#I think they'd have some conflict but mostly be on the same page

[mzminola]

As far as I can tell, Batman is the kind of vigilante who makes sense for a Gotham that has a mafia and corruption problem.

Whereas Clownhunter is a vigilante who makes sense for a Gotham that has a Supervillains & their acolytes problem.

And now after reading a bunch of posts about Bao Pham I really want a crossover with his era of comics and the Preboot era because I want him teaming up with 1990′s Helena Bertinelli Huntress.

[reblogthiscrapkay]

Hello! I found your Persephone Project while idly tag-hopping to find Hades/Persephone-themed stuff, and I must say I love it! I wish *I* had the dedication to review and analyse so many different works about my favorite mythical figures and couples! Is the project still ongoing?

If so (and ofc, if you're at all open to suggestions or recs - if not, sorry for bothering you and please feel free to just disregard this part of the ask!) I'd like to point out two short retellings that flow pretty well (I think they'd be quick reads even if someone did not enjoy them), put interesting, if sometimes questionable, spins on the myth, and that I'd love to hear your opinion on.

The first is The Dark Wife by S.E. Diemer. It's a lesbian retelling, as Hades is genderbent into a (cis) woman, and stands very much at the "Hades and Persephone are incredibly soft for each other and also unproblematic in every way right from the start" end of the spectrum. I liked that it included other queer and genderbent characters instead of having the main couple being The One Special Case, that it used one of those other queer characters to (very briefly) touch on the issues in god/mortal relationships brought on by their different natures, and that it didn't cast Demeter as a villain, having her be a genuinely loving and caring (if rather sidelined) character. Instead, the villain of the novel is Zeus, who is cast both in opposition to Hades and as a threat to Persephone... which is my main problem with the story, tbh. While I'm not opposed to a twist like that on principle (we've already had works like Disney's Hercules using Zeus as the good guy and Hades as the bad guy, it's fine to have some role reversal sometime!), I didn't really care for the way his villainy was depicted. Especially because I felt it had some (hopefully unintentional) transphobic undertones... basically, at the beginning of the novel, Persephone is surprised to find out Hades is actually a woman as she is known as "Lord Hades." That's not because Hades herself is particularly butchy or gender-noncomforming, but because Zeus sometimes likes to bully the gods (particularly the goddesses) he doesn't like or sees as a threat to his power by spreading lies about them (and especially about their genders) to the mortals, who then incorporate them in their cults. In isolation, I wouldn't be too troubled by this, as it seems mostly a way to answer the question "so why do all the myths portray Hades as a guy" - the kidnapping itself is framed as a nasty rumor in-universe, with Persephone narrating her own tale to bring the truth back to light. But that bit of info is then coupled with a line about how this version of Zeus doesn't just shapeshift into animals or disguise himself as a mortal man like in the myths, he also occasionally changes his biological sex on a whim... which arguably casts the main conflict as a couple of nice, not particularly gnc, cis Gold Star lesbians against a possibly genderfluid big bad villain. Which, tbqh, yikes. That said, I don't recall anyone ever expressing the same concerns as in any review I've read, so this might be all down to me just overthinking it.

The second work I actually have much less to say about, but I did find it a really nice read. It's Persephone remembers the pomegranates by Samantha MacLeod, a short story (20 pages or so) in the erotic romance genre. As you can imagine, that means smut but also feels, and I really like the author's take on both. Persephone is cast as very much a young heroine just coming into her own and still figuring herself out, discovering her sexual and romantic desires and what she wants out of her life, while Hades, while less developed, comes across as lonely, melancholic, gentle, and passionate. The one thing I didn't like here was Demeter's portrayal: at the beginning she seemed to be just the overbearing, overprotective mom you'd expect from a story focusing so heavily on sexual awakening as a theme, but by the end she was revealed as a selfish, even somewhat villainous character. The author went all for the "Demeter keeps Persephone under her thumb and unaware of her true potential so she can leech off her power/make her do all the hard work then take credit for it" trope, which I always feel is a disservice to Demeter as a character. I also read a Norse mythology-themed novel by the same author with Balder and Hel as the romantic leads were Frigg was portrayed in a very similar way as only wanting Balder back from the dead to use his beauty and nice personality for diplomacy in the Nine Worlds, and while that also tied into the themes of the story, it did make me wonder if MacLeod just has something about mythological mothers.

Yo, anon. Thanks so much for this! For starters, yes the project is ongoing in theory, but I haven't come across any new versions of the myth in a while (it was easier when my side job was in a bookstore) or at least none that I wanted to commit to (as in, the things I've come across have been novel length and I have a lot of books to read). I have a book in my bookshelf right now on the topic, but I just started reading something else. I'll get to it eventually.

The Dark Wife was actually on my reading list a little while ago, but I never got around to it. Your critique of sex and gender in it is interesting though. I'm actually kind of surprised that the idea of shifting biological sex isn't more fundamental in Greek myth in the first place but then Ancient Greece was pretty darn gendered in a way other ancient civilizations weren't. I actually had a student do a project on that topic specifically two years ago.

The second story rings a slight bell. If it's that short, I could probably make the time to read it although I'm having a hard time finding it online.

The most interesting thing I've read lately on this topic via an email from TamedWild is that apparently there are tales where the sirens were once the handmaidens of Persephone and as a water lover this was super cool to hear. I want to see if I can find anything about this in detail.

[amporella]

k2 k2 k2 for that ultimate ship ask thing!!!

YES... you know me so well... ty for the ask <3

Who was the one to propose:

I have an excessively long answer to this one because I have many thoughts on this!! Imo Kenny has some commitment issues as an adult - not infidelity based or anything like that, but having been parentified since a young age and having felt the need to make family (Karen especially) his top priority, he's probably afraid of being tied down, because there's SO much he feels the need to catch up on.. So I can see him considering marriage totally over the line - a long term relationship that actually uses that word is probably intense enough for him! But Kyle DOES want to get married, which inevitably leads to some conflict. Kenny thinks Kyle's on the same page as him because Kyle once mentioned wanting to wait until he's finished grad school to get married (wrong, turns out he wants it now), so he just doesn't get the hint at all when Kyle keeps trying to casually drop it into conversation. Kyle eventually realizes that being subtle and emotionally stunted isn't going to work, and he lets it spill (probably while tipsy lmao) that he would like to get married NOW PLEASE. Following Kenny getting counseled about marriage not being the end of the world/necessarily a significant relationship changer (and instead just being something that matters a lot to Kyle), he comes to realize that marriage actually is something that he wants, or it's at least a way to make Kyle happy (which he definitely does want), and he goes ring shopping at the same time Kyle's starting to take matters into his own hands. So, in conclusion, it's really a toss up as to who proposes; both of them are trying to do it, and they probably end up as one of those couples that plan on doing it at the exact same time 🥺 It's very tender.

I'm putting all the rest of the questions under a read more because this is already long:

Who stressed more over wedding planning:

Definitely Kyle. He has such a vision in his mind for how he wants it to be that he gets himself super unnecessarily stressed out. Fortunately Kenny's very good at calming him down <3

Who decorated the house:

Both of them! Kyle was probably mostly responsible for the planning aspect, color picking, etc (he's very particular about that kind of stuff) but Kenny definitely got a say too.

Who does the cooking:

I don't think either of them are particularly good at it at first - they probably live off of takeout throughout college (cue freshman fifteen) but eventually come to realize that their fast metabolisms aren't going to hold up for much longer, and they need to start cooking and eating healthy food eventually. They cook together/swap off when they're older - Kenny's better at more 'basic' meals/meals that you would usually have for dinner, while Kyle's a lot better at a few specific gourmet meals. They work together :)

Who is more organized:

Kyle! He's very particular about how he wants things organized, and Kenny is a little bit of a slob but he knows how important it is to Kyle, so he at least keeps things semi-neat. Kyle does not take organization/cleanliness lightly, and he ends up whipping Kenny into shape lmao.

Who suggested kids first:

Also Kyle. He probably ruminates on it alone for a little while because he doesn't expect that Kenny would want kids (and when he's younger, he doesn't), but it turns out Kenny actually LOVES the idea of having a kid with him. They probably end up only having one (at least until Kyle gets baby fever again, lmao). They both have very strong fraternal instincts, so they make excellent parents. Kyle attends all the PTA meetings. Kenny waves around 'go (kids name)' signs at their soccer games.

Who’s the cuddler:

Both of them <3. Kyle's probably a little physically clingier in general (and when Kenny initiates cuddles they probably rarely remain that way), but they'd both get a lot of satisfaction out of snuggles.

Who’s the big spoon/little spoon:

They switch, but Kyle's probably the little spoon a little more often than not. They're more prone to sleeping on each other's chests than spooning <3

What’s their favorite non-s/xual activity:

They're binge watchers. Extremely prone to just devoting a whole weekend to binging whatever soap opera (kenny's choice) or true crime show (kyle's choice) is on at the moment. They also go on runs together!

Who comes home dr/nk at 3am:

Either neither of them or they come home together!

Who kills the spiders:

Kenny's pet rats, probably. Kyle hates cleaning up spider guts, and while he doesn't love Kenny's rats either, he'd rather just feed them to them so he doesn't have to squish them.

Who falls asleep first:

Kyle. Kenny's a little bit of an insomniac, so Kenny just spends a little while petting his hair until he falls asleep too <3

A head canon:

Kyle doesn't tend to use pet names very often (maybe sweetheart/love in rare situations), and Kenny's favorite to call Kyle is 'baby'. Kyle loves baby. #1 way to calm him down.

Do they have any “rituals”?

Kenny cuts Kyle's hair every two weeks <3 it's very tender. They do it on Fridays to wind down from the week.

Who has the most patience?

Definitely Kenny. I don't think this needs to be further elaborated on!

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2021

#84 - The Glittering Court, by Richelle Mead

Mount TBR: 70/100

Rating: 1/5 stars

What did I like about this? It was digestible. Having just come off a heavy, plodding, disappointing fantasy read, the easy YA tell-don't-show narrative style went down smooth like a slushie on a hot day.

And that's the best thing I can say about the whole book--it read fast and easy.

What didn't I like?

1. The fact that this touts itself as fantasy when it's not in the least bit fantastical. I don't require my fantasy to have magic or creatures or zombies or anything, but if you're going to call something "fantasy" it should at least be about fictional cultures that the author has invented. This is just England colonizing the Americas with the names changed. The only thing that could be said to be "fantasy" is that the population they're displacing in the process isn't an indigenous one, it was established by previous outcasts from their own country--though that wasn't clear to me until the first time we met them and they were white, blond, and used woad as decoration. So they're not supposed to be Native American analogues, they're supposed to be displaced Picts?

2. Either way, it's still racist and pro-colonization, because even if the Icori aren't meant to represent an indigenous people, they're still clearly Other, and constantly labeled as "savages" in order to justify taking their land, which all of our protagonists are participating in, in some form. Does it matter what color this fictional group of people is, if the narrative is parroting real history and real racism?

3. The second half of the plot feels, at best, tenuously related to the first half. The change in fortune for our protagonists that happens at the midpoint struck me as so flimsy and unbelievable that it was hard to take the rest of the book seriously, and that made it more obvious to me who the real villain was, despite whatever weak red herrings were planted along the way. Seriously--the first half of the story is The Bridgertons but the second turns into Little House on the Prairie. It's too big a genre shift to make the transition seem natural.

4. There were times when I was approaching a reasonable level of sympathy for our heroine, despite her many flaws, but every time the story had a chance to explore those flaws and perhaps let the character do some work on them...well, she just kept being headstrong and selfish and whiny, right up until the LHotP section where after a single pep talk from the hero, she's completely changed, resolved to her new station in life with a determination that seemed half-delusional and certainly out of character. She didn't work for it, so it didn't seem real.

5. I did not know, having picked up this book in isolation, that the rest of the "series" is actually the same time period from the perspective of one of the other girls, specifically the two best friends of the heroine. Now that I do know that, the giant blank spaces in this story where Mira and Tamsin constantly fall out of it without explanation--or with the pointedly obvious lampshade "it's not my business so I'm not going to ask"--make sense structurally. However, that doesn't mean I don't think it's a terrible flaw, because these holes are constant and irritating. For a while in the middle of the book, it felt like every time I turned two pages, the heroine was asking out loud, "Where's Mira?" And pretty quickly I knew that question wouldn't be answered in this book, so why keep asking?

6. I never found Cedric compelling enough a hero to justify the constant sacrifices that Adelaide made for him. I don't think he's a terrible character, and I enjoyed some of their banter and their occasional fights, but I'm also not about to add him to my book-boyfriend list, so it was hard to imagine myself, or anyone for that matter, doing as much for him as Adelaide did.

7. Religion. Woooo boy. I guess this part is the "fantasy" I was lamenting the lack of earlier, because if the accepted and heretic forms of this fictional religion are supposed to correspond to real-world counterparts, I didn't pick up on it with enough certainty to tell. But my problem is that it's suddenly a Very Big Deal that one character is a heretic, when religion had played such a small part in the story leading up to that revelation that I was mostly operating on the assumption that the main religion was socially performative, and that no one in the story was especially devout. Adelaide certainly doesn't seem to be. But since this heresy becomes central to the conflict later on, I wish it had been better established in the beginning, because (again) the second half of the book seems wildly different than the first, and this was another aspect that made it hard to take seriously.

8. Heteronormative AF. There's one token queer person who has a minor role, showing up just long enough for Adelaide to realize other women/cultures don't abide by her society's rigid norms and to feel briefly uncomfortable about it. But there's no follow-up, no depth, no opportunity for Adelaide to grow beyond what she's been taught. To some extent, I'm okay with that--not every story has room for fighting LGBT+ battles, and even more simply put, stories are allowed to be about other things. But parading just that one wlw character out for a moment, and making her a foreigner to reinforce her otherness, strikes me as a really poor choice if the story didn't actually want to fight that battle. Why bring it up at all? Especially as this is supposed to be fantasy, why couldn't the Glittering Court be an institution that provides marriage candidates to both men and women? If the candidate pool was both male and female, and so was the clientele, then many forms of queerness would be covered by it without having to dig into specifics about each character. (It doesn't directly address ace/aro people, but presumably they'd be less interested in a marriage mart anyway, on either side, and self-select out of it.) I mean, I know why, because that would mean that in the New World there would have to be women in positions of power who needed husbands (or wives, yes, but this wrinkle is about men.) And there's no shortage of men in the colonies, so that doesn't track logically the same way the actual setup does. But again, if this is supposed to be fantasy....

[ganymedesclock]

I love all your Galra speculations! Adding to the Zarkon and Haggar general speculations, do you think they'd be the type to constantly berate and dismiss Lotor, yet still are begrudgingly protective of him? And do you think they're hiding his heritage or at least Haggar's origin from him?

I think “begrudgingly protective” is probably nicer than I’d peg on either of them. Zarkon and Haggar both are pretty sink or swim with their subordinates and I don’t think Lotor would really be an exception outside of certain circumstances- where since Lotor is Zarkon’s heir, it’s possible certain things happening to him would be considered an affront to Zarkon’s honor in which case I think he’d intervene rather heavily.

I mean. I could be totally wrong here, but, the closest we’ve seen Zarkon to anyone is Haggar and his former relationship with the Black Lion. With Haggar, as soon as they come into conflict he wants to shout her down or override her (even when she’s not in the room, see his response to the druids taking her orders over his for the ritual) and with Black he seems to have deteriorated from seeing her as a partner to such an extreme that he refuses to even acknowledge her as a sentient being.

I feel like Lotor’s relationship with Zarkon would follow one of those two models. If Lotor was born before the fall of Altea then it’s quite possible he did have a good relationship with his father which has now deteriorated almost beyond the point of recognition. If he was born afterwards, I feel it’s more likely that his relationship with Zarkon would be a bit similar to Haggar’s, only more tense because of the fact that Lotor is in an obvious subordinate role- Haggar is Zarkon’s equal in power and while she defers to him, that seems to be usually because she can just go behind his back and accomplish what she wants anyway, and is just rolling over conversationally to appease him.

But I just can’t feel like Zarkon or Haggar would be particularly respectful of Lotor’s autonomy since both of them have a nasty thread of possessiveness and entitlement to their interpersonal relations.

With Zarkon, he wants his men to literally live and die for him, by his orders- if they break with what he told them to do, they’re punished heavily- even to save the empire resources and manpower (the captain from s1e1) or trying to accomplish a goal in the empire’s greater interest (Prorok in s1e5-7)- it doesn’t matter, they questioned him, they’re not doing it his way. 

With Haggar... I think it says pretty much that Haggar’s attitude towards Shiro, who was taken into the empire as a slave- is that she unsubtly takes the stance that he owes her for giving him power (via medical torture) and she’s personally indignant that he’s taking her ‘kindness’ and not molding himself into an obedient servant.

All of this, with no idea of how Lotor is actually going to act in this continuity, paints a very grim picture for the fate of someone born to these people- someone who these two incredibly manipulative and dominating people would absolutely take as someone who “owes” them everything- including his own life.

It doesn’t help that from a “historical” perspective, in prior continuities... In GoLion, the only positive relationship Sincline seems to have had in his childhood was his mother, whom Daibazaal killed and as an adult he barely remembers. In DotU, Zarkon frequently disparaged Lotor directly to his face. In Force, Lotor is the main antagonist and his behavior throughout the entire piece smacks of massive insecurity (he at one point crushes a statue of Zarkon, which is Pretty Telling that there was really no love between them, besides how Force picked up on DotU)

The fact that Lotor is apparently a total unknown to the empire even with his very distinctive, unique aesthetic, when Zarkon is so public that he has merchandise, worries me.

The fact that we see someone with those same Lotor-specific colors operating on their own in the Weblum would seem to suggest that Lotor’s of the persuasion that getting what he wants means going behind Zarkon’s back. Which raises some questions- Haggar has a defined niche and an entire faction of followers who answer directly to her, and ten thousand years to build that connection. I feel like if Lotor could say the same we would have seen more of these people like the Weblum Galra, the way we’ve seen the druids.

We also wouldn’t see WG utterly alone and seemingly without backup to the point that they had to rely on Keith and Hunk’s mercy and cooperation if they were representing a larger organization.

So Lotor’s operating behind Zarkon’s back but he doesn’t seem to have very many resources to do it. This assuming he even sent the Weblum Galra- if I’m right in one of my more offbeat theories, it might well be that Lotor and WG are not on the same page and are both trying to operate solo.

Either way- this would explain why Lotor in the s3 trailer seems to be pulling out all the stops to try and capture the hearts of the main empire. He might well be trying to grab power that he’s never potentially had.

Now... what’s he going to do with that power? Is he just as nasty a person as Zarkon and Haggar, just in a different way? We have no idea, but I feel like... either way, as villain or potential antihero figure, I think people vastly overestimate how psychologically okay Lotor is going to be.

I mean... even if he seems to have ended up there by design, it’s if nothing else pretty telling that the first shot of him we see, he’s in the gladiator arena, something we mostly know from Shiro’s missing year- of being captured, tortured, and forced to make ugly decisions.

The writers have given us a particular context for that area, and the setup... seemingly as far as the watching forces know, they have no idea this is their crown prince. Because of where the April Fools clip cut off, we don’t know if they even recognized Lotor’s face.

All the arena’s audience knows is they’re here to watch some blood sports, and considering Lotor is “this little fellow” quite possibly many of them don’t expect him to survive his opponent.

So it’s... gonna be interesting to see this play out.

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2021

#51 - Deliver Me, by Farrah Rochon

Mount TBR: 48/100

Rating: 1/5 stars

Poorly constructed, poorly researched, poor representation of mental illness, and some tropes I simply don't like, though that is of course a matter of personal taste.

I got this free in a bundle and it's my first Rochon read, though I've been hearing good things about her for years. I dearly hope that this is not representative of her more current works.

So let's tackle these issues one by one. Poor construction: first, the whole book is building up to the climactic charity bachelor auction, and I have no problem with that, but then the story ends abruptly at the same time the auction does, with the heroine "buying" the hero from it, some time (several days?) after she literally walks out on him after sex and does her absolute best to ghost him over what we know is a complete misunderstanding. I'll talk more about the miscommunication aspect of this later, but after the hero's repeated attempts to get to the bottom of why she left seemingly without warning or reason, he doesn't really have the chance to apologize or defend himself properly, but then the heroine forgives him anyway for basically no reason. Now, we the reader know that he wasn't actually cheating on the heroine, but she pulls a one-eighty and forgives him on the spot, when he sees him onstage, because…he's just so sexy? I'm not really sure. That happened to fall at the bottom of the page on my e-reader, so imagine my surprise when I flick to the next page and see the end matter--the book ends quite literally with the big auction, there's no denouement, there's no explanation of why she changed her mind, there's not even an epilogue to show them several months or years down the road being happy together. It's just OVER.

Second issue with poor construction: the multi-chapter subplot about the second couple who are patients of the hero, complete with an extra POV character, is jarringly distracting and (in my opinion) wholly unnecessary. This book would have been long enough to qualify as a novel without it, so it's not helpful padding, and I'll get more into why later, but I believe this subplot actively undermines the main plot.

Poorly researched: I can cover this one pretty quickly. I'm no medical expert, but when the hero early on in the story performs an emergency c-section on a conscious patient, without any form of anaesthesia and without her consent, I was not impressed. No, I'm serious. At the top of the page, the woman very clearly says "I don't want a c-section" and the next few paragraphs are the hero shushing her and doing anyway. I honestly don't know the protocols for informed consent in emergency situations, and under what circumstances doctors are allowed to exercise their best judgment and operate without informed consent, but whatever they are, I don't think it's just merrily slicing into a woman who moments ago explicitly withheld it.

There weren't any more insanely obvious medical blunders for the rest of the book, but I also didn't have much of a sense of realness from the hospital, either. Much later, a side character in the subplot makes an observation about knowing how to scrub up properly from watching "ER," and that really crystallized the level of medical accuracy in this book to me.

Okay, next issue. Poor representation of mental illness. The entire subplot is about a couple where the wife has bipolar disorder, hides that fact, and her treatment for it, from her husband, and then goes off the rails when her pregnancy screws with her medication regimen, which fails to control her symptoms.

Where the hell do I even start with this? She's depicted as a shrewish, terrible woman, and yes, I do think that's mostly because of her mental illness. Bad look to start with. Then add to that, that she thinks her husband will leave her if he finds out she's ill. Not a good look either. Her paranoid delusions all center on her husband cheating on her--which he's not--and her erratic behavior includes not following her doctor's orders about bed rest, which eventually leads to the premature (but ultimately happy and successful) birth of their child.

Now, to be fair, the husband is an absolutely stand-up guy through all of this, and the couple does get a happy ending. So I'm not accusing the author of believing or endorsing the idea that mentally ill people are either incapable or undeserving of romantic fulfillment.

But the problem is that if the point of this subplot is to mirror the main plot, then it's a terrible idea to have the main couple be a player with a string of clingy ex-girlfriends matched up with a woman who ghosts him because she believes he's cheating on her. See where I'm going with this? By having the subplot LITERALLY be about a mentally ill woman's paranoid delusions, it's drawing a parallel between those and the miscommunication of the main plot. THE HEROINE IS NOT CRAZY, SHE'S JUST INCORRECT. And implying she's "crazy" for thinking the hero might be cheating on her (even if we know he isn't!) is doing a disservice to women who have been or really are being cheated on, because a common backlash from the men is "you're crazy!" Um, no. No to all of this.

The tropes I don't personally like, but aren't necessarily big issues the same way: yes, the entire conflict between the leads boils down to a miscommunication, which results in an unsuccessful ghosting, which leads to the hero being really pushy about tracking her down and finding out what's going on. I hate plots where the love interests refuse to talk to each other for no good reason. Also, I didn't love that when these two get horizontal, there's no mention of any kind of birth control in the room with them, nor was it established that they'd had an earlier conversation about it. As much as I dread the "man wants to go bareback, woman bites her lip and says okay, i'm on the pill" scene that half the bad romance novels I read inevitably rely on, at least those books are talking about it! At least we establish there's not going to be an accidental pregnancy in fifty pages! And the hero is an OB-GYN, so there's literally no excuse for these two not to have a rational conversation about how they're going to handle birth control.

I'm genuinely struggling to find anything good about this book.