#(she literally does say that in the afterword of the secret country)

[lindensea]

After the disappointment that was The Box of Delights (book), back to The Hidden Land by Pamela Dean, and my goodness, the plotting and stakes of this trilogy go so hard. Pamela Dean really said I'm going to make a series for young readers GUARANTEED to hold up when adults go back for a reread

[ascendance-bookworm]

hi pls i need to talk to someone about p2 v4 i just finished it and it destroyed me emotionally FNAKNF DUDE when did this series go from 'haha paper making nerd rants worldbuilding and criticism of capitalism' to 'want to cry at 4am and have your heart absolutely crushed?'

[MAJOR SPOILERS FOR P2 V4]

i'm not ready to let go of so many of the cast and them not being recurring supporting characters anymore AT ALL also call an ambulance bc i'm losing it over the afterword,,,, author WDYM you wrote heidi and josef as what myne and lutz could have been had she not had the devouring dude recommend me ascendance of a bookworm fics asap i need fluff or at least angst with a happy ending bc ohmygod

Okay, right yeah that is a tough ending, but I assure you it does get better and worse, lol there is a lot of ups and downs in this series and believe me you really do get invested in the new characters in part 3+ as well.

The characters in P1-2 will still be around, but they will mostly move to the background, continuing to work on Myne's projects. Most of them have already achieved their goals / dreams thanks to Myne and she continues to stay as connected and loyal as she can, but she also has new people and problems to deal with as a noble.

I can see the Heidi and Josef comparison, lol

I've actually thought about this and it is actually quite a genius bit of worldbuilding that the author is using this one character to show us what life is like on all the different levels of this world, and the parts that Myne isn't privy to she embellishes though the extra POVs. It really makes the world so rich.

P1 With Myne we start off as a lowly commoner, a simple family that works hard to make every penny count, but there is lots of love and affection. Then we see what merchants are like though Benno and Corina, etc... and how there lives are more comfortable, but still they work hard and serve the nobles who have all the real power.

P2 Then Myne joins the temple and we get an idea of how the gods of this work and that mana and magic play a real role in how this world operate. We see how the poor or low mana nobles are treated and how orphans are treated. There are real problems, but Myne can only do so much given her age and status... but she is mana rich so... Where you are, P2 V4.

P3 Myne is adopted and becomes a noble. This is done to secure her mana for the province, but it also gives Myne some position and power, real power as the adopted daughter of the most powerful family in the province. Now we learn about Ehrenfest and more about all the factions and in fighting and why the province is so mana deprived that Myne would be adopted in secret like she is. It really starts to get more interesting with the politics of the country.

P4 Myne attends mana school and learns about the other provinces and the power dynamics between them all and even more power plays are in play, especially as we start interacting with the royals too.

I don't want to say too much more, but we are basically going on a journey and learning about every level of this world from commoner to royalty and how Myne's unusual behavior and thinking and past knowledge helps her but also puts a target on her back as she unearths the core problems of this world. She is never not causing trouble or standing out just like she did in P1-2, even when all she wants to do is read quietly and plan her future library, lol

So far this series hasn't disappointed me, I only love it more and more! You do miss some of the characters being around and being more active, but they are still there and we still get little tidbits on what they are up to, just the focus has shifted into new areas where the country as a whole literally needs someone like Myne to shake them up and out of their ridged traditions, bias thinking, and inject some basic common sense into their thought processes.

She was reincarnated into this world for a reason ^_^

Hope this helps you a bit and you continue to read the series! Myne's family find ways to stay connected, and it is actually one of the more heartwarming aspects of the series. Their bond is strong and true.

[bogkeep]

hmmmmmmmmmm maybe i’ll write an Introspective Musing Post about my relationship to religion and their depiction in stories because i’ve pondering about this topic lately

so for those who are reading this and DON’T know what’s been going on...  there’s this webcomic i fell in love with some years ago, about six years actually, that depicts a post-apocalyptic fantasy/horror adventure set in the nordic countries. it had, and has still, some very uncomfortable flaws regarding racial representation, and the creator has historically not dealt very well with criticism towards it. it’s a whole Thing. my relationship with this comic has fluctuated a lot, since there are a lot of elements in it i DO love and i still feel very nostalgic about, and like idk i felt like i trust my skills in critical thinking enough to keep reading. aaand then the creator went a teensy bit off the deep end created a whole minicomic which is like... a lukewarm social media dystopia where christians are oppressed (and also everyone is a cute bunny, including our lord and saviour jesus christ). which is already tonedeaf enough considering there are religious people who DO get prosecuted for their faith, like, that’s an actual reality for a lot of people - but as far as i can tell, usually not christians. and then there’s an afterword that’s like, “anyway i got recently converted and realized i’m a disgusting human being full of sin who doesn’t deserve redemption but jesus loves me so i’ll be fine!! remember to repent for your sins xoxo” and a bunch of other stuff and IT’S KIND OF REALLY CONCERNING i have, uh, been habitually looking at the reactions to and discussions around this, maybe it’s not very self care of me but there’s a lot of overwhelming things rn and it’s fantastically distracting, yknow? like, overall this situation is fairly reminiscent of the whole jkr thing. creator of a series that is Fairly Beloved, does something hurtful, handles backlash in a weird way, a lot of people start taking distance from Beloved Series or find ways to enjoy it on their own terms, creator later reveals to have been fully radicalized and releases a whole manifesto, and any and all criticism gets framed as harassment and proving them right. of course, one of them is a super rich person with a LOT of media power and a topic that is a lot more destructive in our current zeitgeist, and the other is an independent webcomic creator, so it’s  not the same situation. just similar vibez ya feel as a result of this, i have been Thinking. and just this feels like some sort of defeat like god dammit she got me i AM thinking about the topic she wrote about!!! i should dismiss the whole thing!!! but thinking about topics is probably a good thing so hey lets go. me, i’m agnostic. i understand that this is a ‘lazy’ position to take, but it’s what works for me. i simply do not vibe with organized religion, personally. (i had the wikipedia page for ‘chaos magic’ open in a tab for several weeks, if that helps.) i was raised by atheists in a majorly atheist culture. christian atheist, i should specify. norway has been mostly and historically lutheran, and religion has usually been a private and personal thing. it turns out the teacher i had in 7th grade was mormon, but i ONLY found out because he showed up in a tv series discussing religious groups in norway later, and he was honestly one of the best teachers i have ever had - he reignited the whole class’ interest in science, math, and dungeons and dragons. it was a real “wait WHAT” moment for my teenage self. i think i was briefly converted to christianity by my friend when i was like 7, who grew up in a christian family (i visited them a couple times and always forgot they do prayers before dinner. oops!), but like, she ALSO made me believe she was the guardian of a secret magic orb that controls the entire world and if i told anybody the world would burn down in 3 seconds. i only suspected something was off when one day the Orb ran on batteries, and another day the Orb had to be plugged in to charge. in my defense i really wanted to be part of a cool fantasy plot. i had no idea how to be a christian beyond “uuuuh believe in god i guess” so it just faded away on its own. when i met this friend several years later, she was no longer christian. i think every childhood friend of mine who grew up in a christian family, was no longer christian when they grew up. most notably my closest internet friend whose family was catholic - she had several siblings, and each of them took a wildly different path, from hippie treehugger to laveyan satanist or something in that area. (i joined them for a sermon in a church when they visited my town. my phone went off during it because i had forgotten to silence it. oops!) ((i also really liked their mother’s interpretation of purgatory. she explained it as a bath, not fire. i like that.)) i have never had any personal negative experiences with christianity, despite being openly queer/gay/trans. the only time someone has directly told me i’m going to hell was some guy who saw me wearing a hoodie on norway’s constitution day. yeah i still remember that you bastard i’ve sworn to be spiteful about it till the day i die!! i’ve actually had much more insufferable interactions with the obnoxious kind of atheists - like yes yes i agree with you on a lot but that doesn’t diminish your ability to be an absolute hypocrite, it turns out? i remember going to see the movie ‘noah’ with a friend who had recently discovered reddit atheism and it was just really exhausting to discuss it with her. one of these Obnoxious Atheists is my Own Mother. which is a little strange, honestly, because she LOVES visiting churches for the Aesthetic and Architecture. we cannot go anywhere without having to stop by a pretty church to Admire and Explore. I’VE BEEN IN SO MANY CHURCHES FOR AN ATHEIST RAISED NON-CHRISTIAN. i’ve been to the vatican TWICE (i genuinely don’t even know how much of my extended family is christian. up north in the tiny village i come from, i believe my uncle is the churchkeeper, and it’s the only building in the area that did not get burnt down by the the nazis during ww2 - mostly because soldiers needed a place to sleep. still don’t know whether or not said uncle believes or not, because hey, it’s Personal) i think my biggest personal relationship to religion, and christianity specifically, has been academic. yeah, we learned a brief synopsis of world religions at school (and i remember the class used to be called ‘christianity, religion, and ethics’ and got changed to ‘religion, beliefs, and ethics’ which is cool. it was probably a big discourse but i was a teen who didnt care), but also my bachelor degree is in art history, specifically western art history because it’s a vast sprawling topic and they had to distill it as best they could SIGHS. western art history is deeply entangled with the history of the church, and i think the most i’ve ever learnt about christianity is through these classes (one of my professors wrote an article about how jesus can be interpreted as queer which i Deeply Appreciate). i also specifically tried to diversify my academic input by picking classes such as ‘depiction of muslims and jewish people in western medieval art’ and ‘art and religion’ when i was an exchange student in canada, along with 101 classes in anthropology and archaeology. because i think human diversity and culture is very cool and i want to absorb that knowledge as best as i can. i think my exchange semester in canada was the most religiously diverse space have ever been in, to be honest. now as an adult i have more christian friends again, but friends who chose it for themselves, and who practice in ways that sound good and healthy, like a place of solace and community for them. the vast majority of my friends are queer too, yknow?? i’ve known too many people who have seen these identities as fated opposites, but they aren’t, they’re just parts of who people are. it’s like... i genuinely love people having their faiths and beliefs so much. i love people finding that space where they belong and feel safe in. i love people having communities and heritages and connections. i deeply respect and admire opening up that space for faith within any other communities, like... if i’m going to listen to a podcast about scepticism and cults, i am not going to listen to it if it’s just an excuse to bash religion. i think the search for truth needs to be compassionate, always. you can acknowledge that crystals are cool and make people happy AND that multi level marketing schemes are deeply harmful and prey on people in vulnerable situaitons. YOU KNOW???? so now’s when i bring up Apocalypse Comic again. one of the things i really did like about it was, ironically, how it handled religion. in its setting, people have returned to old gods, and their magic drew power from their religion. characters from different regions had different beliefs and sources. in the first arc, they meet the spirit of a lutheran pastor, who ends up helping them with her powers. it was treated as, in the creators own words, ‘just another mythology’. and honestly? i love that. it was one of the nicest depictions i’ve seen of christianity in fiction, and as something that could coexist with other faiths. I Vibe With That. and then, uh, then... bunny dystopia comic. it just... it just straight up tells you christianity is literally the only way to..?? be a good person??? i guess?? i’m still kind of struggling to parse what exactly it wanted to say. the evil social media overlord bird tells you the bible makes you a DANGEROUS FREETHINKER, but the comic also treats rewriting the bible or finding your own way to faith as something,, Bad. The Bible Must Remain Unsullied. Never Criticize The Bible. also, doing good things just for social media clout is bad and selfish. you should do good things so you don’t burn in hell instead. is that the message? it reads a lot like the comic creator already had the idea for the comic, but only got the urge to make it after she was converted and needed to spread the good word. you do you i guess!! i understand that she’s new to this and probably Going Through Something, and this is just a step on her journey. but the absolute self-loathing she described in her afterword... it does not sound good. i’m just some agnostic kid so what do i know, but i do not think that kind of self-flagellating is a kind faith to have for yourself. i might not ever have been properly religious, but you know what i AM familiar with? a brain wired for ocd and intrusive thoughts. for a lot of my life i’ve struggled with my own kind of purity complex. i’ve had this really strange sensitivity for things that felt ‘tainted’. i’ve experienced having to remove more and more words from my vocabulary because they were Bad and i did not want to sully my sentences. it stacked, too - if a word turned out to be an euphemism for something, i could never feel comfortable saying it again. i still struggle a bit with these things, but i have confronted these things within myself. i’ve had to make myself comfortable with imperfection and ‘tainted’ things and accept that these are just, arbitrary categories my mind made up. maybe that’s the reason i can’t do organized religion even if i found one that fit for me - just like diets can trigger disordered eating, i think it would carve some bad brainpaths for me. so yeah i’m worried i guess! i’m worried when people think it’s so good that she finally found the correct faith even if it’s causing all this self-hate. is there really not a better way? or are they just trusting she’ll find it? and yeah it’s none of my concern, it’s like, i worry for jkr too but i do not want her within miles of my trans self thANKS. so like, i DO enjoy media that explores faith and what it means for you. my favourite band is the oh hellos, which DOES draw on faith and the songwriter’s experience with it. because of my religious iliteracy most of it has flown over my head for years and i’m like “oh hey this is gay” and then only later realize it was about god all along Probably. i like what they’ve done with the place. also, stormlight archive - i had NO idea sanderson was mormon, the way he writes his characters, many of whom actively discuss religion and their relationship to it. i love that about the books, honestly. Media That Explores Religion In A Complex And Compassionate Way... we like that i’ve been thinking about my own stories too, and how i might want to explore faith in them. most of my settings are based on magic and it’s like, what role does religion have in a world where gods are real and makes u magic. in sparrow spellcaster’s story, xe creates? summons? an old god - brings them to life out of the idea of them. it’s a story about hubris, mostly. then there’s iphimery, the story where i am actively fleshing out a pantheon. there’s no doubt the gods are real in the fantasy version of iphimery, they are the source of magic and sustain themselves on slivers of humanity in exchange. but in the modern version, where they are mostly forgotten? that’s some room for me to explore, i think. especially the character of timian, who comes from a smaller town and moves to a large and diverse city. in the fantasy story, the guardian deity chooses his sister as a vessel. in the modern setting, that does not happen, and i don’t yet know what does, but i really want timian to be someone who struggles with his identity - his faith, his sexuality, the expectations cast upon him by his hometown... i’m sure it’s a cliché story retold through a million gay characters but i want to do it too okay. i want to see him carve out his own way of existing within the world because i care him and want to see him thrive!!! alrighty i THINK that’s all i wanted to write. thanks if you read all of this, and if you didn’t that’s super cool have a nice day !

[recentanimenews]

86 –Eighty-Six–, Vol. 7: Mist

By Asato Asato and Shirabii. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Roman Lempert.

The good news for this volume is that, after several promises from the author that did not quite pan out, we finally get a volume that is a breather and relatively lighthearted. The bad news is that this means that Lena falls to pieces, knowing she wants to confess to Shin but being tormented by her own self-loathing… which is something I accused Shin of in the previous volume, so it’s nice to see they have something in common. Things are not helped by a Republic officer showing up and basically being the worst thing ever, reminding her that she was one of the “white pigs” that everyone so rightly despises, and unable to see past that to her own growth. I mention this because it will last the entire volume, and you may find it wearying. Certainly everyone else in the cast does, as (with the exception of Kurena and Frederica) they all really, really want the two to finally get off their asses and confess. Fortunately, they’re in not-Switzerland at a resort, so have the time.

Our heroes are there because, despite a fakeout prologue that tries too hard, they have been on the battlefield FAR too many months in a row, and are entitled to some R&R in order to relax and not have to worry about the Legion attacking at any moment. That means going to a different country altogether, where they can enjoy bathing scenes (with all the fanservice you might expect, including literally lining up in order of breast size), delicious food… well, ersatz food, but some of it is real, spelunking in the nearby mountains, and, perhaps highest on the agenda for the top brass, questioning the Merciless queen, who was captured in the last volume but who doesn’t want to talk to anyone… except Shin. That said, she’s not very happy with the answers that Shin gives to her. But then, her own answers are seemingly not good news for anyone… except Shin knows they have a secret weapon.

Again, this is the closest we’re ever likely to get to 86: the Romcom, and it is very willing to hammer on those buttons – there’s even a pillow fight, fer chrissakes. We do get resolution at the end, I’m happy to say, though if I were the reader I’d avoid reading the Afterword, which has a sort of Monster at the End of This Book “YOU TURNED THE PAGE!” feel to it. There’s some interesting teasing regarding the other characters – I was going to grump about some heteronormative dialogue going on, but later on this is flipped around, and it’s implied we have at least one Eighty-Six who’s a lesbian. The serious stuff is good, I will grant you, and promises some interesting future crises. But I think the author was trying hard for a certain mood here, and mostly succeeds – heck, there’s even one of those “whoops, I walked in on your confession, don’t mind me” (leaves and gets beaten up by everyone else) scenes.

Next volume should resume normal service, I’m sure. Till then, enjoy Shin and Lena being big ol’ dorks and not spitting it out.

By: Sean Gaffney