Books (General)

[proper silo]

It's a transmigration novel

[minor sleet]

A lot of the books have dumb titles because they don’t have an editor saying “this is a dumb title”

[proper silo]

HIstory teacher is ransported back in time into the body of a prince who just got that concubine war god, and knows that in three years from now the guy's gonna slaughter everyone, so he decides to play nice

[charred swallow]

Oh god yeah that is what that's about. I knew it felt skeevy. I keep finding books like that where its like, cottagecore for extremely straight men.

[proper silo]

Romance presumably follows

[spring turtle]

https://youtube.com/shorts/GPI2Byzxsso

[lucid isle]

I’m currently listening to and enjoying an audiobook for the very first time.

I didn’t like Piranesi and quit after about 20 pages. The audiobook however is fantastic.

[junior dew]

Uhhh… hmm. Welp

Gahhh I have only a few chapters left on Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I am desperate to finish it but my cousin’s baby shower is starting right now. Pain.

I am absolutely LOVING this read, god damn. I didn’t know anything about it going in. Just decided to slot it in as another short read before Licanius book 2. But wow this is only further cementing that I need to read more Tchaikovsky this year. I have really enjoyed everything of his I’ve read so far (granted that has only been the Children of Time books and Alien Clay prior to this)

I may have to slot in Cage of Souls between Licanius book 2 and 3 or between Licanius book 3 and Daevabad book 1

[spring turtle]

Elder Race is good. Hopefully the full sequel novel elaborates on it well

[ivory cypress]

IT'S GETTING A FULL NOVEL SEQUEL

???????! :O

[white scroll]

Finished Morning Star a few days ago and I’ve sat with the original trilogy a bit

Overall really really enjoyed the RR trilogy

First half of book 1 wasn’t great but the series really hits its stride in the second half of book 1

Highlights of the trilogy was its pacing, as well as the character work surrounding ||Darrow and Mustang|| specifically

Overall I’d give Red Rising a B, Golden Son an A+, and Morning Star an A-

[wraith lynx]

GS was a Rollercoaster, valid valid valid ratings

[white scroll]

Iron Gold hopefully arrives tomorrow

[wraith lynx]

Ooo straight into the second half, fun!

[white scroll]

Really interested to see how Pierce Brown handles ||the shift from only writing from Darrow’s POV to a more ensemble cast - multiple POV style||

[junior dew]

This was my reaction too. Damn that’s so hype

[junior dew]

I feel like you should spoiler this

I’ve been really trying to dodge knowing anything about Red Rising until Red God releases

[white scroll]

Fair enough I suppose

[junior dew]

Finished Elder Race. Ngl I think I enjoyed that one a bit more than This is How You Lose the Time War

Both fantastic reads

[junior dew]

Oh dang the sequel to Elder Race comes out later this year too!

[alpine drum]

ASOIAF

[alpine drum]

@viral fractal look here

source

[proper silo]

Okay, started Guardian, and already I feel like I have to do a bunch of mental adjustments cause I forgot at first that it's urban fantasy Like, "why does this guy have a phone" or "what do you mean, public transport"

That said, our first POV is a mood, between his fear of speaking to stranger and his fear of calling people on the phone 😔

Guardian Prologue ||what do you mean the HR department is literally ghosts||

[proper silo]

1 ||I am questioning how Guo Changcheng survived long enough to get a job in the wizard police, considering he is afraid of quite literally everything||

[proper silo]

Guardian 3 ||...you know, I can't help but have a suspicion that we might be looking at some kind of reincarnation/amnesia romance situation, with the way Shen Wei is reacting to meeting Zhao Yunlan.||

||Like it's screaming "they've met before but only one of them knows that and is very sad that the other doesn't" 🤔 ||

[spring turtle]

I just noticed the response but if you haven't found it yet, it's called Engines of Reason

Wait. 200 pages. NVM

[ivory cypress]

sooooo cool

very exciting

[light drum]

The hype around its sequal has convinced me to read it

[forest sierra]

@hushed kettle how far into Dark Age are you

[forest sierra]

My fav book in the series

[hushed kettle]

About an hour

[forest sierra]

Ah

Tbf you could bail out if you want

The book lives upto its name

[hushed kettle]

I did really like the ||romulus death scene|| by fsr my favorite part in the series

So good

I forget if that was in dark age or iron gold

[forest sierra]

Iron Gold

[hushed kettle]

Ephiram is genuinely worst character in thr series

[forest sierra]

But Dark Age is as difficult a read as the series presents

Not only in content but also pacing

So I wouldn't stop anyone from DNFing

[hushed kettle]

Ill definitely give it more of a chance im just taking a break catching up on some more cosmere i havent read then ill go back

Ive gotten a few spoilers like (lightbringer) ||lysander that pixie ***** kills cassius||

[forest sierra]

RR all ^

[alpine drum]

spoiler tags need to have a label

[hushed kettle]

Oh im sorru

I forgot

[tight kindle]

@long sorrel @ivory cypress
24 days until Sir Cameron 😌

[long sorrel]

Aaaaaaaah

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1194838543747530872/1433821203054858403/ezgif-55f98130818863.gif

[ivory cypress]

sooooo close 🥺

[junior dew]

Still exciting nonetheless! He managed to do a good bit with the novella length in the original

[oblique zodiac]

My next book on my list is "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George

[tight kindle]

Ooooooh
That's a good one

That's a big nostalgia one for me

[oblique zodiac]

really?

I heard there is a sense of fantasy
I wasn't expecting to read fantasy so soon lol

[tight kindle]

Yeah I first read it when I was...
Idk single digit age.
Fun read. Good book for inspiring daydreams

[oblique zodiac]

hmm ok!

[snow vessel]

The Vampire Armand 14 ||ah, so the trauma chain continues for amadeo||

[low hill]

Yay!

[snow vessel]

squints Anne Rice is that you?

TVA ||seriously, my boy has been through so much ||

Do you all arrange your bookshelves so that the outer spines are in line, or so that the "page" spines/backs are in line?

I've always done the latter but I'm considering switching because having the spines aligned can look sooo nice

[low hill]

I do the spines, so I can see the titles.

[snow vessel]

Oh, not as in spines facing in/out

As in, do you line up the spines so that they all outwardly end in a straight line? Or line up the backs so they all start in a line

[low hill]

Ahh.

[snow vessel]

Vs

[low hill]

Back row of books are aligned to the back and the back of the shelf, front row of books are aligned to the spines and the front lip of the shelf.

-# Yes, all my book shelves have two rows of books.

[snow vessel]

-# ...how do you see the back row?

[low hill]

You either can't, or you can see over the top of the front row - depending how high up on the shelf it is.

But given all my books are sorted alphabetically by author's surname, I always know where I need to go to get the book I want. :P

But if I didn't do this, I'd need literally twice as many shelves...

[snow vessel]

Ahh fair enough

Mine are not sorted quite so well

I have rough genre categories but within those it's basically just by aesthetics

[low hill]

-# Actually, technically the non-fiction and the Sanderson case aren't double stacked, but I have a lot less of both of those than the fiction library.

My RPG books are mostly front aligned as well, because they take up the whole shelf depth really so there's nothing behind them.

[oblique zodiac]

My Side of the Mountain 10 ||This just feels like a nature-oriented book so far. I don't see any fantasy elements yet.||

||If I was the MC though, I wouldn't have lasted a day in the forest. It's amazing how someone so young knows all of these things. I guess it was quite different for people decades ago.||

[ripe tide]

Ok, here's a question: who are book creators (particularly video) you enjoy on the internet? A variety of formats would be ideal, not just video essays, but podcasts, short form videos (reels/tiktok style) either aesthetic recommendations or more snippets of real discussion style.

[low hill]

prepares to write down the podcasts

[proper silo]

biz barclay does really fun long video essays, though she also does movies/tv shows and not just books

[snow vessel]

Like reviewers?

[proper silo]

readwithcindy has a lot of fun book content, but I'd say watch her mostly if you wanna see books roasted (her series about ACOTAR is particularly peak, I couldn't watch it in public cause I was laughing too much), and don't watch her if you like the books she's reading

[long sorrel]

It had never even occurred to me to line up the back nor have i seen that anywhere

[low hill]

-# You have, because you've seen my shelves.

[snow vessel]

Really?

The reverse never occured to me xD

[snow vessel]

I mainly go to youtube for book content. My favourites there: GlutenbergBible on youtube does a lot of discussions of classic novels and genres that I enjoy. The Book Leo has a lot of reviews and also topic videos, I find I tend to appreciate her opinions and thoughts on topics. Peter Olszewski has a bunch of shorter, vlog-y reviews that I like both for the review and for just the vibes. Bookborn's videos I tend to like as well, for her opinions and research/data. Mal apollonia's videos I just enjoy the vibes of

Not sure if those are what you're looking for but

[low hill]

Back lined up makes sense if you're pushing the books to the back of the shelf and want the room in front for something else - whether that's more books or ornaments or cats.

[ripe tide]

Anything. I have several categories.

• short form aesthetic (booktok style where its mostly just tropes and titles)
• short form discussion (snippets of discussions and mini deep dives - Gemma Tate is one I think of)
• Long form video essay
• Long form academic
• Long form review
• Fandom podcast
• Fandom video essay
• Commentary (on more general topics, book culture as a whole)

[snow vessel]

-# fandom podcast? have you heard of the 17th sha--

[low hill]

-# snrk

[ripe tide]

of course that's the first one I put in there

But I need a longer list

Most of the podcasts are audio, which annoys me (for the sake of this assignment) but I'll make that concession.

[snow vessel]

I think this is probably the best I can do

[low hill]

Oh, in podcasts there's Eleanor & Alasdair Read That or the BFS's Long Story Short.

From a quick glance at YouTube, Read That might also be available as videos on Eleanor Morton's YouTube page - but I'm in the middle of stuff and haven't checked if they're the full episodes or just snippets from the show.

[ripe tide]

Thanks. I’ll check all these out.

[proper silo]

Guardian 5 ||damn, five chapters in and Zhao Yunlan is already inviting Shen Wei to a dinner date Pretty sure that makes him faster than solid 85% of all love interest characters I've ever read.||

[long sorrel]

You're going to make me want to go read volume 2

Which is halfway

But i never logged it into storygraph so it doesnt count 😌

[minor sleet]

Perks of the main character being out from the start

[long sorrel]

Lately I've read a bunch of books with very straight forward mcs and it's so refreshing 😩

[brazen pilot]

I keep forgetting to post my full thoughts on Shadow Games.

Shadow Games all ||I think it was overall fantastic. I really loved Croaker's arc, all the way to the end. We got to see him become a leader, not through some cheesy simplified arc, but just through the way he naturally adapted more and more to the role. The way that making decisions as a leader forced him to think like a leader, and when you think like a leader you don't just get better at it, but learn to be comfortable in that position.

His potential death feels shockingly perfect yet still uncomfortable. It's not that he became overconfident as a leader and deserved it. Sure, that technically happened in the battle, but those mistakes can always happen, and I think Soulcatcher would have gotten him even if he did the battle perfectly. It's more like he was genuinely becoming a good leader, and the fact that he might have just died is just, a tragedy. It can happen.

I wanted to get book after book of Croaker in the role of captain. I might still get that! Soulcatcher could be keeping him alive, could have plans. But I also might not. It's compelling either way. We got just enough of it that I can't say the books cheated me of it, but sometimes you just don't get everything you want.

I cannot understate how excited I am for Lady to be the annalist, both in general and to see how she feels about what just happened. And for her to be the leader, or something like it. I mean, who else would lead now? Who else could do it like her?||

||What I'm a little mixed on is so many of the Taken being back. A couple is good, funny how it works out. That many feels like a bit much. On one hand, I think Soulcatcher's revenge is clearly the most interesting source of drama and conflict we have here. But on the other hand, I feel like there's a risk of the story being tied to the events of the North. I was really excited for just, new Black Company adventures. New conflicts, new issues, a look at what other kind of thing they get up to outside of the context of working for the Lady. It feels like the story might still be about the Taken again. But we still got some new stuff, and it seems like the most dangerous Shadowmaster is just his own unrelated element, so I'm hoping to get plenty of that. Plus, the plain of glittering stone really just seems like its own thing, so hopefully this is more just a transitional period.||

@ripe tide

I will start Dreams of Steel soon

Maybe tomorrow

[ripe tide]

AAAAAAA

I am so excited

[brazen pilot]

It really is compelling how Cook just like

||Gets you so excited for something that feels like it should happen, not just as an event but as a continuing legacy, and then makes you genuinely wonder if it'll all get taken away. But without it feeling at all cheap or frustrating.||

[frozen glacier]

anyone got standalone fantasy recs

[brazen pilot]

Shadow Games all ||I forget if I posted about it before, but I love how the book explores what makes the Black Company what it is. They were down to 7 people. Those people were good, but having a few good people isn't what makes them able to build it all back. It's the story. The annals. The reputation and the legacy. The belief in the history, the greater purpose, is what made them stay together at all, and it's why so many joined them, why even people from their long past came. It's how they win their battles, with illusion and presentation, and it's the same idea that builds nations.||

[spring turtle]

so I'm wrapping up The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown and ||it feels like the story was written by something who likes the idea of books but not reading. I can't remember anyone actually discussing a story in a book but the entire story is about people using books as magical talismans. like having a book is more important than reading one||

||why does the magic come from books? because the protagonist likes books. but does the protagonist read? maybe. she never talks about the contents of her reading, just that she's surrounded by books||

[long sorrel]

|| Isn't that exactly what it is? 🤔||

[spring turtle]

maybe. it's just irksome

[long sorrel]

hmm, I didn't find it irksome at all but fair

[frozen glacier]

shadow games does such a good job of setting up the book of the south its an intresting bridge between book of the north and book of the south

||def agree on the taken. Im fine with two of them but the others probably could have been replaced with local wizards ||shadow games

[brazen pilot]

||I like it with Howler the most because bro does not care at all about the other drama, he just wants to be a river pirate. I hope we never see him again.||

[frozen glacier]

||yeah my two are the howler and soulcatcher ||

||on a related note i will say i did not realize how much romantic tension between Croaker and Soulcatcher there was in book 1 going back to read it || black company y book 1

[proper silo]

Guardian 10 ||Shen Wei is really barely hiding the fact that he's a supernatural creature, isn't he? ||

||I'll bet ten dollars he's the Soul-Executing Emissary that Zhao Yunlan is supposed to be meeting with tonight||

||The Emissary has a backstory that's all about how unique and powerful he is, he is totally Shen Wei||

12 ||Oh gods, this got really dark all of a sudden ||

[tight kindle]

Finished Paladin's Grace!
T'was good. I'm more excited for book 3 than 2 but I'm enjoying the story outside the romance too

[long sorrel]

Nice!

I am so invested in the overarching plot, you've no idea

like, there ARE things I MUST know, now

[tight kindle]

Now it's time for me to start something quite different

[tight kindle]

Does it get more... Intense?

I'm sort of just passively interested in it right now

[long sorrel]

rather than intense it is that it keeps building on it

[ivory cypress]

it gets more interesting

it develops

[long sorrel]

Like... book 1 sets it up, then it starts happening and developing

yes

book 1 has a lot of worldbuilding and set up which I think is really good

but it doesn't start going places

I think also that once you're on the ride it becomes a lot more interesting to read the other books set on the same world

-# Though Swordheart is always good because it has a lot of Zale

[tight kindle]

Is Zale the [PalGra] ||nb lawyer?
Cuz they're iconic and I love them.||

[long sorrel]

They're one of my fave characters

[spring turtle]

I just want to know about justiciars

like, you can't just mention them and do nothing

I guess we're also getting Daggerbound and Shield-something so maybe they'll be in there

[long sorrel]

Shield something?

[spring turtle]

the third book is named...somewhere

[long sorrel]

Ooooh

[spring turtle]

Shieldborn

she named it on Patreon

[long sorrel]

Gotcha

Shield .... born?

That's an interesting choice

I wonder if it's just a sounds good-case or if it has any meaning

[spring turtle]

I would speculate but spoiler tags are annoying

[long sorrel]

Fair

We can speculate in summer after we get Daggerbound

😌

[tight kindle]

The Fifth Season 3 ||The whole second person thing is seriously screwing with my head. It's a cool choice but it's taking extra effort to process.||

[long sorrel]

Ive decided the next book I'm going through is Innombrable, which is a spanish book I got during the fair last year

I think i talked about it before but the mc is a completely fluid multiple character and it swaps around in minutes and it was wildly confusing for a while, its a queer sci fi story and I'm looking forward to it but damn I had to ease myself into the way the book describes them

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/spiribia/774042345404530688/if-hamilton-songwriter-wrote-a-baru-cormorant

[proper silo]

Guardian 16 ||Shen Wei: "I'm sorry but I'm not attracted to you, I don't wanna date". Also Shen Wei: locates Zhao Yunlan's house, buys him food and gives him a massage||

||Bro you are the grandmaster of the mixed message||

[minor sleet]

Anyway the obvious choice for a Baru Cormorant musical is the person(s) who wrote Fun Home, since if they can do Telephone Wire and Maps, they can make something heart wrenching out of Baru

[tight kindle]

The Fifth Season 4 + Outer Wilds ||The images I have of a character named Feldspar do not match up in my head and it's disorienting ||

[minor sleet]

Also Changing My Major to Joan is a very baru song

[long sorrel]

||Ive to say it took me a while to warm up to Shen Wei||

[proper silo]

Guardian up to 16 ||I hope that once the story finally admits that it's a reincarnation romance (I'm so sure of it, I'mma feel real silly if it's not), they'll also explain what happened Zhao Yunlan's past life to make Shen Wei act so weird now, cause he acting so weird.||

[tight kindle]

The Fifth Season 4 ||😐||

[somber timber]

What happened lol

[long sorrel]

I am pretty sure I know

[rugged tartan]

There's a couple different things it could be

[long sorrel]

Fifth Season 5 ||I stopped right after finishing ch 5, for ... what happens in ch 5 but I think it starts before that so my mind went there||

Seeing Atrus read makes me want to continue but I'm not in the headspace for it yet

[proven token]

"Let's begin with the end of the world, shall we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things."

Not a spoiler. Those are literally the first words in the book.

[tight kindle]

4 ||The (intentionally) horribly uncomfortable sex. The whole... Breeding thing. Very ew.||

[somber timber]

Oh hey Usha you were right!

[proven token]

Oh right that scene

[long sorrel]

I figured I was right

[long sorrel]

||completely and utterly inhumane||

[tight kindle]

Already 21% through but my light is failing

Tis cloudy and I'm fairly north rn

Unfortunate

[lusty meteor]

||one of the more uncomfortable things i have ever read||

BE all ||honestly i think the book loses steam afterwards, hence why i havent picked it up again||

[long sorrel]

I literally dropped the book

I've not read past this

I will now that I know what I'm getting into but I could not process it

[lusty meteor]

it did knock me out of a rhythm, i think i was also busy around then

i did get like 60% through

i dont think i jive with jemisin's style and i need to read more to confirm this

[long sorrel]

Oh I loved what I read I just ... couldn't?

[tight kindle]

Interesting
I was disgusted but it definitely didn't hit as hard for me. Not sure why...

[lusty meteor]

i think it was more me than the scene tbh

i dont think that scene is in the top 5 most disturbing or affecting things i have read

[long sorrel]

BE 5 + assault TW (unrelated to the book) ||There's something in the way that I read sex as just... sex? Right? You know me, I don't put a lot of stock into it having any deeper meaning but usually sex is in some way... human, it drives many people, sometimes it's nasty, sometimes it's beautiful, sometimes it's kinda gross, sometiems can be painful, etc etc etc. Even when it comes to reading things like assault, obviously it's not a good thing, but it's still a human thing, horrible humans yes but it's still human. This book made sex into the most cold inhumane unfeeling thing ever which made me viscerally disgusted and uncomfortable because how can you strip sex of everything that makes it sex? Like that? ugh||

[long sorrel]

This is probably the case for me too

I'm not sure I can express how much I felt viscerally repulsed

[lusty meteor]

||yeah i think it is the fact the sex is so... bureaucratic||

[long sorrel]

||It's not even for kids! Not for the people involved, they don't want kids, they don't even care that they're producing an offspring FOR THE SYSTEM||

[wraith lynx]

Atrus reading 5th season??? 👀👀

Mmmmmm 👀👀

[somber timber]

This is the intended response tbh

[long sorrel]

I am sure

But I have never in my life dropped a book because I couldn't deal with a scene

At most I've had to take a 5 minute break like twice in my life

[long sorrel]

Not that there's anything wrong with this, it's just fully unexpected for me

[lusty meteor]

it does also jumpscare you in the book

which i think adds to the effect

[long sorrel]

Yeah... shock value done right I guess 😭

[tight kindle]

-# ||considers the upbringing that taught me that sex as a means of creating more people to feed the system was a fairly routine thing||

[lusty meteor]

||atrus are you mormon?||

[long sorrel]

||I think sex as a means of creating more people isn't so uncommon but even in your upbringing most parents do ultimately want and love their children, in better or worse ways, and not always, but you know||

[lusty meteor]

were, idk

[tight kindle]

were

[lusty meteor]

||i think this also plays into my take that sex is woefully underexplored in fantasy. basically you get fade to black perfect sex and The Rape Scene and that is about it||

[long sorrel]

I've certainly seen a lot more than that

Not talking about smutty stuff

But as a general rule, you're right yeah

[analog geode]

||You should read romantasy||

[lusty meteor]

No.

[analog geode]

Yes.

[long sorrel]

I think that absolutely falls into "perfect sex" but witohut the fade to black anyway

[lusty meteor]

ive long been upset sex as a default feels so disconnected from character

[tight kindle]

Frowns
Yeah you have a point there

[long sorrel]

Yeah, it's why those scenese are generally pretty boring

if you read good smut the sex is part of the characters, and although it still goes a bit into "ideal" it also does other things

But it seems that doesn't mix without our general fantasy

[alpine drum]

||what about the Joe Abercrombie approach where he does dialogue only for the entire thing||

Age of Madness ALL ||and the closest you get to perfect is between half siblings||

[lusty meteor]

Im not a huge fan of joe’s writing in general tbh

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/clanslist/803571431976943616

wow!

-# #Warrior Cats #Into the Wild #wc #ITW #Books #2003 #The Prophecies Begin #TPB

Tumblr · Dec 21, 2025, 7:30 PM

[oblique zodiac]

My Side of the Mountain 14 ||Was I wrong about this being fantasy..? Still only nature stuff so far. I mean this is quite interesting, but I'm not enjoying it as much as Tree Girl.||

[mild lance]

It is not fantasy

[oblique zodiac]

ok!

[proper silo]

Guardian 22 ||Guo Changcheng is such a scaredy cat, his weapon literally works based on how scared he is And somehow he still manages to misuse it||

[snow vessel]

I'm not sure reading four books at once is entirely working for me

I might have to just lock on one and finish it

[merry galleon]

I’m finally on the mend, and I can continue reading and finishing Titan’s Nest. Still got that persistent cough though

[junior dew]

Oh damn someone else is finally reading Broken Earth

[ripe tide]

I really need to get to the last book

[junior dew]

I’m tempted to do a reread. It has been long enough that a lot of stuff is fuzzy or forgotten by now

[pearl ingot]

New Chronicles of the Avatar book came out recently

Awakening of Roku

Second one of the Roku duology

The Yang Chen duology and the first Roku book wasn't anywhere near as peak as the Kyoshi duology, but they're still enjoyable enough

These prequel novels are legit the best and only ATLA spin-offs that's worth your time.😮‍💨

They're peak as far as YA books go

And I needed something shorter and less complicated after binging through.... All of SLA in just a month

100k feels like a breeze after you've sat through books that are 400k to 490k each.😔

[oblique zodiac]

My Side of the Mountain ||Living in nature really seems.. peaceful. I obsess over my appearance and others things countlessly and just living without any social media or mirrors just seem so at peace.||

[keen marlin]

A webnovel I read about 10 years ago called Worm had a fade to black sex scene followed by the hilarious line from the protagonist the day after that it was 'fine'. Talk about damned by faint praise.

[oblique zodiac]

gonna finish this tmr. good night

[lucid isle]

I'm really enjoying the Piranesi audiobook, Chiwetel Ejiofor really brings the story to life

[junior dew]

An echo of things to come 11 || Caden is the guy who taught Davian!? 👀 The one whose wife died at the wedding? Pretty wild! ||

[low hill]

@ripe tide I think I'm going to re-read the first two Rook & Rose books, and then start Labyrinth's Heart. Been probably 3 years since I read the second one, and who knows how long since the first, so I want to refresh my memory this time.

[ripe tide]

Ooooo do share any reactions.

I loved the series. Definitely been feeling a bit of a void since I finished it.

[low hill]

I do remember really liking the first one, but there's only flitting bits of plot and character left in the back of my mind at this point.

[mossy gyro]

Kingdom of Copper 27 ||Ali had a nightmare that was almost certainly a vision of the Daeva taking the Marid's lake to build their city. It seems most of them were trapped in the lake to help build the city, and if so I guess that is their punishment for fighting with the Daeva, and assuming they're still in there is the reason why the lake kills everyone who falls in and why the Marid haven't been seen in centuries ||

[mossy gyro]

KoC 29 ||simultaneously the most eye-opening, harrowing, and wholesome sibling argument I've seen ||

||turns out Suleiman's Seal is in the king's heart somehow (Daeva biology is ✨ special ✨ ) and now there's an attack on the Daeva parade. Who could have seen that coming hmmmmmmmmmm ||

[mossy gyro]

KoC 30 ||who the hell got cannons into the city?||

[random dome]

KoC ||another day, another act of destabilizing political violence on the streets 🙏 ||

[junior dew]

I’m so glad I fought my instinct to click on these. I had a moment right before I was like “screw it” where I thought “wait, is this Daevabad?”

-# They were, in fact, Daevabad

That could have been mildly unfortunate

[mossy gyro]

Yeah book 2

Do not click these please

[zinc flicker]

I’ve been reading Phantasma and lowkey it’s pretty good 👀

[mossy gyro]

Kingdom of Copper 30 ||damn Nesrin is dead since iron prevents Daeva magic from working. And Jamshid just unlocked his powers, I think since his injuries destroyed the tattoos sealing them||

KoC 31 ||well now Ali is leading a countermovement among the Royal Guard to stop the king from destroying the Shafit neighborhood in which the attack happened||

[minor sleet]

Finished The Salt Grows Heavy and someone needs to take Cassandra Khaw’s thesaurus away

I didn’t like Nothing But Blackened Teeth but figured id give Khaw another try. Nope. Still not for me

[mossy gyro]

Kingdom of Copper 35 ||well I knew the king would die by the end of the book but I didn't expect it would quite go like this.||

[low hill]

I haven't got to any on screen yet, but just the mention in passing off the geometric magic reminded me of how much fun that sounded right from the start of the books.

[ripe tide]

It’s a fun one. Especially because the rules exist but Marie and Alyc dont write it like a Sandersonian magic system at all

[proper silo]

Guardian 27 ||Getting outed as the fearsome reaper because you got so drunk your soul literally left your body must be so embarrassing But I'm glad the story doesn't dance around the "Shen Wei is the Soul-Executing Emissary" reveal any longer, it was very, very blatant||

Okay, finished volume 1 of Guardian. I am definitely intrigued, especially given that they dropped some things that I thought would be endgame reveals right at the end of the volume 🤔

To speculate, Guardian vol 1 ||Now that I know for sure that Shen Wei is the Soul-Executing Emissary, and Zhao Yunlan is a reincarnated someone... Obviously, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan's past self were lovers and Shen Wei is definitely not over it. Actually, I'm pretty sure I can identify Zhao Yunlan too; the book mentions that the one who made Shen Wei semi-divine was the Mountain God and that the Mountain God has reentered the cycle of reincarnation so like - Zhao Yunlan is obviously the Mountain God? And the Gui King of Chaos is trying to throw Shen Wei off his soul-executing game by arranging for the two of them to meet in their "civillian" identities.||

||Also, Shen Wei lowkey reminds me of love interests from those mid-2000s paranormal romances? You know, the sort that always insisted that the protagonist stay behind them, and were very Tortured and Tormented about the fact that they were in love with this girl who Doesn't Deserve To Be Drawn Into Their Mess. Except he ends up kinda making a clown of himself whenever he acts like that because Zhao Yunlan is not a mid-2000s paranormal romance protagonist 😂 ||

[long sorrel]

Okay, we basically had the same reactions and thoughts

I couldn't say that until you were done

[proper silo]

🤝

Now let's see if I'll outpace you with volume 2 😛

[random dome]

Ooh you're right at the end

[mossy gyro]

Yeah

[long sorrel]

No way, I'm not reading at all, though i did read about half

[mossy gyro]

I'll finish it tomorrow

[junior dew]

An Echo of Things to Come by James Islington

My gf really enjoyed it

[analog geode]

That was 4.5 months ago wtf

[vocal latch]

i was about to say wow what an old post to tag me with 😂 i aint mad i just thought it was funny

[junior dew]

Huh, that’s so weird

Lmfaooo

I was like damn channel has been busy the last few hours

I’ll carry it forward and ask what everyone else is reading right now

[snow vessel]

Notes from Underground, SOTF, Paradise lost & The Vampire Armand

[analog geode]

I am reading With the Lightnings and Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries

[potent linden]

For most of my life, mostly the latter, but I've started doing a lot of them spines aligned at the front for better displaying these last few years. Thinking of going back for most shelves, though, as I've gotten more stuff I want to display somewhere...

[potent linden]

Too many books at once 😭

[tight kindle]

The Fifth Season

[brazen pilot]

Dreams of Steel 5 ||I had to get 5 chapters in before getting her pov||

[tight kindle]

But I just finished Paladin's Grace which was great for a straight romance

[brazen pilot]

Dreams of Steel 7 ||What I'm immediately noticing about Lady's narration as opposed to Croaker's is how she talks about emotion. She puts more focus on the moment-to-moment emotions of her experiences, but she describes them briefly. A line or two about how it felt, but then she moves on to what has to be done next. Croaker won't write about his emotions in the middle of a mission, but when he has time to he'll spin his wheels and question his emotions for ages.||

[brazen pilot]

Dreams of Steel 9 ||Lady had them put the heads on stakes and face them toward the enemy. Very bloody. I love her.||

[proper silo]

Guardian vol2 ch2 ||Shei Wei, my guy, I get you're in love but having a full room of nothing but paintings of Zhao Yunlan is lowkey creepy- The hell do you mean you're breaking into his house at night??? 😅 ||

||My guy really is an early-2000s paranormal romance love interest||

[oblique zodiac]

Finished My Side of the Mountain!

It was great!

[oblique zodiac]

My next book on my list is a korean-only literature

[idle trellis]

You remind me of my last attempt at a romantic relationship, she replied after 4 months

[oblique zodiac]

I gotta say, the korean is quite different from translated versions

More tougher, I think?

[long sorrel]

The positive thing any reading a physical book is that Im not bringing my tablet with me to places, so I can't get distracted with other books

[frosty merlin]

Just finished Crime & Punishment

That was a book

I didn’t enjoy it too much but it was still an enjoyable read if that makes sense

[lucid isle]

I have to try Golden Son again because I DNF’d after about 50 pages

[low hill]

No, you don't. 50 pages is a reasonable length of time to decide it's not worth your time and you weren't enjoying it. There's no obligation to go back.

[tight kindle]

You certainly don't have to.
Although, I did start it over (twice) and eventually made it through and don't regret it. Most of those books have taken me more than one try to get through

Golden Son was 3, Iron Gold was 3, and I think Dark Age was just 2.

[snow vessel]

One of my IRL friends DNF'd dark age early on and hasn't gotten back to it

-# valid, it's just a little disappointing after 5 books xD

[tight kindle]

I didn't even make it through ten pages of Lightbringer

If I can make it through The Fifth Season and a palate cleanser it's next up on the plate

[snow vessel]

Lb is my favourite of the series

Maybe ill reread them all before Red God in 2027

[long sorrel]

BE is making its way up the ongoing list so maybe within a month, dunno

I just saw a guy that looked so much like Holden I did think for a second was Steven Strait.

Guy looked punchable as hell

[paper lake]

😭

I tried... I really tried to listen to the Farseer trilogy and just couldn't.

[paper lake]

I really liked Red Rising. It has motion.

[snow vessel]

I was thinking about some stuff today and realised I once met someone who reminded me a lot of Armand from the Anne Rice books

[long sorrel]

Uh oh

Highly?

[snow vessel]

Uhhhhh well.

Not entirely

-# (They seemed chill to me but I later heard some stuff)

[long sorrel]

Oh no

I meant only physical tbh

But if it reminded you in other ways then ... yeah

[merry galleon]

I’m at 92 pages on Titan’s Nest! LETS GOOO!

The worldbuilding is getting really good

[long sorrel]

Nice

Im 90 pages in my book too

I have so many appointments and crap to do that lugging the physical copy around really is working

[snow vessel]

Yeah, they looked a lot like how armand is described in a lot of ways, but some of the things I heard about afterwards... don't entirely feel out of character for him

They (highly) looked like armand but (lowly) maybe acted like armand a little

[long sorrel]

😔

Yeah not so fun irl as in fiction

Like most of the characters I like

Maybe I'll reread the series one day, I'm in between wanting to and feeling lazy about it

[snow vessel]

We only knew them briefly, and I was lucky to avoid experiencing a lot of the bad stuff, but yeah. Not so fun

[snow vessel]

The Vampire Chronicles?

[long sorrel]

Yeah

I never remember how far I read

[snow vessel]

I'm hoping to get through the last... 7 books this year?

[long sorrel]

Further than you are but

[snow vessel]

Honestly I don't know why but I'm just connecting with this series more than I expected

Part of it, I think, is like... seeing a lot of recognisable traits blown up to 1000 in the characters

[long sorrel]

I had read up til whatever was out back in like 2007 lol... in spanish

[snow vessel]

There's a lot of stuff where I see myself in them but obviously not to the same level

[long sorrel]

Well I know the ending since I asked Vecna, but this one is surely about the journey

[snow vessel]

Admittedly I've dived a little into wikis myself. Mainly just the pages for each book and what they're about

Im definitely more excited to keep going knowing a little about the premises of 11-13 than not, because I'm... not super excited for 8-10

Something about this cast and their antics is just very enjoyable to me though

[paper lake]

finished off A Comedy of Errors this morning and started on Much Ado About Nothing 😄

Heded to beded now

[old bone]

A comedy of errors is probably my fav work of Shakespeare

either that or King lear

[paper lake]

I'm working my way through this.

Goal is to read all of it within a year or two. 🙂

[long sorrel]

This book I'm reading is mostly written, at least for the section I'm on, with nb pronouns. And it's in Spanish so this isn't very common but damn, it really put into perspective how many words are gendered, since they stand out since I'm not used to the nb pronouns at all

Obviously I know how many words are gendered but it had never stood out to me like this in text

[old bone]

nice

[junior dew]

Actually I never have thought about this. How does Spanish do nb pronouns?

[long sorrel]

The answer is, we mostly do not

There are trends to finish words in -e instead of -o/-a but it is fully a forced trend since we've never had agender pronouns, and grammatically it is correct to use male ones for neutral

The pronouns themselves are "Elle" but that's not the awkward bit, it's just every other word

[junior dew]

Gotcha, makes sense

[paper lake]

i really liked it too, so far it's one of my top 3. The Tempest was prettu good too, i think im going to love Much Ado About Nothing tho

gn

[old bone]

gn Foggy

[paper lake]

u 2 ^^

[potent linden]

Is there an English translation of it?

[long sorrel]

I don't believe so, it's very indie

Yeah seems like not

It's Innombrable by Caryanna Reuven if you are curious to take a look

And the author put a planet sticker on my book and drew a cat

[forest sierra]

I'm an advocate for DNFing a book any time and would understand if someone DNF'd Red Rising at books 1, 4 or 5 (even with 4 being my fav)

But if there's one book in the whole series I'd recommend going back to its Golden Son

[proper silo]

Guardian vol2 ch9 ||"The only people I don’t dare offend are my mother and my wife." Zhao Yunlan, my buddy, my bro, you've managed to offend your boyfriend/presumed future husband almost every single time the two of you have interacted||

||Then again, Shen Wei is so whipped for him, Yunlan may genuinely be unaware that he's offending ||

[untold leaf]

"The Strength of the Few"! Currently, only that, but I'm going to read the Star Wars book "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" after that, then the whole "Wingfeather Saga" and some Sherlock Holmes books.

[low hill]

The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose 1), M.A. Carrick.

[old bone]

Uhhh

• Physical Read: Return of the Thin Man: 45%-ish
• Phone Ebook: Garden of the Moon: 35%
• Kindle Ebook: Beyond Good and Evil. 10%?
• Audiobook: The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle. 45%

[minor sleet]

Witcher series end || https://www.tumblr.com/rythyme/805601340455780352/now-im-not-going-to-claim-that-the-witcher-books ||

yes, it's me... the "who the fuck is eichi" guy

now i'm not going to claim that the witcher books have deep and nuanced portrayals of queer people but i do think it's really fun that ciri's immediate response when someone is homophobic to her is to kill them.

-# #doesn't matter if it's broad daylight and they're in the middle of the street. it's a one strike system and they get a sword to the throat #the witcher #baptism of fire #and afterwards she'll complain that the guy made her drop her cotton candy :(((

Tumblr · Jan 13, 2026, 5:15 AM

[ripe tide]

A lot of stuff.
For class:

• The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
• Villette - Charlotte Brontë
• I need to get a start on My Ántonia by Willa Cather
• And extracts from other stuff. Some victorian diraists, Virginia Woolf, some theory

For fun:

• I needed a quicker read so I'm finally getting to The Sun and the Star - Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
• Midnight Never Come - Marie Brennan
• And I really need to get back to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
• The Familiar Leigh Bardugo

Bonus: yesterday I finished La Catedral del Mar by Ildefonso Falcones

[low hill]

-# Yes, you do...

[ripe tide]

Its my physical read and since I kind of had a deadline with La Catedral del Mar and was working on the train and the plane on my computer instead of reading, those took priority while I was traveling, even if I took the book with me.

[low hill]

Those are perfectly reasonable reasons.
-# And yet... :P

(Enjoy it when you get to it.)

[ripe tide]

Its always staring at me from my night table

[lucid isle]

I've got 4 books on the go atm, The Shadow of Gods, DCC book 5, Piranesi (audio) and Harry Potter I'm reading with my kids.

Harry Potter is actually a really awkward book to read out loud

[ripe tide]

This doesn't even count any of the alpha reading I still have to do, which I am dreadfully behind on.

[low hill]

Ahh yes, I need to get to some more of that as well.

[minor sleet]

Just finished a book and I am pointing at the author and intoning “supernatural fan”

The book is Even Though I Knew The End by C L Polk

[long sorrel]

Oh, I've that one on physical, I'll read it sometime... this year

I've set 7 out of my 9 "reading" books to "paused" and I feel much better

I should have done that ages ago

[merry galleon]

I just noticed that my edition of Titan’s Nest has some formatting errors. Like a sentence would unexpectedly end without a full stop but the sentence would continue in the next paragraph.

This might add more context to what I am talking about

[long sorrel]

Yeah

it can happen, I've seen it before

[merry galleon]

I’m chalking it down to formatting error, but that is the only one I encountered thus far

But it’s still a good book!

This is just my first time finding an error like this, so…

[long sorrel]

Mhm, there's no such thing as a perfect product, as long as it doesn't keep happening, otherwise it becomes annoying

[merry galleon]

Hopefully it is a one time incident. Whelp! I gonna keep reading! It’s getting good.

[oblique zodiac]

I got into the habit of going to the library and reading for at least an hour everyday, and it is very peaceful!
But something not so good happened to me today at the library. In the bathroom, I was checking the mirror and using the water to fix my hair a bit, and the middle-aged man next to me kept looking at me. As I turned to leave, he stopped me and warned me—in a not so kind manner—to be careful with my hands because the water can get over to the person nearby, and it's been bugging me ever since. 😭
My thoughts spiraled: was it wrong of me to check the mirror in the library where I should be focusing to read? Was it because of how I looked? I have problems with BDD.
Anyways I finished reading My Side of the Mountain after that interaction, and I felt better.

[cloud socket]

ooh what'd you think? I don't think I could survive as well as Sam but dang did it make me want to run away into the woods

I also really liked the Julie of the Wolves series

[junior dew]

AEOTTC 15 || Ugh so we have El or Elle or whatever the dead wife of Caden and then we have El or Elle or whatever the God ||

James Islington in naming his characters for this series was a sadist.

Two different characters are named such that their pronunciation is the same in the audiobook

[merry galleon]

Titan’s Nest ||Maximus dead!?|| NOOOOOO!

[somber timber]

So there’s a tainted cup special edition that has a novella in it. But it sold out instantly (also I’m not a collector and it was pricey)

But he said the exclusivity window on it is a year-ish so novella next year! (Probs)

[long sorrel]

how short?

[somber timber]

30k words

https://subterraneanpress.com/bennett-ttc/

https://subterraneanpress.com/newsannouncing-the-tainted-cup-by-robert-jackson-bennett/

This release actually has the blurb for the novella

[long sorrel]

cute cover

[somber timber]

I like it a lot!

[tight kindle]

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTdWAhOEg_a/?

litjoycrate

🎪🗝️✨A love born in the margins of the game. A story hidden behind a door.

We are beyond excited to announce The Night Circus and The Starless Sea Special Edition Box Set by Erin Morgenstern. 🖤

This limited edition box set brings together two unforgettable novels. From fated lovers and midnight magic to stories within stories, this...

Likes

4525

Instagram

OH. MY. GOD.

I need this.

I need $100 by February

[long sorrel]

US only 😠

man it's so gorgeous

holy crap
Night Circus

[tight kindle]

Literally every. Single. Comment.
It's very unfortunate

But also
AHHHHHH

[long sorrel]

You have to get it, I must live vicariously through you

My god, I just saw the polish edition of Captive's Prince... what a cover 😳

[proper silo]

oh? what's it called in Polish?

[long sorrel]

I went down a rabbit hole, and what a place to end at

[mossy gyro]

Kingdom of Copper 39 ||look I dunno what Dara expected would happen upon meeting Nahri while an Ifrit and leading a coup, but this is about what I expected. It's gonna be so much worse when Nahri meets her mother and finds out she was the one behind the entire plan. Also maybe we'll find out who her father is? I think it might be Kaveh but no one has brought this up so far||

[proper silo]

...okay yeah i found it

damn, what a cover

[long sorrel]

uh... Zniewolony Ksiaze

I spent so long typing that out...

and i can't even use the correct letters

yeah the other 2 books covers are okay

but that one is... hot damn

[proper silo]

the cover for the stories collection(?) also looks nice, though not quite the same "oh damn " vibe as volume 1

[royal carbon]

Oh good, if it is sold out I don't need to worry about trying to afford that special edition

[long sorrel]

the spanish version

[proper silo]

...should I read Captive Prince? Has anyone read it and can opine?

[long sorrel]

I have read it yeah

[proper silo]

(yes, I am basic enough that the Polish cover for vol 1 got me interested)

[long sorrel]

I thought it was really good... as long as you are okay with the setting

but based on the stuff you read I think you'd be fine

[long sorrel]

totally fair, as I was commenting the other day with @minor sleet I went in expecting an excuse for smut and found an actually pretty fun story

[proper silo]

well, then, that's going to my to-read

[long sorrel]

TWs/setting ||these countries do actively have sex slaves, they do argue about who does it better but it isn't denounced at any point only "I do it better than you" kinda thing .||

[proper silo]

...you know, I read Erha, I'll read this

[long sorrel]

As I said...

[proper silo]

yeppp

[low hill]

I have ways around that...
ponders

[proper silo]

also, speaking of to-read and excuses for smut, Guardian vol2 ch10 (I hate that they reset chapter count with vol2...) ||At this point I feel like at some point Zhao Yunlan is gonna tie Shen Wei to the bed, he's so desperate for Shen Wei to finally do what he obviously wants and bed him.||

||Shen Wei, you truly are the king of clowns||

[long sorrel]

lemme see how far I am

i don't really want spoilers given imma read this pretty soon

I say, after already having read your spoilers lol

[proper silo]

vol2 ch10, might be spoilery if you haven't reached that far yet? ||On a more serious note, the glowing orb Shen Wei is wearing around his neck is obviously Zhao Yunlan's missing soul, right?||

[long sorrel]

Oh I'm on c12

[proper silo]

ah, still safe for now

[long sorrel]

I think

[low hill]

It's an inconvenient time though. Much pondering required.

[long sorrel]

You've til it's out to ponder, maybe by then it is less inconvenient.

Well, back down my rabbit hole

[low hill]

Fingers crossed.

[long sorrel]

this cover is also pretty neat, not the same as the polish one, because like damn

(For the record I was trying to look for news about her next book but I ended up here)

[proper silo]

I feel like at this point we've talked about this cover so much we need to share it with the people (spoilered for very suggestiveness)

[low hill]

Hello.

[long sorrel]

I was hoping you'd do that, you aint about to get modded!

[long sorrel]

You see what I meant!? Like... I was looking for her new stuff on her twitter and suddenly BAM, on my face

There was a brasilian version too, but my brain got hooked on the polish (heh), and I've lost the other

[low hill]

Phrasing.

[long sorrel]

Bows

[long sorrel]

AH it's the same, that's why

[alpine drum]

what's suggestive about that?
just a helpful young man removing the collar from around that unfortunate fellow's neck

[long sorrel]

@tight kindle
(I feel bad you might miss this, though I know you already have this book on your tbr)

Well I found what I wanted about the next book so yay 🎉

(I might have given myself an urge to reread Captive's Prince 😩 )

[zinc flicker]

[ripe tide]

I feel like I see the name a lot but Ive managed to avoid Lear ing what it’s about. Beyond the title.

[snow vessel]

I think, rather than continuing to read 4 books at once, I'm going to try and lock in and finish Notes From Underground

Then I can decide if I want to finish SOTF or move to something else

[tight kindle]

Gyad damn

My bad ping

That one is on my list

One of the "when I want gay and also complex emotions"

[snow vessel]

TVA 15 ||just thinking about it... armand lost his family, lost Marius, lost santino, lost the children of darkness, loses the theatre, loses lestat and Louis... my poor boy ||

[junior dew]

Mood but Broken Earth

[oblique zodiac]

Yeah, I thought the same way. To wake up with the sun shining and just to live life with no mirriors seemed so peaceful.

[potent linden]

dang, that summary sounds great

[long sorrel]

So far it's really interesting, the mc is fluid in every sense, I had never read anything like it as far as identity goes. I'm now getting into the spy and scifi things of it

[oblique zodiac]

dang what book is that?

[snow vessel]

TVA 16 ||armand giving his personal opinion and description of each vampire is veeery funny xD||

||"lestat sucks and is soo annoying but I couldn't live without him"||

||"everyone hates Gabrielle. She's useless"||

[oblique zodiac]

I don't think anyone will care(because it's pure korean), but this is the book I am reading right now

It's about 3 broken teens going on a journey together, and it's very fun so far. They're connecting slowly, and it feels good because it feels like I'm experiencing the connection I was missing

[proper silo]

The Captive Prince 😁

[merry galleon]

I’m at 160 pages on Titan’s Nest. I’m making good progress!

[proper silo]

Guardian vol2 ch13 ||I love how nervous this multi-thousand-years-old man gets about meeting his boyfriends' parents, it's kinda adorable||

||But are we really not going to talk about the whole... Shrine to Kunlun/Zhao Yunlan that Yunlan found? Cause like, I feel like the whole, "my boyfriend has a secret collection of paintings from my past lives" is a bit of a big deal.||

||That gigantic Kunlun painting be like||

[tawdry mirage]

Robin Hobb, Ship Of Destiny, Ch 7: ||I cannot believe Vivacia died... I am shook!||

[long sorrel]

I did not click the text, only the image, which is really funny without context although i can imagine the context

[proper silo]

Unrelated, Guardian vol2 ch13 ||You know, somehow, I don't think I've ever read a scene of a character coming out to their parent before. It's kinda nice.||

Ch 14 ||The narration: Chu Shizhi was too thin and too gaunt, looking perpetually starved, like a walking ghost||
||The artwork: the most generically-handsome man you can imagine ||

[long sorrel]

I clicked the image again 😳

[minor sleet]

Every time the artists draw the same type of guy

It’s the main perk adaptions have. At least then the outfits are color coded

Also the actors don’t look identical but the artists often draw them very similar because I guess there’s only 1 way to draw a hot guy

[long sorrel]

In this style? Sounds about right

[snow vessel]

I wonder if you could find someone irl who is, physically, the archetypical Hot Guy ™

[proper silo]

Sure, but like, the point is, this particular guy is not supposed to be hot 😅

Like he's one of the very few not attractive guys in this book

[versed agate]

I know for a fact many would claim that description to be hot

I can name at least 2 in this server

[proper silo]

...you know, fair enough, but the art still is not representative

[versed agate]

it's metaphorical, to explain the hotness to the masses

[proper silo]

(in general I have a bit of a bone to pick with art in Guardian, it has very few images I actually like)

[long sorrel]

WAIT, who is it!?

there's no way it's prologue guy is it?

[proper silo]

Nope, it's Chu Shizhi

[long sorrel]

My first long relationship

[long sorrel]

Wait, idk who that is?

[proper silo]

He's the ||"Chu-ge" that Guo Changcheng is always scared of and also trailing behind||

[long sorrel]

aaaah

Wait, was he supposed to not be hot?

Whoops?

My brain might have not registered that

[proper silo]

Easy mistake to make in this genre but yes, he's described as so gaunt, he looks like a corpse

[long sorrel]

Ah, yeah, I'd not register that as not hot...

but that does ring a bell

[proper silo]

[long sorrel]

Anyway my first long relationship looked sorta like that image but less asian more spanish, squarish jaw but not too square, lean, about 1.9m perfectly defined, bright green eyes, perfect nose, perfect beard, lean, etc. Literally would turn heads on the street and people would start giggling stupidly when he talked to them

It was kinda baffling and funny to watch, he had ABSOLUTELY ZERO awareness, no self esteem or confidence, he could not, for the life of his, realize when people were flirting with him

[proper silo]

Wow

[long sorrel]

too bad he was a toxic asshole

and he owes me 300 bucks since 2011

[proper silo]

Booo

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/waitingforthet/805721465009963008/this-comic-is-as-is-usual-for-wednesdays-comics

waiting for the trade

This comic is, as is usual for Wednesday’s comics, chosen by my Patrons. Speaking of…

Check my Patreon out if you’d like to support the comic, even a little bit helps. Or just to check out the reward tiers, there’s some neat bonus stuff and I tried to make them fun: https://www.patreon.com/waitingforthet

-# #stature #cassie lang #hulkling #teddy altman

Tumblr · Jan 14, 2026, 1:04 PM

[long sorrel]

@tight kindle I read a passage of Starless Sea in spanish today and goddamn they managed to keep the prose vibe and flow and it sounds so absolutely [redacted] gorgeous in spanish 😭

I almost cried

Like, spanish lends itself to sound more floaty/poetic/fluid than english for a prose such as hers but I wasn't certain the translation would have managed to reach that, and hot damn. I'm so impressed with the translation work

[oblique zodiac]

Finished my book at almost 2am! Can't wait to start a new book at the library tmr.
My favorite quote was "Even when our feet are mired in the mud, our eyes must touch the stars."

[proper silo]

Guardian vol2 ch17 ||The fat cat turns into a twink????||

||Plot twist of the century||

[mossy gyro]

Kingdom of Copper 40 ||look Idk how Mahnizeh expected her daughter to react to learning her mother is alive and also a brutal war criminal but this seems like a pretty understandable response to me.||

||"Who would lie to their own mother?" 😇
Banger line||

||also Nahri confirmed to be a Shafit but her mother doesn't want anyone to know that, but she was also stolen and cursed by Marid? Also makes Mahnizeh's rants about taking their city back from "dirtbloods" and saying that Djinn families have irreparably diluted their bloodlines by "adopting" Shafit children rather hypocritical||

[tight kindle]

Ohhhh my goodness
That's amazing

[mossy gyro]

All right lets finish the book

[proper silo]

well, that's volume 2 of Guardian done and dusted

[long sorrel]

damn, you sure overtook me

maybe I'll read it after I'm done

with the current one

idk why I hit enter at such an awkward spot

[proper silo]

Guardian vol2 general ||It's kinda funny how I had like a dozen questions midway through the book and then in the very last chapter of this volume the story decided to answer literally all of them||

[long sorrel]

Guardian vol 2 ||I feel I'm not sure I'm interested in where they're going which I think is why I stopped midway through 1.5... like i can see were most of it is going but ... ||

[proper silo]

that's fair

[long sorrel]

||it is still entertaining enough so I'll sure finish vol 2 but I felt like most of the interesting stuff got answered already for me?||

[proper silo]

||it is kind of very easy to guess what's going on here||

||I will say, though, I do appreciate that Zhao Yunlan is picking things up at the same pace that I do, I never really felt like he was lagging behind in understanding what's going on here||

Also, it's incredibly funny how much the story here reminds me of YA paranormal romances, complete with a love interest who's this brooding sad wet cat of a man who feels super overprotective of the main character, except instead of a 16-year-old girl we have a 30-year-old-dude

Guardian vol2 all ||Okay, the brooding sad wet cat of a man has very good reasons to brooding and sad and a wet cat, but that doesn't make him any less of a clown in my eyes, he is still terrible at actually having the relationship he'd been yearing for all these centuries 😌 ||

[mossy gyro]

Kingdom of Copper 41 ||idk what exactly did it but all the magic is gone. Which means Muntadir is alive since the poison hadn't killed him yet but also many bad things will happen. ||

||also Mahzineh really be like "why would Nahri not listen to me and give the seal to Ali after I told her it would kill her and that I'd killed all these other people?"||

KoC all ||well dang. Nahri and Ali have teleported to Cairo and most likely the loss of magic is what was meant by the seal not leaving Daevabad||

Book good

Will get to three eventually

[long sorrel]

yes, book good

[jagged lake]

I was just rereading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and ||it occurred to me that this community is lousy with theoretical magicians.||

[low hill]

perches chin on hands

[mossy gyro]

At this point I'm just waiting for Feather to show up and react to my reactions

[random dome]

Book good!!!! Sorry I have been quite sick lately so I've not been checking in on discord as much, but yaaaaay you finished!

[junior dew]

Gahhh I can’t wait to read Daevabad. That itch keeps growing

Maybe I slot in book 1 between books 2 and 3 of Licanius 👀

We’ll see. I should be finished with Licanius book 2 within the next 3 days. Book 3 appears to be ~15 hours at 2x speed which I may be able to knock out in roughly a week 🤔

[languid gale]

I got a book from the library called Shanghai Girls, by Lisa See. Has anyone here heard of it? Apparently it’s about 2 Chinese sisters during WWII

[snow vessel]

I'm about 15 pages from the end of Notes From Underground 🙏

I'm also approaching the end of The Vampire Armand

I think when I finish NFU, I might put SOTF on pause for a while as well and try to reset my reading down to only 2 books at once again

I might read Bunny next. Not sure about audiobook... I might jump straight into Merrick?

[tight kindle]

Gotta present!
Has anyone read this before?

[long sorrel]

Yup

[royal carbon]

Some years ago

[long sorrel]

Like a couple decades

[valid cloud]

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories was very enjoyable. I'm glad I waited until after I read the trilogy proper before I read it, as it has full spoilers for the entire thing, lol.

[long sorrel]

Huh, maybe I should read that

I have some extra stuff on the special edition I got but not that

[valid cloud]

The version I read was illustrated as well, so that was fun. Very nice copy for a library book.

But yes, I'd recommend it for any fans of the series as a nice, light read. Though the biggest selling point is that it's all told from Cardan's pov.

[long sorrel]

Mhmm

I read The Lost Sister and hated it so much

Not that it's bad, maybe the issue is that it's too good so it made me very 😠

[valid cloud]

Hm, I hadn't heard of that one. Looks like it's only available digitally at my library, sadly.

[long sorrel]

Its, Folk of the Air all ||A letter/diary entry that Taryn writes to Jude between book 1 and 2 explaining why she did what she did. Including that she doesn't regret it||

[valid cloud]

Oh, interesting. I'll have to take a look sometime.

[snow vessel]

Ooh

[merry galleon]

I FINALLY managed to order Sigra’s Roost, and it will be coming in a couple of weeks. That book is mocking my efforts, but now it ends!

[analog geode]

I read it in school. I dislike it a lot, it’s very pop philosophy while missing the point of the very philosophy it tries to espouse

[buoyant whale]

oh man coelho, thats a name i havent heard in a while

[west gate]

i heard first law is a great series

[snow vessel]

Oh nooo I'm at some bookstores that have some very nice books

Eugh now to choose which, if any, I want to get

[west gate]

buy everything

https://tenor.com/view/doja-cat-star-wars-gif-25078126

[snow vessel]

I definitely cannot comfortably afford that right now

A lot of them are like... nice books

[west gate]

stop lying we know you got your billions stashed somewhere safe

[snow vessel]

I wish.

[oblique zodiac]

how about going to the library

[west gate]

one day bro one day

[oblique zodiac]

Like I should be doing right now

https://tenor.com/view/sleepy-sleeping-sleepy-dog-perritodormido-dormido-gif-16542296809354104671

[west gate]

2am btw

[oblique zodiac]

4pm here

[west gate]

where?

[oblique zodiac]

korea

[west gate]

i would love to travel to korea one day

[snow vessel]

I would but I've never seen these books at a library yet xD

Ended up getting an illustrated book on the history of alchemy + an anthology of faerie stories

[proper silo]

Guardian vol3 beginning ||"Spending too much time near me will literally kill you" is one hell of a bomb to drop on someone 6 months into a relationship ||

||The author is really doing all she can to make Shen Wei the most archetypal broody supernatural love interest||

vol3 ch8 ||Wait wait, are Chu Shizhi and Guo Changcheng being set up as the secondary couple? 🤔 Would be hilarious if these two walking disasters got together while Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are mired in drama||

[oblique zodiac]

I arrived at the library.
My next book on my list is written by a Turkish writer named Aziz Nesin. It's a collection of his satirical animal stories. I don't think there is a corresponding English title? And I don't see it anywhere on storygraph, so I might add it myself.

[junior dew]

My views are it’s decent. If you’re solely a plot reader it’s atrocious. If you’re a character reader it’s solid

Others may disagree

[oblique zodiac]

ugh, this might take a while. It's just a pile of short stories. It is quite interesting, but I think this will rank the lowest of the books I've read so far

[proper silo]

Guardian vol3 ch11 ||I'm sorry, we're doing time travel now???||

[low hill]

Well, why not? Just a little, as a treat.

[proper silo]

Guardian vol3 general ||I feel like this volume has really started to test my tolerance for nonsense||

||Like what are we even doing, this feels like one big sidequest||

[junior dew]

Echo of things to come 29 || Not anden!

I feel like Islington likes popping heads. I now wonder how many times in his books he does this ||

Eottc 29 || Oh no, not his sister ||

Eottc 30 || Ishel too now?

And just after she got rejected yet again

Islington you’re cold ||

Eottc 31 || I got jebaited ||

[sleek jungle]

I missed Spooky starting Licanius
plunges into backlog

[sleek jungle]

I'm currently listening to Player Manager, a football LitRPG, and actually enjoying it. My only football-adjacent experience in the last fifteen years was watching Ted Lasso. Life's weird

[junior dew]

Yeahhhh. Will probably try to have the series done by end of next week

Then I can finally read Daevabad.

Idk why that series is so hyped up in my head at this point. I am starting to worry it won’t live up to expectations

Or maybe it’s reasonably hyped up in my head

[long sorrel]

Hmmm...

I think it's good, but idk in which way is it hyped in your head

So maybe it is overhyped

[junior dew]

I think it all stems from:
A) The cover has always been dope to me
B) When I finally read the blurb, I thought it sounded really cool
C) I’ve been wanting to read it for a while

I genuinely don’t know what to expect. I don’t even really remember the blurb I read at this point

All I remember is being at Barnes and Nobles and thinking “That sounds really freaking cool, I need to read that”

[long sorrel]

All right, if you don't have expectations for anything specific I think you'll be fine

I'm having a massive urge to read Alice next

[proper silo]

Guardian vol3 up to ch14 ||I feel like at least 10 chapters of this volume could've really used copious amounts of editing, because godsdamn what a confusing mess that was. 😫 Like I understood what the author was going on eventually (except for the timeloop), but in the moment, it really felt like the author was just adding random complications (and that damn timeloop) purely cause she had to pad things out while she figured out what she wanted to do with the plot||

||lowkey really funny how after this whole journey through time, space and memories, we just go right back to solving supernatural police cases||

[west gate]

but but i am both 🥺

[junior dew]

I am too. Hence why I think it’s decent

[vagrant torrent]

Hiii everyone! I haven’t been in the books channel in ages. I’m surprised to see it’s been restructured like this lol

[long sorrel]

hey Ale

[vagrant torrent]

I’m just getting back into reading. I only read one book last year. This year trying to read 10

Halfway done with Watchmen

Hey Usha!

[vagrant torrent]

What’s up?

[long sorrel]

Hadn't seen you around in ages

What are you wanting to read this year?

[vagrant torrent]

Same lmao. I didn’t finish any cosmere book last year 😭

So wasn’t in the server much lmao

[vagrant torrent]

I want at read all of The Stormlight Archive this year

[marble sinew]

Ooh, ambitious. I hope things are going better for you this year!

[vagrant torrent]

Ambitious indeed 😅 And thanks! Things are good so far

[low hill]

Hey Ale.

[long sorrel]

Awesome! Well remember if you end up falling off there are many other books that you'd love and that aren't WoK. (And I'm sure we got plenty of recs here)

[cloud socket]

I've read other Lisa See books but haven't gotten to that one yet

[vagrant torrent]

Hey Vecna! :3

[low hill]

It'd be an unusual day if we didn't... :⁠-⁠)

[vagrant torrent]

I’ll remember that <3

Btw I’m on goodreads and storygraph!!

[long sorrel]

The sun has imploded, all the nerds have gone outside to enjoy eternal night, they are reading on the candle light, but they aren't checking discord.

[tight kindle]

!!!

Scythe Prequel book 1 release date!

[languid gale]

Really? This is my first book of hers so lmk if you like her others

[cloud socket]

I do! I read Peony in Love because my mom DNF'd and gave it to me because she doesn't like ||ghosts|| but I thought that was a relatively benign story framing. I also read China Dolls which is also WWII adjacent and really liked it.

I read her nonfiction about her Chinese American family too, but ymmv based on interest to the topic (it's parallel to mine so I appreciated it, but been a while since I've read)

[proper silo]

Guardian vol3 ch24 ||SHEN WEI YOU ABSOLUTE CLOWN ||

[proper silo]

Alright, finished Guardian

For better or worse, this book gave me a sense of nostalgia for the sort of paranormal romance novels I used to read when I was in my tweens/early teens

It's enjoyable enough, but I wouldn't say it's great.

[languid gale]

Nice, thanks! I used to read a ton of historical fiction as a teen but eventually got sick of it. I’ve mostly been reading fantasy & non fiction these past few years. I want to mix it up again this year with more fiction and classics

The problem is I’m not a huge romance girl and I feel like 90% of the books out there are romances rn

[long sorrel]

catching up with you was motivating but now that you're done it no longer is

[minor sleet]

This is how I feel about all priest novels

Priest is the author, I am not reading novels about religious clergy

[proper silo]

I will say, the worldbuilding and like... high-level concept for Guardian is really fun

Like I can see why this novel got a TV show adaptation, between its setting and the genuinely great cast of side characters, it's almost ready-made for a classic "mystery of the week" paranormal show in the vein of stuff like Warehouse-13 and Sanctuary (if anyone remembers that)

[long sorrel]

Is it like, how predictable it is that makes it not great?

Or just the plot?

I think also up to what I've read ||Shin Wei is a papercut character||

[proper silo]

It's neither, really 🤔 It's like... the relationship development between Shen Wei (the clown) and Zhao Yunlan is weird and kinda made me feel disconnected from the characters by the time the story ended.

[long sorrel]

Interesting

[proper silo]

I definitely agree with you, (Guardian minor spoilers) ||Shen Wei (the clown) feels like a stereotype of the broody paranormal love interest, and I did derive a lot of fun out of this walking stereotype clashing against a character that's not really stereotypical for paranormal romance genre||

[long sorrel]

Hmmm

I did quite enjoy Yunlan

unrelated to the cover

Well I'll finish v2 some time

I think I enjoyed how straight forward Yunlan is. ||or at least he thinks he is|| while being kinda sleazy

Im quite appreciating lately getting characters that aren't coy nor agressive they just know what they want?

[proper silo]

Ye, Yunlan is a really fun protagonist

[long sorrel]

Without all the drama and all which is kinda tiring

I do need to ask though

Guardian all ||do they actually have sex?||

[proper silo]

Answer ||Not on-page, it's a fade-to-black moment, but yes||

But yeah, as the story goes along (Guardian slightly bigger spoilers) ||We get into this backstory snarl that got me confused about what Zhao Yunlan's actual backstory is (I think there's like two or three separate instances where we learn his backstory and then learn it's actually a lie? So I spent much of vol 3 genuinely confused), and then we got into some truly ridiculous shenanigans with the timespan to the point where every time the story cut away from the Shen Wei-Zhao Yunlan drama, I felt mildly relieved.||

[long sorrel]

Yeah that's fine

[proper silo]

It's gonna sound a bit weird but I genuinely think this story could've used more flashbacks

[long sorrel]

You have all of those in Errha

Now Captive's Prince

[proper silo]

Ah, not sure if I'll pick Captive Prince just yet, I still have 7 volumes of Yuwu I haven't started on, plus the first volume of... that book whose title I keep forgetting cause it's awful, but it has a cool cover

Something about war god concubine

[long sorrel]

I live with awful titles

I get paid for them even

[proper silo]

Which, actually, if you ignore the transmigrator aspect, the premise of that book does sound weirdly similar to Captive Prince 🤔

[long sorrel]

Oh

🤔

This one

[proper silo]

Yeah

[long sorrel]

Yeah kind of-ish?

Captive's Prince setting is kind of... extreme

So it depends how it approaches the whole concubine part

[proper silo]

we'll see, i suppose

I think I might start with that book since it's only one volume thus far 🤔

[long sorrel]

The get it out of the way mentality

[proper silo]

maybe

I mean, the alternative is 7 volumes long, so that's gonna postpone my other reading plans a fair bit

(though, tbh, I'm probably gonna read Yuwu while also reading other books, cause the fact I have Yuwu on paper means I can read it during downtime at work, and then read other stuff outside of work 😅 )

[long sorrel]

I'm now in dead mode trying to figure out what i wanna read now...

[proper silo]

join me in reading the war god concubine book, it's only one volume! (for now)

[forest sierra]

anyone read Rob Hayes' Never Die?

[languid gale]

I read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning a few months ago and it’s been living rent free in my head ever since. Anyone here relate?

[long sorrel]

I decided

To skip like every potential plan i had made

[buoyant whale]

No tattoo? Smh

[long sorrel]

Did not seem appropriate there

But here

[proper silo]

ooh, neat

is that original-version Alice in Wonderland, or some later take on the same story?

[long sorrel]

Original, with translation revised, whatever that means.

They did a collection of illustrated classics and they're all so pretty...

I bought... 5?

[charred swallow]

How dare you not read in the original language, not a real fan

[long sorrel]

Indeed

[proper silo]

neat

[long sorrel]

I posted some pics a while ago

starting here @proper silo if you're curious

[charred swallow]

Spanish loses all the nuance of unbirthdays and rabbits with pocketwatches

[proper silo]

gods, those are so pretty

[long sorrel]

haha, spanish does lose some nuance for specific type of words

Yeah, i also got one for spanish poetry which is gorgeous and sad

which is also absolutely gorgeous, the back of that book has the tre cut off and only the trunk and the blood left

[charred swallow]

Its incredibly amusing to imagine someone being an english purist for novels like some people are for japaneese media
But I imagine there is some loss in translation with something like alice and wonderland, with how much it plays with the language

[long sorrel]

I do always read in original language if possible, or close to it. Like I'd not read an italian author in english when I can read it in spanish-kinda thing. That said I have already read Alice in english I bought this just cause the book is nice

[charred swallow]

Its super pretty!!

[long sorrel]

I'm not quite purist-purist but i do wish I could speak every language so I would not have to read translations. Which is ironic, given my job, and I've mad respect for translators. Knowing 2 languages is hard and time consuming but not skilful. Being a good translator requires a specific set of skills and all that. But it's still never going to be the same.

[minor sleet]

Absolute WW v2 reserved at comic book shop

Coming out next month

Very excited

[snow vessel]

Ooh very nice

I'm hoping I can get my hands on the next Absolute set

[loud atlas]

Saw the interview with GRRM and it's kind of depressing to see him struggle with wanting to do so much but getting too old. I hope he can get out as much as he can even if Winds of Winter doesn't release

[long sorrel]

It was weird reading a book in bed with the lights on

[hollow hedge]

A couple mini-spoilers in the interview, ASOIAF/GOT All ||Sansa was supposed to die by the end but he's recently started to reconsider (you can firmly attribute her TV ending to the show and not George), and Tyrion definitely doesn't get a happy ending the way he (arguably) did in the show. Kit Harrington's Snow TV series was supposed to be Jon miserable & depressed in his exile and probably eventually dying, HBO thought it was too bleak||

[minor sleet]

Somewhat dumb question

I’m reading Love inthe Time of Cholera

The main character so far is Dr Juvenal Urbino

The J in his given name is an h sound right? I keep wanting to say it as an I or a J

[loud atlas]

yeah saw that and surprised how much he talked about things

[long sorrel]

Thats the closest approximation yes.

[minor sleet]

You responded to the wrong message but I assume you mean the H

[long sorrel]

Yes

The h in English is slightly softer than the J in spanish but yeah. (In fact you can tell a native spanish speaker by them saying "hi" or "hello")

[minor sleet]

Muchas gracias

[long sorrel]

De nada

I had an urge to reply in catalan

[minor sleet]

A very long first chapter

Really good tho

[junior dew]

Echo of things to come 40 || I feel like this book is hard to follow at times? This is so unusual for me.

Like is El (god El, not dead wife El) actually shameleth? The black pillars kill everyone plan from el sounds bad but it seems a bit unclear whether Caden in the past followed that plan or the plan from Shameleth, unless they were the same?

Also he just dealt with the lith issue but I have no sense of how much time has passed on the 1 year and 1 day thing.

Like I feel like I have a loose grasp on a bunch of stuff, a solid grasp on some stuff, and no clue on others. ||

[old bone]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/er34Iek3uy

If anyone's a Dresden fan here

[hollow hedge]

more or less? I read through the series once around 5 years ago, and I'll probably pick up the next

loads of spoilers in there

[junior dew]

Eottc 42 || They’re at barrier door. Ishel or whatever her name is thinks the door was predictively made for them.

But wasn’t the idea that el was locked in behind the barrier with the people here by the devil equivalent? Except I thought the barrier was made by Caden and them via the essence sapping stuff.

I feel like everything is contradicting itself and idk if it’s just me being dumb or some wild intentional gaslighting where it’s like… different time loop instances having different lore. I’m probably just dumb. But I can’t seem to keep everything together with this book. ||

I’m going to have to read a spoiler summary or recap or something after this book lmfao

Because I clearly must have gotten some stuff mixed up at various points

Would be nice to go into book 3 with the story making sense

[ancient bay]

My full collection of Chrimmus books

[brazen pilot]

Dreams of Steel 10 ||Followers of Kina form companies and elect a captain...||

||They have a priest who needs to be educated...||

Dreams of Steel 11 ||Croaker's self-description of himself...||

||I still don't know whether to read the occasional (this being the second ever) reference to bad thoughts toward children in his narration as a deeply held true insecurity or a deeply held unfounded insecurity. I refuse to believe it's unambiguously the former.||

||Just hit me how strange it is to read third person Croaker.||

||Wait is this Soulcatcher's perspective actually reading his mind||

🔥

[ivory cypress]

I've now caught up on the Tuyo series in time for the author releasing the first chapter of the next in the series on her Patreon 😍

also I respect her so much :)))

[royal carbon]

Finished two books today, remind me to update my storygraph

[ivory cypress]

update your storygraph

[brazen pilot]

Dreams of Steel 14

||"I've been on my own before, Mather." And I hadn't been happy a moment. But happiness is a fleeting creature. It's no birthright. Not anything I expect but something I accept when I stumble into it. Meantime, power will do nicely||
||She's so iconic 💅||

||I worry that Lady's new inner circle is Kina worshippers||

[brazen pilot]

Dreams of Steel 17 ||If Narayan and Sindhu are Kina cultists and the cloth thing is a Kina thing then Lady is REALLY giving the Radisha and Smoke the wrong vibe.||

[royal carbon]

I probably didn't miss anything...

[ivory cypress]

i went a little crazy on my tuyo reread, just gulped them down

honestly really sad that there isn't more right now

obviously there will be no maintaining this pace but mannnnn this is the only thing keeping me sane in the winter darkness

[brazen pilot]

Dreams of Steel 18 ||It feels like a dangerous oversight how much Lady is reliant on Narayan's information network. Getting everything through him and doing so much through him.||

[pearl ingot]

I'm currently reading A Shadow in Summer, the first book in The Longprice Quartet by Daniel Abraham.

It is exactly the opposite kind of fantasy book I am into...
But a friend recc'd it and I promised him so😮‍💨

And it is nice to step out of your comfort zone a bit

[brazen pilot]

Dreams of Steel 18 ||She's figured out they're murderer cultists, at least, so that's a start.||

||If the situation goes south then I'd like to hope that Blade will have her back. Cultists count as priests.||

||I mean maybe I should be rooting for the Kina side just cause it'll make things spicy. The Black Company is all about accidentally working for dark evil overlords and ladies.||

Dreams of Steel 19 ||The books of the dead, recording their histories...||

||At least with it all on the table Lady won't be blindsided.||

[snow vessel]

Notes from underground done

Probably going to start Bunny next

[junior dew]

Dang y’all speedy

[old bone]

Thoughts

[junior dew]

Licanius book 2 I’ll be finished with tonight.

[old bone]

also read White Nights 🙏

[snow vessel]

...its 150 pages and took me a whole month to read xD

[snow vessel]

Mmm I'm not totally sure. I found part 1 quite interesting, if a little difficult to follow at times, but I'm not sure about how I feel about part 2. It kind of... continued characterising the narrator, but I'm not really sure what we got from it?

I enjoyed it, I found it interesting and well written, but I'm not entirely sure what the point of part 2 was

[junior dew]

Oh lol I meant more so grey and owyn

[snow vessel]

That makes far more sense

[old bone]

I mean it does go a lot into human psyche and have you reflect your thoughts in each pages

I don't really think its smth you can like discuss much after the fact unless you are discussing every page or chapter one by one

[long sorrel]

Wow so slow /j

[old bone]

I think that's a very fine pace for Notes from Underground

[snow vessel]

Hush, you xD

[snow vessel]

Yeah, I suppose. Idk. I think just because it's such a shift from the format of part 1, I'm not totally sure what the gain from that was?

I suppose we get a bit more like... characterisation of the narrator in a normal context, actually in society instead of just yapping

[long sorrel]

The correct pace for reading is whichever you want

[snow vessel]

I think my thoughts on notes from underground is sorta just a nice "it was interesting"

[old bone]

It's the book where it won't for you if you don't particularly relate to or care for aspects of human psyche presented/mentioned

Other of his books are p different

You could try White Nights for a very short but different approach yet similar themes

[snow vessel]

Won't for me?

[old bone]

work

sorry

[snow vessel]

I think partly I'm just not used to these sorts of books

Like, I liked it, but a lot of my usual thoughts/feelings/things that stand out to me aren't really even applicable here

[old bone]

I am interested in what you would think of The Stranger

[snow vessel]

I will put that and white nights on my list

And hopefully get to them... sometime soon

[old bone]

Both are like shorter than Edgedancer btw

https://tenor.com/view/sneaky-plotting-evil-patrick-spongebob-squarepants-gif-3501874

~~Could be used for reading stat padding too ~~

[snow vessel]

😭 I think I just got automodded for abbreviating notes from underground

[snow vessel]

gestures at the time I took to read Notes

[old bone]

The Stranger has more of a plot

If that's what you want...

And White Nights is like waaaayy shorter

[snow vessel]

I will probably get to them sometime but I have enough on my list for like, January, already and I don't like reading multiple at once

[old bone]

White Nights is like 24k words

[old bone]

Cool cool

I was just trying to get ways to put it higher

[snow vessel]

I don't want to make promises because I'm very bad at following my reading plans

But like... I think my library has them, I'm sure I'll pick one up on a whim sometime

I have a short list of books I want to get to immediately next, after those I'll start looking through my tbr by vibes and see what I pick up. So maybe then I'll get to one of them

-# bunny, dracula, reaper's gale. Maybe SOTF. I want to get through my Christmas books before we get too far into the year

[long sorrel]

I got called by a cover....... because it looked like a fantasy cover 😔

It was a lie

[royal carbon]

Now you can win friends and influence people if you read it.

[long sorrel]

Yay.

I didn't buy it or anything but i did have a second of "oh pretty cover" " ... oh"

[old flint]

Dale Carnegie turned up in a cryptic crossword the other week. I'd never heard of him, so it was a difficult anagram

[viral fractal]

Just read through the latest grrm comments

🙁

[lusty meteor]

What did he say this time

[viral fractal]

Asoiaf ||apparently Sansa is on the chopping block||

Also he’s made no progress on winds since basically 2021 lol

[lusty meteor]

WHAT

Oh brother…

[little dock]

Where are these? I don’t see a new blog post or anything

[alpine drum]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/george-rr-martin-interview-thrones-winds-dragon-knight-1236473519/

basically he said Winds is at 1,100 pages which is the same number he's given since 2022

I don't take that to mean that he's made no progress, I take it to mean he's been stuck revising for 3 years

a lot of the interview is about his beef with HOTD

there were a few other allusions to Winds though

[viral fractal]

He has severe beef with Ryan condal

[random dome]

what's the site y'all use to track books you read? storygraph?

maybe i should try doing that this year

[long sorrel]

yep

[ripe tide]

Yes

[ivory cypress]

storygraph!

[low hill]

-# waves the lone flag for LibraryThing in the corner

[random dome]

alright, i just finished the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook so I am adding it to the list as my first book of 2026

[alpine drum]

asoiaf ||I am pretty sure we knew this from the old outline of the series that was dug up, she was going to be a traitor to the Starks ||

||the quote about Sansa is more saying "she was supposed to be killed off but we'll see now that her story's different"||

[hollow hedge]

I thought the note about the possible sequel series that was cancelled was interesting (GOT-ASOIAF ||the Jon Snow sequel would have stayed in the north, George felt like he wanted to avoid revealing more about what happened in the future south of the wall, it's honestly interesting enough that he cares about that.||)

[random dome]

huh there's a thing about importing a goodreads account... but goodreads is acting like i don't have any books read?

[hollow hedge]

ASOIAF ||I think the way George describes it, it would have been the show that had him reconsidering, so I really wonder if her intended death was newer? Like all this talk about Sansa trying to become a political player in Feast, I wonder if that was destined to end very poorly||

[random dome]

????

If I click "added some books" it takes me to my bookshelves, where I have 72 books on the "read" shelf

(not that I was ever very good about using Goodreads either but still)

[low hill]

Goodreads just casually gaslighting you in to being unable to leave.

[random dome]

I guess /shrug

Like, I guess I could just add these books manually but that's annoying

[long sorrel]

that seems dumb

[random dome]

ok i found a different link to the same page and now there's a button there

VERY FUNCTIONAL

[oblique zodiac]

Finished my book written by Aziz Nesin!
My favorite quotes(translated):

​"Life is difficult, and that is why our fruits are so sweet. Only those who endure that hardship can burst forth from a tiny fig seed—rooting themselves, branching out, and budding leaves to become a magnificent fig tree."

​"Even now, there must be flies relentlessly throwing themselves against windowpanes, struggling to reach the light on the other side. Some may lose their lives in the process. And there will still be those who sit idly in the dark, Dismissing such efforts as foolishness. ​Which path to take is for the flies themselves to decide. But one truth remains: nowhere in the history of flies is it recorded that a monument was ever built for a fly who simply sat still in the dark."

[viral fractal]

||what was shocking to me was that the change was apparently made after adwd (unless grrm was just being glib)||

[viral fractal]

||I actually think that Sansa was supposed to succeed at the political aspect and then die due to unpredictable supernatural forces, the way Renly did||

[lucid isle]

Fished the Piranesi audiobook and enjoyed it. Now I'm listening to Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

[lusty meteor]

Just read the article

[random dome]

Also my thoughts on DCC #3 are ||I feel like this one was a little more mixed. The parts up through the Hekla standoff and betrayal and such were good and I liked how that whole scenario played out, but after that stuff kind of lost me. The "noodles" construction with everything in the dungeon also being flipped upside down didn't really make a ton of sense to me, and I do feel like finding the carts with portals to the trainyard or the abyss right at the end was a little bit convenient, since they were then able to use those to cheese all the rest of the encounters on the floor massively. I also didn't like the bit where they had to kill the one NPC gnoll over and over to take his hands, like. Not only did they do it to him multiple times before they finally stopped and explained why they needed to, which feels kind of morally bankrupt WHILE the text is kind of playing the scenario for laughs (Donut yelling "Mongo!" every time they realize they need to kill him again for another hand). But then it also felt kind of cheap that the guy just consented to getting re-murdered over and just because they said they were going to stop the people who made this place. Felt like a little bit of a get out of a moral delimma free card that the book wasn't taking as seriously as it should have to start. So yeah, I liked most of the book, but all the stuff with the portal carts was kind of a miss for me.||

[lusty meteor]

It has never been more over

Also HoD S2 is where everyone said it got bad right

[alpine drum]

I found it fine

If you read the book you seem more likely to dislike it

[hollow hedge]

He's not willing to admit that it isn't happening, but nothing in that article makes me think it's ever happening

[vital ibex]

S2 was mixed for me though I enjoyed it overall

[hollow hedge]

I never watched season 2, didn't have the subscription or the will to watch it

[marble sinew]

HotD S2 wasn't bad (as someone that hasn't read the source material), but it had some issues that look like they'll compound. Kind of like season 5 or 6 of GoT, IMM.

[viral fractal]

I didn’t like it

@zinc flicker and I are certified haters

[viral fractal]

ITS SO OVER

[zinc flicker]

We ping each other just to repeat the same exact hate

[viral fractal]

ITS NEVER BEEN MORE JOEVER

[viral fractal]

Beneath the gold the bitter steel 😔

[zinc flicker]

He also said nobody can finish it but him

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/ladyofmelk/799410300407496704/ohhhhh-my-god-u-found-a-dead-monk-in-your-abbey

.𖥔 ݁ ˖☾𖤓☽.𖥔 ݁ ˖

ohhhhh my god u found a dead monk in your abbey? should we tell everyone? should we throw a party? should we invite bernard gui?

-# #the name of the rose #il nome della rosa

Tumblr · Nov 5, 2025, 9:11 PM

[zinc flicker]

Low-key S1 was bad too but we convinced ourselves S2 would fix the problems (it made them worse)

[viral fractal]

Me and you together for sure for sure

[viral fractal]

S1 with Millie Alcock was good

[zinc flicker]

Imagine taking a complex war story about the dangers of monarchism pushing for unfit rulers to lead, resulting in a war that helps the elite at the expense of the oppressed and making it a doomed yuri

[zinc flicker]

Pre time skip was good

Almost all of my problems are post time skip

[viral fractal]

I ask think young Rhaenyra was just a better actor and also better written

She was a more flawed complex character

[brazen pilot]

Oh camille found the article

[zinc flicker]

My only real pre time skip issue is ||Criston||