#long quote but boy this book has been fascinating

[iamdexter123]

“Political and economic ideologies are framed in metaphorical terms. Like all other metaphors, political and and economic metaphors can hide aspects of reality. But in the area of politics and economics, metaphors matter more, because they constrain our lives. A metaphor in a political or economic system, by virtue of what it hides, can lead to human degradation.”

(this continues below the cut)

“Consider just one example: LABOR IS A RESOURCE. Most contemporary economic theories, whether capitalist or socialist, treat labor as a natural resource or commodity, on a par with raw materials, and speak in the same terms of its cost and supply. What is hidden by the metaphor is the nature of the labor. No distinction is made between meaningful labor and dehumanising labor. For all of the labor statistics, there is none on meaningful labor. When we accept the LABOR IS A RESOURCE metaphor and assume that the cost of resources defined in this way should be kept down, then cheap labor becomes a good thing, on a par with cheap oil. The exploitation of human beings through this metaphor is most obvious in countries that boast of “a virtually inexhaustible supply of cheap labor”—a neutral-sounding economic statement that hides the reality of human degradation. But virtually all major industrialized nations, whether capitalist or socialist, use the same metaphor in their economic theories and policies. The blind acceptance of the metaphor can hide degrading realities, whether meaningless blue-collar and white-collar industrialist jobs in “advanced” societies or virtual slavery around the world.”

- Lakoff and Johnson, from the chapter ‘Understanding’ in Metaphors We Live By

[gwyns]

"Something in his chest sparked at that."

(Ruhn and Lidia)

"Something sparked in Azriel's chest.'"

(Gwyn and Azriel)

I can't believe readers read this part and go "Gwyn is a lightsinger! She can't be Azriel's mate because the bond between her and Lucien is fake. Azriel is Elain's true mate."

I swear they change their theories every year. First, they wanted to read a book that is not about mates. A book about a chosen love. Then they come out with theories that the Cauldron was wrong because Azriel (my stupid boy) thought so.

Then they said Elain belongs to the Night Court but I saw a theory she will be a High Lady of the Dusk Court with Azriel by her side.

Before HOFAS they claimed Elain will play a big role in the book (she didn't btw). Now there are theories she will be the future owner of Gwydion only to firt into Azriel's story with Truth Teller. (Gwynriels have theories about Gwyn and Gwydion that were made even before House of Sky and Breath, but yeah Elain will be the one who will get Gwydion.)

I also say a theories about Elain and Pegasuses. (Come on we know who loves them.) And apparently Elain will be connecting not with the Prison as they were screaming. Now she will go to Ramiel.

I'm done with them. Nothing is mathing.

they really are scrambling huh? after this many sjm books it's not hard to recognize the language she uses for mates. quinlar had a similar quote too in their hosab bonus chapter so things aren't looking good for the bread babies!

sometimes i forget that e/riel started as a ship for people who wanted a story with more "choice", it's been so long since i've seen them scream about that. all it is now is true mates and the cauldron was wrong/corrupted and blah blah blaahhhh. mates are sarah saying "hey! this couple is it!!" and unless she randomly changes her formula, mates are endgame, in every series and universe

it's so fascinating they claim she'll take the dusk land/prison when... nesta is connected to that? bryce even acknowledged this by giving her the starsword/gwyndion?? like i'm sorry but elain is not connected to that. and why should she be? she already has ties to day through her mate and suspected ties to spring since her sisters commented on how it was made for someone like her

oh yeah i remember the pre hofas theories about how e/riel would team up and save the universe!!! as if this wasn't still a crescent city novel and that would fall solely on bryce, hunt and their frat pack lol. honestly i'm not sure where i stand on the gwyndion theories, i do remember seeing some shortly after acosf's release but i'm unsure if i think nesta will keep it or eventually give it to gwyn. if it's the latter, that would be badass, having two mates have the dagger and sword

to be fair, helion does have the last remaining pegasuses in prythian and again, elain is connected to day through lucien so i can understand wanting elain with a pegasus, on that end anyway lol but it's true that, outside of helion, i associate them more with the valkyries. didn't the old valkyries ride them into battles? or am i misremembering? either way, give the valkyries their pretty winged horses please

RAMIEL??? ELAIN????? the same elain who is connected to the big baddie of the spinoffs? yeah, no way lol. ramiel/the illyrian conflict is a plot all on its own, meaning someone else will take care of it. anyone remember pre acosf when nessian were supposed to deal with the illyrians? and sjm instead chose to push that plot back?? huh i wonder why... it couldn't be because she decided to have az deal with it with his mate or anything...

although, i suppose this is what you have to do when you try so hard to make your ship work in the canon when it's been dead since 2021

[hello-nichya-here]

Some Peter Pan 2003 edits, enjoy.

(Nichya, do you agree with me by thinking this movie is the few examples of a live action Disney remake being as good if not better than the original?)

I agree and there's a very good reason why that is the case: it wasn't made by Disney, but by Universal, who wanted to be more loyal to the original story - and like Jason Isaac's himself said, that was the thing that made this movie so different from most adaptations of it.

I'm gonna be real, I used to hate basically every version of Peter Pan, mainly because of the Disney cartoon being my introduction to the story. I just never understood why Wendy liked him, or why he liked her, or how Neverland was in anyway special/different from any generic "Magic place", or why I should care if any of these characters leave it behind or stay. And keep in mind, this was coming from a child that was all about the Disney formulas. Peter Pan, as a concept, just REALLY felt hollow to little me.

... And then I watched this movie.

Let me tell you, 6-year-old Nichya was OBSESSED with this movie (and with Jason Isaac as Hook). 24-year-old Nichya too, even more so actually, because EVERYTHING ABOUT IT is perfect - including the thing that aged "poorly", aka the special effects.

Neverland doesn't really look real and that's good. The dated effects, the epic music and the very colorful lighting make it look like a place that could only exist in dreams, so when Wendy and her brothers are in awe of it, I totally get it. Today's tendency of films in which every scene look super dark and/dull makes me appreciate it even more.

The lighting also does wonders for the storytelling, showing Peter's magical connection with Neverland as it changes based on his emotional state, or in moments like Wendy seeing Hook for the first time, with the extra focus on his eyes - you can practically hear the book quote of Wendy being fascinated instead of frightened.

Speaking of the book, the fact that this adaptation had the guts to go with THE thing that could end making it far too corny and silly, aka the "kiss" Wendy has on her lips and that shows she's starting to grow up and become interested in romance is SUCH an important plot-point and key aspect of her character arc, and is delightful to see an adaptation that goes "We already have a magical land, fairies, mermaids, and a boy that stays a kid forever. How is the 'kiss' going to make it less realistic? It's fantasy already!"

And I love, love, love how they make sure we know who Wendy is outside of romance (a storyteller that wants adventure, a child that is both really mature and responsible, but also activelly trying to escape that role, someone who is very motherly but has a ton of anxiety about the prospect of eventually being the adult in charge) - but without ever downplaying how much her romance with Peter means to her.

He was the boy that was giving her everything she was looking for at the moment: friendship, adventure, excitement, and, more importantly, a way to escape any responsibility she didn't want - forever. He really is the hero she had been waiting for, and that, as a consequence, makes her realize that growing up and eventually having a family is not that scary after all, as long as she finds the right person, someone who understands her and that she trusts.

Obviously, she doesn't want to get married and have a ton of kids NOW, but she wants the promise that this will happen - when they're ready for it, when they're older. But Peter Pan is no ordinary boy. It's not just that he's too immature to fully embrace his feelings for Wendy right now, and could truly allow himself to love her later. He is NEVER going to reach that point, he's far too afraid to allow himself the chance to even try. And that breaks Wendy's heart.

And it breaks Peter's heart too, because he WANTS to be loved, and he already cares for Wendy in a way he never cared about anyone else. But because of who he is, she, and everyone else, will inevitably leave him. Because ALL children grow up. He is the only one who was blessed, and cursed, to be the exception.

He'll never be a husband and father. He will never be someone's child or sibling. He's the true lost boy, out of reach forever. He is truly free from everything and everyone, but the price is the knowledge that, sooner or later, he will find himself completely alone time and time again. And Wendy, the girl he loves, will one day either forget him or grow old and die - after having lived a full life with someone else, because Peter couldn't, and wouldn't, grow old with her.

He's doomed to be lonely forever... just like Hook. But unlike Hook, when he is immature and selfish (like when he closes the window at Wendy's house in the hopes that she'll believe her parents stopped waiting for her and her siblings), he does it out of pure desperation, because he's a child that genuinely doesn't know any better.

Hook however, is coming from a place of malice. When he "pursues" Wendy, he does out of jealousy that Peter managed to find true love, while he will never have that. He does it to steal that from him, to hurt him, to make him endure the pain of knowing that, of all people that could have replaced him in Wendy's heart, he was the one who did it.

And, of course, while he never really does anything to Wendy, the constant implication that, at any second, he might, looms large. Their dynamic is inherently predatory, with Hook exploiting the fact that Wendy is mature enough to want a romantic connection, but is still too naive to understand all the implications behind it, and, more importantly, that no adult that wants to be with her like that could possibly be someone she's safe with it.

He is an intriguing, tragic figure like Peter and thus can "seduce" her rather easily too (the fact that Jason Isaacs is really fucking hot doesn't hurt either), but he is doing it through constant manipulation, reminding her that she can never have the boy she actually wants and exploiting her childish need to have some form of petty revenge against him for it, by "befriending" the person he hates the most in the whole world.

But there's another thing that brings her closer to Hook: the fact that, despite being the complete opposite of her father, he still LOOKS like him, is the real adult authority figure around, and he is offering her advice and comfort when she experiences her first heartbreak. He represents both her adolescent impulse to rebel, to proove she's grown already, and her childlike instinct to just run to the arms of her parent and let him call the shots because she's afraid of making mistakes and wants someone who can tell her what to do, how she's supposed to act.

There is a recurring theme through the movie of Wendy's mostly innocent fantasies being read through an adult lenses (see the teacher's concern and offense at the drawing of Peter above her in bed - because he's FLYING, not touching her in anyway). Much like when she was the "mother" of the Lost Boys, when she is by Hook's side, Wendy is a child playing pretend. But the threat Hook poses is very real and his intentions are downright evil. Because Wendy ran away from the flawed, but well-meaning adults she could trust, she walked right into the trap of a very dangerous man that is taking advantage of her need for a protector, a mentor.

And that's why the kiss scene is the perfect climax for the movie, as it concludes three character arcs at once. It shows us Wendy choosing true love, however fleeting, instead of Hook's lies, and indulging in one last childhood fantasy before growing up. It gives Peter the only form of closure he could ever have, knowing that even if he can't be with Wendy, he will always be "the one" for her and won't ever be forgotten, just like he won't ever forget her, because they mean too much to each other. And Hook is forced to accept that, because he can't connect with anyone without manipulation, which could never last, his life truly is void in a way even Peter's never would be.

So yeah, it's a great movie with serious guts, and everyone else can just quit trying to make a new adaptation, reboot, sequel, prequel or whatever because they're never getting anywhere near this level of quality.

[padmeanddorme]

Answering my asks p1 :)

Thanks for the ask friend!

I’m super excited to get to rant with fellow Star Wars fans, especially about some underrated, courageous and amazing characters!

I love all Padmé’s handmaidens and all their quirks. Dormé’s loyalty and love for Padmé that brings her to tears in Attack of the Clones is gorgeous, and I love how the Clone Wars delved into the fact that Teckla has children to love and nurture.

So. Off the top of my head the handmaidens I can think of include:

The original five that served Padmé as Queen of Naboo:

- Sabé

- Saché

- Yané

- Eirtaé

- Rabé

Padmé’s senatorial handmaidens from Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith:

- Dormé

- Moteé

- Versé

- Cordé

- Ellé

- Hollé

And then there were handmaidens introduced not in live action, but in books like Ek Johnston’s Padmé trilogy and the Clone Wars :

- Teckla

- Duja

- Tepoh (technically Tepoh is Saché’s aid but any friend of a handmaiden is Padmé’s friend)

I researched it and apparently I forgot some rarely mentioned handmaidens like Karté, Fé, Dané, Umé and Miré.

For more information on the handmaidens and who they are, you can use resources like this one:

So, why do I love the handmaidens?

Well, the fact that these characters are made out to be simple aides to Padmé, who are responsible for her hair, clothing decisions and makeup support, but are really her trusted ‘decoys, bodyguards and confidantes,’ is so fascinating to me (quoting Star Wars.com’s Guide to the Royal Handmaidens of Naboo article). They are symbolic of that moral of not judging a book by its cover, as they are more trained, skilled and close to Padmé than most assume.

Also, I love how the handmaidens are so selfless. They sacrifice so many opportunities to enjoy their life and pursue their interests to protect a dear friend who cares for them but cannot be entirely truthful with them (Anakin boy, we love you, and we know it is not your fault, but you kind of make your wife so secretive towards her friends).

And, on a lesser note, I love how the handmaidens follow Padmé’s impeccable fashion style and wear some gorgeous cloaks and outfits. Whether they be grey velvet cloaks or the flame-coloured robes, the handmaidens pull off every simple style so effortlessly.

Talking about the lesser known handmaidens

For the lesser known handmaidens like Duja, Teckla, Tepoh and Moteé, I consider them equally as interesting as those we know more about. They each have their own unique traits that I hope can be explored in future Star Wars content, whether it be prequel era books, comics, series etc.

Duja is first mentioned in the book I really adore, Thrawn Alliances. I love how we get it inferred that Duja was passionate, courageous and willing to face any danger if it allowed her to aid the greater good. It was also a neat little touch in the book where the author mentioned how both Duja and Padmé had once discussed their longing for children of their own. Unfortunately, this character we learnt so little amount perished in the line of duty during the Clone Wars while she was investigating a Separatist factory.

Teckla seems like a sweet-natured character and I adore her. I find it funny that many believe her only appearance is in the Clone Wars, when it has been confirmed that she was the handmaiden in that Attack of the Clones scene serving dinner to Anakin and Padmé before that chat about aggressive negotiations. In the Clone Wars episode ‘Pusuit of Peace’, I love how she helps Padmé with her hair (which is revealed to be a wig) and acts as an optimistic spark of hope when Padmé is fatigued and frustrated.

I loved the introduction of Tepoh in the book Queen’s Hope. The fact that Tepoh is the first character I know of in Star Wars who goes by zhe/zhem pronouns made zhem even more fascinating to me, as I adore characters who feel confident enough to express their true personality and values. Tepoh was likeable for me as zhe were open about their inability to fit into the bleak binary of the male and female categories. I also found it cool of zhem to be willing to aid Saché in their fight for the greater good, even if it meant she had to sit and notetake a lot of information from meetings.

Although I do not know that much about Moteé, the one comic I own that features her makes me adore her. Not only do I love the scene where she walks in on Anidala kissing and she just goes straight to business, but I also love how she is inquisitive about the forbidden affair between Anakin and Padmé. Also, I admire how Moteé takes on the advice of Dormé to let Padmé be happy with Anakin, as it proves that she will be forthright with her opinions but will be open-minded when it is needed.

Enjoy the very few gifs I could find that feature the handmaidens….

And May the Force be with you all ✨

[hekateinhell]

"I saw no reason to talk endlessly, as Aristotle did, about things that were made. The lives of the ancients that Plutarch told with such spirit made excellent stories. I wanted to know people of the now, however.

Even the books I read reflected this new realm in which I had been so securely fixed that nothing could take me back to the world of confusion and suffering that had gone before.

I learned to play little songs on the Virginal. I learned to strum the lute and to sing in a soft voice, though I would only sing sad songs. My Master loved these songs." ~ Armand, TVA

It's always fascinating to me how Armand describes himself in his own voice. Like his narrative tone is so strikingly different from Lestat's; it's still very rich, but much simpler and matter-of-fact. These are the facts as Armand sees them at this point in his life, and that's that.

But I love how even as a five hundred year old vampire, Armand can look back on his human self and say: "I wanted to know people of the now." This thirst for knowledge and desire to not only connect with the present, but to understand it, has always been a fundamental part of him -- long before Daniel, before Louis, before the cult.

The second, "nothing could take me back" quote is definite foreshadowing for what's to come, but "confusion and suffering" is what stands out to me as having already become the established baseline in his psyche due to the traumas that led him to Venice. It's not conscious, but it's something even Marius notes in B&G, and the subsequent behaviors Armand then used to distract himself.

I saw in Amadeo a growing confusion as memories tried to make themselves known to him and he would deny them, sometimes waking beside me as we dozed together, and tormenting me with kisses when I would rather dream.

It's not until the very end of canon that we see Armand reach a place where he genuinely seems like the person free of confusion and uncertainty that he never got to be -- even as a child, even in Venice.

I'm so glad AR gave my boy that closure at least.

[poppyseedoncaffeine]

More incorrect quotes cuz art blocks a bitch

Lunar: We have to plan, we have to figure something out. Monty: Lunar, when have any of our plans ever actually worked? We plan, we get there, all hell breaks loose.

Moon: No, this is not a mess. You know what I consider a mess? Foxy: Your life? Moon: I- well yes, but-

Lunar: I am very small and I have no money, so you can imagine the kind of stress that I'm under.

Monty: Unpopular opinion, not all dogs are good boys. Foxy: Blocked. Monty: Sometimes, they’re good girls! Foxy: UNBLOCKED!

Sun, wiping tears from their eyes: If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, it’s meant to be… Moon: I’m literally just going to the store.

Sun: We wouldn’t last two minutes without Earth. Sun: Sun: Don’t tell them I said that.

Sun: Why do you keep a diary?! Monty: To keep secrets from Computer.

Lunar: Why aren't there friend pick up lines? Pick up lines to make friends like- Lunar, to Earth: Hey, that's a cute outfit. You know where it would look better? On nobody else, because you're a beautiful individual. Monty, to Foxy: Be my friend or I'll set your entire family on fire. Moon: There are two types of people.

Moon: We can't eat. Why are you making pancakes? Sun: For the cats. Moon: Why are you making pancakes for the cats? Sun: They don't know how.

Monty: Y'know, I once knew a man who said to me: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” He also had a pair of sideburns that would cause even Jude Law’s face to weep in forfeit. You put those lemons in a sack and beat your enemies with ‘em! And maybe if you beat ‘em hard enough the bag will split open and lemon juice will spray into their eyes, causing intense burning pains as you crush them into a citrus-y pulp! Foxy: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Their heads or the lemons? Monty: Whatever caves first!

Sun: How the hell are you still alive? Bloody & Harvest: Honestly, I’m just as confused as you are.

Moon: It's not like I try to blow things up, exactly. It just sort of happens. You've got to admit though, fire is fascinating.

Bloody: Thank you for not saying "I told you so." Harvest: When you’re as right as I am, you don’t have to say it. *Both look at the fiery inferno before them as Sun angrily emerges from the flames holding a Barrel and a dead Eclipse*

KC: The saying “it is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission” no longer applies to Bloody & Harvest.

The only proper way to lie to Lunar:

Lunar: Can I have some? Monty, mouth full of cheesecake: It's really spicy, you wouldn't like it. *Proceeds to buy a huge ass cheesecake for Lunar*

Monty: Watcha doin? Sun: Stealing my neighbor's cat. Monty: Scandalous. Monty: Can I help?

Sun: It’s Pride Month, you know what that means! Lunar: I get to eat as many Skittles as I want? Sun: What? No! What has Monty been telling you? Monty, walking in, pouring Skittles into their mouth: Taste the rainbow, bitch.

KC: I'm having a baby. Rays: Oh, congradu- Bloody & Harvest wanting a better version of Eclipse, slamming adoption papers onto the table: It's you, sign here.

Demon: Hey, I took your soul last month and- Monty: No returns. Demon: sobbing But it's making me sad…

Monty: Sorry it took so long to bail you out of jail. Lunar: No, it was my fault. I shouldn't have used my phone call to prank call the police station.

Lunar: Can I go to the pool? Monty: Sure, we’ll go as soon as I’m free. Lunar: No, can I go by myself? Monty: You don’t want to go with me? Lunar: You just go around challenging random people to cannonball contests. Monty: It’s the only way to establish dominance.

Eclipse: I’m not so sure you’re stakeout material. Rays: I’m a chronic insomniac, I was born for this.

Rays: Moon won’t come out of their room! Lunar: Just tell them I said something. Rays: Like what? Lunar: Anything factually incorrect. Rays, shrugging: If you say so. Moon, arriving moments later: Did you just say the Pluto is a Star?

Monty: slams books down in front of KC Monty: Boil up some Mountain Dew. It’s gonna be a long night. Moon: You could of said literally anything else. Monty: Cauldron boil and cauldron bubble, Baja Blast to fuel my trouble. Moon: I’m going to just stop challenging you when you say random shit. I won’t win. I realize this now.

Eclipse: Be careful, I thrive on negative attention.

Moon: I've connected the two dots. Rays: You didn't connect shit. Moon: I've connected them.

Lunar: Why isn’t the statue smirking at me? Eclipse: It isn’t smirking at anyone, they’re all just imagining it. Monty: Three of us saw it, Eclipse. How do you explain that? Eclipse: points at Sun Sleep deprivation. points at Monty Paranoia. points at Moon Delusional personality disorder.

Moon: We need a plan to beat Eclipse. Rays: Okay, listen up. First, we fill their shoes with wet cat food. Moon: Rays: Judge me all you want, I get results.

Lunar: Tell them to eat shit, Rays. Rays: Tell them yourself. Lunar: Eat shit, asshole. Fall of your horse. *Rays nodding behind Lunar*

Eclipse: What are you talking about Monty? You love it here! Monty: I'm not sure I do, I think I've just developed Stockholm syndrome.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: He-She

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS)

The public domain is filled to the brim with some of the best and most fascinating characters that you, dear reader, can use without issue in your very own stories! Nothing can stop you from slapping Dracula, the Martians from War of the Worlds, Gilgamesh, Cthulhu, and Sherlock Holmes into some big stupid crossover story! And if you plumb the depths of the public domain you’ll find even cooler and wackier characters who had their licenses expire ages ago. Why not put Six-Gun Gorilla or Stardust the Super Wizard into your works? You’ll get a lot more points for originality there.

But sometimes when you go deep into the depths of free-to-use characters, you find… Well, you find stuff like He-She.

In 1943’s Boy Comics #9, the world was given an answer to Two-Face that nobody had asked for, mainly because he’d only existed for about a year. But did Two-Face have the greatest fucking tagline ever?

I don’t think so! Still, the name alone might make you raise an eyebrow, and the mere concept sure does seem a bit… iffy in this day and age. I imagine there’s a reason I discovered this character through lists of old comic villains who are incredibly offensive (for some reason, Snowflame kept appearing on those lists too, even though there is nothing offensive about him except how much cooler he is than every other villain ever), although… is that really fair?

Motivation/Goals: All they want is money, money, money. Ain’t it funny? I mean, honestly, what do you expect from the villain in a Golden Age comic book? All the villains back then either wanted boatloads of cash or to destroy the city, with no in between. We wouldn’t get cool motives like “turn the population of New York into dinosaurs” or “Go on a gorilla rampage” until later. Most villains, however cool they appeared, were fueled by simple greed back in the day.

Final Fate: So, uh… They get executed for their crimes.

Like, what, they committed a murder and stole some money? Does that really warrant the death penalty? I’m thinking there was some other reason He-She got put to death...

Best Scene: Over the span of two pages, He-She uses their better half to seduce Crimebuster and then some random guy into doing their bidding. There’s just something genuinely hilarious about a villain using the exact same ploy twice in a row and having it be effective both times, especially since it’s one of the most transparent and silly ones ever used.

Best Quote:

Final Thoughts & Score: There is just so much to unpack here, and yet at the same time so little.

Let’s start with the obvious question: Is He-She offensive? Well, they refer to them as an “it” right off the bat, which isn’t particularly great, and we have our police character acknowledge there are people like them… in circus freak shows. Crimebuster is a little nicer in the end, saying they’ll pay for “his or her crimes,” but yeah, it’s not exactly tasteful by modern standards.

Of course, considering when this was made, it genuinely could have been a lot worse. Golden Age comics were rife with problematic characters, and by those standards He-She could have been some walking transphobic stereotype. But being trans wasn’t really the big topic it is today; I don’t really see He-She as being any sort of commentary on gender identity or trans people beyond having a name that is incredibly unfortunate with the benefit of hindsight because I really don’t think it was an issue mainstream enough to mock. I’m not going to pretend like this is tasteful or well done—it’s definitely not—but if they were genuinely trying to be transphobic it doesn’t really come off that way. He-She is just a generic criminal with a very weird gimmick that has aged a bit awkwardly.

And that’s really the long and short of it right there: He-She is, ultimately, a generic criminal. If not for their absolutely bizarre premise and design, I think they would be completely unremarkable. And even the gimmick falls a bit flat because it is truly poorly implemented into the story. He-She marries a landlady within the first page of the comic, but it’s only after their marriage during a big fight that their wife finds out that they’re He-She. Did she just never once see the other side of their face? Did they not kiss them at the wedding? Is the trench coat and hat really that great of a disguise? The entire plot would collapse if anyone bothered to look at He-She from the other side. Do they have some superhuman ability to make people never question why they always stand so you can only see their profile?

There are a few humorous moments like the aforementioned seduction trick, but the gimmick isn’t utilized well beyond that. What we’re stuck with is a historical curiosity that’s too bland to be offensive, too tasteless to garner a fanbase, and just a baffling creation in its own right. 4/10 seems about right. But that’s where you, dear reader, come in!

You see, as He-She is in the public domain, you can take them and put them in your own stories, free of charge! Give them complex motives and deeper characterization! Give them a more appealing design, or at least have their odd physical condition make a bit more sense! And most importantly, change their fucking name and write them with respect! Literally nothing is stopping you from rehabilitating this bizarre piece of comic history!

Except for the fact that, you know, He-She sucks. But that's why you gotta make them better.

[rapha-reads]

After sending the summer dissecting A Curse So Dark And Lonely (amongst a corpus of other novels) to study contemporary rewritings of Beauty and the Beast, now that the thesis is done, I went and read the sequel, A Heart So Fierce And Broken.

I think I love A Heart more than A Curse.

Grey and Lia Mara have something so agonizing that Harper and Rhen lacked. Or, to say it otherwise, Harper and Rhen, for all that they are very modern versions of Belle et la Bête, are still constricted by the role they must play. The story, their story, has already been written, and they must play their part until the end, no matter the side quests on the way.

Of course, because A Curse is a play on B&tB, it's a variant, a critical adaptation, so reducing Rhen and Harper to just their motif is a bit mean. I honestly really love A Curse. I might be biased against it after months of learning about the og tale inside and out.

Meanwhile, Grey and Lia Mara occupy spaces of their own. Academic deformation or thesis post-trauma stress, I'm trying to think but I can't find the tale-type they'd belong too. They're not fairy tale archetypes developped into Fantasy characters, they are Fantasy characters exploring their own as-of-yet-unwritten story (all the stories have been told, but also, all the stories are still waiting to be told).

They are honestly fascinating, the guard turned long lost heir and the princess discarded who turns out to be the real power. There's so much anguish in them. So much self-sacrificing, self-effacing. Gods I should have included the book in my thesis, I could have drawn parallels between Rhen stuck in his role of Beast and Lia Mara in her role as the spare, Harper as the Beauty and Grey as the unwilling Prince... Dammit I'm having ideas now. Oh, well, let's keep them for when I'll give the PhD a try. Some years down the line.

Quote, because that passage made me weep a little. The weapon boy and the quiet reading girl. Oof. If that's not exactly my kind of favorite dynamic!

Also I'm a sucker for messy yet intense sibling relations and I'm soooo here for Harper and Jake, Lia Mara and Nolla Verin and especially Rhen and Grey. That's totally my jam.

[scattered-winter]

ok winter...it's my turn now: jaykyle. i am intrigued, and i'd like to know as much as is feasible to tell me. (it's killing me to send something this open-ended but i feel like i don't actually know enough about them to be more specific.)

TEEHEE <3333 SOOOO GLAD YOU ASKED BECAUSE I CARE THEM <33

jaykyle is a ship between two of my favorite dc characters, jason todd and kyle rayner. they're both sooo fascinating on their own AND as a pairing and I just <3333 this is gonna get long because 1) they both have very long and complicated stories that's gonna take a bit to unpack and 2) I love them <33 and I love to talk about them <333 a bit of forewarning, but comics storylines are RIDICULOUSLY complicated and pretty much every single character has more origins, timelines, and personalities than you can shake a stick at. in the comics fandom we take marie kondo's words to heart because if we tried to stick to What Canon Says, we would be running in circles all day because everything contradicts itself. everything is canon and nothing is canon and if it doesn't spark joy, it isn't true <3 I'll explain everything to the best of my ability but it's gonna get Real Complicated Real Fast

tw for death (child and otherwise)

jason todd (playlist) is part of the batfam (group of vigilantes associated with batman) and he's also part of the wayne family (by adoption). I looked everywhere for the panels to show how he was introduced because it's objectively the funniest way to introduce any character but alas, they have eluded me so I'll just tell you: he grew up in the poorer parts of gotham city with his parents, catherine and willis todd. willis got caught up in two-face's gang (because gotham city as a whole has a trend of eating its people alive/forcing them to do crime because they're desperate and have no choice etc etc) and ended up getting killed because of it, and catherine died of an illness, leaving jason to fend for himself on the streets.* he is brought into the story by jacking the tires off the BATMOBILE, and getting caught by batman himself. in response to this he hits batman with a tire iron, calls him a big boob, and runs away (and in the process making bruce laugh out loud in the same place his parents died which makes me SOO OUGHOUGHOUGHOUGH)

*catherine and willis both loved jason very much, but recent comics have portrayed willis as abusive/catherine as neglectful, which doesn't spark joy for me personally so I tend to ignore those ones and stick to the others where they were genuinely loving parents who fell on hard times.

the original robin, dick grayson, recently moved on from the mantle and went to live somewhere else,* so bruce adopted jason and started training him as the new robin. he was a very bright, very loving boy who enthusiastically went to school and read books and loved bruce so so much and bruce loved him because that was his KID.**

*I can't remember if he went to live with the titans or went to gotham's sister city, bludhaven; but in any case he ends up in bludhaven eventually and operates there as nightwing

**In more recent comics, jason's robin days are portrayed as him being brash and violent (new drinking game: take a shot every time a comic describes robin jason as "angry" or "reckless" smfh) and of course while being a vigilante involves violence, and being a well-rounded character, jason did indeed have moments of anger, I strongly dislike this way of thinking because it takes so much away from his character and you'll see what I mean by that in a minute.

however, the happy days weren't gonna last. jason discovered that catherine todd wasn't his biological mother, and he had found some evidence pointing to who his birth mother was. (I think it was a birth certificate that was partially damaged so he couldn't see the whole name but it's been a while since I've read the comic where that happens so don't quote me on that) but regardless of how he found out, jason set out to find his real mother. he'd narrowed down the list of possible mothers to a few different women, so he found them each in turn and ruled them out as he went. he ran away from home to go on his little self-discovery mission, and the only reason bruce didn't go after him was because the joker had a big scheme with a nuclear missile that kinda took precedence. but by pure happenstance, they ran into each other and decided to work together for both their goals (stopping joker AND finding jason's mom). eventually jason and bruce narrowed the list down to one woman: sheila haywood. they travelled to ethiopia to find her, and jason actually did, but moments after meeting her, sheila betrayed him and handed him over to the joker, who proceeded to beat jason within an inch of his life with a crowbar while sheila watched.

(batman: a death in the family)

he then tied up sheila and left them both to die in the warehouse because he rigged it with a bomb. jason, despite being betrayed by her literally minutes before, stopped to untie her to get her out instead of saving himself. but the bomb went off with them both inside, just in time for batman (who had been frantically rushing to the warehouse as soon as he heard that jason had been captured) to see the explosion <3

(batman: a death in the family)

and the thing that REALLY fucks me up is that even after everything she did to him, jason still used himself as a human shield to try and protect sheila. these two panels have literally caused me lasting damage

(batman: a death in the family)

this is also why the narrative of jason being reckless makes me so angry. he didn't die because he was a reckless idiot who rushed into danger without a thought, he died because he tried to save a woman who nearly got him killed. he died shielding her with his own body even though she betrayed him literally a few minutes earlier. some comic writers have rewritten the scene to take out sheila entirely, but that takes away a huge part of the story!!!! jason didn't die because he was reckless!! he died because he was trying to save someone!!!! I will literally fight people on that to my grave smh

bruce brought jason's body back to gotham and buried him, and was never really the same after that (but that's a topic for another ramble because this is about THE BOY <3)

this is where things get a little trippy <3 first thing you gotta know about comic books is that death is RARELY permanent. the exact details are lost on me since I tend to avoid the big crisis events (and the headache they give me) but basically superboy-prime punches the fabric of the universe and kinda .. breaks some things. and jason wakes up in his coffin (slightly zombified), six feet underground. after clawing his way out of his own fucking grave, jason gets hit by a fucking CAR and is then taken in by talia al ghul (one of bruce's past lovers, daughter of ra's al ghul [leader of the league of assassins]). talia put jason in something called a lazarus pit, which is basically a pool of green bubbly goo that can resurrect someone (ra's al ghul is hundreds of years old and keeps himself alive with the pits). jason came fully back to life and stayed with talia for a time, during which he travelled the world to be trained by some of the best/most notorious fighters and assassins all over the globe. at this point, he'd been dead for quite a while (a year AT LEAST) and so when he finds out that the joker is still fucking ALIVE, it's .... a shock, to say the least. it's a very complicated issue because batman's deepest-rooted rule is to Never Kill, and there were a lot of underlying circumstances preventing him from killing the joker right after jason's death (despite really, really wanting to) but the thing is. the joker just keeps killing and hurting people, and he gets put in arkham asylum, and escapes and kills more people, then gets put in arkham again, and it's just a vicious cycle where the joker just keeps hurting more and more people. and like. jason got murdered by the joker and the guy is still fucking alive and murdering more people. so he heads off to gotham with a huge plan to confront bruce and make him choose once and for all: kill the joker, or let jason die. this whole arc is my very favorite comic book of all time, batman: under the red hood <333 basically jason becomes a crime boss called red hood (which was the joker's old alias before he became...well, the joker) and plots CIRCLES around bruce, joker, and the other crime bosses. they're literally his pawns the entire time <3 but this all comes to a head when jason traps batman, the joker, and himself in a room where he finally reveals his identity to batman and gives him an ultimatum: kill the joker, or kill him. he had the whole place rigged with explosives so that no matter what bruce chose, they would still blow up (as a form of insurance? as a form of suicide? who knows!)

I'd like to point out the obvious and say that jason was NOT in a great state of mind during this whole thing. like. this post highlights it very well imo, but tl:dr jason didn't really...make a plan for after the showdown. it was clear that he had a single goal in mind, which was facing off with bruce and the joker once and for all, and it was also clear how it would end because he knew deep down that bruce would never kill the joker. so he knew he would die going into it but he didn't really care. he did in fact die at the end of under the red hood, since he was originally meant to be a one-off character, but he was so popular that dc sorta erased his death at the end of utrh and established him as a main batfam player.

jason's post-resurrection characterization is REALLY inconsistent, but really at his core, he's deeply traumatized and angry, and his driving motivation is to save gotham in what he deems is the "right" way: killing criminals so that they're no longer a problem. which, considering how many times supervillains break out of arkham and wreak havoc, isn't really that far of a stretch. but because of batman's firm moral stance on killing, the two have a very .... complicated relationship. but regardless jason has one of the coolest designs in the entire batfam in my opinion <3

(batman: three jokers)

(red hood and the outlaws) (I hate this comic for what it did to the other characters but the art was pretty at least)

sometimes he's drawn with a white streak in his hair (a side effect of the lazarus pit) which is one of my FAVORITE looks for him <33 and he's a regular contender for my icon because he's my blorbo bingus blob boy <3333

BUT ANYWAY <333 ON TO KYLE <333

disclaimer: I haven't been reading kyle's comics as long as I have jason's (jason was my gateway character who first got me into comics in the first place so I had a lot more time to really dig into his comics and characterization) and there's a lot of info about each character that's kind of...absorbed over time. because there's so many different stories and comics about each character, it's hard to find everything they appear in, and since I haven't been reading kyle for as long, I don't consider myself an expert on him in any way but I'll do my best to talk about him because he's my favorite green lantern <3

(playlist) in order to explain kyle, first I need to explain hal jordan. he's the Original green lantern (meaning when you think of the dc superhero green lantern, he's probably the one who comes to mind despite there being more lanterns than I can count. he's the most well-known by FAR) but basically, the green lanterns are an intergalactic military/police force led by the guardians (a bunch of really tiny blue guys). they use green power rings that are fueled by willpower, and so only someone with a lot of willpower (specifically, the will to "overcome great fear") can be a green lantern. (there's a ring for every color on the spectrum, but that's another ramble for another day). hal jordan had been losing faith in the lantern corps for a long time, but the last straw was when his hometown, coast city, was destroyed. hal basically went into a massive grief spiral and tried to bring back the entire city and didn't have enough power to do that, so he took on the name parallax and murdered pretty much the entire corps, and most of the guardians to absorb the main green power source to get enough power to Resurrect The City. but one guardian managed to escape to earth, where he found kyle rayner and gave him the last green power ring.

being practically the only green lantern left, kyle had to defeat parallax and restore the corps practically by himself. and the thing about kyle is that he's the GOOFIEST guy on the planet (affectionate). upon finding out that he's now a superhero he proceeds to immediately go tell his ex-girlfriend about it (alex <333) and they have a photoshoot of him in his suit. I fucking love them <333

but alas!!! happy days don't last <3 kyle leaves alex alone for literally only a few minutes to go be a hero, and while he's gone, one of green lantern's biggest enemies breaks into her apartment and murders her. kyle comes back to find her dead body stuffed inside the fridge (fun fact: that's actually where the term "fridging" came from <3) and he proceeds to. torture and almost kill the guy who did it. we love an unhinged icon <3

(green lantern #55)

it's been a while since I've read his origin comic, but kyle eventually defeats parallax. further down the line, he becomes a white lantern (mega-powerful because it has the powers of all the colors in the spectrum, not just green) and in my personal favorite comic, also becomes ion (basically the living embodiment of green lantern power. also basically a god) and tbh it's his BEST look of all time

(ion: guardian of the universe)

like I said, I don't really have as clear of an idea of kyle's timeline since there's a few gaps in my reading, but the essentials is that he literally can't keep a girlfriend because they keep dying, and he continuously gets the power of a literal god and is so humble and heroic about it that it never goes to his head. but he also consistently tortures and kills without really showing any remorse whatsoever <33 he has the range <33

BUT. AT LAST. WE GET TO JAYKYLE. THE THING YOU ASKED ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE. there's only ONE comic that I know of where they actually interact on-panel, and that's countdown presents: the search for ray palmer. it's tied in with countdown to final crisis, which is one of the biggest dc events of all time, and I haven't read it and probably never will because the big crises always give me SUCH a headache to try and understand </3 but I HAVE read search for ray palmer because <3 of them <3

essentially it's a story where the atom (ray palmer) gets lost in the multiverse and so 3 people who are already kind of...Outside the Mainstream Timeline embark on a multiverse journey to find him. those 3 people? jason todd, kyle rayner, and donna troy. jason is only alive because the timeline shattered, kyle was literally a time-and-reality-altering god not just once, but multiple times, and donna troy has also died and come back and like. is the only comics character with Self Awareness (remember when I said every comic book character has a gazillion different origins and reboots? donna remembers ALL of them <3) and so all three of them are affectionately referred to as "cosmic mistakes" because. they're literally irregularities in the cosmic timestream. and I love them for it <3

the reason I'm a jaykyle truther is because. they're so fucking funny in that comic. they argue in pretty much every single panel they share, but their internal monologues are....very, very homoeretic.

(kyle, about jason) (countdown: search for ray palmer: wildstorm)

(jason, about kyle) (countdown to final crisis #33)

and honestly, it's about how fucked up they would be together. they would tear each other apart and also tear apart everyone else and it would be a horrible time for everyone involved <3 there are ships for cute cuddles and then there are ships for fucking killing each other and jaykyle is the second one <3333

[harrisonarchive]

George Harrison during the filming of Magical Mystery Tour in Plymouth on September 12, 1967; photographer unnamed (probably David Redfern).

“Reaching a blissful state is the most important thing, but I’ve still got to do a job, being a Beatle.“ - George Harrison, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (1968)

“The way George is going he will be flying on a magic carpet by the time he is 40. I am here [in Rishikesh in 1968] to find out what kind of role I am now to play. I would like to know how far I can progress with it. George is a few inches ahead of us.” - John Lennon, Daily Mirror, February 19, 1968

“Two years ago, when George first started experimenting with Indian music, he reached a point where he nearly quit the Beatles. He yearned for the new life that was awaiting him in India. He told me: ‘I felt I wanted to walk out of my home that day and take a one-way ticket to Calcutta. I would have even left Patti [sic - Pattie] behind in that moment and all I would have taken would have been my sitar.'” - Don Short, Daily Mirror, February 19, 1968

“We were all interested in it [Indian culture] — but for George it was a direction.” - Paul McCartney, The Beatles Anthology (2000)

“I was looking for something but wasn’t really sure what it was. Then I saw an ad for meditation classes […]. I told George what I had been doing and he was quite interested. […] George was always a reluctant famous person, and I think when he went to India and understood a little bit about Indian philosophy and spirituality, I think he thought he might be able to find out why he was chosen to be famous. It was always confusing to him, a boy from Liverpool being able to play the guitar, suddenly, well not suddenly, but quite quickly becoming world famous. It was difficult to come to terms with that for him, and he thought there could possibly be an answer, and if it was going to be anywhere it was going to be in the East.” - Pattie Boyd, British Beatles Fan Club special edition magazine, 2011 (x)

"In February 1967 [Pattie] became a member of the Spiritual Regeneration Movement — on her own, not with George. 'I’d been trying to teach myself meditation from books, but only really half doing it. One day a girl friend told me about transcendental meditation. I went along with her to a lecture given at the Caxton Hall. Maharishi himself wasn’t there. It was just someone else talking about his work. I joined the movement, but I found the lecture very dull and all rather obvious. 'But I got all the movement’s literature from them so I knew all about their summer conference at Bangor and what it was all about. I said yes, long before George and the others heard about it. I’d booked up weeks before.' George, in the meantime, was reading book after book. When he’d inwardly digested bits of them, he’d pass them on in little globules to Paul, John, and Ringo when they met during work on Sergeant Pepper. They were all very excited. It was impossible to speak to any of them at this time without their launching into a long spiritual diatribe. Most of it had been picked up from George, although they soon began to read for themselves. [...] Pattie is involved in all things Indian, but George, as with everything he has always taken up, does it almost with a fanaticism. He used to practice the guitar till fingers bled. Now he sometimes plays the sitar all day long. When he’s not doing that, he is reading book after book on religion. He’s not cranky about it. As he goes on and learns more, he becomes more humble and more light-hearted about it. He doesn’t preach as much, although there is always the danger when is being quoted of appearing more fanatical than he is. Paul and John especially would be the first to cut down his pretensions or to mock his illusions if there had been any. Even from the first, before Maharishi came along, as George was discovering Buddhism and Yogi for himself, they were as fascinated to hear what he’d found as he was." - The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (1968)

"Presumably John and Paul did see hidden things in George, right from the beginning, apart from his excellent guitar playing. They were proud of him, in a big brotherly way, for being so good on the guitar, and by 1967 their pride had turned to admiration, not just for the excellent songs he now composed, but for being so knowledgeable about Indian music and culture, going to such trouble to teach himself the sitar. For the first time in his life, he had become a leader, doing it by example, not in any bossy, domineering way." - Hunter Davies, from the introduction to the 2002 edition of The Beatles: The Authorized Biography

[night-dark-woods]

2023 Book Recap!

i really figured out this year what i like and don't like in a book i think, at least for scifi/fantasy books.

that ursula le guin quote about genre: "Ignoring all this, our novice is just about to reinvent the wheel, the space ship, the space alien, and the mad scientist, with cries of innocent wonder. The cries will not be echoed by the readers. Readers familiar with that genre have met the space ship, the alien, and the mad scientist before. They know more about them than the writer does."

& something one of the boys on the stephen king podcast said, where he described being familiar with a genre or medium as seeing the seams, and then a bit later as being like an erector set, where you can see all the pieces.

and that's really it, like bc i have read so much scifi and fantasy, every novel is an erector set. i know what the pieces of the kit are, and what they're supposed to build, so i can recognize when its built well and when its built poorly, and i can recognize when someone does something really cool and different with those kit pieces. but if someone doesnt do anything good or interesting with them, its just a pile of pieces, and that's not enough for me.

so, in descending rating order, books i read this year:

5/5:

The Broken Earth Trilogy by N K Jemison: spectacularly original worldbuilding, heartwrenching story, delightful narrative devices. getting added to the favorites shelf with Baru.

The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin: very fun hard scifi book. if i don't have to google a math concept while reading your scifi book im not interested. i have not yet read the sequels but will.

Machineries of Empire Trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee: great military space opera with REALLY cool novel worldbuilding (the technology of the empire functions because of a high calendar maintained by ritual sacrifice!!!) and very neatly executed plots.

4/5:

How The Light Gets In by Louise Penney: perfectly enjoyable mystery novel i read to bond with my mother. old ladies who saw it sitting next to my register at work were at first delighted i was reading it and then aghast that i was reading one from the middle of the series out of order.

Dead Silence by S A Barnes: fast-paced scifi psychological horror, delivered exactly what i was expecting.

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner: doctor mechanic fic with the serial numbers scrubbed. also exactly what it says on the tin.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth: fun gay story that jumps around in time and has several cool narrative styles including whatever it is where there are in-universe texts included with the story narrative.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling: scifi cave-diving survival horror with a homoerotic relationship between the caver and her handler. loses a star for an underwhelming ending but overall it ruled i love survival books.

Blindsight by Peter Watts: this book made me the maddest a book has made me since i read The Word for World is Forest in high school and got so upset at one of the characters that i made myself nauseous. on the one hand the worldbuilding was very intricate and interesting and its a truly fascinating first contact story, and on the other hand i want to fight the author in a parking lot for how eco-fascist and misanthropic the thesis statement is. this book pissed me off but its also going to be something i will reread and also think about for a long time, and for that it can get a 4.

3/5:

The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon: cool far-future post-apocalypse with ai gods, about bodily horror and autonomy when youre dealing with high tech divine possession. good book but not for me.

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar: fine, underwhelming. novel equivalent of a montage and the prose didn't wow me.

Acceptance by Jeff Vandermeer: made me realize what i want from him is an actual ecology book i would love that but i hate his fiction.

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd: would have been higher if it had a stronger conclusion, fun concept though and it was fun to see the ways it referenced Hill House. speaking of:

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: alright, i havent read enough horror to know what i like but this wasn't it, im glad i read it though.

2/5:

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang: fine, none of the story concepts were compelling to me so it was hard to like any of them, though the Tower of Babylon was fun.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers: no stakes, boring, no thought put into the politics of the setting or the plot.

Authority by Jeff Vandermeer: absolute fucking slog of a book with a boring protag.

She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan: i dont like historical figures rewritten to be lgbt, i think the pacing and tone was inconsistent, and if youre going to write a book about a military campaign you need to actually care about writing military engagments and logistics. also as my friend Jake said. for a novel trying to do something with gender, there sure arent very many women.

1/5:

none apparently!

[madridismodelcorazon4ever]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

Hey there! I'm sorry for taking so long to answer, I've been away and only checked Tumblr in a rush.

Actually, I haven't had asks for a long time so this is really nice, thank you for the question!

Gotta say my top changes depending on my current obsessions haha but once I fall in love with a character, they stay in my heart forever.

Here comes my top 10:

1. Chu Wanning from 2ha/Erha (The Husky and His White Cat Shizun). Where do I start with Chu Wanning? I was never able to properly express everything this man made me feel along the journey that 2ha was. He is, imo, what makes the story so lovable and memorable, so unique. Cold and aloof but at the same time gentle, kind and eternally selfless, Chu Wanning is a dream character that changes the way you perceive things.

2. Lan Wangji from Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed - Lan Wangji is my first danmei love and has a special place in my heart. The fact that Wang Yibo plays him in the drama can only make his character more special for me because even though I love him in the novel, I adore him in the drama! Yibo's charm is unparalleled.

3. Kagome Higurashi from Inuyasha - my childhood sweetheart! So brave, smart beautiful and kind (she is, in fact, way too good for Inuyasha, I've always said that... but it is what it is I guess). She deserves the world! Kagome is the one who helped Inuyasha grow into a real man, make friends and become more understanding with people around him. Props to the best girl ever!

4. Eiji Okumura from Banana Fish - the definition of an angel boy! Eiji is to me what he was to Ash in the anime: a balm for the soul. He soothes everyone around him and allows them to be themselves without restraints. I loved him since the first moment I saw him!

5. Sunja from Pachinko - a female character that stayed with me for a long time after finishing the book. Sunja fell in love with Hansu - a proud and rich man who already had a family of his own. She was left alone with a kid, struggled and raised her children by selling kimchi on the streets of Japan (Sunja had one more kid later on with another man, pastor Baek who did what Hansu never dared to - married Sunja and formed a family with her). Throughout her journey, she never gave up and sacrificed many things for her family. She is kind, fierce, brave and unwavering.

6. Hua Cheng/Xie Lian from Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official's Blessing - just can't choose between these two. They're amazing characters individually but together they're perfection! They're also my favourite danmei otp so far and I guess their obsession for each other only makes them more appealing. I adore how Hua Cheng respects Xie Lian's opinions and decisions even when he doesn't agree with them and how Xie Lian saw right through Hua Cheng and didn't misjudge him like everybody else. Once again: perfection!

7. L from Death Note - a favorite since childhood. Death Note has been incredibly dear to me ever since I was a little kid. I admired and was fascinated by L's intelligence and diligence, he was an unbothered king from beginning to end! His "fights" with Kira were legendary and made the story an unforgettable masterpiece.

8. Sam from Lord of the Rings - everybody loves Sam but let's be honest, who wouldn't be in love with such an outstanding character? I have to say Frodo is a close second fave from LOTR and now that I'm an adult and see things in a different light, I'm in love with Sam and Frodo's relationship. Who needs a spouse when you've got such homies? Lmao! They're both (along with the other members of the fellowship) the heroes of the story. Sam was especially dedicated and loyal and also said one of my favorite quotes of all time: "There's still some good in this world, Mr Frodo. And it's worth fighting for!"

9. Nana and Hachi from Nana - again, I can't choose between the two heroines of this iconic anime. They're strikingly different but compliment each other perfectly. And let's get real - their relationship was the best thing of the story. Sorry guys, but the girls got the upper hand in Nana! I loved Nana and Ren but unfortunately, their bond was very toxic whilst Nana and Hachi developed a healthy and happy relationship throughout the tale. Still bitter about the ending of Nana though...

10. Rukia Kuchiki from Bleach - another childhood sweetheart. Rukia made me watch Bleach and as a kid she was a role model for me. She's one of the best female characters ever created and I love her for being so brave, strong, witty, persistent and understanding. She's Ichigo's (the protagonist) pillar and strengthens him whenever he's down. As a young girl, I must say I shipped them together but nevertheless, I'm happy with how the story ended because Renji has always loved her (and protected her too, in his own way).

[justagalwhowrites]

hi bestie!!!!

I thought it was really interesting how you mentioned that iced lavender lattes are the only overlap you and Doc have as she’s not very you-coded! Which made me wonder out of all the characters you’ve written, which one feels the most you / you relate to their character & thought processes the most?

I’ve been getting clowned by my friends when I try to explain Lavender to them because Doc and I are lowkey the same person 😂😂 especially in your character description of the OCs hahaha

and it’s so funny because they don’t have any Pedro / TLOU context so they’ll be like 🤨🤨🤨 and I have to be like “LOOK LISTEN- hear me out 😭” LMAO

Overall very silly goofy but I will defend Joel & Doc until the very end 🫶

I adore your work so much thank you for writing it!! Looking forward to the rest of Yearling! ❤️❤️❤️

OMG Hi Bestie!

This is such an interesting question!

Firstly, I LOVE that you see yourself in Doc. I adore her and I think her and Joel are perfect for each other. Her gentle and caring nature makes her one of my favorite characters, I love her so much.

To answer your question, I both thought about it myself and also shopped out some of the answer lol

The character of mine I see myself most in is the one I’ve posted least about on this site but I’ve spent the most time with - Tenny from my book series. She’s way cooler and hotter and more badass than me but a lot of who she is at her core overlaps with me. Not totally, she’s far from a self insert, but she’s the one who shares the most with me.

All of my FMCs have SOME stuff that comes from me? I feel like Doc’s intense need to be loved and her willingness to put up with A LOT to feel like she matters to someone comes from me. But Doc is a lot softer and kinder than me and a lot more emotionally vulnerable. She’s also very skilled in ways that I could never be!

I’ve got Doll’s independent streak and a lot of her snark. I’m not nearly as strong as she is or as capable, though. I do have a lot of her protective qualities, too. I tried to beat up a boy who was 5 inches taller than me in high school because he talked one of my best friends into losing her virginity to him and then dumped her the next morning. (Got very mad when he wouldn’t hit me back btw)

I say all this fully aware that I don’t see myself very well? So I also asked my TLOU bestie who is the only person on the planet who has read Ace, Lavender and Beskar Doll (God bless him) and my husband, who is currently reading Beskar Doll.

Bestie said that Tenny, from my book series, is the most like me largely because of her general “I’m handling this myself” attitude. He also says I’m a bit bratty like Doll but not to her extent and that Doc is too much of a pacifist to really align with me (direct quote: If someone threatened one of your baby chicks... Doc would hesitate and mull over her hypocratic oath, and when she snaps out of her thoughts she’d see you’d already taken action and fucking tackled the perpetrator.)

The husband says he thinks Doll is somewhat like me but more who I wish I was than who I really am (not sure I agree with this, mostly on the “who I wish I was” point.) But he thinks the independence and her deep dedication to her friends is a lot like me, as is her perfectionist streak. He also says her desire to be a part of something while feeling outside of it is like me. Bonus, I love kids and am great with kids (“yeah doll with Grogu? Exactly like you.”)

As for Bambi? Basically not like me at ALL. She’s way scrappier than me, way tougher, way more of a loner. Her drive to live is also insane, I’d never do what she does to survive, I just would have no desire to. I think the only overlap with her is, if someone tells Bambi she can’t or shouldn’t do something she’s going to do it even harder on principle. She’s been fascinating to write because her headspace is so different from mine!

Anyway, I know this was super long! I hope you found it interesting! Thank you so much for reading and asking and being here. It’s so lovely to me that you see yourself in Doc and like her enough that you talk about her with your friends!

Love you!!

[nancywheeeler]

happy new year! for all that 2022 has been well, 2022, at least it has also been a year of reading great literature and i wanted to take one last opportunity to hard-sell everyone on my favorite books of the year.

top five books of the year:

1. Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

yesterday, my grandmother called this the book of the decade and while she might be a little early, she’s also not wrong! i sometimes find modern literary fiction to be intimidatingly bleak and deeply cynical, especially regarding its characters, which is one of the many reasons i’m so in love with lincoln highway. the characters are fascinating and nuanced, but towles approaches them with empathy rather than judgement. i think fondly back on the characters in this novel—central, secondary, tertiary and the bit players—like they’re all my old friends. it’s a novel that has a in-point for everyone (it’s a road trip! it’s recent history! it’s a story of blood brothers and complicated found family! it’s funny! it’s heartbreaking!) and i cannot recommend it highly enough. i don’t know how any books of 2023 are going to top it either.

2. This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

as i was starting to write this post, my best friend, who i gifted this book to for her birthday, texted me she was on chapter 41 and “my god, it’s SO good.” my god, it is that good! for anyone whose hard limit for sci-fi is back to the future, this is the absolute perfect book. it’s a really grounded take on time travel that digs into one of the most compelling father/daughter relationships i’ve ever read. like lincoln highway, it’s also funny and empathetic and straub has a way of phrasing truths of life that make you go “yes, of course! of course!!” i’ll leave this with one of my favorite quotes from the book: “Why was it so hard to see that, how close generations were? That children and their parents were companions through life.“

3. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

as with my other favorites of the year, this book has so many facets to it and any one of them is a great reason to pick it up. if you want two complicated love stories for the price of one, look no further. if you want to read a time in history not as often explored in fiction (1940s spain in the aftermath of their civil war), here it is. if you’re like me and you’ll read any book that’s about loving books, oh boy has carlos ruiz zafon got you. it’s the perfect blend of history and thriller, shot through with a dark streak of magical realism, and i will sing its praises for the rest of time.

4. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

doerr has already written one of my favorite books of all time, so completely unsurprising his latest epic is also a gorgeous masterpiece! truly awe-inspiring how he weaves such seemingly different eras of time (and space, honestly) and turns it into a gorgeous tapestry narrative that argues not only for the preservation of our planet and the stories we tell while we’re on it but how our stories, even the small and often forgotten ones, are what connects us to people who lived hundreds of years before us and will live hundreds of years after. tl;dr: fund libraries!

5. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

i read this book alongside another best friend and we both got emotionally wrecked. such a great book of friendship and genius and the difficulties inherent when the two mix and decide to start a company together, especially one based in art. i know nothing about video game design and i probably still don’t know much, but i loved reading about this fictional video game company through the decades and was endlessly enamored by the partnership at its center.

so, this post became long and unwieldy; honorable mentions under the cut!

honorable mentions (fiction): Crossings by Alex Landragin (for lovers of time-bending fantasy and experimental structure), The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (for lovers of history and monk detectives), The Searcher and Faithful Place by Tana French (for lovers of literary mystery and sad crusty old men), The Nickel Boys and Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (for lovers of great prose and emotional devastation), Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (for lovers of intimate epics and kimchi)

honorable mentions (non-fiction): Come Fly the World by Julia Cooke (#girlbosses in the sky), Going Clear by Lawrence Wright (join the anti-tom cruise agenda), The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown (do you want to cry over crew boats transitioning from hand-carved wood to metal? because you will), Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (+ crying alone in your room while reading this), All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (85k irritating coworkers to friends to taking down the nixon administration to lo—[gunshot]), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (getta load of this cast of characters), Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson (don’t let the title fool you: you’re also going to learn a lot about woodrow wilson’s sex life)

[denimbex1986]

'When the new film by British director Andrew Haigh celebrated its Austrian premiere at the Viennale, we also heard stories about storms of tears in the cinema. “ All of Us Strangers ” has nothing in common with cheesy Hollywood melodramas. The bittersweet plot unfolds far from the usual manipulative emotional strategies. Haigh wraps the queer love story in a hallucinatory narrative in which the boundaries between day and night, fantasy and reality are blurred.

In general, you can hardly find comparable works, even after long consideration. The closest thing that comes to mind for the writer of these lines is the cinema of Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai. Celebrated art house milestones like “Fallen Angels” or “Happy Together” were the visual counterpart to the then popular trip-hop sound in the 1990s.

Delayed beats and lascivious chants dominated this music genre, the mood was reminiscent of drugged moments at dawn. Trip hop has been hailed as the perfect bedroom soundtrack. And it was also about the day after, about the hangover mood and the melancholy. In this sense, “All of Us Strangers” is something like trip hop for the eyes.

Very vivid ghosts next door The opening sequence is reminiscent of iconic videos from Massive Attack or Tricky. A middle-aged man (Andrew Scott) lives in a brand new London high-rise, seemingly all alone, drifting through the corridors and, isolated in his apartment, writing a script about his own childhood in the 1980s.

The alienation surrounding this character is palpable, like in a stylish science fiction dystopia, but “All of Us Strangers” seems to be set in the present. One day, author Adam meets another lonely soul, the younger Harry (Paul Mescal). A love story and sex affair is brewing. The two men soon exchange intimate secrets, but Adam initially hides an important part of his everyday life from his friend: his parents.

Adam visits his former parents' house in the suburbs at irregular intervals - and suddenly the light is on in the living room. We viewers know: Mom and dad died together in an accident when the son was still a child. Nevertheless, Andrew Scott sits quite naturally as a traumatized loner in front of Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, who embody very lively ghosts next door. There are discussions at the kitchen table: about the boy's peculiarities, about important family moments, and also about queerness; The guardians preserved in the 80s represent even more conservative worldviews.

Chemistry between lost souls “All of Us Strangers” seamlessly combines motifs from ghost films (without any horror or threats) with a relationship drama, shines with hypnotic club scenes and pop quotes. This mix is ​​held together by fantastic actors. Claire Foy sparkles in the mother role, oscillating between tenderness and severity.

But it is Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal who really burn themselves into the retina. The former, who subscribes to flamboyant characters on TV series (“Sherlock”, “Fleabag”), fascinates here as a quiet poster boy of urban loneliness. His young colleague plays his way into the upper shooting star league with charm and wistfulness at the same time. The chemistry between these lost souls alone is worth going to the cinema.

Everything about this journey through the interpersonal Twilight Zone (very loosely based on a book by the Japanese writer Taichi Yamada) is intoxicating. Extremely stylish but never confusing images, great dialogues and music that oscillates between euphoric 80s and 90s homage.

In the end, so much warmth flares up in the deepest darkness, so much power of love , that your heart and eyes overflow; Don't forget the tissues. A big recommendation for “All of Us Strangers”, one of the most magical films of today: pure trip hop for the senses.'

[polskiebagno]

In an effort to procrastinate working on my thesis, here is a compilation of (some of) the best things I have ever read. Books that I read over and over again, short stories that I haven't been able to forget for over a decade, articles and essays and experimental writings that kept me up until 3am trying to figure out their meaning. Hopefully you can find something new here that you haven't read yet!

SHORTS:

A Collapse of Horses by Brian Evenson - a man discovers that his house changes every night, but he's the only one who can see it, and he soon finds himself unable to cope with it. I keep coming back to this one over and over. It's a beautiful tale of grief, doubt, loneliness, and I find that it means something else to me each time I read it. Would you have turned to look at the horses?

The Cafeteria in the Evening and a Pool in the Rain by Yoko Ogawa - a woman meets a mysterious man and his son, fascinated by the local cafeteria. Similar to A Collapse of Horses in a way I can't quite put in words. A sister story, perhaps, but less fantastical. If you've ever seen Posession this story made me think of the line about god being under a porch with a dying dog.

Star, Bright by Mark Clifton - journal of a father whose little daughter turns out to be a genius capable of mind reading and time travel. When I was a child I wasted hours trying to figure out her method in hopes it was real and I could travel like that too. Definitely an interesting concept.

Borrasca by C. K. Walker - a young boy moves with his family to a small town in the mountains, and soon after that his sister goes missing. Beautiful, sad, horryfing all at once. I remember at times forgetting that it was a horror story and getting lost in that little town only to be faced with that ending. Big, big TW for sexual abuse.

The Road Virus Heads North by Stephen King - a horror writer buys a bizzare painting at a yard sale, and weird things start happening. The only one of King's stories I ever enjoyed reading so I thought I'd add it.

The Eradication of “Talmudic Abstractions”: Anti-Semitism, Transmisogyny and the National Socialist Project by Joni Alizah Cohen - to quote directly from it, "2018 has seen a vast rise in anti-Semitic violence globally. Similarly, violence against trans people, and trans women of colour in particular, has continued to rise exponentially. Is there link between the simultaneous rise in anti-semitism, the resurgence of the far-right, and the rise in transfemicide? In this article Joni Alizah Cohen analyses the structure of Nazi ideology for the key to understanding the present crisis".

38 by Layli Long Soldier - a poem about the Dakota 38. I love that you can also listen to the author reading it, to fully understand what she was going for. Definitely a "food for thought" kind of read.

The Dutch Village Where Everyone Has Dementia by Josh Planos - a look at a village that is, in its entirety, a nursing home, and at how we treat dementia in general. I find the topic of memory loss to be incredibely fascinating so this was right up my alley.

The Freudian Coverup by Florence Rush - while we all know that Freud's ideas, especially the concept of Odipeus complex, are simply bullshit I don't think many of us know how close he was to actually understanding trauma. I certainly didn't before I read this, and I've been studying psychology for 5 years now. I don't know if I would say there was malice to his theory, but there certainly wasn't any honesty in it. TW for child sexual abuse. If you don't have a subscription you can use Sci-Hub to get access to this.

BOOKS:

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - a young boy is chosen as one of the children being trained to soon lead Earth in the fight against aliens. While at times hard to read because of the hardships and abuse all the children face, to me it's a beautiful tale of friendship and love and goodness of humanity that prevails even when faced with horrific circumstances. DO NOT watch the movie tho. Also I'm not a fan of the other books but if you're interested, yes, this is a start of a series.

Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes - a 12 year old girl living in her family's run-down hotel in the middle of nowhere begins investigating the drowning of another girl that took place decades ago. I first read this series when I was 12 myself and since then this series has always felt like home. It's always summer there, and reading Emma's descriptions of her mother's cooking makes me feel like I'm sitting with her at the table. It's vivid and welcoming and the characters feel like they're your friends and it has been a pleasure to grow up with these books and see how my perspective on them changed. There are three more titles so far, but the story doesn't seem finished.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks - a collection of tales of Sacks' patients with various neurological issues. Great read if you're interested in how the brain works, but even if neurology and psychology aren't your thing this is still a wonderful look at what makes us human. Sacks writes with such ease and beauty and you can sense the care he has for all his patients.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury - a whole collection of short stories, detailing the exploration and settlement of Mars in the years 1999-2026. If you're not feeling like reading the whole collection my personal favorite is The Third Expedition; it really scared me as a child and I never forgot it. And I would recommend looking into Bradbury's writing in general.

Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa - another collection of short stories that connect and intertwine and create a narrative comparable to a maze or a spider's web or one of those russian dolls that have another doll in them. You could theorethically just read them on their own but it takes away most of the fun of this book.

THE UNABOMBER PACKAGE:

Look, I wanted to put his manifesto on here because I do truly believe it's a super interesting read, but you need to have context. You can start with just the Wikipedia page, but here are additional things I highly recommend reading:

A Stranger in the Family Picture by Serge F. Kovaleski and Lorraine Adams - an article about his childhood, including some stories from his mother. Definitely biased but good start if you wanna go in a chronological order.

Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber by Alston Chase - written by another Harvard atendee it's a description of Kaczynski's college years and, most importantly, the very unethical psychological experiment he was a subject of.

Gender confusion, sex change idea fueled Kaczynski's rage, report says - definitely not as much info as I'd like but it's another snippet into just how many things were happening in his head and how he dealt with them.

Excerpts From Unabomber's Journal - it's very important that you read these and "hear" him talk, in his own words, about why he did what he did. Especially if you feel some sympathy for him after reading the previous articles it's important to read these and see who he really was. If you do not have a subscription to NYTimes just click Esc before it fully loads and before! the paywall popup appears and you can read it for free.

Prisoner of Rage - A special report. From a Child of Promise to the Unabom Suspect by Robert D. McFadden - longer than previous articles it's a pretty good summary of everything. Use the Esc trick again to read it.

To Unabomb Victims, a Deeper Mystery by George Lardner and Lorraine Adams - also a very important read. Given how much conversation is focused on Kaczynski himself and his life it is crucial to remember his victims and hear their voices.

Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family by David Kaczynski - a book written by his brother. I found it to be surprisingly well-written and quite heartbreaking.

Industrial Society and Its Future by Theodore Kaczynski - finally, the manifesto. I am begging you to read this carefully and critically. Do your research and keep in mind his journal excerpts and the victim's stories when engaging with this. I understand how fascinating it is, I just wrote you a paragraph full of resources, but please. This man is not your friend.

BLOGS/WEBSITES/ONLINE PROJECTS:

Time Cube by Otis Eugene Ray - an archived website presenting Ray's ideas about time being... cubic. According to him each day is really four days at once, and he describes four important points in time and space - one where Jesus lives, one for Socrates, one for Einstein and one for the Clintons. Yes like Bill Clinton. The website is a mess and it is clear that Ray was not in his right mind while writing it. I recommend treating it like a scavenger hunt - there are different versions of the website, from different years, archived on the Wayback Machine, and there's plenty of tabs you can click. The text is chaotic, he changes fonts and colors, one minute he's talking about time the next he's yelling at you and calling god a queer. But every once in a while there will be a quote that just... moves you. So if you have some time to kill sit down, maybe have a drink, and search for some accidental poetry there, it's great fun. My personal favorite quote is "Without deed, word starves. Word god lends not a hand". You can also check out a lecture he gave at Georgia Tech in 2005.

What football will look like in the future by Jon Bois - totally normal sports article nothing to see here :) about football yes. Why would you ask. What else would it be about? (Seriosuly tho, I don't wanna spoil this, it's great fun to read this and try to figure out what is going on. I never came across any vision of the future similar to this one, it's very refreshing).

my father's long, long legs by Michael Lutz - a fairly classic short scary story, but with the added element of being interactive. It gets quite creepy once you go underground, but don't worry, there aren't any jumpscares.