I'm almost done with The Four Agreements. It's like "baBBie's first self-help book" so it should be fucking easy to read but like I said I can't concentrate. But I'm on track to finish it.
I started Happiness by Thích Nhất Hạnh. He died around when Meat Loaf and Louie Anderson did, but he was a Vietnamese buddhist and wrote a fuckton of books. Because he has so many, you don't run into the issue where an author dies and now you can't chell out their work because there's a long-ass waiting list through the library. A bunch of his works are free through the app I use to access my local library so I figured "why not?"
I did finish Hello Habits by Fumio Sasaki in its audiobook format. I put a hold on it so I could listen to it again.
----tl;dr: I go on too long about Percy Jackson----
You know, I never did pick up another Percy Jackson book even though I intended on finishing the series. Maybe when I start working again, I'll revisit the series since I was using these stories to relax after work. But it almost feels like the stories blew their load too early. Like the opposite of the Rowling problem where you wonder why the fuck Harry Potter has to live with his horrible relatives for each and every installment. But instead of this, Percy gets a bunch of resolutions in his books.
His crappy living situation is sorted out in first book. Then Mom's dating in the second or third book (I don't recall) but its not that big of a deal even though the book kinda tries to pretend it is. Second book, Percy meets a half-brother but they like each other and are friends by the end of the book. So no tension there. Percy sort of makes his peace with his absentee dad Poseidon so there's no tension there either. Annabeth, his little girlfriend, understands Percy's feelings and has come full-circle regarding her own relationship with her family so there's no tension there. Grover went to find Pan which is what he wanted to do and we have no reason to believe he won't find Pan so that's that.
There's the whole prophecy throughout the series that supposedly only fits Percy until other characters get introduced. The prophecy is such back-burner material that I don't recall what it is. It's so important that I can find no immediate outline of what it was on Wikipedia. But whatever.
The book wants me to feel uncertain about the prophecy but there's nothing to have you believe this wouldn't be Percy's prophecy. One of the other candidates for this prophecy is subsequently taken out of contention so there's no suspense here. Even though another possible candidate is introduced, he's some unstable little boy who still plays with action figures and had a sister-dependency so there's no way anyone could actually believe he'd be the subject of the prophecy. Honestly, he's the one that should've been taken out of contention. The girl was actually a formidable peer for Percy, a daughter of fucking Zeus, and was mentioned from the very first book. She was a contender for things not going smoothly and actually would behave contrary to Percy, acting as his foil. This was great tension. But the author resolves it and now there's no way it could possibly be her. Meanwhile the little boy feels shoehorned in and useless. He's Hades's son but who cares? We barely know Hades. We barely got to know this boy or his sister so I have no investment in him whatsoever.
In looking up stuff I have two things to note:
I realized I completely forgot about Luke. Luke is the running villain of the series. (Of course there's another bad guy behind him but Luke's the one we encounter all the time.) But it's funny that I forgot about Luke. I shouldn't be able to forget the main villain proxy this easily.
Also, the series that was proposed for Disney+ got greenlit and casting is going to start. The author will be involved this time so I'm happy for him. I still think the first book, The Lightning Thief, is pretty solid. But from the second book onward, it's diminishing returns. Hopefully for him and his fans, the entire five-book series gets a nice adaptation. I feel like I need to make a bet on who will be racebent.
Highest odds are that it's still Grover.
Mid-odds are that it's both Grover and Annabeth.
Dark horse is all three leads.
I'm not sure Percy has to be white. Or Annabeth. But there's artwork of their canon appearances on the author's website. So I think casting should match that no matter the race of the actor.
Luke will definitely stay white and blond. Because "white man eVIL" or whatever.
Because of Hollywood trends, I'm betting any red-heads become black ladies. Juniper, Rachel, Calypso, Aphrodite, and Demeter. (In the movie, Persephone was Rosario Dawson so it's already a thing.) Also, because these fantasy productions love to make non-white people into monsters, bet we'll get a black Tyson, too. (Also in line with the black Grover we got before but there was a white Tyson in the second film.)
The author appears to try and make some sort of diversity attempt in his work already. He does have neuro atypical-characters since half-gods are known for having adhd. And he also already has some lgbt rep in the books. Granted, from the first three books alone, it's not out on display any further than what we already know about the gods themselves. (Apparently, the representation in this regard ramps up with later works and one of the characters has a "was gay the entire time" moment.) Just not clear if all that's enough given the adaptations that get churned out these days.
Non-binary stuff is trendy so I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of characters get pushed into this route.
