#anti half bad trilogy

[bayoudusion]

No hate to Sally G reen but wtf is wrong with that half bad trilogy?? Why is it baked in misogyny, anti gay tropes and why does the book's prejudice have to be just an allegory for racism ( I mean ikw it's becuz mfs can't understand that depiction of racism =/= pro racism) while not featuring any poc main characters???

Imagine being outdone by a netflix adaptation of your original work. I'd never come back to civil society again.

[gunsandspaceships]

How do you watch movies?

Ok, let’s get back to my specialty – the sad stuff.

My ex-boyfriend used to watch them like this: he could turn on the TV and watch a scene from the middle of a movie. Later, he might come across the same movie and watch the end of it. After that, he could decide to watch the whole movie from the beginning, watch half an hour, and decide that he had already seen the whole thing. What could he understand there?

There seem to be a lot of people doing something similar. Perhaps they saw something but completely missed the point.

Yesterday I stumbled upon an anti-Tony post here, on Tumblr, where its author didn’t notice the whole antagonist of the first Iron Man movie. The author states about Tony “He created and built and sold weapons to both the US government and its enemies (Let us also bring attention to the blatant islamophobia and the Pro US imperialist propaganda in these movies), making him a war criminal and guilty of treason”.

I’ll write about “the blatant islamophobia and the Pro US imperialist propaganda in these movies” in a separate post. The author missed the point of the entire Iron Man trilogy, so it looks like there's a lot to talk about.

But now I introduce to you Obadiah Stane, also known as Iron Monger. The villain of the Iron Man (2008).

This is the guy who sold weapons to “US enemies” on the black market. Including the terrorist group The Ten Rings, hired to kill Tony, whose business ethics were mentioned in the same movie, and were also a nuisance to Stane’s business.

Tony was never a war criminal and never sold anything to “bad guys”.

Knowing nothing about the character, having missed everything he did and everything that happened to him, the author says such dirty things about him and accuses him of what he did not do, which is directly stated in the original sources.

If Tony were a real person, or the author were a fictional character “living” in the MCU, these statements could be regarded as slander against him, which actually would make the author of the post a criminal.

P.S. I just found out that the OP was deleted. What a shame. Well, perhaps the author finally found time to watch the movie.

[scifimagpie]

Writeblr intro

Last Updated: Mar 2024 So, I realised I hadn't actually written one of these, and I had to fix it!

Name: Magpie, or Shelle, or Michelle.

Pronouns: she/her or xe/xer/xis.

Who: both a writer and an editor!

The Writing: I’ve been publishing since 2011, and I have a bunch of free and paid anthologies I’ve organized, but these are my most important/favourite works.

Except for The Meaning Wars series, all of my books are set in Canada!  

The Meaning Wars (complete; And The Stars Will Sing, The Stolen: Two Short Stories, The Meaning Wars, Poe’s Outlaws, A Jade’s Trick, The Meaning Wars Complete Omnibus)

Similar to: Becky Chambers’ A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and Ruthanna Emrys’ A Half-Built Garden

Vibes: Space opera! Found family! Mature (30s) protagonists! Best friends! Sapphic and queer m/f romance elements! Friendly space raptors! Space pirates! A beach episode! Antifascism! Colonization (and inequality issues)! Fighting stuff with democracy and direct action!  

The Underlighters (Book 1 of The Nightmare Cycle; Book 2, Monsters and Fools, is complete and in edits. Book 3, The Foundling City, is a current WIP!)

Similar to: Jean DuPrau’s The City of Ember, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, the Fallout series

Vibes: Coming of age/new adult themes. Spooky monsters. Post-apocalyptic. The importance and warmth of community. Friendship. Struggling with teen problems. Polyamory. Nightmares. Mental health issues. Trauma. Hope. Recycling.

After The Garden (Book 1 of the Memory Bearers Saga; Book 2, Within the Tempest, is also one of my WIPs)

Similar to: Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, The Wachowski sisters’ Sense-8, the Fallout series

Vibes: Found family. Gentle romance. Polyamory (m/f/m). Superpowers without superheroes. Sinister cults and religious extremism. Reincarnation. An alternate future. Adorable giant spiders. Silk-weaving and fiber arts. Post-collapse societal reorganization and politics.

The Loved, The Lost, The Dreaming: A Horror Anthology includes an alternate-ending version of The Underlighters, the novella A Shot of Vodka, and a dozen or so genre-crossing short stories. All of them have spooky elements.

Similar to: Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors, Roald Dahl’s Skin and Other Stories (this is not an endorsement of antisemite Roald Dahl; I am antifascist)

Vibes: Underground living. Spooky dolls. Abandoned houses. Queerness. Sinister fey. Nightmares. Lovecraftian eeriness. Here be monsters.

Bad Things That Happen To Girls (Book 1 of the Memory Bearers Saga; Book 2, Within the Tempest, is also one of my WIPs) Possibly my most underrated work, this New Adultish story is a standalone novella about trauma and what happens when life breaks down.

Similar to: Emily Danforth’sThe Miseducation of Cameron Post and Miriam Toews’ A Complicated Kindness

Vibes: Broken family. Abusive mother. Being queer in a small city. Religious trauma. Forbidden cross-cultural love. Teen heartbreak. Coming-of-age. Sisters.

The Hell series (Unpublished WIPs; Dark as Hell, Uncharted Hell, Hope in Hell)

Similar to: Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, Andrej Sapkowski’s The Witcher series

Vibes: Grumpy/sunshine romance! Mature protagonists! Queer f/m romance! Thriller elements! Immortal pirate! Marxist/anti-billionaire politics—with a billionaire protag! Lovecraftian ocean horror! Historical fantasy elements! Lots and lots of boat stuff!

Prairie Weather Trilogy (Unpublished but complete, in submission; Chinook Phase, Tornado Warning, Brushfire)

Similar to: Douglas Couplands’ Jpod,Nick Sagan’s Idlewild trilogy (without the sci fi stuff), Love Actually, Heartstoppers

Vibes: Aggressively Canadian! Found family! Cozy academia! University! Set in the early 2010s! Queer romance! Ensemble cast! Aggressively queer, diverse, and inclusive! Coming-of-Age/New Adult issues! Friendship! Drama! Sex work-positivity!             

The Editing: I've been a professional freelance editor since 2013, with Top-Rated status on Upwork (a freelancing website) and several hundred books under my belt. (I don't know how many things I've worked on at this point. I've lost count!) Primarily into sci fi, fantasy, horror, and literature (and associated subgenres); enthusiastic about #ownvoices and all kinds of diversity/marginalised representation in fiction.

You don’t have to go through Upwork unless you want to; DM me if you’re looking for an editor who’s knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and gentle. I’m also budget-friendly!

Age: in my 30s.

Queer?: yes. Also poly! Happily married to two people; also have a girlfriend. Not looking for more partners.

Disabled?: yes.

Languages: English mostly, but some conversational Spanish (rusty), scraps of French, tiny bits of German and Irish. All my writing is in English, though.

Location: Southern Alberta, Canada. (Texas + Kansas + Colorado = Alberta, more or less.)

Other hobbies: Knitting, making jewelry, playing Dungeons and Dragons (and other tabletop games), singing, reading (obviously), learning stuff; playing cello, clarinet, and violin

Interests: Jewelry, gems, metalworking, fiber arts, queer issues and social justice, environmentalism, drinking quite a lot of tea (usually black; I like an assam, Ceylon, or breakfast blends, though Golden Snail absolutely slaps when I’m in the mood for it, and I love Earl Grey Cream as well)

Other internet profiles: *Website * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Tumblr * Mastodon *Facebook * Medium * Twitter  * OG Blog* Instagram * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

[olderthannetfic]

I remember all the handwringing over Reylo, how it would teach young girls that abuse was okay, how it would lead them to accept being mistreated, how liking him was as bad as a girl who thirsts over school shooters, etc. And yet look! Society has yet to become pro-abuse and the fans of the pairing who identify as women have not been murdered by their romantic partners en masse.

But despite this open contempt for the pairing, people also convinced themselves the only reason you could ship Kylo/any guy was hatred of women and not, y'know, trying to avoid the obsessed haters who had devoted anti-Reylo blogs for 5+ years. Also it was totally unhealthy of you to ship Kylo with anyone, said people with a dedicated blog where they discussed their hatred of a fictional man for half a decade, and you should get therapy for your sickness.

My personal least favorite moment of the the new trilogy fandom's plague of antis was them attacking a friend of mine. See, if you don't ship Finnrey, you're an anti-black racist (unless you ship Finnpoe in which case you are of course a misogynist fetishizing Poe, a space Latine). No one told my friend this, so she very obliviously drew some Finnlo, and all hell broke lose. People said it was like shipping a slave with a Nazi, that it demonstrated the dehumanization of black men by fandom, that it was akin to zoophilia since Kylo owned Finn, etc. It hit a peak of ridiculousness when someone self-harmed and sent my friend video of them doing so to show her how 'wrong' it was to ship the two.

My friend responded by contacting the parents of the person who self-harmed. Cue antis saying she was an adult harassing a minor. You know, because if one person is putting cigarettes out on themselves to spite someone on the internet and another person is saying "that's concerning", the latter is in the wrong, obviously.

I'm not even in this fandom but I support Reylo and Finnlo out of sheer spite at this point because I hated the manipulation and massive freakouts from the Finnrey crowd so much.

Sometimes people are going to ship something that's not your OTP and that's okay. It's not worth burning your skin off for.

--

Kylo is ew, but supposed Finn fans who can't even see that Finn also had an interesting potential connection with Kylo in that first film are idiots.

[emperorverse]

The Emperor-Verse: RWBY: Saints of Remnant, a reimagined AU(More details in Keep Reading!)

Once there was a world by the name of Omnibus. Created by the supreme deity The Author Allfather through the mysterious entity The Storyteller, this world was composed of four holy and mighty kingdoms, ruled by The Author’s Patron Saints whose reign protected the people, human and faunus alike, with their mighty armies, hunters, and their own holy powers from barbarian hordes, and the hordes of The Grimm who were the incarnations of hatred of the fallen seraph Grimmel The Black and his fellow fallen angels

In the dreadful world-shattering war of Ragnarök, the glorious age of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, and the days of Romance, Heroism Adventure, and Eucatastrophe came to a tragic end.

Now all that remains is the world that is Remnant

But there is a prophecy made by Ozma The First Time Wizard before his death at the hands of The Witch-Emperor, that one day the bloodlines of the original Patron Saints and the families betrothed to them will return to take up these powers, rally armies of the righteous, vanquish the darkness and restore the holy kingdoms and Omnibus and reign over them once more.

Sinners will become Saints

Legends shall be restored and new Legends will be born

And what was a Remnant, Shall Be Whole Again.

But until then, the Hunters lead a struggling battle against the Grimm while the modern kingdoms suffer under corruption of all kinds, both to the benefit of darker forces who have horrifying intentions for the world.

Cue Ruby Rose and her older half-sister Yang Xiao Long, they are about to enter Beacon Academy after being approved by the eccentric Professor Ozpin Pine along with the heiress Weiss Schnee and the introverted faunus Blake Belladonna forming team RWBY

Ozpin has also enrolled a few other students and transferred others.

The former forming team JNPR, and the latter being Team SSSN of Haven Academy

Ozpin seems to have his eye on all of them, but what for?

Heavily inspired by CS Lewis's series The Chronicles of Narnia

Main Ships Contained:

RoseGarden

BlackSun

Iceberg/Arctic Water

Arkos

Renora

and some other ships

Also will contain unorthodox reimagining such as Adam Taurus(He's an initial antagonist turned good) and the White Fang and Jacques Schnee and the SDC with their Canon!Counterparts replaced with substitutes among other things

Currently the concept is in the works in a series of notes.

Details of the Emperor-Verse

Now I'm sure there's some questions you probably are all asking which I assume are the same questions as my blog

“Why are you using your Religion?”

Mostly due to it being a strong foundation, notably theology, for most of my stories, there are many strong foundations of storytelling, religion, history, you can even fantasize science if you put the imagination, time, and effort into it.

After doing some soul searching and listening to the Narnia books on Audible, it became another important element in making this au and I might include elements of CS Lewis’ Space Trilogy

This AU is set in my fictional Multiverse The Emperor-Verse which Narnia is implied to exist in, or I should say had existed in(its set after The Last Battle)

“Isn’t this kind of entitled and disrespectful?”

Disagreement isn’t necessarily malicious, and entitlement is not inherently bad if its your opinions and subjective feelings which people are entitled to.

Tolkien was heavily inspired by his distaste for how Shakespeare handled certain concepts, such as the Ents when he was upset and dissatisfied that there were no walking talking trees in the Enchanted Fortest of Macbeth, and the Valar Aule the Smith and the origin of the Dwarves make him something of an Anti-Prometheus

Not to mention Philip Pullman, the author of His Dark Materials Trilogy, made it out his distaste how CS Lewis made the Chronicles of Narnia and his overall beef with Christianity, and nobody seems to take issue with that.

I’m not saying the direction RWBY went with V3 or Pyrrha and the rest of the cast potentially ending tragically in some way or another is objectively bad, it was just not my taste

And I am not saying every normal RWBY fan/RWDE person who liked it is an elitist about it nor are all of them trying to insult me and attack me personally or say my ideas are bad

Nor I’m not trying to change canon or its “trajectory” , nor am I doing this to spite Monty, especially when I never knew the guy. This is a difference in handling ideas and concepts.

I’m doing my RWBY AU, which will most likely be revamped into an original story since it takes a whole different directions with the characters and world, but it's mostly because with post V3 and now in retrospect I saw what this world, characters, ships and other ideas could have been all in a story I believe is worth telling. And I was disappointed that it wasn’t.

I mean yeah it's also due to personal tastes and preferences and subjective feelings, at least I’ve been told, but I also try to integrate that in a meaningful way.

So I hope you all enjoy what I have to offer, which will most likely be put on AO3 and FanFiction.Net, and who knows, I might get a few artists to commission to redesign some characters or illustrate some scenes if anyone is up for it.

[stromuprisahat]

Do you think Leigh Bardugo planned to write the King of Scars duology? At first I thought so, because of Nikolai's scars from the Merzost. But given how the duology is ultimately written, I don't think so at all. I also have the impression that all the characters are the spokespersons there to remind how horrible the Darkling is, which is objectively ridiculous. She even went so far as to tell Alina that Nikolaï, Zoya and the others are trying to repair the damage caused by his wars with him... Whereas the Darkling barely caused a civil war in the original trilogy, and no has nothing to do with the wars against Shu Han and Fjerda. So what is this shit dialogue?! What plural wars has the Darkling caused?! Why is he held responsible for Genya's rape?! Why do we demonize the creation of the little palace?! Why would the Darkling tell Zoya "you and I are going to change the world" as a manipulation technique?! What fucking use?! Why are the characters like, "Let him be the hero or not?" in the end, whereas if he doesn't sacrifice himself EVERYONE DIES?! This duology is such an absurd demonization of the character that it gives me a headache...

I think she planned it the same way it usually looks she does. She has some nice ideas, puts them together as she goes, and doesn't much deal with implications. What's sad is that neither does her editor, whose job should be to poke and prod.

I've read the books as soon as they were out, so my memory hopefully isn't the best, but:

Yes for author's mouthpieces. Especially poor Genya got reduced into just that and a victim. Then there are the bigot twins or Zoya, especially her famous Darkling's crimes speech.

“That’s the moment? Not in manipulating a young girl and trying to steal her power, or destroying half a city of innocent people, or decimating the Grisha, or blinding your own mother? None of those moments feel like an opportunity for self-examination?”

Rule of Wolves- Chapter 9

I'm pretty sure I've encountered antis with the very same list.

Alina's just heartbreaking in case you survived her epilogue in R&R unscathed. What we see resembles an empty shell taught equally empty phrases to repeat in public. When viewed through reader's lenses, it's just another mouthpiece, paraded around to remind us Alina had it all coming and the Darkling bad (in case you haven't caught onto that yet).

“No. But every child I help heals something inside me, every chance I have to tend to someone left in the wake of your wars. And maybe when our country is free, then that wound will close.”

Rule of Wolves- Chapter 14

What I find hilarious, is how the Righteous Gang™ dealt with their neighbouring countries. They tricked Shu Han into signing a treaty about peace and alliance... only to have it broken in the very same book. They won a war with Fjerda in a single battle, because Zoya threw their strategy to the wind, but appeared soon enough to be proclaimed Saint for being a dragon or something?!

Sorry, but LB's idea of how politics, religion and warfare work is beyond ridiculous.

The Darkling's obviously responsible for Genya's rape, because he's been micromanaging late King, which is why his Coup went so smoothly... and we can't have the reader question how fair has been the late Tsar's punishment, how well it prevented repetition of his crimes, or if getting rid of him in the first place might've prevented his reappearance and role in challenge to Nikolai's legitimacy.

Little Palace needs to be discredited, so we don't question The Gang's decision to abolish the law that takes children from their loving families. Don't. Just don't delve into it. There's no point.

I've read pretty good explanation of that catch up line. Zoya's often lying. If Alina's an unreliable narrator, due to her damaging upbringing and prejudice, Zoya's simply happier to see the world as she pleases. She's consciously choosing delusion. Alina might have mentioned what the Darkling told her, and Zoya's always been his special girl, right?! Even current regime's propaganda calls her the Darkling's favourite...

The only BUT I see is that for some reason, Aleksander uses the very same sentence on one of his Starless minions. Then again, that Aleksander has no fucks left to give, and even he suffered Zoya-praising disease, so excuse me, when I don't trust the author with her own characters and keeping them IN CHARACTER.

The ending is a mix of absurdity and heartless cruelty. The Darkling's constantly called monster, accused of NOT caring about the damage he causes... but reading the last few chapters made me despise the author's Coolest Female Trinity beyond measure.

I've delved into this somewhere already, but what I appreciate in real people and fictional characters alike, is kindness. Not blind or endless, but kindness. Having a bunch of "children", who barely lived a few decades, condemn a person to eternity of suffering, is beyond detestable. I might understand they all feel wronged by him (I don't.), but they all also owe him pretty much. And they're in no position to judge him.

If such short and relatively easy lives made them this unsympathetic, he should've been congratulated for hanging on so well.

It also wouldn't do any harm to cut about a quarter of those books, including the obvious fanservice.

[ae-neon]

It kind of feels like Mor exists because of Rhys’s nonexistent sister. Like maybe she took his sister’s story and gave it Mor and killed off the sister just so Rhys had a sad backstory to excuse his actions. It would explain why Rhys has like… no memories with his sister.

Hi anon

Yea idk what is going on with all that. I honestly think sjm copy pasted a paragraph from an old draft and then didn't edit out Rhys saying he had a sister.

But let's get into that no memories bit because...

SJM pisses me off as a writer on a fundamental level that has nothing to do with pro or anti discourse. She's just so fucking bad at basic shit I cannot understand it. SHE'S SUCH A FUCKING FRAUD

How the FUCK does this man not even mention the names of his mother or sister once in the time he's talking about their wings and what happened with Tamlin's family???

How do we go three books in Feyre's head and she never once thinks of her parents own names???????

How does the King of Hybern play the antagonist of 2/3rds of a trilogy, literally show up and speak on multiple occasions but never get a name????????????????????

And it can't even be ass-pull-retconned like in tog where somehow Dorian was Dorian Jr all along

More than half the cast of acotar has no last names. And that could have just been a Fae thing if we didn't have the Vanserras.

I WANNA BE SARAH JANET SO BAD BECAUSE I ALSO WANT TO BE FUNDAMENTALLY BAD AT MY JOB BUT THRIVE IN THE INDUSTRY WHAT TYPE OF PREMIUM ASS PRIVILEGE IS THAT

[cinemacentral666]

Nymphomaniac (2013)

Movie #1,150 • Ranking Lars von Trier #3

By way of its shear gargantuan size (almost 5 ½ hours), and its position as the final entry of his most polarizing era (the Depression trilogy), Nymphomaniac seems to be screaming for — if not only striving to achieve — magnum opus status in the Lars von Trier filmography. The inclusion of hardcore porn is all many (probably too many) are gonna remember about this, but not me. I'll remember all the asinine and overly complicated metaphors intertwined throughout and Christian Slater's atrocious attempt at an English accent. Just kidding. I'll remember the sex stuff.

It’s ugly and sick and I’m sure ‘problematic’ and so on, and yet it ranks among von Trier’s very best because all of those things are part of the human experience, and he hasn’t just made a film about them here: he’s made a film that literally and physically invokes them in the viewer. The difference between a piece of art like this and some scrap of torture porn (or regular porn sometimes) is that, in spite of the vileness of these characters and the full-view, unfiltered look into their actions, it’s rendered beautifully and thoughtfully (the latter almost to a fault, with the plentiful and sometimes lengthy off-kilter digressions into metaphor, though I appreciated those too).

It feels like the spiritual successor, in a way, to 1996’s Breaking the Waves. Where, for better or worse, that film remained tied down to a traditional narrative structure, the setup here (especially with its conversational framing device and use of found footage) is allowed to burst free. Where Emily Watson's Bess became a nymphomaniac out of duty and real human love, Charlotte Gainsbourg's Joe became one out of compulsion and a personified inner rage. It's fitting that Stellan Skarsgård played the central counterpart in each movie, too: the injured, impotent husband in Wave s and the asexual intellectual foil here, Seligman. They would make a lovely double feature if you have half a day to kill.

Also, on that point, its length is a crucial if not necessary asset in terms of its success. Where the grotesque elements of Antichrist felt like cheap genre riffs unloaded in its final act, the audience is inundated from the get-go here with a variety of “hard to watch” scenes and sequences of all stripes and duration. And they come steadily for FIVE hours. It’s an endurance test, perhaps, but a rewarding one — particularly in the middle stretch of Vol. II.

It’s also the rare movie where you don’t need to relate to, sympathize with, or even totally understand the motives of the protagonist. The film is set with up a question: is Joe good or bad? This query is batted back and forth ad nauseam in Vol. I but it slowly dissipates over the course of the second part. In the end, it's more about humanity at large and Joe is just an avatar for our evil urges.

And Seligman's heel turn in the end is the ultimate von Trierian joke. Of course he was just listening to get into her pants. What is a woman like Joe without the thousands (millions, billions) of men? There are, naturally, touchy concepts about gender swirling all around here and, in the beginning, it felt like this was subtly leaning into the misogynist territory of Antichrist (I don't necessarily see that film as stridently anti-women but that sentiment is definitely out there). The wonderful thing about Nymphomaniac is that, by its conclusion, we do register some sympathy for Joe, if not even viewing her as miraculously heroic. And because of its structure, constantly presenting both sides of every moment and idea, and playing devil's advocate, via the Monday Morning Quarterbacking session with Joe and Seligman, we're allowed an even further detachment from moral judgment. It's like LVT is hedging his bets while also staying ahead of the curve. It's pretty brilliant. I don't think this is von Trier's best movie but in a career full of audacious maneuvers and good taste/faith boundary pushing, it's by far his most daring and provocative. And that's saying something.

SCORE: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ll be counting down all of Lars Von Trier’s movies right here at @cinemacentral666 every Thursday through September 2023

[adhdo5]

OK Imperial Radch trilogy thoughts bc I started reading another book from the library and I remembered

Huge fan. Big enjoyer of what this has going on. It can get a little heavy handed or redundant at times but it's never to a level where I'm questioning the immersion of it, and it's certainly capable of subtlety and does it frequently. Some conversations, especially in Sword but really throughout, are very blatant and edge on banal "racist gets owned by based spaceship" power fantasy, but it's not unmotivated and never quite so bad as to feel unconvincing for the characters as presented. More on this later however

I am generally easily endeared to characters but these books make it easy for almost all circumstances. The only character I found disappointing was Anaander Mianaai – I found her uncompelling when onscreen in Sword and my interest in her plans flagged heavily in the first part of Mercy. Still, by the back half of Mercy, Mianaai had done her job more than effectively overall. She was responsible too for some of the most excellent horror paragraphs in a book that is generally not horror, and I appreciate her dearly for that. The series does the same with all of its other less compelling elements – at all times some facet is interesting (world building, character motivations, wanting to find out what happens next with some aspects of this arc) and demands continued attention. At no point did I feel the need to gloss over any element entirely, and I feel effectively rewarded for that investment

It's been praised for its linguistic considerations, which are absolutely delightful and welcome texture to the world and context for how the central characters interact with it; it's a widely praised aspect of the series and I did like it dearly. I think it is part of in general a story that makes the most of its concepts, just about all of which are intriguing and creative, and which have Payoff Reveals of several scales that are absolutely fantastic and that carry the intrigue very well and contextualize character drama excellently. The way the trilogy portrays inhumanity is delightful and extremely dear to me, especially with its conclusion; both that and other adjacent fantastical elements are core to statements about emotion and experience that I found extremely profound, familiar, and touching

As an anti-imperialist text. I'm not very qualified to talk about this but from what I can tell it is, while sometimes surface level and flirting with the space-white savior trope at times, aware of this and done, generally, with care. Thought is put into the depth and nature of the oppression of the colonized subject and criticism of the protagonists is certainly present, especially through Ancillary Mercy, though there is still an element in which it acts as a power fantasy wrt how the privilege of the protagonists is handled – however I really run out of salient things to say here. For what it does as a fun scifi novel series it succeeds, and certainly so for the fact that it reminds me of the theory I have to get back to reading

Overall excellent series of books I kind of want to get a hard copy set to own and reread for the subtler touches and full context experience. Hard recommend

[cosmos-dot-semicolon]

saw a post that really annoyed me but also made me have sort of a breakthrough

Another thing seasons 8 to 10 have an issue with is how the writers never manage to pick what they actually want the 'new, darker' ninjago to be. There's several elements of good plot threads in there, but the writers are still basically working off their usual formula, and ultimately they end up mashing idea several ideas that don't work.

Case in point: Harumi.

(for the record. This isn't an anti-Harumi post. This is an anti-Ninjago writer post.)

I've heard lots of praise for Harumi, sure, but none of it ever seems to be like. directed towards the character in the actual show. She's supposed to be seen as someone who was pushed to their limits for reviving Garmadon fully evil, except when Lloyd points out that she'll end up killing several other families like hers and she just says 'nah fuck them'. She's supposed to be evil, except she does legitimately donate food to the poor of the city. Her death is supposed to be a tragedy, but she's said she wanted to torment Lloyd in gruesome detail on screen after manipulating him and generally being creepy as all hell.

Most egregiously, her motivation of losing her parents is supposed to be more 'morally grey' than the other villains, but in actual fact it's just Nadakhan and Morro's backstories stitched together with edgy black thread. In actual fact, she lost her parents as a child - which is admittedly traumatic, but then she was adopted into royalty, and then proceeded to start a criminal empire.

Nobody fucking goes that far. They dismiss some of that inherent privilege by saying 'oh she had to go through a lot of training to be perfect at all times', but they don't fucking show that. You have to make that up.

In all honesty, as someone who's gone through a tough upbringing myself, season 8 put a very bad taste in my mouth of what the writers think happened to traumatised kids. All we really see is a princess with the most twisted, villain-ball idea of how to do good in the world, but who also might've been right in her own way despite that.

This frame from OSP's video on villains pretty much sums up everything I think about Harumi.

These are both quite good bases for an antagonist, but Harumi never fully gets to be either of them because the show never decides what they want to do with her. It would actually be pretty biting if she was like... an Elon Musk-like character - a rich shut-in who has actively damaging ideas of what would improve society that people believe purely out of hype - or if her resurrection of Garmadon was supposed to be his season 2 self, because he did far better for Ninjago than the rest of the team, and she was actually blinded by the fact the resurrection wouldn't work for lore reasons or whatever.

But the thing is, if you try to have both, you pretty much just have a brat. While that can also work - see Morro and Nadakhan - you have to then have their actions reflect more on your protagonists than their own sympathetic side, and also you have to make it clear that THEIR IDEAS ARE BAD AND THEY ARE BAD FOR DOING THEM. It also helps to not have so much of a focus on them versus your protagonists if they're not actively being fun - otherwise they just eat up screentime before getting killed at the end of the season.

On the flip side, if you truly want a sympathetic antagonist, you have to write them with a complexity on the same level as your protagonists. Ninjago has only had that luxury once, and the character that was with had five seasons to do so, and was carried by his voice actor and relationship to Lloyd. Harumi has half that time, half that charisma quadruple the crime list, and is put in a place where we have no reason to really want her to change for the better.

It still frustrates me to this day that people took Harumi (and by extension the trilogy) as good purely because of the presence of tropes that can be done well, but actually just rip the tone of the show in half. Admittedly a lot of us were teens entering our emo 'no longer a kid' phase but like, as someone who'd seen something similar going down in MLP at the time, it was terrible to see a lot of the fans falling for the lazy writing tricks that were being pulled here.

[...this post was actually supposed to lead onto how the OP of the annoying post misinterpreted Garmadon's changed character as good because they justified it in canon, but this has gotten long enough for now :/]

[flustered-victorian-gentleman]

complaining about the state of modern book covers

In other news, I made a very sad personal discovery about a very niche and stupid topic and need to yell about it

(readmore because shit gets LONG)

I was a HUGE fan of Canadian sci fi trilogy The Quintaglio Ascension back in school. I remember specifically picking up the first book while browsing the school library and being immediately captivated by the cover art.

This shit goes fucking hard. In addition to going hard it's also a useful reference for what the sapient dinosaurs actually look like, since there's no illustrations of them within the book. Obviously the characters describe each other but like, they're all the same species so no one is walking around like "this is my friend Tim he looks like a T.rex with human hands and thumbs and has fingernails instead of claws," so this helps. Here's the other two covers just for our personal entertainment.

Anyway, about last week I remembered the series again out of the blue and wanted to pick it up again because I haven't read them in so long and the cover art is so fire. Enter the tragedy I discovered on my local library website:

What in the hot crispy kentucky fried FUCK is that. HUH????

I am by no means educated in marketing or design but this just seem like...anti-marketing?? This just looks like the most generic sci fi shit I've ever seen. Tells you jack shit about the extremely unique setting, which is kind of the whole fucking HOOK of the series. Is the publishing house EMBARRASSED that the book is about talking space dinosaurs?? Also very misleading considering nobody goes to space at all in this book. Everything is on the ground on one planet.

ALSO CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH BUT THIS COVER IS A FUCKING **SPOILER** FOR A VERY IMPORTANT TWIST LATE IN THE BOOK

So, understandably I was a little miffed. I thought to myself, why don't I just check Amazon instead. I could just purchase the full series with the good cover and keep it forever.

AND IT GOT WORSE ON AMAZON

ok, I'll admit this is better than the library cover. there is at least a Mesozoic reptile here, although we still seem to be coyly hiding the fact that all of our protagonists are dinosaurs for some stupid reason. So this gets a very small pass on account of it's not objectively bad but is still quite lazy and underwhelming compared to the original cover. But this cover in particular isn't why I made this post. Don't worry, the other two covers by this artist (I'm assuming it's the same person?) get steadily worse.

first of all, these silhouettes slapped onto this background looks like shit. on first glance they look decently well integrated into the background, but have a look at the bottom dinosaur. it's just kind of...floating...on the rocks. I would give it a little pass if it was obvious the dinosaurs weren't intended to be part of the environment, but the way they've just slapped silhouetted bargain bin Leaping Laelaps onto the bottom half of the cover makes it seem like they were just hoping you wouldn't look to hard and realize there was no effort made to make them look like they're part of the environment.

For reference, here is Leaping Laelaps, painted by Charles R Knight in 1897. If I were in a kinder mood I'd call the cover a callback or reference to famous paleoart. But the laziness, silhouetting, and weird proportions compared to the Quintaglios in the books makes me feel like they didn't want to come up with an interesting dinosaur pose and just a slapped together a worse-posed version of an existing famous panting with as little detail as possible so they could claim they were doing a reference. I would give them a lot more good faith benefit of the doubt if it was anything other than a silhouette. Don't get me wrong, silhouettes can look very good and add unique visuals to cover art, but it seems very clear to me that that's not what's happening here.

And now for possibly tonight's worst offender.

My first impression was that this shit was just goofy as shit. The clouds hurt to look at (no seriously, take a good look at those clouds) and the pose is so stiff.

Wait.

Hey.

That pose.

I've seen that somewhere before.

And so, like a normal and well-adjusted adult, I rushed to my extensive collection of dinosaur figurines.

Enter the 2005 Papo Tyrannosaurs Rex (Brown).

(taking these pictures off an ebay listing because my figure is waaaay at the back of the Virgin Loser Dinosaur Toys Display Case and moving him would require moving like 30 other figurines)

hey.

HEY.

H E Y WHAT THE FUCK

of course, I can't prove anything in court. i don't have any plans to *do anything* about this. It's just...sad, to me, that thirty years ago we were getting beautiful, detailed, original paintings for book covers. even for niche Canadian space dinosaurs sci fi. and now what. you can't tell me people don't make art anymore, that artists no longer need jobs. I guess we've just decided we don't give a shit anymore. Why not just trace an image of a fucking children's toy instead of drawing a fucking dinosaur. Who cares.

[thomaslightwood]

I honestly believe people are allowed to express their dislike for any piece of media they consume, be it books, movies or shows (as long as they aren’t toxic and hateful about it, to the point where you question why they remain in the fandom). Now, regards to CC and TSC specifically, I find that majority of the fandom who dislike certain aspects of her books, don’t actively try to argue and be rude to those who love them. I will absolutely condemn anyone who does so.

And I have to say, the recent release of CHOT is a perfect example of how fandom can be divided. I honestly have nothing against people who enjoy EVERY aspect of CC’s work, but even they can be overbearing sometimes. For example, I find it laughable that some of them imply that the arguments we make are because we “can’t cope” with CHOT not ending “the way we wanted.” Like, no, we know CC is within her rights to end her trilogy however she sees fit, without giving a second thought to people’s theories and expectations. But that doesn’t absolve her of critical reviews when she herself said people will have strong opinions about the book, and not everyone is going to be fully satisfied with how the trilogy ends.

And there are three main things I disliked about the book:

(1) As much as I enjoy love triangles and adore Herongraystairs, I’m quiet wary of them as well, especially one that was executed like MatthewxCordeliaxJames. This fiasco might’ve been focal to the overall plot, but it was dragged out to the point where the series was reduced to solving messy relationships, instead of focussing on the fantasy plot at hand. The “dragging out” aspect of it would’ve made sense if James learned about the bracelet later, rather than sooner. However, majority of the book left him contemplating over whether of not he should tell Cordelia, to the point where I was expecting an understandable reason as to why he didn’t. But lo’ and behold, it was only because he didn’t want her to “pity” him *sigh.*

(2) I had reservations about Kit’s death, and not because I didn’t want him to die. To counter argue hardcore fans claiming this is the only argument we make, I want to go even further by saying, ok Kit died, yes we are told all his friends and family mourned him. But the emphasis here is on the word TOLD. There was a lot of telling, but not enough showing. As much as it would’ve been heartbreaking and unbearable to read his funeral, as well as a more detailed account of Cecily, Gabriel and Henry’s reactions to his death - it would’ve made for better storytelling. For example, I couldn’t imagine Queen of Air and Darkness being written without portraying how the Blackthorns mourned Livvy’s death - which was more beautifully executed by CC in my opinion.

(3) A more minor reservation I suppose, was the anticlimactic-feel of Belial. I mean, (1) Mortman (a mundane), wanted to create an army of automatons to take over England and rape Tessa to have extraordinary offspring. (2) Sebastian (half shadowhunter; half demon), succeeded in creating endarkened shadowhunters, and wrecked havoc during the dark war. But you’re telling me Belial (a literal prince of hell)‘s main motive was to be coronated in Westminster abbey? Are you frickin’ kidding me?

Fingers-crossed for a more satisfactory storytelling and ending in TWP, I suppose.

Anon, you're much more humble and respectful than I will be right now.

I would say it's okay to enjoy piece of media that is trash. I have books that I love that are absolutely trash and I can admit that - I still love them. If you just want to consume the media without analysing it, that's fine.

But it's ridiculously and childish to say or imply people saying "bad" stuff about COT is because we didn't like what happened. We are using critical thinking skills to consume media and it's so tiring to be called a hater because you use them when you consuming media. The anti-intellectualism is real.

So, now:

1) Overall, I agree with you! I hate love triangles but since it was about characters I didn't particularly care about, I don't have strong opinion on it. But it definitely influenced the structure of the book in very bad way, to the point as you said, it was reduced to solving messy relationships. The whole deal with James not telling Cordelia about the bracelet was ridiculous and pointless - needn't to wait so freaking long for literally no valid reason at all!

2) I definitely didn't want Kit to die... But even if we look from objective point of view, his death was executed poorly and served no purpose to the plot. It was to shock and upset the reader. He died just for the sake of someone dying. It was similar thing with Raphael, with Jordan, with Barbara, with George. Someone just had to die. And of course, it's absurd a protagonist to die and CC very hard tries not to play into the 'burry your gays' trope, so this leaves her with limited secondary characters to kill off.

I don't even want to talk about everyone's reaction to Kit's death, it all was a parody.

3) You may have a point, anon... I haven't thought much about it, I was too pissed about other things. I believe Belial's goal was to take over this dimension too... Or at least to rule London? Yeah, that's actually... kind of silly compared to other antagonist we have had? In the other three series the villians had some sort of stronger motives, that came from trauma and turst for revenge... But Belial was simply power hungry. I guess that's one of the problems having a Prince of Hell as you antagonist - he's usually inhearantly evil and when you're asking why he's doing whatever he's doing: "he's just evil". You don't have real answers why he's corrupt or power hungry - he just is.

I think it works only to have it as a side antagonist - like in TMI with Magnus' father (which name I don't remember, sorry). There it was ok because it wasn't the main source of problems.

At this point I feel like I can talk with hours about the issues this book had... The more I sit with it, the more I realize how unsatisfying it was.

[followmeinthedark]

Is that Lewis Tan? No, that’s Shane Hayashi. The 38 year old werjaguar alpha cis male is a/an/the novelist. If you ask their friends, they’re known to be creative & intense, but beware, they’re also known to be obsessive & biting. Their friends also say that they’re into primal play and breeding but don’t you dare trying infantilization and scat with them.

BASIC INFO

Birth name: Shane Touga Hayashi

Nickname: none

Age: 38 years old

Secondary gender: alpha

Birthday: april 7th

Zodiac sign: aries

Ethnicity: half east asian, half white

Occupation: novelist

APPEARANCE

Height: 6' 2"

Weight: 187 lbs

Build: swimmer, wide shoulders and strong arms

Hair color: black

Eye Color: brown

Tattoos: many over his body

Piercings: none

Distinguishing Features: none

Body hair: a little

Jaguar color: golden

Jaguar size/build: above average in size and build for an alpha

PERSONALITY

Alignment: lawful neutral

Positive traits: creative, intense, loyal, intelligent and genuine

Negative traits: obcessive, taciturn, biting and stingy

Pet peeves: lie

Hobbie: fencing

NSFW

Kinks: breeding, bondage, spanking, primal play, pet play, choking and rough sex

Anti-Kinks: scat, vore, watersports, infantilism, vomit, blood and fisting

Favorite positions: missionary, sitting bull, doggy, bend over, pirate’s bounty, suspended congress, full nelson and spooning

Sexual preference: top, switch

Safe word: spot

Dick size: 11½"

BIOGRAPHY

Shane's career got off to a modest start, his first published book called "Outlaws" not exactly a success, but it was just enough to cover Shane's costs and expenses for a while, luckily the publisher was satisfied and saw potential in him. His subsequent release "fire prince" had much more positive results, putting him on the map of writers of his genre, making the publisher bet on him to write a trilogy and thus came "agony", "apathy" and "euphory". He always hid the fact that he was a werejaguar, and even in his works that species never appears, until he got inspiration for an urban fantasy story about a werejaguar and his adventures in the secret world of supernatural beings. this trilogy formed by the books "interference", "distortion" and "noise", had many autobiographical elements that human readers could not even imagine, the books were well received by the public and critics, being considered by most, his masterpiece.

After that success he had built up a solid fan base who were eager for his next work and when finally "ecstasis" was released the response was low and the reviews lukewarm. The situation got worse when the sequel "catharsis" was released, and the criticism against Shane's writing became much more acidic and a little too intense. Amidst all this he followed the rise of a writer named Charles Schaefer, they shared a niche and had similarities in their style, so comparisons became inevitable. The jaguar couldn't avoid the feeling of envy and obsession taking care of him at that time, Shane bought and read all the books of his "rival", as well as began to follow his streams assiduously. If as writers they were so similar, the alpha was willing to find out why Charles was liked and he wasn't. The conclusion of the trilogy in turn "metamorphosis" did not receive as much attention, almost as if people had forgotten who he was, as if he had gone back to square one, but that was not necessarily a bad thing, maybe he could start over and go back to where he were.

That's why he went to New Haven, he had already heard about the place, a city full of people like him, who knows by watching their stories he could once again capture that genuine vibe that enshrined his most acclaimed works.

[the-demi-jedi]

Hype levels for new Star Wars projects

So everyone who follows the Galaxy Far Far Away is probably aware that certain announcements were made at the Star Wars Celebration; we got some new project announcements, new info about those already announced, and since I need to vent my thoughts a little, here are some of my rambles:

Rey's Jedi Order Even though I do acknowledge their flaws, I'm a very sequel trilogy-positive guy. And this is exactly what I wanted. It gives us another chance to see things the new trilogy didn't deliver - I'm especially hoping to see Finn as a Jedi. The choice of director is already sparking outrage among anti-sjw fanboys, which is a good sign. Hype level: 9

Ahsoka I just don't fucking know. It was originally supposed to be a sequel to Rebels, but every new info makes it look more like a convoluted clusterfuck of half a dozen stories loosely connected by Ahsoka's character. Are those like... Dark Jedi or wtf? Are they trying to somewhat revive old Legends? I'd love to be wrong but every new info makes me more worried. At least Sabine looks great. Hype level: 5

The First Jedi Now this is interesting. We're finally leaving the Skywalker timeline into a very distant past. This has a potential to be VERY good, seeing the day one of the Jedi order. I just hope they won't cling to old Legends much and bring something new to the table. Hype level: 7

Filoni's Mandoverse movie The heroes of the Filoniverse join forces to defeat the Imperial remnant once for all. IMO, Filoni grew too complacent and dependant on the fact his fanboys will worship him and kiss his ass no matter how mediocre his content is. So I have no reason to think it'll be anything different than Infinity War-style playground for Filoni's pet characters. Hype level: 3

Acolyte Another thing I'm very much looking forward to. The cast looks awesome, and so do the story snippets we got so far. And it's the High Republic era! Plus points for another Wookiee Jedi joining Gungi and Burryaga. Also, I'm a devout Light-sider, but I'll gladly watch a thing from the bad guys' POV. Hype level: 8

Skeleton Crew Frankly, I have no idea what to expect here. Some sources claim it's for younger audience, but so were Rebels and look how awesome they were. I'll just form no opinions until more info comes to hand. Hype level: 4

Andor season 2 NOW WE'RE TALKING. Give me Andor or give me death. All our beloveds are there. Space incel & his fasho GF, space lesbians, Mon Mothma, Cassian and also the biggest Queen of them all which is Bix Caleen. If it's even half as good as S1, we're in for a RIDE. I'd gladly postpone any of the above to have Andor sooner. One way out. Fuck the Empire. Hype level: 10

Feel free to discuss or add your own ranking!

[tinkkles]

Bestie whats R*oyl (idk if I got that right I'm sure you know) cause I saw you getting attacked and I can't find what about??? Can you tell me what happened cause I'm so lost.

Reylo is the ship name for rey & kylo ren from the star wars sequel trilogy. Lots of people don't like it bc it's terribly written, and the writers have said they had no cohesive plan for the sequel trilogy so it was very unplanned and disorganized and Kylo spent half the movies literally torturing and emotionally abusing Rey and never really went through a redemption arc or sought her forgiveness at all he just like decided to kill some bad guys and then they kissed and he died. I love media!!

But the people that do like it are the most unhinged, hyperbolic, self-victimizing weirdos on the planet who insist they've done nothing wrong and "Let People Enjoy Things" etc., even though they will rabidly attack anybody who gives valid reasons why the ship sucks, including literal John Boyega and Daisy Ridley, stars of the sequel trilogy. And of course, since it was kind of hinted that John Boyega's character would be Rey's love interest in the first movie and then dropped (because again, unplanned and disorganized), their uhhhh "reactions" to "antis" is often steeped in racism directed at John Boyega's character Finn.

Anyways, one of the destiny writers (who is also the one who writes eris calling drifter "rat" despite knowing at this point that it has a history of being an anti-asian slur) is a self-professed Reylo and was tweeting yesterday about how a Reylo fanfiction that got published as a book is now also getting adapted into a movie in that self-victimizing Reylo way so I, foolishly, got annoyed and invoked the name Reylo in a negative light and it I guess ended up in the Reylo tag somehow despite me not tagging it as such? Thank u tumbly

Here's a good article :

[ae-neon]

I think the hatred stems because the fandom often puts Feyre and Nesta at war with each other. I’m mostly on the Feyre tags sphere so I do often see cases where they switch Nesta as the OG trilogy MC. While it’s honestly fine because we’re free to imagine whatever we like and it’s uncommon thing in fandoms, it got to the point wherein they are openly anti-Feyre despite claiming otherwise and exaggeratedly try to downplay her skills even though canon says otherwise. “Nesta is so smart. Feyre can’t read” “She’d solve the riddle in no time coz Feyre is stupid.” “Nesta’s so good at dancing, I bet Feyre’s a bad painter.” “She’s a better queen than Feyre.” And many other things. It went to the extent of pushing Feyre aside so they can *shudders* pair N and Rhys (even though they make zero sense) and these are all just coming from Nesta stans not Rhys stans and it’s funny ‘coz these are the same stans who hate Rhys. So these occurrences somehow sparked Feyre stans’ to conclude that there is a portion in the fandom that likes to downplay and “steal” Feyre’s journey (and actually hates Feyre even more than Rhys) and make certain scenarios that already described Feyre’s character but likes to pass it down to Nesta. So there are some content that’s like, “so…it’s basically Feyre but just a different name.” I guess it’s the reason why Feyre stans are a bit more alerted when posts similar like that swarm the tags. Like how Nesta is being vilified in the fandom (and I can say, that it’s excessive hate), Feyre’s character is also surrounded with misogynistic and ableist takes coming mostly from Nesta/Valkyrie (and Tamlin) lovers and I think each side already has a tainted impression of one another because of how often they take advantage of the character tags to post passive-aggressive posts towards the character. I’m sure that IC stans aren’t so innocent and I have seen them made a lot of toxic and harmful comments as well. So I guess the acotar fandom’s more like, “You stay on you lane and I’ll stick with mine” I think the fandom’s pretty fragile rn with the very evident divide between IC vs other characters. Paired that with the ship wars between Elriel and Gwynriel. While I’m more pro-IC and a Feyre kinnie, I still have a soft spot for the the three sisters. I agree on one reply that for your peace (and to not start another fandom war), if it’s an anti-Feysand post, it’s best not to use the Feyre and Rhysand tags. I think half of Nesta stans don’t ship Nessian so it’s a bit different for Feysand because majority/almost all Feyre and Rhys stans/whole acotar fandom have long established Feysand as the couple.

Anon, thank you for being so clear about it.

I want to be honest with you that many of those things describe stuff similar to things I've said and posted about.

But I also wanna say that I do feel like the three sisters - more so Nesta and Feyre are at the heart of my view of acotar. I think how similar yet different they are makes so many of those scenarios interesting to explore but I've never thought of just replacing Nesta with Feyre.

Eg if Nesta went to the Spring Court it would have been just as fascinating to see Feyre's journey to the wall to get Nesta back. For me the men in the series are kinda just complimentary, sorry if that sounds mean.

If I imagine N x R it's not because I want Rhys to treat Nesta like Feyre, it's just because I think they'd 8 out 10 times not work out romantically but seeing them work together would be interesting.

If I imagine Feyre as a Valkyrie it's because I miss certain aspects of Feyre's character that's unique to her, that I feel Nesta doesn't have. I personally don't see Nesta really ever working with Lucien as sjm planned or Cassian as is canon but I think it would be so easy for those characters to fall in love with Feyre because of who she is.

I dislike Rhysand, I won't lie to you. Like Cassian, I think how they treat their mates and how sjm uses the narrative for them makes real romance (in the way I see it) very difficult to imagine. In certain ways that I think he takes advantage of Feyre, I don't think he would be able to with Nesta - not cause she's better, just cause they're different.

I also am not really one of those stans who buys into Queen Nesta being literal like Queen of Hybern or Prythian or whatever. I just think that given her canon background she fits the political sphere better than Feyre does, the same way Feyre fits the action heroine and girl with a big friend group vibe better than Nesta does

I just want to be free to explore both sides of those narrative switches but it feels like the Feyre stans root her identity in her being with Rhysand. She was the saviour of Prythian, she killed the Middengard Wyrm, she trapped and befriended a Suriel - things I don't believe Nesta could do - so putting all the weight of her identity into "High Lady" the only one of her titles she owes directly to Rhysand is kinda sad and condescending to me.

Anyways that's for this open and honest dialogue