#megs reading

[fromheartbreakhotel]

Review #12

Godslayers by Zoe Hana Mikuta (Gearbreakers #2)

Overall rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“The only way to kill a god is from the inside… The Gearbreakers struck a devastating blow against Godolia on Heavensday, but the cost of victory has been steep. Months later, the few rebels who've managed to escape the tyrannical empire's bloody retribution have fled to the mountains, hunted by the last Zenith--Godolia's only surviving leader. Eris has been held prisoner since the attack on the capital city, which almost killed her. And she begins to wish it had when she discovers Sona--the girl she loves, the girl she would tear down cities for--also survived, only to be captured and Corrupted by the Zenith. The cybernetic brainwashing that Sona has forcibly undergone now has her believing herself a loyal soldier for Godolia, and Eris' mortal enemy. With the rebellion shattered and Godolia moving forward with an insidious plan to begin inducting Badlands children into a new Windup Pilot program, the odds have never been more stacked against the Gearbreakers. Their last hope for victory will depend on whether Eris and Sona can somehow find their way back to each other from opposite sides of a war…” (from Goodreads)

Following the events of the first book, we get to see Sona as a Godolia loyalist. Her best friend is the young Zenith, and she thinks the gearbreakers did terrible things to her. It’s horrible after going through all of book #1 learning about Sona’s struggle with her identity as a Pilot, and a human, then a gearbreaker. But it’s also incredibly interesting to see her from the other side. What she could’ve been. But still, it was heartbreaking.

This is, above all else, a story about love and humanity and empathy. Allowing love to lead you, even when it seems like the most foolish thing you could possible do. The love between Sona and Eris, between Eris and Jenny, between the crew. It could move mountains. It can take down gods. This book solidifies that. It’s messy and there’s lots of crying and sometimes having a family is HARD (especially when they almost die at least twice a day). But when you put that family at the forefront, you can do anything. Even when that family is full of idiots.

I was on the edge of my seat for a solid 90% of this book. There didn’t seem to be much of a break between life threatening events. The pace is fast, but I don’t feel like the story lacks because of it. Fair warning, this book is sad. It’s sad for what the characters gain, for what they lose, for the journeys they undergo. And this is from page 1. But it’s worth it in the end.

One of the best part of Godslayers is getting to see just how unhinged Jenny is. I would let her pick me apart if she wanted to. If you’re on the fence about reading this, do it purely to be continuously surprised by how feral this woman is (except in the face of her gf 🥰).

Also Ms Mikuta you are now my enemy for the events that occurred in the Badlands Academy. Watch ur back bestie

[palms-upturned]

Frustrates me to no end seeing people say “what’s your alternative to voting blue? Stage a revolution right now? This second? Get real, you’re posting on your computer instead of firebombing walmarts.” I don’t think that you understand what people are actually doing. I know for myself, I’ve been reading more history and theory than I ever have before. I’ve been marching. I’ve been getting involved with labor activism. I’ve been doing strategic research. I’ve tried to archive and share resources. I’ve watched other people do WAY more than I ever have or probably could. I’ve seen people occupy arms manufacturing sites and hold wildcat strikes and disrupt daily life as much as possible. We’ve all seen this happening at unprecedented levels for months now. And most of all, I’ve seen Palestinians telling us, rightfully full of anger, do not ever go back to how things were before. Do not turn away from what’s happening and your own complicity in it.

This is not something that we can vote our way out of. Our state is built on the same violence being inflicted on the people of Palestine. We helped to build Israel. We are still arming it and funding the “war” right now. Even the most half hearted measures from international bodies like the UN to take the bare minimum of a stance against genocide are quashed by the US. As they always have been, our power and resources are used to reinforce imperial and colonial hegemony. That remains the same no matter who is sitting in the Oval Office. And so does our own struggle for liberation. Meaningful change is never, ever going to come from within. We force the change to happen, as we always have.

If you can understand intersectionality, then surely you can understand this: we are not going to free ourselves by sacrificing colonized people. You may vote blue, and for you it could be a matter of life and death. Believe me, as a poor disabled person in a red state who almost killed myself over medical debt, I know the stakes. But I think you have to own the fact that you are empowering perpetrators of genocide and breaking solidarity with colonized people, not even to liberate yourself, but just to bargain with the oppressor for your life. That Palestinians and everyone else who we have harmed are going to be angry and they are more than within their rights. Instead of deflecting by just assuming that no one else is capable of putting their money where their mouth is and actually trying to lay groundwork for change, just do whatever you feel you have to do and sit with the reality of the situation.

Palestine will be free, we will be free, the whole world will someday be free. But for now, this is where we are, and we won’t free ourselves by operating like crabs in a bucket. Get organized, take care of each other, commit to solidarity. Empower yourself and each other rather than the state.

[egophiliac]

Favorite Disney Princess?

this would be a much easier question if they let Meg into the lineup. dangit. >:(

in terms of, like, favorite movie/adaptation, I have a lot of appreciation for the OG three -- Snow, Cinderella, and Aurora (...okay, yes, I was basically predisposed to being obsessed with Diasomnia). overall it's a toss-up, but Snow has my favorite design! she's so classically '30s but in, like, a technicolor way. it's great! ❄️

in terms of who I spent my entire childhood low-key obsessed with (and isn't Meg)...that would be Jasmine. no question. especially in the purple dress. I love me a snarky princess covered in organza and it's all her fault (and Meg's).

[thefandomexpert]

ok. i see u complaining about how long it takes to get to shb, how are you supposed to get your friends into the fucking WONDER that is shb when they have to get through all of The Other Stuff First

I used to have this problem with Homestuck, people who wanted to skip to the trolls, or pass on the intermissions. I will repeat what I said then now:

The later stuff is mind-blowingly good BECAUSE of the setup slog. which is also fun btw, you’re having trouble selling it because you keep saying it’s a slog. it’s good storytelling! yes even arr and sb (i didn’t say it was the best storytelling!! but i’ve seen way fuckin worse!!!). You need to spend 300 hours with the characters and to watch them grow gradually for a LOT of the little character moments to even register later on, and i’m not even talking about the ascian reveals. estinien is a completely different character. thancred’s deep-seated issues have been brewing subtly since 1.0. the socio-economic political climate of the universe is SO important and SO well set up by the arr random task/fetch quests (BABY INCONSEQUENTIAL QUESTS. YEAH THE STUPID ONES IN THE INTRO PRE-SASTASHA SEQUENCES WITH THE NPCS YOU DONT REMEMBER. THOSE.) and that info is integral to character decisions made in every expansion afterwords, and is built upon consistently. the consistent build-up of the lore is, in my opinion, almost entirely the reason ffxiv’s writing stands out against other games of the genre. and it’s BOLSTERED by the fact that it’s a live service game with a shit ton of expansions you HAVE to play through single file when you start fresh. narrative games are usually 15-20 hours. ffxiv is giving you 500+ in msq alone (won’t get into how much the optional and side quests support the storytelling as well).

It’s like one of those long-running book series. you can’t ask someone to read Just the last book of animorphs and expect them to understand the narrative implications of what’s happening, or to get attached to the characters enough to care. that attachment and understanding is built by spending time and reading the other 1500 books prior. shb should not be treated as a stand-alone. in fact it’d be a bad standalone. it’s good BECAUSE there’s 500+ hours of playtime required to get there.

[imthefailedartist]

If this were the 90s, there would be three romcoms greenlit, because of India Ria Amarteifio and Corey Mylchreest's chemistry alone.

Every time I see them being all cute, I think this sucks. There won't be a season 2. We'll never see them together again.

I mean Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks had umpteen romcoms. Why can't we? Actors are literally asking for them. They are tired of doing all this dark murder shit people want to have fun at the movies.

Hollywood is wasting chemistry.

[literallyjusttoa]

Here’s what Meg got Apollo for Christmas

(Apollo got Meg an ancient sword and curse of Delos seeds, but I sadly cannot find picture of that ;-;)

[lazuliquetzal]

I keep on telling people you're the only one who knows how to plot. Can you teach all of us how to plot, please? I love you.

I AM SUMMONED? PLOT BRAIN SUMMONED?

I love plotting. It's my favorite part of the writing process. Plot is "things that happen" and the best part of writing is imagining things that happen. I'm going to assume that whoever may be reading this knows how to imagine The Happenings, so I'm gonna be talking more about structure, but in like, a kinda abstract sense.

A good plot is a little bit more than a string of events. Plot is like music: there's variation in rhythm and sound and melody, but ultimately there's cohesion, because it's all one song. You can have a bunch of wild things happening, but no matter how strange, there should be something that links them all together, because you're telling one story.

Plot structures are patterns in stories. I'm pretty sure most of them were developed as analysis tools (as in, story already exists > look! it follows this pattern) rather than as writing tools, but people use them as writing tools because it's a neat little way to organize the chaos that is "shit happens." Stories follow patterns for the same reasons music follows patterns: we enjoy the certainty of hitting certain beats. But we also like being surprised. A good pop song doesn't sound like a random collection of sounds, but it also doesn't sound like the middle slider of other songs.

There is this shared concept in both music and writing: the idea of tension and release. Basically, you're playing with reader expectation: there's an imbalance in the experience (tension), and we want to see that imbalance resolved (release). All the common plot structures deal with this basic pattern:

You set an expectation

There are complications to the expectation

You meet the expectation

And this rhythm is happening on multiple levels in writing. Scenes follow this structure (we're gonna get past that door, we're gonna find the murder weapon, we're gonna collaborate and come up with a plan) and all those scenes feed into the overarching expectation (we're gonna solve this murder!). I usually think of chapters as their own mini-story, part of the larger whole. And I think of scenes as their own mini-story, part of the larger chapter. I have engineer brain. I see the gears spinning in the clock. That's why all my chapters have at least One Important Thing happening, because that's that particular chapter's Step #3.

And One Last Important Thing:

In music, a delayed resolution is almost always more interesting than the standard resolution. In writing, that means you wanna drag out Step #2 for as long as you can. That's where the bulk of the story is happening, that's how you build tension, that's how you get people to turn the page.

So when you write a fake dating fic, those bitches better not get together until the very end. I came here for fake dating, not for real dating, damn it. If you resolve that expectation early on, you better replace it with a different expectation that's just as engaging.

But also don't drag it out for too long. Sorry. The hard part of writing is learning the difference between too short and too long. Writing is unfortunately a nuanced skill which is why my advice is like "do this but not too much teehee." But tension and resolution is just rhythm, you can build a sense for it if you engage with enough stories.

[meggie-moo]

read CPC, admittedly taken over my brain :/

[blighted-lights]

slaughterhouse posting part 2 that isn't going to be polished at all and has been sitting in my drafts for days, but this scene is so interesting to me because i genuinely have no idea what megatron wants from ravage in this interaction- and i don't know if megatron knows, either.

megatron starts out by saying that the decepticons' loyalty isn't to him- its to the cause. ignoring how this is immediately striking me as completely, blatently wrong due to the times we see megatron rallying the decepticons around himself when other leaders fail to do the same (nevermind the fact that he started the cause in the first place), he then gets angry with ravage when ravage confirms that- yeah, actually. you're not the cause anymore. we have moved on with someone new. megatron gets so angry he stands up, he looms over ravage, he raises is voice and balls his fist- and why else would he do this if he wasn't upset that they're moving on without him?

which would, of course, make megatron a hypocrite. he left the decepticons and refused to take any effort to rejoin them- he clearly doesn't actually want to return to the fold. but when the decepticons unite themselves and move on from him, it's different. i can abandon you, but you cannot abandon me.

i've always took this reaction as being an immediate, no thinking, gut reaction to finding out the decepticons are moving on without him. he's angry, potentially feeling betrayed by them, when he... doesn't have much of a right to feel that way. and it's not like megatron wasn't given an option to join the decepticons again if that's what he actually wanted.

he was given a choice. he turned it down. he could of turned it down for any number of reasons, but no matter the reason, the point remains that he turned it down.

going back to panel after megatron snaps, ravage clearly takes megatron's outburst as him being upset that they've moved on without him. despite the aggressive way this interaction started with ravage attacking megatron, ravage spends most of this conversation attempting to reassure megatron. megatron gets angry that galvatron took over and they're moving on without him? okay- so then he wants to come back, right? he's upset he's been replaced?

well, galvatron isn't permanent. say the word and you'll be back in charge. megatron says that the decepticons aren't loyal to him, ravage reaffirms that they were loyal to him but now they've chosen a new leader since he left, megatron gets angry that they're moving on without him, and then ravage reinforces their original loyalty to him by saying if he wants to come back, they'll follow him.

and then megatron turns it around; yes he was just angry that the decepticons were no longer loyal to him, but now that same loyalty is toxic, actually. and it is! it absolutely is toxic. but i think ravage backed him into a corner here, even unintentionally. he can't sit down and actually address why the decepticons moving on makes him angry without admitting some part of him wants to return to the cons. or at the very least he still feels possessive of them and doesn't want them to function outside of his influence. when given the option to rejoin, he responds by insulting the decepticon's (and ravage's!) sense of devotion/loyalty and then quickly changes the topic to seawing and the trial. he doesn't say a solid yes or no answer because he doesn't actually have one to give.

ravage nails it down anyways. megatron has no idea what he wants from ravage in this interaction because he doesn't know where he stands anymore, let alone what he wants for himself. before ravage was revealed to be on the lost light, megatron was captain. he even seems content to BE captain- but ravage makes it complicated. ravage is a direct reminder of who he used to be and the people he used to surround himself with. worse, people he's abandoned and hurt in order to get to where he is as captain now. megatron left the decepticons behind with no command structure, no guidance, no plan- and ravage's mere presence is a bitter reminder that even if he's run off to the autobots, he can't escape that.

he's settled into a state of stagmentation with the autobots. one he's content with, maybe- at the very least one he can live with where the guilt isn't as heavy. it is the easiest way out megatron saw for himself.

but if anyone can get him to doubt himself, well.

who else better than ravage to stir up the past?

[lazulisong]

wait wait hold on hold on somehow someone was talking about seeing someone on ao3 on the bus like it was weird???

honey if you're close enough to read over my shoulder

one of us is not respecting the space bubble and it is not me

y'all really wanna read over my shoulder that bad, you deserve what you get

i mean i guess i would hesitate to be reading hardcore yaoi manga on the bus but text is fair game as far as i'm concerned.

(also if i see someone else reading ao3 on the bus i'm more likely to be like (mental fist bumps!!!!) than i am to care about what they're reading) (well of course i want to KNOW but in a nosy way not a judgmental way)

[apollosothertwin]

They’re so sweet

[fromheartbreakhotel]

Hello! I’m starting a degree in English Studies soon, and wanna read some more classics before I start. What are the absolute essential classics you think I should read?

[plastikstarz]

Meg's THE unicorn girl

[swans-chirping-in-the-distance]

Reyna, Nico, Calypso, and Rachel: another one bites the dust

[echo-stimmingrose]

Oh don't mind me I'm just SOBBING

@fanaticastrid this series is going to ruin me and I'm only on the second one!

[damnnonames]

i prefer playing victim (bc i like to imagine myself as sally hardesty :0) but family is very fun, no one ask how many screenshots i have of this mans... assets