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Tired of people saying ‘I hope no one loves Snow after the ABOSAS movie.’ You can love a character while simultaneously admitting they’re a piece of shit who would deserve death if they really existed. I love Snow as a character because I find him entertaining, and the way he continually lies to himself throughout the entire book about being a hero while he’s actually sociopathic is fascinating. I would read an entire trilogy about him, I think he’s a great character. I also love the themes THG + ABOSAS bring up - it’s easily possible to enjoy a fictional character while also acknowledging that the narrative is a warning against people like them.

There’s a huge difference between loving/enjoying a character and romanticizing them. If someone is saying ‘hey, I agree with what Snow is doing’ then that’s a whole different ballgame. But moralizing about how ‘if you like this bad character then YOU’RE bad and don’t get the nuances of the story’… C’mon, people. Sure, there are some fans who are that brand of crazy, but I like to think the majority of us are capable of critical thinking. Especially since a good chunk of THG fans are adults now.

Also, young President Snow is canonically hot. Complaints about how people will drool over him because the actor is hot are wild to me because that’s part of the point. Evil can be beautiful and dressed up; I know for a fact there would be endless amounts of bitching if he was some butt-ugly, misshapen, obese hunchback or something because ‘Hollywood always makes the evil people ugly and the good people hot.’ He’s hot and people will thirst over him for that. And that’s fine too. As long as everyone can differentiate between fiction and reality, let them enjoy what they enjoy. Truly, who cares if people wanna be railed by a fictional evil president.

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Okay, so you know how Barrayar is full of stories of evil mutants kidnapping innocent Vor maidens, just like we IRL have a bunch of story templates exploiting our societal fears of some exoticized evil Other stealing our women?

And you know how modern romance/erotica takes those stories and turns them into erotic fantasies? Like, women have been going mad over The Phantom of the Opera for centuries, we've had stories about innocent maidens being forced into arranged marriages with big dick sheikhs and Middle Eastern princes for decades, and in the past decade or so both monster romance and villain romance have become completely mainstream staples of the genre?

And you know how Miles allegedly killing Tien so he could court Ekaterin was Vorbarr Sultana's Scandal of the Year for a short while, before the whole affair was capped by Ekaterin's very memorable and very public proposal?

Now, imagine some repressed Vor housewives hearing about it and thinking, in a similar vein to what Mark thought, "NGL, that's kinda hot. I always did have those fantasies where I was ravished by the villain, and I really do sometimes wish my boring sexist husband were dead." Because now that they've caught up on galactic genetics the actual fear of mutant children is kinda low among the bored upper class housewives who can afford gene cleaning, so it's the perfectly zeitgeisty moment to exoticize and objectify the mutants instead.

So one of said bored housewives decides to anonymously write a pulpy gothic-esque dark romance/erotica novel about it. Except obviously the scrawny short guy doesn't make for an appealing romantic hero, so she makes him a Taura-esque tall, massively ripped fellow who growls all his lines a là ACOTAR's Rhysand and conveniently makes all his mutations sexy in the vein of, like, A/B/O novels or Ice Planet Barbarians.

Imagine "Ravished by the Billionaire Secret Agent Mutant Count" slowly becoming popular among the ladies and the main cast learning about it, Miles lamenting about it having come out now when he's happily married and not when he was fifteen and desperate to get laid, Ivan suddenly gaining a lot more traction with the girls because they've caught onto the real life inspiration for the novel and are wondering if the Big Dick Mutation comes from Ivan's side of the family, Cordelia shamelessly reading it at dinner (she's the only person who's read it without wrapping the cover) and annoyedly pointing out the biological inaccuracies as Aral begs her to stop, Mark seeing the opportunity for a cash grab and buying the holodrama rights...

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Round 1 - Day 3

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Wait a minute is his future wife someone else’s wife???? LMAOOOO why am I not surprised

Made it to Komarr and I hear this is the book Miles meets his future wife LETSGOO

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Made it to Komarr and I hear this is the book Miles meets his future wife LETSGOO

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That’s it, being orphaned or having abusive parents is out in fiction

Having loving, living parents who are constantly fondly exasperated by their child and whom their child wants to make proud in a healthy way is in

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bruh silent hill 2 remake + new silent hill written by RYUKISHI07 OF ALL PEOPLE + alan wake 2 + resident evil 4 remake + dead space remake… horror game fans are fucking feasting for the next couple of years

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I don’t know if it’s just me not reading it right or something, but is House of Leaves really a horror? I’m about a quarter of the way through and it feels like a hilarious satire. It’s like if that post ‘sometimes the curtains are blue because the author just wanted them to be blue, there’s no hidden meaning’ was an entire novel.

The amount of people squabbling in footnotes about how ‘oh this camera shot of a cup means ‘x’, no it means ‘y’, no it means something else!’ seems like it’s Danielewski making fun of critics having to find meaning in EVERY. LITTLE. THING. And Johnny slowly going mad while reading it (and his own tale getting more and more unbelievable) feels like people these days trying to prove they’re more intellectual and interesting by trying to find meaning in every little thing in life since that’s what you’re taught to do with literature in school + lying to make their own lives more interesting/meaningful. Johnny trying to use bigger words to sound more pretentious while continuously mixing up ‘should have’ with ‘should of’ feels like this too.

Sure, The Navidson Record is fun and creepy and intriguing, but it uses a shit ton of horror film tropes and isn’t really special the way the book’s ‘sources’ keep claiming. So far there’s nothing in there that would warrant the supposed thousands of articles/books/interviews people write on it. Some of the IC takes are so out of the left field and wild it has me cackling. Maybe this changes as it goes on?

But honestly, right now I can’t take this seriously as the pinnacle of horror I’ve heard people saying it is. I could be completely misreading, but it really reads like a brilliant, scathing satire of our modern way of reading instead. Either way, I think I love it.

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if I had a nickel for every visual novel featuring an arrogant man who yells a lot and his equally arrogant (tsundere) witch love interest who makes him look pathetic, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s funny that it happened twice…

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This might be the most naive thing I've ever said but please don't fight in the notes I know this is inflammatory but I'm doing this for science

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Currently Reading:

Vorkosigan Saga (audiobook)

Oathbringer (physical book)

Higurashi (visual novel)

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okay ngl taylor/lisa has way more romantic chemistry than taylor/brian so i’m actually glad that ship didn’t sail