#I love reading those but oh boy is it an oversaturated genre

[den-ai-d]

Okay so am I the only one who would REALLY like to read an honest to goodness cultivation novel/fic revolving around Xingqiu???

He's basically already the perfect protagonist for one; young master of a trading guild who moonlights as a hidden master of a dying clan. Great setup for political machinations subplots, training the disciples subplot, a few auction-house subplots. He summons floating swords! Okay I suppose him not being an asshole reincarnator makes him atypical for the archetype but meh, I never did like those kinds of protagonists anyway.

Oh! And he has Chongyun as the will-they-won't-they gay bait which OF COURSE you gotta have in this type of story.

[searchingwardrobes]

Book Series Review: The Heist Society

Adults reading YA Lit has become common place these days, for better or worse. For better, adults no longer have to be embarrassed admitting they read it. For worse, the publishing industry has gotten wind of this and, unsurprisingly, destroyed much of what used to be so good about YA Lit. What I mean is the gratuitous sex and violence that is being dumped into YA simply for marketing reasons. I want to laugh at publishers for this because avoiding those very things is why so many of us turned to YA Lit to begin with. The second negative has been the oversaturation of the YA supernatural and dystopian genres. It seems like 99% of YA lit these days is yet another retread of Twilight or Hunger Games. 

If you’ve been bemoaning these same things I have, then here’s a recommendation for you: Ally Carter. There are two series that I love by her, and the first one is the Heist Society series. Think Oceans 8 with teenagers. Is it escapist? Yes. Is it just plan fun? Yes. I for one prefer that to yet another supernatural angst filled orgy or a depressing drama about the world ending. (Don’t get me wrong, I liked The Hunger Games and Divergent, it’s just there’s only so much of that I can read before I get depressed. Not to mention the way I threw Mockingjay against the wall. Twice.)

In addition to escapist fun, these books have amazing characters that you want to root for. (Even though they’re - you know - criminals.) Just like Oceans 11 and 8, this is a heist crew with a code. I was also surprised how much I adored Hale. The poor little rich boy routine usually has me rolling my eyes, but Hale was different. It’s a testament to Carter’s superb tongue-in-cheek writing. She also does plot twists the right way. i.e. emotionally satisfying ones that fit the narrative rather than plot twists that yank the rug out from under you. (Did I mention how I threw Mockingjay against the wall?) Let’s just say the reader gets conned sometimes right along with the mark.

In addition to the above titles, there is also a Christmas novella called The Grift of the Magi that I just finished that I adored. It takes place after the third novel. There’s also a novella called Double Crossed which is like a fanfic mash up with my other favorite series by her, Gallagher Girls. 

Gallagher Girls, oh how I love those . . . but that’s for next time. 

Happy reading! @snowbellewells​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ @optomisticgirl​ @ekr032-blog-blog​ @nikkiemms​ @thislassishooked​ @branlovestowrite​  oh geeze, I have no idea who else likes to read my reviews, so apologies if Ieft anyone out. Let me know if you wish to be tagged in future reviews! (Or removed, no hard feelings!) And this time, I’ll write it down 😜

[recentanimenews]

Why One Piece Has Become A Global Phenomenon

If you've heard of anime or manga, you've heard of One Piece. It's stood tall when other series have fallen, thrived when other series have faltered, and somehow remained exciting despite the fact that the genre of "muscly dudes yelling about the strength of their dreams at other muscly dudes" is possibly the most oversaturated thing in the history of, well... anything. As of May 2018, it has sold over 440 million copies worldwide, making it the top-selling manga in history. So I guess it's safe to say that One Piece is kind of an global phenomenon. But why?

Well, I can't speak for everyone that has watched One Piece, so I won't try to. I'm sure that there are plenty of different reasons to get into it, whether it checks off on a lot of your fiction preferences, or whether or not you like watching magical villains get punched in their big, dumb faces, or whether you think that the "Pirate Rap" opening that 4Kids did for the series is actually kind of a banger (it is.) All I can do is talk about why I've been obsessed with it for over ten years, and try to relate that to the world. And with that in mind, why did One Piece become a global phenomenon?

Because One Piece forces you to keep up with One Piece.

  I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm not implying that its creator Eiichiro Oda is a bad storyteller, one who would rather keep plot threads dangling just out of reach than give us any kind of satisfaction, because there are few manga/anime stories that are more satisfying than One Piece when Oda is writing at his best.

When (spoilers ahead, y'all) Luffy rings the golden bell of Shandora, or when the Straw Hat Crew raises their arms to give a silent goodbye to Vivi, or when Shanks steps in to end the Marineford war, or when Donquixote Doflamingo, an endlessly conniving and seemingly unstoppable warlord, is driven into the earth by Luffy's King Kong Gun, One Piece is "throw your hands in the air and bless our lord Oda on high" levels of satisfying.

One of the greatest things about One Piece is the sense of discovery that pervades every page. The sense of constant renewal through constant expansion. The sense that this full, huge world that you've loved diving into is only just the tip of the beautiful iceberg that Oda has in store. The sense that, one day, you will be able to build an entire living room fort out of all of the One Piece manga volumes you've collected, with a sign on it that says "No My Hero Academia Fans Allowed." I'm joking about that last part. OR AM I?

And it's that love of discovery that ties into what I do mean: That it's hard to be a One Piece fan and not get absolutely obsessed with One Piece. It's legitimately difficult. You just don't meet a lot of casual One Piece fans that have kept up with it for the twenty years that it's been around. Sure, you meet people that decided that the series wasn't for them and dropped it, and I'm sure that those people have some positive qualities. But if you meet another person that stays up to date with One Piece, in my experience, you're usually pulling up your sleeves to reveal the Straw Hat Jolly Roger tattoo on your arm in about six seconds.

  One Piece is the theme park that, despite how early you arrived, you'll never get to all of the rides. No matter how long you stay on the One Piece wikia, there are always dozens more pages to read. Even when you think you have a character's backstory locked down, you read through their page one more time and realize "oh man. I didn't remember that in the Punk Hazard arc, there was a single flashback panel of Akainu talking to Enel about not wanting to anger the big mysterious threat in that one island in an unseen part of the New World that's been subtly hinted at for over fifteen years. Well, I guess I gotta reread that, along with reading the backstories of every character involved in that and every character that's ever been involved with every one of those characters, and oh my, it's 5AM."

When you think about your favorite fantasy franchises, how many of them can actually provide a sensation like that? Because, despite how huge they seem, many fictional places are actually very finite. There is a beginning and an end, and the only characters that really matter are the main ones. The history of the supporting cast and the places that they inhabit have details, but they don't have a past, or a future. They're just there to provide a setting for the next big fistfight. And yeah, One Piece arcs do usually end with Luffy screaming as he leaves knuckle imprints in a bad guy's skull, but that's never the real end of the story. There are still repercussions and reverberations and constant, wonderful reaction shots to deal with and sift through and make sense of.

And while, on the surface, the end goal seems very clear (Luffy becomes the Pirate King), no one is sure that that's the actual climax of the series. Will Luffy stay Pirate King? What is the fabled One Piece? Will someone get to it before the Straw Hats? What will happen to the World Government? What will happen to the rest of the Straw Hat crew? What is the final conflict going to be? Where will it take place? And, most importantly, what happened to my boy Gekko Moriah? I miss that dude like y'all wouldn't believe.

  Unless you're Eiichiro Oda, you're still trying to figure One Piece out at all times. That is true for both the current arc, and the future arcs, and even some of the past arcs. Being a One Piece fan is being trapped in a state of constant wonder. And despite the fact that One Piece has basically held my life hostage for the past decade, it's a pretty cool way to be.

  One Piece is a global phenomenon because it makes you feel great. And who would ever want to give that up?

-----

Daniel Dockery WAS joking about that last part. All Might is the best. Check out his dumb Twitter. 

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[nightcoremoon]

I know that comparing tv shows and stuff to current events is tasteless and bad regardless of how well-intentioned it might mean to be

and I'm not gonna do that.

but I just think it's funny that works of fiction; books, movies, video games, comics, music- a significant majority of art that has been made in the past getting close to hundred years has been very adamantly pro rebellion and against oppressive power structures.

like, let's just look at the most popular shit.

books: 1984, to kill a mockingbird, the great gatsby, the lord of the rings, huckleberry finn, alice in wonderland, charlotte's web, a tale of two cities, the grapes of wrath, anna karenina, war and peace, price and prejudice, great expectations, gone with the wind...

hmm let's see: fascism, racism, post-war, evil that threatens all free men, racism, growing up in a scary world, giving your life for a worthy cause, political revolution, the struggles of the impoverished, democracy versus facism, war, misogyny, the importance of morality over financial achievement, and the fucking civil war. I'm not even MENTIONING the oversaturation of the YA market with maximum ride and percy jackson and artemis fowl and harry potter and divergent and the hunger games and that's just off the top of my head. classic popular books have been written with themes of opposing the evils of oppression/tyranny almost exclusively.

movies: casablanca, godfather, a new hope, ET, raiders of the lost ark, jurassic park, forrest gump, shawshank redemption, the sound of music, schindler's list, the lion king, gladiator, alien, the matrix, chinatown, 12 angry men, blade runner, mad max fury road, 12 years a slave, parasite, moonlight, and of course all of the film adaptations of the aforementioned movies.

literally every single one of these has criticized corrupt governments or other related systems. looking over this there's a whole lot of movies with nazi antagonists (or space nazis, looking at star wars), almost universally loved by large audiences. film as medium is usually comedy or romance or horror, but the very best of the best are about how evil humans with power are bad.

video games: skyrim, red dead redemption, ocarina, half life 2, bioshock, grand theft auto, metal gear, uncharted, resident evil, mass effect, the witcher, warcraft, god of war, dark souls, xenoblade, halo, perfect dark, metroid, baldur's gate 2, the last of us, splinter cell, diablo, and a little thing called final fantasy 7

literally every single highly rated well loved story based video game has heavily involved corrupt governments and corporations being evil. well also sometimes zombies and dragons and massively omnicidal aliens and demons... but final fantasy 7, which is most gamers 100% greatest most favorite game ever created, is LITERALLY ABOUT A RACIST CORPORATE FUNDED GOVERNMENT DESTROYING THE ENVIRONMENT FOR MONEY AND KILLING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE JUST TO MAKE A QUICK BUCK. and some other stuff here and there but the main story is that shinra is committing genocide to steal access to heaven (also sephiroth wants to destroy the world but I mean it's a JRPG come on) and you are trying to stop them by blowing up their shit. gee where have I seen that before?

oh and don't even fucking get me STARTED on punk, rap, thrash, soul, classic country, blues, and other music genres expressly built from the ground up as rejections to common society and the subsequent problems involved. I'm not including post-9/11 country, pop, swing, most white boy metal, modern sad boy r&b, or other genres of, well, major privilege whether white or financial. but music, real music, true music made with passion and not a product made for $elling out, is, always has been, and forever will be, deeply rooted in seeing past what society wants you to see and hear and think and act like. and black people, black ARTISTS are pretty much at the root of all of those things. we wouldn't have anything I mentioned if not for bb king, muddy waters, blind jefferson, buddy guy, john lee hooker, and bessie smith.

we as americans have been conditioned since world war 1 ended (and even before that) and especially since the cold war was coming to a close, to recognize, acknowledge, and destroy fascism, racism, misogyny, the environmental parasites, corrupt governments, overbearing corporations, and evil in general. but only the ones who appreciate art.

if you don't read books, don't watch movies, don't play video games, don't listen to music, don't attach value to art in general... you're an idiot. you're a waste of space. you're just sitting in your cushy homes eating kale and watching livePD and talking out your ass about how you want revolution to come peacefully and only in a way you seem convenient. you're spending all of your time contributing to the corrupt system.

which is a real goddamn shame because if you benefit from that kind of privilege, so you don't have to work two or even three jobs just to give your kids breakfast you should have time to kill in enjoying art. but no. you spend all your time and money making sure that nobody else can have what you have. you waste your life so that nobody else can have one of their own. it's just disgusting.

so yeah, if you're not explicitly with the protestors, not only are you the dumbest fucking moron on the planet, but you're also against them. so at least step to the side and shut the fuck up.

cop bootlickers dni