imagine if people shipped korra and jinora isn’t that just WEIRD???

Zuki - Zuko/Suki

8/10

is this my most controversial take ???

i am a sucker for bodyguard x royal family dynamics guys

and the fact that this is girlboss x malewife is even BETTER

suki seems the most competent at handling his pissy ass in a way the other people on this list aren’t

like she’s real. she’s not sugarcoating his situation, BUT SHES COMPASSIONATE !!

i don’t like throuples typically but suzukki is even eliter than this, which removes the whole ‘going against the bro code’ element that arises from them being together

also i feel like if you haven’t read the comics this doesnt make sense At All so please do

-2 points for the lack of tangible reason to ship them lol

Zutara - Zuko/Katara

7.5/10

okay this one makes the most logistical sense to me within canon (solely examined as a zuko ship not overall)

it really seems as if they were gonna make this canon and swerved circa book 2

LIKE CMONNNN OG ENEMIES TO LOVERS WHERE THE GUY ACTUALLY HAS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND ISN’T JUST EVIL? FIRE X WATER? ITS INTRIGUING

something about this makes me uncomfortable though. (despite the age gap which again a little weird)

something about katara potentially becoming the fire lady is so… icky. she’s a waterbender. the fire nation tried to systematically erase her kind. her mother is killed by the fire nation because they think she’s a waterbender. and katara…. what, becomes part of the royal family? it just seems wrong, and like something she wouldn’t be into

also i feel like their arguments would be a little too NUCLEAR. there’s like, a 50% chance of divorce

she deserves a better ending than that is all i’m saying

to paraphrase the hunger games: katara has plenty of fire herself. SHE NEEDS THAT DANDELION IN THE SPRING MAN

(i’m a kataang truther)

Zukka - Zuko/Sokka

9/10

my zuko related otp!!!

bros to lovers guys, where zuko falls first but sokka falls HARDER !!!

ik this will never be canon and im happy with that. i know there’s not even a whisper of romance between them in the show, but i just think it’s c u t e .

sokka (like suki) is very likely to call zuko out on his shit, but less likely to lose his own shit (like katara)

this in my heart of hearts is 10/10 however is still problematic in a similar way to zutara

his mother is killed by the fire nation and he (presumably) becomes consort ?

however though, i would still say it’s not as ruhroh as zutara bc firstly, sokka isn’t a waterbender, and secondly, ‘consort’ is a lot more open to interpretation than i think fire lady is. in my opinion a consort ≠ a fire lady, just like irl a consort ≠ a queen. it kinda means he can still be ambassador to the southern water tribe/a leader of his own people, while just so happening to be married to the fire lord.

overall i can’t help but stan a friends to lover ship cmOn now

#atla #avatar the last airbender #zutara #zukka #maiko #jetko #jinko #zukaang #zuki #zuko #aang #katara #suki #sokka #shipping discourse #shitpost #kataang

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lollytea · 4 months

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emily wilde is SO good im just some stranger on the internet but i love both books theyre so so good i am also a hater of "arrogant guy is hot i hate him...unless?" and booktok "fav" books but i promise its not actually like that at all and theyre actually a pretty cute relationship :D also. if u love autistic coded characters the mc is SO coded shes so fun

I'm listening I'm hearing you and I'm putting this information in my pocket. Agsvjnk I don't objectively hate the very concept of a love interest being a bit of a dipshit, I think it can be very fun sometimes, I just don't like the way it's executed in those books that are written with a fanfic trope checklist in mind. If I hear its done well I'm like :D!!!

Also YAY I love autism, gotta be one of my favourite genders!!

#next time i see that book im gonna grabby grabby

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checkoutmybookshelf · 3 months

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How is Faerie Smut Not Its Own Genre at This Point???

Ok, I've been on a faerie kick again lately, and I have just finished reading ACOTAR with a friend because he had started it and noped out, but agreed to try it again with me because he's the best. Like Fourth Wing, this book is a white girl BookTok darling, which means that the hype around this books peaks at "THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN AAAAAAAAAAAAAA" and "THIS BOOK IS THE WORST THING EVER WRITTEN AAAAAAAAAAAAA."

Y'all...this book is fine. It's aggressively fine. I think it has pacing and plotting issues, and it is absolutely oversold in terms of spice, but I didn't hate it, and there were bits that were fun. I would not kick this book out of bed. (I might kick it out of my classroom if I was teaching, but that's a separate issue.) Let's talk A Court of Thorns and Roses.

Spoiler warning here, because this book and series has been memed to hell and back, and I do not feel like avoiding spoilers is necessary. So SPPOILERS BELOW THE BREAK. Consider yourself warned.

Ok, so first thing's first: I like a good faerie story. I like a good scary faerie. And I am a wee bit of a sucker for a sappy love story once in a while. ACOTAR has all three of those, so objectively this book was fun. It hit some good beats for me, and I was not objectively opposed to faerie smut. Faeries are very flexible, they work in a surprising number of contexts--not to mention that the jump from "my boyfriend is a monster" to "my boyfriend is a high fae lord" is less of a jump and more of a sideways step. So just on paper, ACOTAR wasn't a hard sell for me.

For those of you who have been following my reviews--specifically the Artemis Fowl ones--you'll be happy to hear that Amarantha has been added to the Hall of Unnecessarily Extra Lady Villains with Opal Koboi and Semihrage. I am HERE for Amarantha girlbossing her way to absolute power while wearing the eye and finger bone of the dude she brutally murdered on the way up. I'm also a fan of her TRULY EPIC tantrum once Feyre has murdered two faeries, attempted murdered Tamlin and solved the goddamn riddle at the LAST POSSIBLE SECOND.

(And no, I'm still not over my John Oliver pitching a fit over the solution to the Da Vinci Code being apple levels of fury about THAT...but I digress.)

Amarantha fully leans into toxic girlbossing and just has FUN with it, and I'm never not here for that.

I also appreciated the little tweak of the Aos Si tradition of fairy hills and fairy mounds and fairy barrows into being under the mountain. Like, yes, that mountain is fae as HELL and I'm here for it. That was a nice little addition to the lore, and there's something about having an entire mountain above their heads that made Amarantha's court feel even more oppressive. I'm not sure how it managed not to feel like Khazad Dum, but it didn't, which was excellent.

The other thing I really liked was that the faeries in this series had a very clear sense of danger to them. No candy floss Disney Fairies here, the high fae are DANGEROUS and you can really and truly be fucked if you aren't fully on your game and know all the rules PLUS have a doctorate in rules-lawyering immortal beings. And even then, you could miss something and end up horribly murdered. Between Amarantha, the Night Court in general, the Attor, the Suriel, and the bogge, there was plenty of ambient danger around for our little human protagonist out of her depth.

The problems with this book for me were the aforementioned pacing and plotting problems, and also the romance. Let's take these one by one.

I think it's pretty well known that the last hundred-odd pages of Sarah J Maas books are where the action is, and while that can work for books (it worked beautifully for To Shape a Dragon's Breath), I wasn't buying it for ACOTAR. Feyre's time at the Spring Court draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagged for me, and honestly I would have been happy with about a third of that timeframe. There was also some dragginess in the pacing under the mountain between the trials. A month between trials was just too long, and the time was not well-filled. A week. Just give it a week, you get the same bits between, and I'm not over here going "Why is this taking SO LONG??"

The pacing issues are at least a little exacerbated by the plotting issues. The first like...two-thirds of this book is a weird speedrun of a slow-burn Beauty and the Beast, except that Feyre isn't actually genre-savvy enough to KNOW that's what's happening, and the curse deadline actually passes (with everyone somehow blaming Feyre for this????) before anyone fills Feyre in on the fact that there was a curse in play at all. Then the last third of the book speedruns cursebreaking. Which was actually more interesting than "Feyre just kinda hangs out in a faerie castle for a few months," but very much felt like a completely different book.

Finally, we have the romance issues. And please, as y'all go into this, remember that I have a PhD in English and Film, and I have more life experience than your average 15-year-old who is inhaling this book. I am not the target demographic. Disclaimer out of the way...WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???? Feyre spends more time with Lucien than Tamlin at the Spring Court, Lucien is the one who checks on her in her cell in under the mountain (yes, I know they explained it in the text, but it was a weak explanation and frankly, Tamlin could have TRIED), and then she spends a weird amount of time with Rhysand under the mountain, even if she doesn't remember most of it. She didn't have TIME to fall in love with Tamlin. I kind of hate to say this, but there was a huge sense of "You love the IDEA of him, sweetie" while I was reading. Not to mention that she kept flip-flopping on Tamlin while she was under the mountain. While he was physically in her line of sight she was all "I love this fae" but the second she's not looking at him, it's like he barely exists. Was this just an object permanence problem??? Like...Feyre, sweetie. I'm happy if you're happy, but you have not spent enough time with this man. You're just horny for the idea of him.

I also want to just...morally object to everyone BLAMING FEYRE for not knowing there was a curse? Like, even Belle knew that there was a curse in play, she was not expected to just...intuit that the Beast and castle were cursed. Like ten people told her about the curse. And I don't care that part of the curse was that nobody could tell Feyre, that did NOT serve the story.

The last weird thing I want to morally object to is everyone shaming Feyre for her illiteracy. Kids not having the opportunity to pursue education is a tragedy, but WE DO NOT SHAME THEM FOR IT. Feyre gets shit from EVERYONE about this, and the second trial hinging on an assumption that she can read just really hammered the "you are bad for not being able to read" home in the weirdest way. Just...What the hell???

All of that said, I want to reiterate that I would not kick this book out of bed. It has its problems, but I was indeed entertained--at least enough to finish the book. And full disclosure, my reading buddy and I are going to start ACOMAF next, so we're apparently hooked. And yes, you will eventually get a review of that one too!

#acotar #acotar spoilers #a court of thorns and roses #sarah j maas #feyre #tamlin #lucien acotar #rhysand #amarantha #faeries #fairies #ya fantasy #fantasy novel #books and reading #books #books and novels #books & libraries #book recommendations

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thecrenellations · 5 months

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okay, trying to go for at least one answer that’s funny because it’s extremely expected and one that’s funny because it’s unexpected???

2 3 6 12 21 25

these are the questions.

I think you succeeded, my anonymous inquisitor! (I laughed/smiled when I read the questions.)

2. Did you reread anything? What? YES, I DID! I was going to provide some numbers for this and got a little lost in the details, but half of the individual books I read this year were ones I've read before, I read some of those books (Lion Hunters) multiple times, and then I went and reread a bunch of the ones that were new to me, especially the Lymond Chronicles! The Game of Kings wins, I think. No, I know. I love rereading, and my favorite stories are the kind that make me love it more!

3. What were your top five books of the year? In alphabetical order, with an only-one-book-per-series restriction and my apologies to a few books I liked nearly as much or the same amount as these ones: The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett, He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan, The Legend of Auntie Po by Shing Yin Khor, A Power Unbound by Freya Marske, and Stateless by Elizabeth Wein.

6. Was there anything you meant to read but never got to? I should have thought to split up my answers, but yes! I remembered a few of the nonfiction ones: The Power of Babel by John McWhorter, Ducks by Kate Beaton, Caring For Your Books by Michael Dirda, Karachi Vice by Samira Shackle, and a biography of John Gielgud

12. Any books that disappointed you? Certain aspects of the Lymond Chronicles, the new-reading highlight of my year, disappointed me in ways that I have also found deeply interesting to talk and think about, and I felt that Wild Maps for Curious Minds: 100 New Ways to See the Natural World did not quite deserve its title. Get wilder and more curious!

21. Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama? These questions are from 2019, so I suppose they predate booktok becoming a major thing! But I certainly watched Claire run around Schuler books and, dramatically, cause The Thief and Code Name Verity to sell out!

At @red-sea-itinerary, the capital of booklr, our polls have been very dramatic, and an author has weighed in. We should all remember Abreha's palace's water clock. Nearly everyone prefers coffee with Turunesh over kingship and no one thinks Medraut should have the latter. Birds. And Telemakos is taller than Lleu!!!

25. What reading goals do you have for next year? To get around to a few of those books in 6, to read more nonfiction (I think trying more via audiobook would help), to read more diversely in terms of authors (including time periods), and to read another series that's new to me! Maybe to help poke a certain loose book club into meeting again? To have fun and escape and think and learn. Reading was enough of a challenge during and after college that I still feel delighted and grateful that I've been reading regularly and finding new books I love. :)

#thanks for asking!#GoK was at 4 proper reads and then i went and revisited a whole lot of my favorite scenes on saturday night so who knows honestly #;)#runners up for the top five question are system collapse and this is how you lose the time war #i thought i'd read other ever afters in 2023 but in fact it was last december!#still under a year ago i suppose #and i think the other lymond that would make the list is Pawn in Frankincense?#also i really feel like i'm forgetting books people i know have read and talked about this year #that i've been interested in reading #perhaps they will return #questions

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this-was-a-terrible-idea · 6 months

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hello again <3

1, 5, 8, 10 + 11 if you do, 14 y 27!

<3 <3 <3 thank you for asking again!!! ily

1) what’s your favorite book you’ve read so far this year? does the answer differ whether it’s your favorite in terms of enjoyment, quality, or message? Vicious by V.E. Schwab! its so fucking good dude it had me HOOKED and im rereading it already. no changes in the answer, it is all around my favorite from this year

5) have you dnf’d any books this year? yes 😭 it was a sports romance that gave me psychic damage and i dnf'd at 51%

8) what’s a book you want to read by the end of the year? a few!!! Chalice of the Gods by Rick Riordan (tbh i just need to get it out of my backpack and sit down with it for two hours so that should be easy), Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey (i keep renewing my loan on this in Libby and its driving me nuts that i haven't finished it yet), A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers (bc i need a cathartic read to round off the year)

10) do you annotate your books, and if so, do you annotate only specific books or all of them? i'm only just starting to annotate, and only some books!! i've got this thing where i don't want to "ruin" a book but @bi-bats was telling me about how they see annotations and it kinda changed my mind. so far i've only annotated the copy of The Lightning Thief that i used for book club and i'm working on annotating Vicious for @bi-bats (the fact that it's not done yet is stressing me out but it WILL get done)

11) how do you annotate your book? (pencil, pen, tabs, highlighters, etc.; what do you write?) highlighter preferably, with pen underlines! i didn't have highlighters with me when i started annotating Vicious so its got different colored fine tip marker underlines, color coded per person. i mostly just underline things that stand out, and add exclamation marks and things like "he's so unwell" (that one's Vicious specific haha)

14) what’s your favorite adaptation of a book? The Martian (2015) is both one of my favorite movies AND a great adaptation of the book imo!

27) any “unpopular” book opinions? uhhhh suddenly i've forgotten all popular and unpopular book opinions. um, i don't really like a majority of booktok recs?? OH here's one: i think that booktok has done a great deal of damage to book reviews and book review videos specifically. book review videos used to be thought out and give reasons why the reviewer liked or didn't like something, and now the majority of "book review" videos i see are just a list of books with a rating and no explanations and that drives me nuts. i wanna know WHY you liked or didn't like the book, not just a number of stars. especially since everybody's star review criteria is different 😩

ask me different book-related questions!

#thank you for asking!!!#i love ask games #ask game #bean speaks

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txxfiles · 4 months

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an introduction and some books

hi hotties!

the idea for this blog came from the twisted fantasy of my three closest friends and i as a way of producing something collaborative and creative without submitting ourselves to the mortifying ordeal of being known. we all get a fun little code name (i'm ruminating on magnolia, which i like but also think is a bit wanky in a way that i can't reconcile myself with spiritually just yet) and a week of the month to post whatever we want. the idea was essentially to create a platform where we get to talk uninterrupted shit about anything we want to because it’s our fucking blog, goddamit, and you’re not going to come onto our blog and tell us how to post.

and so, to kick things off, i am going to be talking about my favourite books of 2023 because i am cultured and sophisticated and definitely didn’t spend the first half of the year drowning in fae romantasy smut in an attempt to feel something. if you don’t like any of these books don’t tell me because i simply don’t care!! xoxo

non-fiction favourite - the anthropocene reviewed, john green

i spent 2023 working very hard to reprogramme my misanthropic brain, and this book was a huge part of what allowed me to do that. i’m still by no means cured of my hater tendencies, but this book was a beautifully tender examination of that little spark of humanity that connects us all, and the numerous ways in which it has manifested throughout human history and across the borders of nationality, age, and gender. green somehow manages to weave in his own life experiences in a way that avoids being preachy or self-aggrandising in a way that i think a lot of non-fiction writers really struggle with - i’d also highly recommend consuming this in audiobook form as his narration really made the experience for me.

fantasy favourite - a court of silver flames, sarah j maas

if you read this and immediately want to start lecturing me on how booktok is ruining the fantasy genre please know that im manifesting your downfall as we speak. i have my own issues with the flattening of the fantasy genre that takes place on tiktok, but the acotar series is a sugary, pulpy delight and this spinoff novel is where, in my humble opinion, it really hits its peak. as you can probably tell just by reading this, i am what is affectionately known as ‘a prickly unfriendly bitch’ in my day-to-day life, and i love seeing characters who represent me in a way that doesn’t glamourise being an unkind person - and nesta in this book is someone whose tendency to push people away isn’t justified or apologised for, and whose growth i found legitimately inspiring. also i’m still waiting for sarah j maas to stop teasing a dp scene and actually write it, the coward.

sci-fi favourite - the arc of a scythe trilogy, neal schusterman

this trilogy rocked me to my fucking core, bitch. this was another audiobook read from early 2023 and it’s one of the better pieces of speculative fiction i’ve ever encountered. schusterman pulls off some really complicated and in-depth worldbuilding in a way that doesn’t feel like i’m reading an instruction manual - something that’s genuinely hard to do in this genre - and the series only gets better as it goes. as someone who is profoundly afraid of artificial intelligence this offered a perspective on ai that i’ve not really seen in media before now - and i will also be thinking about my pookie scythe lucifer for ever and ever amen.

lit fic favourite - all the names they used for god, anjali sachdeva

i’m actually not going to talk about this one too much because it’s quite a difficult book to explain without giving away too much - not in a spoiler sense, but in a 'this is an experience that you need to go into with an open mind' sense. this is a collection of short stories that play with genre, setting, and character to tell a series of profound stories about the human struggle with fate and the pursuit of meaning. sachdeva manages to build such engrossing and vibrant worlds in the limited space she allows herself for each story - and she avoided the pitfall i find that a lot of short story anthologies fall into where you can very clearly tell that the writer had one story they desperately wanted to publish and wrote the rest as a way of filling up space for a full book.

well, those are some of my 2023 faves. i have a million honourable mentions but i’m not going to put them here because i’ve already written way too much. i’m not sure who’s taking over the reins for week 2 of this little blog experiment but be sure to give them a kiss on the forehead from me!

yours,

magnolia

#magnolia

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astrababyy · 1 year

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You know that video has points and all, but SJM herself isn’t sympathetic toward the characters she doesn’t like, and it shows through her writing, making it impossible for readers to “pass the test”. If it really was like that, Tamlin would not be as hated as he is because his character wouldn’t have been destroyed. Nesta wouldn’t be as hated. Again, the video has good points, but I feel like it’s also giving SJM prep that she doesn’t deserve since she doesn’t plan anything or think of anything without a Rhys lens on

i 100% agree, anon. i reblogged the video because of its emphasis on empathy in comparison to the other characters. i don’t personally believe sjm intended for it to be written in the way that booktokker (booktoker?) intended, but i do think the lessons and themes of empathy that the op was focusing on is a really good point overall.

people only want to see suffering when it fits in a neat little box. they never want the ugly sides of it, and they don’t know how to practice empathy towards that version of it that’s not glorified in media. it’s honestly really harmful towards real people. i think that, in itself, is a flaw that spans throughout the entire fandom, regardless of who they like and dislike.

i think i’m guilty of it too — that a lot of people identify with these characters and the lack of empathy acotar fans (and fans in other fandoms) display can be really hurtful. the main flaw in this series is that there’s no real, genuine consequences for having those flaws for a lot of characters. whereas other characters have their flaws blown so out of proportion that we’ve got people in this fandom who like them out of pure spite to the canon narrative.

sjm is capable of writing sympathy for other characters, i think. but she has a very skewed moral code in these books. i can’t say whether that reflects her as a person, but it’s a pretty loud indicator in her stories.

fans of these books definitely give her more credit than i believe she’s due. we see all these theories and ideas and headcanon, and so many people have this huge faith in sjm to make this series phenomenal. it’s kind of sad. i’ve come across stans who genuinely still like her stories but have become disenchanted with her skills as a writer, no longer trusting her to come through with good stories with these characters they’ve fallen in love with.

this post really went off the rails. sorry, anon. anyway, you’re right in that the tiktok i reblogged gave her way more credit than i think she’s due. but that’s not to say she doesn’t make good points on how little empathy this fandom seems capable of displaying, especially towards characters like nesta who isn’t perfect nor is her trauma pretty.

#anti sjm #sjm critical #nesta archeron #pro nesta #acotar fandom #anti acotar fandom #astrababyy #astrababyy asks

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monstrousgourmandizingcats · 1 year

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11, 15, 19? For the book asks

11. what non-fiction books do you like if any?

I read a lot of history and philosophy/theology, mostly for work these days but for fun as well. I also like books by ethnographers and folklorists.

15. recommend and review a book.

Mansfield Park, which I'm currently reading, is apparently out of favor among serious Janeites these days, but as a more casual Austen enjoyer I'm actually finding its gloominess and willingness to entertain incredibly upsetting issues refreshing. The slavery stuff only overtly comes up once but is fucking everywhere in coded form, and Fanny Price and Mary Crawford make an incredibly compelling exploration of different coping mechanisms for very similar abusive backgrounds.

19. most disliked popular books?

ooooooh boy. Well, I have a pretty low view of the BookTok Industrial Complex and the overlapping-but-separate Colleen Hoover Industrial Complex, but that's low-hanging fruit. I hated The Wild Geese when I read it in undergrad and it bored me so much that I don't even remember what I hated so much. Mrs Dalloway rubbed me the wrong way because of the creepy valorization of suicide, and The Old Man and the Sea felt ten times longer than it actually is (I say this as someone who doesn't hate Hemingway in general quite as much as is currently fashionable).

book asks:

#give me love give me memes #books #reading #anonymous #tw suicide mention

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yeetbean · 1 year

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screaming, crying, AND throwing up please stop fucking acting like book covers telling you what genre they are by the general style isnt THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF A BOOK COVER. its not a bug its a feature. its literally how the entire book cover industry works and it helps readers and authors alike find what theyre looking for. They tell readers "hey i know the conventions of the genre this cover is coded as and you can expect me to follow them." such as all romance novels requiring HEA, but it goes even deeper than that because there are niche subgenres that have their own style on top of the genre style and authors use them to advertise that their book has those things.

if a dark romance novel has a regular romance looking cover instead of one more suited to the style of book, then regular romance readers will hate it and dark romance readers wont find it because they know how they feel about regular romance novels.

and this has been helping you pick books you like and avoid ones you wont based on a glance for as long as books have had pictures on the cover. probably.

look at all those romcom covers on booktok. you immediately know the genre just by the title and cover. this is useful for everyone involved. this is intended. im so fucking tired

#i have such strong opinions about this and most of them are 'stop being stupid' and things looking similar ISNT A FLAW #audgdgsgsvdnfmfn

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spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub · 2 years

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SO’s Bookclub: The Inheritance Games

So - this year, I’m trying to have at least one general read a month - something that is not a part of any of my challenges, just to make sure I’m getting in a variety of stuff (and reading all the things that are collecting dust on my shelves!).

Title: The Inheritance Games Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes Genre: YA Mystery/Thriller

Goodreads Summary:

Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why--or even who Tobias Hawthorne is. To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man's touch--and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes. Unfortunately for Avery, Hawthorne House is also occupied by the family that Tobias Hawthorne just dispossessed. This includes the four Hawthorne grandsons: dangerous, magnetic, brilliant boys who grew up with every expectation that one day, they would inherit billions. Heir apparent Grayson Hawthorne is convinced that Avery must be a con-woman, and he's determined to take her down. His brother, Jameson, views her as their grandfather's last hurrah: a twisted riddle, a puzzle to be solved. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege, with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive.

Review:

So, I may have read this book in, collectively, five hours. ;) I’ve clearly been on a mystery kick lately, and since this one has been so popular on Booktok (I’m not on Booktok - but having a full display of it at work - I’m well aware of what’s on it) that I felt like I should pick it up. Having finished Maureen Johnson’s YA mystery trio last year - this feels like a perfect ‘if you like this read that’ kind of story. Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s writing is a bit different (not in a bad way) but these stories kind of have that same kind of YA mystery genre feel to them.

I was told that this book is a lot like a mix between the film Knives Out and The Westing Game. And while I can definitely see the influences of those works, I really wouldn’t say this book is either of those. This book is more so about a teenage girl, Avery, who gets zapped into the world of rich people and ends up in the middle of four very hot, rich, teenage boys with, you know, all the YA problems that come with that.

There are a few mysteries that keep the plot going - and while they’re fun to follow, they aren’t really puzzle mysteries that the audience can figure out as they go along. (I will say - on the second page, I definitely called one twist.) And one mystery in particular is just the tired trope of withholding information until the plot needs it revealed. But the overarching mystery that apparently is going to span three books -- the why of the whole thing, is actually fun, though, and works as a nice backdrop as Avery weaves her way in and out of the lives of the four boys.

Yes, this book is a bit melodramatic at times, and the plot strains credulity at times. But you know what - I had a lot of fun with it. The characters (while being a little stock at times) are charming and ridiculous, and it’s everything you want in a mystery-slash-drama aimed at teenagers. Avery as a main character isn’t frustratingly annoying in the way I often find YA protagonists. And even though she finds herself in the middle of the tired and true YA love triangle (the boys, omg, are such tropes) - the book is having so much fun with its plot that it doesn’t feel as cumbersome to the story.

The writing is pretty good, and the book moves along pretty quickly. (There are 91 chapters for a 400 pg book. Yeah.) And the subject material never gets too intense -- definitely something a younger teen could enjoy as much as an older one. There’s not anything profoundly new to find in this story, but damn if it isn’t entertaining, and I’m looking forward to reading the sequel.

A solid recommendation from me.

Rating: 3.75 Stars

#sbc bookclub #the inheritance games

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aknosde · 3 years

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Fátima I’ll have you know that I wasn’t actually going to drop all of this but then you told me to and I can’t fucking resist you. This is really long I’m sorry. Percy Jackson tiktok au:

This au is like 99% fluff. The only thing that keeps it from being 100% is that I’m maintaining Percy’s history of child abuse, Annabeth's tenuous relationship with her parents, Leo’s mom’s death, The death of Carter and Sadie’s parents, as well as Hazel’s issues (minus the dying), but these things don’t actually come into play.

As you can deduce above, the characters are Percy, Carter, Sadie, Hazel, Annabeth, and Leo. For the sake of my sanity, they are all sophomores in high school.

Character Histories

Percy and Hazel met when he was five and she was four. Hazel’s mom brought her into Sweet on America while Percy was hanging around Sally. They quickly became inseparable, had playdates most weekends until they could control their own schedules, and at around 8/9 years old they started referring to each other as siblings.

Percy: *standing, having a serious conversation with another child at the park*

Hazel: *climbing him*

Percy: WHy are you doing this? The jungle gym is right over there?

Hazel: *continues to climb him*

Percy: You’re a gremlin *pats her affectionately*

Annabeth and Leo met when they started middle school. Annabeth’s relationship with her father and stepmother has reached a nice area, not perfect, but good, and she doesn’t really talk with her birth mother. Leo’s mom died when he was in fourth grade, he’s fostered by a middle class family, and goes to private school with Annabeth on an academic scholarship.

Leo: –so the problem is that this formula doesn’t work with the diameter of a cylinder but I need...

Annabeth: speak english please

*fifteen minutes later* Annabeth: I think I’ll put vertical supports her, although triangular would be more stable, but according to the building codes...

Leo: I beg of you,,,

Cater and Sadie’s history stays much the same, they were raised separately until Julius died, except he died during a cave in on one of his digs, and Ruby died in a construction accident. (She was walking by when the supports failed) They started living with Amos in eighth grade. Yes, Amos still has a baboon, an alligator, and an indoor basketball court.

Carter: And so that’s why Amos named his baboon Kufu.

Sadie: You are literally the most annoying person alive, can I have your fries?

Carter and Percy met on the subway when they were ten, going to a day camp in the summer while Julius was giving some lectures in the city. They were inseparable for the week, and then didn’t speak to each other for four years.

Hazel’s mom has a few mental illnesses that developed when Hazel was around 10, she’s still present in Hazel’s life, and they live together, but she’s not always all there. Once Gabe is out of the picture Hazel spends a lot of time at the Jacksons’ apartment, enough where she keeps a toothbrush there.

As for Gabe, he remains his normal abusive self. Things come to a climax when Percy is 11/12 after Gabe throws a bottle at him. There’s no reasonable excuse for this, and Sally comes home while Percy’s still crying. Gabe’s dealt with swiftly, but Percy has some scarring on the left side of his face.

Also quick note: in this au Percy is 1/2 black, 1/4 moreno, and 1/4 native american. (Moreno and native from Sally and black from his dad)

Their Accounts

So as in the post that got this all started, Percy’s account is largely Ancient Greek and Roman mythology and history. He also does some stuff for indigenous mythology, but he’s super into the greek and roman stuff. (Insert this meme (it’s the thirteenth one down)) He also does skateboarding and some light gymnastics/parkour/acrobatics.

Hazel is a gymnast. She’s also just super nice and supportive so she makes those motivational videos, but mostly it’s gym stuff and her and Percy hanging out. She’s not quite as popular but she doesn’t really care. She is also the #1 horse girl, and rates horses. Percy would tease her, but he’s also a horse girl.

Sadie does comedy. Some if it’s scripted or little skits, but there’s a lot of her just ranting at her camera. Also her life is just weird (*cough* alligator and baboon *cough*) so people just like to see what she’s doing. Also a theatre kid™, sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Carter gives detailed accounts of every Egyptian myth he thinks is cool (all of them), but he makes more comedic abridged versions too. He’s also known to make videos laying out archeological digs. About a quarter of his videos feature Sadie insulting him in the background.

Leoooooo! He has a lot of comedy, the first video of his to do well was a situational comedy, he always has a sarcastic comment or a bad joke. Most of his stuff now is for robotics. He’s on the robotics team at his and Annabeth’s school, but he does a lot of stuff on the side just making crazy cool contraptions. He has a series of him going scrounging for parts because he doesn’t exactly have the money for a lot of his stuff. Also skateboards occasionally.

Annabeth’s account in verging on booktok. Every time she reads a book she reviews it, and if it’s popular she’ll record herself reading it and put the best clips together. She’s still really into architecture, she talks about it often, shows some of her sketches, and has a series where her followers can pick videos in New York and she’ll go and critique them. Also has some lifestyle videos about staying organized, but only for school stuff because otherwise she’s pretty messy.

Prequel Stuff

Carter and Percy reconnect when they start duetting each other’s mythology busting videos. They have two series together, one on parallels between Greek and Egyptian myths (called Percy and Carter’s Mythological Mashup) and another about hellenistic culture, specifically about Egypt during the Ptolemaic Dynasty. (Working title: Colonizers suck,,, but the Aesthetics)

Them getting closer forms a friend group of Percy, Hazel, Sadie, and Carter, and they hang out most weekends. Their parents are all friends now.

Okay, The Actual Thing

I lied, there’s a prologue: everything starts at the very end of freshman year when Percy posts a video of him, Hazel, Carter, and Sadie at central park. (caption yet to be determined). It ends up on Leo’s fyp and his though process goes something like ‘oh, it’s a bunch of pretty people who aren’t white.’ He follows Percy and forgets about it.

So Leo’s life is going pretty normal, Percy’s videos pop up on his following and for you pages. Nothing really happens until Percy makes a video detailing a type of ancient greek technology (im thinking torsion catapult but its not set in stone). Leo thinks it sounds really cool, so he makes it and duets Percy’s video

From there, their friendship develops. Leo keeps making models and prototypes of ancient tech for some of Percy’s videos, and eventually he starts doing his own research. And in turn, Percy duets Leos videos and talks about the historical significance of certain mechanisms or their origins. By now, they’re mutuals and talk pretty often.

Annabeth also follows Percy after one of his videos appears on her fyp, but much later then Leo. In fact, he’s on her page because she follows Leo. She’s with Leo when this happens, and asks him about Percy and checks his profile before following him. He follows her back the next day.

The first time they interact beyond liking each others videos is when Annabeth takes part in one of those ‘creators are struggling like you’ with her ADHD and dyslexia, which Percy continues from her.

One day Percy and Leo (quite literally) run into each other, and as they’re mutuals and do text, they decide they might as well hang out in person, thus Leo is indicted into Percy’s friend group.

Leo eventually brings Annabeth along too

And the rest of it would be shorter 4+ panel comics and maybe a few mini arcs. I have specific videos outlined for each of them.

#i spaced this out because i can't read big blocks of text so sorry if its annoying #this is literally my comfort au #also all of the characters are queer #i don't have any percabeth plans #its purely friendship fluff #this is basically just a master post #tiktok.pj.au #long post #riordanverse #max.txt

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