#oh theres also some ff4 thoughts at the end there but barely i just dump all my ff4 thoughts on discord tbh

[cielsosinfel]

For once I'm cross-posting a Dreamwidth post here lol. I wrote way too much about the one and only book I finished so far this year, so tossing it into the reading log tag.

CW: non-descript discussions of sexual assault and antisemitism (both separate from one another)

The last book I finished was an anthology of fairy-tell reimaginings: Black Heart, Ivory Bones, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Avon Books, 2000). This was actually a random used bookstore find- I was once again looking for anthologies with Tanith Lee short stories, and there happened to be three different ones edited by these two authors- this book; another book in the same series called Black Swan, White Raven, and an anthology of fantasy erotica titled Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers. I really lucked out in all of these having Tanith Lee in them, and some other authors I'm interested in. I haven't started the other two yet, though. (I also just a few days ago found ANOTHER book in this fairy tale series, Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears at the same bookstore... would have missed it if I hadn't asked the clerk to check their Tanith Lee stock lmao.)

So, about this anthology:

The Tanith Lee short story in Black Heart, Ivory Bones is the first story in the anthology, and a reimagining of Rapunzel- a prince, who is putting off returning from campaign, because he does not want to return to his father who is coping with grief by obsessively fixating on heroic tales and legends, meets a girl living at the foot of a ruined tower in the middle of the woods. I didn't like this very much at all, to be honest, though there's one passage from the king I like. But one thing that stood out to me is another example of a pattern I've noticed in Lee's books: women- usually women who have already been raped- being able to just tell if a man is a potential rapist or not; men asking women if they aren't worried he's a rapist, only for the woman to tell him they would know and he doesn't have the look of one.

It's a trend I've seen throughout multiple of her novels and short stories at this point. The idea that all women can tell, based on a man's appearance and the way he carries himself and speaks, whether he will rape her. Even her most aggressive or stoic heroes have some innate quality of their being or their appearance that tells women he's safe, as far as sexual assault goes. And there's a lot to unpack there, a lot of long-existing societal biases that it just kind of reaffirms (because certainly there is a very long history of people thinking rapists and other sexually violent individuals have a certain "look" to them.) But I was also thinking about what a power fantasy this is, in a way- to be able to look at a man and know at a glance that he is safe, trustworthy, that you can desire him and know him desiring you back is not a risk. Especially as a survivor of sexual assault! What a superpower that would be.

But yeah, so that's the Tanith Lee story, mostly unremarkable. A lot of this anthology didn't stand out to me, tbh. Neil Gaiman has a short poem in it that I thought was pretty awful lmao. There's a lesbian retelling of the Red Dancing Shoes fairy tale, "The Red Boots" by Leah Cutter, that I liked- the prose is snappy and I thought the author used it to get across the energy of country dancing very well! I liked that there's no Happily Ever After resolution either- despite all the possibilities the protagonist has at her fingertips, with this dance-loving woman who is like her and mutually into her, in a place so hostile and lonely for women like them, she still can't stop treating dance as a competition she has to win. And so she will never be free of her shoes, and she'll never be able to settle down into a life of shared peace, bliss and love.

The last story that stood out to me was "The Golem" by Severna Park. The book opens to a pogrom decimating a shtetl in historical Poland, and the main character, an older woman named Judith, watching her husband Motle, the rabbi of the village, be gunned down by Christians. The shtetl is massacred, and Judith escapes into the woods with two other older women, Nekomeh and Moireh. They're reeling from the trauma they just witnessed, the grief, and the danger of being caught and killed, so decide to band together to try to make it to Leva, another much larger Jewish village outside Cracow. Judith has a dream the first time she sleeps following the massacre, where her husband tells her to make a golem to keep herself safe. What she forms out of the mud is a golem that takes on the exact appearance of her and Motle's long-dead daughter, Reva.

This is a short story but it packs in so much- surviving great violence and loss and yet not being allowed any reprieve before you're go go going to avoid even more violence and loss; the bonds between women who face misogyny, patriarchyt and violence both from within and without their communities and culture; the grief of a wife and of a mother who needs to learn to embrace and let go; the need for violence in defense vs violence as revenge and whether it would really make you better, improve your situation. I thought this was a very good piece of writing.

I really liked the ending:

"With her thumb Judith drew a trembling diagonal next to the Met and added short vertical strokes at the top and at the bottom.

Aleph. Mem. Tav.

She took a step and stumbled where the bank went soft. She fell to her hands and knees where the golem had vanished, tried to get up and stopped.

Spring flowers burst from the fertile dirt between her fingers. They pressed themselves up in green buds from under her knees. They sprouted around her feet, blooming in the sunset, dense and fragrant, trembling in the evening breeze.

Judith made herself stand. If the very earth had risen for her against its will, perhaps there was a place in the shadow of Cracow's walls where an old woman could seed the ground with new things. Not revenge. Not fear. Maybe not even peace, but she could do something.

And this time, she could not find it in herself to be afraid."

So that's the only book I've finished since 2024 started, and even then I kind of skimmed short stories that I knew I wouldn't be into. I'm still working through Lee's Kill The Dead (more like still working through health problems that have made doing anything very difficult), and I also started Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Heart Reader a day ago- I'm already halfway through, it's a very fast read, and I have a lot of thoughts about it that I've kinda posted elsewhere lol.

I've also been speeding through Final Fantasy IV DS. I keep meaning to post about it here but then I forget, I'm just so exhausted. I haven't played it in a couple days actually. It's one of those games I never had the patience to play as a kid, the SNES version at least. If we ever had the DS version I don't remember it, but I remember thinking the SNES version was suuuuuper frustrating to play lol so I didn't bother... But I'm enjoying the DS version a lot! It's definitely very frustrating with the boss battles, that octomammoth fucked me up. I'm enjoying Cecil's character arc, and I'm eagerly awaiting Rydia, Rosa and Edward coming back to my party. I'm enjoying the homoeroticism of Cecil and Kain's friendship turning into a horrific violent antagonistic mess- Kain going from standing up for Cecil and risking angering the Baron to argue for Cecil's sake, to Kain fighting with Golbez to be the one to kill Cecil... Also the whole mind control thing with Golbez is super hot, though I wonder how much of it is totally mind control and how much of it is Kain willingly going along with Golbez because of Rosa, it feels kinda unclear in latter cutscenes. But yes, the characters are fun, the localization script is very fun, the art style is endearing, and the game play is fun once you get into the rhythm of it. (I am also hardcore following this guide to make things much easier on myself lmao.)

Maybe I'll try to put down my impressions when it is not 12am and I'm not running on extremely little sleep.