#but the joke was upon me because i'm literally obsessed with this classic-for-a-reason

[vegaseatsass]

Hey Tumblr, I'm sorry I disappeared for a month with no warning. I've missed you all (and this webbed site as a whole) sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much and I never want to try to live (or watch tv) without you again. What is up w/ you all? How are your fandoms how are your OTPs?

My brain is bursting w/ all the tv I've been watching and NOT tumbling about, but I especially can't believe I wasn't on tumblr for things like the Midnight Museum finale and Never Let Me Go reincarnation roleswap time travel fixit aka the beginning of Our Skyy 2...... I also am 15 hours into the Fingersmith audiobook and thinking things like "libraries should really let you have a special pass you can use one or two times a year to keep things out an extra week because how am I supposed to just go on about my day without the last third of this novel? It's inhumane"

[mevekagvain]

Chapter 121 - I hope none of the birds affected by the sleeping gas died from falling from a height, especially if they fell on concrete. I don't think the gas itself would affect the birds but it also very well might since they can't handle as much due to being much smaller animals or from not being able to handle the chemicals used.

Chapter 122 - Shark's expressions are so hideous 🤢

- At least Raizel knows how to be nice by sharing food lmao. Frankenstein beaming like a proud father of a 2-year-old who's doing that is definitely not praxis though.

Chapter 124 - Shark being astounded that nobles care about innocents is amusing. I suppose that aside from the Elders, the Union members think nobles consider other species to be inferior or like cockroaches or toys.

- Although I do find Frankenstein plotting to teach Seira cooking so she can cook for Raizel when he can't extremely funny, I do also find it somewhat disturbing. He's essentially making a teen girl do child labour. Yes she and Regis are imposing on him and I do think they should be doing some manner of chores, but making her cook lavish meals? I also know she's doing it willingly but it still makes me cringe since something being one's choice doesn't negate it being bad. And yes technically she's 'of age' since she's 217, whatever that means since she's still obviously a teen compared to Raizel who actually is an adult going to school with children (which is a whole other can of worms), but aside from her position as clan leader she's very obviously not viewed as an adult by most.

Chapter 125 - On one hand I'd love to get a front row seat to the internal drama within the DA-5 lile M-21 but otoh I don't want to die a painful death or get beaten up.

- So like obviously Seira knows that Raizel and Frankenstein aren't ordinary humans unlike Regis but it is hilarious to think she just told the truth to two men she thinks are frail innocent humans.

Chapter 127 - You'd really think that the Union would be investing more into memory altering drugs but nah. The only ones they have will also fuck your brain up. Really not a good idea when most of your agents/experiments obviously have been administered aforementioned drugs. If it was only used sparingly on civilians I'd get it but it's quite widespread so...

Chapter 128 - As much as Frankenstein complains about the mess the kids make, he enjoys having them over as much as Raizel does. Soft hearted bastard.

Chapter 130 - The girls bandaging M-21 up even as Regis fights has them being smarter than like 90% of other characters in media. They're the real reason he didn't hit the dust immediately smh.

Chapter 132 - I still think the coming of age ceremony has a 50% chance of actually being them ingesting drugs that are the equivalent of stat boosting items in games but also ya know, real world drugs that fuck you up. The other 50% is just them getting much stronger after they turn 200 because their bodies are just like that and it truly is purely ceremonial and a fun tradition like children's day or girl's day or birthdays rather than something that actually affects them.

- Lol Kranz, Regis won't be leaving a corpse if he dies. Purebloods are just special like that. Can you imagine if they did see a pureblood dying? They'd regret killing them so bad.

Chapter 133 - Raizel commanding Frankenstein to stop his experiments is definitely something, like bro maybe he was figuring out electrolysis, not like you know what he was doing. Plus it's not like Frankenstein listened completely. Man has a lab under his house and it wasn't built after Raizel woke. I guess he only stopped modification experiements on others and only did checkups on himself but didn't stop experimenting for other stuff like idk, better fertiliser.

- Kinda amazing Takeo didn't get stabbed in the heart.

Chapter 137 - I know it's just because Gejutel likely explained the lord's powers to him but the idea that Regis knows what a blood field is because Raskreia does demonstrations to entertain little kids is making me giggle.

Chapter 140 - So the Union only came upon Frankenstein's research 540 years ago... that's only 40 years before Raskreia became lord. Interesting.

- Ah yes... the classic joke of Tao not teaching Takeo korean properly. It's also very amusing envisioning Tao teaching the DA-5 members korean.

- ARIS ARIS ARIS. God she looks adorbs. Also I love her referring to DA-5 as 'my children' and 'my babies'. Aris >>> all other scientists. Amd hi Yuri :)

Chapter 141 - Yuri listening to Aris insulting Crombel repeatedly,,, he probably enjoys every aspect of it from knowing she's not aware he's his underling to being able to hear someone insult Crombel.

- Once again union members don't know jack shit. They think werewolves are extinct while Maduke and Lunark are literally Elders 😭🤡😭

- Werewolves having a small population never made sense to me even with the whole thing about them not having mind control and thus keeping away from humans secretly since even civilians are stronger than humans on average but like why tf would wolves have such a low reproduction rate? And that's why I hc that 90% of them are just homosexual.

Chapter 142 - D doesn't consume your lifeforce bro. That's just the drugs causing heavy strain on the body, etc etc. The rest of your explanation was fine but talking about lifeforce or vitality makes no sense.

- We all know Yuri's smart but the fact that he tries to get Frankenstein as a subject by scouting him first is very clever. It's believable too since Frankenstein is supposed to be quite handsome.

Chapter 144 - Well we don't know of Crombel microchips his Assassination Squad but Aris canonically microchips her experiments 🤣

Chapter 147 - Okay but this panel... she's hot. I'd let her dissect me <3

- If this was some other media I'd talk about the symbolism of the attack looking like a rapier and go on for a paragraph but this is Noblesse so it's obviously just a coincidence lmao.

- "A living robot" so like... a cyborg.

Chapter 148 - Yuri getting pissed at being attacked and retaliating but pretending it was him being loyal to Aris... Love it. Also he must be really confused as to who tf Frankenstein is since as one of Crombel's most important lackeys he'd definitely know about such a powerful experiment under him if they existed and thus unlike Aris knows that he's not been sent by Crombel.

Chapter 149 - Yup def confused, especially when he realises Frankenstein's power is like Crombel's.

Chapter 150 - Girlboss,,, also it's been years and I'm still wondering... why is her outfit like that? Neon genesis evangelion girlboss does have a ring to it though.

- Ah yes, Taivra time.

Chapter 151 - Okay yeah I feel so bad for Takeo but also Aris is so good at manipulating him and and and iwi. The fact that she can cry on command though... impressive.

- "From the beginning you were an only child. That's why I got you to experiment on." Okay cool time to ignore that again for my own amusement of having all of noblesse's named modified human women be related to Takeo.

- Okay I'm obsessed with strawberry milk myself but strawberries do not taste anywhere near that good. Not even the sweet ones.

Chapter 153 - Yeah no I don't agree that Takeo losing his will to live is an insult to your comrades M-21. You could have said all that in a gentler way. Just because Takeo was luckier than you experiment wise doesn't mean you get to be so rude.

Chapter 154 - M-21 misleading Tao and Takeo to thinking he's being experimented on and then turning around to laugh at them when they find out it's just ramyeon... mood.

- I really do wonder what 12th Elder's military medals are for.

Sidenotes - Hammer being smart <3 I honestly didn't remember that part of him and I'm glad he's not given purely negative traits. He's the only reason Shark lived past 2 chapters tbh.

- Truly, D is one of the worst letters of the alphabet to have named the drugs DA-5 uses. The other bad choice would be P. On the opposite end of the spectrum, T would have been a great choice for the irony. Not that it matters since the inspiration for the drug from name to physical transformation is obviously 🍆

- Nobles being so nonchalant about murder is kinda fucked up like yeah they suck but you can't just kill them??? Lukedonia my beloved your justice system sucks. I do hc they can't just do this in Lukedonia though or to other nobles even if outside of Lukedonia, it's just that the jurisdiction of nobles doesn't apply outside of Lukedonia and they do on some level think of themselves as a superior species so they're fine with just... killing people.

- Aris obsessing over handsome men as experiments and treating them like toys but ignoring women altogether? Not experimenting on women? Gaslight gatekeep girlboss,,, a feministe of our own,,, perhaps even a... lesbienne. But yeah I just love how she acts and I love her and how she interacts with Yuri. And yeah he's cool too.

- Tbh aside from how short the skirts are and the white blazers, the Ye Ran uniform really reminds me of my own school's uniform. The colours are exactly the same. We just didn't have blazers since it was a forever summer tropical country, only jumpers for if it got too cold in the air conditioned rooms. And for some people who grow up in tropical countries... 25°C can be too cold.

[seolhe]

I was wondering,,, why do you say the dark wife is one of the worst books you've read? I read it a few years ago, and I dont remember anything about it tbh, so I'm curious

Oh boy, where do I start? I had a lot of problems with this novel, both as a Greek myth retelling and from a writing standpoint. Now, keep in mind that I read thisabout 2 years ago, so I might be forgetting some small details here and there, but I’ll try to explain the main reasons it bugged me so much. So buckle up, because this is gonna be a long one.

Characters: All the characters are two-dimensional and poorly developed. None of them have any amount of nuance or depth.Zeus is moustache twirling villain who is evil for the sake of being evil. Hades is as good as Zeus is evil, endlessly noble and selfless and devoted. I genuinely can’t remember a single defining trait of Persephone? She’s such abland and generic protagonist, nothing really stands out about her in my memory other than her obsessive pining over Hades and hatred of Zeus. A lot of this feels like it’s pulled straight from the shallow and occasionally downright inaccurate readings of Greek myths that have become so popular in recent years, especially on places like tumblr (Zeus as an evil rapist, Hades as a pure cinnamon roll, Persephone descending willingly into the Underworld, etc.).But there are also more confusing takes on these characters, like turning chaste virgin goddess Athena into a self-centered, promiscuous lesbian (not to say that being a lesbian or being promiscuous is bad, it’s just such a strange interpretation of Athena’s character that doesn’t make any sense)And don’t even get me started on poor Charis! Charis, Persephone’s first lover in the book, exists solely to be raped and killed by Zeus. She’s fridged to show us that Zeus is BAD and giving Persephone a reason to hate him. The author’s treatment of this character is lazy and offensive. I’m sure this is something that won’t bother all readers, but as someone with a deep love for the mythology, I found the portrayal of the Greek gods franklyinsulting. Plot:“Three thousand years ago, a god told a lie.”Here we run into a big problem with the narrative. We’re told from the very prologue that the story of Hades and Persephone we’re familiar with is a lie, a narrative created by Zeus, and this is Persephone’s attempt to set the record straight.These are the first lines of our story: “I am not my mother’s daughter. I have forfeited my inheritance, my birthright. I do not possess the privilege of truth. The stories told by fires, the myth of my kidnap and my rape, are all that remain of me. Forever I will be known as the girl who was stolen away to be the wife of Hades, lord of all the dead. Andnone of it is true, or is so fragmented that the truth is nothing more than ashadow, malformed. The stories are wrong. I am not who they say I am.I am Persephone, and my story must begin with the truth.Here it is, or as close as I can tell it.”Well, this doesn’t really make any sense when, at the end of the story, Zeus is defeated and thrown into Tartarus. Why does this narrative survive into modern day when Hades and Persephone won? Why is Persephone only able to tell her story now, after thousands of years without Zeus in power? Speaking of Zeus and lies, the justification for the whole “What, Hades is awoman?!” thing really doesn’t make any sense. We’re told that Zeus calls Hades “lord” of the dead as a joke, Hades even refers to it as a “slur” in the story. The reason given for this is that Hades is only attracted to women. Well, if that’s the case, why doesn’t that same logic apply to Athena, who’salso shown to be attracted only to women? Or to Persephone for that matter? Same-sex attraction, even between women, is never shown to be frowned upon in their society, so why would Zeus single out Hades for her attraction to women? And why do all the other gods apparently go along with that “joke” to the point that Persephone literally didn’t know Hades was a woman until she meets her in person? And why, again, did this idea of Hades being a man survive into modern day? The story is constructed so poorly on so many different levels. There are so many threads that are just dropped entirely. For example:- The story starts with Demeter confidently proclaiming that Persephone will become the queen of the gods, setting up this big rivalry between her and the daughters of Hera and Aphrodite. This plot never goes anywhere, in fact, I don’t think it’s ever brought up again after the first chapter, and Demeter basically spends the rest of the book cowering before Zeus. - There’s a significant plotline about Pallas having Persephone try to deliver a message to Athena, a plotline that is unceremoniously dropped without anyresolution. After all the build-up, there’s a throwaway line about Pallas giving the note to Persephone right before the big showdown with Zeus, and that’s the last we hear of it. We never see it delivered, we don’t get to see Athena’s reaction to it, we don’t know how this impacts Pallas, if at all. In fact, Pallas basically doesn’t show up at all after this point. Then there’s the main conflict of the story: Zeus wants Persephone, and as we’re told over and over and over, Zeus always gets what he wants (the author really beats this into our heads). We’re never really given any motivation for any of Zeus’ actions, so this conflict feels weak and contrived. It doesn’t help that we get so much build-up for what a terrible threat he is, and then Persephone defeats Zeus, the most powerful god, feared by all, in like… two pages? It’s such a weak and anticlimactic end to the story.

There was also some sort of convoluted plan concocted by Zeus to, idk, have the dead rise up and overthrow Hades? For some reason? Again, we never get any clear motivation from Zeus. As far as I can remember, we’re never told why he hates Hades so much, or why he wants to overthrow her. I don’t even remember if the author explained what Zeus was going to do with the Underworld without Hades there to rule. I’m sorry, I genuinely can’t even remember the details, but it was just reallybadly set up and, once again, easily solved in a few pages.And that’s really the main problem with the story, everything is so easily solved. Our good guys all get happily ever afters with no sacrifices and no consequences for anything, and there’s always a quick and easy solution to any threat or conflict. Mythology:So how does it hold up as a Hades and Persephone retelling?Well, not great, imho. A lot of classical elements are incorporated into this retelling, but they’re stripped of any meaning or importance to the plot. The pomegranate? It’s there at their wedding, but it never figures into the greater narrative.Demeter causing famine by bringing infertility to the fields? She does freeze the world in this story, threatening everlasting winter, but unlike in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, it’s not an act of agency on her part, refusing to submit to the will of Zeus and fighting to be reunited with her daughter. Nah. She’s just being manipulated by Zeus and it’s used as a cheap reason to tear our lovers apart.And somehow, I don’t even know why seeing as it doesn’t tie into Demeter freezing the earth or Persephone eating the seeds of the pomegranate, butPersephone is still forced to spend half the year on earth and half in theUnderworld.In the epilogue, we see her in modern day New York*, acting as psychopomp (for some reason???), happily guiding the souls to the afterlife, which we’re told is her duty for the half of the year she spends above ground. I’m just so confused as to what the author was even going for here. Where did this come from? It doesn’t originate in the original myths, but it’s also not explained (as far as I can remember) in the book.*This isn’t a problem with the book per se, and it’s 100% a matter oftaste, but I personally really dislike it when mythological figures appearin a modern setting, especially when the author has to put them in anAmerican setting rather than the geographical location of their origin, whetherthat’s Greece or Egypt or Scandinavia or what have you. Romance: Hades and Persephone are destined soulmates and instantly fall in love pretty much the moment they first set eyes on each other, which doesn’t allow for any growth or progression of their relationship. They’re instantly deeply and madly in love with each other and their feelings never change over the span of the story. They spend most of their time together staring lovingly into each others eyes and when they’re separated for literally 3 days Persephone basically spends her entire days languishing in despair.It’s ridiculously melodramatic and cheesy, which again, personal taste thing,I’m just really not into. Other writing issues: - The worldbuilding is pretty much non-existent. The story doesn’t feel grounded in any particular time period or cultural context, and you never get any sense of the setting, or how the world works and what this society is like.  - The pacing was really poor, either dragging or exploding into rushed action. - A lot of page time is spent on describing things that doesn’t really further the plot or has any thematic relevance. One example would be the garden of metal and precious stones Hades made for Persephone. It’s cool I guess? But what purpose does it serve? We also waste a lot of time which could be better used developing the characters or moving the plot forward on watching Persephone play with puppy Cerberus or petting Hades’ horses (see poor pacing). - There’s a lot of talk about Persephone having some sort of grand destiny, and that her actions have been prophesized. This is never properly explained and it only serves to weaken Persephone’s story arc, stripping her of agency by implying that she doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. Prophecy and destiny are story elements that have to be handled delicately and are easy to screw up, and they’re just dealt with so clumsily here.  - Also the writing was just… not very good.I’m sure there are more things I could dig up and complain about, but I feel like this is probably too long and rambly already, so I’ll stop here.

Obligatory disclaimer:This is obviously just my personal opinion. There are a lot of people who love this book (going by Goodreads ratings, I am clearly in the minority) and I am genuinely happy for them! I also mean no disrespect to the author who seems like a genuinely lovely person.