#Drew deserved better than being a one-dimensional antagonist

[kastalani123]

(if you prefer Ao3)

Drew Tanaka is mean.

She grows up under a mother that cares more for the cameras that follow them around than her. That cares more for her daughter knowing how to keep her posture straight, her smile saccharine sweet, her hair without a strand out of place, than her knowing how to make friends. That cares more for smoothed out and scrubbed clean photos and videos and interviews that show a perfect life, a perfect mother, a perfect daughter, than for her daughter being an actual child, not an actor with a script for every second of her life.

She grows up desperately clawing for any shred of privacy, having given up on looking for honesty long ago. She learns how to keep her makeup sharp, and her walls sharper. She indulges in cosmetics more than most children her age — it's all about keeping any hint of imperfection hidden, any hint of truth buried deep down. She files her nails into claws, paints her face into a mask no one can look behind. She keeps herself mean, because there's only so much of the same drama the media will pay attention to, only so much unpleasantness the people around her will deal with before giving up on getting close to her, only so much her mother can shape for the spotlight without risking controversy.

And then, she's twelve and at Camp, and it's weird.

The kids in the overcrowded cabin she's placed in (no privacy, no space, nothing she can keep to herself) tease and jest but it's never truly mean. Not in the way she knows. The pranks and jokes are too simple, too corny, too messy to be enjoyable to an audience of strangers. Meals are chaotic at the shared table because people push and shove and steal and laugh, and no one aside from her even thinks to bother with proper etiquette — nobody cares for small bites that don't ruin your makeup, for small portions that look lovely on pictures but don't fill you up, for elbows off the table and the correct cutlery for every food. The only rules are: sacrifice a portion to the gods; don't waste; enjoy.

That's the one they care most about, she finds within a week. Enjoy. Have fun. Live your life.

She's not sure she can do that, as she leans away from campfire songs and pottery, from swordsmanship and archery, from pegasus riding and monster fighting.

Instead, Drew Tanaka is mean.

She paints her lips brighter, grows her nails sharper, shadows her eyes darker. She digs and needles and stabs not with a sword or a dagger or a spear but with her words; she begins to write her script for these unfamiliar scenes, just as she's done her entire life. Her remarks are not the soft teasing of the others; they are her knives poised to strike at anyone who comes too close, more dangerous than ever.

Her voice is her weapon, her meanness her armour.

Literally, she learns within weeks, a command falling from her tongue as a dove comes into being above her head.

Cabin Eleven sends her off with a bracelet of colourful wooden beads and a rubber snake that was meant to be a goodbye jump scare she didn't fall for. She scoffs at both but is not allowed to refuse them, so she takes them and shoves them into the heart-shaped box every Aphrodite child gets upon entering Cabin Ten.

Because Drew Tanaka doesn't wear cheap jewelry made by a collaboration of six- to seventeen-year-olds at arts and crafts. Because Drew Tanaka doesn't find dumb pranks amusing. Because Drew Tanaka doesn't like tacky toys with sloppy paint jobs.

Because Drew Tanaka is mean.

And Silena Beauregard is nice.

She's nice, holding Drew's hand as she properly introduces every member of Cabin Ten — every one of her siblings — to her even though Drew digs her nails into her skin hard enough to leave marks. She's nice, coaxing a young pegasus over to Drew to let her practice flying. She's nice, remembering that Drew doesn't eat much meat other than fish and ensuring she gets it.

Drew is sure Silena is an exception. Camp in general is nice in a way she's only ever experienced in stories, but this goes beyond a casual piece of advice on her fighting stance or an arm lent on the climbing wall.

Except it turns out that, no, not really. Not just Silena, at least.

Cabin Ten is nice.

Anders sits her down in front of himself and braids her hair, tucking dandelions and daisies into it in a way her mother would seethe at. Khalid follows her around with a stuffed seahorse, babbling about the deep sea creatures everyone else is grossed out by. Ina shows her celestial bronze nail polish in any colour imaginable and every other way to hide weaponry in places no one would suspect. Sawyer trifles through their vast collection of homemade perfumes to find one she likes, simple as they are in plain, glass jars. Rory pulls her into dances at the campfire and steps all over her feet, his laughter and singing off-key and unappealing. Jasmin paints all over her skin, from sunsets across her forearms to hearts spread all over her face, disregarding the careful lines of her makeup.

They chip and chip and chip at her walls, with cracked nails and bloody fingers, until they startle her into lifting her mask for a second, allowing them a glimpse at the pieces of herself she has long since buried under ring lights and cameras.

They bind her to themselves with soft hugs and silly singing and simple gossip. They drag her screeching and screaming into their circle, into closeness, into softness. They push her scoffing into spending time around other campers, into sitting with people during arts and crafts, into collecting strawberries in groups.

Drew Tanaka is mean.

Drew Tanaka will never stop being mean.

That is a fact.

Nobody ever claims any different.

However, a fact is also this:

She remembers Silena's allergic to bees and ensures they never get too close. She sits Anders down and teaches him how to get his eyeliner as sharp as hers. She follows Khalid to bed some nights and struggles to read through One Thousand And One Nights because he sleeps better with them. She shows Ina the best products for her skin and hair. She trifles through her vast collection of jewelry to find earrings Sawyer likes. She pulls Rory through Camp to show off their matching outfits. She paints Jasmin's nails with designs according to whatever book or flower has caught her fancy recently.

(She wears a bracelet of wooden beads even when it doesn't match her outfit)

(She keeps a tacky rubber snake on the shelf above her bed)

Most importantly, she stays.

And next summer, Anders brings with him newspaper scraps with her and her mother's faces plastered all over them.

She smiles, sharp as a dagger, and burns them as an offering.

And then she's fourteen.

And then there's war.

And then her siblings are dead.

And then Silena is a traitor.

And then she's the Cabin Counsellor.

And then she's building up her walls faster than what remains of her family can tear down, stronger than they can chip away at, taller than they can look over.

And then Drew Tanaka is not mean.

Drew Tanaka is cruel.

(She forgot the most important rule she had set for herself long ago, when she couldn't take a step without cameras clicking and spotlights moving on her:

Give up on looking for honesty.

She reapplies foundation over her blotchy face and decides to never forget that again)

[pinkblahaj]

rick riordan's female characters pt 2: aphrodite's children

during my reread of pjo, rick riordan's portrayals of aphrodite's children was what made me first realize that his writing of teen girls might be problematic. it does make sense considering the demonization of femininity that used to be so popular, but it is valid to still be bothered by it. i have thoughts on how cabin 10 is described overall, as well as the specific characters.

cabin 10

in the earlier books, rick made the aphrodite cabin way too one-dimensional. yes, the goddess aphrodite is known for her vain and shallow personality, and yes, the other campers tend to possess well-known traits of their godly parents (ares' children are aggressive, hermes' children are tricksters, nike's children are competitive, etc.). but the way that aphrodite's children were portrayed as especially weak, preferring to look at their reflections and gossip rather than play capture the flag, did feel blatantly sexist to me. like of course because their mom is the most stereotypically feminine of the gods, they have the least battle skills.

at the beginning of HoO i thought rick might be atoning for some of these flaws. it was interesting that piper, a character who explicitly rejects traditional standards for femininity and beauty, turned out to be a child of aphrodite. but then her siblings were still very stereotypical and their cabin literally made her "gag". i found it unnecessary that rick specified in the lost hero that most of the cabin were girls. sure, it makes sense that aphrodite would want to have more daughters than sons, but that combined with the fact that they lack the skills of other demigods just doesn't look good. i liked that rick mentioned that despite her reputation, aphrodite was a war goddess and the oldest of the olympians, but i was disappointed that he continued to stereotype her children so harshly.

silena

i don't have many criticisms of this character, other than her being described as one of the few nice campers from cabin 10. i really liked that she valued love and kindness, which more of the aphrodite campers should have been like imo. although aphrodite and her children have a generally shallow reputation in the original pjo series, i appreciate the impact that silena had on the series and the way that she showed that aphrodite's children can still have bravery and strength.

i do wish that more attention is paid to how luke manipulated/groomed her and others (which i've been seeing the pjo fandom do more now, fortunately), as this is a big reason why i can't see him as a redeemable character.

drew

call me delusional but i am a proud drew tanaka defender. yes, silena was manipulated by luke and she sacrificed herself heroically. but she still betrayed camp half-blood and is part of the reason why several of them, including charles, died. drew likely looked up to silena and felt this betrayal extremely severely, and her bitterness is justified. i just don't believe that she became mean for no reason.

because rick is clearly capable of writing his characters with more depth, it's so disappointing that he put so little thought into drew. clarisse was a bully, but she is revealed to be under severe pressure from her dad and later becomes friends with percy. luke is a main antagonist but evokes sympathy from many readers. even octavian, who was unlikable from beginning to end, was suffering mentally and enabled by apollo, and thus didn't deserve all the blame. yes, some people are truly horrible for no good reason, but with all the trauma that the pjo characters go through, there was likely a much better explanation for why drew is the way she is. i hate that he just made her the most archetypal mean girl who immediately hates the female lead because they are interested in the same guy. (side note: it's funny that the only other living female asian character in pjo/hoo i can think of is annabeth's stepmom, who i do NOT claim)

piper

this character seems to be quite controversial, but i honestly was not as bothered by piper as i thought i would be upon rereading. her "not like other girls" phase lasts pretty much only one book... and it's realistic for teenagers to have cringey phase. since i do have a problem with the larger context of how rick wrote aphrodite's children, i do see why some are more bothered by it, bc rick portrays piper as better than her more feminine siblings. in this aspect, i do think piper had some lost potential. i think it's great that we have characters like piper and frank who aren't pure stereotypes based on their godly parents and who have to learn to embrace that side of them. but i wish we would have seen piper realize that being feminine does not mean you are stuck up and that she possibly had internalized misogyny. i really like the interpretation that her identities of being indigenous and queer affected her relationship with femininity and gender expression, but i doubt rick himself actually thought that deep into it. however, i've only read the first two books of toa, so there may be parts of her character i am missing.

i remember finding piper and jason to be boring characters during my first read of hoo, but after rereading, i think they are good characters who were placed in an extremely bland relationship. i personally am a subscriber to the lesbian piper + gay jason headcanon, as hera manipulating them into a relationship feels a lot like comphet. but i don't find their relationship unrealistic either. i feel like our standards were raised pretty high by percabeth, a relationship based on an actual friendship between two people who knew and loved each other deeply. but it's also normal for teenagers to get together quickly without knowing whether they are compatible. also, considering how short the expected lifespan of demigods are, it makes sense that we see couples like jiper and frazel who start dating less than a year after meeting. i also was never that bothered by piper being "obsessed" with jason... the other hoo couples tended to do that too, and her mother is the goddess of love.

piper's charmspeak was an interesting power, but i don't think it was super well thought out. obviously, there are some ethical questions about her using it on people, including her own friends, that are never answered-- especially because sometimes piper doesn't even realize she's using it. also, i found it hard to believe that in the lost hero she was already able to use it on gaea. i enjoyed the moments where we saw her other skills and would have liked to see more of them. her emotional intelligence (as seen in the way she helps annabeth defeat mimas) was underutilized and could have been a great staple for all of aphrodite's children.

[popculturebuffet]

House of Mouse review: “The Three Caballeros” or State of Your Outfit Donald

The Ride of the Three Caballeros continues, and with reviewed paid for up until legend, we’re fueled up and ready to ride on for some time now. This admittedly has taken a bit longer than I like to get back on the ride, due to a  number of reasons, but i’m back on the ride and these next two were both a pleasure to get to and cover a show that was LONG overdue to show up here: It’s the House of Mouse! For those of you who haven’t heard of it House of Mouse was a Disney show in 2000 that ran on it’s one Saturday morning block, the follow up to the Disney afternoon. It also holds a close place in my heart as these are the versions of Mickey and Co I grew up with, as I had Disney Channel as a kid and they reaired it a LOT, so the show is sorta soaked into my DNA, and is likely the reason why I like Donald and Goofy so much, as their shorts here and their personalities outside them really drew me in. I’ll still be objective mind, but the show means a lot to me and i’m not going to hide that. 

The show has a really amazing setup: Mickey and Co run a club for Disney characters. While no tv characters showed up, anyone who had been in the movies was fair game, and everyone from Hades to both forms of Simba somehow to the horned freaking king showed up. The only exceptions were as I said Tv characters, though Pepper Ann makes a cameo in the pilot, and the Pixar characters.. which is more fair than you think. Keep in mind at the time of this series, there were only three Pixar Movies: Toy Story, a Bug’s LIfe and Toy Story 2, which came out the same year as house of mouse. Not only that Pixar wasn’t owned by Disney at the time, so there was likely a fear they could loose the rights to use the characters at some point and thus didn’t want to chance it.  But yeah this setting is used for great jokes, it’s the source of the “No one does X like gaston!” meme and it’s funny every time they do that gag. Though the main stars of the show are still mickey and co with each having a fitting position in the club’s hierachy: MIckey and Donald, being equal stars, co-own the club, though Donald sometimes feels overshadowed. Mickey, with his people skills and cheer is the MC and host. Donald, given his jack of all trades nature and butt monkey status, is guest services, in charge of taking care of the club’s featured guests and naturally having it backfire, as well as sometimes envying Mickey’s spot and trying to take it over. Minnie, being level headed, keeps things running, planning the show and managing finaces as well as calming Mickey when he gets panicky. Daisy runs guest services while trying to break out on her own and is somewhat of a ditz in this series, though not overly dumb or incompetent, just a bit of an air head is all, and her sweet bubbly nature makes her very likeable. That and outside the shorts at least, she’s very nice to Donald here and their realtionship is very sweet, hence it being one of the four versions of it I like.  Goofy is head waiter, which fits him because.. I dunno they needed one. But he does the job well even if he naturally screws up a bunch because Goofy. Pluto is also around as a personal assitant because eh why not.  But what really stood out abotu the show to me, even more so as an adult, was  the supporting cast. As a kid, I was introduced to a lot of the disney side characters i’d never heard of before, all of whom get a decent amount of screen time over the series, while as an adult, I find it heartwarming they brought these characters back and fleshed them out after not being used on screen for so long, with one big exception that was still nice of them to use and helps bridge the generation gap. 

The rest of the HOM crew consisted of Hoarce, Mickey’s friend who was used a lot early on and who works as the club’s engineer and handyman, Clarabelle, also often forgotten but thoroughly defined here as a loveable gossip and acted wonderfully by the incomparable April Winchell. I credit this show for making me love both characters especially Clarabelle and wanting to see them more. 

We also have Gus, a far more obscure on screen character. Gus is Donald’s Cousin, and as of this writing is the ONLY one of Donald’s three majorly used Cousins to have not shown up in the Ducktales reboot. Gus is also the only one whose not a comics original, to my shock, instead showing up in the short “Donald’s Cousin Gus”, communicating only through honks and eating all of Donald’s food. He was naturally adapted for the comics, where while still having a huge appetite became more bossed with being a lazy while working with Grandma Duck, his and Donald’s Grandma. He’s so different between mediums I genuinely forgot he was in this show and didn’t realize he and the chef from this show were the same person. Still it’s nice to see him and hopefully he’ll make the reboot before it ends.  Finally rounding out the supporitng cast we have Huey Dewey and Louie, who mostly show up as the quackstreet boys to dance and are kind of inbetween their classic designs and their quack pack versions: They have the hair from quack pack, but seem more like their 12-13, a bit older than standard, but sitll not as old as they are in Quack Pack. They also don’t talk which is a vast improvement over Quack Pack. And finally, and more prominently, we have Max, who as I said bridges the gap between generations and I think was an amazing inclusion. He not only gave younger viewers like me a character they knew better, but allowed the character’s story to continue a bit, clearly taking place after xtreme but having him actually go on a date with Roxanne. Thank you House of Mouse Writers. your doing Golb’s work.  Antagonist wise we have Pete, as usual trying to muck things up and presumibly flush with post divorce cash. He’s the club landlord, and wants Mickey out for reasons that are never explained, but as long as the show goes on and Mickey pays rent on time, the show goes on. Being Pete, he naturally tries to sabotage things. It’s a good device. The other is Mortimer, probably the series deepest cut alongside Gus as he only shwoed up in one short but the series easily made him one of my faviorites: A Sleazy asshole who tries to pick up on Minnie (who thankfully this go round is not at all receiptve), tries to get on the card, and constnatly says Ha-Cha-Cha. Maurice LaMarche, this show had a REALLY talented voice cast can you tell?, really owned the character and has been his voice since and really took him from a one dimensional douche to a LOVEABLE asshole. 

Granted most of this.. really isn’t relevant as only the main cast show up, but it’s an aspect of the show I like so I went into it anyway. Plus i’ll defintely be coverng the show again so this saves me time for later.  Back on point though, the show’s format was a problem of the week, ranging from guest troubles to pete shenigans to internal strife in the club to just general sitcom shenanigans, going on at the club, with shorts inserted in from a previous Mickey Show, Mickey MouseWorks. MouseWorks was a short lived, pun intended, show that didn’t do so good, so they had a bunch of these shorts sitting around including some that never aired on the show, and thus inserted them as cartoons being played for the club patrons. It was a great device and the shorts, while varying in quality , are mostly pretty good and were the first Disney Shorts I saw. It was a good format, allowing the main stories to have plenty of time, but not have to overpad them or anything and with so many shorts on hand they could simply write the story to be as long as they needed and then insert however many shorts were needed. It worked well. 

So yeah as you can tell I truly love this show and it introduced a lot of stuff to me. And naturally.. that includes the Three Caballeros here, with their song here being stuck in my head for years and this being the first time they’d shown up in decades... which is ironically how long it took for me to see their movie but regardless. The boys were back, and you can see how the show did with them, under the cut. 

Something to note, No Disney Plus this time.. because BAFFLINGNLY the show is not on there, despite no rights issues holding it up I’m aware of, and the show having every other mouse and duck related animated series on there. I know, I’ve talked about this before, even in this very retrospective.. but I keep bringing it up because it’s something you easily forget about. Something that may slip away. But don’t let it. Let them know, and get our shows on there already. Christ.  Anyways, due to the show’s format of sliding the shorts in, and to make thing easier on me for house of mouse reviews i’m simply going to do the shorts first, then the main plot. Good? Good. 

This one only had two, though it varied on how many they used, and some were just super short shorts anyway, so it all balances out and as I said, i’ts better they just told as much story as was there than tried to rush it. So without further adue...

Donald’s Fish Fry: Poor Poor Humphrey  Yeah I didn’t like this one. The premise is using the old character Humphrey the Bear.. only here instead of being the antagonist the ranger present basically bullies the poor bear, while the other bears constnatly get more fish than him when it’s their registered time to fish. It’s just agrvating.. and when the poor boy finally GETS a fish, Donald snatches it.  Donald isn’t unsympathetic here, he found the fish fairly.. but it’s hard to tell who we’re supposed to root for here. Humphrey, who just wants what’s his, or Donald whose oblivious but technically in the wrong. This kind of slapstick just.. dosen’t work as well with both sides being sympathetic. It can work with say bugs and daffy, because both are equal, but there’s clearly an antagonistc force in elmer fudd. But this type of shenanigan just dosen’t work when neither side deserves the punishment, and Humphrey did nothing wrong. I felt like this for supporting him the whole time. 

And it ends with the ranger getting the fish. Because he wasn’t unlikeable enough clearly. Though Humphrey does get some beans so yay? Also the house segment after has Ranger Dickhead stealing Humphrey’s dinner, which given he’s at the club he CLEARLY paid for because it’s too fatty. Fuck you dude. I hope Goofy threw you out for that one. Just not a fun sit. I’ve seen this kind of shenanigan done better, in disney classic shorts even. I’ve seen Don as the villian better, See Trick or Treat for a good example> There’s just.. nothing here and it goes on forever. This is a good chunk of the episode! Lordy! Just a genuinely bad short. Thankfully the next one while not as word inducing is also not as headache inducing How to Be Smart: Now THESE were my faviorites as a kid. I loved goofy, so shorts about him were no brainer but even now.. these are still funny. Basically a narrator would follow Goofy around while he tries to learn how to do something, in this case how to get smarter after loosing on a gameshow .. and owing the show three milion dollars. There’s not much ot go into, it’s basically a series of jokes about Goofy going to school from elementary to college and learning his way up while Dealing with Ludvig’s bratty nephew and his own stupidity. It’s a funny short and really well done and these are easily some of the show’s best shorts and this is no exception. Unlike  the Humphrey short, where this essentially happened. 

My soul and I gladly enjoyed How to Be Smart. Dare to NOT be stupid and check this short out. 

The Wraparound: And I”m Donald Duck! As for the main segment it’s pretty good. We open with Mickey hyping up tonight’s act, which is naturally the Three Caballeros! But trouble sets in as Donald, while proud at first, is rightfully annoyed that a man on the street segment shows NO ONE remembers he was in the group. Including his best friend goofy. Only Pumba does, somehow. I dunno maybe he dated Panchito once before meating timon. Point is Donald dosen’t take this well, even if we get a nice moment of Daisy swooning over the fact.. even if being  HOM Daisy, she can’t get the name right. But given i’ve had trouble spelling it right, I’m one to talk. 

So being Donald he overreacts, which I like as.. well it’s Donald. Of course when given a very resonable reason to get upset he takes it a step too far. In this case he’s gotten an army of lawers, refuses to speak to mickey and has put ... THIS on. I showed it at the top of the page but.. well it bears repeating. 

It’s like every bad thing about the early 2000′s, from the douchey shades, to the rings, to the golden knuckles, to the hat that looks like a penis, to the no donald logo. There should be all the donalds, ALL OF THEM. He also has an army of lawyers, and naturally resorts to hot doggin and grandstanding: Signing autographs during the show, putting a giant poster of himself up. It works okay, as it makes him unsympathetic for the next part to work and is really funny which is the point. Even if again he looks like the feces that’s produced when shame eats too much stupidity. 

Instead of just getting Dale Gribble in there, Mickey is at a loss for a solution till the boys show up and.. it’s a mixed bag. Carlos  Alazraqui is excellent as Panchito, slipping into the roll well. Unlike last time the character showed up, they did NOT get a mexican actor, but Carols is still Latino, so it’s still better than what they did for Jose, and still big of them to actually bother to get a Latino actor to play a latino role.  Jose on the other hand.. is played, and not very good, by Rob Paulson. And before anyone throws stuff at me, I love Rob. I will  be gushing about him when I get around to reviewing the animaniacs reboot. He’s a god among voice actors and I love him. But his voice, at least in this ep dosen’t really .. FIT Jose, and he dosen’t really match the characters energy which is VERY weird given Animaniacs was right before this. The guy can DO energy and it’s one of his best talents. He STILL can as evidenced by both TMNT 2012 and the Animaniacs revival. It’s just not one of his better performances. I love the guy but even gods have off days.  And of course there’s the bigger issue of the very white Rob shouldn’t be playing the very Brazilian Jose. Not matching nationatlies is one thing, it sucks, but The Three Cablleros had a much bigger budget than HOM likely did. HOWEVER, it couldn’t of been that hard to find two latino voice actors in 2000, especially when you found at least one. I get this wasn’t as big a thing but when the 1940′s did better than you, you know you screwed up. 

But it probably dosen’t help the two.. barely do anything. Despite the episode being named after them, they only show up towards the end and just sorta say hi to mickey, get cool entrances, and then seeing Donald being a dick and Mickeya sking for their help, humble him with their musical number.  And the Musical Number IS really good, it’s been in my head for years and is just as catchy as the classic “Three Cabllero’s Song”.. why they didn’t sing that I don’t know, but this original one, a light knockoff of la bamba is still really fun and bouncy and the gags are good. It’s a really good climax and Donald deserves his punishment.  The only really issue is the ending, as.. no one leaned anything. No one acknowledges how forgotten Donald felt, Mickey dosen’t seem to get the issue as his “promoting Donald” at the end to make sure he’s not forgotten.. just has a bunch of jabs at his expense, and Donald dosen’t apologize..t hougH daisy is really sweet to him so we got some Donsy at least. It’s just a weak ending to an otherwise excellent wraparound.  Final Thoughts: This one was.. okay. Shorts aside, i’ve said my peace about them, the wraparound is a lot of fun, as is the musical number, even if the “artist formerly known as” joke was played out even in 2000. I mean yeas Prince changing his name to a symbol was insane, I get that.. but by then everyone had clowned on that decision and given he did so in a bizarre act of defiance towards his label, at a time where we now know how scummy record labels can be, it hasn’t aged well. It’s just the weak climax, song not included, really drags things down. The Cabs are just.. a cameo in their own damn episode, even with the full musical number and could’ve been around more. They don’t get to show off personalities or really do anything but teach Donald a lesson and are basically one indivdiual here. It sticks out even more because Rosa had both be utterly distinct and showed the utmost care while here.. their just sorta tossed in so they could have Donald be a primadona.. which itself is funny but on the whole this episode was just.. disappointing to revisit. It was disheartening to learn one of my favorite episodes as a kid wasn’t that good. It is worth checking out if you like Donald or the cabs, provided you skip the first short. Trust me, trust me, but is far from the best the house of mouse has to offer and hopefully the next one will show that.  Next time when the Ride continues, my gig at the house of mouse gets held over another night as Jose teaches Goofy manners and Panchito helps deprogram him from that. Before that I hope to get to the next chapter of life and times and some other stuff i’ve had hanging, including the next loud house and the next part of the tomtropsective, as well as some new things that have come up like said review of the animaniacs reboot and a review of Adventure Time: Distant Lands, Obsidan. Until then if you liked this review, please check out my other pages for more, follow me to see them, and if you’d like to comission your own, just hit me up in my ask box for my discord or personal message me here on tumblr. Until then, ther’es always another rainbow. I’m out. 

[perception-6]

(Photo Creds to Goodreads!!)

Review: Lament, by Maggie Stiefvater

Overall rating: 4/5 stars (it’d probably be higher if I’d been reading it more constantly but that’s true of pretty much any Stiefvater book that I rate below 4.5 stars lol)

No spoilers below!

Lament is the debut novel of Maggie Stiefvater. Stiefvater is one of Tumblr’s favorite authors, and one of mine as well (follow her at @maggie-stiefvater like even if you don’t read her books there’s so much valuable advice, laughs, car talk, etc. on her blog). Oddly, in my two-year relationship with her books, including Shiver, The Raven Boys, and The Scorpio Races, I’ve not seen extensive talk of this first book, or its sequel Ballad, really anywhere on the Internet- I mean, type “Lament” and “Stiefvater” into Tumblr’s search bar, and you do get a nice cluster of posts; both covers I’ve seen of this book do photograph quite nicely, and it’s got a ton of poignant quotes and phrases, the kind that people pass on to others through the web.

Soooo… going into this book? I’ve gotta say, I wasn’t certain what I should expect, given the lack of Internet preparations, but then again, I thought, some of my past favorite books have been way below the surface of mainstream Booklr, so why not give Lament that same chance? All things considered, this book was really well done and enjoyable, but it did take me a solid 4 weeks to finish because I took a pretty long break between the first and second halves of the book. Honestly, my biggest complaint about this book was that until I reached a certain point, the story didn’t keep me thinking about it outside of the pages for too long.

If I had any concerns over my putting too much pressure on Lament because of how much I love Stiefvater’s other books, those concerns were truly unnecessary. Lament doesn’t feel like a duplicate of the other books in any way, even if there are some aesthetic overlaps (all three characters have some pretty major differences but Deirdre’s attitude towards different people reminds me of Grace at some moments and of Blue at others). It has its own world and set of magical rules, actually taking on a slightly darker feel than anything I’ve read from Stiefvater before. The threatening nature of the supernatural world feels more direct and imminent than in the first book of any other of her series, and I don’t think any other of them builds up so much suspense so quickly.

My second-biggest complaint about Lament (which isn’t really a complaint it’s just an observation that I actually thought was executed pretty well) is that, character-wise and plot-wise, it starts out in an almost-formulaic Paranormal Romance style; Main character meets supernaturally-affiliated being, becomes swiftly captivated, has their new dream-like reality shattered by the introduction of life-threatening circumstances, etc. Regardless of the book’s slightly tropey appearance, Maggie does a phenomenal job of making every aspect of Lament her own in every respect; The main character Deirdre, her best friend James, the love interest Luke, her mother and aunt, the faeries (who have a delightful spectrum that goes from “mischievous and vaguely threatening” to “brutally sadistic, fun to watch”), all are well-rounded, never one-dimensional, fleshed-out and so effin easy to empathize with (or virulently hate depending on the circumstances).

Deirdre herself is super witty, plucky, and generally well-suited in terms of having a reader inside of her head for 300+ pages at a time. Her interactions with and feelings towards Luke don’t feel rushed, even though the book doesn’t take place over such a long period of time; when they aren’t fighting for dear life, they feel more or less like a normal teenage couple, and their affections and banter are, respectively, cute and hilarious. Deirdre’s best friend James is vigorously loyal through all the dangers their friendship puts him through, and I can honestly say that he’s too innocent and kind deserve to be a part of any of the situation (yes maybe this role is a trope but like the others MS takes it and makes it her own and anyway I’m not complaining because I freaking love it). There isn’t really a good-fitting place to mention this, but I’ll go ahead and say here that James’ and Deirdre’s experiences with music remind me of Jandy Nelson The Sky is Everywhere, which I read last year and loved.

Again, I really loved seeing Maggie’s version of the world of faerie; I’ve got a bit of a mixed history with the genre, and I can safely say that hers is one of the better takes on the mythology that I’ve seen. There just seems like so much to this world, way more than this book touches on, and it kind of makes me want to research more into it on my own. I could tell that Maggie drew a lot on Irish history and lore (a lot like how she uses Welsh lore in The Raven Cycle), and it made these supernatural elements feel oddly realistic, like there are traces of their existence in the real world. It also made the fey feel more archaic and powerful, which is always a nice aesthetic for antagonistic forces.

As for the writing, I think it’s been established that I love MS’ way with words, and Lament is no exception. If I hadn’t let myself fall out of step with this world and take a break from this book, I would have finished it pretty quickly because this world lends itself easily to the reader’s emotional investment. In the periods when I was in a nice groove with this book, a couple of times I put it down for too long, interacted with the world, then turned around and was like “WHERE THE FUCK IS DEIRDRE. IS SHE OKAY. I CAN’T RIGHT NOW I NEED TO CHECK ON THEM.” That being said, I can tell that Maggie grew as a writer between Lament and The Raven King. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. Writers grow from book to book, and often the debut can get lost among the later, more popular releases. Do I think TRC, etc. deserve the publicity they get? Hell, yes!! Again, it’s clear that Maggie learned a lot about writing from this book to the latest ones. Still, even if she says she’d write Lament differently now, I think that, based off Lament, MS had honed her writing skills pretty aggressively before becoming a published author. Lament was, overall, well-crafted with an intriguing plot and characters both bubbly and vicious.