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sometimesrosy · 4 years

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I haven’t come to your blog in quite some time... after t100 ended, I lost interest in tumblr for a while. But I was active here once, and we had many a discussion. I came to see if you enjoyed bridgerton, despite the not so accurate clothing and such. I think it’s super cheesy and really fun to watch, and I know you enjoy period dramas

Yeah, I’m still here-- mainly because I work online, so when I break from work I make the rounds of my social media, and tumblr is one of them. It’s less active here because the fandom has mostly disappeared, not that I blame people. I also have a hard time posting about the positive aspects of The 100 because it just imploded so spectacularly. Still a big disappointment.

BUT

I have moved on. I was honestly ready to be done with intense fandom, because it’s just not good for my mental health and I was tired of the negativity. I don’t understand why people get angry when other people enjoy a thing, and think they have to come in and ruin it for them. Like, buzz off, we’re working on coping skills to get through our dumpster fire lives.

AND YES I love Bridgerton.

Actually, I love the book series Bridgerton and it was one of my favorites in the last couple of years.

And this is related to my The 100 fandom experience, because for a while, I wasn’t reading books, I was only reading bellarke fanfic, but then, due to a shift in the fanfic community and my discomfort with the fandom (knowing that a lot of them didn’t like me) I began to feel weird about reading and writing fanfic. Like when I liked someone’s story, was I giving kudos to someone who bullied me on anon? I didn’t know. And at the same time I’d begun ghostwriting romances, so to do research, I started reading published romances.

The first one I read was a secret baby trope, because that was what I was writing, and I fell into historical fiction. I read Kleypas and Dare and Milan and Maclean and yes, Quinn. That took the place of my fanfic reading. To be honest, I wouldn’t have been able to be a ghostwriter if I hadn’t been a fanfic writer first, because, even though I have writing education and training and experience, fanfic taught me to write for audience, to do it fast without that certain...anxiety about perfectionism, and immersed me in romantic tropes, which it turns out, I really love.

This is a lot of chit chat to say that yes, I saw Bridgerton and I love Bridgerton.

I would suppose that historical romances have taken the place of my the 100 obsession. I read probably one a day. I should keep track on goodreads or something, but I do a lot of rereading. Like I’ll reread a beloved book or series five or six times. And when I forget the details of ones I liked, I’ll reread those too. Also I’m probably dealing with my internalized snobbery about the romance genre. Let me tell you, getting an education in creative writing in college installs some “issues” with genre. Everything is supposed to be lit fic, or it’s lesser. I’ve been kind of pugnacious about the sff genre and haven’t let the snobbery interfere with my love of it, but I haven’t gotten over the romance snobbery, which is not JUST snobbery but also internalized misogyny.

But I mean, fuck it. I am so sick of grimdark and tragedies and “cool edgy” dudes thinking women should be destroyed and tortured and betrayed in movies and sff and fiction in general.

I don’t WRITE historical romances. I write contemporary romances for my ghostwriting gigs (I have one client and I’ve written like 18 novels and novellas for her in the last two years. It’s fun, but it doesn’t make very much money and the deadlines are VERY tight.) However I don’t READ contemporary romances, I read historicals. I like the level of fantasy involved and the distance from reality when I read it, but I am bothered too much buy the imperial colonialism and classism of regency or victorian british settings to write it. Also, that would take so much research to write to my liking. I am involved in romancelandia (romance writing twitter,) but not very active. Mostly I just listen and learn and sometimes comment.

In fact. I follow a woman who judges regency and victorian costuming in film productions. https://twitter.com/BillAndTedTest She has not gotten around to doing Bridgerton yet.

How do I feel about the costuming??? Well, I’m divided. I am bothered by the fact that Daphne never wears a pelisse and always has half up hair. I am bothered by the fact that Simon almost never has his cravat tied properly and has a shockingly bare neck. And the fabrics and stitching are visibly cheap.

But I also feel that except for the cheap fabrication which was an element of budget and time, a lot of the design choices were stylistic in nature. Like, if you look at the background characters, I feel that their costumes were more accurate, but with the main characters, they really went for character over accuracy. They didn’t want Daphne in any of the buttoned up outfits because they wanted her to be a girlish, romantic ingenue. They wanted Simon to show as a dashing sexy rake, so the buttoned up thing wouldn’t work for him, and they gave him the open neck that would be more appealing to a contemporary audience. (although while Simon is very handsome I actually find Anthony more sexy. He’s buttoned up...but it’s holding back all passion inside. BUT THAT’S a story for season 2. I can’t wait. I liked book 2 better than 1 mostly because of the rape, tbh. But I also love books 4,6 and 7 and I don’t know if we’ll get there.)

They wanted Lady Featherington to be crass and pushy so they gave her a nonsensical victorian silhouette. I mean. ???? It was SO different from anyone else’s. Weird choice, but for the character it kind of makes her appear to be a more aggressive character type from LATER in time? IDK. Of course Penelope is canonically dressed in awful gowns that are not flattering and I’m looking forward to how they end up dressing her for her book. And praying that we get a season 4. But I mean, the costume choices for the Featheringtons are BASED on Lady F’s bad taste, so there’s some leeway with her not being in style.

So. That is A LOT when you asked a little question. I guess I wanted to talk about it. I’m not allowed to talk about my ghostwriting or the stories I’m writing because I signed a hushhush contract. I’m not accustomed to being in a fandom for reading books-- remember I only joined fandom in the last 5 years for The 100, and then had some bad experiences so didn’t get into other fandoms. I don’t really even know how it would work especially not MULTIPLE books and authors instead of one series, so I haven’t really had conversations about the historical romances, except for a bit of twitter discussion.

#bridgerton #historical romance #reading #writing romance #book geek

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obsessivedilettante · 5 years

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20 in 10: A Drama Retrospective

Since I’ve been all quiet on the drama front this year because of life reasons, I thought it would be fun to go back and pick out 20 of the most memorable dramas of the last decade. Maybe not necessarily the best dramas or even my favorites (although some are!), but two dramas each year that were somehow notable moments in my drama-watching timeline.

2009: Gateway Drugs

Boys over Flowers (KBS)

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a good drama. It is not one I think I can ever really rewatch (although I will happily revisit the 2005 Japanese version, and I had a hellava fun time watching the latest Chinese version). But! It was the first kdrama I remember watching, and the first step on the slippery slope of eventually becoming a Drama Addict. I mostly remember it being crazy popular on places like mysoju (RIP), and so I checked it out due to curiosity, and the rest, as they say, is history. Or, should I say, almost paaaaradise!

You’re Beautiful (SBS)

This one I also watched because it became crazy-popular online, and curiosity got the better of me. I really didn’t know much about k-pop prior to dramas, so I had no idea until after this drama that k-pop was more about pretty people in crazy fashion, dancing in syncopation in bizarrely lit rooms, rather than playing instruments. Because it was thanks to this drama that I got my crash-course on k-pop as a phenomenon -- both the fandom side, and the crazy things that artists have to go through to claw their way into the public’s view (nevar 4get the glorious ramen dance). Since Angel was a group that played instruments, and Hongki and Yonghwa were also from groups that played instruments, I assumed that all kpop were groups that played instruments. Oh, sweet summer child...

But it did get me started on my k-pop journey, first falling in love with FT Island and CNBLUE, before falling into the rabbit hole of the other prominent groups of the day. (SNSD! The Wonder Girls! Super Junior! DBSK! SS501! Kara! 2PM! 2AM! Shinee! BEG! Epik High! U-KISS! All the debut groups, like 2NE1, MBLAQ, B2ST, 4Minute, f(x), T-ara, After School... basically 2009 was a magical year in k-pop.)

If I had just watched Boys Over Flowers, I don’t know that I would have become a Drama Addict. But You’re Beautiful pushed me closer to the edge, with the zany humor of the Hong Sisters (and the desire for a pig-bunny of my own!). It would really be Coffee Prince that would push me over the edge, but that aired in 2007 so it doesn’t count for this list. But I had to mention it anyway, because, well, it’s Coffee Prince and where my love for Handsome Oppa began.

2010: More Than Candy

The Woman Who Wants To Marry (MBC)

A lot of the dramas I watched at first had that typical “Candy” character, the poor-but-scrappy girl who would somehow be saved by the guy and become the Cinderella she never knew she wanted to be. So it was a delight when I encountered women who were not only older than high-school-age or early twenties, but in their thirties, with rich full lives! Plus, this was one of my earliest introductions to the concept of the “noona romance” (a concept that I’ve since heartily embraced, of course). I started it primarily because Kim Bum was my favorite of the Flower Boys, but I stuck with it because I fell in love with the women (and I still have a girl-crush on Bu-ki).

Harvest Villa (tvn)

This show is insane. But in the good way, the way that the writer intended, and not in the “are a bunch of monkeys typing this script?” train-wreck way. There was basically no buzz about this show, and I feel like I somehow accidentally stumbled over it, but it was love at first sight. I’ve never forgotten the late hours binging it, being so sucked into the story that I absolutely had to finish it as soon as I could, disappointed that there wasn’t more of it to enjoy when I finally finished, bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, but satisfied.

I then later gobbled down this writer’s next drama, and her next drama, and the next, until everyone else finally realized thanks to Signal that Kim Eun-hee was as amazing a writer as I kept insisting to anyone who would listen (aka no one).

2011: To Binge or Not To Binge?

White Christmas (KBS)

I did not watch White Christmas in 2011. I actually watched it in 2013. I was always a steadfast binger, preferring to wait until the buzz about a show would sway me into spending my precious free-time watching something that would be worth my while (not that my drama choices were always good, but at least I tried to avoid the duds). I still prefer to binge, since waiting weeks for new episodes is vaguely frustrating when I want to know what happens next, right now! Plus, I’m very good at forgetting that I’m watching a show in the week-long wait for new episodes, and then just... never picking it back up again.

Despite watching White Christmas a couple years after it aired, it remains one of my favorites, and one I love to rewatch, even though I’ve already experienced whodunnit cliff-hangers and psychological rollercoasters. It became a tradition of sorts here on tumblr for a bunch of us to rewatch it over the holiday season -- alas, I haven’t joined in that tradition for the past couple of years, but I hope that somewhere in this blue hell hole that there are a loyal few keeping the tradition alive.

At least we have this drama to thank for bringing us all the model-actors that were new and clueless in White Christmas, but would later go on to be leading men in their own right. Of course, some of them haven’t exactly made the best drama choices (*cough*SungJoon*cough*), but then there are others (*cough*SooHyuk*cough*) that I’m impatiently waiting for to pick up a new drama so I can see those post-army abs.

Tree With Deep Roots (SBS)

This is the first drama that I recall live-watching. I vaguely remember regretting it at the time, since it was agony waiting for new episodes, but it was also fun to have a week to speculate and ponder the show. And what a beautiful show to ponder! This was also one of the few sageuks I actually watched, being generally intimidated by anything longer than 16-20 episodes, and my historical knowledge was a little shaky (before embracing my inner nerd and diving into mundane historical stuff just so I could better understand whatever drama I was watching at the time).

I don’t think I intended to continue live-watching shows, preferring the ease of binging at my own pace and schedule. But that was when I was still a casual, innocent addict, and not someone who would eventually make dramas a huge part of her life.

2012: The Joy of Overthinking

Gaksital (KBS)

Having had a taste of live-watching, I started to live-watch enough dramas to the point where I began to make notes about the premiere weeks. It was only a couple at a time, and binging was still my preferred way to watch, but now I was delighting in being part of the fandom, sharing in speculation each week, posting my thoughts on dramas and analyzing them to my heart’s content -- even though I knew no one except me would read my ridiculous essays.

But I started to feel more comfortable sharing my opinion with the world, interacting with fandom and not merely content to be a consumer, but gradually becoming a producer as well.

Reply 1997 (tvN)

This is it. This is when I went full-on Drama Addict. This is the tipping point from casual fan who quietly kept to herself, to becoming someone who stood on the mountain top yelling about ALL THE DRAMAS ALL THE TIME. I began to interact with other fans! To swap theories and share squee-worthy moments! I even watched episodes RAW just because of how desperate I was to know what happened, and even though the Busan accent stumped me more than once, it made me realize that my casual study of Korean was something to take seriously since I understood more than I gave myself credit for.

It was also the first time any post I made got more than a handful of notes, since I’d mostly hovered in the “less than 10 notes per post” category at the time. I was so proud of myself back then!

(This drama also notably marks the start of my Hoya obsession, which continues to this day.)

2013: Tumblr Friends (and Foes)

Flower Boy Next Door (tvN)

Having made myself comfortable on tumblr as a Drama Addict, I then discovered some other dedicated fans -- many of which I still follow to this day and who are now just a permanent part of my dash, no matter what their current interests may be -- in the FBND squad.

But I also discovered Kim Seul-gi as the Webtoon Editor (who I still love and adore and continue to use as my avatar), and her adorable romance with Dong-hoon remains one of my forever OTPs. As much as I enjoyed the drama romances, I’d never fallen so deeply for one to be so obsessed by it as I was Webtoon Editor and Dong-hoon. And tbh I still am. They’re just so adorable and pragmatic and she buys him a bag. Ugh. I love her so much, you guys.

Heirs (SBS)

Ah, yes. This hot mess.

I don’t know what possessed me to live-blog each episode. But I did. With snarky commentary and terrible screencaps. And suddenly I went from maybe 200 followers to over a 1000. That was a total shock! I met a lot of people because of that (and made some friends, as well as a few enemies who didn’t appreciate my opinion of certain characters), and ensconced myself as part of the drama-blogging crew.

It was from this that someone suggested I apply to be a minion at Dramabeans. Back then, I had a lot more free time than I do now, and I was watching a lot of dramas that Dramabeans didn’t cover, and wished they did so I could read more opinions about those shows. So I thought, “Eh, why not? It can’t hurt to submit something because the worst that would happen is I’d waste their time making them read my take on episode 10 of Let’s Eat.”

I fully expected them to turn me down. No one was more surprised than I was when I found myself agreeing to dive into the world of recapping.

2014: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

Trot Lovers (KBS)

Recapping. It seems so easy when you’re reading the recaps. But actually creating them is a bitch. Hours out of my life were spent on this disaster of a trope-laden show with no plot. This was the third show I worked on for Dramabeans, and I hated it to the point where I seriously considered handing in my notice. (Immediately following up this show with the mediocre My Secret Hotel certainly didn’t help matters!)

However, it turns out that what I actually hated was being forced to watch a terrible rom-com and pretend to come up with insightful-or-at-least-neutral thoughts about it (since we were still new and couldn’t go full-on snark yet).

Misaeng (tvN)

This is what saved me. Being given the chance to immerse myself in such a unique, ponderous, thoughtful show restored my faith in dramas and the drama community. I loved spending hours on this show, soaking up all the little details, and then sharing that love with the world.

Misaeng made dramas magical again.

2015: Fight Me

Valid Love (tvN)

Realizing that I only seemed to enjoy rom-coms at arm-length, I discovered that my tastes often ran counter to the general drama-viewing public. Not all the drama-viewing public -- I’m not a “not like other fans” kind of fan -- but enough that I began to realize the whether a drama was popular or had good buzz was not necessarily the primary reason to watch it.

I began to have more faith in my own taste, based on past experiences with various writers and directors. Even if the premise (or first couple of episodes) seemed kind of weird and out-there, I at least wanted to give these artists the benefit of the doubt that I would enjoy their work, like I had previously.

So many people seemed to hate Valid Love, but I adored it. Still do (and still desperately wish Kim Do-woo would come out with a new drama -- it has been too long, writer-nim!). There were a lot of opinions about this show, even among people who seemed to enjoy it, but I vividly recall having to repeatedly insist that it wasn’t about the romance and argue that the knee-jerk infidelity-is-BAD opinions should make space for something more nuanced.

Ho-gu’s Love (tvN)

DramaFever was a pretty great site. It brought together so many drama fans and gave them a place where they could legally (and without fear of downloading random viruses) watch dramas to their heart’s content. Yes, there may have been some lingering resentment that they were the primary reason that so many amazing other sites were shut down (RIP mysoju and daebaeksubs), but dramas were more accessible than ever!

Eventually, DramaFever started to sub shows themselves and upload them weekly (instead of just using fansubs and uploading older dramas), and while they weren’t the best translations, they were at least better than machine translations from the Chinese subs. As I became more and more familiar with Korean, I found myself more likely to migrate to Viki since I liked the extra detailed translations. I could get the gist of a show without any help -- I wanted to instead delve into the nitty-gritty of the language.

But I never really hated DramaFever or felt they were particularly awful. Until they mistranslated something so terribly that it changed the entire meaning of a scene and ruined people’s perception of a drama, forcing me to continually defend the true translation.

That was the molehill I died on that day, and never again did I touch DramaFever. I feel bad that it eventually got unceremoniously shuttered. But I don’t think I’ll ever forgive them for the “condom” incident.

2016: Free Solo

Dear My Friends (tvN)

For two years I’d been happily working on one episode a week, sharing a show with someone else, until I was asked if I’d like to tackle a show by myself. I wasn’t sure how I could handle it, but I had the time in my schedule so I said, “Sure, why not?”

I was originally going to recap Another Oh Hae-young, but there was a last-minute switcheroo, and I’m so incredibly glad because this is perhaps my favorite recapping experience of all time, even more so than Misaeng. There was something so special about the luxury of having an entire show to myself, especially one with such a fantastic cast of characters and thoughtful themes. I didn’t have to try and figure out if I agreed with another person’s take -- it could all be my opinion.

Is that arrogant? Perhaps. But it was also therapeutic, as it reminded me once again how incredible and amazing dramas could be, and the privilege I had to share such an exquisite and thought-provoking drama with the rest of the world.

The Good Wife (tvN)

Surprisingly, this was what I had really wanted to recap that year, and the true reason I got Dear My Friends, since it aired just prior in the same time-slot as The Good Wife. I was desperate to have this show, willing to do anything to get it because I needed to see Jeon Do-yeon back on the small screen, to see Yoo Ji-tae smolder, to know how Korea would adapt such an ambitious show.

And I wasn’t disappointed! This is, perhaps, my favorite adaption of another work of art that I’ve seen in dramaland. It remained true to Korean sensibilities, but it also properly felt like The Good Wife. The cast was phenomenal. The costumes were exquisite. I wished I could spend more time in that world.

But I was also thankful, because without The Good Wife, I would have never have had Dear My Friends.

2017: Serial-Killers Are Cool

Voice (OCN)

I can’t remember how I got assigned to this. Maybe it was a scheduling thing. I do know that I really, really wanted it, since it would be Handsome Oppa’s first drama appearance in three years.

But it started me down a road of recapping a lot of serious and serial-killer-centric shows. Except for the times when I’d beg for a break and tackle something lighter, I was generally assigned the darker mystery shows with meaty plots, since apparently I had a knack for condensing complicated shows into something that made sense. (Also literally darker, and I eventually learned to automatically brighten every screencap I posted. You’re welcome.)

Not only did I love working on something with Handsome Oppa, I also had fun recapping the start of what would eventually become OCN’s stock-in-trade -- creepy serial killers. At the time, Voice shattered OCN’s viewer ratings (which would then be shattered again and again as more people would tune in to OCN shows). But Voice really helped put OCN on the viewership map -- as well as catapult Handsome Oppa into the public eye and lead him to a path of getting to choose whatever script he wanted to work on.

(Okay, maybe I made that last bit up, but he did begin to garner a larger following and remind everyone that just because he was gone from dramaland for so long, he hadn’t lost his acting chops -- or charisma -- or cheekbones.)

Black (OCN)

Oh, this show. It was basically my whole life while it was airing (well, the non-day-job part of my life). Each episode was over an hour long and jam-packed full of details that were pertinent to the story, and I had to somehow condense that all into 3000 words or less (I was not always, ah, successful...). It felt like I was back in recapping bootcamp, but the dial had been turned up to 11.

I’m weirdly proud of what I produced (although you’ll never get me to reread my old work). It was one of the most challenging shows to work on, but in the good way, not the Trot Lovers way.

Until the ending, that is. Sigh. That ending will live in infamy. I still, to this day, will get a few comments on the finale from people who watched it on Netflix, went searching online for an explanation of the end, and then discovered that they were not alone in being confused by the utter wtf-ery of the last twenty minutes.

2018: Fighting For My Love

Misty (JTBC)

So, Dramabeans kind of disappeared for a few months. Well, the site was still live. There were a handful of recaps. But... it basically just... stopped.

Those of us on the other side know about as you do as to why that happened. Minions are kept in the dark just as much as anybody, it seems. All we knew is that we weren’t being assigned anything and we seriously wondered if the site was going under, since adsense has become worthless these days.

But Mary and I kept talking about how much we adored Misty and were sad that we couldn’t talk about it with the world (and convince them to watch it with us), so we pleaded and begged and got the go-ahead to do a kind of chatty “open thread” which has apparently been a spring-board format for other shows. We didn’t get paid for this, and we were totally fine with that. We just wanted to provide some kind of content (while swooning over Kim Nam-joo’s pantsuits!).

Let’s Eat 3 (tvN)

This was my first real assignment after the dead period, and I once again got to do full recaps (with pay!). I started watching, thinking I’d merely tolerate the show (since I loved the first season vastly more than the second season), but it turned out to be my favorite of the three. Plus it felt fortuitous that the series I had submitted my application would be a series I’d work on four years later.

Sometimes it’s nice to spend time with a character you met years ago, to see them grow, to see how they became what they became. Drama trends (and love interests) will come and go, but Goo Dae-young’s love of food (and love of explaining the proper way to eat food) will never change. It was a really comforting drama for me to spend my summer on, and I’ll remember it fondly, even if I’m forever sad that it had to suddenly wrap-up two episodes early.

2019: Ten Years Later

Item (MBC)

This was the Trot Lovers of 2019. It was a nonsensical disaster.

I also had the added chaos of my real-life job -- one very different from the one I had when I was working on Trot Lovers -- as it began to increase exponentially in responsibilities and in stress. I reached a breaking point where I began to hate opening my computer where I’d have to spend hours attempting to explain a show that I wanted nothing to do with. I was miserable and depressed and couldn’t do it anymore. I never before asked to be taken off a show because I hated it so much, but there’s a first for everything.

Her Private Life (tvN)

I actually haven’t finished this show -- I’ve yet to watch the last two episodes. But I’m including it because, well, I didn’t finish any other show in 2019 except for Item.

As some of you may know, this has been a difficult year. It started with the unexpected stress of my job, when we suddenly lost one of our directors who passed away, and another director was let go (in a complicated situation that is ongoing, but the important thing is that it was during our busiest time when we really couldn’t afford to lose anyone), and another director left for a different job and I was basically the one to pick up all the pieces she left behind. It was exhausting and we were all past the breaking point but somehow miraculously holding it together.

I was looking forward to finally getting a much-needed vacation in September, and then, well, you all know how that went: the first night, on our layover in New Zealand before what was supposed to be three weeks in Australia, my father was taken to the hospital, and then, two days later, he passed away. Life has gotten even more chaotic and stressful and bizarre since then.

So no, I haven’t finished this drama, but it was one of the most wonderful moments of the year for me, watching this fizzy rom-com with my favorite actor, where he got to be charming and handsome and charismatic and finally kiss the girl he loves and have her love him back (and not die or be dumped, as he had been in so many dramas that had gone before). Lion Oppa was everything my heart could desire, and living in his world helped me endure the insanity that I wish I’d known would seem so much more tolerable than what would eventually befall.

Her Private Life reminded me of when I first fell in love with dramas ten years ago, when I would giggle and be delighted by the charming nonsense on screen -- of beautiful people falling in love and fighting against the obstacles between them (some more ridiculous than others, perhaps, but there are always obstacles), and ending up happily ever after. Pure escapism, of the frothiest kind.

A Drama-filled Decade

So, after ten years of dramas, what is the takeaway? What have I learned?

I suppose I’ve learned to trust my instincts and put more faith in writers and directors than actors. That analyzing dramas is fun, and it’s even more fun sharing it with others, and sometimes even more fun if you get paid to do it -- but everyone eventually reaches a breaking point. That I’m too earnest and optimistic to embrace a life of snark. That I want every drama to be good but most of them aren’t, except sometimes they are. That I’m not even sure which genres are my favorite; I just know what I don’t like.

That dramas are best as escapism, and not as work.

I don’t know how many dramas I’ll watch in 2020. I haven’t paid any attention to what’s airing, and I’m okay with that. Perhaps I’m entering a new phase in my life, or perhaps I just don’t have the capacity to escape right now.

But I am pleased to have had dramas in my life, and to have eventually made them my hobby. I’ve met a lot of amazing people and made some genuine friends through a shared love of dramas (or, at times, a shared hatred). I’m honored that all of you are still here and following me, even during this period of fandom silence.

May 2020 treat us all better, and may Kim Do-woo finally write another script.

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thefairybookhoarder · 6 years

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Because You Love To Hate Me [Part 1]

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📖/5 - It very quickly became one of my favourite books (so much so that I bought a physical copy after having already read it on my Kobo!) and even though I enjoyed some stories less they were still all fun to read!

Summary [from Goodreads]: Leave it to the heroes to save the world--villains just want to rule the world.

In this unique YA anthology, thirteen acclaimed, bestselling authors team up with thirteen influential BookTubers to reimagine fairy tales from the oft-misunderstood villains' points of view.

Review with spoilers below the cut. Proceed at your own risk!

The Blood of Imuriv by Renee Ahdieh

📚📚📚📚/5

Fun read. Great story to start the book. Have never read anything by Renee Ahdieh but I now love her writing and definitely plan to read more (have "The Wrath and the Dawn" in my TBR). Love the world building and society where women rule (hell yeah) but also still felt for Rhone - which I guess is the point :P. I almost forgot that he was the villain until the end when he accidentally kills his sister and he feels this incredible guilt but also relief. Which from his point of view the relief is understandable but from the reader's point of view is quite worrisome? Scary? Both? But all in all awesome future villain backstory, wish there was more. And that game of chess was also hella dope. Shows everything about both the siblings' characters and how they interact. And when he wipes the game controls - HUGE foreshadowing of what was gonna happen to his sister!

Also PolandbananasBOOKS evil vaccine short story was so creative and such a fun read.

Jack by Ameriie

📚📚📚📚📚/5

Oh me gosh this is probably my favorite story of the book. I could ramble on for ages but I'll try to limit myself. Retelling of Jack and The Beanstalk from the giant's point of view (so cool!).

The giant (villain)? Super-relatable. Which is saying something :P. Jack was also a very interesting character. And the way the story goes full circle? So. Freaking. Smart! It's right there in the beginning: "The thing is getting them to trust you. The animals". And how you think the giant and Jack are becoming friends and how he pushes her to face her fears which then totally bites him in the butt as she ends up eating him. And her going to the edge of the clouds and looking over is a metaphor for her having to accept herself and what she has to do (kill Jack). And the chair at the end was really cool. Like how Jack believed his friend had gone to explore the world (and how the giant pretended to have no idea what happened to the friend) but nope! The friend just ended up as giant chow. Boom! So. Good.

Gwen and Art and Lance by Soman Chainani

📚📚📚/5

Gotta say: love this book but I was not a huge fan of this story. The story is the retelling of King Arthur if the story was set in a modern high school. The idea of doing it through texts what quite cool. I enjoyed that. But I also didn't know the story of King Arthur that well so I was a bit confused at time. Didn't really like Gwen (and isn't this book about making villains relatable?): she just seemed superficial and didn't seem to be able to decide between Lance and Art. I really didn't like this back and forth between Lance and Art. And I did NOT get the vibe that Lance and Art were best friends even through the texts they sent each other. And so predictable!! Even if you don't know the story. Like OBVIOUSLY at the end she was gonna choose Art. Like caring guy vs. popular guy who only cares about his looks….hmm I wonder who she's gonna choose.

The Bad Girl Hall of Fame was a cool exploring, in blog form (super cool!) of the different types of villains there are in stories. Fun look at all the popular, typical villains and how/why they became villains.

Shirley & Jim by Susan Dennard

📚📚📚📚📖/5

Disclaimer: I LOVE Sherlock Holmes so when I figured out that this short story was about Sherlock I was so ready for it. I was not.

The story is an apology letter from Shirley Holmes to Jean Watson. It a story of what would have happened if Holmes and Moriarty had met at school when they were younger. It is a story about friendship. It's a story about love. And it’s a story about betrayal. And it was amazing. Again, loved the full circle. It starts and ends with a kiss so we should now what's coming. But also the chess. Because their relationship starts with chess but it by the end of their relationship was cemented by chess - since the obvious "Checkmate" ending. But the way this story is told is beautiful. The meeting, the getting to know each other, and the falling in love (at least for Shirley) between games of chess was so natural. The talks about justice was also a nice touch, very in character. (Also they discussed "Chronicles of a Death Foretold" which I had to read for Uni and it is very much a subjective and vague take on justice. It fit perfectly. It messed with Shirley's black and white look on justice.) And then the betrayal at the end! And Shirley finding out that Moriarty was only using her to get to Jean's mom. That is the moment the rivalry starts. That is the moment Sherlock and Moriarty stop being friends and start being enemies.

The Dear Sasha advice column for villains by Sasha Alsberg was really well done. And the last post from Moriarty and then Sasha signing off was really smart and v cool.

The Blessings of Little Wants by Sarah Enni

📚📚📚/5

This story was okay. I have mixed feelings about this. The villain was quite cool but it left me with so many questions at the end and not in a good way. I wish there was more world building in this story. More background info of why exactly Sigrid has to go Eynhallow. Like if magic is dwindling what is she gonna do once she gets there. Restore it? But if she does then she's not a villain. Use it all up? Then how it that helpful for her? I don't know, this story was confusing. I did like though that she had to hide the amount of magic power she has and loved the reveal that Thomas wasn't real and just a manifestation of her powers. But then if at the end she kills Thomas (which is a representation of her powers) does she kill her powers? That doesn't make sense! Also she has to prove herself by killing someone/making a sacrifice but she never actually does because Thomas technically doesn't exist? Also "I didn't come here to save magic…I came here to prove that I could" sooooo she's not a villain? If she saves magic does it mean she get to keep all the mafic for herself? Is that it? I need answers!

The Sea Witch by Marissa Meyer

📚📚📚📚/5

This is a story about - yes you guessed it, the Sea Witch!! This story was very well written, I really enjoyed it. I ended up really rooting and feeling bad for the Sea Witch. Alienated by her peers because she was - in their opinion - weird (woo alienation always leads to villain-ism!). Although, to be fair, I didn’t really like her at the start of this story either. TBH I didn't really like any of the characters at the start of this story. Nerit's (the Sea Witch) decision to become human is totally understandable though: she doesn't feel like she belongs in the sea (case her peers are jerks) and hopes that on land she will find her place. Turns out that the land is just as bad as the sea (poor Nerit!). She meets a handsome stranger who ends up betraying her so she kills him and finally goes back to sea. Finally as herself. She changed herself for him and he betrayed her (see kids, always be yourself). Also the fact that Samuel (Mr. Handsome stranger) didn't recognize her was brutal (even though I guessed some years passed? But also it showed that Samuel didn't really love Nerit). I really enjoyed this story and especially at the end when Nerit tells Lorindel that his people will go look for her desperate for help and will fall to misery because they won't heed her warnings about magic. It's haunting really. This story really did the Sea Witch justice.

Zoe Herdt's Villain Quiz was also really cool and I think I ended up being slightly villainous. (Although I felt that it was a little too black and white with the answers).

The other 7 stories will be in Part 2 because this review is becoming way too long.

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guccitama69 · 6 years

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Who are you top 5 favorite Bleach characters? And why?

i mean, if you follow my blog it’s pretty easy to discern who at least my 3 favorite characters are.

in no particular order, because i love these 5 equally:

- jushiro! sweet, soft loyal fish dad who would do anything for his friends. including, but not limited to: treason, general rule breaking, spying, giving gifts, and literally giving his life for his friends. old as fuck, strong, genuinely kind, handsome. imo kubo did a major disservice to him. jushiro died for our sins.

- shunsui. handsome strong man. probably the only character i relate to: a) doesn’t ever feel like working, b) would rather be napping c) or drinking, d) flamboyant, e) ladies’ man (or so he thinks. let’s be honest, he could get this), f) f l i r t y, g) stylish (i’m totally calling myself stylish, fuck you), h) but will totally get down to business when necessary. like jushiro, he’s loyal to his friends also for the aforementioned reasons (treason, rule breaking, etc). shunsui has more going for him than meets the eye. i’ve always secretly hc’d that he suffers with depression despite what his cool demeanor and smooth exterior give off. (i might be projecting myself here)

- aizen. ooh wee ooh. where do i begin? y’all know i have a serious kink for aizen. for so many reasons. and like, tbh i would hate someone like this irl. i mean, pre-defection josh groban aizen i would be thirsting for hardcore, but post-defection noodle head ass aizen i would highkey make vagueposts about on facebook. but since aizen doesn’t exist irl, i can thirst for him Guilt Free™. i guess i need to break this section down into 2 parts? one for josh groban aizen (JGA) and the other for noodle head aizen?the reasons why i love JGA:

A Certified Cutie

polite af

he had that disheveled but kindly professor look about him

lovable

seemingly would do anything for his subordinates

glasses

sociable

theory: probably based his Captain JGA persona on ukitake

tea

haha now that i’m listing out the reasons why i love JGA, i’m realizing that i like noodle head aizen better.

the reasons why i like noodle head ass aizen:

A Certified Cutie

still polite af, but now with Menace™

a e s t h e t i c s - the hueco mundo clothes, las noches, the eternal night. Good Shit.

aizen is the revolutionary we all know and love. want to take down the current system because the status quo is garbage and corrupt? hell yeah.

kyoka suigetsu. that’s some raw power right there, my dude. has aizen achieved bankai? has he not achieved bankai? can he perform bankai but just doesn’t need to show it because his shikai is powerful as hell? can he not perform bankai and did he trick everyone into thinking he achieved bankai by means of his shikai? who knows!

wants to spank raw the ass of god

entertaining af

snark master supreme

he’s op and 100% nonchalant about it

literally can’t die

the short exchange he had with urahara about “that thing” sealed my love for him even more tbh. aizen is straight up living the See Something, Say Something life. he saw the bigger picture and did something about it, even if that meant he had to take down people in the process. (please don’t send me anon hate for this haha)

that’s about it for aizen. short and sweet, right?

- gin. sarcastic, devoted, mysterious, calculating, sadist, antagonizing, adorable, snake, persimmons, silver. the range of emotions and the thoughts i had with gin went from rage and ‘i hate this fucking guy’ (when we first meet him), to ‘ok he’s alright he’s got ulterior motives’ when he was with aizen post-defection, to finally ‘i love him with all my heart and i would die for this character he is so much more than i thought he was’. because he is! don’t fight me on this. he is a lovely character and has the mark of being well-written based on the emotional changes you go through with him.

- yachiru. lil pink haired spider monkey. small and fierce. goofy as all get out. gives 0 fucks. Roast Master Supreme. Nicknaming Champion. the relationship she shares with kenpachi is so dynamic and wonderful. candy. heads up an association of grown ass women and bosses them around. frivolously spends the association money on food. which, #goals. ain’t scared of nothing. her story is nothing short of amazing.

i wasn’t expecting this to be as long as it did. no thanks to the aizen section.

#oops #ukitake jushiro #kyoraku shunsui #aizen sousuke #ichimaru gin #kusajishi yachiru

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itsjayyyy · 6 years

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March 20, 2019 8:30 am

Alright I’m in a much better state of mind now. It’s been an astronomically long time since I’ve given an actual update on my life, not just venting. wow, just checked back at my last few updates and i really haven’t written almost anything about this semester, but So Much has happened.

okay so first of all: i switched majors. again. so I’ve done a lot of reflecting, about my whole plan for life. social work seemed like a good field for me because I want to help people, right? but in cps, you’re not always working with people to help them, a lot of the time is spent working /against/ your client to help their kids, who are often too young to understand what’s going on. You’re basically always fighting; a lot of posts on the social work subreddit are all about how to deal with clients who are uncooperative, or yell at you, etc. I want to state that mom is wrong when she says I’m “terrible with people,” I’m actually quite easy to get along with as long as you don’t purposefully seek to offend. But I am terrible with people who try to kick up shit all the time. I mean, I can barely handle dealing with an annoyed guest at starbucks, how am I supposed to spend the rest of my career dealing with that times, like, 100? And yeah, I know I always say that I can totally live on a small income, but man I sure do love the security of having a nice savings account. And donating to online charities is practically a hobby of mine, so having a big income would make it a lot easier for me to live the life of that rich person who pays off 100 gofundme’s for medical costs every month.

And I’ve come to realize that the atmosphere of a class matters more than anything in terms of how well I’ll do. Not to sound arrogant, but I’m smart enough that I can pass any class that I try, I just need to put in effort. And effort comes a lot easier with a good atmosphere. The reason why I failed comp sci the first time was because the class had no interaction whatsoever. I mean, it was online and over the summer, and the professor gave us weekly emails telling us what assignments were due that week but he stopped doing that halfway through the semester so I just forgot about the class tbh. I felt so disconnected. And frankly, I’ve felt that way about stem since high school when I was the only girl and was always singled out because of it. That just made me go into college with a negative mindset. Even retaking comp sci was only originally for some stupid grade forgiveness so I could keep my scholarship. But this semester is just...different. My professor is just so lively, in a way that I’ve never had a stem class be. He starts off every class with “good evening everyone, it’s another day in paradise here at ucf in orlando, florida” (and sometimes he adds on “and some day you all will realize that” which tbh sounds kind of like an ominous threat to me) and throughout the class he’s always joking around, we can ask questions in class through his own website, we have a discord group to talk about the assignments that the TA is also in (and he shared pics of his dog once), all that stuff. Our professor also tells us about all the other resources we have, like supplementary instruction, tutoring (somehow those are two separate things), “the cave” (which is a room i think in HEC that is just generally inhabited by random comp sci students who hang out and can help with assignments), office hours not only for him but also his 2 TA’s. I’ve never been to any of those physical places but it’s nice knowing that I have a support system.

I know it’s the atmosphere and not just me trying to work harder, too, because I really walked into that class at the start of the semester already hating it. I gave it the last section of my 5-subject notebook specifically for how little I cared about it. (To me, calc was my priority. And yet I’m coasting by in comp sci with a 99 and a 100 on the first two exams (class averages being 72 and 68 respectively), while the same stale, disconnected atmosphere of calc has earned me a 52.) Last semester I ended with a 47% (written in as a D though, not sure if that’s because my professor wanted to give me mercy or if it’s because he wanted the pay raise associated with having your students pass). Comp sci just became a fun subject again. Coding really is my favorite thing.

The final push was a post I saw on the social work subreddit. It was about a case manager (what I wanted to go into) who had done a home visit and was unable to hide her disgust of having roaches crawling near her. I absolutely cannot. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, I realized I needed a sanitized office to work in. Before I made the official change, I talked to my coworker shayna about it, because she’s 26 and currently in her last semester of her AA, and next semester she’s hoping to transfer to ucf to get her bachelor’s. She said it is kinda stressful to take so long to get a degree, but as long as you get it, it’s okay. I know that now that I’ve wasted 2 years, I’m probably gonna graduate a semester late, but it’s okay because iris did too. And rose has been at valencia for 4 years and she’s still working on her 2 year degree so...

Wow that took a lot of words to say. Back to how my classes are going: I did the math, and I would need to get an 80 on all 3 of my remaining calc exams to get a C overall. Yeah I’m kinda pissed at myself for figuring out I like comp sci in the middle of the semester, when i already got an F on the first 2 exams. Before, my mentality was “I’m just taking this class for grade forgiveness, I can literally get a D and raise my gpa, and then I’m never going back to stem,” but now that I’m back in stem I need to get a C or better. I mean, I could get a D and then retake the class, but the college of engineering only allows for 3 tries on a class so I would really be on my last attempt before I’m completely kicked out and have to find a new major, wasting even more of my time. I know I would absolutely kill it on the third attempt, but man I sure am gonna hate myself for letting it get to that. It’s not an issue of “the material is too hard for me,” but rather “i didn’t care when I really should have.” I never studied for the first 2 exams and got over half of it right on both, imagine what I could do if i did study. Anyways, 80 sounds manageable, right? I mean, it’s the low end of a B. But this class is cumulative, to in order to do well on the next exam which is literally next week, I have to study literally the entire course instead of just these last few units. AND I need to go even farther back and study trig, since I never took a formal class on it and that’s why I failed calc the first time. It’s been 4 years since I looked at the unit circle.

I’m trying to cut back on how much time I spend on my phone. I really think that’s the biggest detriment to me, that I always feel the need to look at it. Definitely using the forest app more often. All the time I spend cycling between the 3 social media apps I use, where I just look at the same posts over and over again every day, could be better spent studying or doing something else productive.

In comp 2, we’re doing a semester-long individual research project about anything rhetoric-based. It has to be multimodal, eg not just “what’s the symbolism in this classic novel” but rather about society and media. A lot of people chose stuff like “how do women’s magazines push certain beauty standards” or “how is greek life (sororities, not the country) portrayed in american media and is it really accurate,” but because the professor stated that we should be “creating new knowledge and building upon an academic conversation,” I tried to come up with something that nobody had done yet: I chose “what are the motivations of the incel community?” And yeah, it’s so unique that when we had to do a literature review of what other scholars have already said about the subject, there were literally no academic journals on it. My literature review is just about the layout of a subreddit’s community and how the members interact (which has been discussed before), and from there I’m going to apply that to the incel community. I’ve done “research” by reading through their posts. Wow I just tried to ctrl+f this blog for “incel” and only one instance came up, from like november last year. It’s crazy, this has been kind of a big deal for me this semester. You know all those self-hating posts about my appearance recently? Well, I walked into this project thinking “man incels are stupid they just need to stop being entitled and care about their appearance a little and maybe then they could get a girl” but as I read through the posts I realized I was wrong. A lot of these men have issues that can’t be easily fixed, like being short, balding too young, just general bad face structure, and because of that people would instantly judge them. One guy even talked about how he had cerebral palsy and needs to walk with a cane, and his super handsome brother’s girlfriend was super patronizing to him. Frankly, a lot of their posts spoke to me. I mean, before I had braces I had a really recessed chin and while everyone said “oh I didn’t even notice,” you could tell that it made me less attractive and hence why nobody has ever asked me out. Not saying it’s the only cause, but you’d be lying if you said looks didn’t matter. Especially the posts about being considered uglier than their siblings, that really hit home for me. it’s like, I see their pain and I know how badly it hurts, but at the same time as a woman I’m obviously going to disagree with their response. When women were given harsh beauty standards, we took two routes: either try to improve artificially (makeup and plastic surgery), or work to dismantle it (body positivity movement). Men, who have always been a little entitled, just blame others. I feel like if incels started an actual body positivity movement for men, we could really go somewhere.

Damn, its been so long since my last genuine update that frankly I’m not sure where to go from here. Like so much has happened and I can’t really pick out anything that seems particularly noteworthy after 3 months. I think I’m gonna end this update here, then, and just promise to give more frequent updates from now on so I can go into more detail. Today I’m going to write an email for the future (like i try to a few times a year) to rehash the whole major change (since my last letter was all about how i just switched to social work), then do the comp homework, then study for calc I guess.

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