#he's literally the only reason to read this duology

[aleksanderscult]

How Aleksander felt in RoW carrying that book and duology:

[nitewrighter]

Re: Lois in episode 2, I don’t think Clark ever *told* Lois that all the Kryptonians are dead???? And the only experience she’s ever had with opening Kryptonian portals was immediate invasion. And if she doesn’t know that there aren’t really any left *to* invade? Her fear seems incredibly reasonable for the information she has.

This version of Clark can not communicate to save his life. And I think a big part of why Lois is constantly putting her foot in her mouth is because she’s going off half the information at any given time.

They both mean well, but their character flaws are bumping against each other in REALLY interesting ways and I’m excited to see where it goes.

Yeah no exactly! Like, we, as viewers, have had months to pore over details and imagine all the therapyspeak-riddled hurt/comfort conversations Clark should have with his friends (*cough* my closing Clois conversation in 'Scoops!', for example), but in the actual show, IT'S ONLY BEEN THREE MONTHS SINCE THANKSGIVING AND EVERYONE IS SO CAUGHT UP IN OVERWHELMING SHIT THAT THEY BARELY HAVE TIME TO ARTICULATE THEIR OWN FEELINGS TO THEMSELVES, LET ALONE EACH OTHER. And also because Superman is such a big pop icon of course we as the viewers are more inclined to be like "Noooo Krypton's not eeeeevil! Clark, Lois, it's not eeeeeevil!"

And honestly--while I'm talking about Krypton--I've read enough Byrne and Bronze age comics where I'm in the space that I'm not completely opposed to a more messy and morally complex Krypton--I don't mind a Krypton that's as flawed as we are, and we're pretty fucking flawed! I feel like everyone's so inclined to view a problematic Krypton as like, "See! This writer is saying that Krypton had X, Y, Z problems, so this writer is arguing that it deserved to be blown up!" And it's like... no??? No one deserves to be blown up just because their society is flawed??? Have we not been paying attention to Superman, the "I do literally everything I can to protect Life regardless of how shitty and cruel it can be" superhero??? Do you not see Krypton's flaws as a natural exploration of sci-fi concepts because it's "a world of tomorrow?"

This is also why the YA House of El graphic novel duology is good, because it's basically two teens going, "Oh shit, Krypton's kind of Bene Gesserit'd itself into a corner--we got so caught up in creating a perfect society that we've actually created massive inequities" and it only makes them want to save their world more because they're made aware of how much they have to live for even outside the confines of societal expectations. Like--flaws in a person or in a society shouldn't instantly activate your "Kill it with fire" instincts--which I'm realizing probably has pretty heavy implications regarding the fact that Superman has heat vision--He can perceive and destroy in an instant, he can destroy through perception, but he makes the constant choice not to.

...this got off-track from your ask. Yeah I'm simultaneously looking forward to and bracing myself for the inevitable Clois drama this season.

[metvmorqhoses]

So... thoughts about sab season 2 lmao

The writers were obviously on acids while concocting this high drivel.

It's a new fantasy genre they just founded with this season, you know, High Drivel.

They completely butchered the Darkling's character and I had to painfully witness ten hours of Ben, completely conscious of it, trying to conjure every Beauty and the Beast refrain to delay the Titanic-like sinking of his character and ship (from Phantom and Love Never Dies, to Dracula and Frankenstein to literal fanfictions I'm now sure he reads).

They completely missed the entire point and meaning of Darklina, making it a one-sided, one-dimensional stalker/simp-victim with angry Stokolm syndrome dynamic.

They threw famous line after famous line at us completely out of context as if they were bones to bait rabid dogs with (I will never forgive how they turned the sardonic "I'll make sure you hear when I make her scream", elegant half-threat and half-innuendo, into an angry madman growl with no meaning whatsoever).

"Let me be your monster!" - my children, you have read too many fanfics and not even the good ones.

Don't get me started with Baghra, the relationship counsellor and motherly hero (tm).

The shameless way they painted Aleksander taking possession of the stag amplifier as an assault metaphor. Disgusting.

I honestly didn't believe possible to do worse than the actual books, but never say never! The reasons why I hated the books were magnified this season. If Alina's reasoning and idiocy and lack of interest in her destiny and counterpart just did not make any sense in the books, in the show she is a thousand times dumber and one-dimensional! Put against this new version, books!Alina was depth personified! And if the books felt like rushed unelaborated summaries, the show is now an even worse mess! I cannot believe those are the same people who created season one. I'm astonished.

They eradicated the entirety of canon Darklina's scenes. Not a single one was present. Not one.

The tether is now for everyone to use and abuse, not only a personal soulmate thing. The Darkling is in Mal's dreams too lmao

Merzost suddenly killing the Darkling, of course. Obviously not to make Alina appear less of a cold-blooded murderer, not at all. Perhaps they should have remembered to make her fake a tear or two while burning the corpse of her ex-lover looking like a dumb emotionless fish.

Genya reduced to the victim (tm).

Nikolai the good woke boy (tm).

Nikolai giving up the Sturmhond title to the first tracker he meets, of course.

I loved how after ten hours of soppy eternal love declarations Mal dumps Alina because their love isn't real lol epic stuff.

And by the way this is still considered more valid and important than the relationship with the poor bastard who actually allowed the dumb angry fish to end him while daydreaming about her, his only peace in a thousand lifetimes of war.

Alina turning dark gives me a feeble hope, but the writers should come down from whatever drug they are currently using first.

Said hope involves the fact that they extinguished both Malina and the hatred towards the Darkling this season, and I like to think they did that to give us the proper dynamic with dark!Alina and the Nikolai's duology resurrected Darkling. But who knows if they will see reason.

[msmargaretmurry]

9 books

i was tagged for this by the lovely @irrelevanttous and from what i can tell i'm just supposed to list nine books i love/would recommend? so i stared into the abyss of my bookshelf for a little while and tried to pick out a variety! i think that almost all of these would have content warnings, so if you need those and want to pick any of them up, please do a bit of research or feel free to ask. ❤

they can't kill us until they kill us by hanif abdurraqib i have mentioned On Here before that hanif is my favorite poet, but he is also my favorite music writer and one of my favorite nonfiction writers in general. this collection of essays about music and culture is intimate, devastating, hopeful, gorgeous; i return to it often.

the book thief by marcus zusak speaking of books that are devastating and gorgeous! this novel is also a masterclass in point of view.

beartown by fredrik backman i AM a backman fan in general but beartown's my favorite for obvious reasons (it's a hockey book, lmao). i have NOT read the two sequels yet because i'm afraid of how much they're going to hurt my feelings but one of my goals for this winter is to finally do that.

evvie drake starts over by linda holmes a thing about me is that i mostly do not like contemporary romance novels. HOWEVER, i love this book. the characters are richly drawn, the setting does the whole small town thing without feeling like a cliche, the emotional arcs are cathartic.

the farseer trilogy by robin hobb teen becky was obsessed with these books and adult becky has been saying for years she's gonna reread them for the purposes of finally reading the last trilogy in this fantasy universe, but being a little nervous about it because what if they don't hold up? but multiple people with trusted taste have picked them up recently and enjoyed them so i finally did start that reread and i'm having a GREAT time.

the last best league by jim collins i told myself i was only allowed to pick one nonfiction sports book for this list, lol, so this is the one. breezy summer baseball read! i literally read it on a beach the first time i read it, and that was perfect.

she who became the sun/he who drowned the world by shelley parker-chan drags hands down face the GENDER of it all!!!!!!!!! i read the first one early this year and the second one the moment i could get me hands on it and am 99% sure this duology will be my favorite thing i read this year.

michigan vs. the boys by carrie s. allen i did not expect to like this book as much as i did, because i have mostly outgrown YA (with exceptions!) and because i usually find first-person present tense really grating. but i fell in love with this little story about a girl determined to play on the boys' team. it helped a lot that the author REALLY knows her hockey stuff, and clearly loves the game.

reading like a writer by francine prose as a habitual devourer of anything about ~writing craft~ this was one of the first craft books young becky ever read, and i still think it's one of the best. maybe that's because i imprinted on it, but flipping through it just now when i pulled it off the shelf for this list made me want to reread it, so maybe it will do that soon.

i feel like a bunch of my mutuals have already been tagged in this so sorry if i'm double-tagging you, but!! @moregraceful @postoperation @plaintoast @vivathewilddog @warmupbrawl @devantesmithpelly @loveisworry @slightly @thecroissantgirl no pressure only if u want to! 💞

[waldensblog]

Reading Ruin and Rising

So I have finished The Grisha Trilogy! Overall, I quite enjoyed the book series after watching the show, and I will continue on to the Six of Crows Duology and then the King of Scars Duology. Below the cut are my thoughts on the final book in the trilogy.

TL;DR:  -I liked how Alina grew more ruthless, really was full fledged. Her ending is tragic. -The Darkling basically won, and was taken down by his weakness: love. Still a Darklina stan, what a tragic romance they had.  -I like Nikolai overall, and his ending is likewise sad, as he now is possessed. Kind of Darkolai ending for him. I like Nikolina too. -Mal isn’t the literal worst the entire time, but I’m not a fan of him still. I think he was not a true amplifier but a curse to whatever Grisha killed him. His happy ending comes at the expense of literally everyone else’s and the good of Ravka. -Story is overall a tragedy. A good tragedy, but a tragedy nonetheless. 

Alina: Although she once again starts in a position of weakness, underground, recovering from the Chapel fight, I found myself loving the start. Alina’s developed into a morally grey and ruthless character, and I love this. She’s stuck with the apparat, but biding her time. 

Her tether scene with the Darkling shows how far she’s come. She reached out to him, which surprised him, and stroke his face, taunted him with their love story - hell yeah, it was a very strong start for me. 

When escaping the apparat, she almost kills (again), but only ends up branding someone. Again, loving this gray and ruthlessness, and all the inner thoughts about how very much like the Darkling she is becoming. 

Alina eventually meets back up with Nikolai and they’re at the Spinning Wheel, where she trains more with Baghra, and gets stronger and stronger. During the escape from the Spinning Wheel, she uses the cut to kill someone, for the first time. She is disgusted with herself in part because yeah splitting someone in 2 would be pretty gorey, but also because of how... easy it was, how good it felt. She knows she’s going down a dark path, and I personally love to see it - because it breaks the hero archetype, giving her more an anti-hero arc.

I’ll discuss the ending itself further below, because I have a lot of thoughts on that, but to keep it brief here: the end of Alina’s story is, to me, tragic. She’s a tragic hero to me. I overall like her character, though I definitely have gripes about her at times, mostly, the Mal addiction. 

The Darkling: My favourite still. The Darkling is to me an anti-villain - he does bad things for the right reasons. In another story, he may have been the anti-hero, not the one Ravka deserves perhaps, but the one Ravka needs (*Batman theme plays*).

The Darkling has basically won by the start of the story. He’s ruling Ravka, he can expand the Fold any way he wants, the King is on the run. He can ensure Grisha safety, stop the wars... he’s won. His weakness is what he always said: wanting, or more specifically: love. 

When his mother jumps off a cliff, it’s because she knows this. She knows he would go after her - try to stop her from dying. Alina feels him try to pull her into the tether afterwards, and can feel his overwhelming grief. She refuses the call, but she knows. And in the Fold, when Alina loses her power - she doesn’t need the tether to feel his grief. Her metaphorical death there was too much for him. It wasn’t only about loneliness, but love. He wanted to rule with her - he wanted to his soulmate by his side. He wanted a partner. He goes about it poorly - having learned cruelty and abuse from his mother, and never breaking the cycle.

It was clear to me that they loved each other deeply as much as they hated the fact. In the tether, when he kisses her neck as she’s against him, the attraction, the pull, is very strong. At the end, she’s crying as he dies, and he just looks at her and is happy to know at least someone will mourn him - that he was loved. 

I absolutely lose my mind about the fact that his body was burned alongside Ruby’s-disguised-to-look-like-Alina’s, because that was absolutely not for Ruby - who probably would not like that - it was not for him - because he probably wouldn’t like that either (though would be happy she respected his wish to burn the body) - it was certainly not for Ravka, who complained about it - this was for Alina. Alina asked for a Grisha effigy of herself to burn next to him. Her metaphorical funeral. Side by side. The immortal rulers of Ravka that could have been. As she watches this, she whispers his name in a sob. Dear.God. what a tragic lovers-to-enemies romance this is. I do wish there were more tether scenes, but I loved the ones we did get. 

Nikolai: Nikolai starts on the run, and without tether scenes, we don’t get to see him for quite a while. When he finally does show up, I cheer. Yey! Our pirate prince is back! I loved all the scenes with Alina, and found their chemistry intriguing. I do feel that they could have been happy together, King and Queen of Ravka - a Grisha Queen which may have helped bridge the gap between Grisha and otkazat'sya, even leading to a Grisha king if they had a son. Certainly, that’s what both Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising were saying was supposed to happen. I would have accepted this end, even if it wouldn’t have been my favourite, because it would be a bit status quo-y. As good a King as Nikolai may be - a great one with Alina at his side, he is still ultimately a monarch, and a mortal man. His descendants may not been as good - we could hope, if they’re Grisha, that they would be. He would have died as Alina remained ageless, so this would still have a tragic end for her. I like Nikolina, but it’s still a second choice to me after Darklina.  I did have a pretty big gripe about Nikolai at the Spinning Wheel though: when it came to Genya. Sure, it’s great that he took her side, but his punishment to his father is so... what a slap on the wrist. Oh you abused this woman, well off to a warm retirement you go, I’m the King now, dad! To me, the fact that he didn’t stand trial kind of tells me the nobility will always get away with more under his rule than peasants would. He may not be the Worst, he may be a good and great king - but at the end of the day... a monarchy is still a monarchy. 

The Darkolai vibes here were great - fucked, but great. The Darkling saw Nikolai at the spinning wheel, Mal too - and could have a) killed one or both, b) infect them with nichevo’ya. He specifically targeted Nikolai for option b - instead of killing the King, instead of killing Mal or infecting him. Why? Jealousy because Alina showed interest in him? Because he never saw him during tether scenes and therefore knows Alina does have genuine feelings for him? Or because... secret option C? I mean the tendrils down the throat is bit... not-hetero. They both ultimately want the same things, and in another story, another life, they may have been allies. At the end, Nikolai is still ultimately scarred, and the shadow demon-ness is not gone. A part of the Darkling lives on inside Nikolai’s body, so we... sort of have a Darkolai ending, don’t we? 

The Darknikolina-ness of no tether scenes when she’s with Nikolai, the shadow demon and emerald ring, trying to cure via her light, the tendrils down the throat. My god. I am still on about this, yes. Imagine the possibilities... 

Mal:  Mal was not the literal worst in this book like he was in Siege and Storm. He’s finally gotten past being a drunk, angry, asshole, and now sees himself as a tool in a war. I’m glad he’s had some development, and that he’s accepted a position as not-Alina’s-lover. I find his tracker abilities absurd at times - what the hell do you mean he can target a beetle and shoot it to make a bomb explode?! WHAT? What in the world does that have to do with his being the firebird anyway?  On that note, I posted this elsewhere, but I have a theory that Morozova’s third amplifier - the firebird - Morozova’s daughter and her bloodline, so Mal - is actually not a true amplifier, but a curse. Any grisha that dared kill the firebird would lose their powers, and a bunch of nearby otkazat'sya would get them. Kind of a monkey’s paw situation (you want power? wish granted - they get the amplified power, not you). Not that Mal would know that. I also think that this curse is partially why Alina was so drawn to him. It’s a bit tragic really - they think it’s a sincere affection, but it’s really the amplifier, a trap, pulling her in, luring her. It’s unfortunately dismissed immediately by Mal when Alina brings it up - what if everything between them was just the amplifier? I personally think it was. I also maintain that he was very much a drug for her. He wanted to carve out her power, and in the end, he basically did. She goes back to being “useless” Alina, and unhappily staring out a window, longing for her powers. Once again, Alina tries to tell us she is happy - despite the evidence suggesting otherwise. 

The ending: I’ve already touched on the ending above a fair bit, but to summarize, I interpret the ending as a tragedy. Alina is a tragic hero - she tries to make things better, but she didn’t fix Ravka, there are still wars, and people still hate grisha. She loses her powers in the process, dying a metaphorical death and burning herself alongside her soulmate who she killed - our anti-villain, the Darkling. Nikolai is scarred, possessed, and left to rule alone, as Alina removes herself from society, sadly looking out the windows at the sunlight and wishing she had her powers, as Mal - the only happy one at the end has succeeded in keeping her weak. I know many hate the ending - I don’t, but it’s because I view it as a tragedy. 

[jinxedshapeshifter]

No, Silver the Hedgehog's Personality Has Not Changed: An Analysis

Okay, I'll be upfront about Silver being my favorite Sonic character here so there's transparency. However, I've also either played or watched someone else play every game Silver shows up in and read all the IDW comics (except the Bad Guys miniseries). I am qualified to analyze Silver's personality. This also gets personal in both the tags and towards the end of the analysis, and the post is long, so I'll add a read more break.

So first things first: the stuff people complain about. Here are the main complaints I see:

His personality is completely different from how it was in Sonic 06 and Sonic Rivals

His dorky traits (such as his social awkwardness) have been amplified

Neither of these are necessarily true. Let's start with the first complaint, his personality being completely different. My reasoning for this does tie into the second point however.

Let's quickly go over how personalities work. Under different circumstances, different aspects of a person's personality might be more prominent. For example, I'm a naturally anxious person. Under certain circumstances -- usually being around people I know -- my social anxiety specifically disappears almost completely because of circumstances. This can even be seen in the Sonic series with other characters.

Vector isn't usually aggressive, but he can be provided the circumstances are right, as seen in Sonic Heroes.

Sonic likes to goof off and joke around, but he can be serious if the situation requires it.

In Sonic Prime, Rouge does do a lot of treasure hunting and loves looking for gems, but if the situation puts her in danger, she avoids it; she specifically says "No gem is worth losing my wings over!"

Silver's circumstances are different from his circumstances in 06 or Rivals, and he's developed to realize that he doesn't always need to solve things with violence.

It's also worth noting that from the beginning he's been relatively awkward when it comes to situations where he's not trying to save the world. He's even awkward when he is trying to save the world. He's always been awkward in social situations especially, because aside from Sonic 06 he's been alone most of his life, and even in Sonic 06 he's presumably only ever interacted with Blaze before meeting Mephiles, so he's not used to interacting with other people socially.

I'd argue that it's implied he's not as socially awkward when he's with someone he knows when Blaze mentions in 06 that he's "pretty insecure when he's alone" because I'm the same way. If I'm not around someone I know, I get incredibly anxious and insecure in social situations. It's even directly shown in 06 that he gets awkward in social situations when he's alone; when Blaze is around he interacts with Mephiles and Sonic just fine, but the second Blaze is gone he gets awkward when he interacts with anyone he doesn't know.

This is mainly seen in the cutscene where he first meets Amy. He has no idea how to respond to her throughout the entire exchange, making him come off as awkward. Even as they're helping each other, he's still incredibly awkward.

It's even implied he's not naturally aggressive:

Him questioning whether it's right to kill Sonic to save the world means doing so likely conflicts with his morals. He's so conflicted on whether or not it's right to kill Sonic that he is literally willing to let the future stay how it is if he decides it's not the right thing to do. It's because of Blaze that he continues to go after Sonic, but my point still stands: he had a moral crisis over killing Sonic, implying that sort of aggression isn't in his nature.

Also in Sonic 06 and Sonic Rivals 2, he's shown to be quite the awkward dork when he's not focused on a mission. In the Sonic Rivals duology especially, he's shown to throw hands first and ask questions later, but he does -- again -- take a nonviolent route in his story; his story is the only time Capture the Chao is played in Story Mode in Sonic Rivals 2, and he decides to play it with Sonic instead of fighting/racing him again. The reason he's so aggressive in the Rivals duology is because he thinks everyone's getting in his way. He becomes incredibly docile towards Espio when Espio offers to help him in Sonic Rivals 2. The only reason he was so violent towards everyone else in Rivals and Rivals 2 is because he wanted them out of his way, and this continues to be the case as the franchise goes on, albeit to a milder extent. Listen to his in race dialogue in Team Sonic Racing, it proves my point. He LITERALLY tells Big, IN THE MOST MOCKING VOICE EVER, "Go home to Froggy, Big!"

Speaking of Team Sonic Racing ...

He's shown in both TSR and Sonic Colors DS to be incredibly docile if he doesn't have a set goal (I’m not counting his snark in Colors DS as hostility so don’t bring it up). Remember, in both games there’s no mention of his future still being ruined; in Colors DS, he specified that his future is no different than the present, and the most we get about his future in TSR is a line from Zavok about there “being worse in your future, Silver!” During races he gets non-aggressively hostile because he’s competitive.

His personality only is how it is in Sonic 06 and the Rivals duology because he’s set on a goal and views everyone else as obstacles, with the exception of Espio who is helping him. In every other situation, his hostility is playful/competitive hostility, not necessarily genuine hostility.

So, in summary: Silver’s personality hasn’t changed, but his circumstances have, and he’s learned that he doesn’t need to resort to violence to solve every problem. That’s why his dorky traits are more likely to be highlighted. Those traits have always been there, but his hostility overshadowed it most of the time because he had a set goal in mind and everyone, in his eyes, was getting in his way. Since he’s learned how to handle those kinds of situations without getting overly hostile, his more aggressive traits aren’t as prominent. Those traits end up prominent again when he gets competitive. He’s grown as a person and learned to have more self control. Why is that a bad thing? Why is Silver developing enough to not see violence as necessary a bad thing?

Now I’m gonna get personal for a sec because I was much like Silver was in 06 and Rivals at one point, likely due to my autism going undiagnosed for far too long. I’m no longer like that because I developed as a person.

So I ask again, why is Silver no longer seeing violence as inherently necessary a bad thing? Why is it bad that he’s more dorky and awkward than hostile and aggressive now? Answer: it’s not. He’s developed, and it makes me incredibly upset that it’s criticized instead of celebrated, because his mentality in 06 and the Rivals duology would've realistically led to some incredibly toxic relationships.

[drifloonz]

The multiple miki thing might be because Miki could've been based on Charizard M and that thing is known for cloning itself.

Tbh i cant fault shadowmalerenamon for completely changing doors open when rewriting it. Having missingno be the main antagonist was miles better than how Steve was in the original.

( mention of suicide ig )

i respectfully disagree . i see where you're coming from but i think all of the rewritten strangled... duology i guess bc strangled red itself never got one

( thank fucking god to be honest. it needs No change. although at the same time its kind of funny it never got one bc its the most popular one and going more into him as a Person if smr didnt fuck it up would be nice ... but im too attached to my own interp based off of his canon implications to care about what smr kind of has to give. and he already did that in og strangled red, to a degree, although it focuses on the tragedy there is character stuff to be extrapolated from the implications of the story if youre very deeply ill. like me. )

- is a lot less character-focused, at least on steven specifically, and is focused on explaining or rewriting shit that never needed to be explained or rewritten. it is a revisit and reinterpretation of the story, that to me, is just purely kind of . Not good or fun to read. and the new shit it introduces is fucking stupid imo. steven being banished by the town instead of... fucking. killing himself ( especially specifically by cop. that's lame and way more boring + FUCK THE POLICE !!! + It feels out of character for steven he would just do it himself like actually. Also yk. hanging yourself is narratively thematic and ironic. ) or whatever goes so much harder .

guy who loves his town and home region and wanting to be a role model and wanting to be cool so badly being driven mad and then the entirety of kanto, his homeland, forsaking him and walling him off goes crazy . Also because it implies they're scared of him to some degree which also makes me go crazy as an implication.

[ more put below bc i love to fucking yap about strangled red and how much i dont like the rewrites ]

i Will not step down from 'the rewrites arent good' . Doors open is mostly bad because stevens characterization is garbage. even though its random and from left field ( why the fuck is he in sprout tower ) it couldve been handled well if it was written better characterization-wise.

also i supposed the 'M charizard makes sense. not. not really i don't actually think smr thought that through. if he did, which he couldve because she is named #'M# in Strangled Red, cool, but i still think it's just to make the "miki" name thing with 4 party members he has. which is cool admittedly. it's just that i hope it is never explained why he has 4. and it never has since, doors open rewrite didnt do anything with that thank god.

and bc he wouldnt have any other mon other than miki post-incident and afaik that thing only replaces existing partymembers, and steven canonically releases all his team in SR + pokemon avoid him. but yea. Doors open i treat as a 'spinoff' in a sense bc nothing from it really makes sense when properly thought through, and its basically there to make the lost silver crossover i feel. also, yk, he literally says "Never." in strangled red when you press switch on 'M / missingno/revived/whatever you want to call miki post revival. its kind of out of character for canon-compliant steven to have anything other than miki post-incident for these 3 reasons - i only made a team for him post incident bc im autistic about pokemon and pokemon teams so that was for fun.

basically it makes more plotholes and questions than not the more strangled reds plot stuff tries to be explained or added upon esp in the remakes which i think are not fun reads if you like steven as a character anyways. and also bc strangled and doors open in the ogs are easter eggs. trying to explain what is supposed to be an in universe easter egg in pokemon would obviously be kind of a lesson in futility. not. not exactly but at least in the way smr does it.

strangled makes sense, you just go to his fucking house and hes there. yea. doors open is like. Yea hes in johto now. dont ask. but its also easily explainable as... He just fucked off to johto. For what reason? idk. hates kanto bc theyve forsaken him and banished him to the Woods, just wanted fresh air i guess, or just for fun. these are all more plausible reasons.

iirc the rewrite doesnt even say why hes there and if it does the reason is convoluted and not needed. i think its just 'hes a ghost hallucination... thing??? following the mc which is the most boring route to go for with steven and the most uninspired thing ever, and missingno was not the antagonist just a plot device in the og story Why are we focusing on it so much.' and its still a plot device in the rewrites! it isnt explained ( good the explanation would be kind of awful ) and i cant see any good way to explain missingno other than the way i do as a fun idea. which is biased but the 'failed clone of mew number 3' is a fun idea.

this is an insane ramble from a deranged person. if you can't tell i fucking love steven as a character and smr does him dirty except in strangled red, really. strangled... is fine but bc he barely talks in that one and when he does its like. yea. that checks out.

no hate to you btw none of it was directed at you specifically just smr and strangled reds various canons. you just gave me an excuse to ramble about how much i dislike the remakes tbh. I fucking LOVE analyzing why i hate things esp involving steven bc hes not greatly written by his og creator and not often greatly written by the fandom either .

[mermaidsirennikita]

Have you read any good contemporary romances recently?

Yes! All of these I've read since April-ish, so they're fairly fresh in my mind. There are some others I've loved that are contemporary in terms of setting, but veer into darker territory, so I don't think they work for genre as much. That's a separate post lol.

The Worst Guy by Kate Canterbary is great. This is an example of why sometimes you should give authors another shot, because tbh, I didn't enjoy In a Jam, which was hyped a lot recently. The hero was too sweet for me. This one... no. It's about two grown adult surgeons (he's 42 and she's 39, love that) who have to enter into this conflict resolution deal after an issue at work. They begin having hate sex early on, and you can guess what happens next. It's funny, it's super hot, it's emotional, and there's period sex, which we should see more of. He's a GROWN MAN, he does not give a FUCK. TW: heroine is recovering from bulimia.

For the Love of April French by Penny Aimes was very sweet and hot. The heroine is a trans woman who's considered like, the den mother of her local kink scene; men fuck her and move on to younger models. She ends up randomly hooking up with this new guy in town who's also a bit newer to the kink scene (she's a sub and he's a dom, it is all super responsible and consensual and tbh not very heavy kink, at least for me). Theeeen lol he turns out to be the new higher up at her company, oops! He's obsessed with spoiling her, it's lovely.

You, Again by Kate Goldbeck isn't out until 9/12, but I'd recommend putting it on pre-order if you like classic romcoms. It's kind of a retelling of When Harry Met Sally. The hero is this really strait-laced responsible chef who meets the freewheeling abrasive activist heroine when she's fucking the girl he's casual dating (and he wants to make it serious lol). They become enemies for years, then develop a friendship, and the friendship is complicated by the intense sexual tension between them. Emotional and hot.

The Kingmaker and The Rebel King by Kennedy Ryan. Duet, first one ends on a cliffhanger. It's this big, years-long saga between this heroine who grows up as an activist (she's of Apache descent and grew up on the rez) and the hero, who's the rebellious son of this oil tycoon guy. He agrees with her on climate change but she doesn't trust him for several reasons. Then, they end up entangled again after years of separation because she's become a boss campaign manager and his brother is literally running for president... It's intense, it's HOT, it's one of the best duologies I've ever read. I will say--they meet when she's 17 and he's 24; but they only speak for a few hours, and though there's a connection, it doesn't go beyond talking (they don't even really flirt) because he realizes her age and removes himself. Once they meet again four years later, though... it's on.

Of course, I love Sara Cate's Salacious Players Club series, which is basically about a group of friends who started a kink club together. There's the ubiquitous Praise (age gap, she's his estranged son's ex and begins working as his secretary; he's a pleasure dom and she has a praise kink); Eyes on Me (they're stepsiblings and he finds out she's a camgirl and begins secretly corresponding with her while developing a relationship with her in the real world; heavy on the voyeurism kink); Give Me More (a married couple and their best friend go on a road trip and realize they're all in love with each other when the husband asks his BFF to fuck his wife in front of him); Mercy (heroine realizes she's a domme and secretly takes her friend's bratty son on a sub; there is PEGGING); Highest Bidder (biiiiiiig age gap ensues when the early twenties heroine begins a thing with the 50-something hero; he doesn't know she's his ex-girlfriend's daughter, oops.... no worries, she was born well before he met her mom). They're not crazy kinky, imo, but kink is a big part of them and they're quite hot.

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn. Sweet romance about a woman who goes home after her job kind of ends, and falls for the rough around the edges brother of the guy she crushed on in high school.

The Nanny by Lana Ferguson. Heroine becomes the nanny for a single father chef--but she was an OnlyFans girl before then, and he was a BIG fan of her page... A fact she realizes somewhat quickly, while he doesn't (she wore a mask). Super hot for a romcom, honestly pretty great and light.

[cartograffiti]

January '24 reading diary

I finished a whopping 17 books in January, thanks to picking up a lot of quicker reads (novellas! poetry! manga!), and a bunch of them were really exciting!

At Christmas, my mother bought a copy of Taskmaster: 220 Extraordinary Tasks for Ordinary People for the assembled family to pass among ourselves. It's fun and funny, but there's very little in it I'm likely to try. It's also worth noting that the book was published in 2018 and Alex Horne ran a contest alongside it, which means that there are some prompts with a 2019 deadline, and some that require going to specific places in the United Kingdom.

Some cookbooks! Pieometry: Modern Tart Art and Pie Design for the Eye and the Palate was another Christmas gift to me, by the amazing Instagram sensation Lauren Ko. I've always found her very precise decorations intimidating, and I doubt I'll attempt more than the simplest of the ones she gives instructions for here, but they're inspiring to look at, and I very much want to try some of the recipes for interesting fillings and naturally colored crusts.

I picked up Snacking Bakes by Yossy Arefi after seeing someone claim that an earlier Arefi book, Snacking Cakes, had changed the landscape of home baking in the US. I found the recipes in Bakes really basic, but I hopped into the much longer hold line for Cakes, so maybe in a couple of months I can tell you how much that's hype.

I probably won't make anything from Tasting History by Max Miller, but I like him on YouTube, and expected that. This is a book for reading about historical cooking, and the recipes are a bonus if one really intrigues you. Nice details, well laid out.

It fit in nicely with a couple of reading challenges to read a Pablo Neruda collection--I chose The Essential Neruda on the basis that Hoopla had it--and I enjoyed it hugely. I'd read Neruda poems from time to time as a child and student, mostly ones about nature and love, but this collection has a nice breadth to it, introducing me to examples of his work that deal with labor exploitation and political events. I can't speak to the quality of translation, but even only knowing his work in English, I find the rhythm and imagery really special and memorable. I'm especially fond of "Drunk as Drunk on Turpentine." He's one of the most famous Chilean writers, and I'm glad to be more familiar now with the reasons why.

Last month, I said that my mother and I had started working through a hard Nick Bantock puzzle book, and we were very impressed with it. It's called The Egyptian Jukebox, and it's a succession of interesting puzzles about interpreting the contents of photographed shadowbox "drawers." Mom, who is an excellent codebreaker, worked out a core mechanic pretty swiftly, while I floundered with wrong approaches for a bit and then asked her to confirm whether I was finally on the right track; that made the first few pages the hardest part, and the rest relied more heavily on my strengths of observation and lateral thinking. We both found the final solution extra fun because of a personal connection, but I think the journey will be satisfying enough for most puzzlers.

I've been trying to read literally any Becky Chambers book for multiple years without getting around to it, but this month I listened to the audiobooks of A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy and just adored them. This is a duology about Sibling Dex, a monk whose role is to serve tea and listen to people's problems, and Mosscap, the first robot anyone has seen since robots became sapient and withdrew from human society, generations ago. They travel together, with beautiful writing about nature, spirituality, and various kinds of social responsibility. Every bit as good as I'd heard.

Dumb Witness is a solid mid-range Agatha Christie mystery (which is to say better than most people's), an inheritance murder plot involving a letter sent months after it was dated, interesting poison facts, and key evidence from a dog. It's a bit dated, because it relies on subverting some ideas about mental health and xenophobia that have changed since 1937. I can appreciate what she did, but at a remove.

More than one of the reading challenges I'm doing this year call for reading a manga. I like manga, but I probably haven't read any in about 10 years, since I read all sorts of Clamp and shoujo and shounen with high school friends. I fell off as my tastes moved to series aimed at young adults, which were at the time harder to find in my area. Anyway, I'm excited to have gotten sucked into a manga again! I'd seen some of Shirahama Kamome's beautiful art from Witch Hat Atelier and I quickly fell in love with the story, which surrounds Coco, a young witch being taught to work magic using art supplies. The interpersonal relationships are strong, the apprentices are real people with distinct outlooks, and the larger plot about what kinds of magic are banned, and whether they should be, is fascinating. I tore through volumes 1-5, and I have two more checked out and another on hold. Both cheerful and serious, original, and not set in a school environment. Lovely, and one of several things motivating me to try drawing again lately.

The Emelan group read has gone into the Circle Reforged novels, and we're reading in chronological order. Battle Magic was...fine? Not the most interesting Pierce major arc, but lots of interesting things woven through it. It was written in her period of slower pacing, which I don't like as much.

I know several big fans of Dorothy Dunnett's 16th century historical fiction drama the Lymond Chronicles, and oh man am I on the boat now too. The Game of Kings is so confusing (complimentary), full of emotion and grabby characters, and I fell in love. She expects a lot of her readers. I sent in the chat where I'm live blogging that, "Here's an obscure Ancient Roman. Now understand an allusion to how a particular beetle moves. Jokes in five languages. And there's even a plot." Sometimes it's overwhelming, but it's also exactly my kind of thing, every chapter has at least one perfect scene, and Dunnett does some incredible literary magic tricks. One night I felt like I felt like I was being crushed in a vise. I'm already reading the next one, which has a reveal that made me stop reading for fully 40 minutes while I unpicked what I'd missed. I want to write fanfiction. God.

And yesterday I put on a sim game and listened in one sitting to all of Malka Older's The Mimicking of Known Successes, a wonderful sci-fi novella about a detective (Mossa) on Jupiter collaborating with her former college girlfriend (Pleiti) to investigate a case that touches on Pleiti's research, the study of ecological history with the hope of repairing Earth's ecosystem enough for humanity to return to it. Their chemistry is great, the plot is clever, and the dialogue in particular is shiny and tender. I found a couple of world-building beats underdeveloped--there's a thing about "conservative" being a slur in this future that I don't think stuck the landing of indicating the threat being conservative posed to people who had to change or die--but I look forward to reading the next.

[borathae]

Of course i’m noticing the parallels 🥹 reading the sanguis duology is literally all i’ve been doing any free minute that i have 😭 when i tell you i am down bad for this story i mean it with every fibre of my being

(Also yoongi taking long to shower after finding oc in his room and especially after reading that she woke up looking at hear hands expecting them to be bloodied kinda makes me wanna reread the chapters of the blood sharing-gone-wrong aftermath cause oh boy did i enjoy the angst)

(ALSO for whatever reason i couldn’t stop listening to sleep token’s missing limbs during the paragraphs that were like “yoongi’s lying there curled up but you gave no right to call it cute and that it would rip you apart even more if you only knew that he hadn’t slept one bit and contemplated turning it all off”)

I LOVE YOU HEHEHE I'M SO HAPPY THAT YOU'RE ENJOYING IT SO MUCH EJJEJEJE 💜💜💜

(Also yoongi taking long to shower after finding oc in his room and especially after reading that she woke up looking at hear hands expecting them to be bloodied kinda makes me wanna reread the chapters of the blood sharing-gone-wrong aftermath cause oh boy did i enjoy the angst)

I MIGHT ACTUALLY CRY UNCONTROLLABLY 😭😭 (confession time when I wanna FEEL something I rearead the angst chapters JFJDASJF like the fucking pain is just-)

(ALSO for whatever reason i couldn’t stop listening to sleep token’s missing limbs during the paragraphs that were like “yoongi’s lying there curled up but you gave no right to call it cute and that it would rip you apart even more if you only knew that he hadn’t slept one bit and contemplated turning it all off”)

[nibwhipdragon]

15 for any character you want🙏

LOOK AT MY COMEDIC AND VAGUELY SPOILERY BREADCRUST CRUSADERS ART, DEMIGRILL

Could not be bothered to do a background <3

I think I've actually gotten better at drawing people over the last few months or so, still can improve on it though.

Things I think I did well on:

• Blood splatter. It's a comedic amount coming out of Dio's head, really adds to the picture tbh

• Joseph's single polygon tits. Absolute 10/10 in my eyes

Things I can improve on

• Hands. The classic. I do em as claws, decided to make that part of my artstyle, but they can 100% be better

•Joseph's face wasn't comedically bloodthirsty enough, Dio's face wasn't comedically harmed enough. Needed it to be more slapstick imo

Whilst making this drawing, I thought about Breadcrust Crusaders Joseph in the Dio chapter and I feel like I should talk about it a little here. It's like a little thing before the Breadcrust anniversary <3 Gonna be under the read more, there's gonna be major spoilers so be warned if you're gonna end up reading the whole duology. It's probably going to be very discorded if you do read it, I have a lot of thoughts and no idea on how to present em properly

I know that Breadcrust Crusaders is meant to be about Joseph (he was the only other character in the dream I had, other than myself and Dio), but GOD, the way I made the plot revolve around him...babygrill I'm so sorry

The fight with Dio is probably one of my favourite scenes with him, I feel it gives the most insight into his character without even being from his POV. I think the fact that the reader has to think "Oh, what's Joseph feeling right now" and extrapolate what he's feeling by putting themselves in Joseph's place instead of simply being given it through a POV is the reason why. I also like it because it's the only point in the entire duology where Joseph was pushed to his breaking point – yes, even with all the fucked up stuff that happens in The McDonald's Crisis of 1999, it never pushed Joseph to the point he snapped like the Dio fight did.

He's been carrying the self-imposed guilt of "killing" Caesar for fifty years, and though he never openly admitted it, knew Polnareff was right. Polnareff was right to be pissed, because Joseph had literally gotten Avdol and Iggy killed in his pursuit of the McRib. Joseph's also fractured the group, by making Polnareff be absolutely pissed at him. That's already a lot of guilt to be holding (wow I sure do hope his choices don't give him even MORE guilt!). And he's already vowed to keep Jotaro and Kakyoin safe so they don't end up like him and Caesar. So, of course, when Dio turns Kakyoin into a glowstick and snaps his spine, he stays and uses his hamon healing to keep Kakyoin dying of shock until help arrives.

And, of course, Jotaro gets pissed and knowingly runs headfirst into Dio's trap of getting him alone for easier disposal. And Joseph doesn't chase after him. Joseph stays with Kakyoin. He doesn't want Kakyoin to die, because he knows it'd mess up Jotaro badly. He stays with Kakyoin, faintly hoping that Jotaro's going to be alright on his own for the time being, until Polnareff or Joseph himself finds him and assists him.

And well. If any of you here have read Breadcrust Crusaders, then. Yeah. Jotaro was certainly having A Very Not Good Time.

So he end up hearing Jotaro crying to the heavens for help (Jotaro taking that massive L deserves its own post tbh) when searching for him, immediately heads in the direction of the call for help, and sees Dio just straight up fucking around with Jotaro, whose badly wounded on the ground. Quite literally like how a cat plays with the mice it catches, putting it through unnecessary suffering for its own pleasure.

Though it wasn't fully intentional, Joseph is quite a mellow character. Even when he fought Alessi, he still was playful and goofy, not really being as involved in the battle as one would expect (that whole paragraph where he's confused about the clothes he's wearing and that he'd never wear those clothes...babygrill there is a guy trying to kill you). Hell, the only time I think he'd gotten aggressive was when he snapped at Jotaro. Even then, him snapping at Jotaro was only a knee-jerk reaction to what Jotaro had said about beating Dio on his own. Joseph immediately apologised for it after as well.

And after all that had happened in the Dio chapter, he sees Jotaro in that state, and straight up snaps. He had still been somewhat lighthearted when fighting Dio previously, but at this point he just absolutely loses it. It's actually the most violent he's actually ever gotten in the duology!

And then, of course, despite the hamon healing he then gives Jotaro, Jotaro dies. He chose to stay with Kakyoin, and ended up causing Jotaro's death. I think it fits really well for the sort of themes I was going for with the fic, tragedy and how Joestars pull people they care about into pain and suffering because of fate and such. God, if only I decided to keep Jotaro dead...it would've fit a lot better.

Ok as I'm writing this I've just realised that literally every character death in the series can be linked back to Joseph and his choices. God. That was completely unintentional but holy shit it fits the theme so well. Like, he tries his hardest to have people not die and ends up killing them in the process, it gets to the point where he's actively trying to bend the narrative to his will, making threats to a God (me) that he can quite literally never follow up on because I am flesh and bone, and he's just pixels on a screen and bits of data...He needs choccy milk, maybe that'll fix everything I've put him through

Ok I am definitely going to end up getting sidetracked so I'm gonna end this little rant thing very soon. I just really love the Dio beatdown given by Joseph, it's as if his pent up feelings towards himself are being channelled into that beatdown and just. Breadcrust Crusaders Joseph my beloved

[akileiaa]

So yesterday I binged Shadow and Bone S2 and now I’ve gathered some thoughts on it. Warning, there are spoilers ahead!!

They really speedrunned trough Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising and big parts of the Six of Crows duology, huh? I did not expect that to happen, but I actually didn’t mind it much. I’ve read all the books, but it’s been awhile with original trilogy and honestly I don’t remember much about them, just the key points and I think they nailed those. I’m actually kind of glad Apparat wasn’t there, because I don’t particularly like him.

That said, the season did feel very rushed and I’m kinda sad we didn’t get to see white haired Alina. And I still don’t know how I feel about Alina not losing her powers at the end and staying with Nikolai. And Mal becoming privateer.

Also I didn’t like how the ”Mal is the firebird” thing was revealed. Literally the moment when Baghra asked Mal to come with her when they were in the workshop, I knew she was gonna tell him. Idk something about it just annoyed me and it was very convenient that there happened to be door that only the certain bloodline could open.

Now for the part I care most about, the Crows.

Jesper was delightfully Jesper, Kit Young did so good again!! Also Jesper in a skirt and wearing said skirt into battle?? Yes please! He really slayed!! At first I didn’t even notice he was wearing a skirt and then suddenly I was like “is that a skirt he is wearing?? Amazing!!” It was a fantastic look on him. Props to costume department!

I also loved Jack Wolfe as Wylan, he is such a good casting for the role. Wylan was lovely and him and Jesper were so cute, although I didn’t like the bit they added, that they knew each other prior because they had hooked up. But the Wesper scenes were still amazing, even if their relationship felt rushed.

About Wylan though, in the books he was so careful to not let anyone know he can’t read and in the show he acted like Jesper was supposed to know?? (Or at least that’s the impression I got?) Like what?? They didn’t go much into his backstory this season, I guess they saved it for the next season if that happens.

Also I didn’t expect them to reveal Jesper’s powers so early in the season. Things just kept being revealed and at some point I was thinking like calm down show, it’s okay to build suspense and make the viewer guess first before laying it all on the open.

I was also shocked that they went into Kaz’s backstory so quickly, but they did do it well. It was as sad and terrifying as it was in the books. Poor Kaz.

Kaz taking down Pekka Rollings was another thing that felt really rushed, it didn’t have the same pay off it had in the books, because there really wasn’t much build up to it. In the duology, there was basically almost two books worth of build up to the point when Kaz finally took Pekka Rollings down at the end of the second book. In the show it happened too fast and too easy and then it didn’t really feel like Pekka Rollings was defeated.

Then there was Kaz and Inej. Mostly they were okay. At first I was excited when Inej said the quote from the books (“I will have you without your armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I won’t have you at all.”). But now a bit later I think it was too soon for that to happen. Their relationship wasn’t on the right place yet for that to happen. Then Inej went with Mal and the crew and I hated the suggestive camera angels with Tolya helping her get on. Please no. Just no.

Speaking of Tolya, I liked him and Tamar. I just wanted more Tamar and Nadia. Please I need more wlw!!

Almost everything else felt rushed, but some reason nothing really happened with Matthias and Nina. I guess next season they are going to break Matthias out of the prison to do the Ice court heist.

At first I was exited that they hinted on doing the heist and jurda parem thing next season, but now I really don’t know how that’s going to work. They have used so much of the plot of the duology already and I just ugh. I guess we’ll see what happens if there is season 3.

I really just want a separate Six of Crows tv-show that follows the plot of the duology, with no Shadow and Bone trilogy stuff on the side. The duology is so good and it would be so cool as a tv-show!! I know there is some kind of Soc spinoff in the works, so maybe?

[sleepless-crows]

I just got to the part on Rule of Wolves where Nina kisses Hanne and it literally broke my heart. Nina was in love with Matthias and she just recently found the soldier who killed him and buried him not long prior really. Less than a year? You mean to tell me that in less than a year of losing her true love, she somehow no longer holds the grudge against all fjerdans, finds a girl who is the daughter of the man she most despises (debatable Joran for a hot sec since she finds out he killed Matthias) not only befriends her, helps her, but has feelings for her?

Nina is a bamf who takes no crap from anyone not even Matthias who was the only one who could persuade her to do anything, and somehow in the same breath of finding her love's murderer, kisses Hanne? That just makes no sense to me. I get that obvi I'm biased because I love Helnik but that is not her character. Feels like she completely changed personas. Yes she's in grief but still...i feel like she got played dirty and only made out to be someone's love interest. Why can't she complete her mission and fulfill her passion of being a spy and helping Ravka without completely disregarding Matthias? He was the one who kept encouraging her and was the reason she could continue but a pretty girl comes in the picture and that all goes away?

Just doesn't make sense

Sorry for the rant

hi anon wow this was a lot and i get you may feel that way if you just finished soc and hadn't had time to process because seeing nina with someone else really hurts because it makes matthias' death more real and something you can't ignore

and i love helnik but i'm not against nina and hanne. you can stop reading here now because your feelings are valid right now but i'm going to defend nina and hanne. also probably contains SPOILERS for the rest of the book if you haven't finished it yet since i don't remember exact scenes and will probably just say what i remember

I just got to the part on Rule of Wolves where Nina kisses Hanne and it literally broke my heart. Nina was in love with Matthias and she just recently found the soldier who killed him and buried him not long prior really. Less than a year? You mean to tell me that in less than a year of losing her true love, she somehow no longer holds the grudge against all fjerdans, finds a girl who is the daughter of the man she most despises (debatable Joran for a hot sec since she finds out he killed Matthias) not only befriends her, helps her, but has feelings for her?

nina was in love with matthias. but if i recall correctly, rule of wolves happens two years after the soc duology. its been more than a year since matthias' death. i think its a little insensitive you're not allowing nina to move on and find happiness after all the heartbreak she had to endure.

nina didn't hold a grudge against all the fjerdans. that was who she was before soc, before matthias. matthias' dying wish was for her to save the fjerdans because he couldn't do that himself. she didn't hate them. matthias taught her not to.

nina didn't know hanne was the child of jarl brum when she was falling for them. (i'm using they/them pronouns for hanne since i'm not sure what to use.) at least that's what i remember. and hanne was clearly a good person that nina admired and loved, no one should be defined by their parents. would you blame jesper for falling in love with the son of the merch who crossed them?

Nina is a bamf who takes no crap from anyone not even Matthias who was the only one who could persuade her to do anything, and somehow in the same breath of finding her love's murderer, kisses Hanne? That just makes no sense to me. I get that obvi I'm biased because I love Helnik but that is not her character. Feels like she completely changed personas. Yes she's in grief but still...i feel like she got played dirty and only made out to be someone's love interest. Why can't she complete her mission and fulfill her passion of being a spy and helping Ravka without completely disregarding Matthias? He was the one who kept encouraging her and was the reason she could continue but a pretty girl comes in the picture and that all goes away?

i don't get what you're saying in the first sentence. hanne didn't murder matthias. finding out matthias' murderer shouldn't make her push away the person she's with now. of course she was grieving. but people can mourn and move on at the same time. although i don't actually clearly remember this scene.

i also love helnik. i prefer to just not acknowledge matthias' death and never really think or talk about nina and hanne much. but it's nina's story and i support her all the way and they really are not that bad. such a power couple actually.

i don't think she was made out to be someone's love interest only. if anything, hanne is the love interest. this is a story about nina dealing with her grief, trying to move on with her life, and trying to fulfill matthias' final wish. she, in no way, disregarded matthias. that's like saying to a person that they're bad because they're learning to still live life to the fullest and love people after experiencing a huge heartbreak. she did not betray matthias. or disregard him. he's just dead.

she did not forget matthias. the whole reason she was even spying in fjerda was because of him. she wanted to take down jarl brum. and she also wanted to protect ravka, of course. but she wanted to change the fjerdans. she believed they could change their ways. remember sankta leoni and sankt adrik? nina's doing. and hanne isn't just a pretty girl. she's brave and caring. and nina being with her is honestly more of a legacy to matthias since i'm sure he wanted for her to be happy than her pushing any possible thing away because she still missed him.

anyway, i'm sure you still just need time to process. matthias' death is still a very touchy subject. and i'm also probably not the best to defend nina and hanne but here i am.

also no hate for joran. he was just like matthias. and when nina saw he was following the faith? he's changing as well. i don't think we should fault him for his past mistakes. especially since he felt really guilty about it. and after a while, nina didn't blame him either. so why should we?

also at the end, when nina is engaged to fjerda's king? having the power to change so much when she's with hanne? yeah

so anyway, leigh bardugo is the best and i trust her with everything.

[memento-morri-writes]

not me who read the lil bit of info you posted on ashlin as protagonist and not antagonist and thought ‘OOH she sounds rly cool’ anyways!!! your new wip 👀 i am looking. i’m curious about theo and squish, do you have any info on them you’d like to share? 👀 [@fiercely-raging-writer]

LEO, I LOVE YOU!

Sorry, that was really agressive, but you just happened to ask about my favorite characters!!!

I'll start with Theo, because I love them and they're easier to explain, asjdakjds. Theo (they/them) is a neurodivergent enby healer. They're Autistic and have ADHD, and they're very passionate about helping people and animals. They're a talented healer, and they wind up saving Ashlin's stubborn ass in Book 2 (yes, this is a duology!!). They literally bounce up and down when excited, and have poor volume control. (People often tell them they are too loud, but when they get excited, they get loud, and what they think of as quiet is apprently most people's "medium".) They also flap their hands when stressed or upset, and bite their nails. They almost never have any nails to speak of. They tend to ramble alot, and people often have to remind them to get to the point, which is fine sometimes, but not when you're anxiously waiting to see if your loved one is going to live or die. They love animals and will baby-talk to any animal they meet. They will also stop whatever they're doing to pet an animal, so for this reason (and no other, lmao), no animals are allowed in their surgery room.

They are probably the closest thing to a self-insert, since nealry all of their ADHD/Autistic tendencies are things they have in common with me. They are me if I was enby, lived in a fantasy world, and was a doctor.

I'll talk about Squish under the cut.

Squish is a slug.

No, I'm not kidding. She's a magic slug. She's about 18 inches long, pale yellow, and she sticks to things. She has antennae where a sluf would have eyestalks, but her eyes are on her main body, around the head area.

She communicated via chirps and squeaks. She chirps when she's happy or excited, and squeaks as general conversation. She tends to squeak when she hears her own name (like "yes? hello!"), and when she hears Dorian or Ash's names. (She's a bit like a dog (or cat or horse or any animal, really) in that she understands a few words, and will react to them!)

She joins their little party by accident. Squish is going to be used in a magical ritual of some sort, and Dorian fears she's going to get hurt or die if it happens. And while he and Ash are on the run from the people/person who plan on doing that ritual, they snatch Squish and go. Dorian just yells at Ash to grab her, and they do, but they only do it because they think she's useful.

But because Ash is the one who physically saved her from danger, and carried her while they were escaping, Squish imprints herself on Ash and won't leave their side. She tries to get rid of the slug multiple times, but it doesn't work. Ash is getting annoyed, but Dorian thinks the whole thing is hysterical.

Eventually, Ash excepts her fate a Protector of the Slug and they name her Squish. She likes to ride on their shoulders or in Dorian's bag.

Also, she hates to be left alone. If she gets worried enough, she might scream. Oh, yeah, she screams. It's a very loud, piercing shriek, and she doesn't seem to need to breathe during it.

And she also changes colors to show her mood. Bright yellow is happy, dull brown is sick or very sad, etc. She also perks or droops her antennae to show if she's happy or sad. And she purrs when Dorian pets her. (Ash thinks it's weird to pet a slug until she ccatches herslef doing it by accident.)

[semper-legens]

104. In the Cities of Coin and Spice, by Catherynne M Valente

Owned?: Yes Page count: 516 My summary: In the garden of the Sultan’s palace, the girl continues her tales. She has only two left now - one of the city of coin, the lands of the dead, and the children who strove to find each other. The second is written where she cannot see, and so the boy must take up the narrative. What secrets lie in Ajanabh, the dead city of artists and poets? And what reckoning will come for the girl, when all her tales are told? My rating: 5/5 My commentary:

Back to the Garden, and oh, how I love this book. Man, I gotta read something I hate soon, this blog’s just been unashamed gushing about cool books for ages. No regrets, though, particularly not for this series. This is the second of the duology, and thus the stories where everything that’s been set up in the previous stories starts to pay off. It rewards the judicious reader, the ones who recognise words and phrases and places and objects that have cropped up earlier, and draw connections between them. It’s never obvious about it, either, rarely making these connections explicit or openly noting where we’ve seen something before. As such, it has the feel of a real mythology, and I appreciate that so much.

I am, however, going to talk about the girl. I noted on my first readthrough that I liked how the girl and boy in the frame narrative are characterised and have their own storyline going on even while these stories are being told. Now, on a reread, I am better equipped to look for the connections that give Sorrow, for such is her name, her character. Because the reason for all of these stories is that they are about her. Her birth, her family, the people affected by her life and existence. This big, wide world exists out there, full of wonders and terrors, and it all revolves around her, a scrappy kid who gets ignored by almost literally everyone around her. But because the boy talked to her, he got to tell her final tales. The stories in this book were written on her eyelids, so she hasn’t been able to read them for herself. Because of this tiny act of kindness, Sorrow gets to understand who she is. And I think that’s beautiful. The act of storytelling itself is, here, the magic - the thing that brings these kids together ends up saving them from their life in the Palace, and brought into this wider world.

Next up, I indulge my occasional need for tragic memoirs.

[rsquid2]

Finished Olypian Affair, heres all my various thoughts, spoilers if yall care about such things

I feel like the book moved very fast, perhaps thats a side effect of me reading it in about 12 hours but to me it didnt feel like that next book in a longer series, more like the second in a duology. As I was reading, and after while I was thinking about it, it felt like Things just Happened.

I distincly remember thinking that at some point in the next few books Espiria was going to turn on Aurora, only for that to happen the literal next page.

Everything in this one felt like a massive escalation from the first book. Everything feels bigger and higher stakes, which is not a bad in of itself but it felt like 3 books worth of escalation crammed into one.

We get the whole story on the Perilous, which like, neat, I kinda wish he'd dragged that out for longer, like, maybe only releaved the strictly releavent part and kept us in the dark for a bit longer.

Characters fuck alot in this book, like it feels a little excessive, it almost feels like Meatsmith has got somethin going on between this and warriorborn, idk maybe this is how is writting always is ive never read his other stuff.

I am once again expressing my hatred of it being a post-apoclypic earth, albeit not ours cus crystals were still a thing before the fall or whatever you wanna call it. I hate it, I really dont think it has to be earth, you can even still do the thing with Tyranima, it just feels a little lazy imo

That last chapter was fuckin wild. An archangel just, shows up, and has a conversation with the spirearch and Maul. Which like, why is Maul there??? It doesn't seem like he'd care I guess he does tho.

I kinda hate they introduced those crystal zombies, cus they are zombies, explictly have to go for the head, made of dead people, its just zombies, I hate that they put them in so early, cus either we are never going to see them again, or they are going to become a regular enemy which our heros can dispatch with ease. Neither of these options are good.

I do like that he left Gwen on the surface, I kinda expected the epilouge to go "oh and gwen got rescued shes fine"

Ferus is fucking dead!!!! That's just sad.

I do think on the whole everyone is charactized pretty well, no one feels wildly out of character. Some characters have changed but it's been 2 years if they hadnt it be weird. There were a few times were it felt Gwen was uncharcteristly slow on the uptake just so things could be spelled out to the audiance.

We got a little more lore on how the crystals are made, they grow em like the fuckin crystal grow kits from the craft store.

Abigal, I like that she's a character, I like that she's like a spy, I think thats cool, I love Hamish and Tilde. I hate where the book left her and Bayard, which i'd imagine is the point

There was no mention of Rook, at all, which like, yea he's a dick and I hated him, but It feels like he got retconed out of the story. Even when recounted the Pererlous Incident, they dont mention him. So either the admiralty wrote him into the Incident for whatever reason, or he has actually be written out of the story as a whole.

Overall I did like the book, despite what this may make it appear, I did enjoy it, now I guess we'll wait another 8 years for the next one!