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it's really funny how much people struggle with gender in the imperial radch series

"the characters are all women" blatantly untrue "it's a post gender society" also incorrect "they all use feminine pronouns" wrong again

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free writing tip: do not ever refer to a human being as any variation of "ripe"

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"I know words are messy, Roger, full of connotations, old desires and memories. I know no word has the identical meaning to two people. I know there is no way to absolutely describe what just happened to us, but to give up on language, to give up on what we have, no matter what a rag box it is - that is an act of cowardice. I love language, I give it its peculiarities, its old bones, its failings. I love words in my mouth. I love to spill them and I don't really care how every one of them fits. I love the fluidity and ripeness of talk, the forgetfulness of it, the way it vanishes into thin air, or how a sentence sags with meaning, laden like a piece of dry bread sopping up soup."

The Crown of Columbus - Michael Dorris & Louise Erdrich

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jesse and daniel at the table with everyone in qotd is so funny. maybe have the kids just go play outside while the adults are talking

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khayman is kinda funny i want to see him in the show. him randomly glomming onto armand and daniel for no apparent reason, psychically transmitting "hiiii just wanted to know i think you guys are neat and i will not harm you :D" like he didn't just get done accidentally exploding another vampire he wanted to befriend earlier. and armand just completely not responded while daniel is absolutely oblivious to anything going on

also the bit where mael's scared shitless of him bc Ancient Vampire but is still just like. compelled to. just. poke him a lil bit.

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Once he'd reached out, held Armand with all his strength, and tried to gash the skin of his throat. 

i want any show devil's minion stuff to be old man daniel but if they're gonna go 70s route i at least want to see human daniel attempting neck biting like a chihuahua trying to destroy a kong extreme

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things that have happened in the book "the vampire lestat" in the first hundred pages or so (tw: nasty super unsanitary. you've been warned)

lestat cries like every other page

like i'd seen jokes about it but i'm still taken aback at how MUCH this goddamn man weeps and sobs

he doesn't even seem that sad like there's the pressing existential terror but he's having fun in paris he just loves crying

in the aftermath of getting turned he shits himself and then is like "y'know i don't even give a fuck"

he throws up blood after seeing The Horrors but then is promptly like oh damn. blood. nice. and licks the blood he just puked off the floor

after a day napping post-turning he then puts on his super fancy outfit and does many cartwheels and somersaults in the woods

incredibly normal man having a normal one

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ok the book makes daniel's outburst feel way more appropriate.

"i went to visit lestat and he was crying a lot. dying probably. so i left and sat and ate some grass and armand broke up with me except i didn't really realize that was what happened until like a month later. anyway now i just wander the night bc i'm too afraid to kill myself :)"

i would probably also kind of lose it on him a little bit

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incomplete list of amusing things that are in the iwtv book but not the show

antoinette is antoine, except he actually isn't named for quite a while and he's just Some Guy lestat hung out with sometimes and randomly turned into a vampire

louis attacks claudia but doesn't kill her, later lestat says, quote "I am like a mother. . . I want a child!" and goes and gets her and turns her

louis jumps into a window then closes it behind him, causing lestat who is chasing him to just sort of crash into it looney-tunes style

lestat likes shakespeare but he dozed through operas

"We went to every performance, even those by amateurs, and Lestat would stride home afterwards, repeating the lines to me and even shouting out to passers-by with an Outstretched finger, `Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!' until they skirted him as if he were drunk."

the first coven member louis meets in paris is santiago, who is inexplicably dressed exactly like louis and perfectly imitating everything he says and does like a mirror image, until louis calls him a buffoon

armand claims he's not the leader of the coven

also everyone other than armand (who is ginger) has their hair dyed black

the first introduction to telepathic communication from vampires isn't until louis and claudia meet armand at the theater for the first time, where armand immediately starts telepathically telling claudia to die like 5 minutes after meeting her

"Knowledge would never be withheld by Armand, I knew it." lol. lmao, even

when asked about vampire crimes they acted like the only one was killing another vampire

armand just has some mortal kid(s?) in cages and louis is like well that seems weird and then just doesn't ask

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so i'm started tvc bc i make terrible choices. i'm really trying to appreciate it on its own merits and not constantly compare it to the show but it's difficult when in the first couple of pages i'm like ummm actually the show did it better

i'm used to being mad at adaptations for adapting things badly. being mad at the source material for not being as good as the adaptation is new to me

so like straight off the bat, louis' method of proving he's a vampire is...turning on the regular overhead light, which reveals that he's Really White and also Unnerving looking. and that's enough? i've seen some weird looking white guys this is not convincing. if he's genuinely so weird looking that if he's not in a dimly lit bar you can immediately tell he's inhuman, how is he able to effectively hunt or blend in with society??

also ofc i like that in the show louis doesn't even just flash his fangs, but specifically jumpscares daniel a bit - it's a little mean which i think is more effective in-story and out

also his description of his family is just so...nothing. i really don't get a strong impression of his dynamic with them

People in society asked my sister offensive questions about the whole incident, and she became an hysteric. She wasn't really an hysteric. She simply thought she ought to react that way, so she did.

this is an insane thing to say but i genuinely can't tell if anne realized that when she wrote it or if it's just some good ole internalized misogyny going on?

also i'm assuming this is going to be countered in the second book when it gets to lestat's pov but it's hilarious the idea that lestat just...randomly bit him. for no apparent reason. and then broke into his house and turned him bc he wanted to steal his plantation. this is absurd

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i love dawit he's like i'm a pacifist but also i only have one solution to any problem and that's murder and he regrets it every time but 5 minutes later he's doing another murder. dawit put the knife DOWN

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i like mysteries i just hate reading about cops (or cop-adjacent characters) but i "cozy mysteries" annoy me. why must there be the two extremes of super hardboiled edgy misogynistic or a twee 'feel-good' book about a murder. or i guess sometimes i see a third type which is pushing back against the first type with the most milquetoast entry-level feminist messaging you can imagine

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peter watts frustrates me so much bc i like a lot about his writing but why must he be like that about women

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you ever notice some of those "gay" books are written as if the audience is a clueless but fairly open-minded person and the characters area having incredibly stilted dialogue that only exists to educate the reader on basic ideas like asexuality or pronouns

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wizard of the crow is a long novel but it doesn't feel like it. i've read 300+ pages and it manages to feel quicker than certain other shorter books that felt like a slog to get through

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hate starting a book, glancing at the featured praise in the front, and seeing a quote from a writer i hate. get out of here