#I find the human brain equal parts horrifying and fascinating and I have a lot of interest in psychology

[corvidmafia]

I think as part of the entrance exam for all psych majors they should be asked why they want to be a psych major and if they say anything about, like, being fascinated by crazy people or true crime and serial killers, they should be shot point black between the eyes where they stand. Treating mentally ill individuals like actual human people instead of interesting little animals to observe for your entertainment should be a requirement for entering the psych field but also just for staying on this plane of existence I think but that's just me.

[thepolyamorouspolymath]

This is actually exactly one of the things I've been yelling about climate change, and very few people seem to focus on, in this very strange way....

You hear a fucking insane amount about rising ocean levels. Now objectively this is bad because it changes currents abd therefore weather and migratory patterns. But the "50% of the world's population lives near a coast and those will be flooded out" is just a fucking weird take. It rises by like an inch a year at most. That's a lot of warning. Have people lost the ability to migrate due to weather conditions, the thing we demonstrated regularly throughout the evolutionary process? It's a loss of property value. Where do we house them with less land instead? Ah well, you see there's this whole thing of building up instead of out? You might have seen it in any city that has geographic constraints on sprawl?

It's a problem but on a human level it is a solvable problem. (What effects it will have on ocean life is a different story -- evolution is weird, life finds a way, etc. The problems could range from completely dead oceans (even sharks, I know!) causing raging fucked up weather patterns all the way down to the balance of power just shifting in the ecosystem a bit and the weather having a bad teen years period until the new normal version of currents are established. And anywhere in between. (Personally I find the complete unpredictability terrifying -- you can plan for an expected disaster, one that surprises you fucks you up. Think hurricane with days of warning versus a tornado of equal duration and area bc those fuckers give you like 30 seconds.)

Then there's temperatures in parts of the world like the Middle East which will become Death Valley redux. Temps climb too high during the day and don't get to come down enough at night, you have an unlivable condition. Again, no denying that's bad. There are some ideas to cope -- people want to colonize Mars right? That same tech to survive on Mars could be used to live entirely indoors on Earth with climate control in areas that are not habitable. Or again, humanity has moved a lot due to environments getting shitty.

Arable land for food. Now that is an issue, especially if we lose ocean meat sources (vegetarians and vegans I'm aware mankind can live without meat but since eating meat is what allowed our brains to develop higher functions, let's not just brush it off) because grazing land is required. But we could definitely reduce meat consumption and while some of our arable areas are drying up there's likely other areas that are going to become far more productive. (Look at the changes in arable land in Mesopotamia area including Egypt, which was the bread basket of the ancient world, long before climate change.) And for plants, well might I again recommend looking up? There's a fascinating design for hydroponic towers in the Great Lakes the size of skyscrapers. For plant life in general, we've all see the concepts of covering buildings in plants like mosses and ivy and shit, right?

The big problem here is SPEED. It's happening too fast for evolution to keep up. But so is technology.

I don't deny any of these are critical problems that we should do everything to slow, stop, and prepare for -- all three at the same time because shit is unpredictable, so let's cover bases.

But my climate bogeyman is the permafrost. First because as it melts its going to skyrocket CO2 levels, and because there's lakes of real explosive methane trapped in there that no one wants, but the BODIES.

Tens of thousands of years of bodies that have not decomposed with viruses and bacteria humans never met or our immune systems have long forgotten, easily capable of living in permafrost for ever -- shit lives on fucking comets in colder and also the vacuum.

Covid was so bad, so horrifying? Imagine a new one every year, every 6 months as it escapes a half inch less of permafrost where a sample was hanging out. Spanish Flu was twice as fatal as Covid. Bubonic Plague knocks them both out of the water with a 16% mortality rate WITH ANTIBIOTICS AND TREATMENT. Smallpox, that fucking champ, came in at a full 30%.

Those are just a few examples that we know of, and I choose for their ability to turn into a pandemic, as opposed to something like Ebola which is at 50-90% but kills in such a way its not the most effective at reaching global contamination.

And one of those would be bad. Any of them you're looking at probably a billion deaths. But hey weve gotten faster at developing treatments and vaccines at least right? Sure.

Except if they're coming, a totally different disease every 3 years, we won't be.

I know every climate change opponent has their own thing that they think is most critical for ensuring humanity survives, but to me, it's the giant petri dish of the Great White North.

girls go to college to get more knowledge. men go to svalbard to die in the polar night.

[gohyuck]

teaser for the my fic that’s part of denise’s ( @hyucksie​ ) nct: almost collab and part of my interlude: neo zone series

pairing: journalist!serial killer!renjun x already dead!reader

genre: ...oh man. angst, quite a lot of it. all the fluff and smut between renjun and the reader occur in his dreams, as, in real life, he never met the reader prior to their murder and him getting assigned to report on their death

word count: tba (likely a minimum of 10k words)

warnings: alcohol, explicit sex, mentions of a dead animal, obsessive behaviors, stalking, characters with no concept of a moral compass, implications that characters may have been abused in their pasts, descriptions of jail that may be inaccurate or not fully true-to-form, serial killers/ serial killing

teaser continues under the cut, it’s 1.5k words long. please message me if you’d like to be added to the taglist!

Renjun is eleven when he watches his across-the-street neighbor run over his next-door neighbor’s cat in broad daylight. The driver of the BMW does not stop, does not even slow down to assess the damage to the cat or the car, only speeds past as if they haven’t altered the state of the universe, made an unforgivable change to their neighborhood, taken an innocent life. He experiences it all through the floor-to-ceiling windows that expose the Huangs’ formal living room to the world. They’re not unlike the same windows that show off their formal dining room, their actual living room, and their actual dining room. 

As much as he can see out, others can see in just as easily. Just as equally.

At least the bedrooms have curtains.

He doesn’t really react, not even as he stares at the dark red stain, the blood-matted fur on the asphalt. It horrifies him, of course it does, but he’s more afraid of the repercussions that yelling or screaming would bring down on him. As long as he is in the house where nothing is hidden, he is meant to be seen but not heard. Renjun knows this well.

The image of the dead cat, of its blood and bones, its fur and flat, empty eyes, sears itself into Renjun’s brain. It preoccupies him from that moment, twisting itself uncomfortably into strings of his heart. That poor cat, only out for a short hunt or pursuing a curiosity, its life cut short in a tragic and terrible way. An unforgivable murder. He never forgets it, never escapes it. 

Death should have a purpose, Renjun thinks. 

Innocent lives should never be taken.

-

Metal sliding against metal might just be the most unpleasant sound in the world. 

Yangyang clutches his notebook to his chest, running his fingers absentmindedly against the unbinded side to make sure that all the folded papers he’d stuffed within its pages are still there. He does this just a little too fast, only registering this as the air hits his fresh papercut, causing him to wince at the new sting that buzzes against his fingertip. Without thinking, he wraps his other arm tighter around his book and raises the affronted finger - left ring - to his mouth.

It’s like this - holding onto his leatherbound notebook as a lifeline and nervously laving his tongue over his new cut - that Yangyang Liu, previously a reporter at The Daily and currently a biographer on a mission, enters the most secure federal prison in the country. The barred gates screech to a halt once they meet the ends of their rails, and the guard at Yangyang’s side nods to his colleague on the other side of the open gate. 

“The biographer?” The uniformed man calls from in front of Yangyang. 

“This is the one.” Yangyang’s own officer - what’s his name again? - replies, yelling a little louder than what could be deemed necessary. His coworker says nothing more, only stepping aside for the other two to walk in. They do so.

Yangyang registers little of the gray walls and cold air that are suddenly all that are within his line of sight, mind already trapped within the holding cell he’s about to visit. He’s heard all the stories, read all the news clippings, seen all the court tapes, and yet… and yet he suddenly feels as if he’s about to start studying this man - this character - anew. It’s as if he’s about to turn to the first page of a book nobody’s ever read before. A story just for himself. 

“Sit.” The officer is none-too-gentle as he pulls a steel chair out of what seems like thin air and hands it to Yangyang, gesturing lazily towards a spot in front of a section of the cell bars. Before he takes a seat, the biographer takes in the scene with which he’s just been presented: a cell empty save for a cot and a chair, with a tiny window high up, far too high for any mere mortal to reach even with the aid of a chair. The world is silent for one long, slow moment before a lump on the cot - one Yangyang hadn’t registered at first - shifts ever-so-slightly. 

The biographer holds his breath, drums his fingers against his notebook in anticipation, and clutches the curved top of the back of the cold steel chair just a little bit harder. He still does not sit. He waits, and watches, and waits, and watches instead. The officer - guard, Yangyang supposes - grumbles something lowly under his breath, his already thin patience wearing away by the second. 

“Get up, Huang,” The guard finally barks out, seemingly at the tail-end of his wit. “He doesn’t have all day.”

The cot lump shifts again, though by a far greater degree this time around. Yangyang suddenly feels far more nervous than before, which is saying something, considering he has fear in his heart. He wishes it was the fear of God, truly, he does, but he knows far too well that it’s the fear of humanity instead. One of the worst specimens, in his view, is only a few metal bars and a thin blanket away from him at the moment.

Yangyang lifts his hand off the chair and to his mouth again, sucking on the papercut as if it’s a decade long habit of his rather than a newly acquired fixation in the moment. It seems as if the lump has decided not to move again, and the biographer takes this as a sign to finally sit down. His heels are starting to ache, anyways. 

As if sensing his movement, the lump shifts, this time turning fully to face the wall rather than Yangyang. The biographer thinks that he can make out a tuft of salt-and-pepper hair. He can barely piece together any visual of the man he’s come to see, but, from what he can ascertain, Renjun Huang is a slight, delicate looking man, hardly terrifying to any eye. He would’ve been stronger, perhaps, at the time of his crimes, but he couldn't have been that much more imposing. 

“I will not get up,” Renjun Huang finally speaks, and once he does, his voice is raspy with what must be a lack of use. Yangyang winces out of sympathy. It must be lonely. The blanket is pulled up, and the tuft of visible hair disappears under blue wool. “I will not, but I can speak. Not long. You’re the biographer?”

The shift from Renjun speaking to the guard and speaking to Yangyang is so subtle that the latter almost does not notice it. Once he does, he hums an affirmative, finally releasing his tight hold on his notebook in order to lay it in his lap and open it. He pulls a pen - blue, pilot G2 - out of his front pocket and clicks it open with satisfaction. 

“Yes,” He reiterates, even though Renjun is definitely sure of his identity by now. “I’m Yangyang Liu. I was hoping we could begin with -”

“Everyone thinks it started with the article about (Name)’s murder,” He coughs mid-sentence. The rasp is clearing, slightly, slowly giving way to a quiet, but firm tone of speech. He does not seem to process that he’s interrupted Yangyang, and the biographer is too full of intrigue to stop him from speaking any more. “That’s what they all think, but it isn’t true.”

Renjun goes silent, then, but Yangyang knows that he has much more to say. He leans forward in his cold chair, face getting closer to the cold cell bars. 

“Where did it start, then? When?” He finally asks, blue pen poised over white paper. It’s as if his fingers are itching for a story, the way they’d always twitched in anticipation when he’d gotten good article assignments at The Daily. The novelty, the excitement had worn out over time. Yangyang had missed it until now. 

The guard is quiet, now, hardly even moving a muscle. Perhaps he’s tuned out entirely, lost in a world of his own. Maybe - though more or less likely than the former, Yangyang is unsure - he’s as fascinated as the biographer himself, watching and waiting for something to happen, for the first shoe to drop in order for the second to follow. The cell and its surroundings are so quiet that Renjun’s breathing is the only audible sound. It’s a little shallow, a little harried, as if he’s just finished a quick sprint and about to start another that he’s unprepared for.

Yangyang supposes that he has, in a way. He glances at the empty page beneath him to find that he’s accidentally placed a tiny dot in the corner of his open page. Fuck. 

Renjun intakes a shuddering breath, and Yangyang’s head snaps back up. He’ll worry about his organization later. He stares, intent, at the lump on the cot. It moves slightly, and Yangyang discerns that the decrepit man is about to speak again. 

He’s right.

“It began when I was raised…” Renjun Huang begins, licking his dry lips and swallowing his spit before he continues. “... I was raised in a glass house.”

[qqueenofhades]

Everytime I read "Nicolo di Genova" my brain glitches and I read "Nicolo do Genovia" instead so /whispers/ Kaysanova Princess Diaries AU?

...yes. Did someone say Gay Champagne Romcom? Because that is my Brand.

Nicolò is an Italian-American graduate student living in New York City with his widowed Italian mother and working on an engineering degree at NYU. He was thinking about joining the priesthood for a few years and recently dropped out of seminary and is feeling that Millennial Crisis that all of us know about. He has gone on a few Tinder/Grindr dates, but it’s hard enough to meet someone in this city even when you’re not a gay ex-priest engineering student living in his mother’s rent-controlled apartment in Morningside Heights because have you seen the property prices in New York. Plus WHENEVER he brings a nice boy home, HEY PRESTO there’s his mom waiting eagerly up in the front room, “NICOLÒ WHO IS THIS HANDSOME YOUNG MAN, DOES HE HAVE GOOD PARENTS, IS HE A CATHOLIC NICOLÒ” and of course that instantly kills any kind of romantic mood. Nicolò is like “let’s just go over to yours PLEASE.” But he tends not to see his dates again anyway, and it’s equally depressing, and it’s nice that his mom isn’t homophobic or anything, but he’d like to just meet someone without his mother instantly planning the Big Fat Gay Italian Wedding, and yes he knows this is a nice problem to have but STILL

Anyway, then of course the Dead Dad Circus rolls into town, and Nicolò learns that he’s not actually the son of a nice hardworking Italian immigrant, but of His Serene Highness Prince Domenico Grimaldi of Genovia, who wouldn’t you know it, has recently died too young from cancer and left no legitimate heir except the result of his rebellious teen fling with a cocktail waitress in Capri – which would be, you guessed it, Nicolò. While Nicolò is still processing the horrifying mental image of his mother being a cocktail waitress in Capri and having to look up Genovia on a map, the rest of the royal machine is kicking into overdrive. This involves a very awkward meeting in a very fancy Manhattan hotel with Nicolò’s magnificent but rather out-of-touch royal grandmother, Her Serene Highness The Queen Mother Maria Elisabetta Henrietta Julia Victoria Mignonette Grimaldi of Genovia. She’s basically Julie Andrews because obviously. She informs Nicolò of his Solemn Duty to return to Genovia and become Prince Nicolò and eventually be prepared to take the throne and submit to a fascinating life of minor European royal family ribbon-cutting duties. Oh, and getting married and producing more heirs to the throne, on pain of breaking a thousand-year-old bloodline, though she doesn’t say this out loud. Her loyal right-hand man, driver, and general bodyguard/fixer/man about town, Sebastien le Livre aka Booker, gives Nicolò various sympathetic looks but does not interrupt.

Nicolò obviously freaks out and runs off to call up his best friend at NYU, Andy. Andy is some indeterminate degree of years older than him, in some indeterminable stage of her Classics PhD, and sometimes says weird things like how badly the Library of Alexandria had already been defunded by the Roman emperors before it finally burned, like she was there and holds a personal grudge about it. She is a cranky vodka-drinking lesbian who rides a motorcycle, gets them into periodic scrapes, and understands his shit dating life. She deeply empathizes with all his “I’m not going to run away and leave my life in New York to become part of some creakingly antique regressive imperial monarchic system of racist and homophobic oppression, NO SIR!” Fight the power, Nicolò. Fuck those guys.

Of course, however, Julie Andrews Grandmother Maria prevails and Nicolò is forced to take Prince Lessons, which he hates but tries to be a good sport about, because, well, he’s Nicolò and he’s a good person. He is then whisked off on a private plane to Genovia, because they want to see him in situ before they make a final decision on accepting him as their prince. There of course we have the high-life palaces and parks and snooty clueless aristocrats who look at Nicolò like he’s a prize racehorse and have absolutely zero clue, none, nada, about the real world. Just as Nicolò is about to firmly decide that this is a complete crock of shit and he’s going back to NYU, he meets….

Prince Yusuf “call me Joe” al-Kaysani.

Joe is a minor member of one of the Middle Eastern royal families, some fictional tiny Gulf kingdom that is super SUPER oil rich. He has a title and a lot of money but doesn’t have a clearly defined role in the family, other than that he’s been ordered not to embarrass it. Nicky does not know this when they first meet, but obviously it’s not possible to be an out gay prince in a conservative Arabian-peninsula Islamic kingdom, and therefore the fixers have arranged for Joe to be publicly dating a daughter of the Malaysian sultan, Quynh. (We are making her Malaysian in this instance so she can also be Muslim and hence an appropriate match for Joe.) Except Princess Quynh is also hella lesbian and is getting the same thing out of the fake dating with Joe that he is, i.e. throwing people off the scent of their real selves. They spend their time together in private eating popcorn, commiserating about their lives and crazy royal families and the press invading their privacy, watching romcoms, and Judging the Straights. They’re actually best friends and text each other all the time, so at the royal function where Joe runs into the stiff and nervous and clearly overcompensating New Guy who’s evidently the New Prince of Genovia, and oh my god Q he’s the Most stuck up person I’ve EVER MET, Quynh is the first to hear ALL about it. She immediately suspects that Joe doth protest too much.

Meanwhile, Nicky meets Nile Freeman, another young American (from Chicago, obvs) who is working at some important EU institution currently headquartered in Genovia. They also hit it off and Nile tells Nicky about the things she wants to do to help change the world and why she’s here, and he is moved by her kindness and altruism and remembers that that was what he wanted too, and why he joined the priesthood in the first place. He opens up to her about the shock of learning the truth about his now-dead dad and the crazy whirlwind he’s been sucked into and how he doesn’t know what to do, and their friendship is beautiful and we love it.

Meanwhile, of course, Nicky and Joe keep running into each other and getting on each other’s nerves, Nicky is thisclose to calling up Booker and ordering him to deport Joe because why is he always here (Booker, of course, will eventually become a secret ally in helping them see each other, but that is not quite yet). There is some Shenanigan where they end up both getting into trouble, Grandmother Julie Andrews is not amused, and finally they are forced to sit next to each other for a whole state dinner and Be Polite, because Genovia is trying to forge better relations with Joe’s kingdom. (Genovia is tiny, ancient, and broke, Joe’s kingdom has obviously a ton of money, there are old historical ties between them, some Genovians traveled to the kingdom in the past, Genovia’s trying to improve its human rights record and take in more refugees, etc. Nile is also helping with this last). So Nicky and Joe get ordered to fake a highly convincing bromance and pretend they’ve been best buddies all along (think Red White and Royal Blue) and that means they have to actually learn about each other and spend time together and ugh, he’s a spoiled rich playboy brat, and ugh, he’s a clueless American who thinks he’s better than us, and…

Oh no.

Yes, of course they fall in love, they deny it as hard as they can, Nile and Quynh and Booker are all increasingly exasperated by their attempts to pretend they’re not, and finally they kiss and make love and admit their feelings and that they want to be together. Then of course they get outed by some scheming evil cabinet minister (Merrick) who doesn’t want Nicky to become king and disapproves of him dating (gasp) a MUSLIM WHO IS ALSO A MAN, and there’s a huge scandal and a ton of drama and the usual Romcom Breakup Angst as they decide whether they can still see each other. Andy flies out to Genovia to comfort Nicky, Booker has a Word With The Queen, and Joe hides in his room until Quynh (along with Nile, who she’s met and hit it off with) appears to tell him that he has to be brave, she’ll help.

Anyway, etc etc., Drama, “I love him no matter what, if you don’t accept him you don’t accept me and your STUPID BLOODLINE CAN CHOKE” speeches from Nicky, Julie Andrews sees the light, they decide that Nicky and Joe can keep seeing each other, and it’s all rather sweet. There’s a lot of public relations to be managed and whether Joe’s family is going to disown him and what this will mean for the whole international relations thing, but… one thing at a time.

Nicky agrees to become Prince of Genovia as long as he can be with Joe, Joe decides that hey, he likes Nile too and there’s plenty of meaningful work to be had here and the three of them can join forces to do good things and he’s going to stay, and the Genovian public obviously comes around and loves them. Nobody can find Princess Quynh. It’s rumored she ran off to America with a cranky vodka-drinking PhD student of indeterminate age and was last seen on the back of a motorcycle heading west.

Everyone lives happily and gayly ever after.

The End.

[loracarol]

I may or may not do a Proper Review of the Twisted Tales series at a later date, but here’s my brief summary/review of the first three. This WILL contain spoilers. 

Also @fantastic-nonsense​, have you heard of/read any of these? I know that fairy tales are kind of your jam. :V

A Whole New World

Easily my favorite of the three by far

Really leans in to the whole “the same Disney Movie You Know but with One Twist” thing they claim to have going on

Jafar gets the lamp

And that’s where it all goes to shit

Everything builds off of this one singular change in the timeline - while things are built up/expanded in the past, frankly it’s nothing that goes against the actual movie. 

For example, the King being little more then a man-child ignoring the problems in his city. Not specifically mentioned in the movie but given the King’s personality/the slums we see, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. 

Building on Aladdin’s past friendships - again, not something we actually see in movie, but not necessarily ooc either.

Also Jafar kills the Sultan, uses magic to raise the dead (the genie can’t do it, but Jafar uses his newfound power to look for a way around that.) 

BUT YEAH there are zombies all of a sudden, including children. 

This book was baller, 10/10 would recommend, even if just for the Holy Shit What The Fuck-ness of it.  

Once Upon A Dream

Middle of the pack IMO. 

I don’t actually have anything against the idea of the plot.

Aurora is highly different from her movie counterpart. It’s not necessarily bad IMO, but it was Distracting. 

Aurora and Philip were cute, though. 

Aurora’s parent’s get killed before she gets a chance to meet them. :( 

But then?? She/the plot seems to agree with Maleficent that it was all their fault for sending their child away?? 

And, of course, ~Maleficent~ wouldn’t ever do something like that

Ignoring for the moment that they sent her away because Maleficent had put a curse on a fucking baby that was supposed to kill her 

and it was only because another fairy intervened that she didn’t die

Maleficent, you don’t get to police how other people deal with that shit when it’s your fault  they have to deal with it

And also you killed them and it’s your fault Aurora never got to meet her parents. 

I was worried they were going to pull a Maleficent at the beginning with the framing device that Maleficent was the good guy and the three good fairies/the King and Queen were the bad guy, but the twist was nice

Not my fav, and while I did laugh out loud at some parts, I ended up feeling like I was reading about two OC’s who’d snuck into the plot rather then the Disney versions of the characters. 

This was especially annoying bc the part where the book “twisted” the tale was around Aurora pricking her finger/Maleficent dying - aka the end of the friggen movie.  

6/10 wouldn’t recommend but wouldn’t anti-recommend either. 

As Old As Time

This book was very... Yikes

Yikes Yikes Yikes

Okay, maybe I’m overthinking this - I’m not actually Jewish, but it felt like this book appropriated/exploited a lot of Jewish historical suffering? 

This one is under a cut bc potential antisemitism

Twist is that Belle’s mother was the Enchantress, but honestly, that didn’t feel like enough of a twist to justify everything that happens in the book

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there was a kingdom. This kingdom had many people within it’s borders, including a number of Jewish people magical folk. Belle’s mother is one of those Jewish people magical folk, only she’s a good Jew magical person with her “Aryan” looks blonde hair and light eyes (tbh I can’t remember if they were green or blue). 

Among Maurice’s companions include a man who hates his Jewish heritage magical abilities and thinks of magic as unnecessary/evil. 

Belle’s mother settles down with Maurice and has a baby with him, but things are starting to go poorly for the Jewish magical people. A plague arrives and the magical people (you get the point so I’m going to stop now) are blamed for it. Belle’s mom goes to the castle to try and bargain for help and because she is a Good Magical Person she casts a spell of protection on all of the children in the castle. 

Meanwhile, magical folk are disappearing, but no one knows where to. To combat this, a series of people - including Mr. Potts - run a smuggling ring to get magical people out of the country. This is Important as things are continuing to go Wrong and the magical people are being blamed for all the countries ills. 

In the end, the bad guy is the man who hated his magical abilities. He’s also Monsieur D’Arque - the asylum owner. He experimented on his brain (like, actual brain surgery) to get rid of his powers, and he’s been kidnapping and torturing magical beings since in order to try and figure out how to destroy all magical beings. Let me be clear, he is pretty much a Disney Fanfic Version of Josef Mengele. His experiments were horrible. Belle’s mom was one of those taken*, and she was tortured so badly... It’s horrifying, reading the description. 

*As one of her last spells, she had removed everyone’s memories of her connection to Belle & Maurice to protect them, and that’s why D’Arque didn’t go after them at first. 

There are other things, too, little bits here and there that really made me feel uncomfortable, like the book was appropriating this historical persecution of Jewish people for it’s own ends, but again, I’m not Jewish, and therefore not qualified to make A Statement on Antisemitism. I’m just noting the things I noticed.

That’s my Number One Big Problem with the book, and why I’d probably give it 1/5 stars, if that. That being said, that wasn’t my only problem with the book. The thing is, it wasn’t a good book that used unfortunate metaphors, it just felt like really really really bad fanfic on top of that. I don’t mention the following because I think they’re equal to what I noted above, I mention the following because these were other things that really annoyed me, and I wanted to rant about it:

Who the fuck are you, and what have you done with the beast? 

You know how, in the movie, when the Beast knows that Belle is a chance to break the curse, and he still is an angry asshole to her even though realistically being kind would be more likely to cause her to fall in love with him & to break the spell.  

Yeah, forget all that. 

Belle touches the rose, learns about the curse, remembers her mother, and knows that she’s unlikely to fall in love with him now that she knows she “has” to.

The Beast, in return, turns into Bad!Fanfic!Draco/Zuko. You know, the kinds that show up in bad Dramaione/Zutara fics. (I’m not saying they’re all bad, but come on, you know what I mean when I refer to Bad Versions Of Those Fics. 

You know the archetype. 

Despite finding out that he may be Cursed Forever he puts on a tablecloth like an apron and helps Belle cook. 

................................Yeah. 

I read a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic that was Beauty and the Beast and something similar-ish occurred, but there it made sense. There it was in-character. 

Also there’s a scene where the Beast is literally groveling on his hands and knees to get Gaston’s help.

Do you see what I mean about “bad fanfic”? 

Anticlimax

The whole mob @ the asylum ends because LeFou recognizes his aunt (?) as one of the patients and that’s pretty much all it takes to turn people’s minds around. Maybe this could have worked with better set-up (LeFou’s POV book?) but... Yeah............

Anticlimactic Gaston

You know all that power he had over people in the village? How he was so well-liked he had his own theme song? How he was able to get everyone to set up a wedding in like... A day? How he had girls swooning over him? How the tavern was his house of worship? How he was able to get a mob going to attack a Dangerous Beast by sheer virtue of Who He Was in the village? How it took him plunging to his death to stop his cruelty? 

Yeah, there’s none of that in this book. 

People start recognizing the people in the asylum, and that’s just... It. They don’t turn on him, but they do turn away from him, and he just kind of... Takes it. It’s like they gave canon!Gaston valium. Why wasn’t he angry when he lost control? Why didn’t he rage when people betrayed him? Those are canon actions even before Belle meets the Beast! It just doesn’t make any sense that he’d just lie down and take it. 

And the Furries Rejoiced 

Belle doesn’t break the curse, but her mother has enough power to break part of it. The Beast somehow Stops Losing His Humanity because Luv (??) but that’s not enough to actually break the curse. The Beast asks the enchantress to break the curse on his people instead, and she does, leaving the Beast totally fine with being trapped in an alien, monstrous body. There is hope - if they can gather other fairy tale creatures to his palace*, they might be able to band together to break it. And like, I get it. People seem to have a hard on for the beastly form, but the book totally glosses over his canonical frustration with his inhuman form. See again, the cooking, and turning into LeatherPants!Draco/Zuko. It’s frustrating - again, that’s something that could have genuinely be fascinating, but it just felt like a cop-out so that the book could end with him still a furry. 

Like, do that if you want, but actually make it a consequence with some emotion behind it rather then just being kind of... Meh.   

* His palace was magically hidden & that part of the curse didn’t break meaning that it has the potential to become a haven for persecuted magical beings.

[thesecondmate]

reading: wk50-52

3 weeks + 3 journal entries for how i was gonna start this post. in essence: goodbye 2020, my god has it been a rollercoaster, albeit one sloping gently downhill into familiar melancholy. i never thought i’d feel like this again, yet it’s like slipping into a warm ocean where i can float forever, safe in the salt and waves lapping at my face.

stay tuned a ‘best of 2020′ list and what i want to read next year that isn’t my damn textbooks. and maybe some personal updates depending on how much wine i drink this evening. happy new year, my loves.

week 50: penultimate week of o+g rotation: i would say the end is in sight but in fact i have lost all motivation, hate my degree (well, specifically, the course administration), had a breakdown outside my exam followed by the most embarrassing brain freeze ever during a panel discussion that i was speak on, took several days to reply to everyone about said exam breakdown, am convinced i will fail my 5th year exams, aaaand dealt with all of this by handpainting christmas cards all saturday. welcome 2 the fun house !

week 51: final week of placement: i struggled through the final week of my placement (literally popped into my placement for 2 hours to have a tutorial, get signed off, and collect my things), failed my mock osce, and went home. so unbelievably drained.

week 52: christmas & post-christmas liminality: feeling vaguely restored by the virtue of reading many books, watching many movies, curling up by the fire, eating many christmas cookies, and having barely any social interaction outside of my family and our cat and dog. still absolutely drained; still very terrified of my next placement and of failing this year. all i want is to move to a city where no one knows me and i can be something new, but alas. eighteen months until i graduate; forty-two until i finish my foundation programme and can truly set off into the big blue yonder of the world.

books

✩ The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Steig Larsson (finished) so i actually would have much preferred this to have kept its original swedish title, ‘män som hatar kvinnor’ (’men who hate women’) - it’d have been less manic pixie dream girl and more reflective of larsson’s point, even if larsson is v guilty of the former. it’s a good book - larsson’s grasp of plot is really excellent and i really enjoyed the twists and turns, even if the pacing of the big reveal was a little too rushed for my liking. however, i find his characters a little off - many of them are great, especially berger & henrik vanger, but i find blomkvist a little self-insert at times (he’s a financial journalist! but not like other financial journalists! and he has a sexy editor lady with whom he has an open relationship! and he sleeps with this cool hacker girl who immediately trusts him!), and lisbeth is...very ‘traumatised manic pixie cyberpunk girl’ if you ask me. which is a little uncomfortable. also not to mention the rape scene - which is vile. overall: good, intrigued to see if larsson will flesh lisbeth out to be less of a caricature in the sequels.

✩ The Orphan Master’s Son - Adam Johnson (finished) this book has lost none of its magic for me, absolutely none. if anything, re-reading it a few years later has made me appreciate so many things: the characters (even more than before! if that’s possible!!), the abject heartbreak of the second mate and his wife, the trip to texas (i got far more out of the political side this time), the relationships in the camps (the captain of the junma and li mongnan - hold me whilst my heart BREAKS), the way that johnson plays with narrative from the loudspeakers to the interrogator to the dreamlike quality of jun do’s own new life in pt 2. as a teenager, i was fascinated by the setting, the double-farce of the propaganda vs life, the passages about the second mate’s wife and her silken yellow dress - i thought that jun do was a bland narrator, which i now see couldn’t have been further from the truth. i have so, so much respect for johnson as an author and this book really is a formative part of who i am, in ways that i could not express.

✩ Dark Matter - Michelle Paver (finished) another re-read. michelle paver is the queen of ghost stories and things that go bump in the night (see: spirit walker in the chronicles of ancient darkness) - this book absolutely terrified me the first time that i read it, so i made a point of finishing it in the daytime this time. perhaps that’s why it didn’t hit as hard this time - it was less terrifying. however, really appreciating her choice to make the narrator gay, without ever making a deal out of it or naming it - it’s the lil things like working class arctic explorers being disgustingly in love with their charismatic expedition leaders, ya know? big fan. also huge fan of her descriptive prose - she is also the queen of arctic imagery. her prose, combined with the gorgeous black and white photos at the start of each chapter, have not helped my desire to sack it all off and go work as a doctor in the faroe islands or iceland.

✩ The Diet Myth - Spector (on hold) i left this book at uni bc i didn’t want to ruin my own christmas with his awful writing style, if you want an indication of how much i dislike this book.

✩ Smoke Gets In Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty (in progress) a christmas gift that i’m currently reading. i’m so morbid and am learning so much, although i feel like some of the chapters are burbling on with anecdotes but don’t hammer home many points (although maybe it’s bc as a medical student i’m less easily shocked than your average reader) - bit confused as to where we’re going but i’m along for the ride.

✩ Calling a Wolf a Wolf - Kaveh Akbar (in progress) beautiful. in progress - his imagery is quite beautiful but i struggle to sit and read poetry.

✩ The Secret History - Donna Tartt (in progress) re-read. i sink back into old books like familiar lovers, like hot baths. so much comfort.

films

✩ Dead Poets Society (1989) why were the deleted scenes deleted. WHY. rewatching it, i felt some of the character development and relationship development was a little rushed - yet the deleted scenes could have fixed that. WHY WERE WE ROBBED. as ever, emotionally devastated as someone who loves languages and books and words, but ultimately chose medicine and science. as ever, very very sad over neil perry and aching for todd anderson. newfound appreciation for meeks + dalton. that punch at the end? *chef’s kiss*

✩ Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) i am inducting my sisters into lotr and they are powerless to stop me.

✩ Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince (2009) my favourite of the hp movies.

✩ Atonement (2007) this film and i have a long history - i first saw the start of it many years ago, when i did not know what c*nt meant, so was understandably a little bit lost, but also keira knightley in that green dress was a true gay awakening moment. i love the cinematography - it’s so ridiculously dreamlike and gorgeous, and the set design for the house is just beautiful. as are keira knightley and james mcavoy. also, the soundtrack with the use of the typewriters and lighters as drumbeats - my GOD, so beautiful. the second half of the film felt very rushed to me - the reveal that some of it was briony’s fiction made sense, but it lacked the stunning quality of the first half, both plot-wise and camera-wise (although the dunkirk scene was brilliant; love a long, revolving camera pan). i particularly hated every scene with briony in it - v lacklustre - and also the scene with luc remembering cecilia, it just felt forced and gimmicky. the novel definitely wins out for me.

podcasts

i haven’t listened to any podcasts in a while, bar a few episodes of the magnus archives whilst cooking and running errands, BUT i did record one!! the episode will be up in the new year but we have a few back episodes on Right to Refuge, which covers refugee/asylum issues and is by the charity that i work for!

articles: medicine / nature

✩ Mass die-off of birds in south-western US 'caused by starvation' - Phoebe Weston, The Guardian

✩ Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: Human Rights-Based Approaches of Legislation, Education, and Community Empowerment - Williams-Breault (2018), Health Hum Rights i just finished my obstetrics & gynaecology rotation and was appalled by the prevalence of FGM/C in the UK and wanted to learn more. this article is truly excellent in terms of understanding cultural issues and barriers to ending FGM/C.

✩ Female Genital Mutilation: Health Consequences and Complications—A Short Literature Review - Klein et al. (2018), Obstet Gynecol Int. a short america-centric lit review that i read whilst writing up my reflective pieces - not as good as the above one but has more (horrifying) statistics: 200 million women affected worldwide; 6,000 girls cut each day; 85% will have some form of medical complication in their lives, from psychological/sexual to gynaecological to obstetric including death; estimated death rate of 1 in 500; 60.5% of affected women reported fear when their spouse wanted sex compared to 2.4% of unaffected women.

✩ Gender equality and human rights approaches to female genital mutilation: a review of international human rights norms and standards - Khosla et al. (2017), Reprod Health intersection of two things i spend a lot of time thinking about: human rights & medicine. interesting - to re-read again and consider and learn more about things like treatment-monitoring bodies, etc.

✩ The macho sperm myth - Robert D Martin, Aeon a wonderful friend sent me this! i am somewhat lost by the meandering course of the article but interesting points are raised. also the idea that some scientist was like ‘i absolutely KNOW that the heads of sperm contain tiny homunculi; i cannot see them but they are THERE’ is just hilarious.

articles: covid-19 nb: i am not linking every covid article i read bc that would be so depressing but rest assured i’m up to date on a surface level. i am not on a medical level bc i am emotionally exhausted.

✩ Covid vaccine: 'Disappearing' needles and other rumours debunked - Jack Goodman & Flora Carmichael, BBC pls don’t even. let me think about anti-vaxxers. i simply wish to know the current conspiracy theories so i can argue with people more effectively.

✩ Covid at Christmas: 'Chris Whitty is more popular than Britney Spears' - Emma Harrison, BBC please someone get me a chris witty prayer candle i am BEGGING

✩ Covid-19: Doctors call for rapid rollout of vaccines - Nick Triggle, BBC

articles: culture

✩ Art in 2021: The highlights to hope for - Will Gompertz, BBC yayoi kusama is coming to the tate modern!! which i can actually get to relatively easily on public transport from my uni city!! gonna take myself to see the infinity rooms omg i am so EXCITED

✩ History: Quileute Nation this is the official site of the quileute nation, whose history and mythology stephanie meyer butchered in the twilight saga.

✩ The Archers tackles the 'hidden' connection between disability and modern slavery - BBC something i’m ashamed to say that i knew nothing about until this article. the archers keeps on giving in terms of social issues.

✩ Gollancz gets Sims’ ‘horror for the Netflix generation’ - Tom Tivnan, The Bookseller jonny sims is writing a BOOK??! the EXCITEMENT i feel