Media I've Consumed Lately

I feel like I'd be lying to myself if this series wasn't first on my list. As someone who doesn't like sports, or the mafia, seeing a ton of content online for this sports-mafia book series was strange and it was only because of the cosplayers that I got into this book in the first place. I can't recommend the quality of the books, as it's a self-published series that can get kind of overly edgy at times, but the characters are so interesting that I binged all 5 books twice in the last 9 months, waiting through ridiculous library waitlists. I figure that on the third reread, I should probably order the books, so I just recently got a paperback copy of all the ones out so far.

I absolutely adore found family tropes, and this is that trope on steroids. The whole premise of the book revolves around a collegiate sports team (playing a made up lacrosse-ish sport named Exy) made up entirely of rejects. They're the ultimate underdogs, and the trust that they build with each other is super cool to see build. The art/cosplay community is also alive and well for this fandom, which is something I wasn't expecting for a little-known book series that came out over 10 years ago. The book series also isn't romance-heavy, and instead focuses on friendship and other bonds for the most part.

If you do want to read this book, I *highly* recommend checking out the content warnings. There's a lot of violence (see the "mafia" part of sports-mafia) and a few other topics that may be distressing.

AN: I find it insane that this book was recommended for people who liked Heated Rivalry. IMO the two have nothing in common except that it's sports.

I can't say I knew much of the original Achilles myth, but I really enjoyed this retelling of it. The prose was good, flowery without feeling pretentious. It almost felt like reading an older book with the way some things were written. I listened to this one as an audiobook, and the narrator was wonderful and kept things easy to follow.

I picked this up at a bookstore because I recognized the author from BSD, but went into the novel with no real expectations. I feel like I didn't get it 100% on my first readthrough, but the book did do a good job of portraying depression and the feeling of ostracization. I figured the "no longer human" phrase referred to how the MC didn't see himself as *like* other people, but seeing it applied instead to who he turned into was an interesting turn. I'd definitely like to reread this, and probably annotate it or keep some kind of notes so I can keep track of characters (I'm terrible with names).

So I actually only started reading this because I watched an animatic on youtube set to one of the songs from the Gatsby musical, so I listened to the rest of the soundtrack and decided that before it consumes my life, I should at least read the original book first to get a plot refresher. So I listened to a reading of it while I worked on a cross-stitch project, and then as soon as I finished I think I wrote 10k words of character analysis. I ended up making a trip out to NYC to see Jeremy Jordan perform before he left the musical, and that was the closure of my Gatsby interest. A lot of people didn't like the musical, but I had a good time so idk maybe my palate isn't refined enough

Ohhhhhhhh my god this is my current hyperfixation. One of my friends has always been super into the Persona series, and I decided to buy it while it was on sale earlier this spring. Unfortunately, that sale was during finals season and I spent all my time playing it instead of, yknow, studying. The art style is awesome and the music is even better. I ended up making two separate acid jazz playlists just because I wanted more music that sounded like the P5 soundtrack. That being said, I'm not too far into the game (maybe 40 hrs as of now?) and I'm desparately trying to avoid spoilers, which is sad bc I also want to see the memes.

I've been following Deltarune since it came out, having been involved with Undertale when it was popular. This one comes and goes in waves, since I play when a new chapter comes out and then forget it exists for another year or two. My favorite chapter so far is probably Chapter 3, but the music from Chapter 4 was incredible too. I feel like Chapter 5 was a little meh in my book, but I also don't play platformers for a reason and my reflexes were not great. I played through all of Ch5 in one sitting with my brother, and did ye olde trick of handing over the controller whenever I couldn't beat a boss (or miniboss, looking at you Aqua).