#''what can you expect from a middle grade book'' i can expect what the author implicitly promised books ago

[gingerslemonade]

I don't think I can even, like, begin to describe all the ways and levels in which SSGN makes me mad.

[winstonsns]

i read your cuteness aggression for the curtis!reader and i’m in love! can you maybe do preferences with a curtis!reader who’s a year younger than pony? thank you and have a wonderful day/afternoon/night! ☺️

the gang and 13 year old curtis!reader (request)

pairings: ponyboy x reader, johnny x reader, soda x reader, darry x reader, dally x reader, two-bit x reader, steve x reader

warnings: cussing

authors note: this is strictly platonic guys!! i feel like i’ve been falling off lately LMAO. i hope u guys enjoy though 💗

word count: 1.0k

PONYBOY CURTIS

the two of you are the closest in the gang, being the closest in age and him being a protective older brother to you

he doesn’t always feel the closest to his siblings because him and darry are always arguing, soda’s in the middle and doesn’t interfere anymore

but you’re always one to comfort pony after he gets into a heated argument with his oldest brother

he helps you with homework a lot since you’re not far behind him, he helps you study and get super high grades so darry isn’t on your ass for shitty grades

pony also reads you books when you’re stressed, it’s also just something he enjoys doing in your presence

quality time means a lot to him because his brothers are never home, he’ll read a magazine or do homework in a room with you, it gives him a sense of safety

JOHNNY CADE

the two of you aren’t exactly the closest in age but you talk to each other about everything

you and johnny hang out at the lot and sometimes fall asleep there, when you wake up, you direct him to your house so he can sleep there too

sometimes he’ll give you little gifts for fun, remembers a lot of things you tell him

if you talk about a book or item you want once, he’ll get it as soon as he can

he really appreciates your friendship and will do anything to keep it and strengthen it

probably let’s you borrow his switchblade even though he always has it on him, has backups too

SODAPOP CURTIS

he’s the most annoying but loving brother to you, always asking you if you have a partner yet and teasing you if you do

“ooooh.. who were you hangin’ out with today, y/n? you like them?”

“soda, i’ve been friends with them for years!”

“yeah, but do you like them?”

he’s the embodiment of the trend ‘i know love is real because (name) is real and they are full of it’

soda makes sure you have a lot of attention and love, doesn’t necessarily try to replace your parents but is somewhat nurturing to you

he doesn’t rant to you often because he knows it can be overwhelming, you’re just a kid, as he puts it and shouldn’t be dealing with others problems

sometimes he’ll take you to the DX after school so you can gossip and you can learn about working

DARRY CURTIS

darry’s your eldest brother and is extremely protective of you, always checks up on you and asking about your day

he has the same expectations for you and ponyboy, he checks over your homework but is calmer with you

he wants you to be with some sort of guardian wherever you go, even if you’re walking down the street for fun

he knows it’s not the safest for you to be alone, especially at night

because he doesn’t have the best relationship with his brothers, he makes cake with you more often than he does with the others

he does not let you participate in rumbles, he says it’s way too dangerous for you to fight

DALLAS WINSTON

he fucking hates kids so it’s a surprise he enjoys your presence

you remind him a bit of himself, you’re a bit of an ‘outcast in the outcasts’ because you’re the youngest and told you can’t do anything

so dally teaches you how to live in case you ever get put on the streets, teaches you what to do in the worst case scenarios

he’s hard on you though, it’s tough love and he can get really frustrated if you get hurt or in trouble because he’s taught you how to protect yourself

steals random stuff for you, most of the time it’s candy or random sweets like popcorn from the drive in, sometimes it’s a drink

TWO-BIT MATTHEWS

you remind him of his younger sister, he feels obligated to protect you in some way

most of the time, soda and darry are working so they aren’t home most of the time, pony’s hanging out with johnny so keith watches over you

sometimes he calls himself your babysitter because he thinks it’s funny, it’s even better that he knows you’re fully capable of taking care of yourself

he’ll tell you super inappropriate jokes and when darry’s there, he’ll smack him on the back of the head

“two, knock it off. she doesn’t needa hear that stuff!”

“i didn’t even do anything, super—“

he steals stuff for you too, whether it’s something related to your studies or a random item you want for some reason

STEVE RANDLE

originally didn’t want to be around you, he doesn’t want to be around ponyboy and you’re with him all the time

but eventually, steve warms up to you and lets you hang out with him and the gang sometimes

he’s actually pretty smart and not many people expect that from him, he helps you with homework even though he can get frustrated at times if you don’t understand

if you’re into cars, expect him to teach you all about them and for him to invite you to the DX

maybe he lets you help him fix some of the cars, of course you won’t get paid money, instead snacks he gives you for free

soda will come up to you in the morning as you’re barely awake, talking to you

“steve said to come to the DX after school, gonna teach you some stuff about cars.”

[wttcsms]

“she fell first, but he fell harder” with any inarizaki boy of your liking please! 🩵 have a good day~

pairing rintarou suna x f!reader word count 2.6k content contains mutual pining, tutor!au, right person/wrong time, bittersweet ending, unrequited love, slight angst author’s notes maybe not what u anticipated hehe

i.

You don’t look up from your book even though the slamming of a bookbag on top of the table obnoxiously announces the arrival of another student, one who’s obviously going to take the seat next to yours. 

“Hey—” So it’s a boy then.

“—can I ask you for a favor?” 

Now you look up, partially annoyed that he’s interrupted you while you were in the middle of reading a particularly interesting paragraph, but more curious than not. You tilt your head, taking him in. Of course, you know Rintarou Suna — it’s hard for any student in the school not to know him. But just because you’re aware of his existence — and if you dare to allow yourself to be bold enough, you think he’s aware of your own — doesn’t exactly make the two of you chummy enough to ask each other for favors on a Tuesday morning. 

You must have a bad poker face because he raises both hands in mock surrender. “Look, just hear me out. I need to pass this English class or my coach and captain won’t sign off on allowing me to play in the next few matches. I’ve seen the rankings; you’re top of our class. You know this shit a lot better than I do.” 

A beat passes. 

Two startling and equally scary revelations:

Now that you’re finally seeing him up close, Suna’s eyes are a much lighter shade than you thought they were. (Not that you’ve given his eyes much thought up until now, anyway.) It suits him. And,

Suna is absolutely aware of your existence.

“I’ll owe you one.” He says, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He’s playing at being nonchalant, but you can see it in those lighter-than-you-thought eyes of his that he’s practically pleading with you. 

“I want you to convince Atsumu Miya to do an interview for the school paper.” You finally say. 

Raised eyebrows is the closest thing you’ll get to seeing emotion on his face, you think. “Done.” And then, “Why Atsumu?”

“He’s not an easy person to get a hold of, but I know being the first person to ever interview him will probably mean something in the future.” 

He nods, taking it in. “So it’s not because you’ve got a crush on him?” 

You can’t tell if he’s teasing you or not; his voice and facial expression give nothing away. Shifting a bit in your seat, you frown. “No. His bad dye job makes him an eyesore.” 

The corners of Suna’s mouth curve up at that. 

ii. 

“I didn’t know you wrote for the school paper,” Suna says. 

“I’m the president of the club.” You push a paper covered in red pen marks, all of them corrections and criticisms against him. “Suna, we’ve been going at this for almost two weeks now. How have you barely improved?” 

“Maybe you’re just not a good tutor.” You can read him well enough to know that he’s only joking. “You wanna be a journalist or somethin’?”

“Don’t try to change the subject. At least pretend to look over your paper.” Sighing because you know he won’t actually do anything unless you appease him, you shrug. “I want to be a sports reporter.”

“So that’s why you were so excited to meet with Atsumu!” You don’t expect him to actually be invested in your life, but you excuse his exclamation as him being bored out of his mind and savoring any distraction he can get. 

The idea of being just a pleasant distraction from the pain of schoolwork makes you feel weird. 

iii. 

As you near the two-month mark since your tutoring sessions began, you make progress with Suna. He’s funnier than you realize, both of you sharing the same dry sense of humor that has jokes that can only properly be delivered if you say it with a straight face. He’s shown you about 200 of the images and videos cluttering his camera roll, and you pretend there’s no intimacy in that. His grades in English have substantially gotten better, to the point where you’re certain one day he’s going to decide that he doesn’t need tutoring anymore. 

(For some reason, that makes you kind of sad.) 

For now, you’re content to just be sitting next to him, both of you silently working on your assignments. He’s rewriting his essay due tomorrow (he’s a bit of a procrastinator, really) and you on your latest article for the school paper. The silence in the library — the silence wrapping the two of you together — is surprisingly comfortable. 

Sometimes, Suna can’t make it to the tutoring sessions, and you pretend that it doesn’t matter. You just shrug and smile and move on. After the third time he does, he confesses that it’s because he’s seeing someone. 

We’re just talking, he tells you. But you know that he must really like her because Suna doesn’t usually waste his breath talking about things he doesn’t care to talk about. He’s the one who brought her up completely unprompted. You actually would have been more than okay with remaining completely oblivious to whoever Suna decides to enter the talking stage with. 

He yawns, stretching his arms while he does so.

It should be illegal, you decide, for someone so out of reach to still be so close to you. If you shifted your body back against your chair, nothing would stop the inevitability of his outstretched fingers brushing against your hair. The thought of that happening makes you far more excited than it should. 

(He never tells you when they stop talking, but you know when they do because somewhere in between all these tutoring sessions, you started to learn him.) 

iv. 

“You really think I’m just messin’ around?” He’s got his elbow resting on the library table, cheek and chin laying against the open palm of his hand. When Suna smiles, it’s a little crooked, almost like a smirk, yet warm enough to cause heat to rise to your cheeks, especially when he’s smiling and staring at you like that, like you’re the one person he actually wants to see. 

“You’re always messing around,” You point out. 

“I wouldn’t joke about this.” There’s that familiar pleading look in his eyes that contains enough superhuman strength to pound away at your steely resolve. It’s the same look he gave you all those months ago when you two were nothing more than classmates exchanging favors. It’s the same damn look that got you caught up in all sorts of messes: rearranging your schedule to tutor him, suddenly spending more time making sure you look good for school, rejecting the other guy who first asked you the same question Suna’s asking now… 

“I’m serious. Please go to the dance with me.”

“You didn’t even give me chocolate or flowers.” You manage to say, trying to ignore the pleased sensation that overtakes your body. It’s a different reaction from what you felt when your other classmate asked, and he at least had the decency to bring you your favorite drink from the vending machine when he did it. “This doesn’t seem like a very serious request.” 

He snorts. “Would you have even wanted me to show up to homeroom with a poster and a bouquet and the twins serenading you as I asked you to a school dance?” 

He knows you well enough that an extravagant proposal like that would have you wanting to run into the nearest bathroom stall and lock yourself in there until school ended. The fact that he knows you would hate anything remotely close to that, less dramatic or not, makes you agree to go with him.

(Perhaps he’s spent these tutoring sessions learning you, as well.)

v.

“Hey!” 

You turn around at the sound of a familiar voice, smiling when he comes into view. Donned in the same oversized gown, graduation cap hanging from one hand, Rintarou Suna is smiling back at you. 

“Knew you would graduate top of our class. Congratulations.” 

“And you were ranked within the top twenty. Being a volleyball star just wasn’t enough for you, huh?” 

It feels good to be out here, freshly graduated and knowing the rest of the world is out there, just beyond the boundaries of your high school. The heat is getting the best of everyone wearing the thick graduation gowns, but instead of looking like a sweaty mess like the rest of you mere mortals, Rintarou just seems to shine, as if he’s made for summer. His hair sticks up, probably an effect of being stuffed in the cap for so long, and you find yourself pressing down on his hair. This isn’t the first time you’ve tried to help him tame his cowlick, and the action is so familiar, that it doesn’t even catch him off guard.  

“My tutor carried.” He says, grinning at you. 

(You feel considerably warmer now, and it’s not because of the sun.)

The laugh you give him makes his grin only grow wider. You sound equal parts pleased and surprised, just like how you always do whenever he decides to randomly compliment you. Is it bad that he wants to make you laugh like this for the rest of his life? 

Before he can make a proper quip, one that will surely have you laughing even harder, someone is gently tugging you away from him. 

“Hey, babe, my parents wanted to get pictures of us together.” And then, as if realizing Suna’s right there even though he’s tall enough to be hard to miss and close enough to tug you back towards him, the boy stares at him. “Oh, hey. Suna, right?” 

Everyone here pretends as if it’s not already obvious that you all know each other. 

“Congrats on nationals, man.” 

“Thanks.” Suna says, without sounding the least bit thankful, even though he should be. He thought the two of you broke up already, and he’s been preparing for how he’s going to confess his feelings for you for the past two months now. At least now, he won’t have to suffer your rejection and embarrass himself for making a move on a taken girl.

“C’mon, my mom’s going to hate us if we keep her waiting any longer.” Your boyfriend is holding your hand, leading you toward wherever his parents are. You turn your head, looking like you want to say something to Rintarou, anything at all, but instead you give him a shrug and a small smile. 

He keeps that smile of yours tucked safely in his pocket, not knowing that it’ll be a few more years until he gets to see it again. 

vi.

Staying in touch is hard, but Suna is nothing if not stubborn. A random TikTok sent to you at 2 AM here, an attempt to meet for lunch if the two of you are in the same city at the same time there. 

Getting drunk from your high school reunion and sneaking into the library the two of you spent the better half of your high school years pining after each other in is the most fun Suna’s had in years. The two of you are lying on the plush carpet, too drunk to care about how dirty it must be.

“Gosh, we spent so much time in this place.” You’re looking up at the ceiling, tacky glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck to it, remnants left behind by students who graduated way before you two. 

“Some of the happiest times of my life.” He’s being too honest without realizing it. 

You laugh, thinking he’s just joking because you always think he’s joking every time he tries to hint at his feelings for you. Feelings that didn’t hit him until he realized how pretty you are, even with your hair tied back and your bottom lip being bitten to death by your teeth as you type away at an article none of the students in this school will even bother to read. Feelings that he wished he confessed to you on the dancefloor, when the two of you slow danced, and you asked him are we doing this as friends? and he didn’t have the balls to say anything but of course it’s as friends. 

“Yeah, I bet having me roast the shit out of every paper you wrote was the highlight of your second year.” 

“It’s because it was you doing it that made me so happy.” 

You laugh even louder at that. “Oh my God, Rin, you’re such a sap when you’re drunk.” 

“I’m not just sayin’ shit just to say it, y’know? I mean it.” He tries his hardest to make the sincerity in his words stick, but he’s drunk, and his words are kind of slurred, and his intentions just slip and slide away. “I liked you back then.” Still do, he doesn’t say. I still like you.

“No way, really?” You turn to face him, wide-eyed with a tipsy smile on your face that lets him know that you just don’t know how serious he is right now. “Because I had the biggest crush on you in high school too!” 

He always assumed the feelings were returned, but the possibility that they weren’t — that him confessing would just fuck up your friendship and have you leave him — was too large for him to risk it. Swallowing hard, he asks,

“Did you… Did you ever think we would end up together? Back then, I mean?”

You hum, too inebriated and maybe too distant to him now to recognize the pleading look in his eyes. “I wanted us to, but then I thought there wasn’t a chance in hell you would actually like me back. Gosh, this was all so long ago, though. I can’t believe we used to like each other, isn’t that so funny, Rin?”

The used to reveals enough to him. 

vii.

You’ve made a name for yourself now. You’re not just a mere sports reporter (he doesn’t know that he’s the first person you confessed your dream career to), but every professional volleyball team in Japan has deemed you their favorite reporter to see out on court. Rintarou blames the fluttering of his heart and the excitement that floods him every time he sees you at one of his games on your popularity, but he sees through his own flimsy excuse. 

You don’t show favoritism when it comes to conducting your post-game interviews, but tonight, you’re standing in front of the camera with him, smiling up at him with a microphone in your hand. He’s happy you’re here, but the only question he cares to answer is the what if? that’s been haunting him ever since that reunion. What if he confessed in high school? What if he sobered up after that night and told you the truth? Would this interview be different, then? Would you still say,

“Congratulations on a game well played!” 

And would he still say,

“I heard some more congratulations are in order.” He’s giving you the same lopsided smile he always gives you, the smile that rests on his face yet belongs to only you. It’s all anyone could talk about. Pictures of you flood his timeline; his teammates, other players, and sports fans alike all were overjoyed at your happy announcement. You didn’t just win his heart over, but a good portion of Japan’s as well. 

“Congratulations on your engagement.” 

You smile at him, practically beaming, shining so much brighter than these stadium lights, and he holds onto this one even tighter. A smile just for him, placed right next to the memory of the one you’d given him at graduation.

[jesncin]

Hi there!! I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what the process of being published was like for Lunar Boy? Were there any struggles you faced trying to get it seen? Any tips for others trying to get their work published? Thank you in advance and I love your work! :)

Hullo there! Sure! Unfortunately things have changed a lot since I pitched years ago so I don't know how replicable my publishing journey is nowadays. But I'm willing to share!

So! I always knew I wanted to write for kids, but in art school we were trained to be cape comic artists. Back then (if you can believe it), making middle grade comics was considered something that would sink your career. At that point in history, American comics was trying so hard to prove "we're not for kids!" that they left a chasm in the market for children's comics. Then Raina Telgemeier's bestselling books proved there was a hungry readership of kids and suddenly the trad pub industry is excitedly picking up middle grade graphic novel pitches (ironically, including cape comics).

I was studying my Masters in the US as this was all happening, and decided to use my time in the program to generate as many middle grade pitches as possible! The first one I made was Lunar Boy, but the story was so well received that it ended up being the one we pushed forward as a pitch and develop the most across classes. On Twitter there was this event: #DVPit, which is a pitching event for marginalized authors looking to seek editor interest on their pitches but also! To get agented. In its heyday (before Melon Husk ruined everything. This event is no longer on twidder sadly. Many pitching events have ceased to happen or are on hiatus from how unusable that platform is now) it was a fantastic event. I got agented on my 2nd try of the event, and it got the industry an early look at Lunar Boy and made them excited to see it out on submission.

My agent, Britt Siess, was extremely helpful with giving us feedback on how to refine our pitch. Not only did she give us story feedback, but I was surprised also by her comics feedback- that was more nuanced than I expected (little did I know that she's a huge comics nerd). She had connections to all the editors I was interested in pitching Lunar Boy to, and we were out on submissions right as we graduated with our Masters degree (during the start of the pandemic lmao).

I already had early editor interest in Lunar Boy which I think helped a lot with getting it picked up. I've been told that it helps to meet editors in person and get chummy with them before pitching to heighten your chances, but that wasn't really the case for me. I've never met my editor (Carolina Ortiz, I love her she's amazing) in person, but she did actually reach out to me long before we went out to pitch- on a Simu Liu tweet trend of all things lmao.

(I didn't end up looking like evil boy band members in pastel clothes in the final book, I went for cultural clothes instead which I think is the more bespoke choice haha) Carolina reached out to me from this tweet and we actually talked back and forth about Lunar Boy, refining the pitch. I felt like she understood the story despite asking for big changes. I don't think she'd do something like this anymore, but I really appreciated it at the time (I wasn't even agented yet). All the editors I met in person for events like Editor's Day at school liked my art (and would even hire me for colorist work and the like) but they weren't interested in Lunar Boy. This was reflected when we finally went on submissions too.

We got a lot of rejections, vague language like "we don't know how to edit this" or "we already have a book like this" (??? press X to doubt). Compounded with all my interactions with editors in person, I felt like I was "marketable" as an artist but not as a storyteller because our stories were so unapologetically QPOC- with culturally specific queer identities to an already underrepresented identity. The editors that were interested in Lunar Boy had personal connection to the story (they were either also from blended families or QPOC themselves). But hey, you only need one yes to get a book deal. We ended up with Carolina as our editor and she's been our rock and champion for this book since the beginning. We were out of submissions in just a week (which is really fast in the industry).

My big tip for getting into the trad pub graphic novel industry is to study the market. A lot of people mistaken publishing as a vessel or platform for their untold story, when really it's a business we compromise with. Pay attention to trends, book deals, shifts in the industry, read your peers' books, everything. Research is key with getting your foot in. Lunar Boy may look like an out-there book, but at its heart it's a story about culture shock, trying to fit in, along with family and friendship problems. In trad pub especially, locking in to sellable tropes and trends is key. Find clever ways to innovate and work within those limitations at the same time. Be open to feedback and changes. I know so many people are held back from getting book deals because they're too attached to their story. It helps not to be phased by rejection and or take things personally. I've been very desensitized to talking about books like a business, since that's what it took for someone like me to make it out there.

I hope that was helpful!

[when-wax-wings-melt]

Keeper of the Lost Cities: A Love-Hate-Love Relationship, And What It Can Do To Your Psyche 

This is the essay you guys wanted to see after this presentation dropped; to be clear, this is the final draft. The presentation was made from the rough draft, so it's rather different.

Also, the essay prompt was to make it personal. So the italicized bits are where I was trying to do that, and they are both separate and a part of the essay. They break up the flow, but are also a response to the normal bits of the essay. You get it. Here we go.

In total, the Keeper of The Lost Cities (KOTLC) series by Shannon Messenger has over 7000 pages, split between nine and a half books (Book 8.5 was, uselessly, a novella) with a planned tenth coming in late 2024. It’s the kind of series that hooks you the same way a fisherman hooks a fish: with a promise of a treat that goes very, very unfulfilled. This is to say: KOTLC is a good series, at least at first. It’s certainly been my core obsession for a good (or bad) five years. It’s a hook because you can’t escape once you’ve begun. It’s my own personal brand of heroine, as Edward Cullen might say if Bella were a too-long book series that doesn’t resolve any plotlines or character arcs and instead piles more information on top of worldbuilding until contradictions are more plentiful than the packed main cast.

KOTLC is a good series, but the idea of recommending it feels like I’d be violating several articles of the Geneva Convention. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, and yet the thought of it ending is an impossibility on the scale of the apocalypse and I hope (I’d rather) the world ends before this series does. KOTLC is a minefield of sloppy worldbuilding, deeply compelling characters, and---where am i without it?---bits of myself woven into the many, many words, sinking under my skin and revealing what I think I have to offer. 

Sophie Foster is the protagonist of the series, trudging the long, never-ending path to what hopefully will be a happy ending. Like the author, Sophie has blonde hair and brown eyes, making her unique among her fellow elves, who all have blue eyes, including the rare-among-the-main-cast people of color.

There are so many things that make Sophie weird, strange, unique, attractive to every boy who sees her, and otherwise out of the ordinary: for example, she has five special abilities that allow her to teleport, read minds, inflict pain, speak any language, and enhance the abilities of others---i cannot do what she can, but she breathes and i do too---There are certain things she has very much in common with her fellow elves, such as her slender build and flawless skin, but much more makes her, as her childhood bullies would say, “A Special Sophie-Flake.”

Sophie was raised by humans, which not only means that the steadily growing pile of unique traits is now tottering dangerously above my head, but also that she’s clumsy and wildly insecure. This insecurity has a purpose and a source, making it one of the most annoyingly (and terrifyingly) accurate depictions of teenage anxiety in middle-grade media (if I were a vampire pulled from normal vampire lore rather than Twilight and I looked at her, I’d be invisible)---so do you get it? do i? 

which one of us is me---Sophie has intense imposter syndrome, never believing she’s worthy of the overwhelming support, approval, and desire heaped upon her throughout her years in the Lost Cities. In Book One, four teenage boys were no less than obsessed with her, possibly because she, presumably, talked to them sometimes. Valin, a “drooly boy” (named due to his constant drooling, as one might expect), is forced to ballroom dance with Sophie in detention, and later gives her a card and a bracelet professing his admiration. Dex Dizznee manages to sustain his crush until he finally makes his move in Book Six, and is rejected in humiliation after she kisses him to make him realize his feelings aren’t actually real---when I know that he was lying to himself, is lying to himself. truth is a phase and it ends once you hit age eight---After Book Six, only two remain: Fitz and Keefe, each of whom has made their crushes very, desperately, embarrassingly clear to someone who very clearly returns both sets of feelings.

“Sooner or later you're going to have to solve the triangle. Or should we get real and call it a square?” (Messenger Neverseen), notes Keefe, with his usual subtle confession of his feelings---only leaving me with questions: did he want her to know at all? is he chasing the person or the change? the girl or the excitement? the wanting or the wanted?---The love polygon of however many vertices is both acknowledged and not by Sophie— she’s aware of her feelings for Fitz from chapter two of Book One, becomes aware of her feelings for Keefe in Book Nine, and mentally friend-zones Dex every other sentence, even when it’s not really relevant to the rest of her inner monologue. Her inability to believe with confidence that she might be worthy of a crush (or any sort of positive acknowledgment) is layered beneath every thought where she considers the possibility of being liked, and then promptly dismisses it.

---she knows that admitting it means being wrong. i will be wrong, unless i guess right and am big-headed, full of myself. who am i---

Sophie’s oblivious nature stems from her human upbringing, directly resulting from the trauma of developing the ability to read minds at age five. She hears her parents wishing she were normal or better at making friends and fitting in, her sister complaining about her presence, and her classmates at school judging everything she does.

She sticks out like a sore thumb in the human world, only to come to the elven world and be called a freak, malfunctioning, a genetic experiment, and a failure, just when she thought she might fit in---when i am a puzzle piece, a corner without the connection---Her alienation in the human world (referred to as the Forbidden Cities in the series) comes from her level of success, skipping five grades due to her elven intelligence and photographic memory, and getting into Harvard at age twelve.

While she hates the combination of jealousy and admiration she’s constantly showered with there---who hates it and loves it at the same time? isolation and contradiction---in the elven world, she’s hated for other reasons: accidentally breaking laws, making mistakes, or simply being a blip on the seemingly perfect streak the elven world has for peace and security. Is there any mystery as to why she would never believe that people actually, genuinely care for her? She’s formed her protective coating of denial that lasts her through every time Fitz gives her a gift and she convinces herself it means nothing, or every time Dex shows his jealousy, or every time Keefe goes to her before anyone else.

Even when she kisses Dex, after he tells her in anything but words that he likes her, she doubts herself—are two sides of the same coin, where heads is insecurity and tails is egotism. question: who is she?---She doesn’t think he actually likes her, appreciates her, admires her. This doubt works its way into everything she does, every relationship she has, platonic, romantic, or otherwise. Yet again, she shows her status as a reflection---answer: she’s a mirror. i know who i am because she exists---reading into everything and still not believing or trusting that it truly exists outside of her imagination.

Any time Sophie sees a girl she perceives as prettier, more elegant, or smarter than she is, she instantly develops a jealousy complex—relating either to how Fitz acts around them, or how they project the confidence and normalcy she wishes she can achieve---to tell me whether or not i am alone---She surrounds herself with people who are described as incredibly stunning even in a world where every elf naturally matches the ideal Western beauty standard.

Yet she refuses to believe that she, too, might be beautiful, and instead considers herself dull and boring next to Biana, Linh, Marella, and Maruca---(and ten books later, i still do not have an answer)---Even Stina, who has committed the number one crime (it’s a federal offense) of having “a mass of frizzy curls” (KOTLC 164), is considered beautiful when her hair is “tamed” and slicked back. This framing of beauty applies to the boys, too, but none of Sophie’s descriptions are quite as detailed, quite as admiring, or quite as wistful as when she’s describing Biana Vacker’s heart-shaped, perfectly glossed lips---so, yes, i look at her and see myself. is that what i’m trying to say? is that what i am?---

But the queer-coding doesn’t stop (or begin, really) with Sophie’s dedicated denial of both her worth as a human being and her desire to kiss her pretty girl friends. A connection called a “Cognate Bond” is often referred to in the text as the closest two elves can become, emotionally and mentally.

Cognates exist when two Telepaths (such as Sophie) have such a deep and unbreakable trust bond that they become more skilled together than they were apart. In creating and maintaining this bond, they have to complete trust exercises and not hold back secrets keeping them from total confidentiality---she thrives on secrets---Sophie’s cognate is her friend (and love interest, and, debatably, ex-boyfriend) Fitz, whose romantic relationship was in a large part focused on their cognate one. Their trust exercises involve staring into each other’s eyes, holding hands, having matching rings, and Fitz telling Sophie that she’s the only person he can truly trust.

Fitz also asks his father at one point if cognates are allowed to date each other— his father affirms the statement. Notably, Alden has the authority to do so since he himself was a cognate, only undergoing a nasty breakup— sorry, only losing the bond, after his cognate, Quinlin, kept too many secrets. It’s implied that two other characters were once almost Cognates, only to grow too far apart when one of them, Prentice, had his sanity forcibly shattered and was locked in prison, leaving his (gay lover) best friend, Tiergan, to raise his son---while cognatedom thrives on truth, and also regret, and also the denial of both---The choice to parallel Fitz/Sophie, Alden/Quinlin, and Tiergan/Prentice was possibly not a conscious one but it still resonates with hundreds of queer teen readers who look at the portrayal of utter devotion and trust between two men and think, Wow. This is what I see in myself---but without the denial, without the regret, what are we left with? what do we see?

we see the truth.

We see ourselves.

There are so, so many other issues that I could easily delve into in this series (such as the strangely Western portrayal of gender roles, the racism concerning the Song family, irresponsible adults and the ethics of genetic experimentation, the girlboss and cardboardification of quite literally every woman, etc) and just as many things that make Keeper of the Lost Cities worth it (Fitz’s anger, the development of villains, Sophie’s trans-coding, Keefe’s trauma, physical ramifications of guilt, Marella and Fintans’ pyrokinesis/queer-coding, whatever Dimitar has going on, etc).

The series tends to skew to the “not good” side, although on occasion it will topple abruptly into the “incredible work of art and exploration of wildly interesting character dynamics” before rising like an angel back to heaven into its original position as “questionable in terms of taste.” Mostly, what defines KOTLC is how it’s interpreted rather than the content itself. Someone far different (and with far worse taste) than I might see Fitz’s quest for vengeance and call him a red flag in elven form, while I call it a ridiculously interesting exploration of what grief, near idol worship, toxic standards, and guilt can do to a teenage boy past his limit.

But I am not the voice of the fandom (even though I definitely should be). I look at Sophie Foster and see myself, but that does not make her me. These characters always feel so painfully real, desperately relatable, as if Messenger cobbled together a main cast from bits of my life, but they are not. In the end, they are just characters. In the end, it’s just a series made for middle schoolers, in the same way the sun is just the sun, and the stars are just there to twinkle merrily and not to be explored.

(where am i without it? I cannot do what she can, but she breathes and I do too so do you get it? do i?  which one of us is me when I know that he was lying to himself, is lying to himself. truth is a phase and it ends once you hit age eight only leaving me with questions: did he want her to know at all? is he chasing the person or the change? the girl or the excitement? the wanting or the wanted? she knows that admitting it means being wrong. i will be wrong, unless i guess right and am big-headed, full of myself. who am i when i am a puzzle piece, a corner without the connection who hates it and loves it at the same time? isolation and contradiction aretwo sides of the same coin, where heads is insecurity and tails is egotism. question: who is she? answer: she’s a mirror. i know who i am because she exists to tell me whether or not i am alone (and ten books later, i still do not have an answer) so, yes, i look at her and see myself. is that what i’m trying to say? is that what i am? she thrives on secrets while cognatedom thrives on truth, and also regret, and also the denial of both but without the denial, without the regret, what are we left with? what do we see? we see the truth. We see ourselves.

[in-halingstardust]

hi love! i saw your hsr matchup event is live and i'd like to send my request~ pronouns: she/her/they/them gender: female spice tolerance: spicy personality indicators: intj 5w4 ; melancholic-choleric signs: pisces sun / taurus rising / taurus moon hogwarts house: ravenclaw alignment: neutral good alignment preferred gender to be matched with: male

personality: studious, business-minded, tech-savvy, a little bit of a perfectionist, tends to overwork, stubbornly independent, calm and composed, intimidating at first glance (according to colleagues), reserved and extremely introverted, protective to loved ones, obedient and respectful to authorities but will not hesitate to call them out if necessary, blunt, idealistic, highly organised, loves to play video games or read and write books on spare time, passionate, drawn to mysterious, historical, gothic, and horror subjects

hobbies + likes: researching abandoned and haunted places, writing, reading, exams, stationery, business-related topics (esp finance), coffee shops, bookstores and libraries, electronic shops, technology, video games, dark royalty / dark academia aesthetic, classical literature, classical music, detective/crime/mystery/horror stories (esp. from 19th century), cats, history, listening and belting out to musicals when alone, greek mythology

dislikes: bugs, studying repetitive subjects without gaining new knowledge, failure to meet own expectations, unnecessary change

physical description (in case you need it): dark brown hair that reaches the middle of the thighs, brown almond eyes, warm ivory skin tone, top hourglass figure, wears glasses and switches them out with purple contacts sometimes, always wears a necklace and a pair on rings on both hands

if you need anything else, feel free to ask! thanks!

First of all, I want to say I absolutely love your works with the TWST fandom! I have read through so many of them on my "main" (well more like my dead) blog. This is a little longer, but more of a thank you for me for your stories :,D

I'm going to pick Dr. Ratio for you! ⋆⭒˚.˚.⋆⭒˚.⭒˚.⋆

You and Dr. Ratio I feel have similar interests. Like-minded individuals striving to know more about this dysfunctional world. High expectations, a sort of strive for the greater knowledge of the world. There are only a few who can stand on the same stage as you two.

It's almost a sort of rivalry. A small smirk that is passed with one grade is higher than the other, the glances while the other is presenting, the small inside jokes that are layered between sarcasm and logicality. If any one of your classmates were to explain this they would simply say genius' brains are on a different universe. It's not because of that.

Lets be honest. It's because of the sex,

❥ For the serious front that you both pertain in front of your colleagues, your neck itches from the tight blouse buttoned up to your neck. What’s wrong? Ratio states, it’s a question he already knows the answer to. Don’t want to show off my handiwork? Underneath thin cotton you hide a line of bite marks from the previous night, littered across your body in an arrangement of shapes. ❥ He gets this way when he is in a good mood. ❥ You give him a little push, enough to calm the faint tint across your cheeks. It’s hard not to think about last night. Reminiscent of strong muscles holding you down by the hips- bruises still forming-, his hands wrapped around your hair pulling gently to gain more access to your neck. The way you cried out for him last night and his muffled groans against your skin… ❥ No. You breathe in and out. It’s just a distraction from the presentation. Besides, if you both passed there would be a reward afterwards…Not that you have ever failed.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for almost killing my 8th grade english teacher? (warning: racism, sa mention)

I (M16, 14 at the time, white (this is important later)) was part of the newspaper in middle school. The teacher running the newspaper (F… 50? 60? i have no idea) was always really nice to me, and we got along really well. I was ecstatic to see that she would be my english teacher in 8th grade.

That is, until the class actually began.

This english class we mostly read books about oppression and historical atrocities and genocide because our history class wouldn’t cover that for some reason (the reason is racism). It seemed like this teacher would have done a good job of teaching this material, but well. you can see where this is going.

a week into the school year the whole class saw that she was pretty racist - not like overtly racist; she sort of said she cared about fighting oppression and then… was a part of that oppression. like she’d say “i could never be racist” and then she would be racist. it’s hard to explain. she would always be incredibly weird about disciplining the Black kids in the class, blaming one guy in particular for like. every time a guy in the class acted like and eighth grade boy would act. she was also really condescending to him; she’d constantly make comments about how he couldn’t follow rules (which obviously isn’t true). she did this to an extent to all the other Black kids in the class as well; later when some of them went to the principal to talk about what happened they said they didn’t feel safe in her class.

additionally, pretty much nobody even stood for the pledge of allegiance (we were usually busy reading cause the library in that school was really nice and had a really good collection of books), and when they did they’d never actually say it. this teacher had a problem with this, and every time she saw absolutely nobody in the class standing for the pledge of allegiance, she’d make the entire homeroom (oh yeah i was in her homeroom too, forgot to mention that) tell her why they didn’t for literally the entire class period. Every time someone mentioned systemic racism or racist history she’d butt in either saying “my parents were immigrants and they stood for the pledge” or she’d start talking about her gay son. some kids told stories of being called slurs when they were younger. some kids cried. she would always bring up her gay son as a rebuttal. and i get that being gay is hard, i’m gay myself, but that is not in any way applicable to the situation at hand here. This happened on three separate occasions - sometimes a single person would stand for the pledge just so there was at least one person doing it and so we wouldn’t have to have that conversation.

And then there was the actual teaching. oh boy. so, as i said before, almost all of our books in this class were about some sort of historical atrocity because the history class didn’t have time for it apparently. and uh. uhhhhhhh yeah. with this teacher it was not a good experience.

We had read books about racism for summer reading and we were reading the novel Chains at the beginning of the school year, and the teacher would always talk about how “resilient” the characters in the books were and how they made the best of their situations and fought back, but never about how these characters should have never had to be in these situations in the first place and WHO PUT THEM IN THESE SITUATIONS, WHAT SYSTEMS PUT THEM IN THESE SITUATIONS YOU KNOW THE KIND OF STUFF ONE WOULD NEED TO KNOW FROM A COURSE LIKE THIS TO MAKE SURE HISTORY DOESNT REPEAT ITSELF. Later in the year we read Warriors Don’t Cry and it went exactly how you’d expect. “Resiliency”. Also worse than you’d expect. The teacher victim blamed the author, a real ass person writing about real fucking events, for almost being assaulted at a young age. And though we focused more on the systems of oppression, thankfully, we also watched and interview with the little rock nine and some of the people who harassed them in school, and one of them, a white woman, said the n word and refused to apologize. and this teacher defended her???? On another occasion we had a lesson about feminism and we read some of Sojourner Truth’s writing, and she interpreted it as solely being about womanhood and not race - and when I tried to talk about how race is an important factor in the message of one of the speeches, the teacher called my parents. We also read books about the holocaust and this teacher was surprisingly respectful throughout the whole thing. No victim blaming, no talk of resilience, nothing.

I had talked to her about all of this before. We knew each other from the newspaper, and it even seemed like I was her favorite student. She would not budge. Sometimes she even made the argument that I was smarter than the other kids, that I cared more than the other kids, that I would notice these things and care about them but other kids wouldn’t and I should just shut up because nobody understands me because i’m just so smart. which made me fucking pissed. i don’t care any more than the other kids who told you stories of being harassed and ridiculed at 8:30 am on a weekday so that the whole class could excercise their freedom of speech. i’m not any smarter than the other kids who cited countless examples of the atrocities this country committed against people of color to you who you didn’t listen to. in fact, i’m not even that smart. i’d say i’m kind of an idiot. and i want to be an idiot, because then i’m not put on a pedestal to push other people down.

This happened two years ago so i don’t exactly remember the order in which these next three events happened.

Since during these talks sometimes i’d start to cry, in may my french teacher asked me if i wanted to transfer to her homeroom and i did. It was a lot better there.

Around this time about eight of the kids from my old homeroom went to the principal to talk about this teacher and how her class made them feel unsafe.

Anyway, my backpack is very heavy. I usually have a lot of books in there, until this year I used five subject notebooks, I never clean out my folders and I brought a laptop as well. Even with all this though, my backpack always ends up being heavier than I expected.

So, one day my anger toward this teacher boiled over. On my way out of english class, when she went to say goodbye to me, I shoved her to the side with my backpack. It turns out that broke her hip, and she was out of school for two weeks. When she came back she said she had almost died in the hospital. She also announced her retirement, and that she was going to go and “end racism”, ironically. She knew I was the one who hit her, but she didn’t say anything about that. I was still her favorite, apparently. It left a bad taste in my mouth that she still thought of me like this. Eventually I graduated from that school and I haven’t seen her since.

tldr: A teacher of mine was racist and making a lot of the kids in the class feel unsafe, and she tried to keep me from arguing with her about it, so I hit her with my backpack and broke her hip, almost killing her.

AITA???

What are these acronyms?

[antianakin]

hiii, it's me again, someone who keeps popping in to say things nobody asked for lol. i was wondering if people who've been in the fandom longer (like you) agree with my impression that the novelizations are reallyyy important context for fanon interpretations? i didn't realize this until a discussion i had today iwth someone who helpfully summarized some of the popular prequel novels, which seem to match up really well with headcanons & fanon personalities. apparently stover emphasized obi-wan's devotion to anakin and how he's a ride or die for him. and apparently another popular novel wrote an adult obi-wan "as if a teenager in emotional maturity" which also would, you know- explain a lot.

the novels i've actually read are the jedi apprentice series, which i don't have much issues with, even though they certainly spin the trauma wheel lol. maybe it's been qui-gon and obi-wan both feel as if they are trying their best and their misunderstandings due to mutual action, rather than pure passivity? or maybe that even though the books have very dramatic conflicts that certainly put obi-wan in woobifiable situations, they more often than not help draw out distinct characteristics and strengths of his through those situations?

Just for clarity, I have NOT been in this fandom all that long by my own standards. I obviously did watch Star Wars as a kid and read some Star Wars fanfics when I was really young, but in terms of "participating in fandom" as such, that's really only been happening since like... 2021 maybe? It was basically a COVID byproduct, I had the time to consume some Star Wars stuff I'd never managed to get around to before and things devolved from there. And I honestly have read hardly any of the novels or comics myself, including the official film novelizations. Like you, the only books I've actually read are the Jedi Apprentice middle grade books, and that's really it.

So while I can speak to some of the experiences I've had in this fandom since I got into it a few years ago, I cannot speak to what fandom has been like since those novelizations were released almost 20 years ago now.

Matthew Stover's ROTS novelization seems to be pretty popular and considered one of the better novelizations. I've had people tell me that there's SOME evidence Lucas had something to do with the book and so it's often considered a fairly high level of canon as a result.

But the passage you're referencing where Stover emphasizes how Obi-Wan is "ride or die" for Anakin is genuinely one of the reasons I've never bothered to read it, no matter how pretty people say his prose is. If you want to actually see it yourself, I'll copy it below.

The line in question comes from an extended version of the scene in ROTS where Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Mace Windu are discussing Anakin's reaction to being asked to spy on Palpatine as Yoda heads off to Kashyyyk.

“I think," Obi-Wan said carefully, "that abstractions like peace don't mean much to him. He's loyal to people, not to principles. And he expects loyalty in return. He will stop at nothing to save me, for example, because he thinks I would do the same for him." Mace and Yoda gazed at him steadily, and Obi-Wan had to lower his head. "Because," he admitted reluctantly, "he knows I would do the same for him.”

Interpret the scene how you will, I guess. The Anakin characterization meshes with how I tend to understand the character, but the Obi-Wan characterization could not be farther away from how I see him in canon.

I don't know anything about whatever novel wrote Obi-Wan as though he had the emotional maturity of a teenager. That doesn't ring any bells for me. It wouldn't surprise me at all if there are authors who've written Star Wars books that just simply don't like Obi-Wan all that much and so if he shows up in their work, he could come across as having the emotional maturity of a teenager because that's how that author chose to write him. It would seem odd for it to show up in an official film novelization, I would expect it more in some of the Legends content, but I suppose it's not impossible.

Legends content in general DOES have an impact on fanon and fan interpretations of Star Wars because, for a long while, it was the only way to GET more Star Wars content beyond the films themselves. For a lot of people, they were canon because there was nothing to refute them. And even once there was, people sometimes were still so attached to those stories that they preferred them to the story told in the films.

So, yeah, it can have a major impact on people's understanding of things. Often if you get into discussions about, say, the Jedi or the Force, people will bring up Legends content to prove their arguments. You shouldn't feel like this means you personally have to consume any Legends content you don't want to consume. I tend to avoid it most of the time. It is perfectly for you to just stick with the films or the shows or whatever books you find most interesting. And even within that, what you consider canon doesn't have to include literally everything you've chosen to consume. I've read the Jedi Apprentice books and enjoyed them, but it ISN'T real canon and I don't necessarily take any of it into account in my own interpretations of the characters. Legends content and Disney EU content is, in many ways, just officially licensed fanfiction. If you don't consider every fanfic you read to be canon, you do not have to consider every Legends book or comic you choose to read to be canon, either. Sometimes it's fun to just see other people's takes on Star Wars even if there's no way to fit into the canon story of Star Wars (as a side note, this is why I love Star Wars: Visions so much as a show).

I don't know if this really answered your question. As someone who doesn't consume a lot of Legends content and hasn't read a single one of the official film novelizations, I may not be the right person to ask about this.

[angrybell]

An Israeli author was supposed to appear and give a talk about her books at the Pushkin House, part of the University of London. It was due to occur on . With the date approaching the people at Pushkin House sent the following to Ms. Rubina.

Good afternoon, Dina

The Pushkin House advertised our upcoming discussion on social media and immediately received critical messages regarding your position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They would like to understand your position on this issue before reacting in any way.

Could you formulate your position and send it to me as soon as possible?”

Natalia! “

Ms. Rubina responded with the following open letter.

An OPEN LETTER

from Dina Rubina

“Dear Natalia!

You have written beautifully about my novels; I am very sorry for the time you have wasted. But it seems we’ll have to cancel our meeting. The University of Warsaw and the University of Torun have just cancelled lectures by the remarkable Israeli Russian-speaking writer Yakov Shechter on the life of Jews in Galicia in the 17th and 19th centuries – “to avoid aggravating the situation”. I suspected that this would also happen to me, because now the academic environment is the main nursery of the most disgusting and rabid anti-Semitism, hiding behind the so-called “criticism of Israel”. I was expecting something like this, and even sat down three times to write you a letter on the subject… but I decided to wait, and so I have waited.

That’s what I want to say to all those who expect from me a quick and obsequious account of my position on my beloved country, which now (and always) lives in a circle of ardent enemies who seek its destruction; on my country, which is now waging a just patriotic war against a violent, ruthless, deceitful and sophisticated enemy:

The last time in my life I apologised in the headmaster’s office, in the ninth grade. Since then, I have done what I think is right, listening only to my conscience and expressing only my understanding of the world order and human laws of justice.

And so on.

I’m really sorry, Natalia, for your efforts and the hope that you could “cook something with me” – something that everyone will like.

Therefore, I ask you personally to send my reply to all those who are interested:

On Saturday 7 October, the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, the ruthless, well-trained, carefully prepared and perfectly equipped with Iranian weapons Hamas terrorist regime ruling the Gaza enclave (which Israel left some 20 years ago) attacked dozens of peaceful kibbutzim and simultaneously pelted the territory of my country with tens of thousands of rockets. Atrocities that even the Bible cannot describe, atrocities and horrors that make the crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah pale in comparison (captured, by the way, by the frontal and chest cameras of the murderers themselves and boastfully sent by them in real time to the Internet), can shock any normal person. For several hours, thousands of gleeful, blood-drunk animals raped women, children and men, shot their victims in the crotch and in the head, cut off women’s breasts and played football with them, cut babies out of the bellies of pregnant women and immediately beheaded them, tied up small children and burned them. There were so many charred and completely burnt bodies that for many weeks the pathologists could not cope with the enormous burden of identifying individuals.

My friend, who worked in a New York hospital waiting room for 20 years and then spent another 15 years in Israel identifying remains, was one of the first to arrive in the burned and blood-soaked kibbutzim with a group of rescuers and medics… She still can’t sleep. A medic used to cutting up bodies – she fainted from what she saw and then vomited all the way back to the car. What these people have seen is beyond words.

Together with the Hamas fighters, the “civilian population” rushed into the holes in the fence, joined the pogroms on an unprecedented scale, robbed, killed and dragged whatever they could get their hands on into Gaza. Among these “peaceful Palestinians” were 450 members of the UN’s UNRWA scum. Everyone was there, and judging by the stormy total joy of the population (also captured in these inconvenient times by hundreds of mobile cameras) – there were a lot of people – Hamas supports and approves, at least before the real fighting starts, of almost the entire population of Gaza… The main problem: our residents were dragged into the beast’s lair, more than two hundred of them, including women, children, the elderly and non-essential foreign workers. About a hundred of them are now rotting and dying in the Hamas dungeons. Needless to say, these harassed victims are of little concern to the “academic community”.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. I am not writing this to make anyone sympathise with the tragedy of my people.

For all these years, when the world community has literally poured hundreds of millions of dollars into this piece of land (the Gaza Strip) – and the annual budget of the UNRWA organisation alone is a BILLION dollars! – All these years, Hamas has used this money to build an empire of the most complex underground tunnel system, to stockpile weapons, to teach primary school children how to dismantle and reassemble a Kalashnikov assault rifle, to print textbooks in which the hatred of Israel defies description, in which even the maths problems go like this: “There were ten Jews, Shahid killed four, how many are left?” – with every word calling for the murder of Jews.

And now that Israel, shocked at last by the monstrous crime of these bastards, is waging a war to destroy the Hamas terrorists, who have prepared this war so carefully, planting thousands of shells in all the hospitals, schools, kindergartens… – here the academic world of the whole world has risen up, worried about the “genocide of the Palestinian people”, based, of course, on data provided by… who? That’s right, by the same Hamas, by the same UNRWA… The academic community, which was not concerned about the massacres in Syria, the massacre in Somalia, the mockery of the Uighurs or the millions of Kurds persecuted for decades by the Turkish regime – this very concerned public, wearing “Arafat” around their necks, the trademark of the murderers, rallies under the banners “Free Palestine from the river to the sea! – which means the total destruction of Israel (yes, many of these “academics”, as surveys show, have no idea where this river is, what it is called, where some borders are…). – Now this very public asks me to “take a clear position on this issue”.

Are you serious?! Are you serious?!!

You see, I’m a writer by profession. All my life, for more than fifty years, I have been folding words. My novels have been translated into 40 languages, including Albanian, Turkish, Chinese, Esperanto… and many others.

Now, with great pleasure, without using too many expressions, I sincerely and with all the strength of my soul send all the brainless “intellectuals” interested in my position to the ASS. In fact, very soon you will all be there without me”.

Dina Rubina

[local-queer-classicist]

I finally got to read Chalice of the Gods and I was not disappointed. Ganymede is probably one of my favorite characters in Greek myth but I wasn’t ever sure he would get to be properly portrayed in the series due to the nature of his story combined with the constraints of a middle grade series. I was afraid if he ever did properly show up the darker elements of his story would get brushed over and that would kinda suck, so part of me never wanted Rick to even try with Ganymede. But I really like how he handled him in this book. The clear terror of Ganymede throughout, how gross Zeus feels (“I like watching him walk away” die in a fire you piece of shit I swear to god), but all handled in the way you might expect the same heavy topics to be handled irl when there are children in the room. The story isn’t gone, the effects are very much there and those who know can see it, but nobody says it and it makes sense that they don’t. Ganymede wouldn’t be comfortable talking about it to a bunch of teenagers he doesn’t know, the other gods/goddesses we meet along the way would either be too uncomfortable with the subject matter in general (as many if not most people would be), not want to tell Ganymede’s story for him, be hesitant to draw Zeus’ ire by portraying him in a bad light, or just not see the situation as a problem due to their nature of being terrible people. It absolutely makes sense that nobody says what’s going on. So even when it feels like it’s being brushed over, it feels like the characters in the world are doing that for their own reasons, not that the author is doing it to spare the innocence of his young readers.

(It’s also pretty on-brand that Percy knew next to nothing about the myth and didn’t look it up. His assumption that the myth would probably be told from Zeus’ side and therefore not be terribly helpful is understandable, but he failed to consider that Zeus is such an asshole that “Zeus’ side” might still include some pretty damning details because Zeus would fail to recognize that he’d done anything wrong that he might want to leave out. I was impressed that Percy took the time to try and look Gary up, though, even if the attempt was unsuccessful. That’s character development hard at work, folks.)

[aroaceleovaldez]

I’ve seen quite a few people discuss TSATS specifically in the manner that it’s supposed to be a middle-grade book, and I’d like to throw my two cents into the hat.

Particularly, I don’t think it’s reasonable to excuse the failings of TSATS just because it’s supposed a middle-grade book. The failings of the book are primarily structural, both narratively and just in basic writing structure, neither of which are excusable of a middle-grade novel - Especially given this is Mark Oshiro’s first major foray into middle-grade, as they typically write YA. It also seems that TSATS’ rating is actually upper middle-grade, so there’s even less excuse for the quality of the book. The problem isn’t that the book is bad to a non-middle-grade reader, or even bad as a middle-grade book, the problem is that the book is bad in general. So much of the book’s quality and execution feels just so poor in ways that you would typically expect to get caught very early on by the editorial team. Being middle-grade doesn’t excuse it being structurally bad for any reading level. It feels like the editorial team didn’t care about the quality of the book at all. There’s an unreasonable amount of places where the sentence and paragraph structures are poor, the writing is unclear, there’s basic continuity errors within the same sentence, the pacing is bad, and an overall lack of grammatical consistency (you can actually tell which portions of the book are written by Rick Riordan versus Mark Oshiro based purely on the use of s’ or s’s - if you see something like “Hades’s palace“ then it’s Riordan, and if it’s something like “Hades’ palace” then it’s Oshiro - this type of inconsistency should have been made consistent by the editing team).

The book also completely fumbles its attempts at handling its intended themes with any kind of grace or respect to the reader. TSATS being middle-grade (particularly upper middle-grade) doesn’t mean it can’t feature heavy themes, or that it has to dumb them down for a younger audience! I speak as someone who is extremely familiar with the Animorphs series - which is actually lower middle-grade. It’s basically like the poster-child for presenting complex themes and ideas appropriately in a middle-grade series. The way middle-grade is formatted is it’s about the writing structure (how simplified vs complex it is and so how easy is it for a middle-grade reader to understand) and how the concepts are presented, not about the actual concepts themselves. Animorphs is a really good example of this in that most of the books are less than 300 pages and the language is very simple. However, it doesn’t shy away from strong topics or dumb concepts down for the audience. It balances heavy topics with jokes in stride (see: The entire book about psychochemical warfare and the ethics of that, but the psychochemical warfare in question is dumping instant maple and ginger oatmeal on space slugs). And a lot of Animorphs books are actually ghostwritten! I would also argue the Warrior Cats books are another good example, particularly the novellas. They’re a similar length to TSATS, again written by a team of authors, are middle-grade rated, and don’t shy away from some pretty graphic stuff. They’re not the best books in the world, I mean, they’re rapidly churned out cat books for middle-schoolers. And they also tend to be full of errors. But at the very least most of the errors in the Warrior cat novellas aren’t basic structural stuff that you’d expect an editor to comb out within the first couple of passes or major basic details for a very prominent character or worldbuilding. Something equivalent to the types of errors in TSATS would be like a warrior cats novella about Brightheart not remembering how she got her scars or who Swiftpaw was or what Shadowclan is called, and every three chapters you read the jankiest sentence you’ve ever seen.

There are absolutely ways for the types of themes they were trying to handle in TSATS to be presented to a middle-grade audience appropriately, effectively, and with respect. TSATS was not even close to that. Again, I point to Animorphs! You wanna talk about writing PTSD for a middle-grade audience? Animorphs is your series. Animorphs gets into some heavy shit. But the way it’s presented is always appropriate for a middle-grade audience. Middle schoolers can handle more than people give them credit for (have you ever read middle-schoolers roleplaying warrior cats? I have. they do not hold back.) - they’re at the exact age where that type of stuff is not only interesting to them and they want to read about it, but that it’s important for them to begin to be introduced to those types of concepts in a way that’s appropriate for their age so that they’re prepared for when they encounter those topics or themes when they’re older.

The first Percy Jackson series actually does this really well! Percy has PTSD in the first book from Gabe! This is very clearly acknowledged and referenced throughout the first series (and even into Son of Neptune!) - and it’s specifically from Gabe, not being a demigod. We see characters grapple with grief and witnessing death and being in shock from that (the “dam” scene post-Bianca’s death, and the explicit acknowledgement that all the characters are so emotionally exhausted and harrowed from witnessing Bianca sacrifice herself for them that they get all giggly over stupid “dam” jokes). TSATS refuses to allow any emotional pay-off from the scenes. The Gorgyra interludes are the only thing keeping the pacing from being absolutely abhorred for half the book. There’s tons of narrative set-up that goes nowhere. There’s sentences that are so disjointed you wonder how they got written in the first place. This book shouldn’t have gotten past the editors, honestly.

[strangefable]

oh my GOD the comments on that post about lit students not reading more than middle grade are so infuriating.

one person said they are a lit student and then immediately followed it by saying 'no one enjoys doing it you just have to' and like. my guy. you're wrong. i very much DID and still DO enjoy analyzing literature and structuring coherent arguments about how and why. you are IN THE WRONG FIELD if you do not enjoy it.

it is FINE to like to read rick riordan. it is FINE if you just like reading for fun! it's a great hobby! no one is expecting you to change that!

but if you want to STUDY LITERATURE in an academic setting, you are going to fucking FAIL if the only books you like are middle grade and your strongest arguments are 'i like it because it's fun' or 'i like it because it teaches good lessons' or 'idk i just like it'

YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL. you are missing the point entirely. YEAH you SHOULD enjoy your assignments at least SOME of the time. you should LIKE reading a story and figuring out what it means and how it's being told and the mechanics involved. you should be enjoying this. that is very much entirely the goddamn point of studying a subject on a college level.

if you just want a degree just to get you a high paid job after, STOP STUDYING LITERATURE. get a business degree or project management or marketing or accounting or programming. i promise that'll make you way more money. and you can still hate your classes. and you can still read the fun books you like.

literature classes are very good at teaching you how to think critically and solve problems and research well and form cogent arguments. but they're not gonna make you The Big Bucks™. (even if you are doing it as pre-law, you are still unlikely to make it if you hate arguing your point so much and hate researching. my guy, that is what the legal field is almost entirely.) in the working world of adults, my degree means very little to most people. UNLESS they are actually acutely aware of the skills i learned from it. (many many MANY people who do the hiring have no fucking goddamn clue.)

a lit degree impresses no one, trust me. so if you're not passionate about it, stop studying it. pick something else.

that is the beauty of college and university, btw. you get to pick the subject you are most interested and passionate about and study it in depth. this is why you pick a lit degree, otherwise you are robbing yourself and punishing yourself. it's okay if it's not for you! pick something you'll like better! you will still learn lots of valuable skills!

and you won't hate every waking moment of your college years!

but by god. if you do not like reading challenging material, if you do not like arguing what your interpretations are and how you got there, if you do not like figuring out why those curtains are blue, do not study literature.

if you cannot offer a more complex book as a favorite to your professor than percy jackson, you're going to hate college. unless you are one of the VERY rare breeds who can argue how rick riordan's work builds on the themes of the original myths and subverts or fails to subvert them, and how the themes and narratives strike real life current event chords (and specify and give details so many details) it's not gonna fly. it just is not what an academic setting is for.

percy can still be your favorite, but you gotta have something bigger to offer in a college class. it doesn't even have to be a 'dusty old canonized white guy'. you can pick a newer author, but they'd better be writing in an adult genre. literary fiction. magical realism. even hard science fiction. try toni morrison. bell hooks. sandra cisneros. there is so much beyond just the 'boring dead white men' out there that is worthwhile and still on the same level.

my dudes i studied tolkien in college, a deep dive with a leading tolkien scholar. i also studied children's literature from an academic (as well as child development) standpoint. it's not all grapes of wrath and ulysses i promise. but it is a lot denser than the things you find on the middle grade and ya shelves.

there is nothing wrong with those books. they're literature too. but in academia you've gotta stretch further out. you have to challenge yourself. this is The Point™

[springzy]

hello again darlings !! sage (s/h) here to introduce the lovely han jieun aka julie. julie was created to fulfill my true crime cravings, so i apologize in advance for any crazy themes you may or may not come across. she's quite the girl for someone her age anyways. with a high iq and the luxury of a golden spoon, she's everything you'd expect—pastel pinks, diamond jewelry, short skirts, straight hair; yet a blunt attitude underneath all the glitter that puts herself in the wrong situations. especially since she works as an administrative assistant in the town hall. so, i'm sure you'll be seeing plenty of her pretty face if you enjoy it or not.

♡ 정보 𓂃 ⋆ profile & memories & connections.

like this for a dm or reply to this for a starter.

— the tl;dr

han jieun / julie • march 13th, 1999 • second born by han junseo, hanul ai founder & bae saran • top of class oxford graduate • ex-nis agent intern and author, current administrative assistant • floor 9, unit 3 • pisces, rabbit, intj-a, true neutral(?)

tw: abuse (mental and physical), cheating, murder, death, underaged victims, and mentions of serial cases.

— the story

unfortunately given birth in a family that expected the most. she was intelligent, sure, but the good grades and awards wasn't enough to please her father. everything revolved around her older brother, han jiwoo, who was set to run the company.

presented herself as a typical rich girl, most likely for attention than anything else. from high heels, perfect makeup, attractive looks, expensive brands, and a no-can-do attitude—at least her classmates could give her the attention (and drama) she craved.

took up tennis in middle school via her mother. probably one of the only things she actually grew attached to.

but then in high school, her best friend who also practiced tennis, was killed at a competition in the locker rooms. julie saw the whole thing and who did it, but she didn't have the courage to stop it from happening. the culprit got away. in the end, she developed a strong fear against blood and a slight ptsd from witnessing that at her age.

luckily she found her calling through that event. she got shipped off to oxford then decided to study law and psychology. her goal was to work on understanding the human mind and why they do what they do (yes.. this is basically criminal minds lol).

met her best friends there, went to a lot of parties, gained honor's through oxford, was an overall well rounded student. this was the time of her life she felt most like herself.

oh yeah, did i mention she got engaged?

after returning to korea she managed to score an internship with the nis via recommendations and her high iq score. here she worked on a lot of serial or extreme cases with her team. she even anonymously wrote a book called "under oath" about some of the cases.

but then got murdered by the lover of one of the brutal killers she wrote about. it happened in an alleyway with a hammer. how fun, am i right?

— the sequel

arriving in ansong she doesn't remember much of how it started. the first thing she can really put together is: standing in front of the apartment's desk that already had her unit prepared for her.

by a month later and she's managed to capture a job at the town hall. she just felt most inclined to work for the city. an easy office job where she simply works with files and paperwork all day.

eventually she put the pieces together that she used to attend oxford. all of her friends and memories there feel nostalgic, but also confuse her too much. she honestly tries to avoid thinking about it because the entire concept makes her feel sick to her stomach.

she likes to spend her free time at the library, book stores, coffee shops, or flower venues. she likes pretty things or trying to avoid all the bad things in her head by using those items.

there's not a whole lot since she's still very new to town. all she can 100% understand is that she wants to stay in ansong for quite some time. she has no want or need to remember her life. it scares her anyways.

— the connections

anyone that loves her fashion taste and wants to learn.

maybe floor neighbors she’s not familiar with.

a best friend she talks to everyday!

someone to share work drama/complain about boss with.

strangers meeting at bad moments.

a food employee that she’s a regular for.

group of friends that sees movies every week together.

give me more negative based relationships!

or go to her connections page for more in depth ideas.

besides that: more to be added eventually.

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖

:)

(almost) 258 for 📖 (x2 for the other ask)

---

Buck doesn’t really know what to do. He doesn’t know how to be. This isn’t… This isn’t his strong suit. 

It might have been. He almost got there. With Abby. When her mother died, Buck had been all in. He tried to comfort her. Was there for whatever she needed, twenty-four seven. Helped with the funeral. All of it. But he supposes, now, that it wasn’t enough. 

He’s never known how to be enough. 

“Uh,” Buck mumbles now, watching Eddie. Who he doesn’t owe anything. Who isn’t expecting him to be anything at all. “Let me know if there’s any extra support I can offer to Chris, okay?”

Eddie nods. “Thanks, man.”

And that’s it.

He doesn’t see a lot more of Eddie Diaz that year. 

2020

ix.

“Okay, you ready for the study questions?” Buck asks. 

“Yes!” Chris replies confidently. 

“The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States from which country?” 

“France!” Chris answers. 

“Nice,” Buck praises.  “Independence Day commemorates what event?” 

“The Declaration of Independence,” Chris says. “Duh.” 

Buck smirks. “Correct. In what year did the Civil War begin?”

“Uh… 1860?”

“Not quite,” Buck says. “Close though.”

“1861!”

“Did you actually know that or was it the next easiest guess?” Buck asks skeptically.

“Well, was it right?” Chris asks cheekily. 

“It was…”

“So I knew,” Chris says. 

Buck chuckles. “You’re trouble. But, trouble that’s ready for his American history quiz.”

“Yes!” Chris cheers. “Thank you, Buck.”

“Anytime, kiddo.”

Chris is still coming to the library several times a week. Buck has gotten pretty familiar with his classes and homework. He helps Chris more than any other kid. Not because Chris necessarily needs more help or isn’t getting it elsewhere. That’s not it. Just… They kind of have a good thing going. Buck understands how Chris learns best, and he has fun helping him research. From the fourth grade equivalent of a book report, to a science project on bugs, and now, for basic American history. 

Today, they’ve got extra time. It’s over half an hour after Eddie or Carla - or occasionally Christopher’s aunt, Pepa - comes to pick him up. Most of the other kids have gone home. No one has come for Christopher.

“Hey, Chris, who is coming to get you tonight?” Buck asks as Chris cleans up his history workbook. 

“My dad,” Chris says. “After work.”

Ah, okay. Firefighter shifts can be unpredictable, Buck has learned. You don’t just clock out in the middle of an emergency because your shift is over. You wait it out. Unlike the library. Which is closing soon. 

“He’s probably just stuck at a fire, huh?” Buck asks.

“Or a car accident or medical emergency,” Chris recites dutifully. 

“Alright, well we can be patient,” Buck says. 

“Yeah,” Chris says. “Can I read some comic books instead of homework?”

“Of course you can!” Buck says. “Homework help hour is over.”

Another half hour passes, and it’s time for Buck to close up the library. Chris is the only visitor left in the building besides Jackie. Jackie is an older lady who does puzzle books on the couch of the front foyer several hours a day without fail. She comes to a lot of the library’s special programming too. The kind that isn’t for families and kids, like author talks and craft nights. She’s pretty sweet, and always heads out as soon as Buck starts closing shop. Buck gives her a little wave, and she tells him to have a good night.

“See you tomorrow, Jackie!” He calls as she leaves. 

Buck gives it ten more minutes. Watches Chris reading comics in the kids’ section. Eddie still doesn’t show up. It’s dark outside. Rainy. Buck has heard thunder at least twice. He starts to get worried. 

He logs back onto the library admin computer and looks up Eddie’s number. He calls from his personal cell. It goes to voicemail. 

“Hey, Eddie. This is Buck. Uh, the librarian. You know who I am. Anyway, the library is closing and I’ve got Chris here with me. Just hoping to get an update on your ETA. Thanks.”

A few minutes pass. Eddie doesn’t return his call. He tries Carla. She doesn’t answer either. Buck doesn’t have Pepa’s number. This isn’t good. 

“Buck,” Christopher approaches the desk quietly. “Is my dad going to be here soon? I’m hungry.”

Yeah, so is Buck. It’s definitely past dinnertime. 

“I, uh… I haven’t heard from him.” Buck admits. “But let me make one more call and see what I can do, okay? Maybe I can order us some takeout.”

“Okay,” Chris mumbles. His voice is missing its usual spark of joy. He’s scared. Buck understands why.

But Buck has one more option. He doesn’t have Chimney’s phone number, so he steps away from Christopher for privacy, and calls his sister. 

“Evan?” Maddie picks up after two rings. “I’m on break. What’s up?”

“Hey, can you send me Chimney’s number? Or, like, call him for me?”

“Sure, but he’s working. He won’t pick up for a while. Why?” 

“Well, I’m here with Eddie’s son,” Buck explains. “The library is closing and no one has come to pick him up.”

“Oh, shoot. No one came? I guess that means you haven’t heard.” 

Buck’s stomach drops. “Heard what?”

“The call Chim and Eddie’s firehouse is at… It went kind of bad… It’s on the news.”

“H-how bad?” Buck asks.

“Well…” Maddie sounds nervous. “I don’t know for sure what’s going on. But I think…” 

“What, Maddie?” Buck presses.

“One of them, not Chimney, is trapped underground. I saw Chim being extracted on the news, rescuing a kid. There was a mudslide… It could be Eddie.” 

“Oh, fuck,” Buck says. Library language be damned. 

“Yeah…”  Maddie sighs. 

“Okay, listen…” Buck groans. “I can’t get in touch with any of Christopher’s approved pickup people. There are procedures for this, and I don’t like them. So… I’m going to break the rules.”

“What do you mean?” Maddie asks.

“I’m going to take Chris to grab dinner, and then I’ll drive him to the firehouse. Can you tell Chimney to tell Eddie? And update me if anything else happens?”

“Are you going to get in trouble?” Maddie asks.

“Only if Eddie files a complaint.”

📖

“So something is wrong with my dad,” Chris says, over a McDonald’s dinner. Buck could have probably done better than this; but he had no time to prepare and it’s not like anyone has ever taught him to cook. 

“Why do you say that?” Buck asks. 

“Because if he was just running late, he would have called you,” Chris explains.

Buck takes a sip of his Coke. He doesn’t know how to handle this. This kid lost his mother not even a full year ago. He’s probably terrified of losing his dad, too. 

“Well, okay, Chris… Something is going on.”

Chris pauses, midway through reaching for a chicken nugget. 

“What is it?” Chris asks. 

“Well, you know how my sister works for 9-1-1?” Buck asks.

Chris nods. 

“She says that your dad’s firehouse responded to a pretty scary call,” Buck explains. “So he’s out there being a brave hero right now. And that might take a while.”

Chris sighs. “Okay.”

“Are you still okay to hang out with me until we hear from him?” Buck asks.

Chris nods. “Yeah. Thank you for the Happy Meal.”

“Anytime, kiddo,” Buck says. 

📖

He gets the call from Chimney an hour later. They’re in the car, driving to the fire station. 

“Hey, man. Maddie says you have Christopher?” Chimney says when Buck answers the phone.

“Yeah, I do. Uh, you’re on speaker. I’m driving to you. Chris is in the backseat. He can hear you, okay?”

“Uh, okay. Hey, Chris. How’s it going, buddy?” 

“It’s good. Buck bought me chicken nuggets,” Chris says.

“Oh, that’s great, kid,” Chim replies.

“Uh, so, h-how is Eddie?” Buck interjects.

Chim takes a moment to reply. 

“Well, listen. He’s okay. But it was a hard call. And Eddie… Your dad, Chris, he was… He was underground for longer than we would have liked. He had some trouble getting out. So he’s pretty cold and a little banged up. But he’s gonna be just fine.”

Buck feels a wave of relief.

“That’s great, Chim,” he exhales. “Thanks, man. We’re on our way. We cool to stop by the firehouse?”

“Yeah. We’re on our way back, too. I think Eddie would really like to see Chris.” 

“I want to see my dad!” Chris exclaims. 

“We’ll be there soon,” Buck promises.

[pidgeeepombo]

°•*RADIO SILENCE*•°- Alice Oseman

°•book review•°

Hi my dear space readers! How are you?

Firstly, I'll say: this post will have many >MANY< SPOILERS!

It's just a personal opinion about this book that I love so much, and I have no one to talk about, if you want, comment your opinions about it too! Oh, and English isn't my first language, so sorry for any grammatical errors! And sorry for the long post btw🌷

Well, I finished another osemanverse book, Radio silence. And I have many considerations to make.

But first of all I wanted to say WHAT AN AMAZING BOOK. MY GOD ALICE IS A LEGEND! I just love it

So, this book took me much longer to read than it took me Solitarie, even though it was shorter, the beginning of the book took a while to capture me, but as I read and understood Francis's feelings more, seeing the construction From her friendship with Aled, the revelations about Carrys and also the entries into the universe city, I simply fell in love with the book.

I even think that Francis and Aled are my favorite characters.

(I already say that i love this book?)

I was able to identify with Francis (even though my academic life is much more similar to Carys' in terms of grades) and I thought it was really amazing How the author brought up this theme of "do I really have a real personality or do I Am I just pretending to everyone??" this is just incredible.

Besides, reading this book makes me see how HORRIBLE internet fandoms can be. The discovery that RADIO was ALED reminded me a lot of the events in "I was born for this" (another book by the same author)

My memory is horrible, I just know that on one page Aled and Francis were just being happy and a few pages later I was in tears. The scene where Francis says sorry to Aled gave me strong crying spells in the middle of class.......... (In fact my friend who sits next to me started reading this page with me, she told me that "I would never read anything I was reading again because I only read sad things" while he looked at me almost crying)

By the way, Omg, IS SOMEONE PUTTING CAROL LAST'S OLD LADY IN AN ASYLUM??? SHE'S A TERRIBLE MOTHER, MAN SHE KILLED ALED'S DOG, I ALMOST THROW THE BOOK AT THE WALL IN THAT PAGE #ihatethatwoman.

I confess that I miss seeing Aled's view of the events a little, since his only points of view in the book are in the Universe City eps. but I think that at the same time the universe of the city was the only way that Aled had to express himself, and as Daniel says in the book that it seemed that the universe of the city was the only thing that Aled really liked to do, it also gives the feeling that he was “trapped in his own world”, as is also mentioned in the book.

Aled Last shows us even without a POV how depression separates us from others. And how narcissistic mothers ruin their children's mental health (I hate you Caroll)

And Francis shows us how everything other people expect from ourselves shapes our personality. Even though we convince ourselves that we know ourselfs.

One of the phrases I liked most in the book was: "I can take some aggression from time to time. I'm strong. I'm a star. Cyborgs live and fall apart, but I'll never fall apart. Even when the dust of my bones flies over the walls From the city, I'll be living and I'll be swaying, I'll wave and laugh." -universe city ep 132 (book: radio Silencio by Alice oseman)

Sooooooo this is it! Bye space readers! See yaa on another post!✨

Art by @aliceoseman!💖

[liketwoswansinbalance]

What is your favorite thing about SGE series and why?

I have multiple favorite things, so you can expect me to elaborate for a while.

One of my favorite things from the series is Soman’s novel concept of "psyche travel," and for christening it with an actual name.

I’ve only seen this concept in a few other, more science-fiction or speculative type of stories, like the Divergent series, The Giver quartet, "The Veldt," a fascinating short story by Ray Bradbury (which TOTSMOV41 is very much inspired by) and the Artemis Fowl series, which involves time manipulation that wasn't strictly time travel (which is far more commonly seen in fiction). And I love Soman's more fantastical spin on psyche travel! To me, the concept was previously called "mental landscapes" or simply "simulations" of reality. "Psyche travel" as a term is just far broader and more versatile, and I feel like you could do more with it, experimentally.

In fact, I would've loved it if Soman could've left more room in his tight plots to explore human consciousness and "the cauldron of the unconscious" more in TCY, so I will be doing exactly that with the themes in my longfic TOTSMOV41. If anyone wants to know more about TOTSMOV41, I'll redirect you to this table of contents/introductory post.

My fic's entire premise reflects how much I loved that one scene in ACOT. It was absolutely brilliant, especially with the edited views of what reality once was, how subjective memory could be. Plus, in that moment, ACOT managed to combine a few of my major interests: psychology and how generally error-prone the human mind and memory are, surreal imagery in literature, and delving further into SGE’s soft, irrational/nebulous, thematically-relevant magic system. (The way I see it, problems are more often unintentionally created than intentionally solved with magic, and we understand little of it, what goes on magically, really, and can't logically extrapolate what the characters could possibly do said magic. So, the magic is framed as unstable and flexible, even while it does reflect the state of the world and the important relationships in the tales. Thus, that's how I might classify the SGE system. You're welcome to disagree on which type of magic system it is though!)

The following points are probably more obvious:

First, Soman’s prose and images overall are enthralling, and his use of VERBS, especially, rivals few authors that write for a younger demographic, at least in my opinion. It’s often just so well done. It's the little things, like using "scalded" or "pinked" instead of "blushed" that I love. Soman's use of language is so inventive at times, and I love trying to imitate it. Verbs can make or break a piece of writing in my mind.

Also, I love the extravagance and length and readability of this particular book one sentence that I think is underrated for the sheer exasperation embedded in it:

“After chastising her for slipping in the Ever ranks, explaining every assignment thrice, and berating her to cover her mouth when she coughed, Pollux finally left in a circus of hops and falls.”

It’s fabulously sweeping and exhaustive.

In addition, the third person omniscient pov is less common nowadays, I think. So much of middle grade and YA is in first person these days, so it may be a trend, for its immediacy. Though, I tend to prefer third person, even if my preference also generally depends on how well the work was executed.

I love SGE for its basis in fairy tales since I loved reading the classic Grimms' fairy tales before I discovered SGE—they were probably my favorites for a while (and still sort of are, alongside SGE). And they inhabited my storytelling before I ever discovered more subversive things existed. Thus, it's the overall darkness and the dramatics I find compelling about Soman's work.

The cleverness in the writing, when it’s well-executed, is phenomenal. And this applies to two aspects: first, Rafal, obviously, and second, the plot structure itself.

When I say Rafal, I mean specifically during the moments in which he shows off his conniving craftiness, his prowess at outfoxing others. And I love any instances of scenes in which he tricks or outwits people and systems.

Someday, I’ll have to remember to discuss the Fala-shoe-fairy-kiss scene from Fall, one of my favorites ever, in a future post. Those particular thoughts must be somewhere in my scads of drafts... I’ll have to look for them. For now, I will give you any thoughts I have now:

I'm referring to the scene in which Fala lures a fairy with a golden kiss and traps it in his shoe without a single word of verbal explanation, and he expects everyone to intuitively follow his genius thought process, the solution to their dilemma. Then, everyone, except Aladdin, manages to catch on, when they watch his demonstration.

Here's an (exaggerated?) approximation of how I'd imagine his internal monologue could've gone:

Watch and learn, youths. I’m better than you. In innumerable ways, and this is one. But fear not! I will lead you to success. No one else is capable of doing it. Yes, I will take on this burden myself. Give me all the credit. But don’t even bask in my cleverness, even if it deserves your attention. My actions speak for themselves. Just get the task done. Now. We don’t have all day to dilly-dally like inane cowards.

I will redirect you to this post, if you would like to read more about how I happen to interpret Rafal's "trickery," or rather, absence of trickery, perhaps.

And for my second spiel on the series' cleverness, elaborating on its predictable unpredictability, on a structural level, even if I only saw it in hindsight:

I love any kind of legerdemain or sleights of hand, or twisting of plots, except the devastating Fall one, I suppose. And there is something very characteristic of SGE I've observed: there are often, very, exceedingly late third act turning-points. These points are likely hallmarks of the series, to the extent that I've come to expect them by now, especially after Rise, and sometimes, I'm probably actively on the lookout for them when I read other books. Besides, Soman likes to lull readers into a false sense of security, that much we can probably confirm.

Furthermore, these turning-points seem to take two forms and you can literally only expect one of two things to happen.

It's either: 1) the characters reach a point of what should be a settled peaceable resolution, that is then rapidly negated, or 2) the characters reach a darkest-night-of-the-soul moment, the prospect of temptation in the story, often for an individual, and wishes are granted (often in subversive, unfulfilling ways to almost everyone's dismay).

Examples:

1) In Rise and TLEA: you think you are safe, that you're out of the dark Woods (which often represent the darkness of the soul or the human psyche as a symbol) but you're not. There is no built-in "warmth" to the narration, as Soman puts it in one of his interviews. This all is literally the narrative's "liar's tell" or "slip" in the third act, a revisiting of conflict, the reopening of the tale. You know there is more disaster to come. The ride is not over yet, however much you may think or desire it to be so.

In AWWP, characters say and believe the wrong things, are misled, and narrowly miss a possible "happy" ending because Sophie felt alienated enough to choose Rafal, who chose her.

In TLEA, we think everything is resolved, but all of a sudden, we get one more little impact, a jolt, that not all is well or completely restored, the moment Aric kills Lady Lesso.

In Rise, when Rafal is revived and reclaims the Schools from Vulcan, setting everything back into their original, proper forms, back to order, we think we've averted all crises, and have reverted back to the status quo. But, that resolution, again, is only momentary. Supposedly, Rhian's Evil, his rot, was awakened, and the moment Rafal considers leaving again and does, to seek out a new replacement student, is when the plot begins to race downhill again. When Rafal leaves, he leaves a gap for Rhian's poor judgement to bleed through, and Rhian hires Hook, effectively setting off the second wave of awful plot events in Fall. Rhian sort of resurrected old conflicts, and breathed new life into them.

2) Before the Great War in TLEA and the climax, we get tonal signposting that nearly "all is lost," that we're approaching, marching towards our imminent demise. There's an ever-present fog of "Abandon all hope, ye who enter" because if there's anything Rafal's good at, it's cultivating an air of stifling oppression. Hence, we have the narrow aversion of the darkest moment:

Agatha (unlike prequel Rafal with Evil Rhian) doesn't use the wrong emotional appeal. She gets through to Sophie, she and Tedros aren't executed, and Sophie destroys the ring, killing Rafal. Despite everything that said otherwise, that said Good would lose.

Lastly, a few other bits I appreciate are the roles the Seers play in the series, the meta aspects of the Storian (or Lionsmane) and the tales in general, and the names of a lot of the proper nouns such as the kingdoms—I don't know why I love some of them. The alliteration is oftentimes fun, and the names feel right and plausible.