#5. this book sure is... interesting
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all the discworld novels i've read thus far "ranked"
#me.txt#discworld#tiers explained from top to bottom:#1. iykyk. novels that rattle around like billiard balls#2. novels that made me experience the full range of human emotion. thoroughly enjoyed all of these#3. two thumbs up! i had a good time! good book!#4. the man was confused. books i had trouble following or came out the other side feeling rather neutral about.#5. this book sure is... interesting#obviously these are not truly ranked- like i loved pyramids and mort but like. did they make me cry like monstrous regiment did? no#if i really had to choose my faves i'd have to say the light fantastic / monstrous regiment / small gods / reaper man / guards guards#honorable mentions sourcery and soul music (and the end of pyramids holy shit)
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If I thought the Transformers (Aligned) timeline was convoluted, god the Trollhunters timeline is fucked beyond all hell, and worse of all because they use Merlin - bloody MERLIN - as a character that created the amulet there's an upper limit of time Trollhunters have existed before, heck even Myrddin Wyllt his welsh name (and canonical alternate name in the show), Merlin stops being the Merlin from human myth and starts becoming Merlin a similarly named folkloric character in troll myth-
I wonder if I, a fan coming in at minimum 2023, am arriving to this a little late but- if this isn't going to be a timeline rewrite then let me complain about how specific canonical details contradict with one another, including the glaringly obvious issue of Wizard's addition to the timeline, making Deya the Deliverer the first Trollhunter and thus practically erasing most of the historical Trollhunters or conforming to fit them all in a timeline of 900ish years.
I'll address the elephant in the room when we get to it, but let's set up the basics, both for me and any viewer not already in the know (given that my audience is mostly from transformers and ben 10, I'd say it's a lot of you).
Trolls and humans got off to a bad start, humans living on the surface and trolls having originated from a realm called the Darklands, accessible from a bridge (a gateway) Kilahead bridge. Like with any civilisation there are good and bad trolls, the baddest being Orlagk the Oppressor, leader of the Gumm-Gumms. Having been introduced to the surface, trolls fought with the humans who already lived on it creating the War for the Surface Lands, and their fighting lead the first Heartstone (a gigantic magical gem that serves as the centre of troll caverns, healing them and providing power) to corrupt and birth Gunmar. This war lasted for millennia, Gunmar taking over leadership of the Gumm-Gumms after slaying Orlagk at some vague point, up until the Battle of Kilahead Bridge where the Gumm-Gumms were sealed away in the Darklands again thanks to the Trollhunter Deya the Deliverer.
Okay, sure, that doesn't sound very bad at first, up until you realise that the Battle of Kilahead Bridge was 900 years prior to the series (2016 was it's release date) and thus in the year 1116 AD give or take; the legend of Merlin as a magician, a wizard, was in the 12th century which would've been instead at minimum 1300 AD that's 200 years of difference. Not to mention Angor Rot - a character and antagonist in the show - came begging for magic to stop Gunmar's armies from destroying more and more independant troll tribes, like his own, in 1200 AD at least. Why in the fucking hell would Angor Rot bother to risk his own soul asking for magic, from a sorcerer known as (among many things) the Eldritch Queen, if Gunmar and his Gumm-Gumms were already kept within the Darklands. Gunmar's son Bular, the one Gumm-Gumm to not be banished, is surely not that much of a threat to not one but multiple villages it would send someone to the doorstep of the Pale Lady. In addition, Angor Rot was responsible for killing at least a few Trollhunters, one known and named being Voltar the Voracious, who was the only Trollhunter given an exact year of choosing in 1578. And the fucker is listed BEFORE Deya on the wiki but that alone doesn't mean anything, however she does die in 1620 to Bular, 396 years before the show.
Alright then, so you look at Merlin's mythological existence and go 'now what about the whole thing about millenia' because 12th century doesn't allow the War for the Surface Lands to have a Trollhunter, even with 11 named Trollhunters that come presumably before Deya (Unkar the Unfortunate, despite being trained by Blinky who in human standards - assuming his human body tells us his age - is probably about middle age give or take, fought in the time Gumm-Gumms were still around even if slain by Bular). Given that Trollhunters itself references Merlin's original Welsh name Myrddin (and his in show last name is Ambrosius, which would be Emyrs in the original Welsh, as opposed to Wyllt for 'of the wild), I thought that potentially looking into when Myrddin first came around I would be able to get a better timeline; Myrddin Wyllt was said to have been born - and not just the legend - in 540 AD, which gives between that and 2016 1476 years to work with, allowing the 400ish years ago that Deya died (and the 438 years from when Voltar had the amulet) and the millenia's worth of war the War for the Surface Lands took.
Done deal, right?
Well guess what, some fucker named Spar the Spiteful (not even the first Trollhunter like Deya so proclaims to be) died 5200 years before Jim, our protagonist and first HUMAN Trollhunter, ever picked up the mantle. 5200 years before 2016 is the bloody fucking 4th millenium BC. This period included the beginnings of the Bronze Age, and was the bloody time WRITING was invented! And in Spar's time, there was no DOMESTIC HORSES! HORSE RIDING DIDN'T BLOODY EXIST WHEN SPAR DIED HOW FUCKED IT THAT!?
God FUCKING DAMN IT!
Fine, I can work with this.
Merlin in the show is all the old man we think of him as in myth, but he's also still old when we go back in time to when the Battle of Kilahead Bridge takes place, albeit it without a full head of grey hairs (how does the old man age more than his teen/young adult apprentice) potentially as a young sorcerer/wizard/whatever they use these terms interchangeably, Merlin or Myrddin created the Amulet of Daylight. You could even give more wriggle room between whenever trolls came to the surface and when Merlin made the amulet, because although Orlagk was a figure explicitly older than Gunmar, there is no mention of an amulet without Gunmar simply a time when he was still not a leader. In fact, given that Merlin's original name - Myrddin - came from a riddle designed with the intent to kill Gunmar, a piece informing the Trollhunter teams how to kill Gunmar rather than Orlagk the original leader, perhaps it's befitting to make Myrddin technically younger than the trolls; given that the original purpose of the Amulet of Daylight was not to kill Gunmar but to protect trolls, seeing as how one of the keys to Gunmar's destruction is a Triumbric Stone (one of 3) that resulted in the death of Orlagk, the amulet can date to before Gunmar and have been made after the Gumm-Gumms took out their rage on other trolls instead of humans alone.
The Trollhunter after Spar the Spiteful was Boraz the Bold, named that specifically for taking on 1000 Gumm-Gumms, was killed by Bular who was - as I said - Gunmar's son. While that does not mean that Spar the previous Trollhunter existed before Bular did, it does mean that by the time Boraz was selected after Spar's position Bular was competent enough to slay a Trollhunter, especially one as 'Bold' as Boraz who felled a thousand Gumm-Gumms before falling to 1001. It would mean that his father Gunmar would be much older, potentially tracking further and further back in time and putting Orlagk's death deeper and deeper into the War for the Surface Lands, potentially even aligned Orlagk's death and the Triumbric Stone's creation to a period humans heard of Myrddin, the death of Orlagk potentially landing in 540 AD, perhaps even in 573 AD where an actual battle took place, the Battle of Arfderydd; this details a Riderch Hael, King of Alt Clut (Stratclyde, a Brittonic kingdom in northern... well... Britain, which got annexed in the 11th century AKA 1000 AD to become part of the emerging Kingdom of Scotland) slaughtering the forces of a Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio, Myrddin having gone mad watching that defeat.
The remaining named Trollhunters, ones that weren't explicitly dated and timed, are in a bullshit order on the Wiki that I just have to piece together what is being said to put together a timeline.
Maddrux the Many, he/him in the show and she/her in the comics, was canonically an active Trollhunter before another, Araknak the Agile, was either born or an actual functioning adult; Araknak is the ancestor of the previously mentioned (and assumed to be) middle aged Blinkous Galadrigal and his brother (an older brother or twin depending on who you quote) Dictatious Maximus Galadrigal, the pair being present for the Battle of Kilahead Bridge and still alive by 2016 and idk about Tatious but Blinky appears in 2017 or at least whenever RoTT takes place. To use the term ancestor instead of grandparent or even parent, which technically ancestor can be used on either anyway, means that the exact family history is undetermined. However, we can place Maddrux at the very least on the timeline where Orlagk was still active in, seeing as that was her major enemy in the comics.
At the end of her service instead of going directly to Araknak, a Trollhunter preceded him in Magmar the Molten, the only known mountain troll to be a wielder of Daylight. Interesting to note, Araknak learnt from Magmar a certain combat move so, even before his selection by the amulet Araknak was already preferring the lifestyle of a warrior in comparison to his scholar parents; a trait that outlasted the warrior spirit and descended to the Galadrigals however many years later. Mentioned specifically as preceding not only Araknak but Tellad-Urr, we have another date to place as Tellad-Urr the Triumphant - very soon to be Tellad-Urr the Terrible - was active until 501 CE where Orlagk was still alive; how convientient. It helps that Gogun the Gentle - his immediate successor - would be the only Trollhunter to die of old age, potentially because Gunmar was too busy killing Orlagk and Orlagk too busy being dead for either of them to do anything.
Hopefully Gogun was already an old fart because the oldest recorded troll Chokeenamaga lived to 5352 years and I have no idea if that's slightly above average, notably old, or specific to a troll type (like for example, mountain trolls may have the longest average lifespan of all trollkin), and it's not like I can look at the show for any reference because Draal the Deadly, son of Kanjigar the Couragous and the previous Trollhunter did not age between 900 years yet there are no troll whelps in modern Trollmarket, let alone the fact that the Battle of Kilahead Bridge according to our established Trollhunters could not have happened before 1578 but must have happened between then and 1620. And Draal is an adult in modern day but is rather impulsive and I do not know if that is simply a troll trait or the trait of a twenty something year old that should've had a different design in the past but couldn't because of the limitations of 3D show animation (Prime fans would know or at least see visually that you can't just design a cybertronian version of a bot's root mode without things getting expensive, it's why Skyquake couldn't fly despite looking the same before and after alt mode acquisition).
Speaking of age, this is also the time where Aaarrrgghh!!! was a teenager, which either means that Blinky is actually much younger than Aaarrrgghh!!! or there is another Trollhunter or few between Araknak the Agile and Tellad-Urr the Terrible; 5200 years is a lot of grounds to cover, especially with a Trollhunter dying of age between it. Tellad-Urr has an appearance similar to Kanjigar, and given that it's a book cover rather than a 3D model there may be grounds for him being of the same tribe as Kanjigar if not an ancestor like Araknak to Blinky. It could work give or take, especially since 'ancestor' is less of an official word and more of a footnote for someone's opinion, but it isn't word of god nor anything found in any media.
And keeping with age (last one I promise) Gorgus the Gorgeous, referenced in terms used by modern trolls 'By Gorgus' or 'Great Gorgus', was one of the youngest Trollhunters to be chosen. Whether he was younger than Jim Lake Jr, 16 years old at his time of getting the amulet, depends on what the hell the age of 24 fucking means to a troll. Is it the equivalent of 24 years in troll years? If so then why the hell does he begin training 32 troll years later at age 56 if he wasn't chosen to have the amulet at 24 human years old. What is 24 human years to a troll. NotEnrique, a changeling (troll whelp cursed to change into a human, can do so at will) is canonically a few centuries old, and he is fresh from the Darklands after replacing a human baby Enrique. He at a few centuries old is able to throw and host a troll party at his age, and maybe changeling's age differently and a changeling hosting a troll party would be very new because haha discrimination, but no troll flinches at the concept. And a few centuries could be considered more than 2 (being a few it's already more than 1) so the more centuries you tack on to this college type frat party host the more and more Gorgus' age becomes terrifyingly young like exorbitantly so.
If a few centuries means 'ability to host a party where full grown trolls do keg stands' then 24 probably means whelp, baby, a fucking toddler by troll standards, assuming changelings follow troll aging standards against their human mimicking physical development standards. If a 24 year old Trollhunter is only ONE OF the youngest Trollhunters, who was the youngest? Predestined at bloody birth!? Gorgus started training at age 56, presumably when he was old enough to wield a sword, being trained by none other than Kanjigar himself; Gorgus died during training when a group of Gumm-Gumms attacked, an arrow hitting him in the head. If NotEnrique was an adult, or at the very least on the cusp of it, at a few centuries old - more than 1, probably more than 2 - then what of someone at age 56, less than a few centuries, less than one. Whether Kanjigar was a father at the time or not, loosing a kid under his guidance - to death no less - would've stuck with anyone. Why was this child sentenced to death, and so young too. One can argue all the Trollhunters to failed to live up to legacy, who became their own version of Unkar the Unfortunate, were sentenced to death and fated to die young. Gogun may have defied fate and beat the ticking clock, but Gorgus the Gorgeous - a gorgeous child, a son to parents that will never see their little boy again - proved that there is no outrunning the clock for the bells toll for thee.
If Unkar was before Gorgus, then it is to be presumed that by dying on his first night - after 6 hours of training - that Gorgus the Gorgeous was failed by Blinkous in the same way Unkar had been. The next Trollhunter in line was summoned too soon, so because of Blinky's failure the trolls against Gumm-Gumms were without a defender, potentially reducing the remaining candidates for better trainers by slaughtering them before the Trollhunter was of age. If Unkar was after Gorgus, then Kanjigar needed to step away from training, even as it was his task given to the aging elder Rundle, potentially a younger but very busy Vendel, an elder by proxy of everyone else dying on the edges of Gumm-Gumm blades. He couldn't sacrifice another child to death, and as the amulet falls onto the arrogant overconfident Unkar, Kanjigar could not bare to have stone dust on his hands again. Blinkous Galadrigal (there is no mention of Dictatious despite the presence of Gumm-Gumms in Unkar's time) is tasked to train Unkar, to teach him the tennants of Trollhunter and put to good use his scholarly teachings and pray that the soul of his Trollhunter ancestor guides him. Unfortunately - as Unkar will be enshrined in by title - you cannot let a scholar do a warrior's duty.
However way it plays out, Blinky was young (or at least younger), and his failure marked his reputation for centuries.
There is a Grimbald the Grave, trained with Kanjigar AND Deya, which would definitely place that before 1620 and potentially before 1578; Voltar wasn't mentioned to have been trained by either, but given that he was the last Trollhunter before Deya (at the very least in close proximity), Grimbald most likely came before. Now this seems like a non-issue, if you consider Grimbald against our timeline nothing seems to be wrong, potentially Kanjigar's age since he's been around for a while but his son's an adult in the modern day so he could potentially be older than Blinky who knows. But I have an elephant to address and since it's been so long since I brought it up it's been drinking tea this whole time.
Wizards, the third installment of the Tales of Arcadia series, sequel to Trollhunters, introduces to audiences that Deya the Deliverer was originally Callista the Calamity, a troll who's tribe had been wiped out by humans and had been living in human custody since she was a whelp (or of an age that she had forgotten her name). Deya makes the timeline such a mess, because her first appearance in the comics, she was of an age where Rundle - Vendel's father - was the elder of Glastonbury Tor Trollmarket at the time of Deya, the Trollmarket before Dwoza which is the Trollmarket before Arcadia. Rundle was around in 501 AD, but it was his father Kilfred who was the elder and his son Vendel was of age enough to help in consulting, however old that is. In Wizards however, Vendel was the elder of Dwoza before Deya was Deya and when Callista was still an outcast, and even then he was only the elder by proxy, signs of his father Rundle or of Kilfred missing. Of course however Rundle could have been elder of Dwoza, as his father before him was elder of Glastonbury Tor, simply that he was potentially slain potentially died of old age and that Vendel being one of the few older than most of the Dwozan trolls took over in his father's stead.
The issue with Deya is that I really like the Callista part of her backstory, of being an outsider, an outcast, in the world of trolls that still hated humanity but held a deeper fear of the Gumm-Gumms. Diaspora for trolls, Callista the Calamity is seen as a human pet despite her wanting to find her way home, a home she can never go back to because it had been destroyed long ago; the one place that she could be accepted don't because they see her as too human, a far cry to being called a monster by humans but certainly not relieving. But she had become Deya, and found her footing as the Deliverer, by turning the Trollhunter from a single force to fighting alone to rallying a bunch of... gravellors? (Whatever, I like to think of Dwoza as essentially a refugee tribe given it's diversity in comparison to the Krubera tribe who are only krubera and the Quagawump tribe who are only - save for the generic troll king Angor killed - quagawumps) to fight one last fight against the Gumm-Gumms and ending the War for the Surface Lands.
...SO... that probably means that Grimbald was trained exclusively by Kanjigar after the whole Unkar and/or Gorgus ordeal and eventually got the Trollhunter's amulet himself when Deya was slain, her sacrifice delivering the migrating trolls of Dwoza a chance to get to the New World (or the Americas). Oh and their migration was after Vendel and some king wrote a truce called 'The Pact', which - I mean - it's described as a feeble truce and with a name like that I don't blame it, where they promise to stop eating humans and limited their diet to cats and used clothes which well- they might've broke on the journey to the New World because hiding in the cramped ballast of a 1600s era boat isn't fun nor is it fast. But regardless-
I think for a sense of cohesion, let me pull out an almost timeline for this post.
Trolls who had previously been in the Darklands somehow get to the surface
Tensions between trolls and the already present humans grows beginning the War for the Surface Lands
The intensity of the war corrupts the first Heartstone, giving birth to Gunmar
A young wizard Myrddin creates the Amulet of Daylight and gifts it to the good trolls
Spar the Spiteful gets the amulet. He dies 5200 years ago
Boraz the Bold gets the amulet. He dies to Bular, Gunmar's son.
Maddrux the Many gets the amulet
Magmar the Molten, the first mountain troll Trollhunter, gets the amulet
Araknak the Agile, ancestor to Blinkous and Dictatious Galadrigal, gets the amulet
Tellad-Urr the Triumphant, turned Tellad-Urr the Terrible, gets the amulet. He is killed in 501 AD
Gogun the Gentle gets the amulet.
Orlagk the Oppressor is slain by Gunmar. Gunmar loses an eye
Gogun dies of old age.
Angor Rot makes a pact with the Pale Lady, trading his soul for her magic
Unkar the Unfortunate gets the amulet. He dies 6 hours later
Gorgus the Gorgeous, one of the youngest Trollhunters, gets the amulet. He dies at age 56
Grimbald gets the amulet
Voltar the Voracious, born of two minds, gets the amulet in 1578. He dies to Angor Rot and his soul is stolen
Deya the Deliverer, previously Callista the Calamity, gets the amulet
The Battle of Kilahead Bridge is fought. Gunmar is defeated and the Gumm-Gumms (+ Dictatious Galadrigal) are trapped in the Darklands
Deya dies against Bular, last remaining Gumm-Gumm on the surface, in 1620
Kanjigar the Couragous, trainer of many Trollhunters, gets the amulet. He dies to Bular in 2016
James Lake Junior gets the amulet, and the events of the series take place
So, members of the Trollhunter fandom, how'd I do? If you stuck around this long, welcome to my gimmick, long posts :)
Hoo boy how should I tag this?
#trollhunters#toa#rambling#headcanon#idk this is a timeline rewrite but not a rewrite yaknow#like i'm interested in what the book timeline might have to offer#but idk#this took me several hours to write#give or take 4 hours maybe#not every trollhunter in the history of trollhunting is named because not every trollhunter has been listed#and kanjigar is only noted as the trainer of trollhunters because he's the one trollhunter to have experience with trollhunting i suppose#also- its one thing to have longevity as a species (i come from the transformers fandom those robots are fucking old)#it's another to have fathers and ancestors and dying of old age without considering how that shit works#like the oldest lived troll is in the 5 thousands right? is it the equivalent of 100 years old for humans?#like is the typical age of an elder troll 4000? is it just as likely they might cark it at 3000?#that's 80 and 60 in human terms- maybe the common age of an elder troll is 3500 at a human 70 equivalent#24 years in comparison to 5000 years is like a 6 month old human baby#56 compared to 5000 is 1 year old but surely that is not the case#trolls are apparently born egg-like... as egg-like taking a piece of each other literally and putting them together as one object#that eventually hatches into a troll whelp is egg-like... the parts i mean are heartstones which i think are hearts#draal is described to have hatched this way with ballustra and kanjigar splitting their heartstones#what the hell are gronknuts then meta answer kicking people between the legs is integral to kid comedy#okay i'm going to stop looking at my screen i don't have a mirror but my eyes feel like they're red
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SAG-AFTRA is officially set to join the WGA in going on strike. No filming, premiere attendence or other promotion of any kind allowed.
I hope to see nothing but support for this decision.
#SAG-AFTRA#WGA#a shame the DGA isn't joining as well#not like their directors are gonna have a lot of work set out for them for the time being#this will have an interesting effect on the media landscape i'm sure#no more barbie premiere dresses#SDCC this year is gonna return to its more humble “nerds unite” roots at this point#i hope the wealthier writers and actors will support those that rely on the paychecks during the (continued) strike#actually i want a-list actors to step up in general#like why do like 5 people get paid a billion dollars for a few weeks of work per year#while their fellow working actors barely manage to book enough jobs to make their health insurance#IATSE should vote to strike again as well now that i think of it#they spend more time than anyone on set and get the least pay#doesn't seem fair#anyway#hopefully this will cause some positive changes in the industry#i don't want to see any complaints about the continued strikes affecting psych 4#i'll block your ass if you do
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DUNYA <3 i've been too busy to do art so here are some sketches of me trying to figure out a dunya design that have been sitting in my drafts for like a week ヽ( ´ー`)ノ
#avdotya romanovna raskolnikova#dunya romanovna raskolnikova#dunechka#im in love with her a little sorry#i never post my character design sheets/sketches/etc bc i feel like these are so boring but i want to post so#she deserved so much more screentime i LOVE a woman who paces and would die for her shithead brother and also has a gun#dunya please just one chance. just one im on my hands on knees#i also found it interesting that she and grushenka are both described as having a “protruding” lower lip & chin#like the same verbiage is used and oh no now im thinking about grushenkas abusive relationship for financial reasons wrt dunyas situation.#hm.#im sure that wont haunt my brain for the next 5 business days#anonart#dunya#crime and punishment#<- my ass was so lost in the loving dunya sauce that i forgot to tag the damn book
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Belisarius Cawl, hiding for his life, his ass kicked, ship crashing, friends in mortal peril: I am such a smart boy, he-he-he =)
#I love him so much your honor#warhammer 40000#adeptus mechanicus#belisarius cawl#genefather#guy haley#cawlposting#(kinda going to finish my thoughts on the book here since I ran out of space on the last post)#but a huge HUGE part of what I loved about this book were all the fun relationships and dynamics that it had set up#I literally want to see all of those characters again#Cawl and AsanethAyu? Absolutely. Not necessarily in a shipp-y way (Unless?) But god do I love seeing necrons bicker apparently#Cawl and Bile? Do my eyes deceive me or did Haley actually pull off 'we are not so different you and I' thing in a genuinely interesting wa#Cawl and Primus? What can I fucking say?!#Guy Haley should be awarded a prize for bringing back emotion and weight into what is surely one of the top 5 most overused words in 40k#Cawl and Qvo? Never before have I so thoroughly understood shippers of something that I don't personally ship.#I (barely) write a different type of fanfiction but somewhere in here there is a potential for the most wonderfully fucked up family#Primus and Porter? They did not talk but parallels between them were set up SO hard. This one is definitely not shippy for me#just so fucking charged with storytelling potential#All the minor guys? X99 whom I now love dearly? Oswen who was set up to be the traitor so hard and then just sort of wasn't? (Unless?!)#Skitarii Marshal named Iota?! Maybe later on that one#and that is to say absolutely nothing about the MASSIVE (eh? get it?) set up for the next big Cawl thing?#god so many threads to follow up on#Guy Haley you owe me like at least three follow-up books
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Books of 2024: August Wrap-Up.
Hey, would you look at that, it's suddenly September! Rude and uncalled for. This month, I did a lot of knitting (two sets of gloves and two hats! gearing up for holiday season), and a LOT of writing (finished the first 16k draft of a scene, who???), and read uh. Some. I didn't finish a ton of books, but I did make it through what felt like a ton of pages.
Two-thirds of this month's reading were post-apocalyptic-community-oriented, on purpose, to feed into my current writing project, and that worked really well--either I'm very good at choosing books that match the vibe I need, or my ADHD brain is good at making connections, OR a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. Photos and/or reviews linked below:
GHOST STATION (pages-out stand-in book pictured above, because I checked it out from the library after canceling my paperback pre-order, which was a good call) - ★★ This was very bad. Bad science, stupid incompetent characters, JUST enough neat worldbuilding to make it FRUSTRATING that this missed so hard. I'm bummed because I wanted to read DEAD SILENCE by this author, too, but I don't trust her now :(
ALWAYS COMING HOME - ★★★★½ Loved this!! Dense and chewy, and it required a lot of patience, but it was very rewarding and I'm really glad I read it. My absolute favorite passage was about scrub oaks, but I posted a few other highlights and tagged them as "le guin posting," if you're interested! If you like Le Guin and/or utopias and better futures and/or huge books that push what it means to Be A Novel, check this out for sure.
ARCHANGELS OF FUNK - ★★★½ So. I didn't realize that this was attached to a few other novels she's already written. And I read it cold (oops). Goodreads informed me that it was Book #2 of Cinnamon Jones, and review-diving indicated that REDWOOD AND WILDFIRE is also implicated in its worldbuilding, but that didn't stop me because I can't read. I would like to revisit this one after I've read those other two, I think, but!: The community and vibes and Making Art At The End Of The World were all immaculate, and the character names made me feel vindicated in some of my own naming conventions (seriously: there's an Indigo in this, and a Game-Boy, and Hawk, I can't make this shit up).
Under the Cut: A Note About ~*★Stars★*~
Historically, I have been Very Bad™ about assigning things Star Ratings, because it's so Vibes Heavy for me and therefore Contingent Upon my Whims. I am refining this as I figure out my wrap up posts (epiphany of this month: I don't like that stars are Odd, because that makes three the midpoint and things are rarely so truly mid for me)(I have hacked my way around this with a ½). Here is, generally, how I conceptualize stars:
★ - This was Bad. I would actively recommend that you do NOT read this one, no redeeming qualities whatsoever, not worth the slog. Save Yourself, It's Too Late For Me. Book goes in the garbage (donate bin).
★★ - This was Not Good. I would not recommend it, but it wasn't a total waste or wash--something in here held my interest/kept my attention/sparked some joy. I will not be rereading this ever. Save Yourself (Or Join Me In Suffering, That Seems Like A Cool Bonding Activity).
★★★ - This was Good/Fine/Okay/Meh. I don't care about this enough to recommend it one way or another. Perfectly serviceable book, held my interest, I probably enjoyed myself (or at least didn't actively loathe the reading). I don't have especially strong feelings. You probably don't need to save yourself from this one--if it sounds like your jam, give it a shot! Just didn't resonate with me particularly powerfully. I probably won't reread this unless I'm after something in particular.
★★★½ - I liked this! I'll probably recommend it if I know it matches someone's vibes or specific requests, but I didn't commit to a star rating on Goodreads. More likely to reread, but not guaranteed.
★★★★ - I really enjoyed this!! I would recommend it (sometimes with caveats about content warnings or such--I tend to like weird fucked up funny shit, and I don't have many hard readerly NO's). Not a perfect book for me by any means, but Very Good. This is something I would reread! Join me!!
★★★★★ - I LOVED THE SHIT OUT OF THIS, IT REWIRED MY BRAIN, WILL RECOMMEND TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE AT THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION (content warning caveats still apply--see 4-star disclaimer). Excellent book, I'll reread it regularly, I'll buy copies for all my friends, I'll try to convince all of Booklr to read it, PLEASE join me!!
#books of 2024#books of 2024: august wrap-up#ghost station#sa barnes#always coming home#ursula k. le guin#archangels of funk#andrea hairston#le guin is 4.5 stars from me because i will not recommend it to anyone and everyone lol#i mean i think if anyone's interested they absofuckenlutely should#but you have to be willing to approach the book on your own terms i think#hence it's not quite 5 from me#and i'd like to reread it but it won't be a regular reread#i really enjoyed reading the acknowledgements in hairston's book btw#i love seeing where books and stories come from#i'm not sure how much of this one didn't resonate with me as well as it could because i was missing TWO BOOKS OF CONTEXT LMFAO#but i had a good time anyway so i think it's probably pretty good :)#i did spend a bunch of the beginning wondering what i missed and if this was a Me Problem or a Story Decision#(but i vaguely remembered MASTER OF POISONS being the same sort of “dump you in the deep end good luck kid” situation)#so i let it ride#i'm curious about how much cinnamon history is included in SMALL CHANGE (i suspect klaus and marie yes but tatyana no??)#it also tracks why those two books were rereleased in hardback by tor when they were lmaooo#anyway. liked le guin. liked hairston. gonna read some manga next and then vandermeer.#i have to finish my revisions on this scene and swing into nano prep mode SOON i'm giving myself a week to knock it out
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While Alex is obviously besotted with Cassie it is interesting that he, uh,
went on a whole-ass rant about how he’s somehow internalised an extremely conventional, heteronormative idea of what life should be like, wherein he’s expected to find a girl, get married and have kids as part of living ‘properly’, except he’s realised that lifestyle is impossible for him, partly because he’s infected with what he continually calls ‘magical AIDS’
My closeted bisexual alarm bells are ringing, is what I am saying
#THE COMPHET WRITES ITSELF#the HIV metaphor works much better this way#also that line about how his parents are scared he might bring a boy home? Wherever that was#the laundry files#charles stross#I’m pretty sure Evan speculates on Alex being autistic back in book 5 and he doesn’t seem aware of that either#So assuming I didn’t imagine that (lost my copy of Rhesus Chart) there’s…precedent#Probs won’t really show up much bc he’s with Cassie-First and I can’t imagine them getting enough page time#To have a Bob/Mo style potential breakup arc and other partners…or enough pagecount to discuss potential polyamory lol#but it might be interesting if he ever shows attention to a guy if/when we get his perspective again. That’d be cool#headcanon#bisexuality
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similar to the greentext stuff - i was visiting with my neighbors and their grandkids were around, and I said to this eight year old, "Hey, you wanna know something cool? I was playing the game when the Endermen came out." and his eyes went wide, like this kid looked like i told him i landed on the moon. His grandma thought it was really funny, and she said she has no idea what i'm talking about, but her grandbabies do, and that's incredible to her.
oh that's fun lmao, when minecraft & that update's existed for more than your whole life, and yknow being that young and like Next Year fr is this huge time scale away, a couple of years is a quarter of your life thus far and like maybe nigh half of the part of your life you actually have longterm memories for....i was checking out this dev's blog's archives about a:tdd's release in 2010 & in one entry they compared the implicitly Roughly concurrent release of Minecraft and i was like hey whoah. forever primarily being a game i've Heard Of more than any more direct exposure so i had no precise sense of [before minecraft release] [after minecraft release] Year 0 there but it's like for sure back in thee day when minecraft was a new thing, huh
#add in that [i also basically Heard Of mass effect but that's a game series w/a 2010 median which i had Any knowledge abt already]#so i have that reference point for a still like [niche video for When You've Played These Games For Sure] there but then like#if you were ten or even 5 yrs younger at the time you May Well Be much more at sea as your starting point there#(but i mean not that much; i didn't know a ton. reread those wikipedia plot summaries myself)#enderman came out? happy pride#shoutout to this one time i crossed paths w/this kid who was at the time probably like late middle school early high school age#who started talking abt pokemon like Clearly A Big Interest and i'm like my only Direct experience is playing pokemon go but i know Some#stuff b/c i was 5 in '99 when it was first making that huge splash lol. can make Some remarks....but also just Listening Attentively To You#Monologue like uh huh go off....i sure remember like the Sense of a couple yr's sagacity like being 9 i think reading a book abt 6th or 7th#graders (i.e. two or three yrs older) like My God They Must Be So Mature....#and like ofc when skimming passages as an adult it's like omg l'enfants. Both Perspectives Being Accurate respectively lol#my vintage experiences like i've def saved things on the floppy discs of [save icons imagery]. have heard the dialup tones organically....#but also; say; Home Computers That You Didn't Really Need To Know Much Abt Computers To Use were forever an everyday thing for me#having been born mid '90s....vs like in the '80s being nicher but also like. the programs to amateur code not being As Complex either#like [working on cars] of yore vs more modernly lmao....plus ofc in their designs; opening up a desktop Tower vs what? a tablet??#ppl my age who had more substantial Online Access earlier than i did maybe having at least picked up some html; which i did not lol#also didn't have too much Gamer Experience ever; what i did largely desktop then laptop pc wasd+mouse style....#didn't have a smartphone till maybe 5 yrs after they were starting to become more commonplace#vs that again to an 8 yr old of today [commonplacer smartphones] is your whole life basically too. i remember when we flipped those phones.#(i do fr lol. did have one of those first for a good while.)#granpa granpa....mh being fourteen yrs old meaning like the Teen Fans of Today were probably not watching it as it aired lol#whereas i Was that teen fan of those yesteryears. and all my stories for it like fuckin uhhhhhh [crickets chirping] [studio audience laugh]#though You Don't Need The Fans like mh is a long movie ppl can newly discover Whenever that holds up; plus it has bonus lore#mostly what i could even Possibly bring is just the particularly nicher older bonus lore. but like grandpa simpson (the simpsons) for sure#which is to say: humorously irrelevant & perhaps somewhat cantankerous#whilest i'm vaguely aware there may have also been that minecraft resurgence (esp through streaming?) from 2020 on....#but evidently Like Mh something that continually revives / takes on New Fans / Participants#for sure i might well be playing some tf2 myself if i had the technical capability (i would have the poor personal ability i always did lol#real games of yore but it never gets old also. though i know Of Late there was a bot problem / just neglected maintenance? that get fixed?#These Have Been The Tag Tangents. maxed out thirty tags i know that's right
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ok I'm going to eat then I'm going to shower
#then maybe i will read im not sure..not interested in reading any of the books i have started#may read some short stories since i have like 5 books of them started#i may purchase the shirt i really like and want and which is too expensive to be purchased but...... im dumb
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Overall though Roommates with Benefits is another book that just tries too hard imo. So looks like it’ll be another diamond mine for me
#choices rwb#choices roommates with benefits#choices#choices stories you play#playchoices#I for sure sound like a broken record at this point but I’m beyond sick of the doe-eyed MC in literally every book#if PB is gonna enter their trashy Episode/Chapters era could they at least bring something a lil different to the table#would’ve been minutely more interesting if MC was the confident party animal#or if their dialogue and narration just wasn’t so awful#but really and truly this trope and ones like it aren’t for me#and I’ve always known that but additionally I’ve just never really understood how it’s enjoyable for some people#like how do you not get bored when reading about the heat between MC’s legs for the millionth time 😷#or ‘supposedly hot and cocky guy character’ saying something that’s actually corny af every 5 seconds#and MC acting like she’s never experienced anything in her life at all#idk y’all I’m just sick of it 🤷🏽♀️#like no matter how many different settings and situations you use these characters and tropes in it’s still the same story 💀
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in defense of 5, 11, and 13 (music discs): i love them
#i love that 5 and 11 are the only things that for sure for sure is a person#like that is someone breathing and using keys and reading a book#but they are in the minecraft world cuz you hear them place dirt#idk its interesting#minecraft#shush up jj#mine
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i feel like i need to spread my propaganda too. so. the southern reach trilogy by jeff vandermeer is so good ??? its got canon lgbt rep!!! really well executed eldritch horror!!! i know it really doesnt mean anything to say i dont get scared by books a lot because everyones tolerance is different, but these books had some incredibly tense moments. the protagonists switch up from book 1 and 2 but theyre both . such compelling characters. man the descriptions are so lurid.. the imagery.. etc. eternal brainrot
If I had a nickle for every time today I was recommended a dystopia sci-fi trilogy where each book title is just a foreboding word with a different distinct color cover for each that is dearly beloved by a mutual, I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot but its odd it happened twice.
I haven't heard of those books before, and just like avery you have managed a lot of words without actually telling me anything of what the book is about! but that's okay I think it's funny. looks like its not long either, just 200 pages I could knock that out quick. I won't be doing so soon, because like I've said so many times y'all are probably sick of it, very long and chaotic tbr so I don't have a specific time frame, but it is now on my radar :)
thank you for the propaganda! I appreciate being exposed to media I wouldn't have found otherwise, and I'm curious to see what it is about these books you like!
#southern reach trilogy#quil's queries#tw-5#love typing in a new tag (southern reach) and seeing a bunch of preset ones pop up#like oh! there are people posting about it enough to tag it and for that tag to pop up here#a community I did not even know existed...fascinating#anyway if someone tells me to read a book 99% of the time I will just go oh yeah sure!#most recent exceptions were 2 books a teacher lent me as part of a big group I just couldn't#i couldn't get into that romance book I got maybe 60 pages in if that and just could not#and then the other one the 1300s murder mystery was interesting the writing style was just so...dragged on#i want to go back to that one but it was. i needed a break ough
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something very funny to me is comparing what stands out to me most between each mxtx novel
in tgcf, i am much more invested in the side characters than the actual main couple (ex: volume 4 being my most favorite in the series solely because of the blackwater arc). in svsss, my heart goes entirely out to bingqiu, with not as much room for the side characters. and now currently with mdzs, im finding myself actually invested in both the main couple and the side characters.
#❣️#with tgcf this doesn’t mean i don’t care about hualian at all#i actually find their story very sad and also heartwarming knowing how loved & protected xie lian is by hua cheng who worships him#it’s just the side characters’ backstories are so tragic and interesting i can’t help but feel more compelled to hear about them#even knowing that that’s not possible and that’s completely okay (it’s just something that happened)#with svsss it is a comfort series to me for a reason and the found family element of it is a strong factor for sure#it just so happens that the relationship between sqq & lbh gutted me so hard i can’t pay too much attention to anyone else#and then with mdzs well….i just finished volume three (which got my first 5-star in not just the series but since FEBRUARY)#i hadn’t given any of the books i read past february five stars until now like holy hell#i know i havent read as much up to this point like last year but it’s still a huge deal to me#i was very happy to have that feeling of confidence and overwhelming appreciation for a story after such a long while#mxtx#booklr
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Please tell me Sam didn’t just make a reference to the fucking Hatchet.
#Critical Role#CR3#CR3-50#''If Xandis has a cardiac arrest...'' stop right there Sam Riegel#lol#god damn I hated that book#gave me massive anxiety while reading it while also being one of the endless schlog of the ''boy does all the things ever'' genre#boring and distressing what a fucking combo. if you're going to be distressing maybe also be interesting?#still a reasonably good book despite being one of my most hated genres all time and two of my most hated genres at the time I read it#unlike huck finn. which. Seriously there has to be a better book with the same message that isn't excruciating to read#fuck twain fuck his prose fuck his inability to make either of his perspective characters likeable#and especially fuck his inability to end a goddamn novel#it has been a decade since I had to read either of those books but I sure do still have resentment#and my begrudging respect remains extended to only one of them. Never want to hear about it again though bleugh#I'd rather read stephen king than reread either of those and I hate his writing too.#I suffered through like 5 of his books before giving up#ignore morg#morg rants
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I've not watched glass onion yet but I truly hope that there will be many more benoit blanc stories to come. I'd love to see him be the detective character of this era
#i had nancy drew as a kid#and now id like benoit blanc!!#movies. books of the character#i totally get if daniel craig doesnt want to do a long series again#but it sounds as tho hes having fun with blanc and i do hope that means its something hed be interested in#and that its something we can have#the joys of these kinds of stories is its easy to make a lot of them without falling into the problem that supernatural had#wherebit was eritten for 5 seasons but it was popular so they kept it going#because detective stories like this where the only frequent recurring character is the detective is simpler ti keep going#because every story is independent#and there may be other occasional recurring characters but ultimately every story is still independent#scooby doo is the same way#theres the gang which are the only consistent characters but there are also characters who show up more than knce#like vincent van ghoul or the hex girls#sure all these stories tend to follow a formula so after a certain point you can easily lredict whats gonna happen next#but personally#i think thats okay#theres nkthing wrong with formulaic setups its just nkt something everyone enjoys or can watch a lot of (like every other kind of story
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[ID: a screenshot of a book page that reads, “DIALOGUE TIPS
Have your characters speak no more than three sentences at a time--unless you have a good reason to do otherwise.
Dialogue is more interesting when characters are saying no to each other.
Keep exposition out of dialogue
Let your characters sometimes conceal or avoid instead of saying exactly what they mean.
Use "said" as a dialogue tag whenever possible.
Use an action rather than a modifier to show how a character is feeling.
Cut to the chase. Don't use dialogue that doesn't move the story forward and reveal character.
Don't let your characters be too articulate. Fragments are fine. Don't force conversations to follow a logical order (question followed by answer). No need to stay on the same subject or include clear transitions from one subject to another.
Vernacular is best conveyed by word choice and syntax as opposed to misspellings.
end ID]
So I just started my short story writing class! These are dialogue tips
#okay seeing the of ppl thinking this is dumb advice#* number of ppl#or that this isn't serious#some reasons for each of these:#1. this is to avoid chars unnaturally monologuing#2. to drive conflict/keep tension tight (in typical Western story structures)#make sure the dialogue is Saying something .. take a note of what dialogue in a short/fic/book chp YOU find most interesting to read would b#be a good exercise#3. again to keep things from sounding unnatural#4. more true to rl/your characters will seem rounder/to avoid making dialogue sound like therapy#5. obv this one is debated#but said is p invisible#and cycling thru 100 others will be distracting#plus using 1 rly dramatic tag at the right moment will really impart lots of emotion when used sparingly#(like exclamation points)#6. like showing rather than telling#I think this one is more to be used in moderation tbh#but that's what it means#7. again make sure the dialogue means & says something#communicates smth#8. (imo unless that IS a crucial aspect of their char)#for realism/well-rounded chars etc#9. misspellings tend to distract#can even be difficult to read for some ppl#can become a gimmick#writing advice
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