#look I did enjoy the book

[puddlejumper38]

I'm rereading Lost Metal and honestly, why were the Ghostbloods even there?

The whole book has its scope problems, since our main characters are out of the wild west, but the Ghostbloods really don't help.

Marasi's character arc didn't need them - she was headed away from the police anyways.

They added cosmere lore that really pulled away from the plot and Kelsier was barely even involved. Why introduce them and his non-death only to not Do Anything With It? I feel like Secret History should have been introduced Post-TLM instead as a build up for era 3, which surely must actually be dealing with these elements (I mean, working title Ghostbloods).

It felt like a lot to introduce in the last book of a series when it wasn't plot relevant.

Did Marasi need the more powerful character to reach the endgame? Maybe, but here's the thing. Use the kandra. The kandra were a big deal in era 2, only seriously underused in this book. Pair a kandra with Marasi for the end scenes!

You need a more powerful character? Use Marsh, instead of removing him from play for reasons I no longer understand! I admit to bias here, but if Marasi needs more spotlight at the end remove Marsh by saying he can't sneak through the village. Marasi was the first person Marsh approached, I just feel like this would have made sense. Also, he could say something that would lead to the hint that Kelsier is alive and hence the Secret History drop post-TLM. (I accept that Bands of Mourning would need some editing to make this possible but I don't think it would actually change the plot much).

And, again, putting a kandra with Marasi in that village would make sense! Since blending in is kind of their thing!

I think Branderson had already mentally moved on to era 3 and it didn't benefit The Lost Metal at all.

[brekitten]

Be Careful What You Wish For

Tucker could make fun of him for not reading comics all he wanted, but Danny really did enjoy reading them. He just didn't have much time to after the Accident, with all of the ghost attacks.

He had the time now, he supposed. There were no ghost attacks anymore, not with Vlad "taking care of them".

He was almost scared to find out what the Fruit Loop meant by that.

Danny sighed, staring up at the bare white ceiling of his bedroom. He missed the stars he'd had stuck to the ceiling of his room back home. Because Vlad's mansion wasn't home, was it? It wasn't ever going to be, no matter what.

Again, he began to think of the heroes he'd always admired, the ones that he had always fantasized about when he was younger, as if they would fly out of the comic books and take him and Jazz away, take them to parents that would actually pay attention to them. Now, Danny would take his parents not paying attention to him over them being dead.

Danny sighed, his eyes slipping closed. He wasn't tired, but he wanted to pretend that he was somewhere warm and safe, anywhere but here.

"Man, I wish superheroes were real... I could really use one right now."

Then came a gentle whisper in his ear, one that promised the safety and warmth he was desperate for. "Your wish is my command, little Prince."

Danny jolted upright, but it was too late. One moment, he was sitting in a bed that wasn't his own, could never be, no matter how hard he tried to pretend it was, and the next, he was sitting in a field, cornstalks swaying gently in the warm breeze.

Where... was he?

[dylanconrique]

they really weren't kidding about the rom-com vibes in this season.

[ifindus]

1660 - Cavalryman - Several wars under Denmark against Sweden.

1697 - Gunner - pre-Great Nordic War under Denmark against Sweden.

1774 - Skiing Soldier - pre-Theater War under Denmark against Sweden.

1785 - Infantryman - pre-Great Northern War under Denmark against Sweden.

1808 - Coast Guard Officer - Napoleonic Wars under Denmark.

1845 - Infantryman - pre-First Schleswig War under Sweden against Germany.

1855 - Infantryman - during the Crimean War (Sweden-Norway debated joining the UK and France against Russia).

1905 - Hunter - preparing for wars of independence against Sweden.

1914 - Engineer Officer - First World War.

1940 - Infantry Officer - Second World War.

[winterlilyarts]

My gift for @inkmoose for the Natsume spring exchange hosted by @natsume-ss !

This was so fun to work on and I hope you like it! I went with your prompt of Taki and Tanuma helping Natsume find something a Yokai lost!

[butchghostbird]

How does someone read a book where the main character sacrifices herself and says wedding vows before doing so and then complain that there was no romance between the main characters...

[themoonking]

im all for making fun of and criticizing the way booktok (and booktube) aestheticize reading to an insane degree, making it more about being percieved as a reader more than like. actually reading. but some people on here lump the most normal things ever into the booktok consumerism pile?

like yes, booktok/tube places a lot of emphasis on the visuals of "reading", but then someone on here just went and said that simply "not wanting to damage your books" is a stupid booktok thing??? what? it's not vain or pretentious to care about your posessions, especially if they mean a lot to you. simply wanting your books to remain in good condition is not the same as having 100 unread books, or five editions of the same book, or books you hated, purely because they look nice.

and someone else said that having a yearly reading goal was also a stupid booktok/tube thing? since when? i've met people who set themselves yearly reading goals before youtube even existed. it's literally just a new years resolution, but tailored to a specific hobby?

[kedreeva]

did u read the good omens book? if so, what are your thoughts on it compared to the tv series?

i followed u for the steddie posts but fell in love with ur meta too 💜

I did, but honestly they're separate entities unless I want to steal something specific for a fic. They're both good, for different reasons and in different ways. They are written by different men, literally and figuratively, about different subject matters, for different reasons. You can compare an apple to an apple blossom, but even though one became the other, and came from the same tree, doesn't mean they are the same thing anymore, nor does it mean one is better than the other.

That being said, I've only read the book once, and I've watched the show over a dozen times, most likely because I saw the show first and read the book second. I enjoyed the book, but I think it was probably a better read in its day, by people who were the target audience at the time, and who didn't just read about or know the context, but understood and lived it. I can't be that, I can't go back in time and read the book before the series, I can't go back and read it in a time where it would have meant what it was intended to mean to the world it was born into.

[nellasbookplanet]

Having finally read the Nimona comic (it’s very good, everyone please go read it) I can’t help but find describing it as being about the power of incredible violence to defeat an authoritarian state, as I've seen done, to be both kind of misleading and ultimately reductive to the story as a whole.

Yes there is incredible violence in the comic and it was in the end what tore down the corrupt system, but it was also Nimona's downfall, destroyed her relationship with her only friend (and led to her (temporary) death by his very hand as he could no longer stand by her and her actions, even as he never judged her, recognized her role as a victim and tried to save her until the end), put countless civilians in danger, and ultimately did little to nothing to address how to actually fix the problems of the system to keep them from returning. In fact, Nimona as a character shows little interest in fixing anything. She suggests killing the king and having Ballister take his place, despite Ballister neither wanting this nor having the experience to pull it off (and would, in fact, only result in replacing one king with another rather than lead to an entirely new system, as is often the case with bloody uprisings). When people start dying from the illness they spread, Ballister wants to immediately stop it; Nimona suggests they let more people die to further rile up hatred and anger against the institution. Nimona isn't a good guy looking to save people; she's an angry, hurt girl looking to hurt those who hurt her and those who have the potential to hurt her in the future (even when Ballister is one of those people). She is the villain the state turned her into.

And that is kind of the point I see the story making. Not 'you need incredible violence to tear down an authoritarian state' as something good and celebratory, but rather 'an authoritarian state will ultimately lead to its own downfall by creating monsters of its own making, and while said downfall is needed the fact that it has to happen at all is deeply tragic because there are no winners here'. Nimona isn't a villain-villain (the true antagonist is obviously still the Institution), but she isn't a hero either. She's a tragic figure with a tragic end that the state brought upon itself by mistreating its people. She doesn't stick around to help rebuild and heal, and she doesn't (to our knowledge) get to see her home become a better place. It's a bittersweet end where the very person who tore down the oppressors is too broken to enjoy the end result. It isn't a story about rebellion, it's a story about the inherent and justified self-destruction of authoritarian systems.

(Writing it out like this, I realize that, thematically, it’s very similar to n.k. jemisin's broken earth trilogy, which you should all also read because it is incredible and not very friendly to authoritarian states.)

[telephonicsonnyboy]

Cringe is dead, All The President’s Men self insert sona.

[piosplayhouse]

Scum Villain mains rock because by being an sv main you've already given up the facade of being pretentious. It's not like being one of those weird white cql reviewers who call the show the height of queer cinema or whatever, it's not like being a tgcf fan who has to sell you on why hualian invented love in a book longer than the Bible. No one's disillusioned about how unrefined Scum Villain is, ok. It's an isekai 1st webnovel written by a high schooler. It's consistently the lowest rated of the books, it has 1 surviving (light a candle for the manhua) adaptation that looks like an extended PS3 cutscene, reviewers and adjacent fans alike tend to overlook it because you can't gloss it up as some great and pure queer romance that breaks societal boundaries- and in a way, I think that's really why it's so nice to find a home here.

[lakka-arts]

click for better quality

i said i was going to draw more gerlion

[chiropteracupola]

a bright young lady of good family and excellent disposition

[moth and compass is a collaboration with @natdrinkstea]

[oyeicher]

[hooved]

if i start calling odo she/her occasionally you better get with it

[rainingmbappe]

The rise of "let people enjoy things" is single handedly the backbone of the rise of anti intellectualism