#idk I’m probably just rambling; but overall there are other novels and I think we should utilize them more

[rayonfrozenwings]

Unpopular opinion... but I’m not exactly thrilled with the nesta book being hailed as sexy and... idk. I’m honestly scared that the entire book is going to revolve around smut. I’ve been disenchanted with SJM for awhile now— but nesta is a character I love so much, I’m going to give this novel a try. But... I’m thinking I’m going to be set up for disappointment. I hate that this is the novel of the ACOTAR realm she’s choosing to launch into the ‘adult genre’. Maybe I’m reading too much into the reviews, but... I guess it’s what they’ve always said: sex sells.

Hey Nonnie,

I was actually thinking about the change in her genre today when I couldn't find any of the ACOTAR books on the shelf. They weren't in the YA section anymore at all (only Tog) and they only had a few copies in the main fiction section. There wasn’t any Crescent City their either. So of the two stores I went to they are either sold out/ or covid has made things scarce or they are holding back until the next week or two when A Court of Silver Flames is out. 

Anyway - where I’m going with that is that SJM’s shelf and impact has been dramatically reduced. She used to dominate the YA section with her books. Now I had trouble finding her today and it's just because there are less titles in both sections. So for a publishing company to make this change is a big deal. They are shifting their audience, they are splitting their marketing for her series into two different teams and splitting her books parts of the stores/libraries etc. So its not a decision taken lightly. 

With that in mind I do think that this is going to be more along the lines of a  Paranormal Romance than straight Fantasy. Sure it's set in a Fantasy world but the characters are older and it's a romance. Its stand alone and specifically Nesta’s book. If you don’t want romance I actually probably wouldn’t read it. I love romances so it's not a turn off for me.

In terms of Smut, I find SJM pretty tame - there is so many hotter things out there, but I understand that it can still be off putting for people not wanting to read that. When I first read COM way back when I was fine with fade to black for Chaol and Celeana because that's what I expected for YA. When I read EOS my eyes jumped out of my head just because I wasn't expecting it. By the time I read ACOMAF I was like - wow ok SJM includes smut now.

People cannot be mad at SJM for having smut in A Court of Silver Flames. 

She has warned us. 

The Genre has been changed from YA to adult. 

She has even said - it has sexy times multiple times.

You do not go in without warning, and you can make a choice. I’m sure if people waited to read it then others out there could be like - avoid this chapter and this chapter but the rest is fine. (like I would give people a heads up where explicit stuff is if they really wanted to avoid it).

As a Nesta lover, who is also older and has been with SJM since 2012 reading her books I am so excited. I feel like I have grown with SJM as an author as she has become more confident to tell the stories she wants to read and not what is necessarily expected of her or the genre. 

I also feel like if people loved ACOMAF and didn't mind the sexy times in that then they honestly shouldn't mind the sexy times in the new book - just my opinion because ACOMAF isn't tame and neither is ACOWAR. 

Nesta is older than Feyre too, we know she’s sexually experienced from reading ACOFAS, would we want fade to black? or missing out on her sassing people in bed? or missing out on banter or miss-steps? I wouldn’t. I want to see the messy and the good because I don't expect easy sailing. 

Review wise - People often react to what is on top for them. I alway get hyped about the world building because YES GIVE IT TO ME. Other people get hyped about the Sex, I’d see what those reviewers rate other books like too, I try to not look at a review in isolation - if they read a lot of romance and rate it highly then you can infer what their taste is like. I follow people on Goodreads who I know have similar taste to me. I follow others too but I don't necessarily take their reviews into consideration because I know that we all have different tastes. I think overall I can trust 2 or 3 people to always tell me books I will love. I cannot go with the hype, it often ends up with a let down for me. 

Sorry for Rambling Nonnie! I don’t think your opinion is that unpopular either. A lot of us are scared for different reasons. Im scared its not going to reflect the Nesta that I have inferred exists - because there is such limited page time of her so far. I’m concerned that Nesta will be rushed through her healing. But i'm not concerned for the romance because SJM makes me root for her OTP’s. 

[inknose]

mdzs read diary part IV, the end

It’s inspiring how much self care wwx is gonna finally get now that his husband will go along with whatever he does, so he’s gotta look out for lwj’s well being if not his own. that is emphatically the STUFF

dragging my hands down I face as I read this, after all these chapters of getting up close and personal with ghouls bleeding from every orifice, slaying ancient beasts, rebelling against the entire cultivation world, the two of them are absolutely paralyzed by middle school crush sleepover math

chicken

he actually drew kissy doodles .... he....

IDK I THINK I JUST DOCUMENTED THIS PART CUZ I WAS STILL SCREAMING you cant expect me to have very useful things to say at this point

this is torture you are both so mushy you are so GONE

This part really stood out to me, it’s an attitude I feel like wwx implies with his inner narration a few times but most clearly says here: he’s not one for allowing himself to exaggerate how bad his circumstances are/could be even a little bit - he’s already lived through some extreme low points and found a way to keep going, so he never makes sweeping statements about what he couldn’t live without (Inner JingYi: you’re supposed to say you’d be lost without him here!!!) Instead he seems to accept as a given that being alive doesn’t guarantee him any pleasantness or joy at all, and as a result his feelings toward being in TRUE LOVE are surprisingly pragmatic, but also colored with such gratitude. There are a lot of things in the novel that struck me, like this, as being just a little to the left of familiar tropes/sentiments, and were more touching for it. Whether it be the influence of culture difference as opposed to what I’m used to reading in most western romance stories, or MXTX’s unique outlook, or a combination of both, it was really refreshing and made me pause over it. Not “I can’t imagine living without you” but “I could be living without you, but instead I get to be with you and I think that’s the best thing that could happen.”

ADJFDKFJ THE UST BEING SO STRONG THAT EVEN THE VILLAIN COMMENTS ON IT IN THE MIDDLE OF EXECUTING HIS EVIL PLANS IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT WILL NEVER FAIL TO MAKE ME LAUGH MY ASS OFF. hes like god damn! here I thought I had problems

it was at this moment that I realized we were doing this Now... I’m still recovering. What a scene. I am so glad I saw the most incredible fanart soon afterwards, bc the fact that someone has already drawn a perfect comic of this part means I don’t have to

I love you so much, you are so annoying, you are perfect... I like how he’s been experiencing openly requited love for all of ten minutes but he’s already figured out how to weaponize it to piss people off

doing!!! his!!! job!!!!!

ahh... it’s a really good story. JGY is a great character. One of the most interesting differences for me between drama watching vs. novel reading experience is that without an actor to bat his vulnerable doe eyes at you and smile faintly with his cute dimples, the book does not go much out of its way to try to lull the reader into a false sense of security around him or *endear* him to you the way the show does. But just by seeing events through wei wuxian’s POV, its still enough to evoke pity or understanding towards him. The overall impression is a bit more detached though, there’s less emphasis on the spectacle of how he could manipulate everyone closest to him and more of a general feeling of resigned tragedy that everyones the worst on this bitch of an earth.

I CANNOT DEAL WITH YOU FOR EVEN ONE MORE SECOND!!!!

I clearly paused to take note of less and less parts at the end & the extras due to: a) too excited to reach the end b) too spicy to photograph and c) too sleepy cuz I kept reading in the middle of the night. but I absolutely took the time for Bro We Are Teens appreciation corner:

I’d absolutely read 40 more extra chapters of their monster-of-the-week field trip antics.

god... poor Jin Ling now basically has to deal with divorced parents that talk shit about each other to him whenever he is saying with one of them. except they are both his uncles. just a disasterhood of all uncles from start to finish. AUUUGH wei wuxian and jiang cheng have fucked me up completely, I dream of them reconciling but I also REFUSE to believe it would ever be easy. let me know if theres a fanfic that absolutely tortures you for decades before they hug

HAHAHA oh no this man ain’t making it to immortality thats for damn sure. HE’S JUST GONNA TRY AS HARD AS HE CAN HIS WHOLE LIFE NOT TO LOOK AT HIM BUT THEYRE *MARRIED* SDLKFJSF ohhhh it’s too funny, like... the mundane domestic family drama IN the fantastical swords and sorcery setting is what really ratchets up these things from amusing to fucking hilarious I think

aaaa the end... final random thoughts? No not final, I would like to please keep discussing at length and exhaustively, all the time please - CQL has gotta be one of the best TV adaptations I’ve seen. ANY adaptation of anything would be lucky to be so good!! reading the novel has just made me appreciate it even more.

- I don’t think I can do justice to what I find most fascinating about comparing the two versions briefly, to do that I need to get drunk and ramble at my friends for hours but... the condensed version is something like this. Really all the significant differences between the two versions (besides the ones which can be attributed to censorship and therefore aren’t worth discussing) are a side effect of the structure of how the story is told - there’s barely anything changed arbitrarily. Aside from having a cold opening, the drama sticks to a very linear version of the story, and I think for a TV show or film, that’s probably the best way to do it. We see everything, we get shocked and tricked and betrayed and surprised along with the characters, we feel the biggest impact at the climactic scenes having experienced all the build-up. The novel on the other hand is not only much more non-linear in WHEN we learn bits and pieces of information, but that information is also obfuscated under wei wuxian’s multiple layers of Unreliable Narratoritis, which are as follows: 1) difficulty remembering things because of personality/avoiding painful memories/actual memory loss, 2) No Homo Goggles still on, and 3) a wry sense of humor that makes the reader unsure of how much they can trust his attitude toward things, especially near the beginning. The experience of reading is a puzzle the reader has to mentally piece together through all of the above listed camouflage, and the puzzle itself is a three-sided mystery: One - How Bad of a guy was Wei WuXian really, and how exactly did all the bad stuff in his life go down; Two - wangxian epic pride & prejudice gambits; Three - political murder mystery. (I love stories like this btw... though I fully admit I’m glad I watched first this time bc it might have taken me a long time to tackle otherwise.) Because of this, where the drama wants to pull you in and submerge you in all the most potent emotional parts, the novel in direct contrast deliberately side-steps around these things and asks that you hurt yourself by filling in the blanks. In fact the more intense emotions and painful memories involved, whether it be his relationship with jiang yanli, his DEATH, the darkest days of war times etc, the more the novel evasively withholds details. I actually really like both styles of storytelling but each one is obviously way better suited to its medium. ANYWAY.... THATS BASICALLY WHERE MY BRAINS AT WHILE IM READING GAY SWORD WIZARD BOOKS

- The extras are so saturated with domestic married bliss that it’s a good thing I stopped taking pictures because I’d just take a picture of every page. this is too much for me to take... I did jump the gun a few times and read a few fanfics while I was still mid-read of the book (I tried to hold out but alas I am mortal) and at one point after finishing I was like “wow what fic was it in where lwj says something cute and wwx kisses him in public but they’re in the corner of the restaurant so no one really sees... OH NO WAIT that was actually in there.” and ... and that’s the LEAST OF IT... *stares into the distance* theyre married wow

- I ofc couldn’t help but see a few vague blogs beforehand so honestly I was braced for something like, wildly ooc for the sake of porn to happen in the extras... I definitely appreciate how the incense burner porn interludes could be uhhh a lot for many people and not my personal cup of tea in terms of smut however [here follows the words of a poisonous frog who has dwelt her whole life in the rainforests of BL] the concept is also surprisingly SWEET SDFLKJF like wwx sees lan wangji’s darkest mixed-up violent teenage fantasies and he’s just like aww babe you had a crush on me!! just... good for them

- I swear I’m not gonna rehash every cute married thing they do but wei wuxian grading papers in the tub........................rEALLY GOT ME

- I want to Draw - ok thats enough if I keep going I’ll just write “wei wuxian grading papers in the tub” seven more times probably

[noddytheornithopod]

Okay, I’ll make a post about all the retcons in the Siege of Mandalore and my take on them because they don’t bother me and am able to accept the differences, but others seem to be struggling so here we go.

Fulcrum: I don’t see the issue here, Ahsoka wasn’t going by Fulcrum, it was simply a frequency Anakin communicated on that Ahsoka happened to know. She only took up the mantle later, and probably made it her codename as a homage to the secret system Anakin used.

Blue lightsabres: Filoni explained why he did this in Clone Wars Download, but in regards to it being a retcon to the Ahsoka novel... there’s not much we can do. Someone argued “green energy” being described might be Ahsoka feeling her crystals through the force and how even though Anakin changed their frequency, they still feel like hers? Not crazy about this explanation, but this is a small error that I find fixable.

Ahsoka/Maul duel: This can be taken as just an adaptational thing. When you compare the novel and comic adaptions to the movies, all kinds of stuff shows up. If it’s TOO different, I think the key to it is it being part of Ahsoka’s flashbacks. Ahsoka could be trying to remember things differently, a less painful version of what really happened.

Ahsoka being told about Anakin as Vader: Simple denial. I mean, that was even the case in Rebels. She sensed him through the Force, she had that vision in the Lothal temple but she never really processed it was Anakin until she saw with her own eyes his face under the slashed helmet. Also, of course she refused to believe Maul, and all she could tell from sensing Windu vs Palpatine was that Anakin was in serious trouble.

Rex doing Order 66: A LOT of people have weighed in on this, including myself because I KNEW the backlash would come. As I said in my post about it, it’s like one of those lines in the Original Trilogy that now has a different meaning because of the Prequels. It’s very “a certain point of view”, but I think the most important thing to remember is that this is what Rex personally believes however you choose to view it, and that he was talking to a literal Order 66 survivor. “I almost killed my Jedi but got better” isn’t very comforting to Kanan.

Maul’s escape: Again, part of it could be flashback stuff, especally because it was very vague. For more detail though... a choice between killing Maul and saving Rex. Yes, that didn’t come up. You could argue it was there in a small way: Ahsoka DID have a chance to kill Maul when everything went down as he was contained, but it was hardly a choice between him and Rex. It might be more fitting to go with the unreliable narrator route again: if you think about it, Maul basically caused the deaths of all of these clones because she underestimated him. She hoped he’d merely cause a distraction and maybe die, but he doesn’t just escape, he brings everyone down as he does so. Imagining a more simple dilemma is probably less painful.

Lady Tano: Yeah, Maul last seeing Ahsoka isn’t exactly her running away. But who’s to say this is the only time between now and Rebels they met? Maybe he also meant her running away from joining him. Grrr, peeps why do I feel obliged to do this lol. Look, if they meet again it’s at least not gonna be like Legends where Han and Lando keep making up after fighting because they apparently need to be fighting before Empire Strikes Back.

Faking deaths: IDK about you, but if I disappeared without a trace or only left lightsabres at a massive Star Destroyer crash, people would be assuming I’m pretty dead. Oh, but then who made the graves, and what about a remnant of Rex? Well, there aren’t graves marked for the naval staff, and they only found as many clones as they could (do you see the shock troopers? I thought not), so Rex’s armour wasn’t there. As for who made the graves... well we don’t know there ISN’T anyone on this planet, hmm? With Ahsoka’s lightsabres being buried, well the one she still had was marked at the grave site. As for why it said both... gah why am I doing this, these things don’t even bother me? And I think Ahsoka and Rex had graves made for themselves too? Look, maybe they’re there and we didn’t see it and it’s an adaption thing. Or unreliable narrator and Ahsoka finding the mass grave too panful versus just them two faking graves. Sigh. Also, they probably escaped into the underworld after making the grave, lol.

Okay, Noddy, why the hell did you make this giant post to try and justify a bunch of retcons most people won’t even care about, and you yourself think are easily reconcilable or too small to care about? Well I mean, that kind of is the point - most of these details are really vague and don’t really change the overall story. Some like “I didn’t betray my Jedi” and the different fight are bigger, but I think you can reconcile them easily if you’re creative enough.

Filoni wanted to tell what he thought was the best story he could, and to do so he was willing to focus on that above appeasing every little detail. Lots of people get pretty hung up on the little details and cause that to ruin their immersion, and unfortunately this is widespread in several fandoms. For me, instead of getting mad at small things that I think are easily reconcilable, I prefer to accept not everything will 100% line up and that it’s more fun to think of creative ways around these inconsistencies.

I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind here. If these things break your immersion too much, I can’t change your mind. A lot of my explanations are BIG stretches, and they are by design - they’re an exercise in lateral thinking to creatively make the problem solved instead of getting upset about them. I don’t think Filoni is being careless with continuity, he’s too into what he does to be. Like I said, I think he wants to just tell what he can even if it sacrifices smaller details, and for fans to keep an open mind.

I do get why people get annoyed over stuff like this. Making a more consistent timeline makes the larger story overall more coherent, but when it becomes out focus we often forget about the emotional and thematic parts to media.

This is already longer than I expected it to be, so it probably is pretty rambly. I didn’t need to do this, but here we are.

[booksneedcaffeinetoo]

Book Review: House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

This review is going to be LITTERED with SPOILERS because idk how to talk about this book without giving away the whole plot.

Consider yourself officially warned. 

I’m still debating on my rating, but for now here is my review. Fair warning: it is rant-y and ramble-y and hasn't been edited yet. I'll clean it up when I come back for a rating.

As always, content warnings are listed at the bottom!

Overall Positives:

• SJM has actually included a few gay characters….now they are all very minor side characters (Isiah, Fury, Juniper, and Declan) who are only present for maybe 3% total of the novel, but at least they exist??? So she gets points for actually having gay characters who aren’t killed off. You can say that she’s making an effort.

• The banter between Bryce and Hunt was pretty funny

• That scene with the knock-off My Little Pony dolls was funny

• I think there might've been a reference in the book to First Aid Kit (the sister folk duo) and it made my heart squeal because I love that band SO MUCH!

• Bryce actually has a great relationship with her mom and her stepfather! And they are both alive! And stay alive! I’m actually struggling to recall a book I’ve read where the main character in the book has a). both parents alive and b). a great relationship with them both. So that was really refreshing!

• Hunt in a sunball cap.

• Bryce and Hunt taking photos together. Way too adorable.

• Ride or die friendship. I love books that emphasize the importance of friendship.

• That LIGHT IT UP DANIKA LIGHT IT UP LIGHT IT UP scene....like i felt that...her happiness. so sweet. i teared up at that scene ngl....

• Pretty good depiction of grief. How even after years the pain of losing your friend doesn’t go away. How some people cut themselves off to cope and others don’t. How some take out their anger on the closest target. How some people remember the dead one’s birthday and other don’t. etc. etc.

• It really was a slow burn because they like didn’t even kiss until 75% into the 3,000 page book.

• Rhun is my favorite character in this book. He’s a goth softie king. I also loved the Demon Cat. And Fury. And Declan. And Flynn. And Isaiah. And Hunt. And Lele. And the dog. And Jesiba. And Randall. And….well….that’s about it….

• I have recently been getting more and more into Urban Fantasy so I am excited and glad that this book is UF. I also like how it takes place in a different world with a different history (although for some reason I went into this book under the impression it takes place in New Orleans…)

Overall Negatives:

• If I ever have to see the word “alphahole” again it will still be too soon. I get that she was going for meta and trying to poke fun at how the trope in so many UF books includes an alphamale love interest….but it just doesn’t really work because none of the guys she was calling an alphahole was actually acting like one??? Okay so this is kind of ramble-y but whatever. When I think of an alphamale love interest acting like a…*shudders*…. alphahole I think of the stereotypical shifter romance/erotica novel where the guy likes wants to punch any guy who stands too close or talks to his mate. I think of him making outrageous claims, always posting a guard, never letting her leave the house, etc. all without any cause. Having a literal demon serial killer who (at this point in the book) you believe RIPPED APART AN ENTIRE PACK OF WEREWOLVES and is killing everyone who is close to working on the same case as you and you are a half-fae who NEVER carries a weapon with you, doesn’t have magic, and no one beside your mom, stepdad, and dead bestie know that you can turn into a flashlight at will…..yeah it makes sense that the people who care about you would like you to have a guard. But that’s not “alphahole” behavior. Nor is when you’re starving yourself from guilt him being concerned and wanting you to eat, or wanting you to try to take care of yourself….that’s not “alphahole” behavior, it’s being a good friend/sibling. If someone wanted a guard on her PRIOR to her investigating the murder than yeah….that would be “alphahole” 100%. But that’s not what happened…one of the highlights of the book was Hunt calling out Bryce by telling her that she is actually the “alphahole” here.

• Fucking sunball = baseball. WHYYYYYY I thought it was soccer for so long until Hunt tossed on a “sunball cap”

• I thought that Violet Hall from Pucked was the most infuriating main character I have read in a long time until I met Bryce fucking Quinnland. It is a pet peeve of mine when a character acts like someone (usually lazy or a partier) and then gets pissed because people think they are how they act??? Like, if you act like an asshole then don’t be shocked if people think you are an asshole. Also she was someone who was terribly selfish and stupidly reckless for no reason for 99% of the book. Yeah she’s ride or die for her friends which is supposed to be her best quality but she is just terribly rude to so many people. Like take Lele for example. Bryce treated her horribly until Hunt was sold again, then was friends with Lele for like a week which someone equated to Lele being willing to die for her???

• Part two of that bullet above^: Why was everyone willing to die for Bryce? Maybe I hate Bryce because she reminds me too much of Jane Salone from The Bold Type with her ‘I’m always right’ attitude. But yeah, everyone is willing to die for her. I don’t get why though. Also everyone wants to fuck her. She can’t walk down the street without like five dudes wanting to fuck her. It was so annoying. Also how the hell has she not died by age 25!?!? There is a different between being bitchy with your algebra teacher versus being bitchy with some guy who could smite you before you blink. And all of them are like ‘oooh she’s not afraid of me like everyone else how charming’ and I’m just like NO. That’s like if I intentionally pissed off some mafia dom and instead of making an example out of me for dissing him in front of his mafia bros, he’s like ‘oooh you’re sassy wanna fuck?’ MAKES NO SENSE!!!

•Part three of the above^: okay before someone comes at me and says ‘well would you be saying the same things if she was a guy doing an acting this way’ well probably. I love the KATE DANIELS (Magic Bites) series. And Kate is a no-nonsense, can come across rude, and gives zero fucks what anyone else thinks about her. Kind of like Bryce, but less bitchy and has the power and skills to back up her recklessness. (No one around Bryce learns of her secret lightbright gift or of her sharpshooting skills until the very end so I am maintaining my ‘she’s reckless’ viewpoint based on everyone around her not knowing of her abilities when she does all of this dumbshit). Kate also is a fucking martyr who runs towards danger even when the odds are against her. Just like Bryce. But I love Kate and hate Bryce. So…yeah I think it was just a Bryce issue. It took until about 41% with the whole phone-Sandriel thing for me to stop finding her insufferable….but I still never really liked her after that...I could stand her for the occasional paragraph or two

• Speaking of martyrs…why is everyone one in this book!?!? NOT EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE A MARTYR!!!

• Another reason I hate Bryce (yes I’m back on that Bryce shit) is because after Hunt broke her heart he immediate thought upon learning who he was going to be sold (back to his old owner who is a sadistic fuck) her thought was good, he deserves it and all he did was break her heart and not want to be a slave anymore and kept something he knew would destroy you (which yeah, keeping that secret furthered his cause but still…) and I just????? Have???? No words???? Like girl you have a RIGHT to be PISSED but jfc that doesn’t equate to TORTURE.

• Ugh and then her whole ‘take me instead’ bullshit was so reminiscent of that Jules and Emma whipping scene from Lady Midnight I almost gagged for the level of cheese and martyr-syndrome 

• Why is everyone described as “brown,” “golden brown,” or “tan”?! It’s like SJM is trying to not make everyone white but doesn’t want to fully commit…

• And was anyone uncomfortable/cringed at the ‘white angel wings are supreme to any wings with color’ bit....

• I hate books where the werewolves can talk outloud in human form. I cringed.

• Why was the calling people by their last name thing not consistent? I’ve read books before where characters flip between using another character’s first and last name, but there is context behind why they choose one or the other: the professional setting, if the person is happy or upset, who is being addressed, etc. But you’ll get Hunt calling Bryce “Bryce” and “Quinnland” within a sentence of each other? And literally every character did stuff like this. It was weird and not consistent at all.

Negatives About the Plot:

• This book really felt like three books in one: Part One (first 12ish%) being the day leading up to the Pack of Devil’s murder. And I do mean like every boring thing that happened. Part Two (the next 66ish%) being the murder investigation. Part Three (the last 22ish%) being where all the action occurred. The book felt like it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. The summary promised a murder investigation so I was expecting it to be a KATE DANIELS-esque plot. But nothing of true importance really occurred during that investigation. We got some cool flashbacks with Danika, and some sweet moments between Hunt and Bryce…but that’s it. SJM isn’t Brandon with a Stormlight Archives (The Way of Kings) complicated interwoven plot. I think the book as whole would have been better if it was about 300 pages shorter.

• Nothing in the plot of true importance happened until the last 100 pages or so.

• I mean we literally got every single thing that happened during every single day of their investigation…it was….too much detail.

• When I got to 80% like every other chapter felt like the book should end. It could’ve ended on a cliffhanger. Like right after Hunt was found on that boat. But nope….

• Figures. SJM can’t have a main couple unless they both are super special. Did anyone else feel like she just recycled parts of ACOMAF in this book? Hunt: has wings and super special powers. Bryce: absorbs some super-fae juiced up power from a cauldron—er….I mean arch—to get extra powers and become the most super cool and super special fae in all existence because god forbid we have a heroine who isn’t the most physically powerful person ever. I mean, to hell with mental strength. Must be physically magically powerful or you’re no good!

• The only plot points that surprised me were the hunt being at the drug bust (because we got nothing from his povs that he was remotely interested in going back down that revolution road especially after his whole meeting with Briggs…still iffy with this one, because his thoughts in that cell sound like he actually was on board with it until he called it off because the drug is too dangerous but his call to the viper queen said she owed him a favor so…..) and Micah’s weird horn hard-on. Literally nothing else surprised me...

• I really though Reid would play a bigger role considering Bryce used to date him and is fam is responsible for that drug....but nope. The dude is like never even mentioned.

• Ugh...that villain speech. Maybe I'm just like...what's the point? Why not just zap the bitch why do you need to tell her your life story!?!?!

• Also let's be real, Danika's password never would have been allowed to be that simple nor remain unchanged for 2 years. But whatever.

• It’s also pretty cringe that Bryce freed Lele just for her to die…………..

• Why is Jesiba’s shop impenetrable (the building and cameras) until it’s convenient for it not to be…I mean it sounded like nothing could break into her building or the cameras but then… Micah just easily waltzed in there and Declan easily hacked into the security cameras….makes no sense but okayyyyyyy…..

• ....or about how the dog can teleport and undo locks until once again it's convenient for him not to be able to so she can dramatically save the day (look I also have issues with her valuing her pet's life over Lele's in that scene...also isn't the dog supposed to be like terrifying, it could've fought while her and Lele got out. not really sure how the water which delayed him like two seconds helped more than her dog would've....look, i love pets and i don't want him to die but i don't want Lele to die either!)

• Bryce and Hunt literally never have a talk about everything???? Like I get the world almost ended but neither of them had a thought like I know we need to talk about everything that happened on the boat. About if his love for Shahar trumps his love for me. But that can wait… Because those were all fears she had before but now vanished???? I get not wanted to have verbal talk but a thought from Bryce would’ve been nice.

• How can you run, carry a sword, and shoot a gun all at the same time? Still trying to figure out the logistics of that all....

• Why is SJM's adult book the least smutty thing she has written so far!?!?!?!?

• The love saves everyone and everything line is so fucking cheesy I can’t.

My Overall Feelings:

• The book couldn’t choose a plot. Did it want to be a crime book? Did it want to be ACOMAF? Who the fuck knows.

• This would have worked better as a TV series than a book. Especially that scene where Bryce is trying to save the city and everyone is just watching it happen on the jumbo screen at the summit. In book form it was just….weird….and felt disruptive...and someone could've started flying to help out. Plus I like watching shows with characters like Bryce but hate reading books with characters like her if that makes sense...

• Also if the summit is just between the leaders of CC then why did Sadriel have to be there? Why does it happen only every 10 years? Why does it have to take place outside of the city if no other leaders from other places are present?

• Why don’t we get a map of all of the other countries that were mentioned?

• This book was wayyyyyy too long. It would have been much better if it was reduced to 500ish pages instead.

• Also the character’s flip-flopped with their character development way too much. It wasn’t consistent.

• This is definitely one of the better SJM book’s I’ve read, but it won’t be one that I’ll reread. It is too long with too many boring bits in the middle.

• But hey! If you love SJM then you’ll probably love this book…

Content Warnings and Trigger Warnings: restricted eating, self-harm, drug use, alcohol consumption, implied rape, mentions of abusive relationships, suicidal thoughts, depression, emesis, slavery, terrorist attacks, grief, gun violence, death, murder, violence, torture

View all my reviews

[bigskydreaming]

fhalkfhaklfhlkak i hate this

TW really truly literally ruined the word ‘spark’ for me. Like the whole damn word. I hear it now and I’m like, NOPE, like...idk, some people who cringe when they hear the word moist or panties. Apologies to anyone who hates those words and cringed, i dont actually know if thats a thing or if like, I just have weird friends. Probably just the latter.

But anyways, Im just like...lmfao. Its so visceral too? Like I have this one original project, Waveriders, that I’ve been fiddling with off and on in the background of other projects for awhile, might have talked about it on here, idk, I don’t keep track. 

Basically its a far future sci-fi novel/setting for linked shorter works set on a gas giant that was settled by humans who figured that they can’t possibly be stepping on anyone’s toes there, its a freaking gas giant, hello, no one’s home, right? They literally have to make their own ground by using technology to form anti-gravity wells in the habitable zone of the atmosphere and like, make floating cities and then these kind of buoys scattered across the planet that create these electromagnetic currents that flow in specific ‘routes’ between the cities, and people travel between them in these flying ships that use magnetized hulls and solar sails to ride these currents, and blah blah blah, yada yada yada, bc like, why would I resist an opportunity to have floating cities and sky pirates and ancient cyborg machine dragons? Doesn’t make sense. 

Anyway, so couple thousand years after settling this planet, and by then for Plotty Reasons there are people who have what’s called waveriding abilities, like they can ‘hack’ certain wavelengths or types of energy and manipulate them in various ways, but only one kind of energy per person, and they each have their own little names and niches. 

So, y’know, basically just like ATLA, except for like, its energy powers and there are cyborg machine dragons and floating cities and sky pirates, obvsly. Plus areas of totally fucked up gravity called the badlands that are all like, criminal underworld metropolis because normal people are like lol nope, we like it when up is up and down is down, all of this is very just...nope. And also because shocking and totally unexpected plot twist, they were totally wrong about the planet being uninhabited just cuz it didn’t have Earth type ground...like, so in addition and on top of and in conjunction with all of the above and whatnot, there are these beings called Chaos Angels, that are basically like sentient quantum waveforms that can take any shape or appearance, but just, have no physical substance and yet are really good at faking that they’re not totally there when they fuck with humans, which they do a lot, because well. Why not, y’know?

But other than that, its exactly like ATLA. I’m a derivative hack. I disgust myself, truly I do.

BUT the point of this particular synaptic misfire aka ADHD ramble, is that so, okay, these different types of not!benders are all called waveriders as an overall umbrella term, but with ten different subsets of this in total, right? So people who can ‘hack’ light and manipulate it in various ways are called brightriders, and people who are tuned into soundwaves are called echo-riders, and some can manipulate the more electricity-skewed side of the electromagnetic spectrum and those are shockriders and the ones who skew more to the magnetic side are steelriders but I’m probably gonna change that because it sounds like a porno? Yeah no, just saw it outside of my notes for the first time and can confirm, definitely sounds like a porno so they’re not gonna be called steel-riders, but they will be called something steel-rider-esque. You get it.

And then there are the five weird ones that people aren’t totally quite sure how their waveriding shticks work because the kinds of energy they hack aren’t like....the kinds that work in the same way as the others with their easily discernible and patternistic wavelengths, and scientists and scholars are always arguing like but skyriders aren’t even in the same FIELD as the other waverider types because gravity isn’t even an actual ENERGY, just because we talk about gravity waves doesn’t mean they’re remotely the same thing as lightwaves, they make no SENSE, and I’m just like hahaha, I am your god, fictional scientists. Fucking deal with it. Plus it does make sense, you just don’t know the Secret Rules and Logistics that I do, pfft. 

Anyway, so the other types are boomriders who hack kinetic energy and skyriders of course obviously manipulate gravity, and then the last three are really weird, and super rare and thus don’t really have set names and just have lots of nicknames and are often just thought to be rumors. So those are the bio-riders who manipulate chemical energy though it often gets mistakenly referred to or just handwaved as being ‘life energy’ as though that’s a thing, ugh future way advanced people are so dumb sometimes, honestly. But so they can manipulate biological processes in various ways and do things with healing and also hurting, and basically just don’t piss one off ever. Like. You’ll die. And then there’s the psi-riders, who are essentially psychics and hack brainwaves, and I’m not at all bitter that I lack the balls to just go for broke and call them ghost riders like I want to, because ghost riders obviously sounds way cooler?? But also, Marvel would definitely sue?? Because they’re just, like that. 

And like, the last of the Weird Ones are the ones so super rare and also so hard to actually....tell if someone actually IS one, that most people think they don’t actually even exist and are just an unsubstantiated like, theoretical idea some scientist had once while high and then just, never shut up about so eventually the idea caught on. And those are the quantum-riders, or luck-riders, basically they theoretically manipulate quantum wavelengths in ways that are almost impossible to identify, like theoretically they wouldn’t even know they were doing it? Anyway, so lots of times, what are actually quantum-riders are just jealously thought to be like, really fucking lucky assholes. Even though the way their powers work really don’t have anything to do with luck or even probability, specifically, like that’s a simplistic approximation and its more like they manipulate possibilities but also shut up me, nobody cares.

ANYWAY, people who can count and who actually bothered to would probably notice by now like the funky little geniuses they are that all of those still only adds up to nine. And that’s because of the last one, the one that SHOULD go up in the brightrider, shockrider, notpornIswear!steel-rider hierarchy or taxidermy or whatever the fuck. And these are the ones who manipulate what’s essentially thermal energy, or more accurately the microwave-skewing side of the ultraviolet spectrum whereas brightriders are just the ones who skew more to the infrared side of it.

And the long and short of all of this Unnecessary-ness and the source of my fit of pique and ensuing ramble-palooza....is that ORIGINALLY, they were SUPPOSED to be called sparkriders.

But OBVIOUSLY I can’t call them that anymore, because like. I tried, and I was like ugh you drama queen slash whiny pissbaby, it was just a shitty teen supernatural show and SPARK WAS NEVER EVEN CANON, do not let THEM win and ruin a perfectly good classification name! But I did. I did let it ruin them, and its. Well. Its a problem, because I kept thinking up ways to kill off the sparkrider characters for absolutely no reason at all instead of like....thinking up ways to make the plot do what it was outlined to do in their parts of the story.

This may come like, way out of left field, and just SHOCK and STUN and BEWILDER some of you, like....no way, srsly? But yeah, true story, among my many canon mental neuroses like ADHD, PTSD, magical depression hour and super fun anxiety like....there is a tiny possibility (aka actual diagnosis) that while I don’t talk about this much, or ever really, I do have a smidge of ye old OCD? Its not like, a big thing and doesn’t really affect my daily routines and that’s pretty much why I never usually bring it up or list it alongside the rest of the crap on my neurodivergence resumé or whatever, because like, there’s already WAY too many misconceptions out there about what OCD actually is and what constitutes it, and tons of people are always jokingly but also thinking they’re kinda half serious, like ‘oh I’m so OCD about this and this and that’ and its like. LOL. Are you though? You sure?

Anyway, but point being, the way mine manifests for me is like...not actually a problem? Like, I don’t actually have any REAL complaints about it at all, just half-assed little fits of pique ones like this, which is the other part of why I never bring it up, because too often ppl just can’t fathom that OCD or even any kind of neurodivergence can be...WANTED, or a good thing, and lololol, that’s ableism, folks. But its true, I don’t actually mind mine at all, even if it occasionally makes things frustrating, when I get stuck like I am now. But the flip side of it is....its actually a pretty huge part of my creativity and just the way my mind works in general....like, what people accredit to me being particularly insightful about character analysis or drawing connections or stuff like that in meta or fics or my novels or worldbuilding...that’s what it is. That’s my OCD in action. 

My brain like...REQUIRES that I find patterns in....pretty much everything. Even day to day mundane stuff too, though like I said, its mild enough there that it doesn’t fuck with my routines too much, but like, I have to order things into nice, neat patterns and groupings. And if there aren’t any that are immediately obvious, I kinda pretty much HAVE to dig deeper until I find some on a slightly deeper level, something beneath the surface or first glance, and keep going until I find something.....or worst case scenario, I have to like....add stuff and embellish and fill in gaps with my own ‘content’ until I have the rough edges rounded off into something that CAN be stacked neatly atop some other part of the story or whatever it is I’m focusing on? And the obsessive-compulsive part for me is like, lol, I gotta find it SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW. 

My brain literally won’t shut off or grudgingly accept being diverted to a different subject until I’ve made some kind of pattern or flowchart or classification system. It will literally keep me up for hours, going over the same things over and over from every angle until I find SOME way to....reassemble or restructure it in some nice, neat little order of some type. I mean that’s basically what it is. My brain insists on me forming some semblance of order out of any glimpse I have of what I would otherwise term creative chaos. And it won’t give up until it gets what it wants, which when you throw in my ADHD and how often I’ll get derailed off on slight tangents but with my OCD then sooner or later forcing me back to the original focus, rinse and repeat ad nauseam....like. LOL. I learned to operate on very little sleep from a pretty young age by necessity, its just...my brain, dudes. Its just like that.

But the perks are like, I pretty much think this is WHY I’m so creative....because my brain, for as long as I can remember, has always just kinda....forced me to be? Also probably has a lot to do with well...eh, I don’t need to talk about that right now. Whatever. Anyway, point being, so....I do like the end results very much so, and for all its....Why Must You Be Like This eccentricities, I’m quite attached to my brain and would not be very likely to agree to a trade even were one possible. I mean don’t get me wrong, I could do without the PTSD and anxiety, if we’re just, like....talking some pruning shears or whatever, but the actual creative machinery, I’m keeping. Ultimately it just means I really fucking like patterns and finding patterns or making patterns where previously there were none, or at least none that were easy to spot.

But ugh, man, these are the rare times when I’m like omg, just call it a day, we don’t ACTUALLY have to come up with the perfect replacement name for that one relatively small and insignificant detail of a much larger story that isn’t even in the Top Ten list of my main priorities at the moment. And my asshole of a brain is just like....yeah no, we gotta. You know the rules dude, you decided it was official, that name didn’t work anymore and was never gonna, so now we gotta find a replacement or else things will be UNEVEN?? The pattern will be...missing a piece? There will be CHAOS AND ANARCHY IN THE STREETS THAT RUNNETH OVER WITH BLOOD? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT??

And so I’m like....literally sitting here googling synonyms for spark because I’m just like that sometimes, lmfao. Oh and of course its gotta be a GOOD replacement, naturally. I can’t just shoehorn in a somewhat acceptable substitute that in the back of my mind I’m expecting to only be temporary, until I come up with something better. See, because my brain will KNOW, and it will NOT be okay with that, because that is CHEATING. And my brain, apparently, has strong feelings about cheating, which is weird and fairly unexpected of me, IMO.

Anyway, kudos to anyone who actually read through that instead of scrolling, I honestly have zero idea why I felt like sharing it, I just did and thus I did. *shrugs* 

[not-poignant]

Hi! Love your writing and your serials so much! Do you ever think about finishing a serial totally before posting it chapter by chapter? Are there good and bad sides to doing it the way you do it?

Hi anon!

I do think about finishing a serial totally before posting it chapter by chapter because honestly that would be the logically sane thing to do. But do I do it? No. My desperation for interaction and comments absolutely makes this impossible. The most I can do is write ahead about 8 chapters, and even that drives me up the wall, as I think ‘BUT I WANT TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE RAVEN PRINCE RIGHT NOW DAMN IT.’

So for people who hear that I’ve completed 7 chapters and might be feeling antsy I am also feeling this feeling.

Are there good and bad sides to doing it the way you do it?             

Yes! :D Let’s chat about them. And by chat, I mean, let me ramble about that for no good reason for some time.

I mean the biggest cons to writing serials as you go really come down to the fact that it’s super easy to write myself into a dead end or cul de sac. I actually...don’t mind this feeling? I really enjoy being creative to get myself out of it. But there’s always the fear that somehow I’ll write myself into something that’s completely unfixable. Or worse, that I’ll abandon the work. That happens rarely, and so far on AO3, that hasn’t happened with a long work yet (only short ones, though I’m sure we all thought TGATNW was abandoned for a good long while - I mean I did too).

The other biggest con is not being able to do a huge structural edit before putting up a story. This means that say, for example, if I look back one day and realise the story works better by completely editing/rearranging something, this is almost never going to actually happen. Which means I’m left with works that get a lot of editing chapter by chapter, but no global editing where I look at the whole once it’s finished, fixing things structurally before anyone else sees it. I can do that with novels, but I don’t do that with serials.

It is easier to mitigate that with chapter plans, which I do for things like The Ice Plague so that I can see the global plot structure before committing to it.

But overall, authors don’t go back and edit AO3 serials, especially not super long ones, after it’s already up. That I think is the biggest downside. And if you do go back and edit, sometimes people notice and that...doesn’t end well either. Like, I took about 10,000 words out of the SALverse to shore it up and edit it afterwards, and that took me a while, and I got way more negative comments about it than positive comments about it. Even if it’s just some paragraphs here and there, people who treasure the first version do not like having a new version sprung on them, on AO3, without warning. And I feel like I should have given people a chance to download the original version first.

This is actually a big issue with editing Game Theory. I know I can make it more professional, but I also love the absolute fucking mess that it is, and I know that I’m not alone in that. If I change it, newcomers might find it easier to enter the fandom, but old readers may feel betrayed in the process. It’s a balancing game re: post-editing a serial in general. And you’re more likely to need that editing if you’re going chapter by chapter, instead of having it there all at once.

That being said, I think the pros are worth it? At least for me? I’ve been doing it this way for well over half a decade now and I still love it so much that even though it would probably be smarter for me to quit serials and only focus on publishing novels, I choose serials over novels in general. (And therefore publish books rarely, but serials frequently).

The good sides are that I get more immediate feedback than someone writing an entire story at once. That just feels really great. Comments make the world go around.

There’s also extra engagement. Cliffhangers are evil and FUN. Getting asks wondering what’s happening next are awesome! These things can potentially happen if you’ve already finished the serial, and are putting it up chapter by chapter too - that’s true - but I feel like there’s an immediacy when I’m replying to comments literally within like, two weeks of having written that chapter. Versus months or years later, when I’m less engaged in the story as the reader.

Sometimes there will be a push in the comments that let me see something I wouldn’t have seen on my own. For example, I didn’t expect so many people to not understand humiliation as a kink in Eversion, and getting that realtime feedback collectively from a lot of people (even people who read things like Game Theory without blinking) allowed me to adjust the story and include a section where Luuk breaks down Connor’s humiliation kink with Connor, so that readers can actually explicitly see why Connor likes it so much, experiencing that in Connor’s words and from his own perspective. i would never have thought to do that otherwise.

While solo comments don’t influence the major decisions in the story (I just love them), there will be comment trends that let me know: which side characters people are really loving - I’ll sometimes spotlight them a little more as a result (Flitmouse and Anton both got way more ‘screentime’ because of how people responded to them), which main characters people are appreciating / enjoying, who people are getting annoyed with. And I can make very in the moment changes when I sit down to write the next chapter, that don’t interfere too much with the structure of the book, because I don’t have it all finished in front of me at the point where I sit down to the write the chapter.

I like the improvisation factor! I like not always knowing exactly what is coming from week to week! I enjoy the spirit of Works in Progress from a fannish perspective. That is, I really like it - as a reader myself - when I read other WIPs from authors and get to enjoy the creative process with them as a reader. I get to see what they’re thinking, they might leave a few personal notes in the author’s notes, I get to comment if I feel like it, I get to be a part of fandom! And I feel like...this is a particularly fannish experience that I really love specifically through AO3.

Honestly writing the whole serial at once and then posting it chapter by chapter feels...weird and not really a part of that fannish process in the same way. (Which isn’t to take away from anyone else who does this, but it doesn’t work for me!)

And I guess finally, if I wrote something completely in advance, then...I have a book. Or a series. Why wouldn’t I just...publish that as a book or series of books? Instead of a serial of chapters? I suppose I figure like, if I’m going to do it all at once, then I might as well just...publish a book all at once. Idk why my brain works that way, but it does. :D

I feel like maybe I’m missing something (you’re probably thinking: but how Pia you just wrote so goddamn much and it basically only amounts to a tl’;dr of you being fucking needy for comments), but that’s about the sum of it! :D I’m glad you’re enjoying the writing!

[thecrazyanimegirl]

Summer Anime ‘18

Here are all the anime and donghua that we watched this summer season (excluding those who have second, third etc season airing).

Yeah, the chinese ones don’t exactly fit in any season. They are still very good though so we decided to put them here!

Of course, this is just our opinion so it may differ from what you think ^^

{ Winter ‘17/’18 }  { Spring ‘18 }

Aguu: Genius Dolls

K: It doesn’t have anything to do with balet, so don’t give after the first half of the episode lol It’s a bit different, from the story to animation, but I really liked it ^^ 

Neko: I like the idea of it, it’s different and interesting

Kitsune: A really interesting idea for the plot and I must say that I love how crazy the villains are! The first few episodes made me hungry for more.

Angels of Death

K: I don’t know which epithets would be enough to describe. I love Angels of Death! It’s extremely interesting, aesthetical, the characters are amazing, would recommend to anyone! 

Neko: I love it! Characters are unique and interesting, especially that one of the main characters wants to die and other likes to kill! One of my favorites this season ^^

Kitsune: A unique story leaving everyone on the edge at the end of each episode. Great art-style and lovable characters, all from “good” to “bad”.

Angolmois

K: Much better than I expected, I’m really glad I stuck after the first episode, I ended up really liking the characters and the story ^^ I don’t usually watch history anime, but this one was really good! And the music is amazing.

Neko: I didn’t expect a lot after the first episode and usually I’m not into war anime, but for some reason I really liked this one ^^ 

Kitsune: I still need to watch this further because the girls seem amazed by it :)

Asobi Asobase

Neko: It is a good comedy, sometimes really funny, but I wouldn’t watch it if it wasn’t an episode per week

Back Street Girls

K: I had no idea what to expect from the description, but I’m so glad I tried it. It’s hilarious, has great humor and a really untypical story. A yakuza in a idol girl body - what more can you ask for?

Neko: it was funny and different ^^

Kitsune: At the first sight of the trailer, I was equally confused as interested xD Although it seems like an anime that only guys would like, the misfortune of the yakuza’s can make anyone laugh!

Banana Fish

K: A roller-coaster for emotions. Definitely in the favorites! I love the characters, the plot, animation, music. It’s intense, it makes me both cry and look forward to each episode at the same time. And I just love them so so much!

Neko: It’s hard not to like this one ^^ One of my favorites, I just love it! I definitely recommend this one!

Kitsune: Love, love and only love for this one!

Beryl and Sapphire

K: I love them! Their interactions, the stories, so cute. It also ranges from cute and funny to I’ll break your heat and you’ll cry moments. Can be a bit confusing at first, but it’s great!

Neko: I love this anime! It is so heartwarming and heartbreaking and it’s just beautiful :’) Words can’t describe how much I love this anime!

Kitsune: If you ever wondered how it would look like if someone made an animation of you favorite ship fanfics in different AU’s, this is how it would be :D

Cells at Work

K: Adorable, funny, educational, I love this! It’s amazing how they personified cells, germs, viruses and all the functions in the body. One of the best this season!

Neko: I never thought I will like educational anime this much and I really never thought I will ship cells XD It is really good anime :D

Kitsune: So good that even my dad peeked over my shoulder sometimes to read the descriptions what each cell does xD

Chio’s School Road

K: Sometimes can be hilarious, but sometimes the jokes get too forced, so if it wasn’t summer and I didn’t have a lot of time, I would have probably dropped this one. But it’s cute and funny, has a lot of cats ^^ 

Neko: I think this anime would be better if it were shorter because there were funny moments and meh moments, but I guess it is sometimes funny and nice to watch

Kitsune: I kinda needed a few episodes to get used to it but after getting to know the characters better, it became a funny anime to watch :)

Eudemon Quest 

K: Only chinese animation I know that doesn’t have an amazing opening song haha It’s funny, isn’t long and even though it’s a bit typical, I like it ^^

Neko: I haven’t watched a lot of episodes so I’m not sure, but for now I like it even though I know a lot of better chinese anime

Grand Blue

K: I think the picture is self-explanatory enough lol It has a lot of comedy, drinking, stupid guys doing stupid stuff and, extremely rarely, it actually has something to do with diving (but like very rare, I got shocked each time they did anything diving related xD) 

Neko: It is not really my type of anime so i can’t really say I like it

Kitsune: lol

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

K: Yes, I love them. Yes, I’m addicted. The characters are tragic, complex and loveable, the story is amazing, I’m in love with the music. I both laughed (fangirled) and cried, it has everything. And the novel is also amazing! (even though I still haven’t read all the translated chapters like neko did, but I will!)

Neko: *cries* It’s beautiful *sobs* I would give my soul for my babies in this anime, my soul! *crying intensifies* Only love for this anime!

Kitsune: What can I say anymore that the girls didn’t mention xD JUST AWESOME! I have to read the translated parts of the novel too!

Happy Sugar Life

K: Not for everyone, that’s for sure, but it’s amazing! It does deal with sensitive topics like stalking, rape, murder, kidnapping, but the story is great, every character is, well, not normal and a bit crazy. I really recommend it!

Neko: I am amazed by how many mental cases one can fit in one anime xD It is crazy and a bit dark, but that is what makes it interesting.

Kitsune: Each time a new character appeared, I was amazed with how many different disorders they can come up with xD

High Score Girl

K: The animation is different yeah, but it’s a cute anime. More slice of life, not much going on and you can see whether you’ll like it from the first episode of two since all the episodes are basically about the same things. Not amazing, but not bad either.

Neko: Yeah it is cute, it is slice of life about gaming in the past. I probably wouldn’t watch it if it weren’t for the one episode per week, but I still think it is cute.

Holmes at Kyoto 

K: The main girl is annoying af, but Kiyotaka makes watching it worth while. The plot isn’t that amazing, but overall, I liked it.

Neko: It is the usual anime of this kind I think. There are few characters I like and there were different cases in almost every ep so it was interesting to watch.

Kitsune: I was not that much impressed with this one but it is worth a try if you need something at the end of the day to relax your brain :)

How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

K: Meh. Basically, a neet wakes up as his game character and saves the world by sleeping with and satisfying his girl companions lol Not really my type of anime, but it’s okay.

Neko: I like the main character, but everything else is not really for me. I don’t usually watch this kind of anime and I don’t know if this is good for its type. I guess the main character was a bit relatable and funny

Kitsune: It doesn’t have much of a plot other than fight -> save the girl -> boobs xD I kinda like the main guy bc of his “demon personality” but if I had to recommend something like this, it would be better to try something more like The Testament of Sister because the plot is more complex.

Island

K: The idea is great and it has a lot of potential, but the anime itself I felt like was poorly done. It really interested me, it gets you thinking about what is real and what is just the characters interpretation of things, it has a lot of turns in the story, but the ending, instead of being an incredible realization, seemed like a convenient solution just so they can finish the story. 

Neko: I have no idea what happened at the end. I mean I do, but it could have been better. It started great and it was interesting until the end. It was kind of frustrating. 

Kitsune: Interesting plot in the beginning but I found myself avoiding this anime after some time because I lost interest.

Kaifeng Strange Tales

K: Funny as hell, never leaves me bored ^^ I really love the characters!

Neko: I like it! It is short and funny and characters are great! 

Kitsune: Just try watching it, you won’t be sorry xD

Lord of Vermilion

K: Why did I watch this again? I don’t regret it, since I had a laugh watching it, but not really something I’d recommend. Has a lot of fighting scenes, annoying main characters and villains who like rambling on and on.

Neko: I have no idea why I watched all of this. It didn’t really leave a good impression on me, but I guess that there were moments when I laughed at this anime (it has stupid moments sometimes).

Muhyo and Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation

K: Magical law, ghosts and monsters, humor - I really like it ~ The characters are great, there are a lot of funny and cute moments, battles against evil and a really relatable villain.

Neko: I didn’t expect a lot from it, but somehow I ended up liking this anime.

My Holy Weapon

K: I like this one ^^ It has extremely good looking characters, good battle scenes and some humor. Can get a bit typical, but it’s the good kind of typical, so I don’t mind.

Neko: I like it, but I’m feeling like something is missing? Idk I’m weird XD I still think it’s good ^^

Phantom in the Twilight

K: This one is really sweet! The romance is soft, the main girls are not completely annoying and the supernatural beings are typical to the point that they are extremely loveable. Alongside romance, it actually has a solid story and fighting scenes ^^

Neko: I honestly laughed a lot on this anime even though it is not comedy. I like characters and plot wasn’t boring.

Kitsune: I kinda had a bad feeling about this in the beginning because it had a generic anime plot BUT after a few episodes, I really fell in love with the characters and their relationships! :D

Seven Senses of Reunion

K: Not really the most amazing game world anime, but it wasn’t bad. The arguments between characters get a bit pointless and there is a love pentagon, but I’m actually interested in the direction the plot will go.

Neko: I am interested in the idea of this anime, it seems good, but there is like one character that didn’t annoy me so it was hard watching it, for me all those relationships are pointlessly boring.

Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight

K: Considering how confused I was after the first episode or two, I really love it! The plot is interesting and different and there is a talking giraffe with an amazing voice xD

Neko: I had no idea what was happening in the first ep, but it was so weird that I got interested and I kind of wanted to find out more about the giraffe XD In the end, the more episodes I watched, the more I liked it.

Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger

K: Damn, this is so good! I love the story, the characters and action scenes! Definitely worth the watch ^^

Neko: I love it ^^

Kitsune: The hype for this was not in vain! Awesome plot and animation, each of the characters is really interesting and the fighting scenes leave you speechless ;D

The Beauty Blogger 

K: Makeup before guys! It’s casual, everything is fixed with makeup and the main girls love for it is greater than the one for boys and I love that ^^

Neko: I didn’t expect to like this one as much as I do. For some reason, I really love this anime. I also love how the main girl has her priorities organized :’)

The Dream Kingdom and the 100 Sleeping Princes

K: How many ikemen can you squeeze into 12 episodes? According to this anime, a lot. The story isn’t anything special, but there are a lot of diverse characters, it has a lot of funny moments and is pretty cute.

Neko: I don’t actually have an opinion for this one. I just watched hot guys, I don’t know what else to watch here.

Kitsune: Aside from buckets of good looking guys, the plot is not that deep. I liked how diverse the places were through which they travelled though.

The Thousand Noble Musketeers

K: It’s cool that the characters are actually guns, something like touken ranbu with guns and a smaller budget. It was fun to watch, they just didn’t do the best with the story and characterization (the villains were once again my favorite~)

Neko: There are a lot of different characters and for me they were more interesting than the plot, but I guess that was the point? 

Kitsune: Bang bang! xD The first thing I noticed is how unnatural one can wield a gun by swinging it around their heads and firing it without touching the trigger lol But well, it is okay and you get to learn a wide range of muskets and a little bit of history too if you google each weapon that appears.

Tsukumogami Kashimasu

K: Cute, relaxing, easygoing, I like it. It doesn’t have a deep and keeps you on the edge of your seat plot, but it’s charming and the small detective story details are great ~ 

Neko: I agree with Kurohime, there is nothing else to say really

Whited Nightime 

K: A cute romance + humor story ^^ It’s short and has adorable characters. I like it!

Neko: It is cute and characters are delightful I’m interesting in the plot too

[cassatine]

This is very interesting. I was wondering what your opinion is on how Rogue One and what the companion novel "Guardians of the Whills", featuring Chirrut and Baze, added to our understanding of the Whills. The Whills seem connected to, but separate from, the Jedi, and possibly lack some of the more problematic aspects of the Jedi order. They also don't seem divided into light/dark lines the way the Jedi and Sith are. Since in "The Last Jedi" it looks like the Jedi are going to be built back up very differently from the way they were in the past, do you see the Whills playing a part in shaping the reformed Jedi order? In particular, the Whills, as seen through Chirrut, seem to have an understanding of the Force that's closer to what Luke was trying to teach Rey - that it should be accessible and understood by all life and not be under the dominion of the Jedi. 

I got this question through the blog where I host my Whills meta, and unsurprisingly I had a lot to ramble about say on the matter, so I’m putting my answer here.

First off, I think you might be confusing the Whills and the Guardians of the Whills? They’re very different things:

The Whills are a… huh, we’re not exactly certain, but basically some being(s) pretty much beyond the physical world. Maybe. They’re relatively obscure Lucas lore whose inception and early reception I obsessively covered. I’ve been working on a follow-up since forever.

(There’s also a Shaman of the Whills – I covered that too, but since I’m going for thorough I’m going to point out they’re still a thing, per Qui-Gon’s biography gallery (x, picture 12 of 12). There was tweet from Pablo Hidalgo confirming it’s definitely not a mistake, but it’s been deleted with the rest.)

The Guardians of the Whills, introduced in Rogue One, are an order of warrior monks whose sacred duty is protecting a holy site.

We can expect there’s a connection, but canon doesn’t give much of a direct link between the two beyond the name. Rogue One and its tie-in materials are silent on the Whills themselves – the terms “Whills” only ever appears as part of the title Guardian/Disciple of the Whills and of the name of the Jedha Temple (it’s known as Jedha Temple, Temple of the Kyber, and Temple of the Whills). We’re told nothing on the origins of these names either. For all we know, the building is older than the order, “Guardian of the Whills” is derived from the Temple’s name, and the Guardians don’t know the first thing about the Whills.

So to answer your first question, when it comes to the Whills, Rogue One & co didn’t add anything. Well, there’s the very fact that the Temple and the Guardians exist, whichever come first, so we can suppose the Whills are not a galactic mystery, although probably enshrouded in myth.

There’s quite a bit to learn about the Guardians, tho.

They were one half of their order, the other half being the Disciples of the Whills. When we meet them, they are established on Jedha, a holy site for countless faiths with little in common. We know theirs is an ancient order, “the oldest faith known to be still active on Jedha” (Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide : 73), but we don’t know that they originated from the moon, nor if they built its Temple. It’s also worth pointing out we meet them not in their heyday, but after having been outlawed by the Empire and near extinction.

 Whether or not they built it, Guardians and Disciples are strongly linked to the Temple. In the novelization, Chirrut goes so far as to think that “without the temple he could not truly be a Guardian of the Whills.” (Rogue One novel, Chapter 20) It seems he was not alone in thinking like this; although “rumor was that the Guardians had all left Jedha when the Empire had arrived” (Guardians of the Whills, Chapter 12) other sources hint a portion if not all stayed, ending up arrested or killed by the Empire.

 The Guardians of the Whills are described as having been protectors of the Temple in various sources. In the Visual Guide they’re said to be “devoted to protecting the Temple of the Kyber” (Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide : 90), and in Rebel Dossier, an Alliance memo describes them as an “organization of warriors who defend the Temple of the Kyber as their sacred duty,” adding that they “work to keep Jedha's pilgrims safe”. (Rogue One Rebel Dossier, Republic Intelligence Briefing: The Guardians of the Whills) In a similar vein, Cassian Andor describes them to Jyn Erso as “Protectors of the Temple of the Kyber.” He adds that for them, “anyone who’s not a pilgrim is intruding on holy ground” (Rogue One novel, Chapter 4). Even when near-extinct after having been outlawed by the Empire some remain and try to keep fulfilling that duty.  

It seems to the Guardians, being protectors of the Temple doesn’t just mean the building, but also its purpose as a multidenominational place of worship and pilgrimage. As such, it also falls to them to protect the pilgrims, and probably so does the continuation of the Temple’s openness to multiple faiths.

It’s something they train for – Chirrut Imwe, for example, “is a practitioner of zama-shiwo, a Jedha martial art also known as “the inward eye of the outward hand”.” (Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide : 90) It seems to be the traditional martial art for Guardians, since they are supposed to craft their traditional lightbows “upon completion of the seventh duan – marking the Guardian’s progress to physical perfection.” (Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide : 97) Reaching physical perfection has more to do with mastery of the self than beating up people, however, and violence seems to be more of a last resort thing. Well, maybe second or third to last would be more accurate. Or it’s-really-a-question-of-circumstances.

 The Disciples’ activities also seem to have been centered on the Temple. In Guardians of the Whills Chirrut Imwe tells us that when “the Empire came to Jedha. The Imperials stripped the Temple of its artifacts, of its history. They barred the doors and posted stormtroopers around the perimeter, forbidding entrance if not forbidding devotion. The Disciples of the Whills who had worshipped so diligently for so long had been cast out, and the Guardians who had watched over them with the same vigilance alongside them.” Interestingly, he also describes Guardians and Disciples as “those who had tended the Temple of the Kyber”. (Guardians of the Whills, Chapter One)

The link between Disciples and the Temple is also referenced in the Visual Guide, which tells us the remaining Disciples could “still be seen congregating at the Temple of the Kyber” (Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide : 73) under imperial rule.

Where the Guardians of the Whills’clear purpose was clearly protecting the Temple and its pilgrims, the Disciples seem to have had been more focused on the spiritual. They also interacted with pilgrims, answering questions, maybe teaching. Research and writing seem to be another activity, with the example of Kozem Pel, who edited Collected Poems, Prayers, and Meditations on the Force, a collection of texts from different traditions. We also know of Killi Gimm, who managed an orphanage under the Empire, but probably did not always do so.

 Guardians and Disciples seem to be a case of “two halves of a whole.” The Disciples care about protecting the Temple and its pilgrims as much as the Guardians do, even if they are less directly involved. The Guardians pray and meditate just as the Disciples do.

It’s also noteworthy that the relationship between them is not presented as hierarchical. In fact, during a conversation with Disciple Killi Gimm in Guardians of the Whills, Chirrut says “Understanding the will of the Force was always far more your place than ours, I think. Disciples always seemed the better listeners.” Gimm then replies “And Guardians the better observers, and thus we had a proper balance.” (Guardians of the Whills, Chapter Three).

It’s interesting in itself that they speak in terms of listeners and observers and not, idk, seekers and protectors, and that both listening and observing are reactive rather than active, if that makes sense. And of course the idea of complementariness is there – listening and observing.

 So that’s for the basics. Now you mentioned a connexion to the Jedi, and the Guardians do seem to have that. Or an invented connection. It’s not very clear.

Before even going into the Guardians/Jedi maybe-maybe not connection, we’ve got to cover the Jedi’s connection to Jedha quickly, because Jedha happens on to be on historians’ list of possible origin world of the Jedi. According to the Rebel Dossier’s Jedha section, the planet “is one of the oldest worlds associated with the Jedi Order, and some scholars think it is where the Jedi began.” This bit however come just after “The ancient history of Jedha is one of myths and legends. No one can tell where fact ends and storytelling begins,” (Rogue One Rebel Dossier, Location Briefing: Jedha) so one can wonder about where to put the link to the Jedi on the veracity gradient. To add a layer of complexity, the Visual Dictionary tells us “Some insist that this sandy world of ancient spirituality gave its name to the Jedi Order, though most scholars believe it to be the other way around. All agree the history of the Jedi and Jedha are intertwined.” (Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide : 68).

So overall, there seems to have been a connection between Jedha and the Jedi – I’m pretty sure it’s not that Jedha’s the world where the Jedi Order started, but it’s a relatively well-known location strong in the Force that would hardly have escaped the Jedi’s notice. It’s weird that they didn’t disperse everyone to build their own temple on top of the old one, because that’s what they usually did, but there’s not enough data to do anything but wonder.

Back to the Guardians, the Visual Guide says their “origins are lost to time and inextricably woven into the legends of the Jedi Knight. Some believers insist the Jedi drew inspiration from the followers of Jedha, while historians surmise it’s likely the opposite.” (Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide : 90) Historians are likely to surmise the opposite as much because facts pointed to it than because the Jedi’s influence extended over more than half the galaxy and their cultural hegemony over Force matters was near-absolute, so YMMV.

(To me, all the in-universe discourse about the origin world of the Jedi is… I love it? It’s so real? People are fascinated with origins, and the way one conceives of beginnings has usually as much, and usually more, to do with cultural context and prenotions, AND LOOK, the galaxy’s historians live in a world in which It Is Known Force shit = Jedi. It’s so not surprising any ancient world linked to the Force is put on the “possible Jedi origin world.” Are they hyperdiffusionists? Those are the questions that keep me up at night. Not.)

Speaking of the automatic Force shit = Jedi assumption, in the Rogue One novel Cassian identifies Chirrut and Baze as Guardians of the Whills and explains to Jyn they protected the Temple before the Empire. Later on, however, having seen Chirrut fight he immediately asks if he’s Jedi, and from there he’ll oscillate between calling Chirrut a Guardian of the Whills and thinking he’s got to be Jedi. The Jedi Order might be some twenty years gone, but in the cultural fabric of the galaxy, they are still very much present.

 In a great passage of the Rebel Dossier, an internal Alliance memo cautions against assuming the Guardians are allies of the Alliance, candidly explaining “Their only allegiance is to the will of the Force-but the Jedi Order is no longer around to help them understand what the Force is telling them.” (Rogue One Rebel Dossier, Republic Intelligence Briefing: The Guardians of the Whills)

This is so telling about the way the Jedi are remembered, and really more representative of what members of the Rebel Alliance think the relationship between Jedi and Guardians was like than what it was. Because there’s about nothing hinting to the Guardians needing (or thinking they do) the help of the Jedi to understand the Force, and quite a few things hinting that in fact, they wouldn’t appreciate that very much.

When Cassian asks if Chirrut is a Jedi, Baze only answers “No Jedi anymore. Only dreamers like this fool.” (Rogue One novel, Chapter 4). Kind of noncommittal and doesn’t reveal much on what Baze – himself an ex-Guardian – thinks of Cassian’s assumption. Later in the novelization, however, he tells Chirrut of another Resistance soldier “At least he didn’t ask if you were a Jedi.” (Rogue One novel, Chapter 16) Seems like there’s annoyance with the confusion, at the very least, though like with a lot of things it’s hard to know if it’s really representative of pre-Empire Guardians.

Way more damning is that if the Guardians do seem to believe there are, if not sides, shades to the Force, “Unlike the late departed Jedi, the teachings of the Guardians of the Whills do not emphasize the discord between lightness and darkness. The Guardians believe their approach allows mortal minds to encompass the totality of the Force.” (Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide : 91) The corollary being they don’t think the Jedi’s approach allows that. Which definitely wouldn’t make the Guardians open the Jedi explaining them the will of the Force.

Of course, the Jedi would doubtlessly say the reverse. But this is clearly important to the Guardians, and most likely linked to their practice of welcoming all sorts of pilgrims, whatever their affiliation. The Guardians of the Whills novel shows how culturally entrenched this belief is, when Chirrut considers “Old Shadows, the long outer wall of the Temple of the Kyber that was forever condemned to remain shielded from sunlight,” and thinks “This, too, had meaning. For the light to exist, there must be the dark. For the Force, there must be balance.” (Guardians of the Whills, Chapter 1)

In connection with this different conception of the Force, they seem to have had very different views on anger. As we learn in the novel, “Baze had heard once—he could not recall from whom—that the Jedi considered anger an abomination; a path to what they called the dark side of the Force. But the Guardians of the Whills were not Jedi; and Baze’s anger was righteous, able to guide his shots where the Force would not.” (Rogue One novel, Chapter 18) In Guardians of the Whills, however, Baze thinks “there was still enough Guardian of the Whills in him that he did not want to kill in anger. His balance had been lost long ago, and whether or not the Force was still truly with him, Baze knew that he was no longer with the Force. But he would not kill in anger, not if he could at all help it.” (Guardians of the Whills, Chapter 2) So I think we can say there’s a difference between righteous anger and… non-righteous anger for the Guardians. The Jedi would disapprove. Anger is anger, and it’s bad.

Speaking of things the Jedi would disapprove of: the Guardians’ attachment to their temple – remember Chirrut Imwe wondering if he can be a Guardian without the Temple? A Jedi would never. And I’m not using attachment lightly, because that’s exactly how a Jedi would call it, and we all know their views on that. In Guardians of the Whills we also learn, through Killi Gimm’s sister Kaya, that Guardians can keep in contact with their families, and that doesn’t vibe very well with the Jedi policy on attachment.

And on that note – the Guardians’ ranks are made up of people who joined with full informed consent. They are open whatever your midi-chlorian count is and wherever you come from, and if the example of Baze Malbus is anything to go by, anyone leaving is not cast out by everyone else.

And the clincher? “Although Chirrut deeply believes in the reality of the Force and respects the former Jedi Order, he knows no one could ever hold a monopoly on understanding the cosmic energy field.” (Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide : 91) The Jedi Order is not particularly interested in fostering anyone’s viewpoint on the Force but its own (it the good one, after all), whereas the Guardians are. They wouldn’t reject Jedi ideas, but they wouldn’t consider them superior to any other faith’s. I’d go so far as to say that imo, the Jedi’s belief they have a Special Relationship with the Force, would be seen as bordering, if not outright heresy, by the Guardians, whose interest and tolerance of different understandings of the Force is not a “let’s collect all this nice folklore” kind of thing, but rather a “there are many equally worthy paths to truth.”

The Jedi would not approve, and not only because they think they’ve found the good path already. They would also disapprove because the Guardians’ tolerance means they would welcome death cults and thieves and Sith (well not it they’re, you know, actively trying to subjugate their planet, there’s limits to hospitality) and what-have-you the way they would Yoda or some farmer from the ass-end of the galaxy. Most Jedi wouldn’t care about the farmer thing, but they’d probably all have objections to the Sith thing.

 There are some similarities between Jedi and Guardians, however, starting with the accent put on martial art training. Zama-shiwo, the local martial art Chirrut practices, has a central pillar that “involves perfection of physical awareness – conscious accounting of a body’s placement, contact and internal functions. It is said that a master of these techniques can alter his heart rate, oxygen intake and vital processes to produce seemingly supernatural effects. This is similar to Jedi physical exercises that emphasizes bodily control – some believe due to a cultural connection with the ancient past.” (Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide : 90) Considering the Jedi��s traditional recruiting method, it’s dubious the Guardians/Disciples would have counted Force users in their ranks. But if Chirrut’s case is anything to go by they could, through training, including in the martial arts, attune themselves to the Force, learn to feel it and get impressions from it.

Like the Jedi, they have a code of ethics and of conduct, and however, it doesn’t seem particularly less strict. And there are ideological similarities. They live to serve. Accepting your circumstances is expected. So’s mastering the self, from a physical and mental standpoint. Making or letting other suffer the consequences of your choices is a big no.

  Anyway, to recap: Rogue One & co told us zilch on the Whills, but it’s introduced the Guardians and Disciples of the Whills, who are probably connected in some way, we’ve just not been told yet. All believers in the Force that they are, those beliefs are quite different from the Jedi’s. There are similarities between them, but we don’t know if it’s down to migration, diffusion, or a plain old case of separate centers of origin. Connected but separate sounds just about right.  

But while I’m clearly not the biggest Jedi Order fan (I think they were very wrong on a number of things and that they fucked up big time – lbr, that’s what makes them interesting to me) I don’t particularly think the Guardians should be considered less problematic than the Jedi. I think it’s a matter of point of view? Tumblr’s made me extremely adverse to the term tbh, so there’s that.

And despite my ability to ramble on, we don’t know that much about the Guardians in the end. For all we know their history is just as ugly as the Jedi’s. Maybe they got to keep Jedha out of the Jedi’s thumb because in exchange they send their high-midi-chlorian-count to Coruscant nicely.

 And now, your final question – do I see the Guardians play a role in the reshaping of the Jedi Order?

No. I really, really don’t. There’s nothing to set that up, and it just wouldn’t… Like I get the appeal of the idea (is there fic), but it wouldn’t serve the story. I’m a relativist when it comes to the rules of writing, but seriously, where’s the set-up.

 Then there’s the simple fact that this kind of connectivity is actually hard to do. To bring the Guardians of the Whills in, you’d have to take two audience in consideration – the one that doesn’t know what the fuck a Guardian of the Whills is, because you can’t assume your audience has seen more than the main movies (if even). And the one that wants to know what the fuck they’re doing here when Jedha was blown up. As far as we know, the Guardians are all but extinct post Rogue One. If some turned up, either they’d have been young when Jedha was destroyed, or there’s been enough survivors they regrouped and rebuild. They’d have lost their Temple along with most of their planet. Why would they even care to help rebuilding the Jedi Order?

IX would not go there imo – it’s the last episode of a trilogy, it’s already got a lot to wrap up, and it’s a movie, so pacing-wise it doesn’t have the room of a tie-in novel or comics. But even in tie-in materials, it’s not the kind of decision you take lightly – it’s not a quick reference, or an already well-known location. Moreover, it’s Force lore, and “you don’t fuck with Force lore” is one of the Story Group’s motto.

So it boils down to, would it be worth it? Doubt it.

The trilogy of trilogies is, among other things, about fall and rebirth of the Jedi, and if we look at the line of master-students behind Rey, who’s set-up to do that rebuilding… We’ve got Yoda and Obi-Wan, who’d realized the Jedi made a mistake somewhere down the line. We’ve got Luke, he of the Force lore quests and compassion as great as his disillusionment. It’s a fail-and-learn-a-lesson arc, at the scale of an institution and spread over generation. Lessons were learned and passed down, and now it’s up to Rey.

And she’s already all good! She’s learned from Kylo Ren when she downloaded the [Force] folder in his brain during his failed attempt of an interrogation. She’s learned from Luke what he deemed to be the most important lessons he had to impart. She’s had her Cave Trial! She stole the Jedi texts! Like she learns from both a darksider and a heir of the Jedi tradition, goes beyond what both teachers have to offer (rejecting Kylo Ren’s offer of teaching and going to the forbidden Mirror Cave), so at this point in her arc, having a bunch of Wise People pop up to show her how to Jedi would be a disservice to her story imo.

So overall I don’t think it’s impossible someone will turn up, but I don’t think it’s a very likely option. 

[shadowsong26x]

Solo reaction post!

So, I saw Solo this afternoon--generally, I liked it! It was fun, it was engaging...

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t perfect (I think, objectively, it was probably...not a great movie), but overall, especially given the production issues I know it had, it was a lot better than I was expecting?

Like--it was overall more like a string of good moments (mostly--there were a few I didn’t like) than a cohesive whole/movie. So, was it a good movie--like I said, objectively speaking, probably not. But I don’t care, I liked it a lot!

(Also, any of y’all who have seen it and/or read this without caring about spoilers, feel free to reply/reblog/interact/discuss/etc.!

More detailed review/ramble behind the cut.

So, like I said, I overall liked it, and I plan to focus on the positive. But I do want to get the stuff/moments I didn’t like out of the way first.

First--what I said above about the less-than-cohesive narrative. This made some of the pacing a little off. Some parts, especially in the beginning, did drag a little bit.

Second--and this is probably my biggest issue--I am not happy that they fridged Val. She was SO COOL and I wanted more with her and...yeah. Not...not really much else to say there other than Not Happy About That.

Third--L3′s death...kind of fell flat for me? I’m not sure why, but it felt overblown/melodramatic, rather than a moment of genuine pathos. Possibly because it was (or felt) kind of out of place, tonally, with the rest of the film. Possibly because she/her relationship with Lando needed a little more buildup for it to pay off properly.

Or possibly because I couldn’t help comparing it to K2′s death, which was just...just perfect. Can’t really top that one.

...those are the main things, I think, at least that I recall off the top of my head. Possibly there will be more after I see it again (which I definitely will)

Now! Onto the good stuff!

Lando. Just...Lando. And his closet full of capes and his smile and...basically, every time he was onscreen. Donald Glover was just perfect. Nailed it, hit it out of the park, etc.

Paul Bettany was also awesome! Such an enjoyable villain/antagonist. And his bat-dagger/brass knuckle/plasma knife things were SO COOL!

Uh. Anyway.

Pretty much anything from when they picked up Lando--the whole Kessel sequence--was awesome.

Also, that pirate girl, I loved her. I kind of wonder if there was something else in a previous draft--some more to the moment where she took her mask off? Like, when she did, and she and Beckett just stared at each other for a moment, I was half-expecting a reveal that she was his and Val’s daughter or something? Maybe that long shot was supposed to be “look a young relatively innocent girl fighting for a Good Cause” or something, but...eh, IDK.

L3 was delightful, too! And Riyo? Whatever his name was, the other member of Beckett’s original team.

Oh, I mentioned Paul Bettany’s SUPER RIDICULOUS SO EXTRA daggers, right? WELL THEY WERE COOL SO I’M DOING IT AGAIN.

Also, Han’s heart eyes when he saw Val on that battlefield.

Han’s heart eyes when he saw the FALCON!

Okay, Qi’ra--initially, I actually liked her a lot less than I was expecting to. I mean, not that I disliked her, or anything, just...she was more of a generic action movie love interest? She felt like a generic trope--the childhood sweetheart/old flame who is now working for the bad guys--rather than a real/interesting character in her own right. And, I mean, it’s an archetype I happen to like a lot, but...yeah. She did have decent chemistry with Baby Han, I’ll say that for her. Basically, I was just kind of “meh” on her. I was mostly just hoping she wouldn’t get fridged (as romantic false leads have a nasty habit of doing), rather than enjoying/being invested in her for herself. If that makes sense?

Anyway. Just--comparing that with the trailers where there’s that shot of Lando and his “hey-there” grin back to back with her Murder Walking away from the Falcon in the red cape that together were like...where’s that “cries in bisexual” gif when I need it?

(I mean, the Murder Walk in the red cape and LBR all of her super awesome 40s/50s hairstyles still appealed to my shallow bi heart A LOT).

Cough. Uh. Moving on.

Then that whole final sequence happened and it was GREAT.

Again let me mention the daggers of AWESOME I WANT THEM.

But also it was...just...just a really cool fight scene???? And then Qi’ra killing Paul Bettany with his own plasma dagger that was STUCK IN HER SWORD and...

And then. AND THEN.

Then she dumped Han. And as he’s walking out and she’s promising to follow him I’m like, “oh, honey, baby, she is not going to do that.”

There was a vague chance that she was going to die at that point--that it was a Kanan-style h/c angst drama “I’m right behind you” but I didn’t think it was going there. And sure enough it was straight-up Michael Corleone closing the door on Annie Hall which for all I’m a fan of the h/c “I’m mortally wounded and don’t want my loved one to see/worry” trope was SO MUCH BETTER.

And then she picked up Paul Bettany’s ring and took over the syndicate and suddenly I was SUPER INVESTED IN HER.

I have a Thing for anti-villains, okay. Maybe not as much of a Thing as I have for double agents/conflicted loyalties (though we did get a bit of that with her at the end, too) but still, a Thing.

And Qi’ra, Qi’ra, Mob Boss of My Heart, hit SO MANY BUTTONS, LET ME TELL YOU INTERNET.

And then she called her boss. And at first I was like “is Palpsadoodle behind this?” But the voice was wrong. But he was clearly being set up for a Reveal, but then again I thought Pirate Girl was, too, but then I vaguely remembered reading something somewhere that implied a Surprise Cameo (I’d been hoping for Hondo to get promote to a higher level of canon) but then I thought maybe it’s a Legends nod/recanonization of someone...

And then he dropped his hood and I legit clapped my hands over my mouth to keep from shrieking. I don’t even like Maul that much and yet. AND YET. (Also, he was played by both Ray Park and Sam Witwer, which pleased me! I don’t remember who voiced him in TPM but I do know they dubbed everything)

(Also, nice to know that Star Wars still doesn’t know what the hell a cohesive timeline is, lol. Although...I’m sure smarter people than me will math/meta it better, but I’m pretty sure this has to be set before he goes to Malachor, since he seems to have been in active control of Crimson Dawn for a good long while, plus Han and Qi’ra would have to be pretty young at the beginning. I’m guessing a timeframe of 10-12 BBY for the prologue? Assuming Han is ten years older than the twins, which I always thought, but one of my roommates, who generally keeps better track of this kind of thing than I do, thought he was supposed to be 35 then...Also, it can’t be any later than 3/4 BBY, because there’s that one bit in the Leia novel, which is set in 3 BBY and heavily implies that she almost meets Han three years ahead of schedule, and he already has the Falcon...eh, who cares, welcome to Star Wars where the timeline’s made up and the points don’t matter XD)

Anyway. Um. Final verdict--the ending was great, Lando was great, there were some bits that dragged/some pacing issues, some clunky bits, and it was something of a stitched-together Frankenmovie with some underdeveloped plot threads/characters, but overall I really liked it.

(Also, I really hope Qi’ra, Mob Boss of My Heart, outlives Maul and gets to run Crimson Dawn all by herself/properly some day.)

[ladyearlgreen]

Romance Novels

I know usually I ramble on about one particular book that I read but I spent all weekend reading romance novels and it’s my favorite genre so you can have this instead.

Technically, I think my first actual romance novel (I’m not counting Jane Austen or cosy mysteries with romances right now) was Real Vampires Have Curves by Gerry Bartlett, which I picked up at a used bookstore in like middle school/high school (for $3.50- the sticker’s still on the cover). I remember liking it and I think I tried to read the sequel? But it didn’t really click with me. And uh I reread it this weekend to see if it still held up and meh not really? Like it was a fine read but too many things annoyed me about it to really enjoy it. 

I personally consider The Brothers Sinister series by Courtney Milan my main entrance into romance novels since I read those and kept looking for more. My sister, who I think is almost like a sommelier for romance novels, sent me part of a scene from one of the books about a damaged cactus and so I read the prequel novella and the first book and I was hooked! (The cactus scene is this brief little scene in book 2 that doesn’t really affect the plot that much? But my sister knows me well lol). Side note- if you’ve been interested in starting romance, I def recommend starting with Courtney Milan (she’s my favorite and I absolutely ADORE her characters).

So there are a bunch of reasons I think I like romance novels more than other genres. First, I find them to be much more diverse and inclusive than many other genres today. That’s not saying that there aren’t diverse and inclusive books outside of romance (because there are) or that all romance is like that (uh look up the RWA diversity blow up from a couple years ago- romance definitely has its problems), but I personally find it easier to find diverse romances that I’m interested in versus diverse books of other genres. Plus, when I came out to my sister as ace, she found stuff with asexual romances for me (admittedly haven’t read any of them but the fact that she went and found that for me really meant something to me)(nearly starting crying about it again. gdi).

Second, the HEA or HFN (‘happily ever after’ or ‘happy for now’ just in case people aren’t familiar with those abbreviations). Personally, I tend to like my media to have some sort of happy ending. I like the good guys winning in some way, minimal number of people dying if possible (or with plenty of fix-it fic. Looking at you, Rogue One), and I don’t really like dystopias (mostly because I feel like we’re living in one and I’m already a very stressed person). I like knowing that the character(s) I’ve grown to love over the course of the book/series/movie/etc get some sort of happiness, even if briefly. The HEA/HFN is probably the main “rule” of the genre; I think a lot of us romance readers and writers will agree that if it doesn’t have the HEA/HFN, it’s not romance. I’m one of those people who needs to know if the characters will make it through all their struggles and come out the other side with someone (or someones) that makes them happy, even just for a little while.

Third, the overall community is great. While it’s like any community and you need to curate your own experience (idk if that wording makes total sense but yall know what I mean, right?), I’ve found my little corner of Romancelandia to be amazing. There are lots of people who are just happy to rec things to others, explain some of the weird shit, and won’t judge what you like (unless it’s bullshit like white supremacy or transphobia etc). So, like I mentioned, my sister is the one who really got me into romance and she invited me to her virtual book club last month and all the people there were so welcoming! And we had a great conversation about Bridgerton (we had Thoughts) and the other books we were reading and all that jazz (and I will continue to join the meetings until it is no longer virtual lol). Before the meeting, I told my sister that I probably wasn’t going to say much (because I’m not great with people I don’t really know) and yet I rambled so fucking much and had great chats with people. I also joined this, like, livestream event with some authors recently and, again, the chat was full of people just excited to talk to other people who liked romance (“man titty” and “impeachment of her sock” were great quotes from that stream).

Fourth (and final for now), there is probably something for everyone. Okay so idk about aromantic romances (if anyone knows any, send them my way! I’d be interested to see how they are) but romance novels aren’t just bodice rippers. Maybe they used to be (and the “man titty” covers probably didn’t help with that)(I still enjoy a good clinch cover though) but nowadays there are asexual romances (like I mentioned above), sweet romances (little to no sexual content, maybe like a T on AO3? ), hot romances (probs more like a M, maybe an E for certain scenes), and erotica (full on E). While there isn’t a good way to categorize or rate them like AO3 (since one person’s hot romance may be someone else’s sweet romance, etc etc), the sheer range is amazing and a bit overwhelming. There’s also a ton of subgenres- paranormal, historical, contemporary, scifi, etc. So if you tried one romance and didn’t like it, maybe before writing off the genre, try another subgenre? Or not- it’s up to you!

I think I’ve done a fair bit of rambling on this right now but I’ll end with a last thing: the romances of the 2010s are different from the ones of the 2000s and those are different than the ones of the 1990s, etc etc etc. Which I’m sure is obvious but just a reminder that the genre is constantly evolving and I personally really enjoy where it’s going :)

[internet-content]

Ok I'm actually really excited to hear that you didn't like Jurassic world because I didn't either and I want to have a more articulate and informed way to tell ppl why I don't like it other than the "unnecessary and forced romance" point and "it just lost the magic" I was just super disappointed w it and I want to hear more abt your opinion on it. Sorry if this is kind of rambling btw

no worries! for those of you who did not read the tags on this post a couple nights ago, I said:  #I did my capstone on this!!#jp is so explicitly and awesomely feminist#(even though it only has 1 human female character)#the other part of my capstone was that jurassic world is shit garbage its shit it sucks and I fucking hate it

first off I want to correct myself, I said that sattler was the only human female but HOW COULD I FORGET ABOUT LEX

these are the bullet points of my 14-page senior project (you asked for it):

jurassic park subverts the male gaze (the dinos do basically all of their murdering when they’re unseen or partially obscured, esp. in the “clever girl” scene; this could be down to spielberg’s famous “less is more” approach to monsters to enhance their effect but still)

this one’s a little more of a stretch but isla nublar, the dinosaurs, and nature in general are all coded as female in the context of the film, and humanity as a whole is coded as male. humanity (who is attempting to impose restrictions on the island and life itself by putting up cages and commercializing everything) is inarguably completely and utterly defeated by the dinosaurs and the island, the protagonists barely get away with their lives and hammond is the only jurassic park employee to see the end of the movie. (female-coded) life finds a way. asshole

also the female characters (ellie and of course LEX) are hugely expanded from the novel (where lex was a whiny younger sister stereotype with no redeeming traits) and ellie probably takes more direct action towards saving the humans than any other character. not to mention that most of the heroic male characters are killed, injured, or too old to contribute anything of value (looking @ you hammond, whose masculine god-playing was the cause of this whole shitstorm in the first place; “dinosaur eats man, woman inherits the earth”). also the book ends with the island getting firebombed and all the dinosaurs fucking dead but spielberg wasn’t having it

jurassic world is on the other hand a rampaging sexist dumpster fire which specifically subverts most of jp’s feminist ideas. owen is in charge of the raptors, when they defy him they are killed (this is the movie where a velociraptor is unceremoniously blown the fuck up for daring to violate her master’s control, in a moment that is an echo and inversion of the “clever girl” scene, i’m pretty sure that prior to this the only thing capable of killing raptors was the t-rex)

claire fucking dearing. hhhh. I won’t go into detail about everything (you can go through my sources at the bottom if you want) but this character is constantly belittled for…basically everything she does, no matter what (even when she saves the kids’ lives they want to chill with chris pratt like fuck no he’s a dick in this movie) but ESPECIALLY egregious is how much everybody (her sister, owen, the kids) wants her to be a fucking mom, she’s “defrosting ice queen” personified but it’s like the movie wants her to be defrosted through sheer brute force (alan grant was forced into a paternal role in jp but that was due to circumstance, not so much his brother on the phone weeping and begging him to quit his dumb job and focus on the important things like babies) she’s basically on the verge of tears this whole movie and it’s not hard to see why, it’s really uncomfortable to watch it while paying attention to how the other characters treat her. the 3.5 inch heels aren’t even worth mentioning tbh. oh also there’s also a moment where owen is pressuring her to prove that she’s worthwhile in a survival situation (my paper was called “sexism in survival situations” after the scene in jp) and she does so by…removing her top. hhhhhh I could go on but there’s more than just this one fucking character wrong with this movie

remember zara, the assistant who’s forced to do the mothering while claire goes and TRIES TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE DOESN’T FUCKING DIE thus leaving her nephews to hang out for 4 HOURS AT MOST? (this unforgivable transgression is what prompts judy greer to call her up WEEPING) well you might remember that she lets one of these asshole kids out of her sight and they go on a……..guided tour in a bulletproof glass dome. and then endanger themselves by straying off the path into an area clearly marked as not for access. so I’m pretty sure zara weeps too as a result of this and then later on she is torn apart by like 20 different dinosaurs over the course of a full minute. and a lot of people already know this but it’s just so worth mentioning: this was the first time a woman had been killed onscreen, EVER, in a jurassic park movie. it lasted 60 goddamn seconds, twice as long as it took the main villain of jp (wayne newman’s character) to be killed. i mean. you can just imagine the filmmakers going “you know what? it’s time for a woman to die onscreen, i think that’s what the franchise needs” like

owen grady (chris pratt) really is a pervy piece of shit in this movie, constantly hitting on claire, esp bad since at the end they fucking make out for no goddamn reason. chris revealed in an interview that the first kiss with her after they fight the pterodactyls was unscripted, and a total surprise for bryce dallas howard (colin treverrow, the director, was also there and he confirmed this). I think there’s another interview where she addresses it and she didn’t seem to mind really so ymmv but that’s at least a little icky idk

this movie has more characters overall but the amount of female characters who contribute anything goes down from 2 to 1. it’s been over 20 years but we can’t have 2 women who push the plot forward, okay, whatever (the characters I’m not counting are the lady in the control room who literally friendzones nick miller and zara, who did nothing wrong and died too soon. i liked merlin. she should fire her agent)

god and there’s so much more wrong just with the structure of jurassic world, the characters, the cgi, the themes, everything about it just falls apart under even the smallest bit of scrutiny, I could turn this into a generic shitting-on-jurassic-world post but it’s already long enough

I might’ve gotten a little carried away but like… jurassic park honestly isn’t even in my top 10 favorite movies but I’m so angry about jurassic world. I really hope the person who sent me this anon actually follows me and I didn’t just write this for nothing lol. jurassic world is so bad. its so bad.

“sources” (these are mostly subjective movie reviews that I used to help me form my arguements, this whole post is basically subjective so who gives a shit): Chris Pratt/Colin Treverrow interview, Jurassic World’s Mother of a Problem, ‘Life Finds a Way’: Monstrous Maternities andthe Quantum Gaze in Jurassic Park and The Thirteenth Warrior (it’s ch. 1 in this doc), The Perma-Pump: Jurassic World’s SilliestCharacter, The Death of Zara Young, or: How I Learned toStop Worrying and Hate Jurassic World, Jurassic World Has A Serious Woman Problem