#(and also the book itself is. not badly written. which is more than I can say for others)

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

The Meister of Decimen City

a chaotic superhero satire

a genius who’s labelled a villain by the government after her super intelligent dinosaur children get loose is put under supervision 

and has to confront her past / deal with the trauma of her complicated family/sibling relationships

and also the realisation that she might be asexual

[leidensygdom]

Despite how WOTC/Hasbro have sworn off using AI several times (and then got caught using it, like here or here), and then casually firing +1000 employees this year (many of them being artists), their CEO is predictably musing about how to incorporate it, and readily making use of the technology for some other products, and testing how it may be of use for DnD/MtG.

I had mentioned it was just a matter of time, and even when some people were very eager that WOTC would never, well. Who would've thought. It's the same company that showed again and again no respect for its audience, their creators or even the biggest fans. (The OGL mess was about a year ago. They sent the Pinkertons to a fan less than a year ago). Because delivering a quality product isn't really their goal, nor is it to actually compensate artists fairly.

I don't think this is breaking news, but I'm mostly bringing it up in case people wonder where they stand. They also have a poll where you can tell what you think about them (no actual written feedback, only "pick from these 5 options"). And as a final note Margaret Weiss (creator of the Dragonlance, who had some big disputes with them- Including a lawsuit towards WOTC) has come forward to tell how little WOTC has respected her series. Not long ago a book set in the setting (Fizban's Treasury of Dragons) got released, and it cared very little about being respectful towards the world or her work. Which tracks with their usual behaviour, because Eberron was also mangled quite badly.

Just, as a reminder, there's many wonderful TTRPGs that are far more worth to support monetarily, or even available to play for free. (Recently all of the PF2e remaster has been posted on Archives of Nethys- A page that has all the mechanics from all the books for free, which is endorsed by the company itself.)

But yeah. As a small creator and artist, it's surely lovely to see how much the biggest TTRPG company out there respects us.

[demaparbat-hp]

I used to just think Zutara was cool because Zuko and Katara had that whole fire-water duality, had more chemistry with each other than their canon love interests, Kataang gave me this sexist pseudo-incestuous vibe while Mai was just way too under-developed to interest me (Zuko gets the most character development out of all the characters but they pair him off with the most boring character in the series?).

Now when I actually think about it more deeply, Zutara genuinely made more sense for the narrative and characters too. Aang was told he had to let go of Katara so he could become a fully realized Avatar but then he just gets a deus ex machina so he doesn't have to. They dropped an entire arc just for Kataang to get together and made it happen in the most stupid way. The lion turtle deus ex machina was already badly done but at least it sorta made sense with the lore. The rock was just beyond ridiculous. Aang solved his problems by randomly hitting a rock even though they already established how Aang had this unhealthy attachment to Katara because she was his coping mechanism for his lost people. Instead of letting her go, Aang keeps that attachment and becomes even more possessive of her. He never learns to prioritize the world over Katara even though it is his duty as the Avatar! He didn't have to sacrifice or learn anything to achieve his goals and the way he became a fully realized Avatar NEVER made any sense. Katara and Aand were not always intended to end up together if you look at the IP Bible. Katara goes back to the SWT to help rebuild it while Aang goes looking for the hidden Air Nomads. There's hints early on in Book 1 that the Air Nomads are still alive (like how Aang was able to get a bison whistle from some merchants but they never explain where they got it from).

Meanwhile the whole Maiko relationship seemed like it was a metaphor to represent Zuko's false destiny and dissatisfaction with his life since Mai encouraged him to sink into his bad habits and ignore everything else, and Azula actively encouraged them to get together so she could control Zuko easier and keep him in the Fire Nation. Zuko leaving Mai behind felt like him embracing his true destiny. This entire thing falls apart when they get back together though, and them being so toxic in the comics is just further proving how dysfunctional they are (like, do they think this is going to sell us on the ship?). I also thought it was strange that apparently Zuko and Mai liked each other since they were kids but Mai never bothered to write him his entire banishment, Zuko never thought about her, Iroh never mentions her, Zuko was totally fine with going on a date with Jin (which Iroh also encouraged), and Iroh thought Zuko and Katara would make a good couple as soon as he saw them interacting as friends. It makes me think Bryke just created Mai and put her with Zuko as a way to discourage Zutara shippers but then forgot to develop her properly. Zuko doesn't even think about Mai after she risked his life to save him lol.

I'm about to make this a long answer, sorry about that :)

I love narrative, and I love to analyze how it is built. Narrative is the way a story is shaped to express its themes. Narrative is using the events within the story to build metaphors. Narrative is the smart foreshadowing, the parallels, the foils. Narrative is intentional, until it isn't.

I am not a professional. I do not have a college degree on this subject. I just like to think about what can make writing be great or lacking. I am merely expressing my personal opinion on this show and these characters, not stating an universal truth.

ATLA is such a well-written show. It treats its themes maturely and builds the story and characters masterfully. Of course, it isn't perfect, as nothing made by human hands is meant to be. ATLA has issues with its storyline and characters and, ultimately, with the narrative itself.

Aang's character arc is different to Zuko's in that, while Zuko's is focused on change, Aang's ultimately ends with him standing his ground. (And isn't that poetic? That in order to grow they need to embrace the philosophy of their opposite element?)

Zuko was forced to change in order to survive from a very young age. He learned to suppress his true, compassionate nature, to become The Perfect Prince—that which Azula embodies. When Zuko fails to do this, he is burnt and tossed away and forced to change once more. He has been hurt and thus is the farthest he has ever been from his true self—Zuko almost forgets who he is.

Zuko's arc, in that way, is similar to Aang's. It's about staying true to himself, but also about learning, about opening his eyes to the horror and using that same passion he has always had to do the right thing. Zuko changes, not into the person he was, but into someone who could, in the future, turn into the better version of himself.

Aang is different. Aang is a child born into peace, who does not have the personal, terrible experience of his people's genocide or the hundred years of war that have left the world wrecked. Aang's arc is about changing and learning and adapting to this new reality, about accepting his role as the Avatar. But it's also about standing firm and saying, "This is who I am, this is where I come from—pain will not break me".

Aang's struggle to control the Avatar State was all about that. The Avatar State meant that Aang lost control. It meant the pain and the hurt had turned him into a thing of anger (righteous as it was) and instinct and awe. Aang needed to be at peace with himself in order to control the Avatar State.

That tiny rock at the final battle felt like an easy way out. It felt like taking from the sheer terror of watching yourself almost kill a man as if from afar. The real moment of triumph for Aang in the finale happened when he stopped. It happened when he took control back and ended the Avatar State, stopping himself from betraying what he believed in.

Was not killing Ozai truly the best choice? I won't get into that debate. I know where I stand on it, but it's not really the point I'm trying to make here.

Aang's triumph, character-wise, happens when he stands his ground and refuses to abandon who he is and what he believes in. And for someone whose flight or fight response almost always turns to flight, this is a huge deal.

Now, where do Katara and Mai stand on this?

It has always been clear to me (even as a Maiko shipper) that Mai was always supposed to be a narrative device. Her relationship with Zuko is supposed to give us, the viewers, and him, another reason to see that this isn't the life he wants, that everything isn't perfect even when it should be on paper.

Zuko goes back home. Zuko is welcomed by his nation with open arms. He is revered. Loved. His father tells him he is proud of him. Zuko has a doting girlfriend—a beautiful, noble girl who can kick his ass and is everything a Fire Prince could wish for. She is adequate and things with her are easy, untroubled. Zuko has everything he could wish for.

And yet he is not happy.

Mai and Zuko have issues that should not be pinned fully on either of them. They had trouble comunicating. They wanted different things in life. They had different ways to look at the world. Different ways to look at each other. Different ways to cope. Different ways to express themselves. Different expectations.

And that's okay. It's possible to make a relationship like that work. Nobody is perfect and no relationship is flawless. Opposites attract and it's possible to find a middle ground in which they can both be happy.

Except they never truly did.

Mai and Zuko's relationship was a plot device. One that did its job damn well... Until it didn't.

If your relationship with the girl is supposed to symbolize the lowest point in your life, and going back into being someone you don't like anymore, then why get back to her when the story is over?

As for Katara, well...

Many things have been said about the abandoned Letting Go Of Katara arc. I'd like to avoid that discussion right now, if that's okay.

I think Zuko and Katara's relationship would have made a lot of sense both narratively and thematically, but also (and most importantly) it would have made sense character-wise.

Give them a few years, let them explore the beautiful friendship they had at the end of the series. Let them find themselves and grow into their roles in this different, exciting new world. Let them reconnect.

If they fall in love in the process? Well, maybe it was a long time coming.

[zahri-melitor]

Reading Digger Harkness as an Aussie: why he’s specifically written to wind me up, the undercurrents of many of his appearances, and why he’s voting No in the Voice referendum.

(Okay if you know ANYTHING about Digger and about the Voice you already knew that, but making this current-relevant!)

George “Digger” Harkness is Captain Boomerang. He’s traditionally written by DC to be specifically, deliberately annoying and disliked. Due to this he’s simultaneously quite cleverly written while also being the laziest character stereotype imaginable.

One of the things that drives me up the wall every time I read him in a book is that due to a clash of a few things in his character design, the subtext he’s evolved over time is remarkably complex, but also geared to make me despise him. Also I can’t tell how much of it is deliberate on the writer’s part.

The first thing you need to understand is that Harkness is very specifically putting on a level of Australianness for his audience (the usually American characters around him). The fascinating thing in this is that, unusually for this trope, his writers are often aware he’s doing this. The common term for this is ‘ocker’. You can notice this in the language he uses: it’s specifically peppered with ‘Australian’ words and phrases.

Now this is a pretty common thing for writers to do to demonstrate a character is Australian. It sounds like someone trying to write Crocodile Dundee or Steve Irwin. However, to my ear (and years of putting up with this), the way it’s done for Digger is…off. It’s not the standard terrible way it’s used in American media, but it’s equally not written naturally for how an Australian who natively speaks ocker/broad would use it. Digger’s playing it up, and he’s playing it up badly. (the closest comparison I can make than an Australian might understand is he sounds more like Russell Coight than Steve Irwin, with all that implies) He wants people to think he’s an Australian stereotype.

Heck, let’s break down his name for a demonstration of this.

Captain Boomerang: this is a very, very, loaded name. Digger’s specifically racist, and he’s racist in a very White Australia Policy sort of way. The writers are aware he’s racist. He uses a boomerang as a symbol as he’s Australian (surface level) but they’re also specifically drawn as white a lot of the time, both in his costume and in the weapons themselves. They’re not plain wood or decorated with traditional art. They’re white. He has a history of making boomerangs and promoting them in Australia for sale, as a white guy, which is uhhhh Not Great. He’s assumed a traditional piece of Australian Aboriginal weaponry and culture as his own, and he’s painted it white. He’s asserting that it’s his culture now and has stripped it of its traditional meaning. (Also his boomerangs often don’t come back, and have sharpened edges and are used wrongly). He doesn’t like Black People ™ but also uses a weapon specifically associated with an oppressed minority in his place of origin. The white supremacy attitude is very much coded in.

“Digger” as a nickname: oh the way this clashes and interacts with the fact he uses ‘Captain’ as a title! Digger as a term is a general nickname for Australian Army soldiers. It comes from the Gallipoli landings and the trenches of World War I. By using it as his nickname, Harkness is evoking a whole HOST of imagery and specifically nationalist cultural imagery surrounding Gallipoli as a ‘birthplace’ of Australian identity, something that’s been weaponised particularly by the Australian political right for the past 30 years as a national symbol. In the stories that a country tells itself about who they are, Harkness is evoking a very major one and also one that can read as quite toxic if not done carefully. (if you need a quick entry to the way the nickname makes me wince, look up ‘Cronulla Riots’. That’s the sort of person his name is evoking for me) The other problem on top of this – this is a soldier’s nickname. Harkness has never been in the Australian military (as far as I can tell). Combined with the fact he uses the title of ‘Captain’, he’s suggesting he’s got a military background that he 100% does not have. He’s a giant hypocrite. Now being part of the military in Australia reads differently to being part of the military in the USA, in how society sees it, but this is still not on. It’s not a natural nickname for an Australian to have, in his circumstances. It doesn’t even make sense as a traditional ironic nickname given by his friends. Which means he picked it himself. And for that style of nickname…choosing your own? That’s considered to be poor form and trying way too hard. (And nicknames are culturally important! For the personality Harkness is trying to present to his audience, he SHOULD have a nickname like this. My father’s is ‘Bones’, for instance. But choosing your own, and choosing one that implies traits that are not yours to display? Really really bad form)

Basically in summary, Harkness is very much coded in a lot of ways to essentially be the Australian equivalent of someone who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. With that sort of view of his home country.

What is fascinating is that when Harkness interacts with other Australian characters, they do not like him, so the writers are aware that he’s been written to be this level of objectionable.

Now, some of this coding in his character has just accumulated over 60+ years as stereotypes have evolved and things have become ever more socially unacceptable. But the interesting thing here is that the writers ACKNOWLEDGE that unacceptable behaviour from Harkness.

I hate him so much. And I also want to fix his dialogue, which suffers from being written by Americans, to include a bunch more extremely country ocker sayings. He NEEDS to be saying things like “stone the flaming crows” and “fair shake of the sauce bottle” and “flat out like a lizard drinking” and “I didn’t come here to fuck spiders”. Because he’s putting it on. And these are the sort of things he’d lean in to to convey that level of “oh I’m not from around here, I am quoting Crocodile Dundee at you but you didn’t even realise” that he’s written to have.

[neechees]

Looking back on Twilight criticism is so funny because mainstream crit (that I saw anyway) was all focused on "Ew girls like it" when literally the ENTIRE BOOK NEEDS CRITICISM IT STARTS WITH A CREEPY DUDE WATCHING A GIRL WHILE SHE SLEEPS AND WHEN SOMEONE ASKS "How much racism will Smeyer add?" SHE ANSWERED "Yes."

Exactlyyy. White ppl will like hide behind any type of marginalization they face (like misogyny, homophobia, etc) when they wanna dodge either being accused of racism, or things they like that are racist & being critisizes for that racism, even when said marginalization has nothing to do with it.

Twilight itself is an extremely misogynistic book, where it places White women as the ultimate standard of femininity, particular thin rich White women who are stay at home moms, home makers, etc, and places all other women as not as good or "pure" as them. Bella at 17 literally looks after her dad and cooks and cleans for him. Leah is demonized as a Native woman for literally no reason & gets used as a punching bag throughout the film & books. Abortion is seen as "murder", even when the fetus is slowly killing the mother & clawing its way out of her. There's more obvi but those are just a few examples.

But even if you ignore the racism or misogyny (which you shouldn't) it also romantisizes abuse, what with Edward fitting ALL "signs that your partner is abusive" ticks.

If you ignore the romantisization of abuse, it's also classist: the Cullens are upheld as this angelic set if vampires who are literally billionaires, and could go any fucking place in the world, but they decide to go to the one place they agreed not to go near (due to a treaty with the Quileute Forks) & where they were literally already colonizers who disrupted & harmed the Native population & where they're a threat to the Quileute & they go there for no reason. Edward replaces Bella's old car that her dad & Jacob had fixed up for her (which she had already stated to adore, one reason being that she has an interest in old things) with a sports car, purely to one up Jacob. They all drive various sports cars & Alice routinely wears & throws out clothes. They're held up to this romantisized standard against Bella & the Quileute tribe's middle to lower class status, & this is meant to be another point of why Edward is supposedly better than Jacob (because he is rich).

If you ignore the classism, racism, & misogyny then there's also the weird Mormon ideology literally baked into the entire series, & it can be considered essentially Mormon propaganda. The Native characters are demonized, obviously (considering Mormons literally think Native people are evil). None of the vampires have tattoos but all the werewolves do, & according to the lore, any and all tattoos get removed after becoming a vampire (which is what Mormons believe happens to tattoos in their afterlife). In the books, any poc who become vampires become pale regardless of their skin color in life, & again, this is what Mormons believe happens to poc who become Mormons & enter the afterlife. The whole "no sex before marriage" thing & the abortion thing. Bella & a lot of the other non-demonized female characters dress pretty conservatively, & Edward finds a full length skirt sexy & "indecent". The (white) vampires are repeatedly compared to "angels" & called beautiful & perfect. Other non Christian, non-Mormon religions (& the people that belong to/practice them) in the series are routinely demonized & mocked. Vampirism, but namely for the White characters, is literally an allegory for White Mormons in heaven.

If you ignore all the above and a bunch of other bigoted & weird shit in the series that I haven't yet mentioned, then it's genuinely just very dumb & badly written with stupid logic. Bella thinks it's weird how the Cullens all have really old names when HER name is literally "Isabella Swan". The Cullens literally hate the Quileute & "werewolves" for no fucking reason since they literally trespassed on Quileute land as colonizers in the 1800s, & it's already been established that the shapeshifters aren't even actually real werewolves in the lore so therefore they have no inherent quarrel with them based on the vampire vs werewolves thing, so they just hate them for no reason. The vampires keep going to high school & learning the same shit over and over again when they could be going to COLLEGE or idk doing something productive. Jasper apparently has to teach the Natives how to fight so obviously Smeyer has never seen a rez fight. Jasper is considered a "newborn" even though he was literally turned in the 1860s. Bella gave her kid the dumbest name ever. Ppl have been memeing & making fun of this series since it came out, & I feel like it's hypocritical for twilight fans to both say "ppl only hated it because girls liked it but its actually really good!" While also saying they find it hilarious even the actors made fun of it & hated making it because of its many faults (like so you agree? People made fun of it even back then?) And while also saying they "enjoy it critically" meaning. They admit there's something wrong with it, but still get mad when ppl critisize it.

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Propaganda why Light Yagami is insufferable:

Had a great chance to actually solve the problems of the world but he decided to go after petty criminals instead of actual bad guys shaking my head. He thought he was so smart but got caught being suspected to be Kira before he even had his next birthday. How do you fuck up that badly? It’s a book you write peoples names in…Nice move, FedEx

Also his personality is awful

HE DIDNT DESERVE TO PULL A GOTH GIRL

Idk if he counts because he's SUPPOSED to be insufferable. But I don't care because I want to punch him in the face anyway. Oh and before the Light stans come at me let me say: thanks but I don't want your 5 paragraphs explaining why he's so complex and was corrupted and rationalized murder as a defense mechanism to avoid confronting the possibility that he might have done something that would make him irredeemable and evil and how in the manga he lost weight due to the psychological strain because I know. I think he's fascinating too but good God. He's so annoying.

he's like if a cop was a bitchy teenager about it

Propaganda why Anakin Skywalker is insufferable:

the guy has zero critical thinking skills, he whines about everything all the time. I love him, but he’s awful to listen to.

Yes he was probably directed to act that way but the way his lines were written did not help

THIS BITCH. I HATE HIM. NO CRITICAL THINKING. NO SELF AWARENESS. WHINY MURDEROUS ASSHOLE. LIKE SERIOUSLY. He's a JEDI. LIKE. THEY HAVE HISTORY CLASSES!!!! He should have KNOWNNNNNN that when he had prophetic dreams they're not necessarily true!!!!! Also like. In the Star Wars universe, do Jedi just not have imaginations that can create NORMAL dreams when they sleep??? Do Jedi just not usually dream??? If he hadn't gotten paranoid from the dreams of Padme dying in childbirth BILLIONS OF LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED. FOR THAT MATTER, if you're gonna have A SUPER ILLEGAL SUPER SECRET MARRIAGE, wouldn't you, I don't know, USE PROTECTION SO THAT YOUR WIFE WHO IS SECRETLY AND ILLEGALLY MARRIED DOESN'T GET PREGANANANT????? LIKE LOOK I LOVE LUKE AND LEIA MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF BUT THEIR PARENTS WERE SO FUCKING STUPID. ANAKIN SKYWALKER HATES CONDOMS BECAUSE THEY DONT FEEL AS GOOD I DON'T FUCKING KNOW. Man is an IDIOT. How can you have had a role model and father figure like Obi-Wan for most of your fucking life and grow up to do the shitty, STUPID things Anakin did. Ok this is way too long I'm sorry but I love Obi-Wan so much and Anakin ruined his fucking life and hes just such a little DICK. MURDERED A WHOLE VILLAGE OF SAND PEOPLE. AND DOZENS IF NOT HUNDREDS OF CHILDRENNNNNNNN. ANGSTY WHINY TEENAGER. FUCK HIMMMMMMM

[greenerteacups]

Hi GT! Any thoughts on GRRM's (now deleted 👀) blog post about HOTD? Both in terms of content and authorial conduct?

My first reaction was some combination of sympathy and cringe. I can see where his frustrations would arise — especially if he's correct that Ryan Condal intended Helaena to kill herself "for no reason," although I doubt that's the whole story (most of the coming seasons haven't been written yet). GRRM was burned badly by the ending of GOT, which is why he's harping so much on the (to be honest, pretty minor) removal of a child who really has no role in the source material except to be the sacrificial lamb prompting Helaena's suicide. He can repeat the words "butterfly effect" until he's blue in the face, but that still won't actually make Maelor into a major character, and it still won't explain why changing Helaena's arc is necessarily a bad thing for the story the show's telling. Helaena in the books is a very happy person whose death by suicide would be uncharacteristic unless prompted by a slew of gruesome personal tragedies. Helaena in the show is much more melancholy and withdrawn, and the audience doesn't need to see (another) one of her children brutally slaughtered in order to believe that she might pull a Tommen, especially since we don't know what the HOTD team are actually planning for her. Getting pissy about cutting Maelor is like finding out someone's replaced all the furniture in your living room — while you watched — and complaining that the upholstery's the wrong color. My brother in Christ, it's a different chair.

Apart from that, I recently saw one blogger argue persuasively that the choice to eliminate Maelor was not just efficient, but a defensible and deliberate creative decision: whether George realizes it or not, removing Maelor puts Aegon in the same situation his father Viserys was before his marriage to Alicent, where his only choices of heir are his daughter (Rhaenyra/Jahaera) or his brother (Daemon/Aemond), the latter of whom has recently proved himself an untrustworthy and outright dangerous candidate (the King of the Stepstones arc in Daemon's case, and the assassination attempt from Aemond). This traps Aegon, because the only laws supporting him as king require that he pass over Jahaera and place his regicidal brother — who has already tried to kill him once, probably having realized this fact — directly in the line of succession. And I'm pretty sure the show is intentionally going for this, because they make a point of telling us that Aegon can't have more children, so unlike Viserys, he can't get out of this by having more sons. Is this necessarily more compelling than the Maelor/Helaena guilt storyline? No, but we don't know if that storyline would have been compelling either. The success or failure of a narrative decision is almost totally in the execution, and HOTD is, crucially, not finished executing yet.

Siloing the question of the post's merits, it's also incredibly unprofessional for one of the most successful authors in history to start publicly beating up on a writer's room that he's supposedly collaborating with. Like, frankly, I don't care what Ryan Condal said. I don't care if he said he was going to kill off half the cast in S3E1 and turn the show into an isekai about his self-insert avatar falling in love with Rhaenyra. You work that shit out in the writer's room, or, if need be, the negotiating table, and not by dumping on the guy's creative decisions on a platform where the core of the show's fanbase hangs on your every word (most of them in the hope that you've announced the completion of the book you're supposed to be writing). It's catty, it's spiteful, and, judging by the content of the post itself, grossly disproportionate to the scale of the creative conflict at play. If I were an industry creative, I would have serious reservations about working with Martin after this, and the level of poor behavior on display should be evident by the fact that any author whose IP wasn't making HBO a bajillion zillion dollars would have been rightfully shitcanned for doing something like this.

If I sound angry at him, I'm not; I think he's just an old guy who's been told by lots of people that he's good enough to be above the rules, and he's consequently forgotten some of the industry etiquette. I'm also, frankly, a little contemptuous, mostly because most creatives I know would give all the fingers of their writing-hand to have the opportunities that George does, and would conduct themselves with significantly more grace and generosity for their collaborators even if they did disagree on adaptational differences.

[answrs]

( an attempt at fluff(?) - i hope things get better or at least easier for you soon. virtual hugs, remember that you've got a lot of people in your corner <3 )

Ingo writes a book when he's in Hisui.

Okay, wait. It's not really a book, and he didn't really write it, he would object. It's more of a very very long pamphlet, and he got a lot of help from Zisu and the Survey Corps. It was written for them, after all: it's a primer on how to befriend, train, and raise Pokémon, for the Security Corps and the rest of the Galaxy Team and really anyone else who wants to learn, because he doesn't have time to teach everyone directly but he so badly wants as many people as possible to have the chance to learn.

So it takes a while to put together—not just all of the information, but presenting it well, with graphs and diagrams so that even people who can't read, or can't read the language it's presented in (which is a fair amount of Jubilife tbh) can still get something out of it. Rei and Akari help him make some copies, even, so more than one person can look at them at once.

And then, when he's just about finished—so before he has the chance to see how it's received—he goes home.

To Unova. And he's happy! His memory is still pretty fuzzy, but he knows for certain that this is where he wants to—where he should be, even. It just feels right. But that doesn't mean it isn't also bittersweet, leaving his home of so many years in Hisui behind.

But when he gets back home—to the one he couldn't remember but missed anyway—he finds a book waiting for him on a table.

It's pretty worn-out, like the owner has read through it quite a few times, and he sort of recognizes it, however vaguely. It's a book about Pokémon training and strategy, so old it's nearly out-of-date by this point (if the topic weren't so universally consistent, anyway) but it's still interesting to read, and the foundation is solid, so it's one of the first books he—they picked up. When they were just starting out as Trainers.

And the foreword, written by a modern-day scholar, confirms what he remembers: this is a very old book, that's survived in modern times mostly by virtue of the fact that it was so widely read and copied and (later) translated and added to. There are definitely better references today even for beginners, and most of its value is historical, records of old training methods and "move styles" and an insight into how people of the past viewed Pokémon and... wait a minute.

This is his book. As in, it's the one he wrote.

It doesn't take long, flipping through it, to confirm. Oh sure, some details have been lost in translation or edited out, and there's newer commentary in a few places, but the structure is so familiar that there's no other explanation. He really hadn't expected it to be anything other than a reference for a few people in Jubilife, maybe something a Ginkgo Guild member took with them once if he was lucky—but now, so, so many years later, it's been passed on and reprinted and rewritten and translated into so many languages—because he was right. People and Pokémon were meant to work together, and that one wish of his resonated with enough people that now it's almost impossible to imagine the world working any other way. And this little book (not even really a book, at first) made it all the way around the world and back to him, without him even realizing.

But it's weird—the note at the front also mentions an afterword, and he doesn't remember writing one of those. And it does say that it does seem to be from a different source than the author of the rest of the book (clearly passionate, but elusive in the text itself, a fact which is apparently deeply frustrating to historians, whoops-) but also doesn't talk about it as if it's a later addition from another copier, either. It might have been written by many different people, it says, and there's even been some conflict over whether it should be included in reprints at all, but most people have apparently come to the conclusion that it should be treated as another part of the original book and kept in.

So he flips to the back, to see... and realizes almost immediately what it is.

Just in case you need telling again, because I’m sure you will—you take care of yourself out there. Then we can all rest easy. Our ‘dex is missing a valuable contributor—and ourselves, a good friend—but I’m certain that your destination, as it were, has been dearly missing you for long enough already! And so long as this testament to our shared work lives on, we are never truly gone from each other. I told you I’d keep an eye out for you, whenever I leave, and I’m still doing that. But just in case we don’t wind up with the same home after all, and this does get to you, I wanted to say thanks again. For guiding me, and listening, and helping even when you didn’t need to. It helped a lot. We figured out how to do that thunder barrier thing you were talking about the day after you left, and I’m really mad that you didn’t see it. So you’d better at least be reading this! Oh yeah, and thanks for all the advice. But mostly, I’m really glad that stupid barrier trick didn’t end up in this copy, because if I can’t show you I should at least get to brag to everyone else, and I can’t do that if everyone knows about it. The highlands are doing just fine. Just in case you thought we needed you! My own capable hands are more than enough!

They're... goodbyes. Not just from the other people who worked on the book, but from... everyone. Who, like him, had no way of knowing where this book would go once it left Jubilife—but took the chance anyway, sending these notes on their way to be read and reread a thousand times by a thousand hands... to find him again. As a physical goodbye—not as ephemeral as words or memories, but something able to persist.

But then, if they'd gotten even his fellow highlands warden to leave his own note, what was this last one that was so much longer than the rest...?

Any meeting in this vast world is something to be grateful for, but I am more grateful for one than most. The fullness of our space and time has more potential than I ever dreamed, and I do not know if my eyes would have opened were you not there for those first steps. Dear warden, friend, and guide, on behalf of all of us—I hope you were able to call us your home, at least for a while. And the almighty knows we have asked more than our fair share already, but if we may make one last selfish request of you—

…ah.

—please, for all of us, be happy.

AASDFHJKLCMIASCNNGHHHH SWIFT ;O; IM BLUBBERING IT'S SO GOOD AND SWEET AND GAAH MY HEART. LEAVING THE MESSAGES DESPITE NOT KNOWING WHO IT'S FOR, EVEN WHEN IT WAS FOR, BUT THEIR WORDS SURVIVING THROUGH THE AGES PASSED DOWN FROM TRAINER TO TRAINER AND SPREAD ACROSS THE WORLD IN SO MANY LANGUAGES. AND IT'S NOT A MESSAGE OF MOURNING BUT A MESSAGE OF H O P E, AND I JUST.

MY HEART

[saintsenara]

everlasting ink harry potter/ginny weasley teen | 6.2k words

‘blood is thicker than water,’ they all muttered, conspiratorially, when percy left. but, ginny will think, as delphini manages to turn harry into a teddy bear and run into the crystalline stream, water is just as life-giving as blood.

ginny weasley has always been a magnet for dark-haired orphans. what's one more?

this piece was written for week ten of @ladiesofhpfest, on the theme of daughters [you can find the masterlist for this week's fics here].

as i’ve said elsewhere about this piece, i am not ordinarily a hinny fan. i am a sweety, though, and was perfectly happy to be the sort of lovely lass who would write noted twee hinny girly @whinlatter her favourite couple, as a treat.

i've also written her some notes.

my reasoning for thinking that harry and ginny don’t really work is that, frankly, i think ginny deserves better. after all, she spends most of the seven-book canon being kept at arm’s length from harry’s mission - with a brief, and iconic, burst of forcing her way in during order of the phoenix - because he spends books one to four not really interested in her (which, fair, i tried to hang around with my brother’s friends when i was little and it was not well received) and because he spends books six and seven actualising her into a place of safety, a person who needs to be protected, rather than his supporter and equal in the task he has been dealt.

as i’ve written about many times - and as i’ve had numerous enjoyable conversations with @ashesandhackles about - i cannot even imagine how furious i would have been if i were ginny, to discover that my boyfriend seemed to be constitutionally unwilling to acknowledge that i spent the period in which deathly hallows takes place as a resistance leader in my own right.

but above and beyond this, i also think that the pre-epilogue harry is remarkably self-centred when it comes to his trauma. i don’t think this is malicious - or even particularly intentional - but i always find it striking that harry believes himself to be the only person of his acquaintance who is badly affected by dementors, or whose family was hunted down by the death eaters, or who was devastated to see sirius die.

or who was manipulated by tom riddle.

harry’s relationship with the young voldemort is incredibly interesting, not least for the way in which he separates this voldemort (attractive, orphaned, at home in hogwarts) out from the one who killed his parents. that harry understands and empathises with voldemort’s issues - especially his colossal childhood trauma - better than dumbledore does is one of the key themes of the series, and it is - of course - one facet of the purity-of-soul which makes him the books’ hero.

but it is also something ginny can’t ever relate to. after all, the voldemort that ruined her life was the one that harry feels sorry for.

the shadow of ginny’s first year is something which is glaring in canon by its absence. this isn’t, i think, harry’s fault, and nor do i think it’s jkr’s - that chamber of secrets needs to resolve itself neatly with an ‘and then everything was fine’ is a genre convention, since the book is children’s literature. but i do think that it’s something which is really valuable to explore.

because we do get hints that ginny is traumatised by her experience with riddle’s diary even when the books are still conforming to the conventions of children’s stories - above all, as mentioned in everlasting ink, that she seems to be equally as affected by the dementor on the train in prisoner of azkaban as harry is.

and yet all the attention goes to him.

everlasting ink was, then, an attempt to deviate from my usual way of looking at this tension in harry and ginny’s relationship (break them up) and choose a different path (keep them together and happy). and i only had to scream into a pillow once or twice to get that done.

harry does not, i think it’s fair to say, initially appear to be acquitting himself well in the rekindled relationship. he throws himself into being the saviour of the world with a righteousness which blinkers him to anyone else's needs, he never asks ginny about what she is going through, he continues to view her as something to protect, he doesn’t dream about her when he’s reliving his almost-death, and - perhaps worst of all - he foists a daughter on her without asking.

[but perhaps we can forgive him this - after all, he doesn’t really have any experience of motherhood which isn’t sacrificial, or mothers who make their children something other than the entire focus of their self-conception. although i do still think he might have spent a little bit of time thinking about why plopping a toddler with the patented riddle face (those muggle genes are strong, lord voldemort is turning in his grave) on his girlfriend might not have been the best idea he’s ever had…]

this is the part of the author’s note where i out myself as a delphini stan account. [i think her conception makes sense! the entire point of the series is that lord voldemort can't outrun basic human biology! it’s not his fault that he was daydreaming about horcruxes when slughorn was trying to teach him sexual education!] the bellamort baby is a great little plot device for an examination of all sorts of people’s post-war neuroses, and she’s really delivering here, providing a little window not only into harry and ginny’s relationship but into ginny’s wider understanding of her position in her family.

it’s always struck me that ron’s belief, expressed in deathly hallows, that ginny is the favourite child doesn’t seem to be reflected in canon (the favourite child, by quite some distance, is clearly bill). which isn’t to say that ron’s feelings of neglect are invalid - he clearly is overlooked! even though his parents love him and are trying their best! in particular, i've always noticed that ginny’s suffering during her first year doesn’t make her special within the family - as she points out in this piece, nobody ever remembers that she nearly dies.

but there is also a gendered implication to what the locket spills about ron’s darkest secrets - that he thinks that ginny is special within the family solely because she is a daughter. and i have always wondered how that experience - of being the last and longed-for girl to make the family complete - might weigh on her.

so the main familial relationship examined in this piece is the mother and daughter one: ginny and delphini; hermione and rose, and - of course - ginny and her own mother.

i’m always struck that molly weasley must - like her narrative mirror, narcissa malfoy - be quite lonely. this is, i think, not exactly what the narrative wants us to read her as: the text sets her up as central to the weasleys and pseudo-weasleys’ worlds, and most scenes set at either the burrow or grimmauld place take place around mealtimes, with kitchens and dining rooms cast in the story as molly’s domain. and, while this association of good mothers with domestic labour is something i am critical of in the series, i do acknowledge that it makes narrative sense in a way which evidently isn’t intended to be condescending. the weasleys are harry’s first experience of the family life he desires above all else, which - naturally - features as its maternal figure someone who is the polar opposite of the detached, brittle, and cold petunia.

but, on the other hand, the narrative excludes molly from the rest of the family once the domestic sphere is left. she is the only one of them not to like quidditch (there is, after all, no meaningful reason why she would miss the world cup if she did), she doesn’t seem to have any friends of her own (whereas arthur, who seems to be sincerely popular in the ministry, does), and the child with whom she is most aligned - percy - is estranged from her for much of the series. in terms of personality, she lacks the daring streak which defines the other weasleys, she is more interested in social convention, and she is less flexible in how she defines things like ambition or success.

and i think it’s worth noting that this loneliness is gendered. all of the weasley children - and arthur - help out around the house, absolutely, and i don’t think that it’s ever possible to suggest that ron and his brothers become the sort of boors who don’t lift a finger while their wives do everything; but molly’s place within the family is still defined by providing. she is a table or a hand-knitted jumper or a cake. and the rest of the weasleys, who go out and live active lives away from the home, are not.

i always wonder if this is something we’re supposed to read behind molly’s dislike of fleur. that, maybe, she was hoping for a daughter-in-law who would be a kindred spirit, and gets instead someone who considers any sort of domestic role to be beneath her. it is, undoubtedly, also something which features in her relationship with ginny.

and so everlasting ink deals with ginny maturing from an adolescent chafing against her mother’s experience of womanhood - which she sees through her child’s eyes as meaning playing with dolls and being a housewife - into something which understands the complex web of dreams and disappointments which drive molly’s life, and which enables her to embrace the similarities between the two of them she might have once run from.

because they are very similar. above all, i always think that the canonical ginny must also be quite lonely. we are told she’s popular, but all of her friendships seem to be tenuous - she never writes to or visits anyone, harry never notices her with a particular close friend, she spends a full summer not seeing her boyfriend (an insult from jkr towards dean’s canonical rizz).

in particular, i never feel that her friendship with hermione is as close as fanon makes out (nor, indeed, as close as harry suggests it is in half-blood prince - he should have a think about how likely it seems that hermione has any time for other friends when she’s locked in a codependent triad with him and ron), and my view has always been that post-war ginny and hermione would take a long time to become comfortable with each other. some of this is just due to them having to learn how to let their opposing personality traits work together (ginny has no interest in hermione’s constant desire to argue, push, and debate - she’s going to see it, like harry does, as nagging and meddling), but it’s also due to the fact that neither of them can really relate to the defining experiences of the other’s life in the way teenage girls might ordinarily be expected to be able to.

but they get there. even if bitching about their daughters is the way they have to do it.

the harry potter series’ quasi-mystical view of motherhood means that it has a tendency to treat adoption as something negative. we have three examples of kinship adoption in canon - harry’s by petunia, neville’s by his grandmother, and teddy’s by andromeda - and all come about because of a tragedy in which the biological mother sacrifices herself for the anti-voldemort cause.

all three are also treated as something which is a cause of suffering to the adoptee - which, crucially, the series thinks is a good thing. harry’s neglect by the dursleys is considered character-building, and his orphanhood is set up several times in the text as the cause of his ability to understand love.

[on the flip side, voldemort’s own orphanhood is not permitted to be an excuse for his own struggle with the concept of love, and the narrative blames merope gaunt for not staying alive for him, by implying that she could simply have chosen not to bleed to death in childbirth if she’d had little of lily potter’s courage.]

but adoption is neutral. it happens for all sorts of reasons and it provokes all sorts of emotional responses in the people involved. and so it was important to me to show that ginny went on a journey from feeling as though the fact that delphini wasn’t her biological child was a bad thing to not caring about that in the slightest, and that all four potter children grow up equally loved by their parents and extended family.

more specifically, i wanted to focus on ginny choosing not to care about things like the tragedy of orphanhood to the detriment of being happy and silly. i talk a lot about how i find the aspect of love which the harry potter series focuses on - love as suffering and sacrifice, love which is rooted in loss, love which has, to some degree, an element of fate behind it - insufficient. the canon narrative rarely approaches love as something comforting, pleasurable, self-indulgent, or fun - indeed, harry and ginny’s brief burst of a love which is all of these things is snatched away at the end of half-blood prince so that harry can focus on love-as-sacrifice - and it also rarely approaches love as something people choose. love drives characters’ choices - snape chief among them - but the text tends to imply that these choices were made because the love itself was innate and unstoppable.

but that’s kind of bullshit. in the vast majority of relationships we have in our lives, love - whether romantic, platonic, or familial - is a choice freely and constantly made. love as a choice - above all, how love is a very strange choice - is a key theme in everlasting ink, both from the perspective of harry and ginny’s decision to make their relationship work and from the perspective of them becoming part of a sprawling post-war found family.

this gave me a chance to explore one of molly’s most underappreciated traits - that she is someone who collects waifs and strays, and that she is extraordinarily generous in how she opens up herself to these people. i think this is often missed in fanon criticism of her for meddling or being overbearing in the lives of people who aren’t her immediate family - particularly in relation to sirius in order of the phoenix. i wanted her to be the source of the idea that ‘water is just as life-giving as blood’, and for her obvious affection for delphini to be a turning point in ginny’s relationship both with her own role as a mother and with her role as a daughter.

in particular, i wanted it it to change how ginny thinks about heredity.

having to learn that your children have lives outside of you is a complicated experience for all parents, but for the parents of adopted children there is the additional complication of knowing that your child has the right to uncover who their biological parents were, no matter how painful that might be. for harry and ginny, this means becoming comfortable with the idea that delphini might want to have a relationship with the malfoys, or to speak to rodolphus lestrange about her mother, or to think positively about her father.

this would be difficult for them to face. obviously. but i think it would also be healing for them to realise that lord voldemort was not just a one-dimensional caricature of absolute evil but also someone with lots of admirable personality traits. (nor that the positive experiences which they - ginny especially, you can prise the headcanon that they were sincerely bffs from my cold, dead hands - had with him based entirely on lies). delphini is - both physically and in terms of personality - exactly like him, which means that she is funny and theatrical and daring and cunning and possessed of a great taste in tattoos. [he is also, as fans of the asenora cinematic universe will know, the source of her sweet tooth.]

the same is true of bellatrix - that she is very like both andromeda and tonks is a headcanon i’m wedded to, and i like the idea of harry and ginny coming to see her with more nuance as they begin to understand what she had in common with two women they adore.

[i’m not sure they ever get over delphini not liking quidditch, though - but i think they can both begrudgingly respect that voldemort learning the principles of unaided flight because he was terrible on a broom is iconic.]

[burninglesbian]

I've written this review on letterboxd for the John Dies At The End movie (didn't really like it). I thought I would post it here as well in case people wanna add or disagree with something :)

It's not the worst movie-adaption, yet it's far from good. It's not really a John Dies At The End and more of a Jeff Passes Away After The Third Act.

The acting is fine. The two mains that play John and Dave have good chemistry and play their dynamic well.

The cinematography is decent on the surface-level but for a book as crazy and trippy as this one, it’s too simple. Even the scenes where Dave is high on the soy sauce it just looks a bit too regular and average. When the sauce material has monsters, alternate universes and sentient drugs that bend time and space you have the opportunities to be creative with the camera work. Sadly that opportunity wasn’t used.

The writing: I can’t give the movie much credit because pretty much all of the scenes are word-for-word copies of scenes in the book.

Practical and visual effects: While the third act looks truly cheap and cheesy, everything that comes before that is quite good for a low budget film. While not all the creatures look like the way they were described in the book, they seemingly use practical effects for the monsters for the most part, which I adore.

Comparing it to the book, however, truly highlights all its flaws. I was expecting some of the book stuff to be cut because a 500 pages long book doesn’t fit into 90 minutes. But I was negatively surprised to find out that two thirds of the book has been cut. Two of the best thirds, to be exact. And the things we did get were focused on the wrong things. While the book is hilarious, what makes it stand out so much was the perfect balance of horror and comedy. At times you feel like crying from laughter, and then you need to take a moment to breathe after the tension. Sometimes even at the same time. The movie was pure comedy and didn’t once try to be a genuine horror story, unlike its bookish counterpart. They have cut every scene that caused genuine tension and terror.

On top of that it feels like the movie didn’t understand that the story also explores deeper themes and can get dark and serious at times. The prologue scene is the perfect example of that missing understanding. The prologue, the funny take on the ship of Theseus philosophy, is a funny way to start the book and introduce us to the writing and the humour but overall doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of the story. Except that it does, because it’s direct foreshadowing to the terrifying final plot twist. Well, the movie started the same way, with the direct adaption of the funny ship of Theseus philosophy, only that the ending doesn’t include the gut wrenching plot twist. Why? Because apparently, the book lost the film makers whenever it got slightly beyond “funny monster shenanigans”.

The dry two-dimensional characters from the movie are also very frustrating. John is the funny frat-boy and Dave is the straight guy, that much they got right. The fact that they are so much more than that, and that John has a genuinely good heart while Dave has a very dark and twisted side to him, is nowhere to be found. And how come they merge the two female main characters into one (another questionable choice), and she still doesn’t have any personality? They managed to copy every scene directly from the book and still make it a badly written story just by the choice of what to keep and what not to keep. Which is a talent in itself, considering the book got away with so much bullshit.

Overall the movie is a very cheesy b-movie with questionable pacing and unexplained lore. It’s fine if you like that kind of stuff and is definitely not the worst thing I have watched. But if you’re looking for a good adaption for the book John Dies At The End this is not it.

Would I recommend the book to someone? 100%. Would I recommend the film to someone? Only if they really like cheesy b-movies. Would I recommend the book to someone and then the movie afterwards? No.

[miss-sternennacht]

BNHA ended and I have some feels (spoilers below)

I really enjoyed reading BNHA these past 10 years. I remember when I first watched it, which was during a hurricane and I was stressed beyond belief and got hooked via the anime.

It’s bittersweet to read the manga ending now. I appreciate that they did a little skip so that we could see what the future held for everyone, but I wished it was longer and went over more things. How are they handling villains now? What about Spinner’s book? The fate of the rest of the League of Villains? All for One’s followers not only in Japan but in the world? There’s a lot of unanswered questions and I hate that it’s just up in the air when it was such an important part of BNHA in many of the arcs. That part feels unfulfilling to me.

On the other hand, I wished we got to know more about everyone in Class 1-A!! Why did they only go through some of them and not all of them?! I hate how many were skipped and you don’t know what they do for a living or how things have changed with them.

And people commenting on how Izuku’s friends left him for 8 years…. Clearly you aren’t older than 18 because it does get harder to meet with people when you are older and have a job, family, more obligations, etc. It’s extremely difficult at times!! It’s hard to meet any of my friends! I wish I could see everyone more often, but that’s not within my realm of control. I think it’s beautiful that they still try to meet up all together, even when difficult to do so. And of course it doesn’t mention that he’s probably met with a lot in little groups or one-by-one, like normal life. Just that it’s hard to get 20-something friends all together in a room without some kind of planning or arrangement. I’d like to see you try.

And people saying Izuku got dirty by becoming a teacher and how all this blah blah stuff…. Really shows how you feel about teachers!!! They’re already doing the dirty work of society and get treated badly. I hate seeing how my colleagues are seen to a younger generation when they are constantly beat down by a higher power, how they don’t make enough money. You have to understand, working in education is because you CARE. You are in this field because you ENJOY the work. Him becoming a teacher literally makes the most sense, aside from becoming a personal hero trainer. It fits so well with his character, that was completely anticipated!! Imagine him being able to help guide students and give them the encouragement he was never given growing up!!! It’s such a great role!! Also, don’t forget that teachers and their jobs are different in Japan compared to other places in the world. It’s a perfect job for him and I love it.

Another thing I liked was how any of the potential ships never were confirmed. You can make your own headcanons on who is with who (until that is ultimately ruined by word of god at some point). I like that!! Bakugo and Izuku! Real! Ochako and Izuku! Real! Grape kid and Bakugo and Shoto! Real! Really appreciated that open ended-ness a whole lot.

Is it a perfect series written gorgeously and without flaws? No, it’s not. There are parts that are unanswered and others that make me angry. I enjoyed the open-ness of the ending to where you can make your own judgements and assumptions, but hate how so many people are saying Izuku went back to being friendless when he didn’t say that at all. Asked about being lonely, Aizawa meant about the hero work itself. “Is it lonely to not work with your friends in a goal you had wanted to achieve for years?” Is how I read it. He’s not lonely; far from it. He’s the happiest guy in the world because he has all of his loved ones with him. And that is always a great way to end a story.

[spider-xan]

What’s the beetle

Okay, so I've decided to answer this in good faith, more for the benefit of my mutuals and followers than anything bc I suspect this was meant to be bait given that (a) I never once said the title of the book in any of my recent posts, yet anon knew exactly what I was talking about (which means you already know what the Beetle is, don't you, anon?), and (b) at least two other people received this exact same anon at the same time and there is a clear pattern to who received these messages, though I seem to be the only POC who got this.

Anyway.

The Beetle is gothic horror novel written by Richard Marsh that was published in 1897, which is notable bc that is the same year that Dracula was published - but while the Beetle is obscure and Dracula is a major pop culture phenomenon today, it actually outsold Dracula back in the day; the plot is similar to Dracula in that it is a xenophobic and racist reverse invasion story, this time featuring an Arab villain who turns into a beetle and uses mesmerism (similar to hypnosis) on a British man whom he sexually assaults to help him get revenge on another British man; (as a side note, I think there has been confusion about the villain being Muslim, but as far as I can tell, he seems to worship the Egyptian goddess Isis); there is a reveal at some point where the villain, an Arab man, turns out to have a vagina, which is both transphobic and Orientalist; (I think people get why it's transphobic, but the Orientalism is in Eastern men being 'feminized' as a negative comparison to Western men being 'masculine' as part of the broader idea of the Orient being 'decadent' and 'feminine'); the book is also very badly written, at least by modern standards.

I have no problem with people reading the novel bc ofc consumption is not endorsement and reading 'problematic' (I hate that word, it's so fucking vague) books isn't inherently a reflection of personal morals, and there is value in studying a novel like the Beetle for its historical significance (and how not to write a novel) and what it says on a Doylist level about important topics like colonialism (specifically the British in Egypt), Orientalism, gender, popular tropes during the Victorian era and what they say about Victorian society and its social anxieties at the turn of the century, etc.; for all of its faults and bigotry, there is a lot of thoughtful commentary to be written about the book itself on a meta level.

However, what does and did make me uneasy last year was the fandomization and memefication of the book, which is part of a larger phenomenon I won't get into right now, and fandom analysis often focuses more on Watsonian analysis, especially of characters like real people; I'm not saying you can't have fun or that you need a racism disclaimer on every post or should self-flagellate if you're white, but there are some books where fandomizing might not be the best way to engage with the material or certain aspects of a book - like, joke fanart of an Arab man as an animal molesting a white man is a really weird way to engage with the Arab man as a rapist and animal tropes (definitely Orientalist in at least two ways), especially if you are white and not the target of that kind of racism (like, quick, why is it funny to you?), and I saw very little grappling with how maybe there should be context provided for why that shit is racist, in stark contrast to how Dracula Daily did frequently discuss the bigotry in the novel.

Like, maybe I guess people thought the racism was so egregious, everyone would get it, but as we saw from DD, a lot of people genuinely don't know these things, and that's how you get serious racist, xenophobic, and Orientalist tropes that do very real harm to actual people - we're seeing this happen right now where Orientalist beliefs about Arab men being violent rapists and the idea of Arabs being a threat to the Western world are being used to justify violence and genocide - either being glossed over bc it's not fun or treated as a joke; and I'm not saying the Beetle is responsible for current geopolitics, but while fiction is not reality, fiction can reflect, affect, and reinforce beliefs that shape reality, and it's naive and denying the power of literature to act as if that isn't true.

Anyway, all that to say that I just think people should be a little more sensitive and thoughtful about how they engage with the novel instead of jumping immediately to irreverent fandomizing and memes, especially with what's going on in the world right now.

[lazulian-devil]

Thoughts on Book 9, halfway point

Okay so im in Book 9, right? End of Phase 1 of Skulduggery Pleasant.

And I remember, back when I read it as it came out, that I hated how it ended, how everything was so fixed on Darquesse, that I was relieved that she was finally gone from the story (lol) and that I went into Phase 2 weirdly exhausted. Book 9 actually made me abandon SP until something like Book 12 was out?

Now, according to my Kindle, Ive read 94% of Phase 1. Im somewhere around Chapter 56 of Book 9, so Im about halfway through.

And I have to say.

Its such a full book? So much happens? And its so all over the place? Okay we are here now, and now we are here. Brides of the Blood Tears, other dimension, back again, Darquesse, Mirror Image revival, future perspective telling us its all gonna be okay, and and and.

I think Im overwhelmed by this book. Last Stand of Dead Men was utterly enjoyable. But it felt like the book had purpose. Book 9 on the other hand feels like its desperately trying to write itself out of the godhood of problems it created. It wants to do justice to everything Darquesse was built up to be and yet still defeat her.

The problem is that the strategies are simply not very clever and knowing in which direction its going also makes so much of it appear cheap because it wasnt really relevant later?

Darquesse is both built up to be non human and yet appeals to humanity. And I suppose theres a point made there but its... shes just not fun? I think she never was as a villain. Her whole speech about how changing energies is not killing someone and then through like five minutes of group time she remembers "oh fuck, yeah nope that was wrong". Its so weird. Its so jarring. The character feels inconsistent in their own darn book.

Its not that its badly written. Tanith returning is great. Billy Ray is such an utterly human figure in this one and I genuinely feel bad for him (as he evidently truly loved Tanith as a Remnant). Skulduggerys treatment of the "other" Nefarian Serpine shows so much character growth. China is more and more actually an involved character. And a few others I cant remember.

I just.

I dont know. Its a weird feeling because many of the books I have read over the last dozen weeks were also in my head as "not actually that good storywise but well written" and some of that has turned out wrong! I always enjoyed reading them but some stories are much better than I remember.

But I think I arrived at this point in which the story is too large for the books. I care about the characters. About the world. But I dont know if I care about the stakes anymore. I dont know if Darquesse matters to me anymore. What does she even say about humanity? What does she reflect? That we can grow? That we are inherently evil? These are all things better illustrated by other characters.

Is it supposed to be a play on the Phase 2 reveal of Valkyrie being actually a Faceless One? Is Darquesse a shard of said ungodly evil? If so, wouldnt we have benefitted from said reveal in the Phase of its relevancy? Why is it so late?

I think SP sometimes suffers from the Star Wars "Skywalker" symptom of everything being connected at all times.

I dont know. This is weird. I still have 6% and around 50 chapters to go but Im unsure now. I stand before the mirror of literary interest and wonder if there is anything substantial to be seen.

And I know I'll enjoy the book. Its well written. I love Landy.

But having read them all in a row in such close succesion makes me realise how somewhat badly planned they are and how many massive plotholes there often exist.

Maybe the story got too big. I dont if i'll be exhausted. But Im a little worried.

[samthepotterhead]

I thought I was only gonna make a review at the end, as this is a standalone, and I wasn't super into it at first, but this chapter has been the most thrilling so far. which is a pity since it's only a flashback chapter. but even in this chapter, it feels like I'm reading an introduction still. there is so much worldbuilding still going on and I'm still a little lost and every sentence has five lore words, so I have to look into the glossary every 2 secs. I do have to admit that might also be bc I know zero south-east asian languages. but I'm also having a bit of a hard time with the world itself. I thought this was gonna be high fantasy but it's kind of sci fi too?

on a positive note though, I do like this chapter for its action scenes. it's giving auror/order duty and crows mission/heist. I generally have this weird thing where I have to imagine a fantasy magic story is set in a world that I already know well but like an au or future version /in this case), in order to motivate me lol. I imagine the theonite world as a modern grishaverse, it also makes sense bc of the "races" and the elemental magic for the most part. it's essentially about tidemakers and misaki is a corporalnik too (more heartrender than healer) and there are two inferni in this scene including robin, and elleen (who is kaelish "coded") is something akin to a sun summoner (the holographic thing she can do is really cool) and koli is a materialnik etc. to me it fits even more than it did with the grishaverse as a wizarding world au. also, they call misaki shadow, like hello wraith. but at the same time they are basically superheroes, especially with the firebird symbol printed on robins back. (I also just realized the misaki flashback plot is basically the plot of miraculous ladybug?)

to summarize, I'm a nerd (and autistic) and just like to know the ins and outs of a magic world and dislike stepping into a new one. so, interesting that I chose to read a fantasy standalone this time... I guess I just wanted to try it out. I feel like its gonna leave me unsatisfied though. but we'll see.

also very interesting to me is that this is called adult fantasy, since I can't see much of a difference to YA yet. I do see how GOT and e.g. the grishaverse are different, but that's also bc one is high fantasy and the other one is idk, something else. so far in this book there is as much gore as in the grisha books (think soc and oomen's eye), and even as in hp if I recall correctly. I think it's generally funny that hp is considered a middle grade series bc by dh it's at least YA. also, in this book the protagonist (or one of the two) is literally a 14 year old. and misaki is an angsty teenager in this chapter, they even have a romance trope. it also makes me kinda angry bc I recently saw a post about how YA writers are just too bad to write adult fiction and it's so untrue?? of course there are badly written YA books, but so are adult fantasy ones? and not to mention those two series again, but hp and the soc and kos duologies are objectively well written? ok, not objectively maybe, but a lot of people would agree. and I am well out of the main YA target group, I'm in my mid 20s and I honestly still love those books (even if I haven't read any new good series in a while). I mean reading YA at that age does say something about me, but still... ok, rant over.

anyway, I'm starting to enjoy this book even though the writing style is not teribbly great imo (not bad but it could be better), but I hope the main story gets a bit more exciting in a bit. I personally would've put this chapter right at the beginning. btw, I really can't tell how far I am in this book bc I'm reading it as an ebook (as it seems not to be available in europe in english, only off of amazon u.s. with really long delivery), but I feel like I've been reading this quite a bit.

[astralbooks]

Bitterthorn - Kat Dunn

Read: 07/04/2023 - 08/04/2023

Rating: 4/5

Rep: sapphic main character & love interest, f/f relationship

CW: death of a parent (in backstory), grief, self harm, suicidal thoughts & suicide attempt, fire & fire related injuries, emotional abuse & neglect, murder, on page death, corpses & bones, emesis

Review:

The town of Blumwald is cursed. Every 50 years they are visited by the Witch, who takes a young man back to her castle as her companion who’s never seen again. Mina, the daughter of the Duke of Blumwald, is grieving, lonely, and out of place in a family that seems to have no space for her. So, when the Witch arrives to take her new companion, Mina volunteers herself.

This book can be best described as a dark gothic fairytale. There are recognisable elements of Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty in here that have all been blended together to make a story that isn’t quite a retelling of any one story but is right at home alongside them.

The overarching themes of this book are grief and loneliness. Mina is a deeply lonely person, even at the book’s start. Her parents never had much time for her when she was a child, and since her father remarried after her mother’s death she’s been practically pushed out of her family even more by her stepmother and stepsister. As the book went on I found myself disliking all three of Mina’s parents more and more, and Mina’s actions and thought processes are entirely unsurprising when considering the environment in which she grew up. She knows, logically, that the way she's being treated isn’t right, but she can’t help but love them anyway and hold out hope that one day their attitudes towards her will improve. Her arc is one that will surely resonate with those who grew up with similarly emotionally neglectful parents.

A lot of this book was written during the 2020 lockdowns, while Dunn was living alone, and that sense of loneliness and isolation really does come through here. This isn’t about the pandemic itself at all, there isn’t a virus involved, but I think that the way Dunn took the loneliness caused by the pandemic, as well as the way that time began to feel strange during this period, and seamlessly planted these concepts into a new context worked really well!

The Witch was an interesting character. She’s a mysterious figure, who refuses to answer most of Mina’s questions for a very long time and does all she can to keep Mina at a distance, often turning to cruelty in order to do so. As we learned more about her I came to understand her and the tragedy of her story more, and I really did feel for her, but I was still struggling to actually like her and her relationship with Mina. The main barrier to this, for me, being her cruelty. 

For all this book examines how if your parents don’t care very much about you or your wellbeing then you have no obligation to stick with them, it doesn’t seem to consider how if your partner is treating you badly then you also have no obligation to stick with them. Mina is constantly nice to the Witch, nicer than I’m sure most would be if they were in her situation, and yet is also constantly put in a position where she feels she has to apologise to the Witch when she’s either done nothing wrong or what she’s done wrong pales in comparison to what the Witch is putting her through. There’s only one point in which I think Mina’s apology is genuinely needed, and that situation worked out for the best anyway, so. I like where the two of them are at by the very end of the book, I like the way their relationship looks like it’s going to be as they go forward into the future, but throughout the book itself I couldn’t get super invested in it because the Witch was simply treating Mina badly. Mina chose the Witch lashing out at her over her family’s disregard of her. Picking neither may have been a better option.

I really liked what turned out to be the truth of the situation! I can’t go into much detail about it due to plot spoilers, but I thought it was all really cool. I figured out the most heartbreaking piece of the puzzle ahead of Mina discovering it for herself, but I don’t mind a little bit of predictability. I suspect the dramatic irony was intentional in this case anyway.

If you like dark fairytales or explorations of loneliness and neglect and the impact this can have on people, then I recommend picking this one up! Just mind the content warnings, as they are serious.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andersen Press for providing me with an e-arc in return for an honest review!

[helenarasmussen87]

Reading Update

It's going to be a long one since I've been voraciously working through my reading pile and I'm taking a leave so this is what I've been focused on other than writing and trying to get back to drawing like I used to.

Here we go:

Books that pissed me the fuck off:

-The Miniaturist, The Ladies of Cheateau Lafitte, Through a Glass Darkly: These books quite frankly pissed the fuck out of me due to using the LGBQTIA+ characters as plot devices rather than their own. Not to mention that it felt VERY stereotypical and badly handled.

It really irked me in "The Miniaturist" due to the people who the book was based on were real people and you could easily find their story and there were so many gross liberties taken with these people's lives that it was jaw droppingly appalling.

-The Maiden: An old series and the writing style clearly shows this. It was just intrigue, vague, incest, the Highland Uprising, and cousins destroying each other. Not very good, tbh.

-Tales of London: I was expecting straight up ghost stories, but those were minimal to the rest of the stories that felt like sociology and urban geography majors wrote ghost stories about the city itself. Not really what I wanted.

"Through a Glass Darkly" I understand the use of the gay husband trope more here due to the book written in 1987. Chateau used a slight lesbian angle which went nowhere and didn't add anything to the characters and this along with the Miniaturist irked me due to them being written pretty recently.

Now Books/Series that I was surprised at how much I enjoyed:

-Colourless Tzusuki Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage: A re read from 2015, but still holds up. I get it more now and the reveal is still as shocking as it was back when I first read it. I'm also convinced that this is like a spiritual sequel of Norwegian Woods.

-Before the Coffee Gets Cold-It was a slice of life with magical realism touches and it was sweet, short, and cute. Like a feel good vibe here.

-Heaven's Official Blessing series: I honestly am impressed at how the story keeps going because I am always surprised. Same with Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. I'm eagerly waiting for volumes 5 and 4 to arrive soon.

-The Scum Villain series: I didn't think I was going to enjoy it was much as I did. I'm not in RPG type stuff, but this series doesn't take itself super seriously and that makes it work when the character interacts with the system while he navigates the story.

-Blade of the Immortal: I'm revisiting this series because I LOVED them in my early 20's. My ex and some other people really put me off of reading manga/watching anime because they felt it was childish of me to read it. There's a reason why I don't have these people in my life now. The best way I can describe this series is that it is the Japanese equivalent of a Western themed revenger quest with GREAT pencil work.

I made it through the first omnibus and the story and the pencilwork still slap.

-Tokyo Revengers: Typical gang focus but with time hopping back and forth for love and for saving people from their own futures and selves. I've read four of the volumes and I am eager for more.

-Chainsaw Man: Not for me. I love the concept of Demons and hunting demons and Pochita (The chainsaw demon dog) but it's too nihilistic for me. Also how Denji is treated is questionable.

-A Man and His Cat: I love it as a slice of life story about a widowed concert pianist learning to live again after he gets Fukumaru, who is a very sweet kitty who was sure he'd never be picked. It's just great to see them both grow by being together and reconnect with the world and friends. It's a feel good series for sure.

-The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again: Another feel good series with a young office worker and her cat who is the perfect housewife. A feel good series for sure.

-Golden Kamuy: I am kind of annoyed at myself as to why I didn't pick this one up earlier. It's basically a Western set in Hokkaido while different groups search for a mythical gold treasure. The main guy fought in the Russo-Japanese War and his companion is an Ainu girl. The other players are an insane, but charismatic villain who wants the gold to push Japan into a hyper Martial state, the Ainu themselves, and others just wanting it for their own purposes.

It's like hitting all of my interest areas of Japan, the Ainu, and an obscure historical settings. I can count on one hand how many times I've come across media focusing on the Ainu. Not to mention the Russo-Japanese war.

It can be pretty gory at times, but the author knows to intersperse it with humour, cultural information, and some slice of life moments. The injuries are a bit out there at times, but the story is compelling. Good looking men too. I'm on volume 2 and so far, it's got my attention.

So that's it for the reading for now.