#it felt good to re-read the adult novel and be like 'damn what i do have is good'

[lordsardine]

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[bookaddict24-7]

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

EVERY WEEK I WILL POST VARIOUS REVIEWS I’VE WRITTEN SO FAR IN 2024. YOU CAN CHECK OUT MY GOODREADS FOR MORE UP-TO-DATE REVIEWS HERE.

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147. Megumi & Tsugumi Vol. 4 by Mitsuru Si--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

LISTEN. I thought this manga was only four volumes long! Imagine my heartbreak when we are left with that damn cliffhanger and nothing else because volume five isn't even available to order in English.😭😭 This is why there was a slight delay between when I started this and when I finished it. I put the book down and stared at it with anger and sadness for a few days before finally picking it up to finish the side story.

I loved that in this one, everything seems to be coming together! There is more understanding between the MCs and their love is more clear to one another than ever before. Communication levels are high! But then THAT conclusion. Screw Megumi's father. Seriously, screw him.

Also, the side story was adorable as always. I love that couple!

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148. Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of the things I will always enjoy in Rebecca Serle's books is the magical aspect weaved into the contemporary and otherwise women's lit genre. It's just the barest touch of what-ifism that makes one wonder if people out there in the real world are getting to experience this magical realism.

In EXPIRATION DATES we get an MC who carries more than just her magical secret, but whereas the ability to see how long your romantic relationship is going to last is in the synopsis, the other is a spoiler that I will let you experience blind. The expectations and pressure every time the MC gets a new relationship deadline was enough stress without knowing the other thing.

I knew immediately who the MC's true love interest was going to be, but I enjoyed the journey for what it was. Sure, this wasn't my favourite Serle novel, but it was still fun and full of depth. I like that EXPIRATION DATES begs the question of "what would you do if you knew the end-date of a relationship? Would you simply go along until it's over, or would you ignore it and try to make it last as long as possible?"

Relatively short, surprisingly insightful, and with a very unique approach to love, Serle's newest novel was a quick and heartfelt read. Despite the heavier undertones, I think this would make a great summer read to carry in that beach bag.

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149. Run Away with me, Girl Vol. 1 by Battan--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

While the artwork made me a little wary, the synopsis fully pulled me in!

Reading the story from both perspectives was so sad, especially because it's so obvious that there are feelings there between the two MCs, but that societal expectations to have the husband and the kids is overriding the pure love.

While I first thought that the one character was cruel for the way she was treating the other MC, I later came to realize that it was her own form of escapism. I think this brings into focus the idea that we sometimes do need insight into both perspectives before coming to any conclusions.

Also, screw the fiancé. What a horrendous human being. He's a bully and I can't wait to see him fall on his ass.

This felt like such a nostalgic read, especially when the story starts with the life-changing line about growing up and being adults, instead of letting their love blossom beyond high school. I need more, especially after that ending!!!!

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150. Punch Drunk Love Vol. 1 by Moscareto,Okdong(Illustrator)--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Listen, one of the funniest things we could have gotten with PUNCH DRUNK LOVE is the dual perspective. I LOVED watching these two characters playing off each other without knowing.

I was genuinely laughing through a good chunk of this manhwa, especially because of how ridiculous the characters were. Plus, the classic "take off the glasses" trope where the character is suddenly way more attractive without the glasses.

It was spicy, of course, but the story around those scenes and even during them was hilarious. I'm very much looking forward to reading more of this, especially to see how the manager falls for the MC.

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151. You, With A View by Jessica Joyce--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I had heard great things about this book, so I went in wary. Expectations can sometimes be a silent killer. BUT. BUT. Joyce's YOU, WITH A VIEW was such a happy surprise (despite it being a heavier read exploring the process of dealing with grief and the bigger changes in life.)

From the very beginning, I loved the interactions between the MC and the love interest. That animosity that carried over from their teen years was GREAT. Especially because it's so obvious that it's not as reciprocated as the MC once believed. Also, the meddling, adorable grandfather? *Chef's Kiss*.

I love stories with road trips because we know we're going to get the "one bed trope" and the character growth that can only really happen in close proximity. Watching these two fall in love was perfect, especially as we also learn more about the MC's grandmother along the way.

And you know, despite the secrets living between these two characters, I DID love their communication when they had finally had it. It was honest and raw.

I also may have cried with this one because man, I never thought I'd be relating to the grieving a grandmother theme. Which I know sounds ridiculous, but I honestly thought my grandma would be around for a lot longer. And you think that you're fine, until that one moment where you're not because you're remembering again that they're not just in another country but they're actually gone. Grief is a wild process and Joyce does a beautiful job of it in this--especially because of just how important the MC's grandmother was to her. Joyce treated the topic with the gentleness and honesty that it deserves.

The love interest was also such a great character because he's dealing with his own version of grief. Life is ever-changing and it's not always for the best and these two characters show us this in their journey.

Definitely a new fan here. Will check out her next book!

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152. Canto Contigo by Jonny Garza Villa--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CANTO CONTIGO was such a beautiful ode to not just music, but also to family and the Spanish language. The amount of Spanish in this book made me so, so, so happy--especially because it wasn't translated right after it was used.

I admittedly know close to nothing about Mariachis, but I LOVED learning more about them in this book. I didn't know there were competitions in the US between schools. That was freaking cool.

The MC had such great character growth, especially when one considers that a lot of his flaws were stemming from the pressure and grief he was still trying to overcome. I think the biggest blessing for him was being moved to a different school, simply because of how open-minded the new environment was and how it forced the MC to face the less than great parts of himself.

The representation in this book is beautiful. Not only in how much queerness lives in these pages, but in the exploration of what it "truly" means to be Mexican. I read a really great essay collection about identity and how racism seeps into what it means to be a latine person. When the love interest's identity in CANTO CONTIGO is questioned because he's Black, it reminded me of that collection. I think this was an important addition to the story because those who ignorantly assume that being Latine means you fit one specific aesthetic will have an opportunity to be thoroughly corrected.

Also, phew, that enemies to more trope? Yes, please. The tension between them was incredible, but I also loved that the love interest inspired the MC to be a better version of himself. Their love was the perfect backdrop to this story, since it pushes forward so much positive change and self-love. And please, the Trans-rep! LOVED.

I highly recommend CANTO CONTIGO. You may cry, but hey, sometimes the best books make you want to cry. Also, it might make you want to create a playlist.

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153. House of Dark Shadows by Robert Liparulo--⭐️⭐️⭐️

I have FINALLY read this book. I have had this on my shelves for over a decade.

While this wasn't what I was hoping it to be, I can definitely see the appeal. It's got some scary aspects and interesting moments, but it all kind of passed by in a blur and it took me a while to truly find my way in this story.

I am intrigued, however, to see where it goes. You know that past me collected the whole series. And if the rest books are like this one, I know I'm in for a wild time.

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154. How to Say I Do by Tal Bauer--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

HOW TO SAY I DO was pure romantic magic. I don't even know how else to write this review.

The way my heart beat for these two characters. The romance, the heartbreak, the yearning, the realizations, the communication--please, this book is a pure gift and Tal Bauer is a romance god. HOW TO SAY I DO was so exquisitely beautiful that I felt my heart beating for these two long after the final page.

And the way Bauer writes the ending? Please, I could feel the waves of love and respect weaving through the words.

I wish this book was available as a physical book so I could proudly put it as a trophy on my shelves. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of my favourite books of this year.

I want to ask Bauer who hurt him because the way he wrote the yearning in this book is so beautiful and I felt it deep in my bones. Ugh.

Okay, I need to stop. But this book. THIS BOOK. Pure magic.

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Have you read any of these? What were your thoughts?

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Happy reading!

[sobdasha]

i’ve been rereading a lot of my favorite stuff for months now

since I'm lacking in spoons for library trips

And when I was cottoning on to the fact that I have, in fact, been autistic all along, one of the things I realized is that the connecting thread between the kinds of stories and kinds of characters that I like is in fact that they display autistic or autistic-adjacent traits. I had realized this, come up with a lot of examples. I knew this.

Haha yeah as I'm actually rereading the things the evidence is damning that I did not come even close to understanding the full depth of it.

~ Taucris Ithesta is Autistic and Other Adjacent Things re: Leckie's Novels ~

Actually let's start with The Raven Tower because you can't actually argue with me about autistic Siat.

Siat actively avoids eye contact, is """shy""", speaks too softly, has an excellent grasp of humor, likes rocks as a special interest, likes to collect rocks, likes to sort rocks, likes to line up rocks, has one (1) bff to conduct social interactions for her, notices patterns, is good at learning, and is considered disabled by society's standards.

Ughhhhh all that talk about rocks makes me sad all over again that I pitched my rock collection when I moved out (I saved the best fossils, though).

(ETA: I have since bought more rocks because polished gemstones with carvings on them make for great stims, I am very pleased with me)

Okay so now that that's been established, let's talk about Strength and Patience of the Hill.

Because this rock gets me. Originally I figured it was probably, y'know, like with Ancillary Justice Leckie's given me an ace-aro main character and I can identify with that as an ace-aro. But unlike Breq, who very much loves people and wants to take care of them and found family etc, Strength and Patience of the Hill doesn't give much of a shit about people. With some exceptions of people that are it's people, how dare you mess with them, Strength and Patience of the Hill will kick your ass. Although even then I'm not sure Strength and Patience is all that great at taking care of people. Also Strength and Patience of the Hill is very much absorbed in its own selfishness, very much consumed with his own internal world, and I am also a jerk like that so it was very relatable.

(Yes I am using multiple pronouns because one of my many favorite parts of the book signing was watching everyone scramble over pronouns for a rock because "It never came up so I never figured it out" and I'm pretty sure Strength and Patience doesn't even use pronouns because why would you need a gendered pronoun to refer to yourself??? You don't even need a name to refer to yourself, actually I'm pretty sure Strength and Patience doesn't actually consider itself to have a name.)

So it made sense that this rock just really gets me. I know it's bad when the majority of representation for ace-aro characters is stereotypical robots or rocks or aliens (oooh or sentient space rocks wait wAIT now that I've said that I've just realized the Myriad is the definition of a Crystal Gem, pffft) or whatever but honestly I don't care because I just really identify with the robots??? So I really liked it, YMMV.

(It's probably also bad if the trend for autistically-coded characters is just stereotypical robots or rocks or aliens or whatever too but like honestly a big autistic #mood is feeling like you are a robot or an alien or whatever so maybe that's why I'm not offended???)

My point being that Strength and Patience of the Hill displays a lot of autistic traits and is therefore very relatable, in this Ted Talk I will.

Strength and Patience of the Hill processes things slowly. She will come up with the perfect retort and tell you 5 years later with absolutely no context.

It loves daydreaming, staring at things, noticing patterns, and enjoying quiet and solitude. It loves thinking about why things are the way they are. Look I have fantasized about what if I could exist as just a pair of eyeballs and a mind floating around in space, observing things, thinking things, and not having to actually interact with the world, and I'm pretty sure this rock is living that life. (Until y'know it gets told life doesn't work like that.)

Despite his slow processing speed, and taking a while to learn language, Strength and Patience of the Hill is good at learning things, and I feel like it's the kind of sort-of-sideways, context-based accumulation of knowledge that I learn through as well.

Strength and Patience of the Hill has one (1) friend, and through the Myriad it benefits from the fact that the Myriad has an actual social circle, without having to put forth any effort of maintaining friends on its own, which is 100% the way to do it.

Strength and Patience of the Hill tends to attract the other "quirky" kids--that is, my impression is that the people who become his priests tend to be those people who look at the world a little differently, those people on the fringes. Trans people, autistic people, people with other disabilities.

Strength and Patience of the Hill trying to explain the state of affairs in Vastai to Eolo: "Okay so my first memory I can recall is…" No, okay, no, I know, it's just literally how the narrative has to be told, I'm not criticizing, but that doesn't make it any less reminiscent of "autistic person trying to explain a simple thing but starts in with 10 pages of context first to ensure the over-explanation makes sense" (haha that's why I consistently got stuck training endless new hires, I'm literally so bad at it that I'm the best in the department and I hate life).

Difficulty understanding other's feelings/points of view/circumstances (I know it's because he's a rock and a god but that doesn't make it any less relatable), hmmm what else…

Oh right, a typical interaction with Strength and Patience of the Hill:

Person: (gives offering) Strength and Patience: (offering is accepted because the transaction literally occurred, no need to respond) Person: "(asks petition)" Strength and Patience: ... Strength and Patience: wait Strength and Patience: what Strength and Patience: wait was I supposed to do something else Strength and Patience: did you ask something of me? Strength and Patience: I don't understand what you asked????? Strength and Patience: it's been an entire year now it's too awkward Strength and Patience: i'm sure it's. Fine. Strength and Patience: It's fine. (rinse and repeat)

Like I said, this rock gets me.

(Haha I was reading through my notes from the book signing and I found "Strength + Patience doesn't give a shit about balance, Strength + Patience is just selfish, which it manifests as apathy, which is why this rock gets me. All of my best interpersonal traits also spring from not giving a fuck and waiting ppl to go away faster lol" and why is that, oh because ~I'm~ ~autistic~ pfffft)

I started this post a while ago and this was as far as I got and I don't remember if I had more??? Time to talk about Taucris probably!!!

(I'm skipping Ancillary Justice etc for now because I do want to make a post about that but like there's just. So much. In those books. It's masking all the way down. So it can be its own post. One day.)

Because I waited so long I forgot what I was going to write so I'll just grab the book and flip through and comment as I see things.

To start off with: Taucris and adulthood. I've seen other people pick up primarily on the gender aspect of it--that Taucris waited until almost 25 to take her adult name because she she never figured out what her gender was (non- uhhhhhh what's the word for binary when it's three and not two? Non-tri-something Taucris in a society with 3 options but all 3 options are gendered? I'll go with that.) What really resonated for me was that Taucris waited until almost 25 to take her adult name because she never felt like an adult. And I get that ~everyone feels that way~ but I feel like it's Different for Taucris in the same way it's Different for me. Anyway I feel like no matter which aspect you choose, it's probably an autistic vibe.

Also Taucris seems to have a bit of a flat affect? She seems very serious (both in body language and in speech), and kind of intense sometimes when she talks, and Ingray notes how Taucris usually doesn't smile (she smiles with Ingray because Ingray makes her comfortable) and has always been """shy""".

Also Taucris...talks strangely? I am not sure exactly how to explain it. It's not written badly or anything, it's...you know how sometimes you suddenly sit back and look at dialogue and go no one speaks like this and it throws you out of the story because you dropped your suspension of disbelief? Taucris kind of gives me that feeling, and only Taucris. Almost like her speech is a little bit stilted? Awkward? She's very serious and matter of fact and says things like "You've always been so kind to me" with a straight face. But it doesn't feel like a """bad writing""" (quotation marks for subjectivity) thing. But I notice it every time I read her dialogue… I think it's just that Taucris is autistic and awkward and that's how she speaks. Also I think she's adorable.

Police work is Taucris' special interest. So much so that that's the entire reason she became an adult, so she could engage in her special interest better. She's ~weird~ for her single-minded interest and her interest in a job below her ~status~ and she doesn't care, she set her heart on this anyway, volunteering and interning so on.

Oh that was something else I was going to talk about--Taucris mentions feeling like she doesn't have her shit together, not like Ingray (who also doesn't feel she has her shit together. Kind of like "no one really feels like an adult). But Taucris seems quite calm and capable in Planetary Security. I don't know if this is just masking, but...I really hope that she does feel that way in her job. That because it's her special interest, that helps balance out the stress of being alive and simultaneously employed full-time. That because she's been volunteering and interning here so long, she's been familiar with the office and it wasn't a stressful transition. That she acts confident because she feels competent and respected. Taucris may look calm and cool and collected on the outside and be screaming on the inside but I hope she actually feels pretty good on the inside too.

I would also like to say that I like Taucris' nother. Despite what Danach implies, I get the picture from Taucris that e is supportive of Taucris' personality and interests even when e doesn't get it. E indulged her interest in police work, e didn't understand why Taucris wasn't taking an adult name but tried to be patient about it...so I assume that also means that e was understanding of all of Taucris quirks and stims and particularities. E's been a good support system while Taucris' peers have not.

(Except for Ingray, Taucris' one (1) friend.)

I like Taucris' relationship with Deputy Chief Veret too--the way Taucris quietly manages breakfast so e doesn't have to think about it or be put out (this is The Love Language to me, not being inconvenienced, and I feel that this is part of my personality because my personality is autistic, so). I don't know why specifically Taucris does this, but all the reasons I could come up with feel very wholesome. Taucris respects Veret as her boss and as a person. Taucris is empathetic and thoughtful (she doesn't like Danach but she tries to consider and understand where he's coming from; Taucris isn't Hatli but she considers Veret's fasting etc to be valid rather than a choice of superstition). Taucris' situation is different but she knows that it doesn't feel good to be treated as weird, to be sneered at because you don't act the way people expect you to. Taucris, being autistic, maybe has a lot of experience with "perfectly good foods" she won't eat. Taucris strikes me as someone who observes quietly, and considers carefully, and maybe takes a long time to make up her mind but when she moves it's deliberately and not carelessly. Which is, to me, a masking trait.

In the quantum version of this post I was going to write everything so polished and lay out my points so nicely but clearly that didn't happen and I don't know where to end this and I'm sure I didn't even explain things that well so I'll just say, I feel it was very autistic of Taucris in the last chapter to just be like "well IDK what you want from me and rather than expending massive effort trying to suss it out and guessing wrong I'll just be direct: I know you can't talk about what happened so I won't ask you about what happened unless you want me to ask you about what happened in which case you should say so and I will ask but I think maybe you just need to watch a movie with me instead."

[trophywifejimgordon]

the ghostbusters + books

if print is dead, fiction doesn’t even EXIST anymore in egon’s world. even when he was a kid, he never read novels, as he couldn’t fathom why someone would want to spend time reading about something that wasn’t real. as an adult, most of his reading is made up of online transcripts of current academic journals, though he’s definitely not too immersed in tech to be above spending hours in the dusty library archives. 

if he absolutely had to pick a fiction genre, it’d be speculative fiction, but only theoretically–in practice, he can’t stand the hand waved or otherwise entirely made up “scientific” methods employed in these novels.

the one exception he will make is for mary shelley’s frankenstein–the skipping over of the actual technique victor used to raise the dead irritates him, but he appreciates its place as a classical ode to human achievement past the realm of the morally sound, and besides, it played a heavy role in his decision to run a… not dissimilar experiment at NYU.

his parents, who discouraged all pleasure reading, punished him severely for the copy of the book he sneaked back to his room, and would later blame shelley for leading egon down the path that eventually took him to ghostbusting.

peter reads whatever’s popular–fiction and nonfiction bestsellers line his bookcase. he claims it’s because he’s more interested in knowing what draws the american public to the books than in the books themselves, and likes to concoct elaborate and negative conclusions to this effect… but maybe deep down, he just likes things that are popular. outside of that, peter also reads all the major psychology journals (when no one is around–he can’t let anyone know he takes this shit seriously) and, more gleefully, a wide array of harlequin romances.

between the job, night school, and, well, everything else, winston doesn’t have a lot of time to do fiction reading these days, but when he does get some downtime, he really enjoys a good mystery. this particularly extends to political thrillers and spy novels–he’s got a shelf of beat up favorites that he comes back to when he really needs to unwind.

as i see it, he doesn’t really have a favorite book so much as he has favorite authors; clive cussler is coming to mind.

ray actually feels the same way as egon does re: speculative fiction, but unlike egon, he’s more than alright with other genres. in particular, ray loves fantasy, the wilder the better–when he sits down to read a novel, he wants something completely detached from reality… not that it stops him from wanting to make real life that much more fantastic when it’s through.

the one exception to his aversion to scifi is star wars, which he loves implicitly (justifiable since it’s hardly scifi, anyway). he’s read every book in he extended universe, and has very concrete opinions on mara jade.

you know those bodice rippers i mentioned peter enjoying? those are janine’s favorites. shes unironically dreamed of herself as one of the heroines in the trashiest of her books since high school, and there’s nothing she longs for more than a muscular hunk to sweep her off her feet and into the sunset.

outside of that, janine is the most well-read of any of them in the fiction department–when she gets home at night, she enjoys curling up with a nice paperback from any genre and reading until her eyes droop closed.

i’ve talked about this before in a separate post, but i love the idea of janine and winston having a book club where they support each other through through dry, jargon-heavy tomes on parapsychology in an effort to play “catch up” and have a snowball’s chance in hell at understanding what the other three are talking about all the damn time. 

when winston finally gets his PhD, janine pretends to be mad at him for “betraying their club,” but really, she was the one who often stuck around the firehouse with him, brewing coffee and reading her paperbacks while he poured over dense law textbooks, and she couldn’t be more proud.

i feel like, when he was a kid, books were a big coping mechanism for venkman. he spent a lot of time at the library just because it was free to be there and it wasn’t home, but with time this sparked a genuine love for reading that became his main form of escapism up through high school. even as an adult, he’ll sometimes lock himself in his apartment and fly through his to-read pile when he really needs to withdraw from himself.

back when they were in college, venkman had a running joke where he would describe the plot of a bad scifi novel to spengler as if it were the contents of a recent academic paper he read, just to get a good laugh out of his reaction. this escalated to the point of venkman actually fabricating a few of these so-called academic papers and spengler going so far as to write scathing responses with full intent to publish before ray finally stepped in and told him what was going on. peter had to hide out for a week to escape spengs’s wrath after that.

when he was a child, people who didn’t know egon (distant relatives, school peers forced by their parents to be nice to him despite a mutual distaste for one another, etc) would usually give him children’s books for birthdays or other special occasions, mistaking his academic disposition for bookishness. he never made an attempt to hide his displeasure with these gifts, and often used the pages as a part of some new science experiment.

think “paper mache baking soda volcano on crack,” and that’s what happened to a copy of charlie and the chocolate factory gifted to him by a well meaning great aunt.

the first job ray ever really saw for himself was becoming an author, a path that always sort of lingered at the back of his mind. opening ray’s occult was definitely tied to his lifelong fondness for books, but the real kicker came years later, when he published a successful young adult series drawing on his parapsychological knowledge after retiring from ghostbusters.

if you asked him, peter would list freud’s the interpretation of dreams as his favorite book. in reality, it’s jane eyre–don’t ask.

when janine was in high school, she spent many nights kicked back in the backseat of a friend’s car, reading a trashy paperback bought at a gas station while the others in her group got into more delinquent activities. even when they were skipping school or going road tripping, she always had a book for the ride. (looking back, she considers these nights some of the best of her life.)

winston has a great voice for reading out loud. some of his fondest memories of growing up were his mother tucking him into bed and reading him whatever she felt like: kid’s books, adult books, passages from her devotionals and from the bible. this became a tradition he passed on to his younger siblings, and looks forward to sharing with his own kids.

cliched though it might be, ray’s favorite book series is lord of the rings. (he was always especially interested in frodo and sam’s relationship… for no reason in particular, of course.) he amends this by clarifying that while there are fantasy series he likes more, he feels that lotr built the house the later authors were just living in, and he has to pay his dues.

of all the ghostbusters, though peter has been threatening to do it nearly constantly since world of the psychic got greenlit, janine is the one who ends up publishing a memoir about her time with the company. they all read it, and everyone is honestly blown away by how talented she is at writing, a skill they never really knew she possessed. janine takes this all in stride, but secretly, hearing their compliments means even more to her than the acclaim she’s receiving for the work :’)

[ladykf-writes]

Fanfic Writer Appreciation (and a little self love)

Sooooo, as talked about I wanted to do a little promo. I may not always be my favorite writer, but I try to be one of my cheerleaders. And well, if you’re here you obviously have some interest in what I’m up to.

SO! Here’s a list of my currently-published WIPs and some info about them, in the order that I’ve updated them, most recent to oldest. 

Feel free to ask questions about any of them!

Dog Whistle (Ao3 || FFN) - started off as a prompt from @snackarey​ when I reblogged some Soulmate AUs. This one was a prompt for soulmates (Zack/Kunsel) who felt what each other felt - like pain. Needless to say, this went into a canon divergent AU where Kunsel felt some of what Zack was going through when Hojo got a hold of him after Nibelheim. And saved him, setting off an ever-increasing list of revolutionary consequences. It’s nearly 58K, and though I’m a little stuck I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Dewprism: Journey to the [Relic] (Ao3 || FFN) - this actually has a lot more written than I’ve posted, I just got a little frustrated because well... the fandom is teeny tiny and there’s no real feedback. But! It’s an interesting piece. It’s a semi-novelization where I’m taking the old PS1 Classic from Squaresoft, Threads of Fate/Dewprism and merging the two storylines. Basically... you can’t play the game anymore unless you got it from the PSN for your PSP or... PS2, I think? Or emulate it, of course, you can do that. And I wanted to bring the experience to more people, because it’s got such a great story.

It’s Not a Game (Ao3 || FFN) - this is my Avengers/FF7 crossover, and funny story, it was actually born out of a comment back on my old Genesis RP blog about how Genesis would totally be Tony Stark’s favorite character if he played Crisis Core. It’s turned into a full blown fixit I have a type and I actually have like, 90% of the next chapter done, it just doesn’t feel quite right so I haven’t posted it. And am, of course, stuck. There’s a case of choice paralysis here; the premise is that, in the MCU, FF7 is a series like it is in our world, and Tony is a fan. So he goes to make a simulation to do a self-insert... only he somehow transports himself (and Bruce) to a dimension where it’s real. A “Stark-insert” someone called it; and it does use a lot of “Self-Insert” tropes, actually. There’s just so many ways it could go that I’m stuck on choosing exactly how to progress here.

Party of Five (Ao3 || FFN) - the MMO AU! This was actually originally a prompt @up-sideand-down​ got, that I got permission to take off with. It’s a modern AU AGSZC where they meet online playing this MMO I made up that’s based off of FF7 and modeled after a mashup of like, me studying WoW and my experiences playing SWTOR. I’ve actually got some ideas of where it’s going, I just got too caught up in technicalities and need to reroute it back to the relationships going on.

Welcome to FF7 (series link, Ao3) - this is me hashing out basically what I think went down pre-games. Most of it is headcanon, I cannot stress that enough. It’s based off of the little we know, of course, but there’s just so much we don’t that it’s mostly headcanon. Tons of OCs. It’s a whole series, and they overlap - different sections that follow different departments, mostly. The base story is Welcome to ShinRa (Ao3 || FFN) and that follows the man who will become President Shinra from back when they first discover mako energy. I’ve also got Welcome to the Science Department (Ao3 || FFN) which starts off with college students Gast and Grimoire and how they get drawn into the beginnings of what becomes ShinRa Electric.

And last but not least, honorable mention to Times of Change (Ao3) - this was actually a piece inspired by @deadcatwithaflamethrower‘s Re-Entry series. I desperately need to reread that before I can hope to continue this, but... one day. One day.... I don’t suggest reading it right now, my headcanons have changed and it needs an overhaul. But you’ll see eventually.

And now... the WIPs you haven’t seen. (Under a cut)

By fandom, just to keep things straight, but in no particular order otherwise.

Compilation of FF7

The Snowball Effect (Ao3 || FFN) ... sequel? continuation? - as one of the gift exchange presents I’ve just done this past month, it is definitely standalone as is, but if I ever figure out where I want to take it, I’ll continue that one. It was just far too much fun.

The Price of Freedom - the sequel to To Be Human, which... I’m looking forward to, but I really burnt myself out on TBH so it’s going to be longer than anticipated before I approach this one. TBH definitely stands on its own, but there were some loose ends left to tie up, so we’ll see how that goes. And when it goes, when I’m ready to approach that again. TBH needs some editing, too... lots of work there.

The Unnamed Pokemon/FF7 crossover that I’ve talked about for... a couple years now (yikes) but now actually have a plot for. It’s very interesting to me, putting Pokemon on Gaia, and seeing how that changes everything. Because like, they’d have presumably used Mew’s DNA since there’s no Jenova (I can’t see them using Deoxys, which would be the closer parallel) and since there’s no Chaos, Grimoire is still alive. Which means no extra Drama between Lucrecia and Vincent - and really, there shouldn’t be the stress between Vincent and Hojo over her being sick because Mew would theoretically be much more compatible with humans than Jenova was.

What I’m saying is Seph has three parents and at least one set of grandparents and a much more stable Sephiroth (and Genesis and Angeal, thanks to Lucrecia teaming up with Gillian) leads to some very interesting changes. Like deciding they don’t want to fight the Wutai war anymore. >_>

Hold My Flower - a timetravel fic featuring our one and only flowergirl, who has had enough of people messing up her planet and refuses to just... let it die. She is, unquestionably, a force of nature. No fragile flower to be found here, this is the gal you see in the OG who threatened a mob boss and meant it. Heaven help anyone who gets in her way. She’s going to save the world. Possibly in a Turk Suit, don’t look at me.

The Long Game - Reeve goes back in time, and holy crap this one is a monster I am truly intimidated by so it’s gonna take a while for me to get going on that. XD But basically, similar premise to the above - the world isn’t healing and someone has to do something, so Reeve is nominated due to his position in ShinRa and potential to... he’d say “influence” but let’s call a spade a spade - manipulate people and events to a more favorable outcome.

A third BIT fic is one that I started writing with my friend @askshivanulegacy back in... damn, somewhere between 2011-2013, before we switched to writing SWTOR fic together. It’s one where Zack is sent back in time, and the differences in him post-Hojo change things even before he can start deliberately changing anything. But I got permission to take and remake that, so I intend to, one day. It was Good Stuff. And you can never have too much timetravel.

Dragon Ball Z

So, this is an oooooold fandom of mine - the first fanfics I ever wrote (under a different name, no I’m not telling XD it was ten years ago) were for DBZ, and definitely the first ones I ever read, back in the days of dial up. And I read a couple interesting takes on Chichi/Vegeta fic... and I was talking with @vorpalgirl about it and said I’d love to try my hand at something with that one day. I think they have the potential to be a really great pair (don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the canon pairings but those two have a lot of potential) so... yeah someday I might dip my toes back into Z. It’s on the wishlist, as well as reviving and cleaning up an old unfinished work of mine. Someday~

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Seven Years Lost - this one I’ve been debating a long time, and even did a little on! It’s basically how I rationalize what happens when Link pulls the Master Sword out and - well, spoilers but it’s a really old game so - when he comes out as a teenager and is immediately able to handle a nearly-adult body. It involves a dreamscape scenario where he communicates with his past incarnations and learns from them, and from sharing dreams with Zelda due to their bond.

Sailor Moon (manga/Crystal based)

Second Chances - I read a lot of SM fanfic back in the day, and my favorite ones were... more real? Like, there were more consequences to these 14 year old kids out there fighting for their lives and sometimes losing them. I’d like to tell a story through Minako/Venus’ eyes primarily, covering what that’s like, and then I also just really want a happy ending for the senshi/shittenou? So... yay canon divergence, lol. You guys know the deal by now. XD

Star Wars: Legends Era

United We Stand - SWTOR fanfic, baby! Basically, I’m just dying to see the eight classes cross over each other, and I will bend canon to do it. For anyone that’s played the original class story lines, there is some cross over but believe me when I say there were huge opportunities that were let drop by nature of the game. Just with the two Jedi stories alone... but that’s #spoilers for a not-as-old game so I’ll leave that be and only elaborate if asked.

(And do feel free to ask about any of these! I’d love to hash them out more.)

[tshepiso-reads-books]

My Favourite Books of 2019

I had a pretty good reading year in 2019. Formulating my favourites list this year was definitely harder than it was in the past couple of years. This list has changed and shifted drastically as they year went by (if you’d like to know my favourites in the first half of the year check out this post).

I agonized for weeks trying to rank my favourites and eventually had to give up entirely. I read so many different books this year across genre and form and it was absolutely impossible to rank and compare them. So this year I’ll be talking about my favourite books from four categories: fantasy, science fiction, comics and contemporary. This is going to be a long one, so gird your loins.

Fantasy

2019 was a fantastic year for adult high fantasy. I finally dipped my toes into this category after years of hesitancy and discovered stories filled with rich worlds, pulse-pounding plots and fantastic characters.

The Fifth Season · N.K. Jemisin

If I had to choose a singular favourite book of 2019 The Fifth Season would definitely be it. Every single aspect of this novel was done to perfection our characters were fully rendered, the plot was absolutely gripping, and the worldbuilding so fleshed out and unique. This book was so perfectly realized and is truly a feat of master craftsmanship.

Circe · Madeline Miller

Even after all these months, Circe is still a stand-out story. Miller’s prose was breathtaking and cutting and our main character, Circe, so all-encompassing and well explored. The lens through which Miller views greek mythology was fascinating and the way she explored characters we already had preconceived notions of was fucking brilliant.

Jade City · Fonda Lee

This book was the perfect blend of inciting action, gripping family drama. The multi-layered and ever-changing landscape of the plot of Jade City kept me flipping the pages of this book, but the strong interpersonal relationships between the family at the center of this book kept me connected to every single plot point.

The Diviners · Libba Bray

The Diviners is the only YA fantasy on this list and I think it truly speaks to the heights that this book reached. What stood out most to me about this book was how politically relevant it was. Bray’s focus on the bigotry and hatred in America in the 20’s time felt pointed and relevant today. With fantastic characters, atmospheric writing and engaging mystery to boot The Diviners was a truly great story to read.

Foundryside · Robert Jackson Bennett

Foundryside was a genuinely fun time from beginning to end. I was gripped by Bennett’s unique magic system which I can only describe as “coding… but magic”. The great character work and entertaining character dynamics added to my absolute enjoyment of this story.

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Sci-Fi

I got really into sci-fi for the first time this year and absolutely adored so many of the stories in this genre. I glad I dove into this genre more in 2019 because I discovered some fantastic stories.

The Wayfarer’s Trilogy · Becky Chambers

The Wayfarer’s trilogy was like a warm blanket to me this year. Every time I picked up a new book in this series its themes and messages filled me hope and joy. Chambers is really writing the sci-fi we need in 2019. I loved every book in this series, but I wanted to shout out A Closed and Common Orbit in particular because it was definitely my favourite.

Ninefox Gambit · Yoon Ha Lee

Ninefox Gambit was a late entry into my favourites, but damn did it hit with a bang. It was certainly one of the most challenging books I read this year, but the reward for sticking through it all was just priceless. Lee crafted such an intricate world and delving deeper into it as I kept reading was enthralling.

Sleeping Giants · Sylvain Neuvel

It took me a while to fall for Sleeping Giants, but once I did I fell head over heels. Neuvel weaved in an interesting story through the interview format he utilized. I’m awed by his ability to capture the scope of the world and create a heart-pounding plot and intriguing mysteries exclusively through interviews.

Time Was · Ian McDonald

Time Was was an excellent novella. It captured everything I adore about time travel stories and historical science fiction. In a few pages, Ian McDonald sold me completely on every aspect of this story. I loved the sweeping romantic atmosphere imbibed into the story.

The Calculating Stars · Mary Robinette-Kowal

Another historical science fiction made its way into my favourites list and it truly deserved to. The level of detail poured into The Calculating Stars is amazing; Mary Robinette-Kowal delved deep into the space program and her accuracy to the time is astounding. Her ability to make me care about the minutiae of daily life is a credit to her character work because the protagonist of this book, Elma, was so charming and real that I couldn’t help but be invested in her story.  

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Comics

I read comic books for the first time this year and absolutely loved most of what I read. I discovered some fantastic authors and artists telling amazing stories and hope to only increase my comic reading in the coming year.

Nimona · Noelle Stevenson

What more is there to say about Nimona. I raved about it so much both online and in my personal life. Noelle Stevenson is writing the kinds of stories that sink their way into my heart and stay there. I adored every single panel of every single page in this story and encourage every single person to pick it up as soon as humanly possible.

The Vision · Tom King & Gabriel Hernandez Walta

I don’t even know what to say about The Vision other than, wow. This dark, psychological, tragedy affected me so deeply. It’s one of the three books I actively cried while reading this year and to this day I can’t eloquently express why I adored it so much. King really makes you care about the family at the center of this story which makes the tragic outcome of the story and the inevitability of that tragedy all the more painful.

Hawkeye · Matt Fraction & David Aja

I love Clint Barton with my whole heart and Hawkeye is the reason why. Fraction and Aja demonstrated a true understanding of Barton as a character and through their three-year run, they crafted what I believe is the best story about him out there.

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Contemporary

This year was pretty light on contemporaries both in number and quality but I did discover amazing stories that spoke to me deeply.

Radio Silence · Alice Oseman

Radio Silence is a book that directly spoke to an exact moment in my life. I read this at the start of my final exam season of high school so the failure of the education system really resonated. Oseman managed to capture the rat race that is school. This book was deeply affecting and emotionally resonant which is probably why it’s one of the books that made me cry in 2019.  

Fangirl · Rainbow Rowell

I’m kind of cheating by putting a re-read on this list, but I found rereading fangirl this year to be so impactful and moving that it would feel a right shame to leave it out of any ‘Best of 2019’ list. Fangirl spoke to me so much harder in 2019 than it did when I first read it. Rowell perfectly captured the reasons we go to fandom for solace and community and the struggles Cath faces in this book are all the more relatable with time.

Autoboyography · Christina Lauren

YA contemporary captures the melodrama of teenagerdom in a way other subcategories of YA never really do. Autoboyography distils the essence of what it feels like to be a teenager so well. And not only does it do that it also contains a beautiful love story at its center.

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Honourable Mentions

I read so many fantastic books this year and this list would feel incomplete without some honourable mentions. All of these were so close to making it on to my final list but sadly didn’t make the cut.

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So, that was my extensive favourites list for 2019. I had such a good reading year in 2019 and I want to bring that energy into the new decade. I’d love to hear about all your favourite books of the year in the comments below so please feel free to share them.

Happy reading!

[buzzdixonwriter]

Influencers

I seriously started writing when I was 13, “serious” in this case meaning I submitted carefully typed reviews and articles to fanzines and short stories to magazines.

My father toyed with the idea of being a writer at some point in his life, and we had a stack of old Writer’s Digests and Jack Woodford’s How To Write For Money in the house.*

I can’t recall how many stories I wrote and mailed out, but none of them sold (my first short story sale was “Smuggler” in the November 1983 issues of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, but of course by that time I was already well established as an animation writer; I had placed a few articles and reviews in fanzines by that time).

Recently I had reason to re-read some of my own stories, and I got to wondering who my key literary influencers were.

Here, in rough chronological order, they are:

Ray Bradbury was the sci-fi writer that school boards felt comfortable with, and as a result stories like “The Pedestrian” turned up in lots of grammar school and junior high English textbooks.  Well, that was like Hartz Mountain heroin to 10 year old Buzzy Boy.  I voraciously read everything by Bradbury in every library I had access to.   Somewhere I read his short story “Pillar Of Fire” which includes a virtual laundry list of writers of the phantasmagorical, and of course that sent me off in search of each and every one of ‘em, and that led me straight to…

H.P. Lovecraft took one look at my Southern Baptist Sunday school theology, said “How cute” and proceeded to sweep everything off the table.  I have come to realize Lovecraft was a racist and a terribly, terribly flawed human being, but his cosmic horror stories (retconned by August Derleth as “The Cthulhu Mythos”) made me realize “Holy #&%@ -- I’m not even asking the right questions!”, and while Alfred Bester and Philip K. Dick and A.E. van Vogt would later expand my imagination even more, he’s the guy who shot the lock off the door.

When I started writing seriously (i.e., for actual submission of material, not just to fulfill a school assignment), I found myself typically bouncing between Bradbury and Lovecraft’s styles (the occasional Robert E. Howard and Ian Fleming pastiches excluded).  Luckily for all concerned, I landed closer to the Bradbury camp than the insanely verbose and grandiloquent Lovecraft…

Ernest Hemingway cropped up on my radar through osmosis:  I heard adults talking about him, read his name on gag book titles in Warner Brothers cartoons, saw the TV news report his suicide.  I saw The Old Man And The Sea and For Whom The Bell Tolls on TV when I was ten or eleven, and since both were touted as based on his works, I looked them up.  For Whom The Bell Tolls was the first one I read, and for a pre-adolescent boy that’s probably the perfect introduction to Hemingway.  By the time I started reading voraciously, Hemingway’s modern style of writing pretty much became the norm for everyone, but he mastered that spare lean style better than anyone else.

Mark Twain first hopped into view with Boy’s Life reprinting “The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County” even though I’d seen movies based on Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn before that.  That short story led me to his novels, and oddly his novels led me back to his short stories and essays.  Twain’s somewhat old fashioned yet naturalistic style flows so effortlessly and easily and handles asides and digressions so seamlessly that I found myself re-reading his works again and again to see how he did it.

H. Allen Smith is an unjustly forgotten American humorist from the 1930s-40s-50s.  I picked up a coverless copy of his anthology Poor H. Allen Smith’s Almanac in a remainder bin in a Dollar General Store in Athens, Tennessee more out of curiosity than anything else and was delighted to find a soul mate.  Smith, like Twain, was the literary equivalent of MAD Magazine, puncturing pretentious stuffed shirt shirts with pleasure.  Like Twain, Smith employs a seemingly effortless style to conceal a sharp cynical sting.

Harlan Ellison came to my attention as I started reading more and more science fiction digest and fanzines in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Always controversial, deliberately provocative, and relentlessly entertaining on the page or in person, Harlan demonstrated more than any other writer I encountered the fire in the belly that represents The Work. (The Work is one of those things that can’t be described, can’t be defined; as Louis Armstrong once said of jazz “If you’ve got to ask, you’ll never know.”  Writers know what I’m talking about, authors think they know, but most people just go “…wha…?” when the topic comes up, which is why writers rarely talk about it in front of civilians.)  Harlan’s style and élan could never be duplicated, much less equaled, but damn, he left a lot of good inspirations and insights behind, and I find myself applying them -- filtered through my own style and experience, of course.  His best insight was that no matter how fantastic the story, it had to be about human emotions, or else it was just shit.

Thomas Heggen is another unjustly forgotten American writer, remembered (if at all) as the original author of the novel that became the movie Mister Roberts.  The novel began life as a series of vignettes and short stories Heggen wrote and sold to New Yorker magazine during World War II and based on is actual experiences as an officer aboard U.S. Navy cargo ships.  After the war he assembled, re-edited, re-wrote, and added new connecting material to turn these stories into a novel, and from there worked on the Broadway play adaptation.  He died a tragic early death (accident or suicidal despair over crippling writer’s block, take your pick).  Again, I was introduced to his writing through the movie based on his work, finding a reprint of the book sometime after I discovered H. Allen Smith.  In contrast to Twain and Smith, Heggen’s laconic style underplayed his humor, actually heightening the absurdity of his situations by treating them so matter of factly.

Richard E. Geis is better known as the editor of Science Fiction Review in all its various permutations (originally Psychotic then Science Fiction Review then The Alien Critic then back to Science Fiction Review then Richard E. Geis then Science Fiction Review again then Taboo) and as such one of the key influencers in the legendary New Wave vs Old Stuff feud that consumed sci-fi fandom back in the 1960s and early 1970s (which is to say just at the time when I was becoming active in fandom). Geis wrote fiction -- a handful of self-published sci-fi novels and stories in an era long before self-publishing was a viable norm, and over 100 porn novels at about $500 a pop – and I must be brutally honest, none of them were good.  But his genius and ability lay in his editorial and critical skills, and in his editorial writing for Science Fiction Review he demonstrated a lively and entertaining style that managed to meld coolly analytical criticism with engaging and often sly personal observations (Geis frequently employed Alter, his name for his darker, more sardonic alter ego, in a back and forth dialog to use dialectics to exposes the strengths and weaknesses of any work or proposition).

William Goldman’s screenplay of Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid was published as a paperback by Bantam Books.  When I saw it on the spinner rack in a small drug store in Madisonville, Tennessee, I thought it would be a novelization of an upcoming movie, but when I flipped it open I realized I was looking at an actual bona fide screenplay, and of course, I had to have it.  (The kneeslapper is that Goldman never wrote in conventional screenplay format, and while his works are excellent examples of how to tell a story cinematically, they sure aren’t industry standard.)  I followed his work after that, both on screen and off, and when he wrote Adventures In The Screen Trade I devoured its lessons hungrily.  While I see a certain stylistic influence in my writing from Goldman, what I really learned from his was structure and form and style.

Walter Hill and David Giler took Dan O’Bannon’s already legendary unproduced script for Alien and -- no slam against O’Bannon -- transformed it from a really, really good B-monster movie story into a work of poetry.  Compare and contrast the two screenplays; everything’s there in O’Bannon’s work, but Hill and Giler blew it through the roof. Their writing style -- seemingly minimalistic but in reality forcing the reader to see the movie exactly as they envisioned it -- was a revelation, and while I don’t try to ape it directly, I have used it to free me from conventional descriptions of characters, scenes, and actions to good effect.

Charles Bukowski was introduced to me by the late Gordon Kent, a friend and co-writer at Ruby-Spears Studios.  I quickly became enamored of his unadorned, almost journalistic style of fiction, but his poetry is what resonated the deepest.  After reading Hill and Giler’s Alien script, I looked at Bukowski’s poems with new eyes, seeing how he used a similar technique in many of his poems that they used in their screenplay.  This in turn led to a greater interest and appreciation in poetry as a whole on my part, and to start applying more poetic styles in describing characters and situations, again paring verbiage to a minimum while conjuring up more vivid mental images.

Like every writer, I’ve been influenced to some degree or another by every story I’ve read, every movie I’ve seen, every song I’ve heard.

Some may complain there are too many old white guys in this grouping, and that’s a fair cop – if I was drawing up a list of writers to recommend.

But I’m not doing that. I’m telling you what influenced me, how and why.

Take it or leave it.

 ©  Buzz Dixon

  *  If you can find any Woodford book on writing GET IT!!!  He’s not the best of the best when it comes to analyzing the writer’s craft but sunuvagun he’s damn good and he lays it out flat in a take-no-prisoners style.  You may not like what he has to say but man, does he ever cut through the BS.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

The Precise Moment I Stopping Reading City of Bones

by Wardog

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

Wardog is probably a bit patronising.~

Like all inflexible people, I like to think of myself as being relatively open-minded and, therefore, in the spirit of open-mindedness I recently got round to reading (or rather attempting to read) Cassandra Clare's City of Bones. I wanted to like it, no really, I genuinely did. Cassandra Clare, for all those who have been living under an internet stone, is a pseudonym of a pseudonym, but Cassandra Cla(i)re, back in the day, wrote fanfic, the very popular Very Secret Diaries and The Draco Trilogy, which seems to be no longer available on the internet at the request of its author (interesting that, hmm?). Well, when I say no longer available on the internet, what I mean is ... not available unless you spend about five minutes looking, which I might have just done. For the record, said trilogy is beautifully decorated with anime-style Draco Malfoys and black roses. Awww. She also has a hefty set of pages over at the Fandom Wank Wiki (trust me, if anything needs a wiki, it is fandom wank), which are suitably, painfully entertaining in a "for what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" kind of way.

Anyway, background cheapshots and raised plagiarism eyebrows aside, I really have no strong opinions on either fandom or Cassandra Cla(i)re, but I quite liked the idea that a popular, moderately competent fanfic writer managed to break into the publishing world. Fanfic is a difficult beast to comprehend unless you're right there in its mouth but, as far as I see it (and, bear in mind, if you do write fanfic this is probably going to sound like the simplistic flailings of an outsider), there are three possible attitudes, or at the very least a spectrum with some definable stopping points on it:

1) Fanfic is art, man, art and there is ultimately no difference between If You Are Prepared and Bleak House. They're both pretty damn long for starters.

2) Fanfic is like original fiction but not as good, and is basically written by people who can't get their own stuff published

3) Fanfic is entirely different from original fiction

Since the first one is clearly non-viable, and the second is actively rude, I subscribe to the third. Writing for fans and writing for publication is vastly different, and to assume that the one aspires to the other is rather to miss the point (and, arguably, the pleasures) of fanfic. Even so, I would have thought the gulf between fanfic and original fiction to be eminently jumpable. I mean, the ability to string a decent sentence together is a transferable skill, right. Right? Well, evidently not. To be fair, my problems with City of Bones a are not about the sentences (although they are of questionable quality), they goes rather deeper than that.

The truth is I actually couldn't read the damn book. I had to give up. It's not that it was, y'know, bad as such, although it occasionally was, it just didn't - to my mind at least - make the leap from fanfic to original fiction at all successfully. I know attempting to draw a distinction between fanfic and original writing is likely to get me shot at dawn but it's the only hope I have of articulating why City of Bones just doesn't work.

As far as I could tell from the sliver I read, City of Bones is young adult urban fantasy. The heroine, Clary Fray, (and let's not even ask why an author who calls herself Cassandra Clare decided to call her heroine Clary) is exactly the sort of spunky young thing you would expect of a modern heroine. She's out at a nightclub with her best friend Simon when she happens to witness a supernatural murder. Demons yadda yadda vampires yadda yadda Shadowhunters yadda yadda sardonic attractive blonde yadda yadda yadda wise old mentor with bird yadda yadda. Look, truthfully, I don't really have any idea what the plot is because I only made it to page 63.

And this is the exact moment when I snapped.

"In the distance she could hear a faint and delicate noise, like wind chimes shaken by a storm. She set off down the corridor slowly, trailing a hand along the wall. The Victorian-looking wallpaper was faded with age, burgundy and pale grey. Each side of the corridor was lined with closed doors. The sound she was following grew louder. Now she could identify it as the sound of a piano being played with desultory but undeniable skill, though she couldn't identify the tune. Turning the corner, she came to a doorway, the door propped fully open. Peering in she saw what was clearly a music room. A grand piano stood in one corner, and rows of chairs were arranged against the far wall. A covered harp occupied the centre of the room. Jace was seated at the grand piano, his slender hands moving rapidly over the keys. He was barefoot, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, his tawny hair ruffled up around his head as if he'd just woken up. Watching the quick, sure movements of his hands across the keys, Clary remembered how it had felt to be lifted up by those hands, his hands holding her up and the stars hurtling down around her head like a rain of silver tinsel."

Let's skim all over the things that are awkward about this passage ... wind chimes only make sounds when they're stirred and piano music doesn't sound like that anyway ... how can wallpaper be faded with burgundy ... can a skill be desultory but undeniable ... why does it have to "clearly" be a music room, surely it is just is one ... how many times can you say "hands" in one sentence ... how does she know he's barefoot, he's playing the bloody piano ... and what the fuck is with the rain of silver tinsel...

But, yes, skim all that and riddle me this:

Wouldn't that whole scene be so much better if it turned out be Draco Malfoy sitting at the grand piano?

There's a technical name for what's wrong with this passage. In the industry we call it "blowing your load prematurely" (question is, what industry). Seriously, though, we're on page 63, we've spent all of 20 of them in the company of this character (and, let's face it, he's a pretty, sardonic, wise-cracking faintly angsty type very reminiscent of Cla(i)re's take on a certain slytherin): why the fuck should we be even remotely interested in the sight of him at a grand piano? It's a very senses-heavy scene: we have the sound distant music, the wallpaper beneath Clary's fingertips, and the lovingly detailed description of the ruffle-haired eyecandy sitting at the piano, so there's this self-conscious build up, deliberately (albeit not entirely eptly) evoking something of the fairytale, and what's the pay off? Up until this point the tawny-haired Jace has been a rude and snippy, so it's clear that this little scene is meant to show us a different side of him but character revelation scenes only function when you know the character well enough to experience it as a revelation. This is just ... information, excessively presented. It's like being hit over the head with a neon sign saying: "you should fancy this character now." And for the record, he's a demon hunter, not a concert pianist so there really is no reason to have that scene there except as drool-footage.

Possibly I'd feel differently if I was a teenage girl but I hope I'd have more taste.

What the scene did for me, aside from inducing me to throw the book across the room in disgust, was exemplify the subtle sense of wrongness I'd been getting throughout the previous 62 pages. Essentially City of Bones reads like fanfic - and I don't mean that as kneejerk indicator of poor quality, I mean that it reads like something constructed for a different purpose, functioning on a different ruleset. Leaving aside any criticisms of the actual style, this scene would probably work - for me - if I read it as fanfic. It's visually and linguistically striking - the juxtaposition of scruffy boy and fine old instrument (sorry), the hint at aspects of a character hitherto unknown, the touch of submerged melancholia (playing the grand piano to an empty room is a lonely hobby), all this would be fine if the mysterious pianist turned out to Draco. I mean, playing the grand piano is one of the things that one could potentially imagine Draco being able to do. Well, if you stopped and thought about it for a moment, probably not, because surely wizards have ... like ... magical pianos, or house elves to produce their music for them. But given that Draco is a repressively raised posh kid, it seems to me at least credible his parents made him have piano lessons, even if he hated it. And Draco, being the wizarding equivalent of genetically modified, would probably be reasonably good at it regardless.

I truthfully have no idea what it is that makes fanfic work but it seems to me to have something to do with potential plausibility. Scenes of certain characters doing things they never explicitly did in the books (even if this is fucking each other) resonate with you because it feels both novel and familiar - to continue the musical theme, if I presented you with Remus Lupin playing the electric guitar you might raise an eyebrow because he's far too bookish and quiet, but it would totally suit Sirius Black for example. Or even James Sodding Potter. And such scenes require no build-up because the reader already knows the characters being written about. Equally, dwelling on the details, and presenting very visual, senusous scenes, seems less purple than it does when you do it in original fiction because it helps to establish a familiar character in what may be an unfamiliar setting: for what's it worth, I can picture Draco Malfoy playing the grand piano very vividly. Pale hair, slender fingers, whatever. Fan fiction, even if you're looking at a 100,000 word AU fic, seems to be all about the establishment of moments, which need not necessarily (and probably don't) exist as part of a continuum of moments.

This is absolutely the opposite to a book.

The scene of Jace/grand piano has utterly no resonance for the reader because, well, partly because it's rubbish and partly because no time has been given to properly establishing the character so it's essentially meaningless, but mainly because it has no real sense of its place in a connected, developing narrative. Although the 63 pages I read did occasionally have moments of genuine mediocrity that made me suspect I should try to be more generous with the text, the whole reading experience felt so ultimately hollow I couldn't bring put myself through it. There's nothing inherently wrong with something reading like fanfic - fanfic reads like fanfic and I quite enjoy the stuff - but City of Bones is a work of original fiction, it's a book that I paid real money for (more fool me) In essence, then, it's original fiction without the necessary underpinnings, and fanfic without any of the characters you like. Worst of all possible worlds.

Comments:

Dan H

at 12:57 on 2008-09-25So I've started reading it now, to pick up where Kyra left off (nearly at good old Page 63).

I actually don't think it reads that much like fanfic (at least not like *good* fanfic). There's way too much exposition (fanfic tends to assume that everybody knows what's going on) including some truly wonderful scenes with people actually saying things like "surely you recognise a girl, your sister, Isabelle, is one" (Isabelle, it should be pointed out, is *right fucking there*).

Favourite line so far: "Her hair was almost precisely the colour of black ink".

What colour would that be, exactly? Black, perhaps?

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Arthur B

at 15:32 on 2008-09-25It strikes me, actually, that while most of us have a good idea of what "bad" fanfic is like, good fanfic must by its nature vary widely in style, because at least part of the point of fanfic is to produce something that is reminiscent of the source material, so good Lovecraft fanfic will read different from good Firefly fanfic, or good Pratchett fanfic.

(Which would mean that, say, "good" Cecilia Dart-Thornton fanfic is a contradiction in terms: if it's good, it's no longer reminiscent of the source material.)

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Dan H

at 18:38 on 2008-09-25I think Lovecraft fanfic is a special case actually, because it borrows Lovecraft's ideas rather than his characters. Lovecraft fanfic (and, to borrow Arthur's term, peerfic) is all about eldrich horrors from beyond the void, it's not like anybody writes Herbert West/Charles Dexter Ward slash.

Actually they probably do.

By contrast, I actually think with most fanfic the style is fairly consistent between fandoms (although I admit to limited experience here). Part of Cassandra Cla(i)re's big plagarism debacle, indeed, was the fact that she regularly borrowed lines from Buffy for her Draco fics.

In further updates on City of Bones I've now got past the point reached by our intrepid editor and have the following to add:

Holy Crap the wise old mentor dude is a lot like Dumbledore. There's a bit where he asks the heroine if she wants anything and I *totally* expected him to offer her a sherbet lemon. And if you don't read "Muggle" for "Mundie" every time you're a better man than I am.

Also, some exposition from earlier in the book which I found particularly awful:

"Demons," drawled the blond boy, tracing the word on the air with his finger, Religiously defined as hell's denizens, the servants of Satan, but understood here, for the purposes of the Clave, as any malevolent spirit whose origin is outside our own home dimension."

"That's enough, Jace" said the girl.

"Isabelle's right," agreed the taller boy, "nobody here needs a lesson in semantics - or demonology."

As you know, I *almost* applaud the bare faced cheek of it.

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Arthur B

at 00:38 on 2008-09-26

I think Lovecraft fanfic is a special case actually, because it borrows Lovecraft's ideas rather than his characters. Lovecraft fanfic (and, to borrow Arthur's term, peerfic) is all about eldrich horrors from beyond the void, it's not like anybody writes Herbert West/Charles Dexter Ward slash.

To be fair, there aren't that many recurring characters in Lovecraftian fiction except for the Old Ones themselves, who get reused all the time. And I've lost count of the number of times I've read stories about long-lost offshoots of the Whateley clan or where yet another dozy protagonist realises they come from Innsmouth stock.

I agree, though, that the Lovecraft-tribute scene is pretty unique; I expect this is partly because Lovecraft was one of the first authors who genuinely encouraged people to write stories set in his mythology, to the point of sending them detailed letters showing them how to boost their fanfic to peerfic. Having essentially established the core of his own fandom before he died, that core went on to set the norms for Lovecraft tribute works forevermore.

By contrast, I actually think with most fanfic the style is fairly consistent between fandoms (although I admit to limited experience here). Part of Cassandra Cla(i)re's big plagarism debacle, indeed, was the fact that she regularly borrowed lines from Buffy for her Draco fics.

I would suggest that this may be the result of people writing to indulge the sort of mores that have grown up around fandom-in-general, as opposed to writing to emulate the original work.

Which might explain why City of Bones exists. Once you don't care what the background to what you're reading is, so long as it has shipping and mary sues and whatnot, it becomes easier to accept the idea of fanfic-like work which is fanfic of nothing in particular - nothing, that is, except fanfic itself.

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Montavilla

at 01:55 on 2008-09-28

I truthfully have no idea what it is that makes fanfic work but it seems to me to have something to do with potential plausibility. Scenes of certain characters doing things they never explicitly did in the books (even if this is fucking each other) resonate with you because it feels both novel and familiar - to continue the musical theme, if I presented you with Remus Lupin playing the electric guitar you might raise an eyebrow because he's far too bookish and quiet, but it would totally suit Sirius Black for example. Or even James Sodding Potter.

Sadly, you made me immediately start wondering what Remus would play in James Potter and the Silver Marauders band. He might, ala George Harrison, play lead guitar. (Sirius would be play rhythm guitar and James would play the bass). Peter, of course, would be on drums. Which might explain why they put up with him all that time. It's hard to find someone who's got their own drum set.

Favourite line so far: "Her hair was almost precisely the colour of black ink". What colour would that be, exactly? Black, perhaps?

To be fair, comparing hair to ink is a difficult image these days because we only really see ink in the stems of our ballpoint pens. Perhaps it might have been better to say, "Her hair was almost precisely the color of laser toner. In a really old printer. You know. The black-and-white kind."

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Dan H

at 12:18 on 2008-09-28

To be fair, comparing hair to ink is a difficult image these days because we only really see ink in the stems of our ballpoint pens. Perhaps it might have been better to say, "Her hair was almost precisely the color of laser toner. In a really old printer. You know. The black-and-white kind."

Hee hee.

In all seriousness, though, it's not the comparison to ink that bugged me, it just strikes me as elementary that if you're saying "X was the colour of Y" then unless you're doing a Blackadder style joke "Y" should not include reference to a specific colour. "Her hair was black as ink" "her hair was black, like ink" "her hair was ink-black" would all have been fine. So for that matter would be "her hair was like black ink". "Hair the colour of black ink" is like something out of the Bulwer-Lytton contest: "Her hair was the colour of black ink, her eyes the colour of a blue crayon, and her dress the colour of a dress made out of red silk."

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Wardog

at 14:16 on 2008-09-29

Since we're playing Favourite Lines, my personal shoutout goes to: "He had electric blue dyed hair that stuck up around his head like the tendrils of a startled octopus..." I guess it's just the awkwardness of the construction coupled with that startled octopus...

Arthur: I would suggest that this may be the result of people writing to indulge the sort of mores that have grown up around fandom-in-general, as opposed to writing to emulate the original work.

I'm not sure emulating the original work has ever real been the goal, well, not unless there's specific stylistic feature *to* emulate if that makes sense - like Lovecraft. I mean, you want to make your characters sound like the characters they are but ... well ... to indulge a bit of JKR bashing just because that's what we do here, most of the Harry Potter stuff I've read has been stylistically objectively better than the author.

"Her hair was almost precisely the color of laser toner. In a really old printer. You know. The black-and-white kind."

Hehe!!!

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Arthur B

at 15:47 on 2008-09-29

I think direct stylistic mimicing is, as you point out, actually rare, especially since a lot of fanfic is written about TV series, so you're translating a visual format into a literary one. But at the same time I think that the aim of a lot of fanfic is to emulate the source work in the sense that the writer's trying to tell a story that is a) reminiscent of the source material, in that it establishes a mood and tells a story which could recognisably fit within the source, and b) features the characters behaving in a manner recognisable from the source (unless the explicit point of the fic is something like "What if Captain Lolcats got possessed by a brain worm?"). At the very least, a lot of fanfic authors seem to want to produce something where the reader would look at it and say "Yes, that's very much how it would have happened on my favourite show if the screenwriters had only had the courage to write an episode where the ship's doctor and the robot owl consummate their love".

I say "a lot of fanfic" because I've seen the occasional piece (generally AU fics) where the premise is so utterly far removed from the source material that I start scratching my head and wondering why the author bothered retaining the link to the source material in the first place. Sure, perhaps the characters retain scraps of their personality, but they're in such an utterly different scenario it becomes a stretch to call them the same characters; to my mind, at least, characters are at least partially defined by context. Being a cheeky black marketeer on Deep Space 9 is a very different proposition from being a cheeky black marketeer in Blitz-era London.

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Wardog

at 16:01 on 2008-09-29

We are now mainly haggling over semantics, dear boy.

So instead I would like to play the "Her hair was" game.

I submit: Her hair was almost precisely the colour of one of those motorola telephones, the ones with that come with a gloss finish not matte."

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Claire E Fitzgerald

at 16:32 on 2008-09-29

Her hair was almost precisely the colour of a grey cat in a room that was totally dark, such that the colour of the cat was indistinguishable from black.

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Arthur B

at 16:59 on 2008-09-29

Her hair was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.

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Wardog

at 21:20 on 2008-09-29

Oi! Minus three points from Slytherin for being meta.

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Arthur B

at 00:26 on 2008-09-30

“Minus three hundred points for turning the comments section into Harry Potter fanfiction," muttered Harry, glowering at his Nintendo DS. He was pretty sure he was on the right track in this Phoenix Wright episode, but the game was being evasive about precisely which investigative avenue he should pursue. Harry was not looking forward to the half hour he'd have to spend looking for the plot, but he supposed he couldn't complain: he normally had to doss about for half a year before getting anything done in real life.

"How's my hair looking?" asked Ron, anxious about his big date with Hermione. He had spent the last six hours smearing his skin with Hackiburr's Very Useful Ointment in order to conceal the telltale marks of gingerness, and was now in the process of rubbing the stuff into his scalp. Harry glanced at his bare-torsoed chum and then returned his attention to his game.

"Your hair is all carroty," quipped Harry, "like someone was just sick in it."

Draco giggled and ran his hands through his hair, which was bright yellow like artificial egg yolk.

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Rami

at 12:17 on 2008-09-30

I think these are still worse, but you're getting there ;-)

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Guy

at 04:26 on 2009-07-24

Her hair was almost precisely the colour of light with a frequency of 590 nm and a wavelength of 526 THz, and as she moved the angle of its inclination to her scalp seemed to undulate with a regularity that spoke softly to his soul.

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Rami

at 04:41 on 2009-07-24

a frequency of 590 nm and a wavelength of 526 THz

I think you got the wavelength and frequency swapped around ;-)

A redhead, eh? Why is it that female protagonists never seem to have violently ginger hair?

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Guy

at 08:34 on 2009-07-24

Oops, so I did. I could pretend that it was a deliberate attempt to further enhance the awfulness of the sentence, but no, I just muddled it up. :)

It would be kind of interesting to see some kind of frequency histogram of female (and male) protagonists and the wavelengths of their hair colours... but I suspect nobody would be mad enough to actually do the work to make such a thing.

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Michal

at 05:29 on 2011-09-29

And I only stumbled on this when I found out Cassandra Clare will be one of the instructors at the 2012 Clarion Writer's Workshop.

Suffice to say, I won't be applying. (Jesus Christ guys, you had Neil Gaiman and Ellen Kushner and Particia C. Wrede and Gene fucking Wolfe as instructors and now you've had budget cuts or what?)

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Arthur B

at 11:25 on 2011-09-29

Well they also had Orson Scott Card.

I guess it's like Hogwarts. Not everyone can be a Griffindor or a Ravenclaw. They also have to recruit Slytherins (Card) and Hufflepuffs (Clare).

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Michal

at 13:30 on 2012-11-18

There's a movie now.

I think I caught a half-second glimpse of Henry VIII at one point.

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Arthur B

at 14:05 on 2012-11-18

Urgh, they actually say "mundanes".

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Ibmiller

at 15:05 on 2012-11-19

It's like they learned nothing from Golden Compass...

Also, are they deliberately trying to recreate the "awkward teen significantly older British actor" Twilight vibe?

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Wardog

at 15:36 on 2012-11-19

Oh no, that's Jamie Campbell-Bower. Officially the drippiest boy in Hollywood.

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Arthur B

at 15:44 on 2012-11-19

Also, are they deliberately trying to recreate the "awkward teen significantly older British actor" Twilight vibe?

I suspect they are going to mimic Twilight/Potter as closely as copyright will allow. It's got that "clinging to the underbelly of the bandwagon and trying to scrape as much gold as you can out of it" look. (Of course, this is likely to lead to jibbering incoherence due to Potter and Twilight being two different bandwagons...)

The extent to which Blonde Love Interest looks like a reject from the Draco Malfoy auditions is hilarious.

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Fishing in the Mud

at 16:51 on 2012-11-19

The extent to which Blonde Love Interest looks like a reject from the Draco Malfoy auditions is hilarious.

Hey, at least they got that right.

[daydreamingdragon]

quiet post just bc i saw some Discourse on my dash and felt like putting in my opinion but not bothering the ops.

tw: abuse / child abuse / rape / cnc / grooming

OK SO first off was an anon sending an artist a link to an article about why ahegao (that tounge out, cross eyed sex face) was "problematic"

i fucking hate the term problematic and internet cancel culture as a whole. that's pretty much this entire post.

yes, i admit i am a white person inserting themselves into a conversation about the abuse asian people receive. this Isn't My Place. whatever.

the article quoted some twitter posts by asian people sharing their stories of the abuse they received specifically regarding ahegao but also racist stereotypes as a whole. i'm not trying to downplay the fact that these people were abused/groomed/etc by racists. shit like that happens. it sucks. ahegao originated from a child rape fantasy manga from the 80s. these stereotypes do exist, and it does contribute to some racist abuse. but overall i don't think it's that big of a deal

it feels like the same conversation people have regarding ~problematic~ topics in fiction, ie: rape/cnc, pedophilia, incest, murder, etc. just because someone is into a fictional incestuous ship does not mean they endorse that in real life! just because someone reads a detective novel does not mean they want to go out and murder someone! it's all fantasy. yes, there may be some people out there who take this fiction and attempt to normalize it, there are people out there who take hentai too far and beat women over it. it's a shitty situation! racists and abusers should be stopped!

idk i cant think of a good closing statement now but tldr: ahegao face being declared "problematic" and thus banned from the internet is stupid

next thing is a small comment re: the fandom shit that blew up in the arcane (lol show) section of the internet

jason spisak (va for one of the main characters that a great many people (myself included) simp for) posted a (poor) cosplay of himself in character. somewhere in the tornado that followed, it apparently came out that he is currently dating a 22 year old fan, while he himself is in his 50s. he has subsequently been "canceled" because of this

my take: so fucking what! they're both consenting adults (technically, before anyone comes at me with the 25 brain thing) and also, people griping about "not pandering to people who have a parasocial relationship" how bout you stay out of his fucking business? who gives a shit who he is or isnt dating. its the damn nerd equivalent of people screaming about the kardashians. just stfu

(tbh i havent actually seen a whole lot of this discorse, i just got whiffs of it when it broke but it has also been bugging me)

[okeuphemia]

More than words - Chapter 13

Chapter 12  |  Tension  |  Chapter 14 (final)  |  masterpost

Hoseok x Reader

Angst. Fluff. ! WARNINGS ! adult language, mentions of sex and alcohol abuse, trust issues, abandonment issus, cheating, panic attacks, terminal illness (cancer). Read on AO3

(a/n: hoho we all love a protective Yoongi. Next chapter is going to be the last one. Thank you for your patience. If you feel like it, feedback is always welcome)

It was an early morning in the house. Hoseok had spent the last four days there; with the practice for the tour and all the preparation going on, their schedule was busier than ever, so it was easier for him just to spend the nights in there, rather than waking up even earlier than usual to get there from his apartment. It’s not like he didn't enjoy spending time with his brothers, anyway. That day they were perched in the living room, waiting for the time their manager was supposed to pick them up. Taehyung and Seokjin were still in their rooms, being the last ones to get ready; the rest was talking animatedly over their cups of coffee. It felt domestic and familiar. Hoseok felt at home.

Right then, precisely, he was nuzzling Jungkook’s chest, chanting a nonsense “our little maknaes birthday party is soon so soon” on repeat, as the topic of his birthday had come in the conversation. They had decided to held a little party that night, three days later, in one of the practice rooms of the company; nothing too fancy, where they could invite a few friends (including their makeup noonas, the closest female friends they had at the moment) so Hoseok felt a bit confident when he asked Jungkook, a bit quietly so only he could hear him, if it was okay to bring someone to the party with him.

  Truth be told, he still hadn’t told everyone about getting back with you. He needed to talk to you first; you had been so secretive about the whole topic before, he wasn’t sure if you would have wanted them to know the reasons why you had “fake cheated” on him in the first place. And without that backstory… The situation was shitty. They wouldn’t understand. So the plan was: talk to you, get that clear, then open to them with the truth. Easy peasy.

But apparently life had other plans because the moment he asked Jungkook, Yoongi (damned Yoongi and his super ears) surprised him saying out loud:  “What? Who are you inviting Hobi?”

His smile froze. The room went silent as they stared at Hoseok’s face with amusement and expectation.

“I…” He bit his lip. He considered lying. He thought about saying “just a girl I met” but they would ask more questions and then he would be screwed. He was a hell of a liar. So he chose to tell the truth.

“To Jungkookie’s party.. I want to go with y/n”

“What?” Everyone’s reactions of surprise were expected, as mixed feelings were shown; but Yoongi’s expression was the darkest, as he eyed Hoseok with a deadly stare. Hoseok felt too self conscious for a moment so he looked at his own feet, while trying to form in his head an explanation he could provide without betraying your trust; but Yoongi mistakenly took this as a sign of embarrassment. He snickered. “So that’s why you were all mysterious the past few weeks? We got a break for the first time in ages and the first thing you do is run after that whore?”

“Hyung!” Jimin was the one who screamed, but everyone jumped at his words; Namjoon was quick to place himself in between them, and frowned at Yoongi, towering before him saying “Hyung, be careful. Don’t say things you will regret later.” Yoongi did not flinch at this, glaring directly at Hoseok.

“You must be truly an idiot if you think you can come back with her just like that.”

Hoseok was visibly hurt. He knew he was supposed to be understanding, but Yoongi’s harsh words were shocking and they got on his nerves; so he made an effort to make his reply, at least, cool and collected.

“This is not, and it was never, something from you to decide hyung.”

Yoongi was fuming. “You’re right. But I can decide not to be a part of this shit. You’re on your own, Hoseok. I won’t see you fall down again” he replied angrily, as he exited the room, mumbling “Hwagae Market is fucking closed.”

Jimin stood up and followed him short, surprise still patent on his face. Namjoon, always the pace maker, sighed heavily when they were out of sight.

“He was brave enough to say that only because Seokjinie hyung wasn't there. He would have bitten his head off for that.”

“It wouldn’t have changed how he feels about me. And her.” Replied Hoseok, frowning.

“No, but the fact you chose not to tell us about this before implies there’s something more. Something we don’t know.” Namjoon crouched a bit, to be able to look at Hoseok in the eyes, trying very hard to demonstrate all of his honesty and concern in his next words. “You know you can trust us. And I know I can trust you. Should we be worried, Hoseokie?”

Hoseok smiled. He knew Namjoon always said he was more fitting for being the spiritual leader of BTS; but to be honest, no one could beat Namjoon. He was brilliant, and not only with books.

“You can trust me Joonie. I’ll tell you as soon as I can. I promise everything is fine.”

Namjoon stayed silent for one more heartbeat, looking at his eyes, searching for any hint of discomfort. Finding none, he sat back and raised his cup again.

“Good. But anyway, you know Yoongi. You should talk to him.”

A phone call with you was enough. You were completely cool about him telling the guys everything; they were his family, so of course if he wanted, he could speak openly with them. You trusted him. So that night, after their schedule, Hoseok was in front of the Genius Lab door. He breathed out. Twice.

  “Ring that fucking doorbell or I’m doing it for you.”

Hoseok snickered. Jimin could be really intense when he wanted.

He could already feel his breath fanning over his neck, as the younger wanted to witness (he needed to be sure of) the moment they talk things out. Of course they were going to talk, this was unnecessary. He knew they couldn't stay mad at each other; they loved each other too much. Hoseok was not even mad at him. He rang the doorbell. After a few seconds, Yoongi opened the door, his eyes glued to the floor. They stood still for a moment, until Jimin decided he had enough and huffed annoyingly, shoving Hoseok inside and closing the door behind them. Only then they made eye contact with surprise and shared a laugh, impossible to contain. Yoongi gestured him to walk inside and sit. When the older sat, however, his expression was cryptic again.

  “I’m only doing this because Jimin is gonna beat my ass if I don’t.”

“I could figure”, he replied smiling. “I’m glad you are trying to listen to me, at least.”

“It’s not like I don’t want to be okay with you” Hoseok smiled as Yoongi’s words echoed his feelings. His smile fainted at the other’s next words. “Why the fuck would you come back with her?”

Straight to the point. Perfect. “It’s not what you think hyung.”

“It’s exactly what I think. What sweet words did she use to get to you, now? She got bored of her new toy?”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what the fuck is it?”

“She is sick.”

“Of course she is sick” he snickered bitterly. “You're still in love with her and she knows it, and she is coming back to play with you because it’s too easy.”

Hoseok huffed. He was getting work up again. He needed to cool down. “No, she is not playing hyung. And she didn’t come for me, I went for her.”

Yoongi stopped with his mouth open. That had definitely been a surprise. Hoseok knew it was now or never.

“What?” His eyes went even darker. “Are you that stupid?”

“She is dying, Yoongi.”

Yoongi’s mouth was agape for a few seconds, before it turned into a thin line as he processed what he heard. Shortly his upper lip rose with disgust as he approached on his seat to look closely, with small eyes at Hoseok.

“I don’t buy it.” He concluded sternly. “That’s a stupid novel’s bullshit and…”

“It’s not.” Hoseok didn't daunt at his hyung’s reaction. He was expecting this. “She is already losing her hair. You can ask Jimin if you don’t believe me. Or you will see for yourself, though, at the party.”

  Yoongi was ready to reply until he looked, for real, at his best friend’s eyes. Hoseok was dead serious, but not only that: he saw determination in those eyes. Resolution. And another thing, one that moved something deep within him: deep, profound sadness.

  “Fuck. Is this real, Hobi? Fuck” he breathed out as he let himself fall back on his chair. “Fuck man. But then what..?”

“It was a lie” Hoseok interrupted, interpreting his friend’s question in advance. He explained the whole story, watching carefully at his friend’s reactions. Yoongi fell silent until he concluded: “So I was wrong. I assumed the worst. We weren’t okay and I let myself get carried on. But she never denied it. She played along, so we could break up and I wouldn't have to be there for her. So I wouldn't have to see all the shit she’s going through. She was trying to protect me.”

“That’s bullshit” Yoongi cut in, “that’s not the fucking way to do it, and anyways why on earth would she come back now, what’s the fucking point of it? She had second thoughts?”

“She didn't hyung. I had a suspicion and looked for her. I saw her. I pressured enough and she ended up spilling everything. She is as wrecked as I am.”

“But that’s not the issue here; I don't understand, why are you back together? Why is she accepting you in her life now, after all of this, what had changed? She won’t protect you anymore, she just doesn't care?”

“That’s not it and please, calm the fuck down hyung” Hoseok looked at his eyes with decision. Yoongi only then realized he was clenching his fists. He relaxed his arms and sat back down, all under the attentive gaze of Hoseok, who only then took a deep breath before continuing. Yoongi’s words were getting on his nerves again and he didn't want to fight anymore. He was just so tired of everything.

“When she lied at first it was easier, because I rejected her. I hated her so it was easier for her to let me go. But now that I know the truth, and even if everything is twisted, I just can't leave her alone. You were right about something: I still love her hyung. You know I never stopped, even after all the shit I thought she had done to me. And she didn't, fuck, she was only fucking scared and she was trying to prevent me from drowning with her.”

  “But now I’m here” he continued “and I’m not going anywhere. I’m completely ready to take care of her and face this together. Believe me, she already tried to stop me” he laughed sadly, breathily, “several times, she still does, almost every other day since we met again. But she is weak Yoongi” he said looking at his feet with a sad smile, one that made Yoongi’s heart clench in his chest. “She loves me and she can’t say no. Not emotionally, and now not even physically. She never asked anything from me, but she needs me. And I’m not fucking going anywhere this time. I didn't stay and fight for her last time. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

  Yoongi looked at his friend. He saw the exhaustion in his body, the determination in his eyes, the fears in his heart. He saw Hoseok raw, like he had not seen him in a long time, when they were young trainees too scared of their own shadows and they had found on each other a source of comfort and later, love, one that allowed them to share their deepest fears and insecurities. The man standing in front of him didn’t look at all like the skinny, overworked Hoseok he remembered from that time. The one he had sworn to protect with his life.

He looked down.

  “Fine” he said. He saw how Hoseok relaxed, so he added grumpily. “I’m not happy though.”

“I know you aren't.” Hoseok smiled, simply. It was almost like a victory for him, and it was more than he had aspired to achieve that night. The rest of the time went on with ease, tranquility filled with small talk about a track Yoongi was excited to show him.

A few hours later Yoongi stood up to leave.

“Hyung.”

Yoongi stopped with his hand at the door knob. Hoseok spoke softly, almost with an embarrassed voice.

“Can we reopen Hwagae Market?”

Yoongi stood there a moment that seemed like ages to Hoseok. Finally, he only turned around his head a bit, enough to allow Hoseok to see his smile as he said:

“It was never closed, Hobi. Come on, let’s go home.”

[renegade-skywalker]

Out of the Abyss, Chapter 15

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2  / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15: Housekeeping

After years in exile, ex-Jedi General, Eden Valen (now going by Vale) continues to clean up after Revan and Malak’s mess of a war, only to find herself forever cursed with their unfinished business. As an ill-fated lead brings her to Tatooine, Eden finds that Revan’s mysterious plans go beyond the Republic, beyond the Outer Rim, and into the utter unknown. (A novelization of The Sith Lords and beyond)

Chapter Summary:  As a secret Jedi agenda catches up with those who remain, the situation on Nespis VIII reaches new heights.

3951 BBY, Nespis VIII, Jedi Academy Mical

Mical had been here for three days. Day one, he scouted the ruins. Day two, he was apprehended. Day three, he was apprehended - again. And now, he was sitting in a room, bound again and more intensely than before, alongside the stranger and his previous captor. The white-haired woman remained silent, her eyes seething. The man at her side, however, was calm, curious if anything. A twinkle in his eye told Mical he was just as surprised by their capture, or re-capture if that meant anything, and appeared to be far more interested in where this was going than in finding a way out of it.

There was something oddly familiar about the man called and not called Wyland Rhell. And Mical wanted to find out what.

Mical knew the man was lying from the moment he arrived, jostled uncouthly as he was ushered to the seat across from him in the remains of the Jedi archive. It wasn’t unusual, in this line of work. Mical regularly lied his way into places he may not have otherwise been allowed, but he had his easy smile and pleasant demeanor to thank for that as well. His disposition was always genuine, despite the lies, but it was a necessary measure when it came to recovering what he could of the fast-disappearing Jedi. The man beside him, however, Mical wasn’t sure of. At least not when it came to his ultimate goal.

His cover story - an operative working to collect artifacts for the Golden Company - made sense. Interested only in credits and their wealthy connections, the shadowy syndicate of antique dealers often infiltrated places such as these if there was something of interest. With the Jedi all but gone, Jedi artifacts were easier to find and also easier to sell - who doesn’t want a part of a recently fallen ancient religious order?

The stranger’s story checked out until it didn’t, that is, and now Mical was itching for an answer.

It was clear that the Golden Company was holding them hostage now, not bothering with the false formalities the Echani had employed earlier or the man that sat beside them both now. But if Wyland Rhell was working for them, why was he here, bound by Mical’s side?

“Alright, now you three stay put, ye hear?” one of the mercs muttered as he fastened the Echani’s restraints, smirking as he spoke.

It was easy to tell he was Mandalorian, if not by his accent but by his profession and the means by which he bound them. Classic, Mical thought, trained to the last .

The knots he used, the weapons he brandished, even the armor he wore - none of it was Mandalorian, but it screamed Mandalorian just the same. A huddled mass of other faceless men and women waited beyond the door, ready to scour the area once they were secure, as the maskless merc made his way to each of them once more, testing their restraints and giving each of them a wink. When the man wasn’t looking, Mical rolled his eyes.

He didn’t flinch, nor did he scowl. Mical kept his face completely expressionless, pleasant if anything, which only seemed to infuriate the mercenary even more. He yanked harder than the others when he tested how tightly Mical’s wrists were bound, scowling as he moved away.

“We’ll break you yet, ye hear?”

Ye hear, he said it again. Part of Mical’s inner linguist began decoding the phrase, trying to see if he could place it with a specific clan, but the Echani spoke before he could reach any conclusions.

“You can’t do this,” Irena spat, eyes flashing, “You don’t have jurisdiction here. We can-”

“We don’t need jurisdiction,” the merc replied, shoving his rifle into the space between her shoulder blades as he passed, making for the head of the room - all the better to watch them, Mical presumed. “Credits trump everything, cuz. Get used to it.”

The Echani’s eyes were like fire, only the violet-blue of her irises almost blended in the whites of her eyes, making her look like something else entirely in the dim lighting.

“Didn’t the rest of your team already make off with most of the temple by now?” Mical heard himself say, hardly realizing he was speaking as he was thinking, adrenaline coursing his veins as his mind worked tenfold to read the situation and stay calm beside it, now eager to get an answer out of the Echani after hours of his own interrogation, “What else is there?”

“We haven’t found the-” she started, her breath in a rush, but Irena bit her tongue. Her eyes narrowed as her posture changed completely, her anger dissolving into a cool, steely calm as she turned to face the front of the room, holding herself as dignified as she could while still restrained. “It doesn’t matter, they’ll be coming soon.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Mical muttered, knowing there were only four, maybe five, other Echani in the wings. As for the Golden Company, he knew they were many, but for the man who was and wasn’t Wyland Rhell? Mical couldn’t be sure.

“They all secure?” a voice interrupted, a static piercing the momentary quiet. The merc plucked a comm from his belt and held it to his lips.

“Affirmative,” he said, keeping an eye on his captives as he spoke, “Send in Del-Nara when you’re ready.”

“Understood.”

“And you may want to keep an eye out for where these Echani have been storing their... bounty ,” he said, smiling eerily at Irena now, “They may have a cache of goods worth looking into.”

So the Echani were looking for something specific, and the Golden Company were as well. It would stand to reason they were both in search of the same thing, given that Irena alluded to a specific object of import and the merc referred to the current Echani inventory as more of a bonus than amain objective. Whatever it was, neither group had honed in on it yet, and apparently Wyland Rhell had the same idea - he watched the two curiously, eyeing each as they spoke, just as Mical was.

But Mical, too, was  watching. He eyed the imposter from across the room, waiting for him to notice. He could tell Wyland felt his gaze on him, purposefully avoiding eye contact until the moment was right. And when their eyes met, Mical’s blood ran cold.

I know.

Wyland Rhell’s face remained emotionless, betraying nothing of the words Mical swore he heard in his head before turning to face the front of the room again. A woman entered, burly and brusque as she nodded at the already-present mercenary and proceeded to gag each of them in turn, swathing their mouths with a rough fabric that made Mical shudder. Irena only glared over the edge of the cloth on her face, the thing hastily tacked to her person and clearly getting in her eyes. But the stranger Wyland Rhell watched Mical as his mouth was bound, not breaking eye contact.

I know you know, Mical heard in his mind, as if the man before him were speaking, though he knew he was not. And I’m going to make you tell me.

3951 BBY, Nespis VIII, Dock Hostel Mission

“You’re a lot… taller than I remember,” Zayne said, trying to make conversation as Mission led him to the crew’s current room. He watched as she ascended the stairs, already dissolving into his usual charmingly awkward self.

“Well, that’s what happens when you grow up,” Mission joked, stroking one of her head tails, both of which had grown longer with age. “I’m not ten anymore.”

“Right, right, so I’m told,” Zayne chuckled gruffly. Mission looked at him sidelong and noticed that he still hadn’t managed to grow facial hair, or if he did he knew how to hide it well. It made him look younger than she knew he was, more like the version of him she’d remembered from Taris. He was much younger then, of course, but to a kid even teenagers seem like adults. It was odd, but even though she knew Zayne had matured, he still looked like the boyish, idealized version of him she’d had in her mind since she was a kid.

“So, let’s get a few things straight before we meet the others,” Mission said, changing gears. She couldn’t afford to be soft now, especially now that there was so much to keep track of and the news kept changing every damn day, “Who referred you to me, exactly?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Zayne started, slowing his pace. Mission slowed to match, knowing they were about to launch into the land of backstory.

“Oh, here we go,” she muttered under her breath. Zayne either didn’t hear her or decided to continue without comment.

“You were supposed to make a pickup in the Outer Rim Territories, right?”

Mission stopped in full now, pausing on the step ahead of Zayne, gazing down at him unsurely from her new vantage point.

“How do you know about that?” she asked, her question coming out in a breath.

“You see, I was supposed to make the drop off.”

“You’re heading the recovery operation? With Bastila?”

“The one and only,” Zayne confirmed, managing only to roll his eyes in the slightest. Mission laughed heartily despite herself, “But also… not exactly.”

Zayne watched her reaction carefully, but Mission was too confused and too self-aware to give him the satisfaction. He’d been waiting for this, knowing it might put a kink in things, or at least encite questions. She let her laugh die naturally on her face, letting it settle over her features as she waited for Zayne to speak, knowing she may not be so amused the more she learned.

“Please, do go on,” she implored, half-sarcastic, half-tired with all of this already. When she took this job, like any other she’d run lately, she was just in it for the credits and for the quick in-and-out, something to do so she and Big Z could feel useful without feeling bad about the law and all. Carth had at least been good about that. She liked knowing she was following Nevarra’s last orders, that she was getting something done, but she also didn’t like thinking about what that meant exactly, especially when it came to all the Jedi stuff. She knew it’d become important eventually, but she didn’t expect it to be now and she honestly didn’t want it to be ever. She wanted Nevarra to return in one piece, for the Jedi to be restored or whatever, and for everything to go back to normal… or at least plain stay they way they already were. With Zayne here, now, Mission was instantly brought back to Taris, when everything about life was a right mess - Zayne included. And it seemed not much had changed since then.

“My old master contacted me, asked me for my help,” Zayne said sheepishly, as if it meant anything to Mission, though she could tell it was probably something odd for him. “Being a non-Jedi myself and all, I wasn’t exactly prepared to get roped back into this mess.”

Zayne’s shoulders slumped as he went on, his resolve dissolving before her eyes as if he had something to answer for.

“But given what’s happened and-” Zayne looked away, swallowing hard, “I kind of have a bit of experience with it, actually.”

“With what, exactly?” Mission asked, careful to keep the guarded skepticism from her voice.

“Force-related stuff, objects not meant to be handled lightly.”

Mission and Zaalbar had only been trusted with their cargo because Bastila didn’t know of anyone else, save for the few Jedi she knew of. With the others in hiding, making any contact was sure to warrant the attention of whoever wanted to see the Jedi die out. Mission rarely ever had to deal with the cargo herself, only with the transport, and she wanted to keep it that way. She wanted to tell Zayne, but part of her knew it was no good. She was already in this mess and she’d have to see it through if she wanted to see herself out of it - if that was even an option, now. After trusting in Nevarra? After knowing Revan? Not likely.

Mission wondered if she really was too trusting for her own good. For a moment, she thought of Griff and how he’d laugh at her, reassuring… but there was nothing reassuring about that image.

“And how exactly did this friend of yours get pulled into the mess? He’s Republic, right?”

Now Zayne really looked guilty. His eyes darted around the cramped stairwell, anywhere than straight at Mission, before he nodded soberly.

“We met during the Mandalorian Wars. Mical was with the medic corps, a good guy. Our backgrounds were… similar. ” Zayne looked as if he might elaborate but quickly thought against it before continuing, “He’s always been a bit of a history buff, a nerd if you will. He’d found a few things during the war, either come across by soldiers he was tending to or found on scouting missions. Whenever Mical would find something, he’d comm me and I’d swing by, taking whatever it was and dropping it off with my old master, Lucien Draay. Before I was even a Jedi, he’d been collecting Force-related artifacts, particularly things that were… darker in nature. Things that weren’t safe if left out for just anyone to find. And lemme tell you, they found a lot of interesting stuff during the war.”

Mission’s skin grew cold, thinking of the package that General Valen now carried with her, of the stories that Orex told of where it had come from and where he had seen others like it.

“Mical had a funny feeling that it was more than just a coincidence, so he kept at it. He stayed in contact with Draay, working without me. I went and… did my own thing for a while. I hadn’t heard from any of them in so long and then… I get a call, from Master Draay. A relayed message, a warning, from before the conclave at Katarr - he may have even sent the damn thing while it was all happening-”

Zayne ran a nervous hand through his hair, almost shuddering at the thought of the massacre.

“Draay knew it was the end for the Jedi, but he knew their cache of dangerous objects needed to remain hidden, and that whatever else was left out in the galaxy needed to be found. He wasn’t sure who else hadn’t made it to conclave, save for me, for… obvious reasons, I guess. But he knew someone would need to contact this Bastila of yours, and continue his work, someone to keep up the drop-offs.”

“She sure ain’t my Bastila, but-” Mission laughed now, the pieces falling into place, “Well, I guess she is.”

For all her exasperating behavior, Mission figured she couldn’t have been more different than the stiff Jedi-in-hiding, but Bastila had also been a friend, a confidante, and after knowing someone like Revan those were hard to come by.

“Gir’s a character,” Zayne laughed, “We’d never have gotten along at the Academy, I’ll tell you that. But I’m not sure she knows who I am just yet…”

Mission cocked her head, curious, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer.

“Thing is, I’ve been following Draay’s orders, but I haven’t exactly… outed myself, you see? I have a feeling she knows I’m not Draay but that I can somehow be trusted. I’m not sure, exactly, but… does any of this make sense?”

Zayne sighed, suddenly out of breath, as his posture slumped against the railing beside them. Not much had changed, Mission was sure of that. Zayne was still the same old troublemaker, always explaining himself out of or into something.

“Well, sort of,” Mission said, crossing her arms over chest, “I get it though. Things are weird.”

Zayne looked relieved, though none too energetic about it, looking as if he might soon collapse into the nearest piece of furniture out of pure exhaustion once given the chance. Mission had a feeling more of the story would come out later, but there were still a few details she wanted to hammer out first.

“So this friend of yours, Mical?”

Zayne nodded and laughed, his voice hollow.

“Yeah, about that,” he began, adjusting his posture so he stood up straight again, “Turns out he’s working for another friend of mine. A veteran, you might’ve heard of him.”

Mission waited a beat, even though she knew what was coming next.

“Lemme guess, Admiral Carth Onasi,” she drawled once Zayne failed to respond. His eyes widened, suddenly alert now, but Mission waved him off.

“I’m no Jedi, but I see where this is going, just- just tell me about this friend of yours and why he needs our help so badly.”

“I said Mical’d been looking for stuff, right? He’d been working in intelligence since the war, got news of a rogue Jedi or something. So he came here. And he - well… my friend found something. So he called, and I came. Only… I was a bit too late.”

“I see,” Mission said, sighing again as she took to the stairs, climbing towards the room where the others were waiting, “Best get to it then.”

She could feel Zayne bubble with questions as he caught up beside her, taking two steps to her every one just to keep up now. Mission shook her head, knowing she’d have to call Bastila, knowing she’d have to sort this mess out, and knowing there’d probably be a firefight by the end of the day to show for it.

“We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

3951 BBY, Coruscant Carth

Carth hated Coruscant. Always had.

It wasn’t much different from many other places he’d been, Telos least of all. At least before the war.

He used to think it was because of that - the memories, the familiarity. But other planets, similar in their makeup and overall volume, had hardly irked him as much as this one had. No, it wasn’t that. Perhaps it was the new memories he had here and the mere fact that he associated the damn place and the now empty apartment he seemed to haunt rather than live in. Yeah, that was most likely it.

Carth thumbed through his personal datapad as the lift kept bringing him up and up and even further up, absently rereading reports as if new words might appear between the ones he’d already memorized - anything to keep his mind off the anxiety mounting in his chest. If the Republic didn’t have problems worth solving about every nanosecond, Carth was sure he would have already driven himself insane with worry and second-guessing, though his preoccupation with work probably wasn’t much healthier.

He was already at the end of his message log when the lift stopped, perching gracefully at the level he had keyed into the console what now felt like ages ago. Rain greeted him and his unsuspecting face. Blinking his damp welcome away, Carth pocketed his datapad and blended into the crowd as best he could. Hood drawn, as anyone with a desire to remain anonymous might, Carth was glad the rain masked any appearance of “trying too hard”. Carth was a soldier, he wasn’t trained to blend in and he had been told often enough that he didn’t know when to make himself quiet, small, and unnoticed – though he knew what they really meant was that he was incapable of keeping his opinions to himself. Well, that much was true, and any grumblings about the weather would at least go unnoticed for now and dismissed as “small talk”, thank the Maker.

As discussed, Carth made eye contact with no one, shuffled along with traffic, and ducked under the awning of a storefront, nodded at the cashier, and disappeared behind its many aisles. Once at the back of the store, he slipped through the service door and into a room full of other doors, each duller and more indiscriminate than the last. One of these doors was a closet, and within that closet was another, smaller, closet, and within that closet was another door, and beyond that door there was a lift. And waiting at the lift was Bastila Shan.

“We can’t keep meeting like this,” she sighed as he approached.

Carth paused, briefly considering making a joke but thinking the better of it.

“You’re telling me, sister,” he muttered, a smirk teasing his mouth though he chewed his lip to hide it.

Bastila watched him for a moment, her eyes rolling once the turn-of-phrase dawned on her. The lift doors opened and Bastila ushered him inside.

“So, what news?” she asked, staring straight ahead as she stood beside Carth.

Carth fidgeted with his datapad again, choosing to start from the beginning, to buy himself time.

“With another one of our ships missing, the closest Republic vessel we had was the Harbinger. We can’t afford to reroute it, not unless we want to garner suspicion. They’re set to arrive at Telos in a few days, five tops.”

“Five days?” Bastila reaffirmed sternly.

“It’s the closest Republic ship we have in the Outer Rim. We’ve already come up with a cover, and it isn’t even a ship for diplomatic transport, but it should all check out. It has so far.”

Carth had practically rehearsed this line all day, as if he needed to convince not only Bastila but himself as well.

“And with whom, exactly? The Republic?” Bastila snapped.

If Carth wasn’t already on edge, her shortness with him would have done it, and it took a lot for him to reign his own temperament in at the thought even now.

“Yes, with the Republic,” he replied, gritting his teeth as he tried to keep his cool, “As we discussed, we don’t know who may be watching us, but someone certainly is. We need to take every precaution we can. I’m practically lying to my own men. To myself, even.”

If he had any other choice, Carth would have been the one to extract the Exile from Tatooine. Hell, the mess there may not have even happened if he had. With news of her records’ release, he could have been there before the woman knew anything was amiss - or anyone else on that backwater planet, for that matter. But it wasn’t worth regretting now. Carth had faith in Mission and Zaalbar. He had no reason not to trust them. He knew they would not only understand his instructions but his position, as well. There was only so much he could tell them, and there was only so much they could work with. The pair had done well so far. The General was given new clothes, a backstory, and Republic clearance, and according to Mission her boarding had gone off without a hitch, its commanding officers none the wiser. Now, as long as the Harbinger made it to Telos without issue…

“I know , I know,” Bastila sighed after a few tense moments, the pair of them still waiting in complete darkness as the lift brought them down, down, down after Carth had already travelled what felt like the length of Coruscant to get up to their pre-arranged meeting place . “This mess has made liars out of all of us. Even I don’t technically exist.”

“I know,” Carth said, “We don’t know what Jedi are left, but for all we know whatever wiped them out at that conclave is also responsible for our missing ships. That’s two now, and several others delayed. They say the equipment’s faulty, and there’s talk of a black hole edging into the Outer Rim.”

Carth watched Bastila mull this information over silently, though he had a feeling what ran through her mind. Was there really a black hole in the far reaches of Republic space? Or was there something darker out there? Waiting?

Bastila sighed, wrapping her arms around herself.

“It’s just, just-“

“Everything?” Carth finished. It was inarticulate, but enough for the Jedi beside him to understand, apparently. She nodded, exasperated.

“There’s so much going on, so much I didn’t realize at first.”

“None of us realized. We got too comfortable,” Carth said, thinking of his empty apartment, his empty bed, and how full everything had felt before Nevarra left and became Revan again, or at least left to follow in the footsteps of her former self.

The lift doors opened, revealing another maze of halls and doors, a tangled web of old, abandoned offices Carth still hadn’t asked Bastila how she managed to hide. He was almost familiar with the route now, following the young Jedi to her personal workplace.

“Too comfortable,” Bastila said after a while, considering the words as she said them, slowly. “Too comfortable, indeed.”

An unsure look crossed her face as she opened the door, letting Carth inside before using the Force to close it at his back. Carth swung around, mildly surprised, and watched as the doors swiftly met in the center of the frame, sealing shut. Bastila wasn’t one to use her powers for frivolous things, closing perfectly functional doors being one of them.

When Carth turned back around, the office was lit but the walls were dark, hiding the academy beyond from view of the transparent glass that surrounded them. Bastila was already seated at the console on the far side of the room.

“So, what’s this other news you needed to tell me?” she said in a rushed almost-whisper, clearly as anxious as he was.

“Well, it’s not good,” Carth started, already apprehensive, still unbelieving.

“I gathered as much,” Bastila snapped.

Carth inhaled slowly and exhaled, commanding his body to release all the tension it held. His shoulders slumped slightly, but his body did not seem to want to take orders.

“They found her ship,” he said, his voice catching, chest tight. “ Our ship.”

Bastila blanched and turned towards him, her face going white.

“The Ebon Hawk?”

Carth nodded, collapsing into a couch on the opposite side of the room. Saying the words seemed to release everything. He dropped his datapad on the table in front of him, his hands rushing to nurse his temples.

“Where?” Bastila pressed, waiting patiently now. Her voice was softer, but she remained stern, trying to be strong for the both of them. Carth glanced up at her, thinking he could almost laugh. She was trying. She really was. Little did she know it only made him feel worse . He was a grown man for kriffing sake. And it’s not like he hadn’t lost someone before.

“In the Outer Rim. Peragus System.”

“Peragus?” Bastila asked, voice flat.

Carth nodded, “Not far from Telos.”

“Do you think she was on her way back? That she had found something? That maybe someone-?”

Bastila couldn’t bear to finish her thought, a concerned hand reaching for her mouth, as if to massage the words out of her but none came.

Carth shook his head.

“She wasn’t on board.”

“Not on-?“ Bastila started, stopping herself, already too wrought with questions to continue.

“They found an old woman in the med bay and a malfunctioning T3 unit in the cockpit.”

“T3,” Bastila repeated, hollow, almost wistful. “But this woman, was she Revan’s Master? The one Nevarra had gone looking for?”

Carth noticed how she distinguished the two – Revan and Nevarra – perhaps still guilty for what she and the Jedi had done. Or uncertain as to what repercussions their actions had, even now.

“Who knows, nothing came up on her. She seems to be in bad shape,” Carth answered, watching the young woman as he spoke.

Bastila did not make eye contact. Instead her gaze turned inward, her eyes fixating on a thought as she stood and began to pace the room.

“I forget how old Kae was when she was still at the Academy. I was still so young, but she could not have been that old,” she mused.

“You forget how unforgiving people can be when it comes to women and their age,” Carth reminded her, thinking of all the senior female officers still on the receiving end of undeserved flak and underestimation.

Bastila nodded, agreeing, but didn’t look at him.

“Where is the ship now?”

“I told the Harbinger crew to salvage it, to take in anyone on board,” Carth answered evenly despite the empty feeling in his chest.

“And they aren’t set to arrive at Telos for another five days at the most, I think I know the rest,” Bastila finished in a huff. She stopped pacing and fell back into the chair poised by her personal console, a hand still cradling her chin.

“She must have been returning, otherwise why would the Ebon Hawk be way out there?” she said after a minute’s pause and a moment’s thinking, “The last coordinates sent by T3 were from Tatooine, that’s a completely different sector.”

“Maybe that was the last time Nevarra was on the ship,” Carth offered, “Maybe she found her Master, maybe she-“

His ideas ended there, dissolving into a slew of endless what ifs he didn’t want to speak truth to .

“Perhaps,” Bastila sighed, “Where was the ship exactly?”

“That’s the other thing,” Carth said, leaning forward and watching Bastila for a moment before continuing. She locked eyes with him this time, unsure of what was about to escape his mouth, “It was found in a dead lock with a ghost ship. A Sith ship. From the Star Forge.”

“Sith,” Bastila echoed, her eyes going wide, “Sith.”

Carth could only nod. Neither of them spoke, but he had a feeling that the thoughts rushing through Bastila’s mind were not unlike the ones he’d already turned over in his head a thousand times. What if Nevarra had fallen back into Revan again? What if her old students found her after fleeing Republic Space?

“There’s no point in worrying,” Bastila said suddenly, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a rush, “We’re already doing all that we can, we’re being careful. There’s nothing we can do but wait.”

As annoyed as he wanted to be with her change of tone, Carth knew this was Bastila’s way of comforting herself, of comforting him. In her own way, at least.

They sat in silence, soaking it in, feeling the weight of it. Carth almost felt calmer, and he wondered if Bastila were somehow harnessing her Battle Meditation to ease their worry. It wouldn’t do to think irrationally, not now, not when they needed to be careful, not when they still knew nothing of the threat that loomed on the horizon if there even was one, not while they still didn’t know why Nevarra left or what happened to her.

“Bastila, I-“

“Carth, there’s something else.”

He blinked.

“Something… else?”

Bastila nodded, waiting for his reaction, though it never really came. Carth felt a bit numb already, not ready for more bad news.

“I only just heard of this an hour ago,” Bastila lead with, turning around now, giving Carth little confidence in what was to follow, “I think we might have a situation.”

“A situation?” Carth repeated. “You mean, other than what’s already going on?”

Bastila hastily tucked a temperamental lock of hair behind her ear several times as her console booted up, images forming on the screen as Carth stood up and watched on over her shoulder. A report manifested, complete with images and notes, detailing a Jedi academy on Nespis VIII.

“As you know, I had been keeping tabs on all the old academies, temples, and other Jedi headquarters since Katarr. Part of the Housekeeping Initiative-” she said, glancing at him momentarily before looking away, referring to Revan’s last orders, as if all of this already wasn’t a result of Nevarra’s final correspondence with the both of them, “There are other Jedi stationed all over the galaxy as you know, keeping watch, in hiding.”

“There’s an academy there?” Carth pointed to the screen, thinking it was no coincidence the Exile had just been there, and Mission and Zaalbar were still awaiting orders not too far away.

Bastila nodded.

“And it now appears to be under Echani jurisdiction. Their credentials check out.”

“Credentials?”

Bastila opened another file, a document of authorization appearing before them.

“It’s not so much a sanction, but they were granted rights by the station,” Bastila said, her voice stiff with dissatisfaction, “Without any formal Jedi to say otherwise, and with us all in hiding, they have the right to turn over the building to anyone with a claim to it.”

“And who would that be?”

Bastila shrugged, defeated.

“Does the Force tell you anything?”

Bastila rolled her eyes.

“That’s not how the Force works, Carth.”

“I know, I know, I was just - I don’t know - hoping it might be,” he admitted, turning away as he felt his face reddening. “I’ll have my people look into it. We should be able to recover any records at least, find out where this claim comes from.”

“I contacted what other Jedi I could, but there’s no knowing what others might be in hiding, ones we don’t know about,” Bastila continued, composing herself again, “And to be honest, I don’t blame them. With all that’s happened, anyone left may not know that others still remain, and looking for them could lead to trouble.”

“And I’m assuming the situation wouldn’t be much better if we did the same,” Carth mused, beginning to pace the area behind Bastila’s chair.

“Well, that’s precisely the thing…” Bastila began.

“That thing being?” he said, trying to coax an answer out of her.

“I’ve heard from one,” Bastila answered finally.

“What do you mean?”

“Mission contacted me,” she said, “Her message was coded-“

“Smart girl,” Carth muttered under his breath, still listening.

“She said a Jedi contacted her . A Jedi that knew you .”

“Me? Since when have I-?”

Carth almost caught himself saying Since when did have I had Jedi friends?- but saw the impatient look on Bastila’s face and thought the better of it.

“I take it you know this Zayne Carrick?”

Zayne Carrick.

The hair on Carth’s neck stood on end.

“Yes,” he said, the memories rushing back – a plucky stow away, just a boy, begging that Carth bring him to Admiral Saul Karath, who only wanted him for the murder of his fellow Jedi students. Carth had believed Zayne, there was something about the kid that made Carth think he wasn’t a murderer, no, couldn’t be. Then again, he had had similar thoughts about Karath as well as the man Carrick requested they contact, a man named Squint, a man Carth would later come to know as Darth Malak.

“Carth?”

Bastila’s voice brought him out of the past. He shook his head and steadied himself, focusing on her slate grey eyes as they watched him intently.

“I knew him, yes,” he affirmed, “What did he want? Was he in some sort of trouble?”

“He was looking for someone of yours, actually. A Republic Scout named Mical.”

Carth nodded, then shook his head.

“Part of Rell’s team, the girl we sent to pick up the Exile.”

Bastila’s eyes went wide for a moment, shaking her head along with Carth, not liking the sound of any of this the more each of them spoke. She swallowed slowly, watching for his reaction.

“Apparently this Zayne had been working with a colleague of mine, the very one whose artifacts Mission and Zaalbar have been transporting. One we lost at Katarr, I now realize. I’d hoped-”

Bastila paused, bringing a hand to her mouth to stifle whatever involuntary sound threatened to erupt at the thought of the incident. She shook her head again, willing the feeling away and looking Carth square in the eye again, keen on continuing.

“Odd, isn’t it?” Carth said after a moment, his voice betraying his suspicion, almost on purpose.

“That wasn’t all,” Bastila continued, darkly, ignoring Carth’s near-sarcasm but mirroring his thoughts in her expression, eyebrows raised as if to say of course this would happen, despite the uncertainty clearly blooming in both of their chests. “Aside from this Zayne’s connection to one of yours as well as one of mine, the last he’d heard of your Republic Scout, he was at this precise academy.”

“The… academy currently overrun by Echani?”

“The very one,” Bastila answered, “Now, what I can’t figure out is why the Echani of all people would be interested in the Jedi.”

“From what I remember the Echani don’t have a high regard for Jedi,” Carth said darkly, “Didn’t Revan ki-“

He stopped himself. Didn’t Revan kill one of their decorated generals? She had, and he knew it. But it still felt strange – remembering who she had been, what she had done, and wondering why.

Bastila watched him, aware of his inner dilemma, and Carth was sure she was thinking the same of her missing friend and mentor.

“His name was Yusanis,” she began, her eyes darting about as she mentally fit pieces of an unseen puzzle together, “Master Atris was to send our regards after the incident. I believe she was well-received, but again that was some time ago.”

“Atris is the woman who tracked the Exile, right?” Carth said, goosebumps spreading over his skin as the coincidences piled up.

“Indeed, and she was a renowned Jedi Historian.”

“And… dead, as I recall,” Carth tried to find a better word for it, but instead resorted to softening his voice as if it might sound more respectful despite his vocabulary failing him. Bastila glanced at him sidelong but didn’t press further on the issue, continuing only with the matter at hand.

“This is true, but,” Bastila paused, “The coincidences are certainly strange.”

“I don’t like this,” Carth said, “If you ask me there are too many of these damn coincidences.”

Bastila thought for a moment, her eyes faraway, before an uncharacteristic laugh erupted from her throat. Carth balked.

“Bastila, I don’t see-“

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, lowering herself into her chair again, “But perhaps you were right, for once.”

“Right? About what?”

“About the Force,” she continued, her laugh dissolving as she took a few measured breaths, “There are no such things as coincidences, there is only the Force."

[headlesssamurai]

Have you seen Altered Carbon? If so, what do to think of it?

Alright, I finally bucked up enough courage to do another honest, non-sarcastic, write-up for a piece of media. Just been somewhat bitterly reluctant to voice my true opinions on fiction, or anything else really, since it seems like lots of folks are quite intensely engaged in violent uproars of one kind or another. No need to add more noise to the feedback loop, if you know what I mean.

But you’re, like, one of a dozen or so dudes who asked me about this series. So I reckoned I’d write it up for you, it being such a popular subject and all. I’d also like to thank you for your curiosity. It’s pretty damn humbling to know anybody cares enough about what I think to even ask after my thoughts. I’ll make sure to offer a notary warning before I spill any spoilers.

I became acquainted with Richard K. Morgan’s Kovacs-verse a few years back, but accidentally read one of the protagonist’s later adventures before backtracking to the original novel. I found it to be a respectably well-written futuristic detective story in the grand tradition of vintage writers like Robert B. Parker, even if including the predictably pornographic sex scenes in the grand tradition of modern urban sci-fi/fantasy writers like Laurell K. Hamilton (maybe the ‘K’ middle initial is a code for graphic sex content). In preparation for watching the new Netflix series, I re-read Morgan’s Altered Carbon to refresh my knowledge of the future he created.

Now, I’d like to say I’m a prolific reader of novelized fiction and other books, but I’m not one of those “hardcore” purists who always cries “the book was better” while pounding my fist on the podium. Thus in my effort to avoid any such farcical nonsense, I’m going to sort of examine both the book and the Netflix series of Altered Carbon at once, and write about what I enjoy and dislike about both versions, instead of directly comparing them.

I’ve grown so cynical with modern film and TV, I tend to unintentionally generate lists of what I think they’ll change about a book’s story once they adapt it, and what they’ll add and leave out. Usually, these lists are fairly accurate. Game of Thrones, for instance: how depressing it is to be absolutely correct some times. Not that the books were much better, but a pinecone up the ass doesn’t make a kick in the nuts feel any better.

A lot of people would describe Altered Carbon as having cyberpunk vibes, and this is true, but I believe it fits more comfortably into the realm of biopunk than anything else. If you’re not familiar with the concepts herein, Altered Carbon involves a distant future in which humanity has colonized the stars over many generations using sleeper ships, and with a little help from recovered alien star-maps, but has not achieved faster-than-light interstellar travel. The central technology in this universe is the cortical stack, a type of neural backup which allows a person’s consciousness to be digitally stored in a “disc” and uploaded into a new body if they die.

The new bodies are referred to as sleeves, and the filthy rich clone themselves so their sleeves are all identical and genetically enhanced, but most common folk have to accept whatever body is available or is covered by their insurance, or even a synthetic sleeve (which in the novel is a cheap and distasteful thing, but in the series synthetics seem to have superpowers). People can only travel quickly to other star systems in the settled worlds (known as the Protectorate) by transmitting their stored consciousness into another cortical stack on their planet of destination and uploading into a new sleeve there (a process called needlecasting), but physically transporting anything still takes a really long time for ships to travel across the vast distance of space.

Straight out of the gate, this concept does not appeal to me at all. If there’s anything that drains your story of tension and thrills, it’s got to be the idea that everyone lives forever. The way the universe is constructed however, it ends up making the story far more interesting than what I had anticipated. Not everyone can afford to live forever, first of all, since re-sleeving can be an extremely expensive undertaking, and even those who have the money rarely feel the desire to live more than two lifetimes. Additionally there are complications which can arise, such as personality fragging, a type of insanity which occurs when a person is sleeved in one too many different bodies throughout their life.

Certain religious groups also vehemently resist re-sleeving, and for law enforcement various lengthy sentences of storage without the possibility to re-sleeve are the primary means of punishment for most crimes. There are even interesting concepts like criminals who copy their consciousness into several cortical stacks at once, making them difficult to apprehend once and for all. Other criminals and intelligence operatives also utilize virtuality to torture people in a digital environment, allowing them to subject victims to days or even months of agony which equates to only a few hours in real-time. Real death can also still occur, if the individual’s cortical stack is badly damaged or destroyed.

The actual plot involves a former soldier named Takeshi Kovacs, who is paroled early from a criminal sentence and re-sleeved by a rich tycoon who offers to exonerate Kovacs of his crimes if he can solve a murder. While reluctant to work for some rich asshole, Kovacs is almost instantly attacked by mercenaries which makes him curious enough to take the case. Kovacs then works to investigate the purported crime while getting himself into a bit of trouble with the locals, and trying to deal with extreme trauma from his combat experiences.

It’s surprising that in the case of Altered Carbon I was entirely incorrect in everything I thought the producers might add/change/amputate from the original story. I also could not have predicted what they decided to add and how they decided to change certain elements from the story of Morgan’s novel. I believe the series they crafted from his story is competently scripted, very well cast, doesn’t waste too much time with any silly subplots, and is generally a well-paced, adult-themed sci-fi story. Altered Carbon really wants to take itself seriously, in the same vein as things like SyFy’s praiseworthy diamond The Expanse, but its unique setting gets a little too bogged down in conventional tropes for my liking. Gratuitous T&A (as well as other, less commonly exploited extremities) and generous helpings of the fuck-words do not an edgy and intense sci-fi experience make. Good but not great, would be my general assessment of the series.

Don’t get me wrong here, Altered Carbon is plenty intense, even thrilling at certain points, but a somewhat bland smattering of writers and directors, thrown into the recipe with a few others who are brilliant geniuses, create a mixed bag of stylistic choices which don’t always fit together very well. So you’re often left with an unusually faithful adaptation of a badass novel, wonderfully enhanced in certain aspects, but grotesquely mutated in others, and some of the conflicting storytelling elements feel hurriedly stitched together. A Patchwork Man of a story, rather than prime quality tank flesh. None of Altered Carbon’s flaws are crippling however, and all-told I’d say the series is eminently watchable and very worth your while if you enjoy futuristic sci-fi stories.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead.

First the good news. This series stars an extremely talented cast of performers who own their roles with wonderful conviction, and very convincing poise.

Joel Kinnaman has been on my good side since he appeared in The Killing, and even his unfortunate role in the Robocop reboot didn’t water down my appreciation for him. I feel like his role as the newly sleeved Takeshi Kovacs was perfectly cast. Martha Higareda is just a little too cute to be such a badass, but she winds up playing Detective Ortega to that strong female archetype in a far less sensational and much more casual way than what you might expect from the modern trends of scripting for such characters. Though quite the opposite of Higareda in terms of the role she plays, Renée Elise Goldsberry brims with charisma as Quellcrist Falconer, a sort of futuristic Che Guevara if he had also practiced Zen and gong fu, and was a woman. Chris Collins is also incredibly memorable as Kovacs’ A.I. hotel manager Poe.

Ato Essandoh as Vernon Elliott became one of my favorite characters as the series goes on, and though I wasn’t totally sold on the arc of her character Hayley Law as Elliott’s daughter Lizzie completed a very nice trifecta of beautiful lead women who just happen to be racially diverse. The third of these ladies, of course, is Dichen Lachman who I’ve got to say delivers probably the most convincing and most nuanced performance in the entire series, having to run a wild labyrinth of different emotional expressions which all feel very genuine. As was the case with Sylvia Hoeks as Luv in Blade Runner: 2049, Dichen Lachman as Rei hooked me instantly and woudn’t let go. Maybe I just got a thing for sociopathic women or something.

There are also a few minor roles worth mentioning, Marlene Forte does a great job as the overbearing mother of detective Ortega, which again felt very genuine and not forced, Tamara Taylor as ambitious sleazy attorney Oumou Prescott gave me chills with her smug smile (again perfect casting), Kristin Lehman and James Purefoy seem a perfectly matched pair of megalomaniacs, Byron Mann and Will Yun Lee kick ass portraying Kovacs at very different stages of his troubled life, and there is some terrifically believable acting on the parts of child actors Morgan Gao and Riley Lai Nelet.

All that being said, not everything the actors are given to do is particularly well-written, in my humble opinion.

Takeshi Kovacs is something called an Envoy, a type of specially trained soldier who is mentally conditioned to be hyper-aware at all times, integrate and adapt to new environments and circumstances, and even manipulate his own bodily chemistry, allowing him to eliminate the pain threshold, instantly recover from debilitating drugs, and avoid lingering trauma from torture. The Envoys were created to help the Protectorate put-down political dissidents and rebels, which were running rampant throughout the settled worlds at the time of the Envoy Program’s inception. Many of these rebels often followed the outlawed “Quellist” writings of an infamously respected revolutionary leader called Quellcrist Falconer who fought, and lost, against the Protectorate hundreds of years before the time of the novel (and long before Kovacs was born). When she was born, Quellcrist Falconer, like Kovacs, also happened to be from Harlan’s World. In the novel, this reputation causes Harlan’s World to be viewed as a backwater source of rogues and misfits by citizens of more civilized worlds (which is fair, since it’s described by Kovacs as being overrun by crime syndicates and swamp gangs). But even compared to Harlan’s World, Earth is considered a polluted over-populated shit hole.

In the novel he was trained by the somewhat fascist forces of the Protectorate, and the Envoy Corps was an elite black ops group who could be transmitted to any planet and topple the regime in less time than it would take a massive army to win a single battle. In the series, Kovacs is just a random soldier burn during the time of the Quellist revolution, but Envoys were created and trained by revolutionary leader Quellcrist Falconer to combat the very fascist forces of the Protectorate, whom were too used to conventional warfare to properly adapt to Quell’s asymmetrical tactics.

The problem for me, with this particular change in the writing, is that much of the details have been glossed over. I never got a sense of how Quell was able to so efficiently condition her soldiers into such a formidable force, nor did her portrayal emphasize her military acumen in this manner very convincingly. Quell’s character is certainly charismatic and sympathetic to the audience, but I find it much easier to accept that Envoys are the product of sociopathic, strict, and brutal military conditioning than to grasp the concept that a fairly undisciplined group of freedom fighters were able to develop such a sophisticated method of training. If Quell’s rebels were portrayed differently, it might be easier to accept, but in the series they seem more like hippies with guns than hardened elite warriors.

This is one of my only major gripes with the series as a whole, and it wouldn’t even be that big of a deal to me if it didn’t play such a large role in the plot and arc of Kovacs as a character. I didn’t like the way it changed his backstory either.

See, in the novel Kovacs is a former Envoy turned career criminal since Envoys are generally feared by everyone despite their having fought for the Protectorate, so they don’t have a lot of options and their skillset is only useful in a limited context. He’s haunted by his combat experiences, regrets his role in assisting the government in putting down various rebels, and has a cultural misunderstanding of Earth because he’s from Harlan’s World. His criminal ventures could be seen as his own personal revolution, and Kovacs has spent about a century in and out of storage since leaving the military, but has only been consciously alive for about forty years. He isn’t portrayed as a morally centered person, but he has his own system of honor, and he selfishly accepts Laurens Bancroft’s offer because it’s a way out of a lengthy sentence. This gives him a nice arc, because he slowly becomes more morally invested in what he’s doing as certain things come to light, and ultimately risks it all toward the end basically to avenge the death of a prostitute and save a single life, which is a nice shift in contrast from the Kovacs we see leave storage at the start of the book.

In the series Kovacs is a lovesick puppy dog, who misses his one true love. He’s a former Quell revolutionary who also became a career criminal, but the moment he got caught they put him in storage indefinitely, because he’s the last of the Envoys, the rest of which were mercilessly butchered by stormtroopers from the evil Protectorate which has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. When the series begins, he awakens 250 years after he was captured and he finds that the galaxy has become what he always feared, a one-percenter’s paradise ruled by the rich, where the poor are exploited and marginalized and everyone with even the slightest sense of prominence is an irredeemable asshole. Politics aside, this change makes his character arc far less interesting to me, because he doesn’t want to help Bancroft but his reluctance comes from a very different place than the book, and ultimately Kovacs accepts the offer not out of selfishness but because the ghost of his dead girlfriend tells him to.

This also deeply conflicts with the first time we’re introduced to Kovacs, in his usual East Asian sleeve on Harlan’s World where he speaks of caring only for “getting paid” and seems like a typical devil-may-care bad boy. Then when he’s talking to Bancroft, he tells the tycoon “Some things can’t be bought. Like me.” So which is it? Do you only care about getting paid, or can you not be bought? This makes for a somewhat confusing characterization of Kovacs, who one minute is murderously avenging himself upon psychotic bio-smugglers and claiming he cares for no one, only to turn around and behave like a typical romantic the next. It isn’t entirely jarring, but for me it hurt the dark tone and mature themes to discover the central core of the series is a centuries-old fairytale love story.

Sorry. I like fairytale love stories. But I also like darkly thematic dystopian science fiction, and in my opinion the two mix about as well as apple liqueur and olive oil.

This is all, however, as I said one off my only major gripes about the series. And even the sum of its parts aren’t badly executed. Like I said, Quell is charismatic, Kovacs is haunted, and all three actors (Kinnaman, Goldsberry, and Kim as Kovacs in his original sleeve) deliver convincing performances as well as share a great sense of chemistry, so the love story is believable at least. Visual effects and set design are also wonderful, and for such a high concept sci-fi setting it all feels very seamless. Dialogue is well-scripted as well, and most of Poe’s interactions with other characters are some of the best scenes. It’s also nice to see a series that exploits the naked female form to a fault, yet also makes a point to ensure you get just as much if not far more male nudity to surprisingly counterpoint its shamelessness. I haven’t seen this many swinging dicks since the last time I read YouTube comments. Just makes you feel better when the characters finally ride the stuffed unicorn, know what I mean?

Many of the minor roles from the novel are also modified to make certain characters more important, and some of their roles have been altered so that they are completely different people. Some of these changes work better than others. Rei, as Tak’s sister rather than just some asshole crime boss he once knew, was a change in the story that had the reverse effect of how I felt about the altered Kovacs/Envoy backstory. It makes Reileen a more interesting character than just the Big Bad you might expect in such a story, and causes her motivations, maniacal as they remain, to be far more empathic and invested in the events of the plot. In that light, they made the villain stand out as memorable among the bland villains we often get in movies and TV shows now, thanks to the K-Mart quality antagonists so popularized by the Marvel movies.

While certainly not perfect, Altered Carbon still manages to offer fans of science fiction a fascinating world populated by characters who are easy to give a damn about, and a galaxy spanning story of heartbreak, betrayal, and retribution. I personally wasn’t that big a fan of the romantic warrior monk stuff in this particular story, but that doesn’t mean it won’t appeal to others. There’s enough mystery here to keep you guessing, and enough solid dramatic force to keep us wanting more on its own merits, not by virtue of any stupid cliffhangers. Much of the visual style and action sequences are just icing on the cake, really. Though, I confess, I almost jizzed my pants when I got to see the Phillips Squeeze Gun in action. And there’s nothing quite like one of those sci-fi stories where someone picks up a samurai sword, let alone during the finale.

All told, I’d watch Altered Carbon again, and you should too. Regardless of whatever I say, or my own personal preferences, it deserves your attention. Because it may be adapted from a novel, but a least it’s trying to be something different than most of what’s out there right now, even if its poetic love story doesn’t want it to be. So, ignore cynical bastards like me, watch the damn show and decide for yourself.

                    侍    headless                   

[bookmulch]

Where the writing down of things all began...

2021 was really the first time I ever tried writing down my thoughts about reading. And since this blog wasn’t here in 2021, I thought I’d share those thoughts with you now. Here’s a little tasty-taste of what you’re in for with my nonsense. Please enjoy.

“A thing I did this year that I'd like to share: I read! I read a bunch of books!This is new and exciting. I wasn't a big reader until about 2 years ago when I put in a concerted effort to read more. 2019 I read 10 books in the last quarter, so I decided that in 2020 I would try to read 40! It did not work out. My math was off. But! I did read 28, which is pretty impressive for me, I'd say.I mostly read fantasy, poetry and kids books. And from that group here are some of my best and least-best choices.

Best of the best, MVP, now-in-my-top 3 favorite books of all time:

Unnatural Magic by C.M. Waggoner.

This is a stand alone murder mystery fantasy novel. It's got a wholly unique setting, complete with fashions that I NEED the author to publish some art of, please. It's got a strong female protagonist with her own personality (wow!), female friendships, age appropriate relationships, the subversion and re-imagining of gender roles, and some gayness, too! The magic system is very similar to physics and I love how it's presented. I love this book so much 10/10 highly recommend.

Best Poetry:

When the World Didn't End, by Caroline Kaufman.

Generally pleasant and well written thoughts and poems about the (cis)woman's experience. I have read a lot of poetry about women healing from bad breakups and abusive relationships, and although the author was pretty young when she wrote these, they felt more mature than a lot of other poetry on the subject. Very nice read if you're doing some healing of your own.

Weirdest:

Lanny by Max Porter

I thought this was a kids book. THIS IS NOT A KIDS BOOK. I REPEAT:DO NOT GIVE THIS BOOK TO CHILDREN. It's the story of a British family moving out to a small village and the adventures that Lanny has now that he's closer to nature. It is told from the perspectives of the adults in his life. There is a magical/fairy tale aspect to the book so I think it's considered Magical Realism (?)CW: there is discussion of child abuse. The child in the book is not actually abused, but the topic does come up.It's a very compelling read, and I still think about it a lot.

Least Best:

The Winter of the Witch, by Katherine Arden.

The third in a trilogy. Set in medieval Russia, it's got the vibe of a folklore fairy tale. However, the main character is very much a Mary-Sue, which was mostly forgivable in the first two books because of the amount of world building and lore that was presented. This last book was more character driven, so it fell flat (much like her personality!). I got so frustrated and bored I put it down multiple times and picked up other books and finished them in it's place. I only finished it because it was my last book of 2020 and I wanted to finish it, damn it!If you're into, like, horses or whatever you might like reading this one, but also, don't.

Overall I managed to read some pretty cool books last year. Here's to more good ones this year!Honorable mentions:

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Second favorite book of the year. KNITTERS: There is knitting magic in this book and it is fabulous.  Truly could not put this book down. It explained how math looks like witchcraft! Cannot recommend enough.”

And there you have it, some pretty spoiler free reviews of some things I read an eternity ago. What a time to be alive.

In conclusion, it probably doesn’t get any better than this, but it might! who knows, I don’t! stick around to find out.

[meandmyechoes]

So I think I’ve done more Chinese writing than I’ve had in the past five years during last month. It was... exhausting, but I also enjoy spinning it a little rewriting the novel in a different language. 

Now I’m actually writing a full length prose, one can finally see the trauma left by my middle school teacher. There’s like, at least 30% idioms in my chapters. I just, I’ve been conditioned into stuffing as much idioms as I can UNDER JUST A YEAR, and there’s no turning back. I mean, yes, idioms are excellent to convey ideas concisely, but they could be pretentious if overflown; especially when you write in a language that leans towards colloquialism as Cantonese. I just know a lot of idioms and sometimes it’s difficult not to use these minimalist words? I know where the line lies though. It’d be good to sum up an event, but re-consider if they are superfluous adjectives. 

Well, getting into this mess did inspired me to write two poems and a drawing, so I guess it has some benefits in the end?

Onward, I do miss writing English fiction so bad. I wrote a few essays in the meantime, but the last time I wrote a story was what? last summer? I should just sit down and write it like I’m doing now. I’ve been watching a ton of panels & interviews stuff, digging up the gems of Star Wars weekends. It’s hilarious and I want to make a non-show TCW resources masterpost later on. But just combing through that comics list is quite a work, and I have to sort out the download links. yeah. 

But like, I meant to talk a little about lunar new year in the diary post. And I actually have something never fully plumbed in my draft regarding some... rumour that I’ve now forgotten. Well, I want to say that it’s been a hectic month. I barely know what I did since the year started. Life’s still shit, but it’s very oblivious, you know. I don’t need to go into details here, it won’t change anything overnight. Just so if anyone’s reading, I’m of sound health, just moody. 

Let’s talk about something I haven’t even discussed inside my own head. So the past month, we’ve basically been helping my gramps move and renovating our own house as well. Very often we worked very late and it completely drained me. But I know Mom is working a lot harder than I am and I want to do my best to lessen her worries. In principle, I would gladly help out but it’s this, tcwaw, the translation, and the deadline of making a cny outfit, and mom breathing down my neck to exercise with the fam, plus having my hair cut in three years rather unwillingly, on top of my terrible self-maintenance (and that ever-lasting shadow of my college). phew, it’s a lot. and I got really, really depressed because I couldn’t finish tcwaw. I feel like, I’m betraying a pact or something okay. I know I took this too seriously and well, any day is tcw appreciation day here. but I tried really hard to make something and I really wanted to complete the challenge, to do this together. So at least, I’m letting myself down. and then there’s the fact that the first post didn’t garner as much notes as I wanted... but all of them are quality responses so thank you... (brb crying again)

Next, I’ve bitched about this many, many times but the negativity of the Forum! Like, pal and i are trying very hard to sway it back into some positive discussion and actual content with the translation, but these men are even bitchier than i am when it’s about the sequels. Like, I don’t expect a comment, it’d be a blessing if someone even clicked readmore. I’m doing it more out of my own interest but damn those manbabies! I understand the internal misogyny in Cantonese swears. Yet, it is the user that chose to aim that tool at a very public platform to express their anger. I just, expect, humans to be better-versed? The worst one of them is a father to a little girl! I’m not saying you can’t complain, I’m saying make it count. 

THE (COMPLETE LACK OF) READING COMPREHENSION ON THAT SITE. okay, let’s go all out bitch. Like, I would expect my partner to be a little better at this, like he reads, right? but no. not only did he misinterpret a singular question on the forum that effectively brought my intention to raise discussion to a full stop, he often mistranslate lines, and just, he’s just a stereotypical straight guy with a stereotypical view on “women + star wars”. It’s wearing me out and I don’t really find anything to learn from that guy. But I also pity him and it’s just bad practice for me to ghost people and cut off another unnecessary backdoor. It’s like he doesn’t really have anyone to talk to about Star Wars, and his contribution to the local fanbase is objectively admirable. This guy still thinks I’m a fellow dudebro, who might be a little obsessed. He has stepped on my toes before (and our circadian rhythm is just, opposite) and well, I learnt to be patient and ask for clarification before giving the other person a lecture. So I guess I could milk some benefits out of this relationship. It will fade eventually anyway. (For the record, I do not think this is deception. My gender is simply unnecessary professionally.)

And you know what’s really funny, to this day, I haven’t revealed I am a girl either on the forum or privately. But I’ve implied so before. I said, young girls like action figures too but unfortunately *I* personally don’t find them pretty-looking enough to buy as a child. I didn’t want to give it out then and still don’t now, but I thought that was quite easy a hint to read? (Because if I’m not a girl, my personal experience carries no weight, and so the only logical conclusion for the relevance and necessary inclusion of that example, is that I’m a girl) (and this is discounting all the Gina mess before. They are quite reasonable with that. but wonder why no one ever brought up her transphobia?) 

I don’t know, sometimes just reading them joke about how women don’t understand star wars, do i laugh or shake my head? Like, of course they won’t talk to you if you don’t contribute to the fandom. Why would anyone choose a whining fanboy over a creative writer? Like, do I charge in and say haha fool’s on you, I’ve been a girl all along and you guys are liking my meta posts like leeches. That’s ridiculous. Like, I wouldn’t mind influencing and slipping awareness on feminist issues in Star Wars, but also what am i to condition these strangers on the Internet? I know I have a saviour complex but I should hold them to the same standard as myself, as a responsible adult, right? I just wanna charge in and write about what it really means to read Star Wars through a feminist lens, and how the “representation” they thought was doing right and where it’s not enough, but I know it will fall on deaf ears. and I just wanna swing a bat and ask them to celebrate Star Wars instead. Otherwise the rational action is leaving that space for good, I’m just too busy. alas, alas.

update: [22/2/21]

last weekend they’ve come to talk/joke about how they’ve never meet a female star wars fan. Given, I haven’t in real life either. It was already a less-than popular hobby than most. But it’s the tone they talk about, without ever realizing there is/could be an ”undercover” agent. It’s an unnecessary complicated way of thinking, but I’m amused, laughing at their oblivious shamelessness. When I wrote this I didn’t know the discussion would turn that way, and what a coincidence. I couldn’t keep it much longer and dm mr. partner. we briefly talked about my concern but the topic was quickly changed into a general grievance about the lack of intelligent communication across local forum boards. I felt better after this, but I wonder if I should still strive to bring content towards it. It’s going to be a wasteful investment, but I do want to write some Ahsoka metas possibly, even if it’s just fact files on her inspiration and how tcw came to be. But I’ll have to evaluate if it’s that important I’ll be dropping off every other WIP for. (It’s not, but no sow no reap)

[allwritealreadysaysbliss]

Narnia

I am afraid of everything.  I’m afraid of spiders.  I’m afraid of the dark.  I’m afraid my food is poisoned.  I’m afraid of flying.  I’m afraid of being alone.  I’m afraid of rejection.  I’m afraid of failure.  I’m afraid of what people think about me.  I’m afraid if I sneeze alone in my apartment, the murderer who has been hiding and waiting for me will say, “Bless You” before he jumps out and kills me.  I’m afraid of germs and pain and needles and blood and my own brain. I’m afraid of death. I’m afraid of intimacy.    

I am 31-years-old and in my first relationship ever.  And I’m afraid it will just never happen for me.

We met on Craigslist…his favorite joke is to let that linger.  We met on Craigslist.  A couple years ago, I was apartment hunting; I had been living alone in River North and felt it was time to minimize costs by changing locations and re-acclimating to having a roommate.  I emailed every normal-sounding post I found.  Hi, my name is Jamie.  I’m a twenty-something female who works and does stuff for fun, blahblahblah.  I was once pulled on stage at a Salt-N-Pepa concert (true, greatest day of my life) and I have a cat; she’s perfect.

He answered.  The ad was for a third room in the Humboldt apartment he shared with his friend, we’ll call her Katie, because that’s her name.  On a Saturday, I met him at the apartment; he toured me around and I think we even got coffee.  He was so hot, I found it difficult to talk to him.  At least, as I recall it.  His version of the story is different.  His version involves a low-angled mirror, which, I apparently pointed out, gave me a good view of my “vag.”  

The next day, we three potential roommates went to breakfast.  It was clear within minutes Katie was in love with him.  (Katie is still in love with him.)  He texted me that night and offered me the room.  “I can’t live with you” I politely informed this stranger.  “I’m too attracted to you.”

“Are you sure?” he responded.  I still think this is a stupid question.

What I could have said was yes, I’m sure and also your friend is in love with you and I cannot be part of this apartment where we both pine for you and then you bring home other girls.  But instead I just said, “yes, I’m sure.  I’m sorry.”  Katie still hates me because of this.  And also, probably, because she’s in love with him.  

I’ve never talked to anyone like that in my life.  Telling someone I thought they were attractive?  Never.  Being excited for dates?  How could I?  Telling someone I liked them?  Desperate.  

Past men have told me that it is impossible to read me, that it took them until after we stopped talking to figure out my way of showing affection was simply by not telling them to go away.  And until, we’ll call him Jordan because that’s his name, I thought that should be enough.  If you’re around, it’s because I want you around.  How exposed and desperate, I thought, to do more. I would watch couples interact with each other.  They kissed in public and held the backs of their partners’ necks.  They put their hands on their partners’ stomachs when taking pictures and held hands as if they knew the other person would want to.  Meanwhile, if I grazed someone’s leg under the table at dinner, it sent a chill of panic down my spine that I was coming on too strong.  Don’t throw yourself at them…be cool.

I had this conversation with a friend recently, and it was comforting to know she too felt this mindset was a residual effect of our all-girls junior and high school.  We focused on grades and not on shaving; we linked arms everywhere we walked and strewn our bodies on top of each other with abandon.  But boys?  They were foreign and you must tread lightly.  

We stayed friends, Jordan and I, after I didn’t move in.  At first, we only texted sporadically – he would keep me up-to-date about a rapper acquaintance of his I became (ironically) obsessed with.  He went to Japan and thought of me when he saw a band playing in the town square.  And when he came back, we started hanging out.  He was flirtatious, but never made a move.  We went on dates, but never kissed.  He traveled across the city to see me, but always went home separately.  When I asked him what was going on, he informed me that while he was attracted to me, he felt like what he really needed were friends.  (He doesn’t have a lot of friends.  He counts them at five total.)  So I dropped it.  I took him places I wanted a handsome companion.  He helped me unpack when I finally left River North and moved in with a roommate to whom I wasn’t too attracted.  And then slept on the couch every time that roommate went out of town – and proudly called himself my babysitter.  He came to a wedding with me in October, after which he texted me he wanted to kiss me but I was too busy complaining how tired I was and invited himself over even though he knew my night creams were already on.  I said no…my night creams are on.  His sister came to town and he wanted me to meet her.  He got sad when our hangouts came to an end and started texting me novels about all the things he liked about me.  He has told me every day since we started dating he was afraid of me then.  I ignored it all; I was over it.  We were friends.  

On January 14, I went to a wedding alone.  There, was we’ll call him Charlie because that’s his name.  Charlie and I make out every time we are together.  We’ve never seen each other with our pants off.  We semi-dated for a while years ago, but he never fails to inform me though he enjoys my company, I drive him crazy and he doesn’t see any long-term potential.  Charlie thinks I am dying to date him.  Charlie wanted to go out after the wedding and make out later, I wanted to go home and make out now.  Charlie went out.  I got mad and texted Jordan, a sure thing, from a cab at 1:30 am, “Come over.”

I’ve never talked to anyone like that in my life.  Inviting someone over at 1:30 in the morning?  Too forward.  Inviting someone over ever?  Desperate.  Forcing myself into someone’s life like this?  Tragic.  

He says he’s never gotten out of bed faster.  He slept over every night that week; we made out with some light finger-banging.  He hates that phrasing.  I told him it would take me longer to be comfortable doing other things.  (I have touched fewer peens than he has friends).  He said he really didn’t care.  The next Monday morning, home sick from work and muted on a conference call, wearing a cat nightgown my aunt had sent me for my birthday, I lost my virginity.  That Friday, he moved to LA.  Depending on whom you ask, we have, more or less, been dating long-distance since then.

With Jordan, I say how I feel.  And how I feel is sexy, for the first time ever, okay in my body for the first time ever, emotionally safe for the first time ever, vulnerable.  I tell him I like him and we talk about our feelings and sometimes I even call him my boyfriend, though the word tastes strange coming out of my mouth.

Sometimes, I cry after sex.  Somewhere between my all-girl school and my overbearing parents, I ended up with messed-up feelings about sex.  Sometimes, I feel shame and embarrassment.  I liked that people knew I was an elder-virgin because there was nothing to be embarrassed about.  I could talk about it endlessly, but it was still somehow private.  Knowing people know I have sex fills me with a nausea I have trouble describing to people.  So, sometimes, after sex, I cry.

I like having sex with Jordan; I like feeling close to him and I like when he cums because it makes me feel like a damn woman, and I like when he touches my stomach.  I’ve never let anyone touch my stomach before.  I like how obsessed with making me cum he is and I like the funny look on his face when he’s thrusting.  I like that he calls my privates Narnia (because nobody else has been there) and that he says I have a Librarian’s Orgasm (I am silent during sex).  But sometimes, sex makes me feel shame.

Sometimes, I feel naïve when I try to enjoy sex, like what do I know?  Like I don’t have enough experience to talk about sex like an adult.  It makes me nervous, like people think it’s “adorable,” not normal.  Like when a little kid learns their first song on the piano and you pat them on the head and tell them good job. That because I am old and it is new, it will never be normal, it will always be juvenile.  But Jordan is patient with me and we talk about sex.  I’ve never talked about sex with a guy like this before.

With other people, if we did anything but make out, I could no longer look them in the eye.  But with Jordan, I look at him before, during, and after.

It’s September now and we fight all the time.  And I’m afraid it will never happen for me.

We fight like we’re trying to save our marriage for the sake of the kids.  I have been on a million dates, I’ve used all the apps, I’ve even “dated” someone for a couple weeks, but I’ve never felt the way I do right now.  And that scares me.  I am 31-years-old and in my first relationship ever.  And I’m afraid it will never happen for me.

[sparkylovesbooks]

Some Random 5-star Reads!

These are all books that i have rated 5 stars in recent years, and I adore all of them to bits (obviously, since I gave them a full 5-star rating!), but for some reason I don’t talk about them very much! Some of these I’ve never talked about! So I thought I’d share some of them, and give a bit of info on why I love them so much.

My Name Is Memory by Ann Brashares

Written by the author of the Sisterhood of the Traveling pants series, this book tells the story of Daniel & Sophia, who have fallen in love time after time over hundreds of years of time. Daniel remembers all of their past lives, but Sophia does not. He manages to find her every time they are reincarnated though.

Basically this book is a good version of “Fallen” by Lauren Kate (minus the fallen angels). It is romantic, magical, emotional, and beautiful. The words are written lyrically and the story is inter-woven at the highest quality - which is impressive considering it’s a time-travel-esque book. Because of the nature of the story - what with it spanning hundreds of years and involving reincarnation - this book could have been cheesy or convoluted or many other negative things. But it’s not. it’s just beautiful and I LOVE it!

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

DO NOT JUDGE THIS BOOK BY TWILIGHT. This is in my top 20 favorite books of all time. For sure. It also contains one of my all-time favorite ships. It blends science fiction, romance, and great character building (of every single character too btw, like goddamn) in a young adult book and is just so freaking impressive. Stephenie Meyer takes her time with this book, not just building the scenery so that it is painted perfectly in your head as you read it, but also in the intricacies of her characters’ relationships & personalities. I am so in love with every aspect of this book. I re-read it all the time, and still swoon over so many lines and scenes. And Wanderer & Ian O’Shea are baes. (PS I don’t hate the movie adaptation of this books...)

The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes

This was the best book I read in 2016 hands down. If you want proof, check out my video here. Or my full review on Goodreads here. But seriously. This book is EVERYTHING. It is supremely well done, it is absolutely unique, and surprising in so many ways. I remember when I first picked it out from the library, I knew nothing about it at all and had no expectations; I just recognized the cover from Instagram. But boy am I happy I ended up reading it!

This book is technically a retelling of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, but it just is so much more than that! It takes the original story and makes it better and poignant and fantastic. The plot, storytelling techniques, emotions, and writing will all take you by surprise, i guarantee it!

Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman

This book was my second favorite read of 2016! Similarly to “Minnow,” I went into this book with no expectations and bought it solely because of the cover, which is just so striking!

“Vengeance Road” is a YA western (the only ya western that I’m aware of at that, so if you guys know of any others please let me know!) that wayyyyy delivers! It is action-packed and the backdrop of the story is in the desert heat during the 1800′s. AND the MC is a female... and a badass heroine female at that yaaaaaas. I highly recommend this book, it’s just so fun and full of adventure and unputdownable.

Confess by Colleen Hoover

The only Colleen Hoover book I am a fan of out of the ones I’ve read so far. “Confess doesn’t have any problematic tropes or characters. It has a couple of evil (SO evil) characters, but they aren’t written as heroes. So they aren’t romanticized as good people. *cough*november9*cough*

This book is so addicting and angsty, and one of the only books I’ve ever actually physically cried while reading it. I just swoon over the love story and had all of the feels over the dramatic plot and gahhhh. Also the web series adaption of this is 10/10 would recommend.

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Why why why why aren’t more people reading this book? I mean, I know a significant number of people are, but not nearly enough! “Out of the Easy” made me want to read more historical fiction that takes place in New Orleans... but I can’t find any others for the life of me!

So first of all, this book has a 4.09 rating on goodreads with nearly 29,000 ratings... that’s awesome in and of itself. This story is crafted so well with impeccable writing. I really think that Ruta Sepetys is one of the best authors I’ve ever read, she’s just so damn good at it. And this one in particular has just no bad qualities at all. It tugs at your heart and has real depth. But yeah, Ruta has an incredible gift. She does a fantastic job of writing dialogue, descriptions, and interior monologue. They blend together perfectly to make a very readable, deep, and touching book.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

MAJOR AUTHOR SWOON ALERT. B/C PIERCE IS FINE AS HELL. Additionally, he is an absolute nerd, has an incredible vocabulary, is so well-spoken, and is such a freaking bookworm himself.

ANYWAY. His passion for science fiction and literature itself is so evident in “Red Rising.” He writes very carefully and every line has a purpose. The imagination of this novel is simply astounding. And the fact that this is his first publish work... is just... I cannot.

I have seen blurbs about this book that compare it to Hunger Games... NO. This is nothing like Hunger Games. imho it’s better.

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

The YA queen! <3 I have read all of Sarah Dessen’s books except her newest release “Once and For All,” but “This Lullaby” is my favorite of hers. To the point where if I ever have a daughter, I want to name her Remy.

All of Sarah’s books are realistic and ground themselves in ordinary characters who are dealing with hardships that are yes difficult, but not crazy dramatic or out of the realm of possibility. They just feel like real life. With this book specifically, I personally felt like the focus was on the characters even more than her other works - which is saying something! but Remy and Dexter and all of their friends just jump out of the page for me. And I just really like how Remy in particular changes over the course of this novel; her story arc is a great one.