November 26th, 2025
rocky41_7: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] rocky41_7 in [community profile] books at 10:31am on 26/11/2025 under

Last night I finished The Once and Future King by T.H. White, because I felt like it was time I made a real foray into the Arthurian legends. The actual first Arthurian book I read was The Mists of Avalon, but that was years ago and before I had heard the full story about Marion Zimmer Bradley. This book takes a decidedly different tone. I’m sticking to the most common name spellings for all of the characters here, because spellings do vary across all versions of these legends.

The first thing that surprised me about The Once and Future King is that it’s funny, and frequently in an absurd, dorky kind of way. Knights failing tilts because their visors fell over their eyes wrong, Merlin accidentally zapping himself away in the middle of a lesson because he was in a temper, the Questing Beast “falling in love” with two men dressed in a beast costume, that sort of thing. This silliness is largely concentrated in the first quarter of the book, which is about Arthur’s childhood, but it’s never fully lost.

The second surprise was how long the book focuses on Arthur’s childhood, but then again, it is setting the scene for Arthur’s worldview and the lessons he internalized as a child which shape his approach to being king.

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marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
I Picked Up This World's Strategy Guide, Vol. 2 by atchi ai

Spoiler ahead for volume 1.

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November 25th, 2025
delphi: An illustrated crow kicks a little ball of snow with a contemplative expression. (Default)
Fandom 50 #30

Untitled Fix-It Comic by [tumblr.com profile] yeehawpim
Fandom: Panfandom, Doctor Who, Avengers, Sherlock
Medium: Comic
Length: 6 pages
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: drama, happy ending, au: canon divergence, writing

Description:
A black-and-white cartoon comic follows its creator from their teenage years reading fic in a classroom, through glimpses of canon moments from Doctor Who, The Avengers, and Sherlock, to the experiences of other fans and back to the now-older creator as they muse on their changing opinion of fix-it fic.

Transcript of Comic Text )

Yeah, this got me. I'm a sucker for a good fix-it fic, and it's a storytelling impulse that I feel warmly about in general. I've especially been thinking about this topic lately—and some of the related canon moments—thanks to a bit that hit home in [youtube.com profile] JessieGender1's recent Star Trek Strange New Worlds Is a Centrist Space Fantasy video essay that talked about the storytelling worldviews in which change requires a body count and about the narrative incorporation of ungrievable lives. (Two recs for the price of one in this post!)

This comic is sweet and touching, with great pacing and choice of visuals. I especially love the spot where we see darkness giving way to light and the shots of people writing. It gave me some fuzzy feelings about fandom and encouraged me to open back up a fix-it draft of my own.
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
I Picked Up This World's Strategy Guide, Vol. 1 by atchi ai

A frolic with a somewhat different approach. A girl works in her mother's item shop, and one day while gathering herbs, she finds a book. A strange book.

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November 24th, 2025
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
posted by [personal profile] marycatelli in [community profile] books at 11:14am on 24/11/2025
Orange by Ichigo Takano

This is available in five volumes, and also in two omnibus editions (the second included a backstory which I didn't get into), but it reads as one story.

It opens with Naho receiving a letter. It says it's from her future self, that a new boy will arrive in class and sit beside her, and she must not ask him to walk home, because he's no longer with them in the future.

Not knowing what to believe, she joins with her friends in asking

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November 23rd, 2025
delphi: An illustrated crow kicks a little ball of snow with a contemplative expression. (Default)
November 16th, 2025
delphi: An illustrated crow kicks a little ball of snow with a contemplative expression. (Default)
November 14th, 2025
delphi: An illustrated crow kicks a little ball of snow with a contemplative expression. (Default)
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
posted by [personal profile] marycatelli in [community profile] books at 02:43pm on 14/11/2025
Mirror Mirror by Sarah Mlynowski

The adventures conclude! Spoilers for the earlier ones ahead!

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