#first ARC of the year completed

[libertyreads]

Book Review #4 of 2024--

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. Rating: 4 stars.

Read from January 17th to 20th.

Before I get into the review, a quick thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers over at Del Rey Books for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Tainted Cup is a Holmes and Watson-esque novel that follows investigator Ana Dolabra--a detective whose eccentricities are matched only by her brilliance--and her assistant, Dinios Kol who are called to work a case after a high imperial officer is killed when a tree erupts from his body. As they follow the clues, Dolabra and Kol just might uncover a darker secret than this poisoning. The Tainted Cup comes out on February 6th and is available for pre-order now.

I had such a fun time with this one. I'm a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan girl so I was worried that picking this one up would set off a chain reaction of disappointment. But the way this story unfolds in this fantastical world and the way the mystery gets laid out for the reader makes it so much more fun and accessible to the reader. In most of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I've read over the years, there would be leaps in logic that were too difficult to follow unless you had very specific, detailed knowledge. And, while Ana does had a little bit of that going on, the author managed to find a way to keep the reader invested and to keep the reader's suspension of disbelief going. The world building and the pace of the story worked really well for me. There was a small section at the beginning where it felt like you were just thrown into the story, but given the fantastical world and how short that feeling lasted I'm going to say that part was still a thumbs up from me.

The characters are probably what I think could have used the most work. We do get some of the Holmes and Watson-esque interactions between our investigator and her assistant but I felt like we could have gone further with it. I still feel like I know so little about Ana. Maybe that's a choice the author made because of her being a representation of Sherlock Holmes. But I just wanted more from her. I also spent a lot of the book thinking there would be some dark reveal about Dinios but it never went in that direction. And I kind of wish it had. He's a little too squeaky clean for me. But know that's coming from a girl whose favor characters are all morally grey.

Overall, this was a fun and engaging read that I think fans of Sherlock Holmes can enjoy while acknowledging that it's separate from the original stories. It always felt like the plot was pushing me to read more and more which made it a faster read than I was expecting.

[somnimagus]

out of the frying pan and into the fire and into another frying pan that's also on fire

[id in alt text]

[genericpuff]

hello 911 why are all the LO volumes classified as grades 6-12 except for the newest volume which is more appropriately categorized as grades 9-12

please no

[froschli96]

Assassin's Creed Revelations be like

[crimeronan]

i like writing trauma fic about characters who Don't recover quickly from the physical or psychological toll. particularly when the story becomes more about the ongoing aftermath than the initial traumatic event. i think that's like 95% of my works on ao3 right now. across all fandoms all relationships all premises. like. hello friend. you are here because you, like me, enjoy reading about this one specific character getting beat up. you are still here once he's done getting beat up because you, like me, like to see what happens after the worst has already been done. so! can i interest you in some Pathetically earnest storytelling about the nature of pain and brokenness 🥺👉👈

[tadpolebobatea]

(Un) Happy billy reveal everybody!

Low quality comic to celebrate pro tip don’t read fandom pages before you’ve finished a series

[webbedphantom]

... So in my time not sleeping since 4 AM yesterday (yeah I never got that nap. Insomnia sucks), I've been rewatching a retrospective of the old Sonic comics in semi-preparation for the Multi-muse that will launch... eventually. Which gave me an idea that I think I'm going to commit to.

I'm gonna read all of Archie Sonic.

But not just that, I think it'd be fun to make an adventure out of it, read a new issue each day and chronical my thoughts on it on the new account when it launches. Because in spite of how big of a fan I am of the character and his world, I've never actually read the biggest part of his history. I've seen chunks of it through the new waves of Retrospectives, and I did try to get into a few times before it got cancelled. Once during the Reboot Post Mega Man crossover (gotta read that too, I've been getting more into the Blue Bomber lately), once during the sequel to that crossover which I sadly never got to finish (even though it was awesome but the library I was borrowing them from didn't have the second half available), and finally once a few months before the end, picking up the Sonic Archives starting with the Sonic Adventure arc. I actually managed to buy a few of them, as well as the two issues of Sonic Mega Drive which I just ADORE

But the thing is... this is a lot to go through, and I mean a LOT. The comic released over 500 issues during its 20+ year run, in varying degrees of quality. And while I do want to tackle all of it eventually, including the fan made continuation which I've heard good things about, I think I'm going to need to take it in chunks if I've got any chance of finishing it.

... also gotta watch SatAM because I've never seen that either.

So, you might be wondering why I'm even posting this here. Well, I'm indecisive and I don't know if I should start from the beginning, start from issue #160 where Ian Flynn took over the book and it actually gets good, or if I should start in the middle with the Sonic Adventure stuff like I had tried before.

And instead of just flipping a coin on it, I'm just gonna let you guys decide!

... And before you ask, I'm not touching Knuckles yet. I'm not ready for Knuckles.

He's rougher than the rest of them.

[july-19th-club]

love season 2. i'm concussions! and i'm psychic visions! the headache brothers

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 6!!!

[notmoreflippingelves]

I need to ramble more about Esteban Flores, because everything about this character and his arc seem as though it was tailor-made for me and specifically designed to make me absolutely feral.

This going below the cut, both because I do not want to spoil the entire show for my friend who is think of watching Elena of Avalor and because I go full-on apologist here and I feel like that will annoy some people.

Imagine making the absolute worst mistake than anyone could possibly make, because you are 18 and scared and stupid and tired of being ignored. And it results in you losing your family and your freedom and what little self-respect you had left because you know all of this is very much your own fault.

 And so you proceed to spend the next 41(!) years eking out a miserable existence in an oppressive state. Upon fear for your life, you are forced to be the reluctant right-hand of the evil witch-queen who conquered your country, killed your aunt and uncle and trapped your cousin in magical prison. In spite of this, you nevertheless do everything within your limited power trying to hold the kingdom together and make sure the people don't starve, because the queen certainly doesn't care about anything except greedily bleeding your country dry.

And no exaggeration, this is just what canon explicitly gives us outright in the pilot. Like that's not even getting into head canons/interpretations/common sense of what exactly this sort of life entailed for you. Because this is a children's show so there's only so much they will let us imply about living under that kind of system. Especially as a young, attractive, terrified person who is the last living member of the previous royal family who is likely being kept alive partly as a combination trophy/punching bag for the evil queen (even if the show never actually states this outright).

And then by some miracle, what's left of your family comes back after all this time. The evil queen is overthrown, partly because you yourself finally stood up to her at a critical moment. You and your country are finally free again, and what's more, you and your family are finally together again after over 4 decades. But you still feel like an outsider--partly because you always were an outsider in your family even in the better times and partly because  over the past 41(!) years, time stood still for all of them except you.

And as a result, no one ever cares to ask what those 41 years were like for you or even just if you’re doing okay. Not only because your family can’t even begin to comprehend what it must have been like, but also because they don’t care to even *try* to understand. Because the narrative has decided that everyone else’s respective traumas is worth way more than your own.  (Though tbf the narrative really doesn’t dwell much on anyone’s trauma in general but yours gets especially neglected , except to briefly play it for laughs or to remind you that your trauma is *your own fault and only your own*).

For a little while, life is pretty okay. It’s weird not having to watch your step every instant to make sure you’re not putting a toe out of line. And so you never really fully break out of your “survival mode” conditioning, making sure that you are still considered important and valuable enough to keep around.

But all the while, you know that your past—and especially your terrible little secret—is eventually going to come back to haunt you. And it does. First via blackmail and then via the return  of the evil witch-queen herself. Fortunately, she is defeated for good before she can take avenge your “betrayal of her” but you still have to deal with seeing the ghost from the past who terrorized you for 41(!) years.

And then, your secret finally comes out in the open and you are disowned by your family—the family you *just* got back a few years ago—for an admittedly super bad decision that you made over four decades ago and have regretted ever since.  Rather than face the rest of your life in isolation (as though you didn’t already have enough of that during the previous regime), you escape before you can be sent into exile. This puts you directly in the path of *another* terrifying, evil magical milf who you are forced to ally yourself with. Because you have 40+ years of conditioning that when a woman like that says “jump,” you say “how high?” if you are to have any hope of survival.  Especially given that the only people who could’ve protected you from her are the family and friends who have just definitively washed their hands of you.

Despite this, you are still trying to seek your cousin’s forgiveness and to protect her in the little ways that you can. But you are constantly getting rebuffed over and over again, and if anything, your attempts at reconciliation only seem to make your cousin angrier, and she now hates you just as much as—if not MORE than—the woman who actually murdered her parents.

Your cousin is so angry at you specifically that she actively ignores the greater threat of Witchy Milf 2.0, because she happens to see your face and is enraged. This ends up backfiring spectacularly for you both, though it does indirectly lead to the defeat of said Witchy Milf 2.0.

But guess what?  There’s no time to breathe or celebrate, because her defeat occurred during the successful summoning of a third power-mad, feminine-presenting magical humanoid and her allies. At least, this one treats you with some initial respect and actually gives you outright what you-think-you’ve-thought-you-always wanted. But she also turns your family and friends to stone in front of you as a warning of what’s to come if you dare to defy her.

But this time, you are finally done with this, have finally lost enough that you have paradoxically found your courage. You sacrifice yourself to save your cousin, and she is finally able to accept that you’ve sacrificed and changed enough that she can forgive you. And her forgiveness is so powerful and pure that it not only restores you to life but also undoes all the other evil magic. Together, you defeat this final enemy, paradoxically by banishing her to the same Underworld where your mistakes accidentally sent your aunt and uncle and her parents long ago.  Peace has been restored. You have returned for good and are finally secure in your family’s love.

And after all that, there are *still* people (both presumably in universe and in the fandom outside of it) who say it's too little, too late and that it would've been better for everyone if you'd simply stayed dead.

Like I'm just... are we really victim-blaming the character who has 45 years of unprocessed trauma and guilt (both survivor's guilt and guilt in general) because of a decision he made when his brain was still developing and he was being manipulated by an older, much more powerful person?

[deer-with-a-stick]

There are four things I want now.

1: Cactus ward

2: Multiple stacked hats ward

3: Its Faker's fourth Worlds just give him the Ahri skin and an Unkillable Demon King Azir skin or something

4: Zeus, Guma, and Keria please resign this roster breakup might actually kill me

[coffeecodepenguin]

Honestly, when it comes to Ruby's breakdown, I don't really agree with most people putting the blame on Ozpin and his advice. Not in the sense of that's not what caused it, mind you, but in the sense of Ozpin was giving that advice to a young girl who was worrying more about becoming friends with her new partner than saving the world. I don't think that he would have said the same thing had Ruby been a full huntress struggling with a new teammate that was also a full huntress. It was advice for a student leading a team of students.

And then the Fall of Beacon happened, and Ruby and Jaune never had the FOUR YEARS that they should have had to learn how to become leaders of teams of huntsman and huntresses instead. Four years that they should of had of learning and training and even failing at times. Time they could have used to find a mindset much healthier for being out in the field instead.

Instead, they were shoved into a situation where they weren't allowed to fail no matter what. They have had very little time to rest since the Fall, time during which any failure would mean death instead of growth.

Ruby and Jaune should, at this moment, still be at Beacon. Still learning how to lead properly. Getting advice meant for adults. For Huntsmen and Huntresses. Instead, they are out here, breaking apart, because they were ripped away from the support that they should have had at Beacon.

I think that, at the end of the day, the reason they are breaking down can be directly traced to the fact that they never had the opportunity to learn how to truly be a leader of a team. They've been making it up as they go along with advice meant for first-year students, not graduated and licenses huntsman and huntresses.

And while I don't think there's any listing of classes offered at Beacon anywhere for us to look at, I wouldn't be surprised if a third- or fourth-year class is about this exact thing. What being a leader means. Not just for students, but for huntsman and huntresses out in the field when failure means death.

[austajunk]

dunno if this is still open but izuru in dressuptober 6?

You have a great taste in outfits, friend <3

[leadersguilt]

cant remember bringing this up for a while so honestly i'll never be over the reiiteration that jean himself has a bleeding heart. he is going to be both blunt and honest with whoever hes speaking to, but in a way that he hopes will come to help them understand the situation but also does it so whoever he's speaking with actually understands the full situation and what that may entail despite the gruesome outcome.

[jessamine-rose]

/obey me! vent/

[battylite]

it’s so crazy to watch people I follow online or podcasters that identify as liberal or left-leaning slowly adopt more conservative viewpoints after twitter leftists attack them for whatever the wrongdoing of the week is. wow it’s almost like alienating and dogpiling people doesn’t make them want to join your cause!