#Baby Book antagonist ass name

[barbreypilled]

I rest my case about men on tinder having ridiculous names why the fuck did I just get a super like from Vinicius

[gojuo]

I heard many people say that if the showrunners were good writers they would definitely make aegon and rhaenyra parallel each other. And tbh it's such an interesting take , because that would flesh out the conflict and make it very grey as it should have been. Also the fact that syrax is yellow and sunfyre is gold and you know... Gold and yellow are very similar so i think it's an interesting detail from GRRM. So what you think about this ? If u have given the chance to write their dynamic and how they parallel each other, how will u do it? I'm curious

Syrax and Sunfyre couldn’t be more different to be honest 😭 Syrax for starters is useless and lazy, never went out into battle, never hunted for her own food, forgot she could fly and breathe fire, essentially letting the mob of KL kill her, her one and only kill is Joffrey, etc. etc. She was worthless and did nothing during the entire Dance, mirroring her rider I guess 😭😭😭 Sunfyre contrary to that was a much younger dragon who DID ride out into battle, who DID hunt for his own food (balanced diet of other dragons, grand maesters and princesses #healthygainz), who has THE most dragon kills, who was horrifically injured but still kept on fighting kept on surviving who refused to die all to find his way back to Aegon and to help him achieve his goal of killing Rhaenyra, WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED TEN TIMES OVER BUT REFUSED TO ALL FOR AEGON BC SUNFYRE KNEW HIS BELOVED RIDER NEEDED THAT MONSTER DEAD AND HE COULDN'T LEAVE THIS WORLD BEFORE HE MADE SURE SHE WAS GETTING DIGESTED 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 Also exactly mirroring his rider...

Anyways this is about the dragons but dragons do resemble their riders so I feel like this would also be their dynamic. They’re just too different. Both in the book and in the show. In the book Rhaenyra is hungry for violence and makes the declaration of war first, she never cared for her siblings (always calling them her half-siblings), was gleeful when they died, when she was young in court she made fun of them along with Daemon to entertain herself, etc. Aegon in contrast had to be convinced to take up the crown, he says “What kind brother steals his sister’s throne?” (paraphrased, I don’t have the passage with me right now) when Criston tried to persuade him (RIP Kingmaker Cole, one of the most butchered Greens on the show), insinuating that he had resigned himself to being unwanted, only being convinced to ascend the throne himself because him and his entire family would have to be killed in order for Rhaenyra to have a smooth succession, etc. etc.

In the show they obviously tried to soften Rhaenyra’s canon ass personality bc they need their Daenerys 2.0, but then again, she was also beefing with her little 2-year-old brother on his birthday????? Like.. “No one is here for me,” she cries but they are at her baby brother’s birthday party ????? I’m fucking crying why was this grown woman so upset people were celebrating Aegon’s birthday, as if she herself didn’t get birthday parties every single year too 😭 Anyways show!Rhaenyra is less bloodthirsty and deliberately awful, but she still makes the declaration of war first, she still beefs with her baby brother, she still never makes an effort to get close to them (evidenced in the Driftmark episode), all in all she still doesn’t see them as family.

If the show was in my hands, I would have never whitewashed her character (bc she would be the antagonist and Alicent/Aegon the protag so lol) so if it was up to me, I would have had young Rhaenyra trying to bond with Aegon, but failing miserably because of her own feelings of doubt and insecurity of her position. And also, because Daemon is grooming her and slowly turning her against her siblings because he has his claws in her bc in my version of the show, Daemon would be the unequivocal villain of the series, serving no one but himself, not even Rhaenyra. Remember that he was starting with grooming her when she was 8 years old after being named heir. He, being as self-serving as he is, would have more chance of getting close to the throne as Rhaenyra’s King Consort than being uncle to King Aegon. (He doesn’t give a shit about her, he just cares about her power & title.) So Daemon would be poisoning young Rhaenyra against her siblings and since she would be feeling isolated in her younger years, fearing that her father would replace her with Alicent and their kids, it would be just way too easy for Daemon.

I think what I would do is that because of the big age gap between Rhaenyra & Aegon + Daemon always all up in her ear + her fucking off to Dragonstone for most of Aegon’s life, I would have had their characters be paralleled (Rhaenyra is loved by their dad and is the heir and has all his attention vs. Aegon is loved by the court + has better PR and Rhaenyra fears her position will go to him). Any interaction I would have them do would be extremely strained and filled with vitriol and resentment and bitterness, but I think what would be best for them is their interactions not being face-to-face but mostly through ranting about the other behind their backs. Aegon, whenever the family believes he’s fucked up and the frustration becomes too much for him, he’d just be like, “Who the hell cares what I do? Father only sees sister anyways/Sister-who-is-more-of-a-stranger-to-me is the one who will inherit everything that should have gone to me so why even bother?” etc. etc. such moments of vulnerability. For Rhaenyra, we would have such moments when she’s younger and Aegon is newly born. As a girl who’s lost her mother, who’s watching as her father is with a new wife, she would feel like she and the memory of her mother is getting replaced by Alicent & Aegon, and the fear of losing her only family (her dad) to someone that is not her and then also losing the inheritance her father gave her to someone that is also not her would make her a young and insecure girl, feeling isolated (perfect moment for Daemon to begin his grooming) and extremely hostile towards Aegon. As they grow older, Rhaenyra would see how Viserys cares so much for her and loves her whereas Aegon sees none of it, so she would be feeling vindicated and rub that in his face, only showing him apathy and spitefulness whenever they brush shoulders in passing. But what do I know, I’m just some girl writing fanfiction... Instead, the superior CondalHess are going to have their first and last interaction be when he kills her 🙃

[nyxknocks]

It's not a Miyazaki film if there isn't allusions to capitalism, destruction of the environment, identity, growth, and change. And we love him for it immensely.

It's easy to think of movies like Spirited Away as nothing more than a kid's movie, but time and again powerful messages are hidden within Miyazaki's work, really making you question why animated media gets so trivialized.

I'm a Ghibli dork, I love it. While Spirited Away isn't even in my top 3 (tbh not even my top 5. I only really like the sprites and No Face...) of their movies, it's still such an important film that touches on a lot of incredible emotions. The fear of change that Chiihiro feels at the beginning is spot on to what a young child who has been uprooted is likely to feel. She's in an unknown place with unknown surroundings, it's not a surprise she freaks out the way she does. The most major aspect of this film is how a child deals with their fears--their fear of being separated from her parents, of growing up, of change, of figuring out who they are. Because identity is massive in this film. I mean, hello, there's a whole ass character named No Face. Yubaba literally steals aspects of their names, and it's Chiihiro's growth that allows her to take back her (and Haku's) identities and reclaim them. She gains confidence and autonomy by doing this. This, I feel, everyone can see in this film. It's pretty heavy handed.

Capitalism is throughout pretty much every Miyazaki film (as far as I've noticed) and this movie has it in abundance. I mean, they work in bathhouse, slaving away to the point they no longer have an identity. She has to beg for work to survive. The physical laborer's are literally hidden well beneath the lavish building they slave over. Also, hello, literal child labor? Even the clothes separate the working class from the elite--Yubaba is always lush and extravagant (while also being very ugly, a staple for Ghibli antagonists). The uniformity Chiihiro has to change into and hide her real clothes. The boiler rooms????? Hello????????? It puts a spot light on western industrialization and how dehumanizing and terrible it is. The mix of both Japanese and distinctly western influences just shows how they feel about the ever-expanding western capitalism influences into Japanese society--spoiling it and rotting it from the inside.

There is so much emphasis on over-consumption in this from the parents literally obsessively eating food they happen upon to No Face spouting their gold everywhere, the literal polluted river. The coal the sprites lug to keep the bathhouse going. The forever-baby indulging in their mom's attention and wealth with no thought to growing up or making an effort to be independent. Yubaba herself. There's so much of it.

Miyazaki is one that no one questions the greatness of, and for good reason. Dude is gifted. We still should've watched Howl's Moving Castle instead (but I know you like anti-capitalism, prof. Howls' has that too!!!!)

Recommendation: read the Howl's Moving Castle book series (trilogy?) it's very good.

[alloutofgoddesses]

PJO TV THOUGHTS

Season 1, Episode 8

(I have read the books there’s a chance I will talk about them)

I have been cured of my illness from last week let’s gooo

Luke voice over parading the beginning voice over?!?!

LUKE TRAINING PERCY

Damn he’s a really fucking good swordsman 10/10 Charlie

Oh Percy… oh boy oh boy

Ares you’re funny… keep that humour

OH ANNABETH DOESN’T EVEN KNOW YET

She’s not dead though she’s frozen in Hades’ throne room

AND HERE WE GOOOOO

Damn he’s kinda wiping the floor with him

Ope he just kicked him into water it’s so over for him

THE WAVE

“I warned you… if you’re not careful… you’ll find out who I am.” WITH THE WAVE GROWING BEHIND HIM I KNOW THAT’S RIGHT

THAT’S THE MOST POWERFUL DEMIGOD THAT’S EVER LIVED BABEY

Right in the Achilles too oof

That look of awe on Annabeth’s face… girlie is GONE

I’m so excited about the Ares v Percy antagonistic relationship to continue forever (even when Percy had lost his memory)

Hey Alecto

I guess Hades doesn’t need to breathe but damn that helm looks uncomfortable AF

HE SAID PLEASE HE JUST WANTS HIS MOM

Percy I have bad news for you

I’d like to see Zeus try personally

HE’S A GOOD KID

Everyone stay calm it’s happening

IT’S HAPPENING

That fucking look. They’re so gone on each other thank you Walker and Leah

Incredible Percy move 10/10 no notes

Oh my god that’s Olympus… it’s getting me so bad and I don’t know why THATS OLYMPUS

I did in fact rewind because I saw some movement in one of the buildings. I would love to know who that is

OH LUKE’S SMIRK WHEN PERCY SAYS THE GODS SHOULD BE AFRAID OF DEMIGODS

He is SO SURE he has a new recruit. Percy is unknowingly saying everything Luke wants him to say

Why are you airing Annabeth’s shit Luke damn

Or taken outside where they belong

You know Zeus put all those stairs there on purpose. Malicious ass bitch

FIRE! Hi Hestia I love you sweetheart

RIP personalized thrones you’ll always be famous

HI ZEUS HI MR LANCE REDDICK

The way Percy is willing to risk everything to get the message to Zeus oh baby

Also Poseidon bestie these two alone is a VERY bad come quickly

Percy you’re gonna get fried

Girl just because you’re his son doesn’t mean you know him… arguably you know him the least of all your siblings because you were never swallowed and grew up in hiding from him specially

Damn that condescending sigh

Percy please shut the fuck up

PERCY

He’s about to die

OOP

Just in the nick of time Poseidon

HE SURRENDERS OOOOALAJDJSK

“Take your victory. Just spare my son.” NEVER BEATING THE ALLEGATIONS THAT PERCY IS HIS FAVORITE SON

“Your forbidden son” Dude you had TWO by the SAME WOMAN in two different forms don’t be a hypocrite (is the biggest hypocrite ever)

HELL YEAH SPEAK YOUR SHIT POSEIDON DON’T LET HIM GET AWAY WITH IT

And he full named Percy

Oh shit Ancient Greek

Ares and Hermes biggest gossips in the Greek pantheon confirmed

Dude HE SURRENDERED

Zeus I have bad news for you… “this one” is about to earn a Mount Olympus fast pass

OMG IT’S TIME

HE SAID (one of) THE LINE(s)

SALLY TAUGHT HIM ANCIENT GREEK HOLY SHIT I THOUGHT I COULDN’T LOVE HER MORE

“Ares is a moron” I cackled

Poseidon don’t be a pussy hug him

Also the way Walker is already so tall. He might tower over the dude playing his father by the end of this series (I know that’s Toby Stephens)

Baby that’s not a no

OH HE WANTS TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH HIS SON

That tree is person-ing so hard. They had to have built that shit

PERCABETH HUG

Omg hi Clarisse… so sorry you got framed

Luke jumpscare

Like you said anything

OH NO PERCY DON’T

It’s time for smart Percy to come out again

And the helm

Hmm. Who could possibly betray you

Why would he? He had no reason to

Yeah he did. He sure did.

I don’t know how to articulate my feelings on the line delivery of “I didn’t know you’d give them to Grover to wear” but know Charlie is killing me with how good of an actor he is

“None of this was meant to betray you” YOU WANTED TO SEND HIM TO TARTARUS! Did you expect Kronos to just spit him back out?

Luke trying to recruit Percy instead of luring him into the woods to scorpion him is SUCH a a good change I love it so much and it’s such a clear character choice for Luke

AH BACKBITER

(The way I literally jumped when it came on screen that sword is so fucking scary)

Correct reaction Percy

Honestly Percy is 100% correct Luke got manipulated he just hasn’t realised it yet

Shouldn’t have mentioned his dad Percy. ABSOLUTELY the wrong move

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-“ PERCY THAT FATAL FLAW IS SHOWING

Oh noooo I knew Annabeth was gonna be there but that doesn’t make it hurt any less

Bye bye Luke. Go get your yacht

I love that we know the horse half of Chiron was a literal horse Glynn was riding

Ldjdkslsjak Chiron knows the prophecy so OF COURSE he’s worried about Percy agreeing with Luke

Dionysus it’s Peter Johnson don’t listen to him

“You get out!” Lol

HELLO

FULL STOP

EVERYONE CEASE YOUR ACTIVTIES

LOOK AT ANNABETH’S HAIR!!!!!!!

IT’S SO PRETTY

THAT’S A PRINCESS HAIRSTYLE FOR SURE

She’s going to DisneyWorld 🥺

Percy is so excited for her

What if I cry

Hello Seatcher’s License

THE SEAS!!! See you in Florida Grover

Well you might have to go pick up a certain member of the team

GROUP HUG

He walked to the Montauk cabin? I mean I guess it’s closer than his apartment

SALLY!

THAT’S THE MAMA’S BOY

what

KRONOS GET OUT OF HERE NASTY ASS

He’s been at this for maybe like three months and he’s already so tired lol

“Turns out I’m pretty good at this” honey you’re kinda the best at this

Did Kronos just mention the prophecy

Seventh grade!! Aaahhhh I’m so excited

Calling him Grandpa is funny though

HE LOVES HIS MOM SO MUCH I’M GONNA SOB

Blue pancakes!

He’s gonna go meet Tyson

Also the voiceover that parallels what he says in the books about how “you might be one of us” I’m inconsolable

Lance Reddick, thank you so much for your performance and I’m heartbroken that this is the last time we’ll see you as Zeus. I hope you’re resting easy

Oh great… he’s still here

DIVORCE YOU SAY

SHE CHANGED THE LOCKS

Get a hotel idiot

Uh oh

Well they’ll come home to a surprise

Also? Sallly doesn’t get to do a little murder? Not even as a treat? She better still get to sell him

[ultimatebottom69]

Arcanum

Ok so i did say i would give a long ass rant about this book cause frankly it deserves my time and money.

So...We start by the MC. As someone who only played books like Heaven Secret, Chasing you ans Kali Call of Darkness. I was extremely shocked when this MC had a personality AND was relatable...Despite being the most problematic bitch i ever met.

I didn't force myself to think like her cause all her reactions were EXACTLY like someone with a brain and I was bamboozled.

No matter the path you take she still had her peesonality which to me is a blessing and the stats actually matter .

Imma be spoiling the shit outta that book and imma do my own kind of analysis on the characters and how I felt around them.

Now the driving force of this story the characters :

Of course imma start by My Li aka the best aka Mary :

Mary always ends in the shadiest businesses ever and even when she doesn't well she is an advisor...There is nothing more gay and evil then advisor as a position. Her being little red riding hood. With the twist she tamed the wolves shows that Selena always saw her deep down as a strong independant woman who would always get on her feet despite life being a bitch to her.

She also follows Selena weird obsession with bridges (i swear if you play this book you will understand. Girl is autistic with that passion. She loves Bridges. She fucking do.)

So what I am saying is. Mary choices of careers no matter the season makes sense with what we are shown. The flashbacks make sense, she is shown as someome ressourceful and headstrong who is kind of like Selena in the sense that she can be merciless which is why i went near her as no matter the season she is called one of the most dangerous gal in town. Like it's weird that no matter the season she is treated as dangerous...When there is a guy with a litteral gun.

Rob is a cop.

It is true for the first two seasons (Detective ? Cop. Commander in chief ? That's a cop with a fancier hat) it's the third season that kinda breaks that stereotype. And he ends up being a gambler of sort. Showing what an audience thinks of cops in general, people that steal other people freedom and resell it at a higher price to anyone but also hypocrites. Like overall I didn't hate being near him and he was alright to speak to. I just don't like cops as a principle and I didn't find him hot but he is.

Damon. Damon is your self appointed ex-boyfriend and you will discover the why during the book. Overall he isn't an evil guy at all. But as usual with hot men written by Alice (the author) he has the maturity of a 15 year old. Emotionally. I ain't gonna lie. I wanted him dead. Just because he was mad annoying and the book kept pushing him onto me but that's my opinion, he is not a bad guy. But he is fucking problematic too.

Now onto the anomalies. Aka the bitches we have no idea why they are here.

Josephine. No matter how I look at it. It's weird. What is she foing here ? She appears in no flashbacks but we somehow knows her name ? Alright and she always ends up being a sort of antagonist the story loves to drags on. She feels more like a punching bag because Selena hated how randomely rude she was. I mean for once Selena did nothing and that gal started screaming. So understandable and unfortunately not much to dig into.

Bert...Bert story if you don't do his route is fucking confusing. He is a random guy who is a sort of Jack of Trades who for sone reason is a more talented painter then Liam apparently. He gets manipulated every single time. No matter what. It's weird. He is flirtly with the ladies and he loves freedom but unless you go in the walkthrough you would have NEVER guessed his god damn career. I promise.

Like go ahead guess his career with just what i told you.

Liam. Another anomly. If you don't do his route he always seems to like Selena but is extremely gentle with her but also doesn't coddle her like she is a baby. No matter the world he is a prisonner of a situation. First season. Prisonner due to his blood. Second season. Prisonner because he is a man. Third season. Prisoner because he was super unlucky and Tarot reader liked the Irony.

In every of this seasons it is true that Josephine is a sort of role in his life. First and second she is a sister or a sort of caregiver. Third season ? Well she seems obsessed with him but she also kinda chill. It's weird and it is never explained if you don't do his route. Like we know why he loves paintings and is obsessed by them if you do one of the flashbacks of his during the third season but that's it.We don't know why he is so kind to Selena but a jerk to Bert (in season 1 it made sense but as I said later on it makes no sense) he is always described as delicate and all but suddenly he seems to be a dirty fighter who knows how to fight and is precise and deadly aka what a Painter who is a perfionnist is.

Liam is a strange character, we legit dunno him.

I won't say more I will post about my favorite dynamic about two characters and yeah that's my opinionnon Arcanum. This book DEFINITELY needed to more episodes to really stretch it's climax a tad. The last 2 episodes felt like 5.

Bit overall definitely my favorote book with Heaven's secrets in terms of lovable characters and interesting worldbuilding.

[ascendent]

One of the most useful things I’ve ever read about process is Kelly Link’s essay about narrative obsessions. [...] I am constantly nursing my obsessions: reading about what excites and interests me, [...] narrative pleasures however and wherever they appear [...] it requires you to be flexible, thoughtful, and purposeful about the way you collect, catalog, and access your own ideas.

— Carmen Maria Machado

What I decided to do was to sit down and, very quickly, make a list of things that I most liked in other people's fiction — these could be thematic, character driven, very general or very specific. I found that when I started this list, it began to incorporate ideas and items which I was inventing as I went along. Here's the list:

theme parks

cults

haunted houses

funny!

subterranean lakes

book within a book, also made up tv shows — any kind of invented narrative

dog walkers

pet tragedies

twins

old mysteries — bad things that have happened in the past

people who know they are doing stupid things, but keep on doing them

people who are blamed for doing things they didn't do

people who make things

people who stage amateur plays / make amateur movies

ghost stories

governesses & parole officers — people with power who can make you miserable, or make you do pointless tasks in order to demonstrate their power

electrical outages

imaginary friends

Cat in the Hat-types characters/antagonists/allies

poltergeists

owls or infestations of wild animals

demolition

ne'er-do-well relations

the octopus

the color green

pet named "the unsub" b/c mother loves forensic mysteries

mocking celebrities

metafiction

fraught family dynamics

weird sexual dynamics

plague

zombies

attics or basements full of things

girls who kick ass, not necessarily for a good reason

Every once in a while, I revisit this list, to see if there's something on it that generates an idea. I add things as they occur. It's a bit like window shopping.

[...]

One last category of ideas, to end on: those ideas which are fabulous, but which you may not be the best writer to tackle, or which are too complicated to pursue for other reasons. For example, I've never written a script. I have lots of other things I need and want to be working on. And yet, wouldn't it be a blast to remake the movie "Bringing Up Baby" as a paranormal romance? I keep having this vision of the scene in which Cary Grant's character is wearing Katherine Hepburn's negligee. Doesn't the reason why seem obvious? He's just turned back from were-leopard into Cary Grant.

— Kelly Link

[memento-morri-writes]

not me who read the lil bit of info you posted on ashlin as protagonist and not antagonist and thought ‘OOH she sounds rly cool’ anyways!!! your new wip 👀 i am looking. i’m curious about theo and squish, do you have any info on them you’d like to share? 👀 [@fiercely-raging-writer]

LEO, I LOVE YOU!

Sorry, that was really agressive, but you just happened to ask about my favorite characters!!!

I'll start with Theo, because I love them and they're easier to explain, asjdakjds. Theo (they/them) is a neurodivergent enby healer. They're Autistic and have ADHD, and they're very passionate about helping people and animals. They're a talented healer, and they wind up saving Ashlin's stubborn ass in Book 2 (yes, this is a duology!!). They literally bounce up and down when excited, and have poor volume control. (People often tell them they are too loud, but when they get excited, they get loud, and what they think of as quiet is apprently most people's "medium".) They also flap their hands when stressed or upset, and bite their nails. They almost never have any nails to speak of. They tend to ramble alot, and people often have to remind them to get to the point, which is fine sometimes, but not when you're anxiously waiting to see if your loved one is going to live or die. They love animals and will baby-talk to any animal they meet. They will also stop whatever they're doing to pet an animal, so for this reason (and no other, lmao), no animals are allowed in their surgery room.

They are probably the closest thing to a self-insert, since nealry all of their ADHD/Autistic tendencies are things they have in common with me. They are me if I was enby, lived in a fantasy world, and was a doctor.

I'll talk about Squish under the cut.

Squish is a slug.

No, I'm not kidding. She's a magic slug. She's about 18 inches long, pale yellow, and she sticks to things. She has antennae where a sluf would have eyestalks, but her eyes are on her main body, around the head area.

She communicated via chirps and squeaks. She chirps when she's happy or excited, and squeaks as general conversation. She tends to squeak when she hears her own name (like "yes? hello!"), and when she hears Dorian or Ash's names. (She's a bit like a dog (or cat or horse or any animal, really) in that she understands a few words, and will react to them!)

She joins their little party by accident. Squish is going to be used in a magical ritual of some sort, and Dorian fears she's going to get hurt or die if it happens. And while he and Ash are on the run from the people/person who plan on doing that ritual, they snatch Squish and go. Dorian just yells at Ash to grab her, and they do, but they only do it because they think she's useful.

But because Ash is the one who physically saved her from danger, and carried her while they were escaping, Squish imprints herself on Ash and won't leave their side. She tries to get rid of the slug multiple times, but it doesn't work. Ash is getting annoyed, but Dorian thinks the whole thing is hysterical.

Eventually, Ash excepts her fate a Protector of the Slug and they name her Squish. She likes to ride on their shoulders or in Dorian's bag.

Also, she hates to be left alone. If she gets worried enough, she might scream. Oh, yeah, she screams. It's a very loud, piercing shriek, and she doesn't seem to need to breathe during it.

And she also changes colors to show her mood. Bright yellow is happy, dull brown is sick or very sad, etc. She also perks or droops her antennae to show if she's happy or sad. And she purrs when Dorian pets her. (Ash thinks it's weird to pet a slug until she ccatches herslef doing it by accident.)

[uh-velkommen]

The White Lotus, HBOMax

Alright four episodes in and things are finally starting to ramp up. My face throughout the whole episode was stuck on discomfort. This show packs so much tension in every 45 minutes that I'm constantly waiting for somebody to pop off or something crazy to happen but instead we get teased with the smallest little plot pusher. Which is working. I'm officially intrigued. I do wish I knew the overall point of the show because that's what would've helped me decide if I wanted to keep up with but now my determination to find out how this all ends is doing just that...

Character breakdown + Spoilers/Predictions

Armond: The manager of the White Lotus resort. I love him in all his poor choices. He's just constant chaos simply because he has the power to create it. He's also the biggest driver of drama. He lies a lot, almost pathologically, and he will carry those lies to the grave for no real reason.

Nicole Mossbacher: Resort guest, Mark's wife, and Olivia and Quinn's mom. She's a pretty basic character who is teased about possibly having OCD and working during vacation. She was pretty chill in the first 2 episodes but every once in a while she says things that gives off I'm a centrist but my views lean a little more conservative.

Mark Mossbacher: In the beginning he's stressing about possibly having testicular cancer because his father died of cancer... Turns out his father had AIDs. He has a depressive episode over his dad being gay and then, while drunk, he inadvertently comes onto the Armond. The next day Armond tests the waters with Sober Mark and we get uncomfortably funny scenes of Armond coming onto Mark in front of the whole family. Mark's a very passive dude who doesn't do anything exciting in the show but we just find out that he has, in the past, repeatedly cheated on his wife and didn't tell her (he told his son that he did tell Nicole but I don't believe it) I think his theme is just being genuinely unhappy with his life at the moment.

Olivia Mossbacher: She's a college sophmore and has many moments where she calls out her parents questionable statements. She carries herself with a weird nonchalance where you'd think she's a mean girl but she's only ever expectedly mean to her brother. However, she brought along her friend Paula and we start to see that their friendship is built on some unspoken competition. The girls do tons of drugs on vacay until Armond gets his hands on them and breaks his 5 year sobriety. This is when and why shit starts to hit the fan. They know he stole the drugs but because everyone avoids admitting to having illegal drugs, no one is ever outright accused.

Paula: Olivia's poc friend, possible hypochondriac, and supplier of drugs, has secret rendezvous with one of the Hawaiian native resort workers. She refuses to say anything when asked about her nightly disappearances but Olivia knows why or for whom Paula keeps sneaking off. We learn that Paula doesn't want Olivia to know about her and her beau because Olivia always wants what she has. My theory is that this wouldn't be the first time Olivia has stolen a partner of hers and I think now because Paula isn't admitting to hooking up with this guy, Olivia is gonna steal him and use Paula's secrecy as a way of blame.

Quinn Mossbacher: Involuntary loner in my opinion. He comes off as a classic video game nerd, obsessed with the internet, cant live without his Switch and Fortnite. He doesn't have any friends and he takes all the teasing from Olivia and Paula without a fuss. But he starts sleeping on the beach alone and keeps running into these amazing sights to see. This is where we start to see him blossom and speak up. Its ever so slow but in episode 4 he actually walks up to a group of guys and introduces himself, interested in their boat related sport[?] (Or maybe even the guys themselves🤞) He's also the only one who knows about the Dad's affair and stupidly hints at it at the family dinner (he's just genuinely stupid).

Shane Patton: Also a resort guest and the funniest character to me. He's your run of the mill self-centered male Karen (Kevin if you will) and he arrives at the resort with his wife Rachel. They're on their honeymoon but so many moments make you question why in the hell did these two get married? He is in an unnecessarily one sided battle with Armond. First the resort accidentally downgrades his room. Armond gaslights Shane into thinking that he never purchased the bigger room. Shane gets a receipt. Armond tells him there's a German couple staying in the receipted room longer than Shane and his wife are there so the room will not be ready for them in time. Shane finds out the Germans are actually leaving wayy earlier. Armond apologizes and books them a romantic sunset dinner on a boat. The boat is actually a funeral where a strange grieving woman, named Tanya, fails to spread her mothers ashes in the sea. Shane confronts Armond and asks for Corperate's number. Armond creates a fake business card and when Shane realizes the number is fake, he bursts into Armond's office to find him rimming a coworker while high on Ketamine. Prediction: Armond's gonna get blackmailed for abuse of power in a classic Monicagate manner.

Rachel: Shane's wife. Rachel's a journalist who actually looked up to Nicole (her job as CEO of god knows what puts her in the public eye) but when she finally got to sit with Nicole over lunch, Nicole calls her out for writing an incredibly slut shamey article, claiming that Nicole used her femininity to get her where she is now. This is the first smack in the face that maybe journalism isn't for Rachel. Well that on top of the constant teasing from Shane about her career choices. Shane's family is much more wealthy than Rachel's and he always finds subtle ways to make it known. Shane also pays her no mind, flirting with Olivia and Paula and battling Armond. Even during their arguments (which happens too many times for newlyweds) Shane doesn't look at Rachel and just gives periodic "mhmm"s and "okay"s. Also Rachel hates the Mossbacher family simply because they all seem to be doing better than her.

Now for the boring ones

Tanya McQuoid: An eccentric resort guest (which is a polite way of saying, a weird ass person who is over polite and basically pushes herself into every other character's drama in the most unintentional way, she's also bad at reading the room) She comes off as calm and quiet but we find out that her mother recently passed and she's in Hawaii to spread her mothers ashes. She becomes creepily obsessed with the resort's massage parlor manager, Belinda, after a complimentary massage and suggests becoming a beneficiary so Belinda can open up her own massage parlor. Her "obsession" could possibly just stem from Belinda showing her an act of kindness during a hard time but I know I questioned Tanya's intentions for at least the first two episodes... In episode 4, some random dude, Greg, shows up and invites Tanya to dinner after "accidentally" mistaking her room door for his own. Tanya postpones a business meeting with Belinda so she and Greg can hook up that night. The presence of these characters feel a little out of place. Unlike the Newly Weds and the Mossbacher family, there is not a lot of plot overlap. Tanya will often pop up to converse with the others and brag about Balinda's skills but she doesn't cause any trouble. Tanya's also very wealthy so I definitely thing this "Greg" has some secret plot to take down Tanya or plant something or steal her cash and unfortunately I do not think Belinda will see anything bright in her future. Her plans will be left on the backburner which I say is unfortunate because she's a kind woc who is just trying to do her job and is clearly very skeptical about going into business with this strange, rich white, resort guest.

Honorable Mention

Lani: A Hawaiian native, trainee at the White Lotus. She shows up in episode one as her first day on the job. Later we find out she's also pregnant and goes into a premature labor on the job. She has her baby and disappears for the next three episode. Come back Lani, Armond has just started getting your name right!

Show Themes

The show does touch on conversations of race and class but I would not consider this a political show or one with an agenda (it's satire). I point out the characters of color here because their race becomes a device used to create tension but not in a Token POC kind of way. All the characters are rich and they are shamed for it by the show writers. By this I mean nobody is spitting in their faces and calling them Climate Killers but the choices the characters make, the things they say, and the way they act gives the viewer something to laugh at. Their ignorant entitlement juxtaposing with the beautiful Hawaiian beaches and tragic Hawaiian history creates an underlying experience of, look at these rich people not having a good time and they can't even realize why! As for the characters, there is plenty of time to sit back and question, is this character a good person, who's the real antagonist, how do these stories intertwine, who do we root for What story is attempting to be told here? What is the message!?

[yakocchi]

Becoming a Family With Him, Part 3 // Shuichi, Hikaru, Rhion, Luke, Eisuke

so this came out, as further celebration for the anni. VERY GOOD, much more appreciated than the prior story set lol that one was kind of boring but i get it

they made the kids for all the... kid-less ones, and the eisuke one that used to be VIP-exclusive is now here for everyone to buy (rip those ppl who gacha for it)

my rambling behind the cut (spoilers!!)

shuichi // as ud expect, shuichi has a literal hime ass looking girl (kikyo) for a daughter. she’s only 6, but is pretty calm and ladylike. She even calls her parents with –sama so... ok luckily shuichi does not strip down all the way in the presence of her daughter and only takes off his suit coat. thanks dad

anyway since shuichi has a break coming up, he wants to have a family trip how nice. but then the dang girl wants to go over to see eisuke WHAT when soryu exists and lives a block away? unrelatable, im closing the app anyway eisuke is her first love, which wtf he’s like 20 yrs older than u. even worse, mc says she’s been in love since she was like 3.

shuichi is reconsidering the benefits of democracy in his mind but eventually relents. but then they’re still following the fucc-days rule they set years ago. well, as he says in the story, RULES ARE RULES

blah blah i don’t want to go over everything bc then it’ll be boring reading the story when it comes out in engl right? also im tired bc it’s 1 am and i just want to play toontown in bed but nothing really bad happens. they are a v cute family bc shuichi is a pleasant and mature dad. kikyo and mc even do a little surprise for him at the end and it is very sweet. i feel like out of all the families, this is the most ideal

mad hatter // so they have twin sons named Rui and Kai. Rui is the childlike one that resembles Rhion in personality, Kai is the more mature one that resembles Al. man i forget that boy’s name but u get me i know they only can use stock bgs but it’s killing me that these dang kids get to sleep in what looks like separate king sized beds.

even though rhion is now a father of two, he still acts like... 10. i mean he still horni but it makes me feel weird

later it’s revealed that Ota teaches them both as an art tutor bc they both showed an interest in art. this is cute bc ota is bad with kids in this universe LOL

the ending on this one was weird cuz the kids didn’t show up in the entirety of the last ep bc it was about WORK. so uh... interesting

hikaru // so their son is named akari. haha get it because it means light. like how hikaru also means light. can mc name her kids unrelated to their father or is that against the Geneva convention

this kid actually acts like an actual little boy. like what hikaru would’ve probably turned into if not for the whole sad backstory. the story starts with akari just bringing a dog randomly home one day. he actually saved the dog (it is very cute bc he did not want the dog to cry), and then after a talk they decide to keep the dog as long as akari knows the responsibility of taking care of an animal.

so next day, the bidders come over to their house and everyone’s like woaw a dog. lol they come into their house as guests and eisuke and mamo still demand for beverages, they all suck

akari names the dog... “Light” (Raito) and i want out of this nightmare. Naturally bc Light is an abandoned dog it’s still kind of bad with interacting with things. But then Light suddenly be giving the ( ╹ਊ╹) to soryu bc remember, animals love him. everyone clowns on soryu for being an unintentional dog whisperer and then akari is like “soryu san pls make me ur apprentice” and he gives some advice like approaching it slowly, and talking to it from the front instead of back.

blah blah there’s a situation where Light goes YEET after a Doberman gets all angry and then hides bc then another dog is scaring it. hikaru swoops in to the save the day as the Real Dog Whisperer. ok it’s cute when hikaru actually gets to look cool  for once LOL

luke // luke is cute on the bc “pre-story” scene he’s actually pretty open to the idea of having kids; he actually goes “well imo we should think abt it pretty soon, but i wanted to hear ur opinion on it” but then he gets horni. and then he’s like “our kids are going to have your collarbones. awesomeee im looking forward to that” ....ok

ok cut to the actual story and they’re in Japan. Luke’s kid looks... strange versus the others. why are his eyes so big? omg voltage his eyes arent going to be saucers just cuz he half white also the kid’s name is Yuri (Or Urey). They couldn’t think of any other Brit-styled names? Like Harry? Henry? William? Wilfred? hey stan be my princess btw he’s pretty cute, though he gives serious “timid kid that gets bullied in the children’s movie” vibes. He calls Luke “daddy” and mc “mammy/mommy”.

so luke talks about his relationship w/ soryu and eisuke and then yuri is like “i want friends like that” wow cute but also find less ethically-complicated friends

so luke lets yuri meet a young patient of his (haru) so they can be friends. they get along so it’s good. haru gets in critical condition later so luke zooms outta there to do the operation.

LOL but at the end yuri is like, “i want to make more friends. (...) can i go to the bidder’s room from now on?” this boy works fast

And then he’s like “Eisuke-san... please be my friend.” HIS POWER. even eisuke was like :O so then eisuke orders a whole bunch of food and books up to the penthouse. But then yuri’s like “...i like eisuke’s eyes” and everyone’s like oh man that’s gonna be his fetish

Baba: why have u started to have an interest in eyes Yuri: I read it from one of daddy’s medical books Hikaru: wtf u can read that at 4??? (...) Soryu: wat Yuri: um... i want soryu to be my friend too Yuri: bc soryu’s eyes are also powerfully cool...

eisuke // ok this gets an extended ramble bc the more annoying the story the longer i must complain

so you might be thinking, “oh so this is gonna be a flashback in some in media res styled story with your 2 kids, u know in the style of the others” and well, no you just go straight to white screen into the flashback, back when eito was smaller and thus a little more cute. well it’s not really false advertising bc they did say “reminisce” in the description. but i wanted to see eito be a good big brother for a moment! or... less good? man i wanted to see kaito go waaaah like a baby idk i wanted to see him exist

so back to the story they cut to small eito. even as a smaller punk he does fight with his dad a little, just w/ a more narrow vocabulary to work with. tho at this point he’s still pretty sweet so clearly eisuke clowning him day and night was a negative effect on his development. (doesn’t treat his child like a child) (child grows up to a punk that doesn’t respect him) (surprised pikachu) being the son of a billionaire means that this child has to go study at a very young age and listen to MOZART. no child of eisuke ichinomiya will be listening to degenerate bops like lee taemin’s criminal next day they all go to the very fancy school that eito will be attending. eisuke does a speech, but then eito is all like “why is papa over there all the time” in reference to how all the other parents in attendance are having fun with their children, but eisuke is busy talking to other people for business and connections etc. etc. mc kind of has a hard time trying to explain it to eito bc... it’s honestly poor parenting... eiji shows up after arriving late, and he’s like “gramps is gonna be with ya today! instead of papa” which is cute but then she’s like psst thanks for coming and im like oh... so grandpa just didn’t randomly come to the open house for fun he’s just gonna be surrogate dad while real dad is busy... aw... and then at the end eito’s like FUC THIS KINDERGARTEN. eisuke is like “(smh) don’t yell in public. (despite everything) you are still the eldest son of the Ichinomiya family”

and so afterwards it’s clear that eito does not want anything to do with this school. he just sits in the classroom until mc is there to pick him up instead of playing in the courtyard or w/e, wanting nothing to do with the other kids.

so later there’s a hiking trip for the students and both of their parents, and mc asks eisuke if he’ll be available for it. eisuke is like, “i have a business trip that day, so I’ll have to adjust my schedule” and he’s been very busy in the opening of a new business or w/e. mc tells him to not do so much for something like that and that it’s ok if she goes alone with eito on the trip.

it’s the day of the trip, and mc goes alone with eito. she notes that a lot of dads did indeed come along for the trip. she apologizes to eito and says that she did talk to eisuke about the trip before, but he’s simply busy for this day. and im like... but girl, you were the one who told him not to change his schedule for the trip. yes a trip may seem less important than business ventures, but don’t make it sound like you weren’t the one who stopped him. lol. idk why im pressed abt this single line of dialogue bc later she does realize she fucced up there well eito is just like w/e about it and has pretty much accepted that sort of thing

anyway eito goes missing later and one of the kids said that he told eito that his dad (eisuke) didn’t come bc his dad thinks that his work is more important than his son. so eito got mad and ran off somewhere

and then mc finally gets the lightbulb moment that eito... wants to see his dad!! he ran off to go try to see him somehow??? !! wow so sweet

it’s raining like a mf but then in her search for eito eisuke randomly pops out of nowhere. He’s like “ho i did not remember saying that i wasn’t coming” and she’s like “im sorrryyy” and both me and him are like “just find the dang kid”

ok yea they find eito, he starts being a good student, and u start to see where he starts being antagonistic towards his dad LOL etc. etc. lol this story annoyed me so i don’t feel like doing the rest of the play by play orz

anyway thanks for reading my garbage LOL

[spockandawe]

OH RIGHT, I also have to follow up on The Healer Demands Payment!

Because oh my god, you guys

This is the most fun I’ve had with a cnovel in EONS (by eons, I mean like. a week. I'm an impatient binch). I was just poking idly around on novelupdates, and I tripped across an absolute GEM, and I need to scream about it. Which I already did once before, so I’ll try not to rehash things too-too badly, but I hit the end of the translation and blew through into MTL, because how was I supposed to stop? I’m still not caught up with MTL (not that it matters, since the story is ongoing), but I trust this author to take me good places, and I’m about 99% positive the author is deliberately playing with genre-based storytelling conventions, if a little more subtly than svsss. 

I’m going to get into more spoilers as I go along than I did last time, all things revealed fairly early, but if you’d rather read it cold (a++, do recommend, but not critical for reading pleasure), hit up that post instead of this one. But these first couple paragraphs aren’t super revealing.

The premise!! Meng Qi is a healer. Her first time living her life, she tried to charitably do good and heal the people around her in need. However, like every time she tried to treat a guy, circumstances were such that everyone thought she looked suspicious, credit was given to her shijie, Lu Qingran, and then all the guys went off to moon over Lu Qingran. Meng Qi does her own thing for a while, and even picks up a shizun who she adores, and who is her research partner developing all kinds of revolutionary new medical techniques. When she eventually died (I still don’t know how, but it definitely looks like Lu Qingran was swooning into the arms of the man who did it), Meng Qi was told that Lu Qingran was beloved by the heavens. Then... Meng Qi woke up, age 17 or 18, just as she entered her sect, but with all the theoretical knowledge that she accumulated in her past life.

When our story begins, the first of Lu Qingran’s love interests has just entered the scene. He staggers back to the sect, carrying Lu Qingran, badly poisoned after encountering a magic beast in the woods. Meng Qi knows how to treat him. But she’s also aware that yeah, after she did this last time, she slaved away from a week, and passed out in exhaustion, just in time for Lu Qingran to wake up and say she saw ~someone~ in their sect’s uniform in the forest just before the beast attacked. Meng Qi is all set to be locked in jail for three months until someone gets around, finally, to clearing her name. Meanwhile, clown prime, Chu Fengtian, is busy mooning over Lu Qingran and ignoring all the work she did to save him.

Yeah! She’s not super interested!!!!!!!!!

So she thinks about this for a little while, and decides that the best way to extract herself from any kind of karmic entanglements is to make sure any work she does is just a pure, simple exchange of goods. So... she says she can treat him, and she charges him money. A lot of money.

He’s angry and embarrassed and has to sign an official IOU, her sect is upset with her, but her sect also knows that treating this poison is beyond their capabilities, so they’re like ‘yeah, whatever, humiliate yourself, i guess!’ She doesn’t, because she is a good and clever girl, and as Chu Fengtian’s humiliation fades, he seems to.... gradually realize that Lu Qingran shouldn’t be the object he orbits. Meng Qi charges him money for everything she does for him, all the different pills and such, and he’s, uh. He’s starting to get into it, and I am living.

I won’t lie, whenever I talk about this book I’ve been framing it as accidental findom harem acquisition, and I’m not wrong.

Now, at this point, Meng Qi kind of has a grasp on what Events ought to be transpiring, and is managing along. That gradually fades as the plot progresses, but it’s an early element. She acquires an injured baby tiger she wants to heal, who, uh, is definitely actually a member of a royal demon clan trapped in beast mode (and baby mode). To treat this tiger, she needs expensive-ass medicine. And now, our girl has additional motivation to extort the men around her (mostly) for everything they have. She also accidentally runs into another of Lu Qingran’s eventual love interests, Qin Xiumo, recovering from the aftermath of a failed heavenly tribulation, and in a really bad way. She... can treat him. If he pays :3c

(Lu Qingran almost steals credit for Meng Qi’s work, again, and this is the point where I start to wonder if there’s some kind of.... legit gravitational field around her that’s altering people’s perceptions, because this is a terribly consistent pattern. The Dreamer In The Spring Boudoir had a toxic white lotus of its own, but what she was able to do isn’t the same as Lu Qingran, and the way people eventually break free of orbit around Lu Qingran and realize that things are Strange is fascinating)

And now here is where I was like OHHHHHHH.

Because the moment Chu Fengtian gets Qin Xiumo alone, he’s like ‘right, you and me, we both remember our last lives, right? we remember how lu qingran got us killed? and how meng qi got caught up in that all trying to help us and died too? let’s NOT do that again’

MULTIPLE REINCARNATORS WITH MEMORIES OF THEIR LIVES

And here, I have to copy over this one bit again, because it made me go yeeeee out loud

“Meng Qi.” Qin Xiumo smiled. “You should always remember one thing.” He turned to look at Meng Qi. “If someone betrays and wrongs you in the future, don’t try to talk reason, just kill them.” He paused for a moment, then slowly said, “I know you can do it. As long as you don’t feel soft-hearted.

Qin Xiumo took a step towards Meng Qi. The mountain wind stirred his black robe, but he kept staring at her eyes. With a low whisper, he softly spoke every word. “Including me…if one day I betray you, bring you harm, just kill me without hesitation.”

Okay now

So

Here’s the funny thing

Because Meng Qi was not treated well by any of these love interests before, she’s totally willing to be pleasant with them, but like........... respect? what respect? the two boys out themselves to each other immediately, but they have no clue that meng qi remembers anything, and it’s hilarious. Also they start immediately getting into baby slapfights over who she’s charging more for certain services. Is it that she doesn’t care about you and only wants to talk money with you, or is it that hey, why did she charge you ten times as much for the same service??? The answer is yes. Also, Qin Xiumo offers to repay her with his body almost right away and she’s like No Thank You, and the moment their financial obligations are repaid, she’s like OKAY BYE, and it’s great.

Virtually every major character who’s been added to the party or exists on the outskirts of the party has won me over. Xue Junwen? A treasure. Su Junmo? A++++ gossipy fox bastard, would die for him. Sikong Xing? WONDERFUL fox lesbian, also a treasure, deserves the best girlfriend in the world. Pei Mufeng? BEST BOY, needs to tell me ALL his secrets!!!! Ji Wujiong? Absolute Bastard, my favorite lad, absolute treasure of a terrible man. I love him. And Meng Qi’s mysterious once-shizun is also floating around now, and is WILDLY jealous of who this ““shizun”” that she respects from her past could be.

The story has this balance I really, really like, where all of the major women who have shown up have either been absolutely delightful creatures or fascinating I-can’t-tell-if-they-know-they’re-toxic antagonists, and all the men have been SOME variety of clown. It’s so good.

And I’m speculating so hard about everything that’s happening!!! Why do three human lads appear to remember a past with Meng Qi, while at least two demons who were very involved with her definitely don’t? Meng Qi is getting SUPER good at arrays, but the narrative makes a point about how a ton of knowledge about arrays was lost in both the human and demon realms. So........ tell me more about the devil realm? Why have you told me so little about the devil realm, I’m getting suspicious! What the FUCK did all that internal damage to both Ji Wujiong and Yun Qingyan?? Are those wounds on Ji Wujiong’s face perhaps........... tiger claws? Do they have anything to do with a baby tiger’s injured paw that wouldn’t close until Meng Qi saved up for a ton of medicines? HOW MUCH DOES PEI MUFENG REMEMBER, and did he promise to go to the starfallen sea because of his PAST LIFE remembrances of meng qi? Why is he immune to propaganda lu qingran?

And also, last time I posted, I mentioned the strict stages of cultivation as my biggest downside in the novel. That’s still probably the case, but now, I’m invested. The conceit that Meng Qi’s theoretical knowledge far outstrips her cultivation is a fascinating one, and the story leans into it real, real good. Especially once Ji Wujiong got involved and started teaching her about arrays, and she wasn’t just leaning on rote lessons from the past to get by, it got so interesting. And some of the cultivation trappings that never really clicked for me are much more interesting in the context of a medical cultivation novel, like, I have never once cared what a spiritual sea is, but once it turns out that Ji Wujiong’s internal damage involves damage to his spiritual sea? Yes?? Tell me more?????

I’m genuinely shocked and delighted that I’m so invested in this book, because I only expected it to be a light, casual read from the start. I was looking for something to kill the time, not something to distract me while I’m supposed to be working, but I love it so much. I’m in the middle of wrapping up a story arc and pausing for air before I press on through the mtl, but I’m already planning to loop back to the beginning and read again and look for hints as soon as I finish. This is so GOOD. It was such a surprise how fun it was, but I love it so much!!

[quesadillabitch]

oph2 final chapter...

wow, what a supremely lacklustre and boring ass ending lmfao

let's see now, we got

1. no relationship progression with our li

2. the extremely convenient and narratively unsatisfying deus ex machina of a dude just handing over a billion dollars all willy nilly

3. no actual interesting or lasting consequences of dealing with esme the asshole's whole situation (seriously? they just dropped all charges? hello? wtfever lmaoo), let alone any real nuance to her relationship with mc - by her account, you're either an evil douche for "ratting her out" or you have to baby her as her friend first and foremost. it's one of the two, despite the game setting out the three initial routes of antagonistic, professional, and friendly...

also, i find it incredibly difficult to believe that edenbrook would then rehire esme based off all the trouble her actions gave the hospital but like??? whatever who cares about realism the writers certainly don't

(also, get fucked)

4. literally no further exploration of mc's apparent trauma after almost being killed... this shit could have been hella interesting, exploring the dynamics of nearly dying on the job and how that would impact one as a doctor themselves, but instead we got... nothing. at all. 🙄

etc., etc....

this book was so disappointing. it was such a mess, and while it had some really great chapters there in the middle (again, the two with the hospital getting attacked and mc and raf almost dying were very well done), it ultimately fell so, so flat and ended so badly because of pb's racist writing choices, the bizarre introduction of like fifty different plot lines, and the necessary-but-jarring hiatus.

you can tell how ambitious pb wanted this book to be, but then they just couldn't commit to anything they attempted to set up so it all collapsed into an unsatisfying pile of... whateverthefuck this was??? which sucks because a lot of potential was there and the first book was so good so this book ending up like this just puts a damper over the series as a whole and doesn't set up a lot of interest or excitement for the third book :-/

but honestly, at this point, it's whatever. I'm just glad the book is *finally* over, it's been going on way too long and I'm tired of it. hopefully they can salvage what's left and put out a way more solid next book, but we'll see

the only thing I'm looking forward to is having the one doctor from the other hospital (Ethan's rival??? idk I don't remember his name) come over to stir shit up because he comes off as chaotic so it should at least be somewhat interesting lmaooo

well okay that's it from me, just getting out some of my dumbass opinions ✌🏼✌🏼

[sansacherie]

Something I’ve always been curious about, why exactly do book Dany stans hate Sansa? (assuming they’re not show watchers). They’ve never interacted in the books (yet) and their arcs have nothing to do with each other. I can understand show watchers because Sansa flat out rejected their precious white savior, but the book readers hatred is odd. (Just like all antis)

Honestly someone (maybe @sayruq @trinuviel or @cleverjonquil ) who have been in the fandom longer than I have would probably give a more satisfactory answer BUT I would probably say it's a number of factors -

1. Many Dany stans are like Arya stans in that they have "not like other girls syndrome". Therefore, they can't comprehend that a feminine character like Sansa could possibly have any narrative importance, or be a hero in her own right. Because if Sansa had been a character in a different story, she would have been reduced either to a love interest, a background character, gives up her ladylike interests for "character development", or killed to be someone else's motivation (ie Ned) Instead, she is a major POV character and has been called "central part of the story" along with Bran & Arya, she has a political arc with strong Queen foreshadowing, has her own endgame antagonist ALL the while still existing as a feminine character. Now, I know someone will challenge this by arguing that Daenerys is also feminine, which is true. But the difference between Dany and Sansa is that Dany is much more admissible because she has dragons etc

2. Which kind of goes into my second point. Many book Dany fans are male, fantasy readers, and they're used to seeing characters like Daenerys in the genre. I've said before that when you read Sansa's chapters and compare them to her siblings/Dany, Sansa arguably feels like she could be in a different literary genre to them. She's also a more realistic child character than Dany or Arya. That's not to say that Arya or Dany are "grown ups" (because reading Arya's chapters, you get a sense of how young Arya is too - for example, her insistence that Ned never loved anyone but her mother... which awww) but like.... Arya is a tiny 9 year old at the end of AGOT when she flees the Red Keep. Realistically, throwing a kid in the middle of a war zone - she should have died. Arya's survival is in many ways miraculous.

3. There are Dany stans who also happen to be Arya stans who hate Sansa. I get the feeling that some Dany & Arya stans also have an "alliance" (lol) but they'll 100 per cent turn on one another when given the opportunity or if the other character does something that pisses the other fandom off - for example, the horrible things said about Arya by Dany stans when surprise, surprise, she sided with her blood (that is, her inferior sister Sansa) instead of a invader/tyrant that would only bring more blood and carnage to a continent that has been devastated by a war very recently, in the show. There are a lot of hints in the books that show Arya is going to feel very similar. Like Arya named her direwolf after a woman who found refuge for her people after fleeing the Valyrians.

4. Book Dany stans love Dany because they've misinterpreted her arc as being a heroic one. They see her as a saviour because they've mistaken her anti slavery campaign as being wholly altruistic, and they think shes going to retake Westeros and reestablish her family dynasty (perhaps with Jon) or she's going to sacrifice her life fighting the Others AFTER she's decimated Kingslanding. Accidentally of course. They overlook a lot of red flags in her narrative. For one, her whole mantra of "If I look back I am lost" is her refusal to contemplate her mistakes. Her whole Dance arc. People say it's boring, but I think those chapters are very revealing about where George intended to go with her character. He could not have been more blatant when he has her think that if she gets to fly on Drogon, it'll be "worth it" despite at the same time having her witness the absolute nightmare Drogon has created by him showing up. The fact that Dany is an isolated POV character - think how much people's view of Dany might have been changed if we had Mirri's POV to counter hers- but then again, considering how much WOC are treated like monsters in situations when they're the ones who have been hurt by white women, racists would still try to rationalise what Dany did to her. Arya has a similar issue -she's interacted with other POV characters who all have their perceptions of her (Jon, Ned, Sansa) but while the first two paint her in a very favourable light - you know Arya is a daddy's girl (which I identify with, I'm much closer to my dad) and Jon & Arya adore each other. When it comes to Sansa, she doesn't think Arya hung the moon (she doesn't hate her either to be clear) but it's very obvious that when it comes to AGOT, that George was very heavy-handed with the way he wrote them. And because of that people walk away with the perception that Arya is the underdog and Sansa the mean older sister. But at the same time it's not that simple. The perception isn't entirely accurate. Yes Arya is in many ways an underdog, but Sansa isn't an enemy. Her moments of being "mean" are the result of the trauma she very recently went through and isn't processing healthily, her issues with Joffrey etc, her repressed anger towards Ned (the person who killed Lady) There's also the fact that Arya projects onto Sansa in her first chapter - she blames her for getting her into trouble with Septa Mordane etc. Like Sansa wasn't doing anything but chilling with Jeyne girl. You're the one who spoke too loudly. You're also the one who insulted the Crown Prince, and if Sansa was really the bitchy sister antis paint her as, she would have told Septa Mordane. But instead she covers for both Arya AND Jon's asses (because he's the one that Arya is mimicking) It seems like such a minor thing because I don't think readers at that point would understand how serious that is for someone of Jon's station to be insulting the heir to a throne. Like don't get me wrong I don't care that he did lol, but that considering the nature of Westeros - smallfolk/lowborn etc they've brought up to have a respect/fear for their lords/kings (now whenever or not that is a good thing is another question.... abolish feudalism!! equality baby!!! However thats not going to happen in Dany, Sansa & Arya lifetimes. I feel like Brans election as king is going to be one small step towards progress) and that was a dumb thing for Jon to do. Like it reminds me of how Ilyn Payne insulted Aerys by saying that Tywin was the true king and then Aerys had his tongue ripped out.

Just as book Dany stans love Dany because they've wildly misunderstood her plot and character, these same Dany stans hate Sansa because they've wildly misinterpreted her character, her arc, and motivations. For example some think she is on an redemptive arc after her "betrayals" in AGOT. Or I've come across Dany stans who geniuely think Sansa is going down a dark path and is a "villian in the making".

5. Some Dany and Arya stans have a similar view of Sansa in that she is only meant to serve/support them & couldn't be important in her own right. And they resent the idea of that not being the case.

Wow I didn't mean to get so long winded. Hope this answers the question though lol!

[maskydoolovesmasseffect]

Mass Effect Tag

Wellio, I’ve been tagged by @berryshiara. Passing this on to @grummel83

Gunna answer my questions now. Y’all feel free to tell me what you think of these answers. ​

I’m a fan since: 2008. I was just out of high school and still not over KoTOR. I was fresh in the army and got to talking to some other dude fresh to the army about video games. He asked me if I played Mass Effect. I said no. By the next day I just about totally forgot about him, then he suddenly appeared out of nowhere sat in front of me in the chow hall and pulled a copy of ME1 for Xbox 360 out his pocket like he was a magician doing a magic trick (ACU pockets are huge.)

Anyway turns out that guy was a romance option and I must have picked the right dialogue options. I’m still with him, too.

Favorite game of the series:

Mass Effect 2. It seemed like that’s the one where choices mattered most and you really got to know your squaddies. Also MAJOR gameplay improvements over the first game. And that game gave me the most freedom to do basically whatever I wanted and wasnt afraid to give me consequences for it.

MShep or FShep:

FShep. Nothing against MShep, but for me the real Shep is FShep. Can’t beat Jennifer Hale’s voice. 

Earthborn, Colonist, or Spacer:

Colonist. I like having the background of knowing just how dangerous the galaxy can be and how the Alliance can’t be everywhere at once so sometimes you need to manage your best on your own.

Biotics or Tech:

Both.

Paragon or Renegade:

Paragon, mostly. I tried being renegade but some of the actions are just so pointlessly dickish, or even outright unhinged in a way that would make it impossible to believe the Alliance would ever promote Shepard as an officer or even keep her in the Alliance at all, especially in the first game.

That said, there are times where a renegade action is more expedient and practical than a paragon one, like in 2 when you stab a dude in the back to prevent him from repairing an enemy gunship, so even with a paragon playthrough, my Shepard will have no issues taking that opportunity. She’s already seconds away from betraying all those guys anyway.  

Paragon in treatment of others, renegade in combat pragmatism.

Favorite Class:

I play as infiltrator and vanguard.

Infiltrator is great for using a sniping and opening loot, and then for going invisible, and if I remember right AI hacking too. That’s cool and I wish there were more genuine opportunities for stealth.

Nowadays I play as Vanguard in my playthroughs mainly just so my Shepard can be canonically biotic for story reasons. From 2 on when looting no longer needs a special skill and I get to charge around the map. I don’t really care much about using biotics (that’s what the squadies are for) but the movement is super useful (when Shepard actually does the thing instead of just standing out in the open soaking up bullets until the ability decides to actually work.)

Favorite Companion:

Garrus. I like to set him up in sniper positions. When he actually STAYS where I put him instead of running straight up to enemies to try to snipe them at point blank, he’s great.

Also his quips in 2 on are pretty entertaining.

Least Favorite Companion:

Garrus, Oh my god. Go back to the sniper position where I put you. Leave tanking to krogan; you do not have the HP for this.

Also Kaidan in ME1. He can not shoot to save his life - literally.  

My Squad Selection:

For all ME1 playthroughs after my first one, Ashley and Kaidan, just of their comments and because... well... I only have so much time with them.

Apart from that I mainly just pick my team based on who’s likely to have the most interesting commentary on whatever the mission happens to be, squad balance be damned. 

Favorite In-Game Romance:

Garrus X Shepard is my favorite love story. They are just so adorable together and always supportive even when they disagree.

But my cannon romance is Kaidan X Shepard for the drama and angst.

Favorite NPC:

In ME1 there’s this random Turian on Noveria who randomly has like a New York accent and I absolutely adore him. He plays basically no part in the story other than some minor information but he’s just so pleasant to speak to.

“If you need anything, I’ll be here.”

Favorite Antagonist:

Morinth, the Ardat-Yakshi daughter of Samara. Yes, she’s a murderous vampire who will absolutely kill you given the chance... but like, it’s a medical condition. And I really can’t help but feel for ardat-yakshi in general when their only options are to spend their whole lives on the run from justicars out to execute them, or waste their entire 1000 year lifespan imprisoned in a monetary unable to experience the world at all. Yeah, Morinth is evil, but Ardat-Yakshi don’t exactly have a good deal.

Favorite Loyalty Mission:

Grunt’s loyalty mission is the best. I get to help my baby boy, reunite with Wrex, enjoy krogan society being fleshed out, have a kickass battle against a thresher maw, and get a breeding request. It’s nice to have a quest that isn’t about family drama and genuinely gets a happy end.

Favorite Mission:

Despite Citadel DLC requiring everyone to have a deathgrip on an idiot ball, and also basically gloss over some really dark stuff, the whole clone storyline with the whole crew is an absolute ride all the way though, with lots of interesting and unique scenarios, a ton of replay-value, and funny party banter that feels like it came straight out of a Marvel movie.

Favorite DLC:

Again, Citadel DLC. Not only did it come with the story above, it also had all those interactions with past and present crewmates, including a memorial for Thane (finally!), a cool apartment to hang out in, a party, an arcade, and an awesome battle arena. It really added a TON. Also, it’s nice to see Bioware figure out that DLC needs characters - I’m remembering back in the DLC to ME 1 the party never had a single thing to say, no matter what was going on. The fun and wacky Citadel DLC is a far cry from the serious and somewhat dark space opera Mass Effect started as, but as the final DLC capping off the end of the series, it gets to do a silly victory lap (and get the taste of the ending out of our mouths.)

Control, Synthesis, Or Destroy:

No.

Favorite Weapon:

Sniper rifles, whatever I have that’s fast and has high damage output. Also that one pistol that shoots tiny energy grenades. Pew pew.

Yeah I wasn’t really big into the weapons so much. I’m here to get my story on. 

Favorite Place:

The presidium on the Citadel. It bothered me a lot when I couldn’t explore it in the second game. I know it would have been terribly impractical, but as the presidium is just a huge ring, it would have been cool to be able to explore the whole thing, going past all the little park areas, shops, monuments and so on until you loop aaaaall the way back around to where you started. Like, how cool would it be if the ring had a running track? Maybe C-sec  academy trainees would be spotted jogging together along it in formation. And can you imagine grabbing a coffee (I was going to make up a space-related name for Starbucks but it’s already STARbucks...) and taking a nice stroll along the water before finding a nice bench to alien-watch from? Other locations in the game are like great places to explore and do gameplay stuff, but the presidium seems like a nice place to just be.

Favorite Quote:

"Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer." - Javik.

This is such a fucking raw damn line. It makes me think a lot about Cerberus. When ME3 wasn’t out yet, I thought maybe the plan was Shepard would at some point choose a side, Alliance for paragons and Cerberus for renegades. It would have been so cool to have morality not merely be good vs evil, but idealism vs that ruthless calculus Garrus mentioned. How fucking raw would it be if Cerberus wasn’t just generically evil for no reason and suddenly indoctrinated but really were embodying that ruthless calculus, determined to defeat the reapers at any and all cost. Maybe Cerberus actions’ were more likely to do terrible things for the sake of ultimate victory, doing whatever it took, whereas the Alliance would be less willing to make the terrible choices and ultimately be less likely to succeed.

Now obviously, that’s not what happened, as it would have required Bioware to basically make two entirely separate games. But that line from Javik makes me think of that concept, and a universe where like Dragon Age party members can approve or disapprove of actions not merely as good or evil but along the lines of their personal values. I think Javik would sit at victory at all cost.

Also that one mission in 2 where some random NPC catches Shepard sneaking around and is all like ‘what are you doing here?’ and Shepard is like ‘What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Get out here before it blows!’ and the guy’s freaking out like WTF and she says ‘RUN!’ then laughs to herself as he flees from an imaginary bomb. Shep you troll. 

The thing I like the least about the entire franchise:

The misogyny and objectification that crept its way in, epically from the second game on. Really didn’t like those ass-shot camera angles, or female characters being slut-shamed in-universe for the clothes the designers made them wear. Yikes. 

But the biggest yikes for me in that regard is actually the reveal in 3 that the prothians guided asari development. That was fine and all, but the part that bothered me was the characters commenting “ooooh, so that’s why asari are so advanced,” as it was ever any kind of mystery before that exact moment. For one thing, asari aren’t really shown as being more advanced than anyone else, apart from having discovered the citadel first, and for second, why wouldn’t asari be advanced? All the way from ME1 it’s established that 1: Asari live for a really long time, and 2: can instant transmit information directly from brain to brain. That means they have long lifetime in which to accumulate knowledge and experience, and also can easily spread and preserve that knowledge without even the need for books. That ALONE should put them ahead. And even with all that, they only barely beat the salarians to discovering the Citadel first. But no one asks for an explanation for why salarians, who live only a few decades and can’t do mental data-transfer, are so advanced. No, only the success of the all-women race needs explaining. It was just one moment but it still bugs me. 

Also the general loss of realism after the second game. First game everyone gets armor, including full-face helmets automatically on in environments that need it. After that, people can apparently just wander the battlefield half-naked and even somehow survive in a total vacuum if they just put a plastic cup (that isn’t even connected to anything) over their mouth and nose. In the first game they at least made up some reasonable-sounding science fiction explanation for things, but after that it’s like F-it everything is just space magic now. 

Oh, and those repetitive unlocking stuff minigames. I use a mod to just skip those. 

[momo-de-avis]

Hey Momo! Can I ask you who are your favorite villains/antagonists and why?

hmm this is a difficult one, I often forget my favourite things sjkadfhjkhgsdf

1. Queen Medb from Irish Mythology will always be my number one antagonist (I refuse to call her a villain). It’s just so incredible to me that 9th century monks clearly created this character with the intent of being a villainous antagonist to king Conchobhair Mac Nessa but made her in a way that... she’s incredibly complex and layered? She’s genuinely a character you cannot, at any given point -- and I mean a single one -- of the Táine say that she’s either 100% wrong or right (anyway, Irish mythology just doesn’t work like that), and she has one thing that is so rare in female characters of western myth, which a well established intent, a very well decided upon goal that she acts upon, disregard the outcomes or the obstacles, and on God, this bitch is gonna get it.

Also, WHERE ELSE do you get the line (something like) “sleep with a man without having another waiting in his shadow” as a MARIAGE CLAUSE TO MARRY HER. I cannot find enough words to express to you how much I love queen Medb.

(Side note, I just checked there’s a Maeve in the Throne of Glass series and I definitely DO NOT MEAN that piece of garbage okay, I just wanna clear that up)

2. Amma Crellin from Sharp Objects literally gave me the shivers and she’s thirteen, and I am talking about both book and series (Eliza Scanlan is an incredible actress, and paired up with Amy Adams? Baby..............). Then again I’m a slut for Gillian Flynn. It’s just incredible how she constructed a character so controversial that she’s two-faced, an innocent-looking blonde southern beauty who’s also this manipulative bully, and who manages to balance that so perfectly you, as the reader, struggle with that throughout the whole goddamn book. 

3. Roy Batty. Not book Roy Batty, movie Roy Batty. To be honest with you, I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and the only thing I remember vividly of the book is the explanation for the title, which I thought was damn beautiful (and is not in the movie), but somehow everything else vanished. However I do remember Blade Runner Roy Batty is a lot more fleshed out than the book (he’s basically just a common criminal there?) and damn, Rutger Hauer in that final monologue under the rain, man........................ I mean, I’m sus, I fucking adore Blade Runner, and I’m a huge fan of late 70s, early 80s Harrison Ford, and I’m a huge slut for the movie’s whole german expressionism-inspired aesthetic (straight out of Metropolis) and the cyberpunk vibe, but ROY BATTY, MAN. Like, you kinda get to a point you wanna say “man, fuck Deckard”.

4. Svidrigailov from Crime and Punishment and listen, I have this whole theory about his ending that speaks to probably how Dostoievsky saw him related to the whole thesis of the book, but man, that man was a piece of shit. You don’t even fully realise how much of a piece of shit he is until Dunya comes along. He’s like ubermensch levels of nasty. The scream I let out when he did THAT. (and Crime and Punishment is one of my favourite books of all time btw)

5. So Eça de Queiroz is mandatory reading here in Portugal considering he is the leading romanticist/naturalist writer of his time, and there is one book that I absolutely fucking look that is Primo Basílio that I think in english is called Cousin Bazílio (direct translation, though for some reason the man’s name transforms the S into a Z for some reason?). I usually say about this book that it’s how Madame Bovary should have been written BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING BETTER, FIGHT ME ABOUT IT. Anyway, Basílio is obnoxious. If you’re a woman who’s ever had a girl friend who’s been brainwashed by that one fuck boy who lured her into cheating because he just wants an adventure and you KNOW that POS is gonna dump her ass the second she turns around, that’s Basílio, Every waking second reading this book is like deep sighs and boiling frustration. (Besides, one of THE best romantic characters I’ve ever seen is Juliana, but again: this is romanticism. Which means, the ending is tragic as fuck because, why the fuck not, the romantics lived for this sort of shit. If at any point of the narrative the author mentions a nightingale, you know everyone’s gonna die.)

I think these are all I can think about right now. They’re mostly books now that I notice it (and I admit I did open my good reads to remember what I’ve read lmao)

[cynwritess]

My Outlining Technique As A Pantser

I despise outlining with every fiber of my soul. I don’t care how much people persist you need an outline, I will put it off to the very last minute and do it very half-assed. Even in school, its straight to the first draft. Outlining requires a very precise skill of breaking things down as small as possible and my mind simply does not function that way. It’s literally all or nothing. Unfortunately while this may work for writing school essays, it’s not exactly a good idea when it comes to a book. Writing a book requires structure and precision because you need to carefully place information, have an idea where your characters are going, tedious yet necessary things. Fortunately, I’ve come up with a way to outline without completely frying my brain.

Characters. 

I almost always start with the characters first and build the world, other characters, and plot around them. If you have a name in mine, perfect! Go ahead and use it! If you don’t have a name, don’t dread scouring through dozens of baby name websites. Give them a place holder name or better yet, give them a role/title. I’m going to use one of my current characters (steal anything about her and I’ll send demons after you). When I first created Selina I only had a vague aesthetic and the idea that I wanted her to somehow be attached to spirits. Her name didn’t come to me until 25k into the story, but I had to refer to her as something so I used a conjunction of a place holder name and calling her “Reaper of Souls”. This way I know exactly who I’m referring to. Also, this helps me know what path my character needs to go down. Reaper of Souls is who she’ll become, but its definitely not who she is when the story begins. It makes me thing: What steps do I need to take to get her there? This is where you can start brainstorming character arcs and give them trauma. 

Another essential part of creating characters in my opinion is giving them “role models”. Personally, if this is a brand new character I’m creating off the top of my head its hard to write them because I know nothing about them. I don’t know their sense of humor, who they would and wouldn’t get along with, their inner monologue, etc. Now you have to be careful with this and make sure to mold them into their own unique characters at the end of the day, but you can use other already existing characters to help begin the process. When creating Selina I knew vaguely she needed to be connected to spirits. What characters do I know like that? Jodie from Beyond Two Souls is a good one and Zelie is a bit of a different twist to it but still the same general idea. But wait! Selina’s vibe doesn’t match either of them. So in this case I might look at Jude Duarte for inspiration for her personality. Nitpick all your favorite things about different characters and use that to your advantage! It gives you the jolt you need to really begin to explore who your character is. 

Always do the main character first, then follow with the supporting character or villain. In my opinion, the main supporting character and villain should be foils of the main character in order to get the most out of each one, because you’ll be able to see different aspects and different arcs they could’ve/will have. Once you have those three characters you can create the others as you progress with your story.

Setting.

This can either be really simple or your worst fucking nightmare. For me, it’s a mixture of both. If your story is taking place in the real world then this can be relatively simple even if you’re creating your own town/city. If your town has a very specific location like a town square or maybe there’s a river running through it, then just google “towns with a river going through it” for a start. If you have a specific town in mind you can also google the map and start dissecting different aspects of the town and incorporating it into your own. You can even use your own town for inspiration! The town my story takes place in is made up, but my hometown actually resembles it quite a bit so I’ve been using it for references. So far, its been working out pretty good.

Now if you have a high fantasy setting... I wish you the best of luck. I’ve only written one high fantasy story when I was twelve and... well clearly its never seen the light of day for a reason (partially because I deleted it, partially because there was absolutely zero world-building). I’m sorry to say my skills have no improved much since then. I’ve dabbled with the idea of high fantasy worlds and honestly my only advice is to look at other fantasy maps and draw inspiration from that. Narnia, Ravka, the ACOTAR world, the shifting isles of Elfhame, the Avatar universe, Orisha, to name a few. You’ll also have to look at some basic geographical stuff like the climate, but overall you have pretty much free reign over how your world looks. This is the one part I feel like you can’t bullshit if you don’t want your story to seem halfway. Really go in with the details even if its just for you. The more fleshed out your world is, even if its set here in the normal world, the better.

The main issue. 

This is pretty much a given but you do need to have some sort of idea who the main antagonist is/what is the big issue your characters are fighting. If you’re writing a series then chances are book one will probably focus on an entirely different issue before the big one is revealed. There’s not really much advice I can give for this because it’ll be tailored specifically to your story. I don’t think your antagonist has to be fully fleshed out if you’re going to be introducing them very late, but do have a general idea who or what it is, their goal, and why your character feels the need to stop them.

Usually you’ll notice the problem in the beginning of the story isn’t the ultimate problem, its just a gateway to it. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a subplot but I guess technically that’s what it is. Think of Percy Jackson. The main issue of book one is him being accused of stealing the lightning bolt, but the ultimate issue was the war with the titans. Or The Cruel Prince. The main issue was Jude feeling helpless and wanting to create a place for herself in the faery world, but the ultimate issue was those attempting overthrowing the entire Greenbriar family from the thrown. 

This kind of goes without saying, but there has to be a strong motivation for the character to stop them or it just won’t work. You don’t see characters going after the antagonist because nothing in their life isn’t threatened. There’s always a motivation, something to fuel them even if done so reluctantly. For example, Zelie from Children of Blood and Bone was sick and tired of constantly fighting and being the hero, but she did it anyways because she was the only one who could truly help the maji. Or you can take a slightly antagonistic approach and look at Kaz from Six of Crows who did what he did out of greed for money, power, and revenge. Usually when I begin my stories, I only have a vague idea as to why my main character is joining the fight, which is perfectly fine. As long as you have some sort of idea and begin to build on it as you write, you’ll be probably be fine. 

Brainstorm.

I cannot for the life of me sit in front of my computer and write a bland summary of what it is that is going to happen in my book. Sorry, but I am simply not built that way but it also makes writing your books ten times harder as well. I’ve found a bit of a cheat. For one, brainstorm. Get a general idea what some of the main events you want to happen are. Do you want a character death? Does a specific location need to be mentioned? Is there subplots or character arcs you would like to explore? Is there any themes you’d like to explore? Jot them all down, along with your word count goal. You probably won’t be able to incorporate all of them in one book, but at least you’ll have an idea what path you’re going to head down in terms of your story.

And now onto my actual cheat. Because I’m a pantser who hates outlining, I usually jump into my stories without knowing what direction they are going. Recently I’ve discovered that I can outline the first five chapters, write them out, and give myself complete free reign. I’ll explore all sorts of character personalities, different beginnings, different writing styles, different scenarios, different relationships, anything I can realistically include in the first five chapters of my story. Then I’ll go back and edit it. Don’t completely delete anything, always save it in a separate file! I’ll go back and decide which characters are unnecessary at this point, what plot points can be introduced later on, what writing style suits this story, things like that. Then from there, I’ll go back to my outline and make any appropriate changes before proceeding to write the rest of the draft as normal (WITHOUT GOING BACK TO EDIT). The reason why I do this is because I need a solid base to begin my story, otherwise its so easy for me to go off track and begin to tell a completely different story. This way I’ll know exactly what I’m going after, I’ll be able to explore and get to know my characters and setting, and it’s enough chapters that I can even begin to incorporate the main issue at hand. 

[ponett]

Three novels down in my journey through Discworld! I’ve now read Equal Rites. As the first book not starring Rincewind, this one shifts its focus from wizards to witches, introducing another series mainstay, Granny Weatherwax

While it’s still obvious from the start that this is set in the same world as Rincewind’s misadventures, Equal Rites immediately feels like a very different book. It still has Pratchett’s comedic flair, but this book is incredibly earnest compared to the farcical tone of the last two books. At first, I was a bit disappointed that this book wasn’t as constantly funny as The Light Fantastic, but by the end I was deeply engaged by its more heartfelt narrative

You see, with this book, Pratchett has started to move from simple genre parody to satire. Equal Rites still pokes fun at fantasy conventions, of course, but at its heart is an examination of sexism and gender roles. It just so happens that this story is told through witches and wizards

The story begins when an elderly wizard travels to the rural town of Bad Ass (the story of how the town got its name is apparently interesting, although it’s never shared in the book). On the Discworld, the eighth son of an eighth son can perform magic and become a wizard, and so this particular wizard plans to pass his staff on to such a child before he dies. Except there’s a problem: after the wizard passes his staff on to the expected newborn, he realizes too late that the baby is, in fact, a girl. And then he dies, and the world is left with is first female wizard

We skip ahead about seven or eight years, and now the young Eskarina Smith wants to learn wizard magic even though she’s a girl. The book feels a bit like a young adult novel at times because its protagonist is a kid, although the narration makes it clear that the book is still written for adults. This is not the world seen through a kid’s eyes, but rather an adult’s commentary on how a kid sees the world. (The need to mark the book as for adults in spite of its young hero is also probably why the opening paragraphs reference sex, and why lots of jokes about adult things that go over Esk’s head are sprinkled throughout.) Esk is joined by Granny Weatherwax, the town witch who isn’t really related to her but is described as basically being everyone’s granny

For the first act of the book, Granny acts sort of as an antagonist (albeit a very mild one), teaching Esk the differences between witch magic and wizard magic and trying to stop her from learning the latter. Wizard magic is portrayed as being bombastic, changing the fabric of reality and shooting lightning bolts out of their hands and that sort of thing. Witch magic, on the other hand, is more in tune with nature. A lot of it could hardly be described as proper “magic” at all, actually--lots of knowing about herbs and home remedies and things. Another witch in the story reads palms and tea leaves, but most of her business seems to be selling some kind of homemade birth control concoction

As Granny puts it, a big part of being a witch is “headology.” Witches have to lean into the theatricality of their profession with the pointy hats and the spookiness and whatnot in order to be treated like witches, and that does half of their job for them. It makes people trust that the home remedies work, or believe that a witch could really curse them, or that sort of thing. Of course, Granny does also know quite a bit of “real” magic as well. The main power she uses is “borrowing,” the act of mentally becoming one with an animal--not quite controlling it, but rather “suggesting” its actions. This leads to some fun sequences throughout the book, including one where she borrows the “mind” of an old building said to have developed something resembling a consciousness over the centuries so that she can locate Esk within it

While there was a good deal of magic in the last two books (even if Rincewind, famously, cannot perform magic), the depiction of wizard magic in these books has already changed. In the first book, Rincewind explained that it took years of studying and a ton of effort to perform any task with magic, making a lot of it seem pointless. But here, with just a staff and no proper training, Esk figures out how to turn one of her brothers into a pig, and teleport her staff to her, and all sorts of other things. Of course, this isn’t some sort of CinemaSins ding or anything. The priorities of the books have simply shifted. In a pure genre parody like The Color of Magic, it made sense to say that magic was actually kind of stupid and pointless. Here, being a wizard needs to be desirable, because Esk’s whole arc is about wanting to become a wizard

While Esk does do well with her witch lessons, eventually it becomes clear that she’s going to start figuring out how to use wizard magic with or without guidance, and Granny accepts that she can’t change Esk. After a bit of a journey in which they get separated and meet several side characters, Esk and Granny make their way to Unseen University. (While Rincewind is nowhere to be seen, the librarian who got turned into an orangutan in the last book is still around. He’s apparently refused to be turned back into a human and is happier this way.) Esk is humiliated by the wizards and turned down, but Granny manages to get Esk a job there as a housekeeper so that she might be able to pick up some magical knowledge while hanging around

In the climax, Esk uses her skills to save a fellow student she befriends named Simon from some eldritch horrors that wanted to take over his mind, and as a reward she’s named the first female wizard. But she realizes that being a wizard is kind of silly, and she and Simon go off to develop their own type of magic (which, if I’m understanding correctly, involves a good deal of Not Doing Magic). In the action of the climax, Granny also manages to show the head of the school that witches know a thing or two about magic as well, and is offered a position at the university (although it’s left unsaid whether or not she took it)

Overall, I really, really enjoyed this one. This was the first book in the series that felt like it took its characters and their problems seriously, writing them as people to empathize with instead of just vehicles for jokes. The gender-based conflict is simple, but effective. I really liked that Pratchett didn’t lean into Esk being Not Like Other Girls. She actually still quite likes the feminine witch magic, and uses those skills to her advantage. It’s just that she also wants to learn wizard magic. It’s not about one being better than the other, it’s about the gender divide being silly. The book shoots down the idea that there must be some fundamental physical or psychological difference between men and women that means they’re destined to excel in different fields, which is honestly a refreshing thing to read in a fantasy novel from over 30 years ago

While it might be a little convenient that the head wizard of the university was swayed to be less sexist so easily, I do think the ending struck a good balance. Sexism is ingrained into wizard culture, so he’s still got some biases against women, and he’s only considering letting a few women into the school to start. He’s taking baby steps. Some might see this as a failure because he only got a little better, but personally, I find this much more believable than if the book had ended with all the wizards deciding that witches were their equals and the school quickly achieving a 50/50 gender split

People don’t quite change like that overnight. But this book does still believe that people can change, challenge their preconceived biases, and become better. And I think that’s what really sets this book apart from the previous two. It’s the first glimmer of those humanist Discworld themes I’ve heard so much about

(Also I laughed every time a wizard said women couldn’t study as wizards because it was “against the lore”)

So yeah, good book. Very good book. Pratchett’s style is already rapidly evolving And next, it’s finally time... for the first Death novel. I couldn’t be more excited