#Also the books play with pov and narration in a very fun and interesting way!

[llamagirl28]

I’m sorry, I repent!It wasn’t Lancey in particular just his meanness that got me interested😭(I love 🚩 and toxic fictional men)No acid please, I’m delicate🫶

Eugh!! Delicate infant.

[avelera]

It makes me sad when I see posts by people who are enjoying the Interview with the Vampire show but say they've decided not to even try to read the books.

To be clear, it's fine to just not want to read the books, there's plenty of reasons the books might not be everyone's bag, and one reason is that people might just want to enjoy the show without spoilers or the source material muddling the experience.

But I just want to clarify a few points that people might be hung up on with regards to reading the books in case they've decided not to on false premises:

Anne Rice was not homophobic or otherwise anti-sex or against queer relationships for her characters - those are lies, lies, and damned lies. Anne Rice was a queer writer before being queer-- much less writing about it--was cool (to say the least). She more or less defined herself as nonbinary before there was terminology for it, her son is gay, and she left the Catholic Church the second time because they wouldn't accept him (even though the Catholic Church had basically become her life at that point after her husband died, which is a long complicated story). She also wrote tons of erotica, specifically bdsm erotica, which was also very queer. She would not be horrified by the queerness of the show.

Anne Rice was anti-fanfic - Yes, she was. Yes, she was one of the most aggressive authors against fanfic (though she softened later). But just to be clear, she had a legal reason for it. I was one of the people most heartbroken in the early '00s by her aggressive take down of fanfic over the years but even then, I always understood why she did it, she reasonably believed she had to be aggressive in order to defend her copyright. You can dislike her for it but she wasn't just hating on fanfic for the sake of it, the early internet was extremely muddy when it came to the legality around fanfic and copyright and as an early adopter of the internet, she was very concerned on that front specifically.

The books are not poorly written/not fun to read - Look, your mileage may obviously vary, and many have found flaws in her writing (IWTV in particular is probably the slowest read of the bunch) but Anne Rice wasn't a NYT Bestseller on basically every single one of her books for no reason. Her style is easy to read, fun, engaging, and often darkly beautiful and deeply empathetic. She basically defined the modern vampire genre and modern supernatural gothic romance for the last 50 years, I mean she dominated the genre. Don't take an out of context excerpt of the opening of The Vampire Lestat sounding like "My Immortal" as an indication of anything. (The whole point of that intro is that Lestat is supposed to sound like a self-obsessed drama queen in the opening pages, that's the conceit of the book and introduces him as a self-centered unreliable narrator, which she then plays with to great effect. It's actually rather deftly handled how she introduced Lestat as a POV character with that introduction. As a writer, I will defend that introduction as actually genius.)

Anne Rice wasn't perfect, to say the least. And the books might not be everyone's cup of tea, she was often dealing with transgressive topics and probably held many ideas or presented many concepts decades ago that would be side-eyed today.

But they're bestsellers for a reason and she's an era-defining author for a reason. The show is doing some interesting stuff with modernizing and deconstructing the books but the rich material they have to do it with comes from the books.

At the very least, I suggest trying out "The Vampire Lestat" and then "Queen of the Damned" which I think are two of her best and will go a long way to informing how audiences view the show and what's coming next.

[artemisandhersilverbow]

If there are no fans of Taylor's lyric vids it's because I'm dead. They add so much richness to already elite lyrics. But I was immediately suspicious during The Manuscript video.

Because my understanding of what a manuscript is, is the following:

I had assumed, like many prior to the album drop, this was meant to make us think of books. These days in publishing a manuscript will be typed, but it's not the book in its final form.

In the Tortured Poet's library popups in a couple cities, there were a lot of books. Blank ones, damaged ones, ones with the names of TTPD song titles, and notably a handwritten "Story of Us." That hand written Story of Us then showed up in the Fortnight MV. Interesting...

Of course, any long time fan knows the role Taylor's diaries play in her music making as well. Her music has always sounded confessional and it's been one component of her musical super power. During Lover promo, excerpts from her diaries were sold alongside the album. She's underscored their importance many times.

So imagine my surprise when The Manuscript video... doesn't show a manuscript...

That is a screenplay.

And I click back to the first seconds of the video... looking at those underlined letters and asked myself... is it The Man U Script? *if i was a maaaAAn*

The way she has these lyrics written out in screenplay form... we're watching a scene narrating the "She" character reading something unpublished, perhaps handwritten, perhaps a diary, maybe lyrics. I assume the "HE" which is in voiceover is what she's reading and her lines are spoken.

Anyway, I wont break down the full scene because I haven't watched it in this new light yet. But this tension between the song name at first glance - something unpublished or handwritten. Messy, unfinished, not meant for the public, perhaps even at its most authentic... vs. characters in roles. Men that are scripted... well that's adding a whole knew dimension to it.

I really appreciate how before I watched this, the song feels like it's told in vignettes and time moves dramatically. But I didn't appreciate the play on POV initially (and there's a ton of it in this - very good - album)

Also noteworthy that, yes, there seems to be reference to the ATW short film, which makes even more sense to me now.

But anyway, the narrative about this album has once again become about the men. Which isn't new, but always disappointing. Genuinely, I got something really different out of this album by not focusing on solving those romance riddles with my own confirmation bias. The other story, the one about a singular artist, percolating beneath the surface is far more interesting to me.

It wouldn't be the first time she's called out the people who consume her work in this album and, frankly, it's one of my favorite things about it. It's cutting and it's earned. It's also heartbreaking. But for a song that confused me, is the bonus on all the regular editions of TTPD, I think it would be a lot more satisfying if this is the message she's leaving us with. That once I publish my work, my stories, in it's final constructed/edited form, I've moved from the place I was when I experienced them. And then when its published the truths you seek to dig out from my words don't belong to me - it belongs to you. Just a thought.

Edit:

I think there are a lot of ways to read this. In conversation with the fans/outsiders is the main one, which I touch on before.

But for a more literal reading using some clues from the video, I know how Taylor can’t resist utilizing a number when it’s available for a little clue. Now I think reading each page number by era… is actually a fun (still devastating) way to do that. As you’ll imagine 3 and 4 are where those lines show up.

But we end on 7 where she’s accepting she doesn’t own those albums anymore, but all that she’s left with is the manuscript - which I would guess is her music (published and unpublished) and diaries.

Lover era + promo diary era was her first entirely owned era, but as the song says “looking back” or re-recording/vault tracks/doing it on your terms is the only way to move forward.

Also how about the hard to catch glitch over the words “the actors”?

[writeouswriter]

Winter Reading/Arting/Writing Tag

Thanks so much for the tag, @ink-bunny-blue! (X)

Describe one creative WIP project you plan on working on over winter

I always “plan on” working on a thousand things and then do none of them 😭 because I haven’t been in so much a “creative slump” as I’ve been in an iron gripped chokehold by hyperfixation for the last year, so on one hand I’ve been unable to focus on any of my original writing because it’s not about The Interest™️, and then on the other hand I haven’t even been able to write anything about The Interest™️ because the fixation on it is so strong, everything I write for it has to be Perfect™️ (and nothing’s ever perfect, you know). On that note, if my ability to write returns from the war and I ever get a day off from this purgatory of a job, I really really really want to work on this comparative essay about The Interest™️ involving analyzing parallels to a certain classic play, and looking into various aspects of the tragicomic structure and themes of identity and change. Also, God willing, I’d love to get one fic done, just one, please please please, I have a few winter-y or Christmas-y ones I’m dying to get my brain to sign off on despite my lack of free time, come on, brain, yip yip.

Art, same thing, something Christmas-y for The Interest™️, also I gotta finish some zine pieces.

As for original writing, would love to work on my untitled WIP about an astrobiologist and team of other assorted scientists brought in by a somewhat questionable facility to study an extraterrestrial artefact and being affected strangely by it, but it’s a bit up in the air plot wise. Would love to answer asks about it though if anyone is interested 😭

Recommend a book

Definitely mentioned it before but:

Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds by Brandon Sanderson

“Stephen Leeds is perfectly sane. It's his hallucinations who are mad.”

This is like speculative fiction/thriller/mystery that’s hard to explain, but perfect balance of humour and sincerity, sci-fi and reality, and character and plot, probably my favourite standalone novel ever (well it’s really 3 novellas that somewhat connect and come together to form a novel, but either way).

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

Charlie Jordan is being driven across the country by a serial killer. Maybe.

This is a thriller book set in the 90s that as its title suggests, takes place over the course of one night, where a troubled, film-obsessed college girl (and unreliable narrator) who recently witnessed her friend’s murder (but can’t recall the killer’s face) decides to travel back home via a ride share where her driver may or may not be said killer, and has to, you guessed it, survive the night.

Now, this is actually one of Sager’s lowest ranked and seemingly most universally hated novels, whereas it’s the only one of his I actually thoroughly enjoyed/didn’t find mediocre and thought had a sense of style as I like the almost cinematic way it was written?? It was fast paced, it was fun, it had unique prose, and I think it perfectly captured the vibes of a cheesy 90s B-movie (said as a compliment).

Recommend a fic

I still cannot recommend From Out the Ocean Risen by Bluestar enough, it acts as a sequel fic to the movie Pacific Rim, and has some of the most gorgeously well executed cinematic prose and imagery I’ve ever read, not to mention impeccable character dialogue, and an incredible grasp on the balance between drama/angst/action/heart/humour.

What’s a Little B&E Between Friends by VoiceOfNurse is also a fantastic Pacific Rim series with a solid grasp on both character dynamics/POV and style. A fascinating, very humanizing character study, both angsty and fun.

Recommend Music

I’ve suddenly never heard a song in my life.

The Killing Moon by Echo & The Bunnymen is stuck in my head again, so, *tosses that at you*

She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult also in my head so *throws that also*

Also, even though I haven’t actively listened to them in a while, I’m still still actually super excited for Green Day’s new album, so *one more toss*

Dilemma

The American Dream is Killing Me

Tagging if you want to do it no pressure!: @the-angriest-bunny-of-the-fandom, @writing2sirvive, @druidx, @universalfanfic, @karolinarodrigueswrites, @multi-lefaiye, @transmasc-wizard, @drabbleitout, @merelyafigment, @aritany, @rockium-z, @caffernnn and anyone who wants to do this, feel free to say I tagged you, you’re tagged.

[cabeswaterdrowned]

solace and jasico for the ship think im evil and shit

wrote this last month before I lost access from traveling here is everything I wrote then.

Solangelo

Why don’t you ship it? — I did ship it when I originally read BOO when I was in the seventh grade, because I wanted Nico to be happy and Will was presented as something that would help that. Then I remember liking them a bit less when I first read THO when it came out, not to the extent of hate or anything (and I wouldn’t call it a solid notp or anything now I’m just not particularly fond of it at this time) just found the timeline of them getting together to be rushed and I didn’t love their interactions (not going to speak on what exactly I felt about them because first time reading THO was a blur for me, my feelings on reread are more important to this matter anyway). In the time between then and my reread of the first two series + continuation of ToA this year I was mostly fine with them in theory, but occasionally was a little annoyed by how overrated the dynamic and Will as a character seemed to me from what I could see as I’m always very multifandom and keep pjo fandom on my radar as one of my formatives but was mainly focusing my energy on other media during that time.

When rereading Boo and THO I found their dynamic.. not very appealing in the scenes we get. I can like vitriolic banter when it’s done well but the way it was introduced for Will and Nico in boo came off more as Will being pretty bossy/condescending towards Nico and Nico reacting to that with annoyance + some of his usual becomes-attached-to-anyone-who-shows-any-signs-of-potentially-wanting-him-around thing which is IC for him, but it’s not an introduction I appreciate for one of my favorite chars ever’s endgame canon romance. Other people have made longer posts about this + the general solangelo canon dynamics and implications re: ableism but Will’s dismissiveness toward Nico’s feelings of being ostracized from the camp wasn’t endearing to me either. THO followed the same pattern of their ‘banter’ falling flat for me and reading more as two people kind of disliking each other and not in a fun interesting way like I sometimes go for, and to be fair I think the fact we first see them as an official couple from Apollo’s pov might contribute to this for me, because we don’t have Nico or Will’s narration to make the dynamic feel more lived in and Rick just generally isn’t great at writing couple dialogue for anyone but Percabeth/Fierrochase (and even Percabeth had some dud scenes aka. the Percabeth scenes in boo that are from Piper’s pov so.) And again, I just don’t like the condescension from Will’s end or how pushy he can be about Nico’s boundaries in some scenes. ToN was slightly better in that I think as a duo they were incorporated naturally into a plot (also was just so happy about the Nico and Rachel interactions I was like the the Solangelo here is fine it can be there too hebrew). However two books where I disliked the dynamic + a book where I was neutral + what I’ve seen of the fandom which.. yeah. Ultimately I just don’t enjoy them as a ship at

this time

2.What would have made you like it?

This is an interesting question for this ship in particular because there actually is a book coming out that if things go a certain way could make me like the ship.

I’ll start with changes that could have been made

to what’s already canon. This particular brand of grumpy one sunshine one dynamic is an idea/trope that I just have found less compelling the more time I’ve spent in fandom, so I would play up a subversion of that to start. There is something to Will being a bit more stubborn/intense than you’d expect I just wish that wasn’t presented in him bossing Nico around/telling him His perceptions of Nico’s problems like they’re fact, generally being very I-know-what’s-best-for-you. Maybe if their introduction in boo had them clashing over just different approaches to the battle at hand but not being able to help admire each other even though they’re so different, and then I think setting up them getting together as a slow burn over the course of ToA could’ve worked nicely and the antagonistically working together dynamic could’ve come off far better if they were written as two friends not yet together but with some tension kind of dancing around their actual feelings. Some scenes I had problems with also could’ve been better to me if this was the current dynamic ex: I really didn’t like the scene where Will comments about the kid from the Ares cabins arms and they again ‘banter’ but with what we know of Nico’s insecurities/abandonment issues it comes off (to me) as a scene where he’s genuinely stressed and Will either isn’t cognizant of that or is ignoring it which seems off for a couple who are together / annoys me on Nico’s behalf, but if it were a scene where they weren’t actually together yet it could

 make sense as Will testing to see how Nico reacts/if he likes him based on his reaction and I’d feel better about it. Things like that. And Rick clearly knew how to write this type of bickering dynamic in slow burn for Percabeth so I think maybe this could’ve turned out a lot better. 

Where we are in their story how I could be made to change my tune about their dynamic in TSATS:  will say I’d be a lot more optimistic about the book being able to make me like them if the premise was different, the fact that it’s (at least being pitched this way the actual book could obviously be pretty different) about Tartarus testing the strength of their relationship when we haven’t gotten a first hand experience of that relationship and it’s strengths and flaws other than what can be gleaned from conjecture (which ultimately is why views on the ship are so polarizing, they’re underwritten in canon so readers can interpret things a lot of ways depending on what’s there + how generous or not they are with it). That aside I think since for me the dynamic was a little better in ToN than it had been in the past framing some of their previous interactions as a beginning stage of their relationship they’ve since grown from and in the present Will is supportive in a way that’s less.. overbearing from my pov + we see both of them work for a good relationship (and the things Nico has to work on aren’t framed as ‘it’s Nico’s fault he doesn’t have that many good relationship ‘he needs to work on his people skills’ etc.) I could like it more. I also think seeing Will interact with more important parts of Nico’s life like Hazel or his father or Reyna could help add interesting interactions and conflicts. Another thing I disliked about ToA was how distanced Nico seemed from Hazel and Reyna / it seeming like he didn’t meet them after the war… *sigh* keeping myself from going on a tangent anyway. Ideally I would like the book to make their relationship interesting and compelling, I need it to show me how they work/are a good fit as partners and mainly make me feel good about Will’s place in Nico’s arc. Hopefully I get shippy feelings / emotional attachment from them in the book (I’m keeping my expectations low a) because I like to purposefully keep my expectations low for certain things so I’m not disappointed a habit I developed shortly after BOO was released lol, if it’s fantastic my low expectations can only lead me being more blown away so win-win b)like I said it isn’t a type of dynamic I’m very into these days even if tje execution is made to work now) but what matters most is that I feel good enough about it as a part of Nico’s arc since I don’t even concretely feel that way now. No Will-is-Nico’s-savior/solves all his problems trope. Hopefully no “doctors orders” bit either 

3.Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

I am here for the implication that Will has had a crush on Nico for a while before Nico noticed him, I think in a way it’s good for Nico to experience someone not needing to warm to him to see him as worthy of being into and just wanting him in general at the time he meets Will. If the relationship was presented as just Nico seeing what being in a relationship where he’s someone else’s Percy in a sense is like and not his canon-sanctioned endgame like it’s meant to be I’d be a lot less critical of it.

Not necessarily something positive more negative things that I’ve seen said about the ship that I disagree with: 1) It’s not an abusive relationship based on anything in canon 2) I’ve seen people say it’s ooc for Nico to be into Will/want to start a relationship with him so soon and that’s not my issue with anything, again it’s very Nico to latch onto attachments I just haven’t seen any evidence this relationship is good for him 

Jasico

What made you ship it?

I remember when I first read HoH and Boo there were scenes where I thought they had interesting chemistry/found something of interest in the idea but back then as a kid I really hated Jason so ultimately still didn’t want it to happen/invest more interest in it On reread I really started to become actively interested in it / feel things in the Jason pov section directly after the (ugh) Cupid scene section. The scene where they have that balcony argument / tense conversation about belonging/fitting in where Nico voices how Jason has never been unfairly reviled because of who his father is only idolized for it vs later when Jason reflects on this and actually envies Nico’s freedom of expectations as much as Nico envies the respect Jason gets, the more I’ve thought about it the more the ideas behind their arcs are interesting foils to one another which is something that automatically does a lot to appeal a ship to me. And generally this establishes something that really appealed to me which was Nico opening up more to Jason than he does to others and Jason being a lot more expressive/engaged in around or about Nico. Then after that the chalice scene is just.. really romantically coded like more than most scenes in hoo that are actually supposed to be romantic by a lot, and I’m a sucker for a display of trust that’s literally quite deranged (drinking poison because you want to be Very Good Friends with another man) in my ships too, so from there on I was gone and the more I actually thought about it the more reasons I found to be compelled but I’ll get into that more in part 2. Also Generally the way they describe each other at points in HoH and Boo is insane which is also worth mentioning.

2.What are your favorite things about the ship?The dynamic appeals to a lot of tropes or ideas/narrative markers I go for in ships in general, what I said about narrative foils is a huge draw for me so is characters going from disliking each other to comrades/allies to establishing more trust to friends, prep x goth ship. I love the care present in how they think of/worry about each other throughout boo, also easy to read yearning vibes into it especially from Jason’s side in pov. Honestly the fact that they’re both repressed as fuck but different ways is so fun to me because soo much potential for pining and slow burn and angst/insecurity all of my fav things lol and now that I’ve started reading some fics really respect how much writers go all in for these things w the pairing. As an opposites attract pairing there’s a lot I love about the idea of two people who are othered in different ways in seemingly opposite ways like Nico has been ostracized and underestimated and felt excluded or undervalued in relationships while Jason tends to be a put on a pedestal for who his dad is and being idolized in relationships can also be stifling/harmful, so there’s something very compelling about that idea combined with certain other parallels like they both have sisterly abandonment issues etc. for similar circumstances. I think a lot of Jason’s dynamics are hard for me to fully connect with and in general his POV is hard to connect with because he’s so passive in most dynamics/storylines, but the way he is about Nico post challice is very overexcited golden retriever energy, like very much the vibe of being oh so flattered that the cool mysterious boy has given the vaguest indication of ‘okay we can be friends I guess’ and then he’s just so over-the-top enthusiastic about Nico after that it’s so very funny, and I also do think it’s interesting to think about why that reaction exists. I said this before but I do like that Jason has to put in a bit of work for the relationship (specifying ‘a bit’ because the Cupid scene as a conduit for them to interact is lazy has a lot of issues (I was more willing to gloss over how that starts the dynamic on reread because on reread of this series in general I think most dynamics that weren’t pre-existing before the series or the Nico and Hazel/Reyna dynamics were jump started in lazy ways because Rick didn’t want to put thought into how they’d get to know each other, so it’s not a roadblock to me liking the ship like it probably was on first read, I see it as a featurebug of how the series was written rather than specific to the dynamic ) and Jason’s reaction was the bare minimum (but still would be important to Nico I think both things are true) so the ‘work’ I mean is mostly not giving up on reaching Nico afterwards) while Nico gets to be on the receiving end of support it’s not the role either of them usually take in a dynamic/storyline so I think it’s an interesting place for both characters. I think Nico would really benefit from being with someone that level of adoring and devoted to him who doesn’t overstep his boundaries (the bar is very low but I did also really like the difference between HoH where Nico snaps at Jason not to touch him without permission vs Boo where Jason really wants to hug Nico but holds himself back until Nico acquiesces verbally (and even being bare minimum I do feel a lot better about it compared to Will always telling Nico what to do grabbing his hand without permission etc. so lmao on that front) and getting to be the person who makes a very stoic buttoned-up person Worse/less sane, I just love how powerful he would feel thanks to making the golden boy worse lol. I think Jason symbolically sort of represents a lot of things Nico has always wanted, so I love the potential fulfillment for Nico’s narrative through this and like the validation of it 

. I also think the relationship from a story pov would have a lot of interesting ramifications for plot for being two big three kids and relationships with other characters like Reyna Hazel Percy Thalia Leo Piper etc. so I love thinking about that, and I think Nico would more naturally be involved in these dynamics if he was with Jason one of my gripes about canon rn is how Will is prioritized in ToA for Nico over all other relationships for no reason :/. Also the idea of Reyna shovel talking Jason is iconic. Really like I said I think on every level the more I think about it the more it makes sense and the more into it I am.

3.Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?we’ll just say that technically preferring Jasico to Solangelo is unpopular already. I do also think though that it being more interesting to me is partially just about Rick’s writing and how he tends to write relationships intended to be platonic as more interesting and having more chemistry than his romances that aren’t Percabeth and Fierrochase, and especially true for hoo pairings for instance the way Pipabeth or Pipeyna are developed as opposed to Jiper, Leo’s relationships with Jason or Frank as opposed to Calypso and Hazel etc. I do think that’s just a common feature in the way he writes dynamics.

Um. But also I felt much more passionate about all of this last month. I still stand by everything but after reading the tsats snippet in SoH that I read I’m kind of abandoning any of the optimism I had about it.

(Ship ask meme from a while back)

[alicedrawslesmis]

Thinking about how much Tolstoy and Hugo are different...

I didn't read WaP but I did read Anna Karenina and other short stories by Tolstoy before. I like his voice much more than Hugo's and, as a brazilian, I was very tickled by the fact that there were so many similar worldviews between us and these russian writers (him and Dostoyevsky)?? like I would never have expected this, but it's there. Maybe it's cause we're both in the periphery of power but not quite there, whatever that means. Hugo is french and he's writing from the pov of a man at the center of the world and this just doesn't click as much for me as the weird confusing melancholy of being neither at the center nor away from it

However. As much as I love Anna Karenina it felt reeeeally long, much longer than it was. Stuff just kept happening, I had to read about Vronsky's attempt at painting and his and Anna's stint in Italy meanwhile Kostya was doing whatever Kostya does, rinse and repeat again and again and again. I mean that's the most endearing part of Levin as a character that he keeps going through the same breakthrough over and over but Leo, brother, at some point your novel has to end

Anyway with Hugo you at least have some diversity in the writing you know! If the plot is dragging a little he's gonna stop in his tracks to give you his extensive opinion on sewage with some very cool visuals. If Tolstoy was writing les mis the most you'd get is occasionally the story would be narrated by a horse. That's kinda fun but it's nowhere near the time Hugo got way too personal about octopuses and you find out that he has many more issues than you thought

I guess you could say Tolstoy disappears into his writing, he's the invisible puppeteer hiding just offstage letting his characters do the talking, but Hugo is the kinda guy who would be the Tim Curry among muppets and also never lets you forget that they're there to reenact the story he wrote.

Hugo is Hamlet and les mis is his play. Tolstoy is Shakespeare writing both the play and the one within the play, and somehow arriving at the same thing. If that makes sense?

Both are very verbose, but Tolstoy is like that in a completely different way. He's the proof that a book that has a lot of interesting plot can drag as much as Victor Hugo talking about Napoleon

[mashamorevvna]

2, 3, 6 for the unusual writing asks!

thank youuuu 🥺🥺

2. What is the most experimental or bizarre thing you've written? Share it here (or a quote from it).

it's gonna be "it would not be i any longer (it would be we, it would be us)"! i don't think it's particularly bizarre or experimental in form but id never done 2nd person before, and i guess maybe the experimental part of it was playing the double pov slash possession which was really quite fun. genuinely find anything pertaining subsumption of identity to be extremely interesting stuff for an unreliable narrator to tackle

3. When did you first start writing, whether that was fanfiction or original work? What was your first work about, to the best you remember? (For bonus points, quote it!)

genuinely can't quite remember, my teens are incredibly hazy memory wise. it's a toss up between the original work that was a gothic horror pastiche of renaissance italy with an ancient rome scaffolding or straight up skyrim fanfiction. it is what it is

6. Name three writing inspirations: one dead published author, one living published author, and one fanficcer/fellow amateur writer.

dead author(s): oh its clarice lispector hands down. in terms of prose she just had a clarity of thought and word choice that I find SO admirable. and in general the way she centered and delved so deep in the interiority of female characters was so mesmerising to me

marguerite duras is a close second! it's very difficult for translated prose to sound 'right' in italian but hers did, and the lover + the malady of death were quite stunning pieces of short fiction (as was the screenplay for hiroshima mon amour)

living author(s): obligatory catherynne m valente mention. deathless was My special book during my teens and in general i hold it quite dear to me as inspo. also obligatory mention to mary szybist's poetry bc she has this poem reframing the virgin mary's annunciation with lines from lolita that i will think about until i die

fanficcer(s): ao3 user smaragdina who influenced my fanfic sensibilities since i was 13 and what i look for (character pieces, gen fic, rare pairs etc) in a way that's pretty hard to overstate. anddd ao3 user steepled_fingers for writing my favourite fanfic of all time. incredible work about a dubious and horrific robot/human relationship

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 Sign of the Slayer Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD Vampires, werewolves, or witches? ❓ 🦇 Life has always been a little weird for Raven, but after her bus is attacked by a vampire, she accepts that it's about to get weirder. She's whisked away to a Slayer training academy, where she learned how to battle beasts that go bump in the night. It's not until weeks after she loses her friends that she realizes the man who saved her is a vampire prince—and that they have to work together to take down an even bigger threat. Can Raven play nice, or will her new powers, bloodlust, and need for revenge get in the way?

💜 The total Buffy the Vampire Slayer vibes this book was giving off totally snagged me. From the get-go, Raven's narration is very much like Faith's; all sassy, bittersweet snark. While that makes her a fun, engaging MC, it's a voice that can either get annoying fast or takes half a book to get used to. The concept of a vampire slayer academy seemed badass and entertaining, but the story doesn't focus much on the academy. Pretty quickly, Raven gets her first field mission, and though that should help the pacing, the story lags due to a mixed bag of concepts that aren't fleshed out well enough to matter.

🦇 The heavy world-building and mythology feel like too much. By the time readers get a grasp on one concept, they're forced to adjust to another. It might have helped if we stuck with Raven's POV, but introducing Khamari's POV as well forces readers to navigate vampire politics, too. Raven harbors so much animosity that she becomes a chaotic, pouty, annoying MC to follow. It's hard to relate to her (yes, I know it's fantasy fiction, but we should still relate to her grief, at the LEAST). It's also difficult to fall for Khamari, who comes off as another typical, broody vampire harboring a secret. The insta-love between them lacks any tension or appeal as well. With so many fragmented plot points and underdeveloped ideas, the story becomes difficult to follow very quickly. Names and information are repeated often enough to become annoying, too.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🩸 Buffy Meets Vampire Academy 🩸 Snarky Faith-esque MC 🩸 BIPOC Author 🩸 Broody Vampire Love Interest 🩸 Dual POV

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher @entangled_publishing / @entangledteen for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

[the-lincyclopedia]

I really love May the Best Man Win by ZR Ellor! It's a YA romance, and there are two POV characters: Jeremy, a trans boy, and his ex-boyfriend, Lukas, who's autistic. It's an exes-to-lovers arc, and I LOVE the way Lukas's autism was portrayed.

I also just finished (and adored) A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall. It's a historical adult romance about a trans woman who's presumed dead in the Napoleonic Wars and takes the opportunity to start living as a woman. The love interest, her former best friend, has a disabling injury from the war, as well as PTSD and laudanum addiction.

The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner is (roughly speaking) YA fantasy. The extent to which the series is queer is debatable (there's a lot of gender stuff going on, and there are multiple explicitly canon or very-nearly-explicitly-canon same-gender couples, but it's secondary-world fantasy in an approximately historical Greek/Byzantine setting, so they don't use modern terms for sexuality or gender identity), but there's definitely some queerness. There is a major character who acquires a significant physical disability early in the series (I'm trying to be vague to avoid spoilers), and the narrator of book six is nonspeaking and physically disabled. A LOT of the characters are also probably neurodivergent, but, again, secondary-world pseudo-historical setting without a lot of modern labels.

The new adult romance Breakaway series by E. L. Massey is very queer and involves multiple disabled characters! The main character of the first two books, Eli, has a traumatic brain injury that has resulted in a seizure disorder, and he has a service dog to alert him when he's about to have a seizure. The love interest of the first two books, Alex, has an anxiety disorder. The main character of book four (coming soon!) is autistic, and the love interest in that book is a bisexual trans woman.

The Check Please new adult comic series by Ngozi Ukazu features a protagonist with PTSD (and a lot of ADHD-coding), and the main love interest has severe anxiety (and a lot of autism-coding).

Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a YA book by John Green and David Levithan, and it was maybe the first book I ever read where, like, the whole point of the book was that it had queer main characters. I'm hesitant to recommend it, because it's well over a decade old in ways that really, really show, but I have incredibly fond memories of it and it played an important role in my life. The disability at play here is depression.

Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce is the final book in a nine-book YA fantasy series, and it's the only one where both disability and queerness are really front and center, as far as I can recall. One of the four main characters is a lesbian, and another of the four main characters has intense PTSD and is coping in pretty unhealthy ways.

The Demon's Lexicon trilogy by Sarah Rees Brennan is also YA fantasy (but urban fantasy, not secondary-world like the Queen's Thief or Will of the Empress), and it's the one on this list that I have the most complicated feelings about. Over the course of the trilogy, there are both queer and disabled main characters, and the books can be a lot of fun . . . but one of the characters is very autistic-coded, and then it turns out that he's "weird" because he's not human. I miss liking those books so much! They were really important to me as a teenager! But I also feel kind of betrayed by them.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells are an adult sci-fi series with an agender, asexual, aromantic main character who's also a human-robot construct with really significant neurodivergent traits. You're allowed to have complicated feelings about neurodivergent robots, but I think Wells handles them really well (definitely in a very different way than Sarah Rees Brennan handles the autistic-coded demon character in The Demon's Lexicon).

The Gentlemen's Guide to Vice and Virtue and subsequent books in that series are historical (sort of fantasy) new adult romance/adventure books (yeah, a bit hard to categorize). The main character of the first book is bisexual and has PTSD and alcohol addiction; the love interest in that book has a physical disability (I think a seizure disorder, but now I'm doubting myself). The main character of book two is asexual, and the main character of book three has really severe anxiety.

Six of Crows is a YA fantasy duology by Leigh Bardugo in which the main character has PTSD and chronic pain and uses a cane. He's straight, but among the six major characters, two are bisexual and one is gay, and one of the bisexual characters has ADHD and a gambling addiction (though, this being secondary-world fantasy, those words don't appear on the page).

The main character of Hench, an adult superhero story by Natalie Zina Walschots, is a bisexual woman has chronic pain and PTSD, and she also uses a cane.

Later Rick Riordan books get progressively queerer, and almost all his characters have ADHD and dyslexia.

I was about to recommend checking out @thedisabilitybookarchive, but it seems like they already reblogged this! Well, anyway, here are my recs.

I have a question

is there any lgbtq+ books with disability characters as the main lead ?

[cavehags]

Sorry if this is demanding or something you're not interested in doing- please feel free to ignore it! You seem very widely read and I haven't read any fiction in ages due to life stuff and was wondering if you'd be interested in recommending some books you've read that you would consider a good place to start for someone who wants to feed that part their brain again! Many Thanks

for sure! here are some books i've read relatively recently (like, in the past couple years) that i enjoyed:

the atmospherians by alex mcelroy - i just finished this last night! it's this wild satire about a "cancelled" wellness influencer who narrates the story of her downfall and her eventual rebrand as a cult leader. it's about storytelling on social media, what it means to trust any narrator but especially someone who has a brand to maintain, gendered expressions of loneliness, and legacy. the prose is kind of so-so but i liked it for the extremely unreliable narrator pov and the startlingly funny twists and turns.

we play ourselves by jen silverman - another book about a lonely woman who had a very public breakdown. contains toxic and competitive female friendships, magnetic leaders, the moral lines people start being willing to cross just to feel valuable, the genius myth, and the murky difference between exploitation and art.

nevada by imogen binnie - one of the best coming-of-age novels i've read, ever. it's a small, simple story about a trans woman from new york and a new friend she meets on the road, someone that she immediately recognizes is a trans woman too. the absolutely gorgeous prose brings you through themes like the dangers and rewards of emotional detachment, when you can lie to yourself and when you can't, taking care of someone else when you aren't able to care for yourself, and that most tumblrina phenomenon, self-recognition through the other. it's hard to come by since it was out of print and is now awaiting republication in the summer, but you can find pdfs floating around online (i even have one if you need).

such a fun age by kiley reid - the story of a black woman working as a babysitter for a wealthy white family during a time in her life when she's not sure what she can do with her life. it's about the narratives people make up about women of color and what it is to live with them, and it's also about the heartbreak of domestic work, how painfully transactional it is to be paid to love a child. really good book.

with teeth by kristen arnett - another book about motherhood, this one focuses on a lesbian mom who is spiralling out as she struggles to care for her very challenging son. this is one of those books that depict just a snowball of catastrophe that builds and builds even though it is, at the end of the day, just about this one family and their little lives. themes include generational trauma, the futility of measuring up to any kind of perfect mother image, living with loneliness when you're part of a family, and what it looks like for a mother to put herself before her child, grim as it is.

our wives under the sea by julia armfield - ohhhh this book was good! it's a creepy, vaguely fantastical horror book told in a dual pov: one woman who went on a submarine expedition that went very wrong, and her wife, who received her when she returned and had to deal with the fallout. some very unsettling body horror imagery from this book has lingered with me (in a good way). contains repressed and unspeakable trauma, facilitating a partner's coping mechanism as an act of love, doubt, faith, what no communication does to a mf, and the brutal horror of the ocean.

manhunt by gretchen felker-martin - 10 OUT OF 10 STARS I LOVE THIS BOOK! i had to end with this because it's almost this book's pub date and i am hell-bent on inventing this book for the tumblr audience. an insane horror romp that follows a group of trans and disabled protagonists as they try to find a safe place to live after a plague turned everyone with enough testosterone in their system into a cannibalistic monster. but the monsters are almost the easy part--the remaining cis women are no easier to evade, with super-rich wellness heiresses, chasers, and of course TERFs putting the protagonists in a more subtle danger. the big themes are inter-community harm (what women and queer people will selfishly do to each other), how survival scenarios bring out the worst and most honest core of who you are, and how at the end of the day, whether you're on the side of good or evil, community will be the deciding factor in whether you survive. this book is so darkly funny, sexy, and just so fucking good. i can't wait for more people to read it.

i hope that's a wide enough list to get you started! i'd love to know what you think about any of these books. lmk how it goes :)

[olderthannetfic]

been ages since I've read Percy Jackson (I stopped reading RR's stuff after the Kane Chronicles so I can't speak on the Magnus Chase series either) and while with adult hindsight some stuff could for sure be called stereotypical or problematic, all the characters were still like... characters? RR clearly cared about them while writing them so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Leo was also a grease monkey who was constantly tinkering with machines and stuff and I can't remember he being particularly flirty in the way the Latino stereotype typically plays out, just maybe more interested in girls in general than other male characters (who usually had specific love interests at that point while Leo's came in late in the series) and was well liked by a few girls in return (which, Percy also got quite a few admirers as well). Piper, while the Cherokee stuff was also sometimes stereotypical according to people who know more than me, stole stuff because her dad was super rich and it was a way to get his attention so the klepto stuff was not related to her being Cherokee.

(also if we're talking rep, RR did great in terms of non-normative family and parents as well. Most characters came from single parent or mixed family households or no parents at all. Lots of characters have complicated relationships with their parents, ranging from neglect to abuse to parents who can't be good parents despite trying to great parents in bad situations to dead parents, there's a lot of variety there and the effects of parenthood is a huge presence in his books)

I'm not saying it was all good. Just that the characters themselves were given a lot more than just a stereotype even though sometimes they did enter that territory. It feels like RR accidentally fell into that stuff while trying to give legitimate representation that actually addressed the heritage of his characters rather than just saying they were X and then never having it effect their characters or the story which would be its own problem. He clearly put in a lot of effort, it's just this is what you risk when you actually try to write diverse characters--you make mistakes. We can still critique it but it's by far better than a lot of children's authors who duck the issue by having none or only background representation. The end result isn't perfect but RR's books have an incredibly diverse cast made up of compelling characters the intended audience can relate to. Also that anon was also weirdly fixated on the characters finding each other attractive which was a thing almost always noted by the POV character as far back as when Percy was the only narrator so idk how that's relevant.

(Also complaining about a fictional book series for children butchering several mythologies--that's the entire point? It's a fun creative "Greek/Egyptian/Norse gods exist in the modern day" romp that draws inspiration from mythology but retells them with a modern twist and in funny ways kids will pay attention to. It's not entirely accurate but the Greek Gods are living above the Empire State Building)

--

Yeah, they seem not only very upset at teen sexuality but convinced that I will agree with them, which... Hahaha.

[onceupona-chaos]

Why keep an open mind about Elain

(And why her book will slap hard)

When I was writing this one-shot right here, I read a few posts about Elain as a spy, some of them liked the idea, others didn't. Which is totally ok, if you don't, of course. I also reread a lot of scenes from the books to understand better how this could play out.

But I came across some comments about how Elain being a spy would make her "lose her characterization" or be "out of character". So I wanted to talk a little about it. This post will be discussing those comments specifically and why you should keep an open mind about Elain.

NOTE: As usual, sorry for any mistakes, English is not my first language. I really hope I made myself clear. If you have any comments, I would love to hear them. Be kind!

1. Elain as a character

The first reason I don't believe that argument is because ACOSF made it clear that we know very little about Elain. So how can we say it would be something out of character for her when we barely know her as a character?

So far, we only have other characters points of view on Elain: a person who has a sweet temper. But ACOSF came to tell us that there is another side of her. Nesta expected Elain to cry because of Graysen. She didn't. Elain didn't back down from her fight with Nesta, she didn't hesitate when it came to the Trove or the Hewn City, she laughed when Nesta told her to fuck off. In every single of those moment, Elain's behavior is emphasized by one reaction of the others: surprise.

"You think I’m to blame for his death?” Challenge filled each word. Challenge—from Elain, of all people.

"Elain showed some teeth," I observed. "I wasn't expecting that."

And this is nothing new. Look at what we have in ACOFAS:

and Elain—Elain—had taken up Azriel’s dagger and killed the King of Hybern instead.

The last two books highlight that 1) we don't know everything about her and 2) we expect one behavior from her.

But most importantly: she often doesn't correspond to what it is expected of her, especially in ACOSF.

And then we have this:

With time and safety, perhaps we'll see a different side of her emerge.

But I also think we haven't yet seen all she has to offer.

And before this makes someone think Elain will not get a book because we don't have much on her character, this is exactly what books are for. To develop a character. Before ACOSF, Nesta didn't have much development either. We had seen ACOFAS lay the background for her, the same way ACOSF laid the background for Elain's story.

Elain will surprise us. Sarah is practically screaming that at this point. So before judge something as out of character, we need to have in mind that Elain will have her arc and by the end of it, she will be different, she will grow. Which leads me to:

2. In order to be developed, characters need to change

Before ACOSF came out, lots of people said Nesta would never be a warrior, especially because of this line:

And why must I train at all? I am no warrior nor do I desire to be. (ACOWAR)

And I understand. I really do. But we went from that to Nesta not only becoming a Valkyrie, but also thinking about starting a small unit of females. Yes, that line is back in ACOWAR. However, in ACOSF Gwyn and Emerie said the exactly same thing:

Gwyn gestured to Nesta's fighting leathers, the overlapping scales. "I'm not a warrior".

Emerie's face yielded nothing, as blattle-hardened as Azriel's. "I'm not interested in a warrior's training".

There's a difference between developing a character and doing something out of character.

Elain already is passing through an internal change, which means SJM is preparing her for her arc. So we have to keep in mind that Elain will pass through challenges, changes in her journey, where she will learn new lessons, abilities. She will face and deal with her traumas and flaws, because she will be developed as a character. Of course, her essence will still be there, but in order to grow, she needs to change as well.

At this point lots of things happened to her, now we will see Elain making things happen. Changes like that are inevitable, necessary, but not out of character.

Now, if Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie became warriors, why would it be so out of character for Elain to become a spy?

Personally, I think if Elain became a warrior, that could be considered out of character, because Sarah already told us that her strength comes from a different place:

Elain had always been gentle and sweet—and I had considered it a different sort of strength. A better strength. To look at the hardness of the world and choose, over and over, to love, to be kind. She had been always so full of light.

Of course, this is Feyre's Pov, but is also SJM talking about Elain's nature.

We have to understand the difference between characters' point of view and what SJM is trying to tell us. For example, Nesta in ACOSF had one perception of Elain ("she is like a dog"), but SJM emphasized Nesta's perception as not correspondent to Elain's behavior. How? Using that scene where Elain talks about Nesta's dancing. in that moment, Cassian and the readers realized Nesta's point of view was biased, non correspondent to what Elain was showing us in that scene.

I'm saying that because there's a difference between narrator and author. But this is another discussion entirely.

But I truly believe from what we have seen so far, Elain isn't the warrior type. And despite the fact that we had just read ACOSF, therefore another book about warriors training doesn't sound so appealing, from what we had seen until now, Elain's has potencial (build up) to go to another direction, one that we haven't seen yet.

3. Elain already has what it takes

I want to look at this:

I wondered if Rhys’s spymaster often got his information through stone-cold manners as much as stealth and shadow.

My sister Elain can convince anyone to do anything with a few smiles.

For the record, Feyre said this in ACOWAR and these both scenes are very close to each other.

Spying is not all about shadows and stealth. Azriel works from the shadows, but if Elain can be so lovely and convincing that anyone would do anything for her, she could be a different kind of spy. And with her Seer powers, she could be a valuable one. As much or even more than the Night Court spymaster. Look at this:

Shadowsingers are rare—coveted by courts and territories across the world for their stealth and predisposition to hear and feel things others can’t.

We know Elain can be almost as stealthy as Azriel. And she is a Seer, which means she can See and hear things others can't, too. Not to mention we already have seen that she is observant and knows how to keep a secret.

Elain pushed, “We keep it secret—we send the servants away [...] No one will know.”

“I think she’s got you beat for secret-keeping.”

Elain saw every single thing Nesta had done, and understood why.

Not only she is observant, but also knows how to read people, to understand them. Look at these scenes where Nesta said basically the same thing, but Feyre didn't understand her. Elain on the other hand...

With Feyre:

“Father would want you to—”

“Don’t you finish that sentence.” Despite the sound shield around us, there was nothing to block the view of my sister baring her teeth. The view of her fingers curling into invisible claws. A scene. This was about to become a scene in the worst way. (ACOFAS)

With Elain:

"[...] if Father were here—”

“Don’t ever mention him.” Nesta bared her teeth, but kept her voice low. "Never fucking mention him again.”

Pain slowly washed over Elain’s face. And understanding. “Is that what this is all about? Father?” Silver lined Elain’s eyes, but her voice remained steady, sure. “There was nothing that could have been done to save him, Nesta." (ACOSF)

Elain understood exactly what was going on with Nesta.

Nothing is more telling to me than this, and I highly doubt SJM didn't want to show us not only Nesta's internal issues, but how Elain can understand and read very others very easily as well.

Elain also understood when Feyre wasn't sure about buying gifts. And not get me started on Azriel's bonus chapter, where it's emphasized repeatedly that they can read and comprehend each other without necessarily saying what they meant. This shows a connection between them, yes, but also a skill.

Just imagine how valuable and rare she would be for the Night Court.

And the best part is it wouldn't be out of character, because she already presented those features. Besides, Elain can be lovely, delicate and be a bad ass spy (or whatever she wishes to, tbh) . Even better: she can use those characteristics in her favor.

Do not forget what Rhysand said: Elain is sweet and she is not afraid of get her hands dirty. We just haven't seen that yet, because SJM will show us that in her book. Simple as that.

4. Elain being a spy attends SJM's pattern

In every book (or series) so far we had a female character learning something new. Feyre learned how to control her powers (and to read), Nesta learned how to be a warrior. I think it's safe to say that Elain will learn something in order to be developed as a character.

You could argue she could learn anything, which is fair. But in ACOSF we learned that Elain can be stealthy as well. SJM emphasized it again and again, and there is no way in hell she did that just for fun. It's safe to say by now that even if she doesn't become a spy, this ability will play a role in her book.

A few examples that we all know too well by now:

Elain spoke from the doorway, having appeared so silently that they all twisted toward her, “Using me.”

"You came,” Elain said behind her, and Nesta started, not having heard her sister approach. She scanned Elain from head to toe, wondering if she’d been taking lessons in stealth either from Azriel or the two half-wraiths she called friends.

She'd leave her gift amongst his other, opened presents, subtle and unnoticed.

What is curious is that stealth is associated with Azriel, but also with Nuala and Cerridwen, Elain's friends. (Here, I highly recommend this amazing post for more on this friendship and what it means to Elain’s future).

I don't have a doubt the next book is about Elain, it will be her book. So you can't tell me the fact that her friends and love interest are spies is just a coincidence or that won't mean anything. Not when Elain herself has already started to show that she can be just as stealthy and subtle as any of them.

In this scenario, we have:

Elain learning how to be a spy with Azriel, whilst they work together to find the Trove and help each other to heal from their issues.

A female main character learning something new with the help from her love interest whilst they work together to solve a problem connected to the main plot and help each oher to heal from their issues.

I PRESENT YOU THE SJM'S PATTERN.

I know some people like or don't like this theory because that would mean Elain would have a connection to Azriel or because they don't like her becoming "similar to Azriel".

But the thing is: they already share a connection, they know each other for almost two years now and most of their interactions happened "off-screen", so they don't need her to become a spy to want to be together. They already do.

And mostly important, she wouldn't become similar to Azriel, because Elain already has the required features. We don't know much about her, but so far what we do know is: she is stealthy and a good secret keeper. She knows how to read and understand people. She can hear and see things others can't, because she is a Seer, and she can be convincing af.

Most of those were emphasized again in ACOSF concomitantly with Elain's another side. (Tell me again the next book isn't about her).

And again: a female character learning something with her love interest is SJM's pattern. We've just read a book that follows this exactly structure. Are we going to say Nesta or Feyre lost their characterization because they learned and now share the same abilities as Cassian and Rhys?

SJM already answered that for us in ACOSF:

“Does it undermine my image as a warrior to be with you?”

“No. Does it undermine Feyre’s when she’s seen with Rhys?”

This is so telling, I literally stopped my reading at this. We tend to put this passage aside because of what comes next (Cassian being very discreet and screaming he's Nesta's mate to every single soul in Velaris to hear), which is totally fair. But right there, SJM is telling us that female characters sharing abilities with their love interests is no reason to undermine them. On the contrary, in her books this is a way for them to heal togheter.

Knowing SJM, Elain being a spy along with Azriel, Nuala and Cerridwen wouldn't be nothing new. We have seen this story over and over again.

We have so much build up for this, I could go on and on and on. And before someone says this won't work because Azriel has to stay away from her, just take a second to think about how much tension we would get if they are forced to work together in order to find the Trove (or any other reason that SJM will come up with). We'll have a story full of secrets, tension, drama, angst, passion, desire, love. Things too easy don't make a good story.

But at the end, even if she does not become a spy, I just think we have many possibilities for Elain and an amazing story ahead of us. I really want people to keep an open mind about her and her book and not judge too harsh amazing possibilities as out of character. If Nesta hadn't became a warrior, we wouldn't have known the Valkyries. So maybe, when you judge a possibility like that, you are closing yourself to an amazing journey.

And also, Nesta was once judged and hated. A lot of people ended up changing their minds, which is great because she is awesome. So I think we already learned that lesson.

We will see another side of Elain emerge and she will surprise us. That's not me, that's SJM. She already told us that. Repeatedly.

All of this just to say: keep an open mind about Elain. She has what it takes and will surprise us - and I can't wait to see her becoming a badass.

[penig]

I miss those scenes, too! I get that things have to be chopped for length when making a movie, but - the book is called Little Women/Good Wives, not Writer’s Alter Ego Grows Up. All the girls (who remember were based on Alcott’s own family) were equally important to the author, and Jo is usually the viewpoint character primarily because she and the narrator overlap, not because her sisters aren’t equally vital to the story.

In Little Women, which is explicitly structured as a maturation tale around the conceit of the Pilgrim’s Progress, each girl gets an equal amount of time in the spotlight, with discrete chapters dedicated to their particular challenges. When games are described it’s made clear who plays what role and how Jo, the ringleader, tries to ensure that every one of them has something interesting and fun to do that suits them particularly.  Every girl has a triumph and every girl has a serious screwup. Even Beth, so often perceived by modern readers as too perfect to be believable, gets distracted and forgets to feed her pet canary so it starves! For my money I’ve always regarded that as the worst screwup any of them makes. I’m positive Beth was haunted by it and that’s one reason she became so superreliable about the Hummels, which conscientiousness eventually led to her death.

The sisters continue to get the same evenhanded treatment in Good Wives, and even if the reader remains primarily interested in Jo, the stories of the other sisters are very much structured to interweave with each other and for the alert reader to see them all comment on each other, a feature which all adaptations I am familiar with lack. Beth’s long decline and traumatizing death affects her sisters’ life paths not just emotionally but literally - their comings and goings, choices and challenges all happen in the context of what they can and cannot do for Beth as she dies, and how they learn to live happily again afterward. Amy and Jo, the ambitious sisters, compete with and mirror each other. And getting back to the point of the original post, Meg’s romance and courtship provide a background and commentary on Jo’s; Jo’s wisdom in rejecting Laurie is made plain for all who don’t refuse to see it (imagine Jo and Laurie on the night she can’t make anything work and he brings someone home to supper without warning; yeah, she knew what she was doing when she said no!), and is rewarded by paving the way for Amy and Laurie, who are actually suited, to come together in the aftermath of Beth’s death. There has never been any shortage of obstinate Jo/Laurie shippers, even before adaptations; but it is much easier to ignore the rightness of Jo’s decision in an adaptation which leaves out Meg’s experience.

A not insignificant point is also that, the marriage Meg has is the marriage that children see first hand, with all its messiness. I first read Alcott when I was seven. Romance did not mean much to me, but domestic quarrels and toddler wrangling did! Children’s literature has plenty of domestic disorder from the POV of children, but to see both the courtship and the disorder in a single book and character arc is far less common, and extremely valuable. when i t happens.

Also, those chapters are funny as hell, so there’s that.

The chapter in the book Little Women/Good Wives, and the scene in the movies of Jo's proposal and married life are So Important. They show the heroine living a happy and unconventional lifestyle: It says that this life she leads with work, marriage, and very little money is a good, wholesome life. That is so important.

But - I think an overlooked chapter in the books (not depicted in the films that I have seen) is the one in which Meg tries to cook and preserve currant jam. She has a miserable day, turned even worse when her husband John brings home a friend for dinner. For once, Meg snaps at him and he snaps back when provoked.

Eventually, Meg takes some good advhice from Marmee, and she brings peace. The chapter ends with a line about married life foe these two not being perfect - it will always have its difficulties, but peace has been preserved and quarrels will be managed.

In another chapter, after Meg has had twins, she understandable becomes so wrapped up in them that she neglects both herself and her husband. Neither the book nor I are saying that one partner should be a servant to the other. But in marriage, we have promised something of ourselves to them*. Meg has isolated herself from the world and grown irritable while she rarely sees John who spends time at his friend's house instead of being nagged at home.

Again, Meg takes initiative and fixes it. This is a bit of a pattern that we see the world over today, in which women usually take the emotional burden in the home. I have no comment to make on that, it's not the point of this post.

The point is: The book has made a few excellent points through everyday, domestic scenes about marriage which are not (or only rarely) shown on film. The glamour, unpredictability and excitement of Jo's publishing, marriage to the Professor, work and, from a plot-based POV, the fact that she is the main character, mean that her storyline is in the spotlight. I love her storyline. But I also think that Meg's has something important to teach us: If you choose the more traditional path, your life is just as full of adventure and growth, difficulties, pain and pleasures.

*talking about non-toxic nd non-abusive relationships.

[dear-mrs-otome]

Johann Georg Faust - 2nd Birthday (His POV) - Yet Another Terrible Summary

(Faust: "...The children will wake up.")

Here is my irreverent, only nominally-guaranteed accurate rendition of Faust’s 2nd birthday story in his POV.

(We start with a one-liner, ‘narrator voice’ Faust saying how he had learned from a very young age that the world was an absurd place.)

It’s February 28th, and at his church, MC has arrived with a bag she offers him, claiming they’re delicious treats she wanted to share. He asks if she’s there to celebrate his birthday, pointing out to her there’s no February 29th this year. She deflates, grumbling that she hadn’t expected him to see through things so quickly, and he tells her that if she does something like that out of the blue of course he’s going to wonder why.

He can’t believe she’s trying again, after he’d told her last year he didn’t want to celebrate and that the day was meaningless - it’s merely the day he was found after having been abandoned as a baby. No sentimentality to it. But he can also clearly recall the way she’d told him last year she wanted him to be happy on his birthday...and bemused by that sentiment still, he takes the proffered bag.

He says that if it’s a gift, he’ll take it because he can think of someone it’ll make happy. MC finally notices the small child hovering around when he says this, and she has a spittake moment of ILLEGITIMATE KIDDO?? Faust teases her about having a very wild imagination, causing her to sputter, and he pinches her cheeks lightly at her flailings before he hands the bag of candy off to the little boy.

The child seem incredulous at the gift, but MC assures him she’d be happy if he ate it, and she asks him his name. The boy tells her it is Hugo in a small voice. She asks Hugo if he’s from around here, but Faust answers for him - he says he is, but he’s due to circumstances he’s about to take the child to the orphanage now.

MC surprises him by asking if it’s no bother, can she come along too? He tells her it makes no matter to him - wondering to himself if she’s worried about the kiddo. She thanks him, and urges little Hugo to get ready to go, his little hand fast in hers.

They’re greeted by the orphanage matron when they arrive, who kindly welcomes Hugo to his new home. MC hands the boy off with a soft look, and Faust is all in a hurry to leave now that his duty is done...when one of the orphan children notices the priest and the lady and calls out to them.

Spotted, Faust thinks, and no sooner has the first kid called out than the rest of the kids come running over as well, all crowding around him and clamoring for them to stay and play.

Faust immediately shuts the idea down, but MC cajoles that if they have time, they should stay and play. He warns her that she will only regret the idea - when they’re interrupted by the matron asking if they wouldn’t mind actually? She’s short-handed on help and needs to step out to get some things but can’t leave the kids unattended.

She really is not taking no for an answer, and thus Faust and MC find themselves babysitting the orphanage until she returns.

Some time later, Faust is pulling an ‘I told you so’ on an exhausted MC, who’s been run ragged by the eager children. She flops to a seat, and looks up at him soberly, where he’d just picked up a child and put them to sleep. She observes that he’s good with the children, and he says he has practice - he used to take care of some a long time ago.

He spares a moment to wonder to himself how many of them grew up to lead out their lives, given how life in an orphanage long ago was far from easy. Then as he’s looking out over the children he realizes they’re short one, and says as much aloud.

MC and he go searching, and shortly they find Hugo outside near the gates, huddled and shivering in the cold winter air. Faust realizes this is more than simply being sad about his new surroundings, and it’s MC tries to herd him inside so he doesn’t catch a cold.

But little Hugo balks, and he says no, he wants to stay here - if he caught a cold and died, would he meet his mom and dad in heaven?

Faust realizes from the stunned expression on MC’s face that she’s finally understood the truth of Hugo’s situation. His parents both had died in an accident and he was forced to enter the orphanage when no one came to collect him after the funeral. Faust thinks it’s not unreasonable for Hugo to be saddened, but…

“There’s no guarantee you’ll meet someone who has passed on. It’s pointless to choose death for that,” he tells Hugo. “Unless of course someone were to be dissected after death for posterity...then their death wouldn’t be a total waste.”

MC sputters at him for saying such a thing to a child, but Faust is remorseless, still thinking it’s foolish to have any hopes or expectations for after death. As a priest, he often tells people that ‘those who pass on are ushered into the kingdom of heaven’...but he himself has never seen Heaven, or God provide any sort of salvation.

Hugo wonders aloud why his mom and dad had to die? Why did God decide such a thing?

Faust tells him that the world is an absurd place and urges him that if he has any sort of doubts, to think about how he can live in defiance of his destiny...rather than letting winter’s cold choose life or death for him. He takes his jacket off and slips it over those tiny shoulders, and watches as MC wipes away the tears that fall from Hugo’s eyes, comforting him.

He thinks...that he cannot recall what sadness is, what it feels like anymore. But he can tell how incredibly warm the hand MC slips into Hugo’s is.

After they’ve gotten the children all settled for their nap, MC replaces Faust’s jacket with a blanket on the sleeping Hugo and turns to him, holding it as she stares at him. He finally asks her, what?? And she asks what sort of children it was he’d spent time with in the past.

Faust teases her about asking something out of the blue like that, and for being so keenly interested - startling him when she unapologetically agrees that she does want to know about him, and if he tells her she’ll return his jacket.

Faust grumbles that it’s a lame deal, given that it’s not a fun story to hear...but he doesn’t get the impression that she’s asking out of idle curiosity or a whim alone, so he indulges her. He tells her that when he was a baby, he was found by an older nun and grew up in an orphanage located in an old church. He says that they were terribly poor, but he survived, and when he got older he helped take care of the other children. Many of them would die before winter’s end, or disappear after being taken in by foster parents.

Eventually, he was fostered out himself and the nun who raised him died of an illness, and the orphanage was closed. End of story.

He thinks that the abbreviated version he told her was the parts that didn’t hurt...but she still looks up at him with a sadness in her eyes when she asks what sort of woman was the nun?

Faust says that she was incredibly kind, too kind to ignore an abandoned child, and probably too compassionate for her own good.

He thinks how she was kind up until the very end, giving and giving of herself to anyone….and he recalls a time when she’d come to him.

“Thank you for taking care of everyone, Johann” she had said. “But why don’t you put the books down and go play?”

“It’s fine. Even if I make friends with them, they will all leave someday,” he had told her.

“Johann...The reason why you never cry is because you keep your sadness locked away…”

He can still see the sad smile she had worn and hear the conversation they’d had, rising to the surface of a sea of old memories. He coldly waits for those lingering remnants to pass...when his reverie is interrupted by MC telling him she’s thankful the woman found little Faust. That even if the world is an absurd place, she’s happy to be able to celebrate his birthday with him now.

Her words stun him into silence, leaving him only able to stare at her faint smile. He’d never thought of it that way - the consideration to be thankful for such a thing. Her words shed a new light on his cold memories, and sneak their way into his heart.

He teases her though, saying that she speaks of odd things and he wonders if she’s merely angling to dig through people’s pasts and root out their weaknesses. A sputtering MC vehemently denies she’d do such a thing and accuses him of being a smartass, and righteously stomps towards him to shove the jacket back at him...when she steps on a stray toy block, loses her footing, and crashes into him.

They both tumble to the ground, her atop him, and she’s staring down at him wide-eyed as she beings babbling apologies - only to have them fade into muffled sounds when he quickly reaches up and presses her face onto his chest to stifle her voice.

“You’ll wake the children,” he warns her...though he pauses a moment to linger on the soft feel of her cheek on his bare skin, where his shirt has fallen into disorder. He’s thinking, this woman is unbelievable, as he chides her for such - sighing heavily and asking if she gets a kick out of bothering him.

But he’s getting a kick out of her blushing face and her averted eyes, the sight stirring his mean streak enough that he can’t let the opportunity to give her a hard time pass. He teases her about being the one with the red face when she pushed him down...and is amused by her appalled reaction. He says she’s something else to straddle a man with a face like that, right next to a bunch of sleeping children...and he strokes his hands up the thighs that bracket his hips, enjoying the little sigh she lets out.

The moment is broken by a soft sound from one of the children tossing in their sleep, and MC leaps off him like a scalded cat. The whole situation is so incredibly absurd that Faust can’t help laughing, even if it’s met by a glare from MC as she asks him what is so funny.

He’s still chuckling as he points out her reaction, and how amusing it all was...all the while thinking, it has been a very long time since he has laughed so much. He slips back on the jacket she shoves at him, and tells her that he never gets tired of watching her - he wants to keep her close at hand, so he can observe her always.

His words have her turning her face away, but the look in her eyes before she does makes him happy. He wants to know more about her, he thinks. What manner of things would he discover, if he caught her and kept her all to himself, and figured out what made her tick? Her presence in this world, that he looks at through such cold eyes, stirs his heart.

FIN

(many thanks as always to @mikotomizuki for giving this a second set of eyes!)

[butterflydm]

wot reread: the shadow rising (chap2 part2)

The last post got extremely long, so I went ahead and split it up.

spoilers through the end of the fourth book, the shadow rising.

1. Anyway, we are in Mat’s PoV and I’m kinda relieved to be out of Perrin’s, which is sad. But, like compared to Perrin’s melodrama with Faile, with Mat we find out about Rand’s new laws that are enforcing Lords to the same standards as normal people, how precarious Rand’s position is with the Tairen Lords, and we learn cultural tidbits about Tear, and I’m just relieved not to be in the middle of Perrin and Faile’s relationship drama tbh.

2. Mat keeps his coats (fancy as they are) cut in an Andoran style. Oh Mat. I really am fond of him.

3. Mat is totes planning on leaving once he has the money. It’s just... you know. Tear is full of distractions. Is all. That’s the only reason he’s still here.

4. Oh, and now we get Mat’s perspective on Rand. “A good fellow to have fun with, when he was not going all over-serious and responsible”. And his current hangup with Rand as the Dragon Reborn is Moiraine and not Rand himself. My memory was SO WRONG. I thought I remembered that Mat’s reaction was so much worse than Perrin’s but I actually really like this perspective and Mat’s feelings make so much sense? I mean, he’s about to get attacked by a bubble of evil, so maybe he’ll have more negative thoughts in a minute. But I just kinda wanna live in that first sentence for a while.

5. We do get to him thinking, a page or so later, basically that it is impossible for him to really still be Rand’s friend anymore because Rand is a man who can channel but again there’s not any... hostility in the thought. It’s treated as a survival necessity. It’s like how Egwene kept talking in TDR about how ‘impossible’ it was for her to still marry Rand in the future because he’s the Dragon Reborn (and meanwhile Elayne is just standing there going... ‘um no it’s not’).

6. It’s fascinating, tbh, how far we get into the conversation before it becomes really clear in Mat’s narration how much he hates the lords that he’s playing cards with. He’s very good at not thinking about the things that he doesn’t want to think about. But he despises the way they think of ‘peasants’, and the way they think of Aiel, and the way he knows that they only treat him like a person because he’s the ‘Lord Dragon’s friend’.

7. Yeah, on page 58, where Mat is basically trying to work himself up to the idea of leaving by trying to convince himself that he doesn’t still think of Rand as a friend, that he can’t think of Rand as a friend, so it’s fine to leave him behind. He has to keep reminding himself over and over that Rand can’t be his friend anymore.

8. “Mat forgot about the Old Tongue. It was easy enough; he did not want to think of it.” Amazing. I was literally just talking about this ability to not think about things earlier. Mat’s PoVs are such a rollercoaster of emotions.

9. Doing the math here, Mat has at least five daggers on him these days at all times. Mostly likely, at least six, since he would probably keep an equal number accessible to each hand. Mat does also have a flash of anger towards Rand here and blames what happened on Rand potentially having gone mad, but he has no one to stoke it up higher. Maybe that’s part of the difference that we see in the two PoVs.

10. So Perrin and Faile are having an early morning talk; Mat has been playing cards until the wee hours of the morning, and Rand is asleep, flipping between nightmares and, well, basically PG-13 sex dreams. But he’s still terrified that Moiraine is trying to, essentially, leash him and control him. The theme of... leashing channelers because they’re dangerous comes up again and again even when the Seanchan aren’t present.

11. On the other side of things, his swimming dream shows his attraction to both Min and Elayne, as well as feeling vaguely like he’s betraying Egwene for being interested in them. More than that, it also shows his deep desire to reconnect with his roots (the pond in the dream is where he learned to swim as a child) and take a break from the high-intensity stress of being the Dragon Reborn. But then even that one turns into a nightmare, with the reminder of what ‘everyone’ knows about how the taint is a rotting death for male channelers.

12. And Rand has the exact same fears about himself that we see both Perrin and Mat having about him. Fear of going mad, fear of rotting away, etc.

13. “Neither of them ever looked at him that way when he was awake” - Elayne told you TO YOUR FACE that she thinks you’re handsome. I do get him feeling like her knowing he’s the Dragon now would change things but she did tell you flat-out that she thinks you’re handsome.

14. We finally get to the ‘I think of Egwene as a sister’ mental admission from Rand here. But it’s been interesting to see the progression of this backstory for them. In EotW, it was a teenage crush that Egwene cut off at the knees by choosing to be Nynaeve’s apprentice instead of dancing with Rand at Bel Tine. In TGH, it was retroactively graduated to ‘Egwene picked him out when they were young teenagers and then socially engineered them to be in a relationship but Rand didn’t realize this until he compares it to how Ogier marriages are set up’, which was my least favorite version of their backstory tbh, as it made Egwene breaking things off with him seem a lot more heartless and cruel than the original version did. And then in TDR/TSR, it becomes ‘all but promised to each other as children’ with them both fully aware of that and what it means. I think this is The Final Version of their backstory tho.

Pushing the timeline of their connection back to childhood and turning it into more of an arranged semi-betrothal as opposed to something that was driven by either Rand or Egwene’s actual emotions does make it easier, narratively, to go ‘but actually I think of her as a sister now’ but it’s been interesting to keep an eye out for those narrative shifts as they happened. So, I feel like there are multiple different backstories that a fic writer can choose to draw on for the ‘past Rand/Egwene’ portions of their fics, lol. I wonder if they’re going to cut out the “I think of you like a sister/brother” bits, since they did have Rand and Egwene fade-to-black having sex in the first episode and the seventh.

It’s good they break up for the last time in this book tho, because at the rate the backstory was evolving, in five books, we would learn that they were already married back in Emond’s Field before setting out in EotW and they’ve actually been wearing wedding rings this entire time and it’s just that no one mentioned them before now.

15. Berelain lying to the Maidens so that she can sneak into Rand’s bedroom in the middle of the night to try to seduce him: like, I do understand her motives (keeping her country safe) but... eeeesh, please don’t do that.

16. Saidin responding to Rand’s desires -- Berelain won’t listen to him asking her to leave, she won’t listen to him trying to use Egwene as a shield to hide behind, she won’t listen to any of his soft ‘no’s, so saidin says no for him, and pushes her far enough away that he can just tell her, flat-out, that he will never allow her to talk to him in private again. And he does find her physically attractive; his internal narration does make that clear -- but he’s not interested in sleeping with anyone who is doing it for political reasons or who would be sleeping with ‘the Dragon Reborn’ instead of with Rand.

17. It’s interesting how targeted all these attacks are -- Perrin gets attacked by the axe (his capacity for violence), Mat gets attacked by the playing cards (his luck), and Rand gets attacked by his own reflection.

18. Also a theme I noticed in this chapter was cultural clashes that end up with women from different cultures, specifically, stomping all over the boundaries of the boys from the Two Rivers. Three different ways -- sexual, violence, and one way that mixes sex and violence. Berelain snuck into Rand’s room to seduce him and won’t listen to him telling her ‘no’ until he finally lashes out with saidin to try to make her listen and respect his ‘no’. Faile hits Perrin (hard enough that he worries she may have loosened one of his teeth, iirc) and he has to physically hold her in place to keep her from trying to hit him more. Mat deals with remembering the game of ‘Maidens’ Kiss’ that Rhuarc tricked him into asking the Maidens to play, where he has to satisfy the Maidens with kisses to avoid them causing him physical harm. Just. Definitely something that I noticed there.

19. The ending to this chapter is so heartbreaking. “He just wanted to sit and remember a shepherd named Rand al’Thor”.

[suits-of-woe]

Speaking of King Lear, what are your thoughts on 1000 Acres (if you've read it)

Oh yes I have and it’s SO good. I owe Jane Smiley my entire life. How much you enjoy it will probably depend a lot on your overall view of the play; if you’re in the camp of “Lear sisters evil and Lear extremely sympathetic” then you probably won’t like it that much because that is not the route she takes. But if you’re like me and you think Goneril and Regan are amazing and were absolutely right when they said “fuck Lear” then you’ll hopefully love it too.

It’s probably the best characterization of Goneril I’ve seen in like...pretty much anything. Smiley just gets her in a very similar way to how I see her, gets that she’s so lonely and has spent her whole life trying to be a good woman and daughter and wife even though she isn’t really acknowledged for it, gets that Lear treats her (and Regan) horribly (no spoilers but in the book it’s really really bad and they are 100% right to cut him out of their lives), gets that of course she’s so desperate for love and happiness that when she gets a genuine taste of it she’ll do horrible things to try to keep it. And the Regan stand-in is so good too, she’s so angry and ruthless because it’s the only way she knows how to survive all the pain she’s experienced. She has no shame about taking what she wants as soon as she can get it but of course that just drives the rift between the sisters deeper and just. YEAH. Basically it’s excellent Goneril and Regan characterization imo and their relationship is the heart and soul of the book.

The other characters are adapted somewhat less faithfully. Jess Clark is not really anything like how I tend to see Edmund but Jane Smiley really took one look at him and made him an aggressively-West Coast boy who’s obsessed with vegetarianism and is going through a weird Buddhism phase and frankly I respect it. She also introduces him by talking about how good his ass looks. Fucking incredible. The Lear character is...good and really interesting in my mind but he’s not redeemable so make of that what you will, and her take on Cordelia is less sympathetic than usual too, although I think it’s a very fun look at her from an unusual angle. This is all told from the Goneril stand-in’s POV so that obviously colours how everyone else is characterized. Most of the other characters are there and pretty accurate to my perceptions of them; Edgar is the only one who I would argue kind of gets done dirty cause he’s pretty boring, but again, maybe he DID have a wild mental breakdown at some point and it just wasn’t relevant to the narrator’s journey.

Basically a very good book and if you’re a Lear sisters stan I highly recommend it. It starts off slow but when it picks up it REALLY picks up. One of my favourite Shakespeare retellings I’ve ever read.